The Young Turks in winter
Updated 2005-01-18 16:00:00
What? No shot of the Strip at night? What manner of fever dream is this? I...I am disoriented. I don't believe this is CSI, even though we're getting a panoramic view of Las Vegas' suburban sprawl and some sand dunes thrown in for effect.
As we take in the sunlit terrain, some Spanish-language music with a pretty sharp beat is playing. This is probably not your abuelita's music. It does, however, remind me of a totally excellent video I saw on Univision, wherein a Spanish-language rap group tooled around East L.A. on tricycles, picking up chicas who rode on the back, and intimating to the viewers at home that it was indeed possible to be a menace even when reduced to transportation that caused one's knees to bob around one's ears.
In the neighborhood we see onscreen, however, the tricycle gang would be getting their handlebars shoved somewhere that handlebars aren't normally meant to go. We see a boy in the back of a truck; the song is playing from the truck. I can tell they're singing something about someone's heart, but I'm terrible with translating music. It's what makes Sabado Gigante such an intriguing TV-watching experience for me. Anyway, the kid hops out of the truck to restock a newspaper machine with a fresh bundle of tabloids (name of said tabloid: Hoy). This goes on until he opens one machine and sees a bloody, bald head resting on the stack of papers.
The music abruptly switches from the Spanish-language stuff to the "Synthesizer? No! This is the Aughties! We have better computer-generated musical montages now!" soundtrack. We see Catherine hanging out, and Vega talking to folks, and two extras picking up the machine to take it away. Then we zoom to the autopsy bay, where David the Backlit Coroner is taking the head -- the livid, bare red scalp indicates that the head did not normally traverse through life bald -- and putting it on the examining table. He inspects it. Catherine comes in to take photos, and when we get to a point where it's time to open the head's mouth, David pulls out a tiny, dead rattlesnake. Catherine makes a horrified faceĀ
And we go to credits. A totally silent pre-credits opening? But then The Who have no idea how to determine who the people work are!