The award for the net's-best-thing this week goes to Zach and Will Oldham's tractor-ized tribute to Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothing." Some of you guessed Jon Brion was the catalyst for Bonnie and Zach's yeoman-foray into the world of Kanye (fair guess: Zach and Fiona are BFFs, Fiona and Jon have their Extraordinary relationship, Jon/Kanye collab ... let the circle go unbroken) -- but MTV News got the true scoop from Zach, drizzled with potent quotables. Zach explained:
Kanye's trainer, Harley Pasternak, is a friend of mine, and he showed Kanye some of my videos. Then Kanye came to a stand-up show of mine and asked me afterwards if I would produce and perform a video for him. I was flying to my farm in North Carolina the next morning [and] I told him that if I could shoot it there, then I would do it. There was no audition. I did whatever I wanted. He told me to just do what I thought would work.
Will Oldham just happened to be visiting the farm, so he jumped in on the filming fun.
...the two then took it upon themselves to run around Galifianakis's farm, doing whatever sprang to mind (one scene, featuring the comedian sporting the words "I Love Turd" on his forehead and clutching a chainsaw, was conceived thusly: "Will and I were drunk in my basement and that is how that came about").
And though the whole thing was done off-the-cuff, Galifianakis said it was actually pretty difficult work. There was the whole issue of mastering Kanye's lyrics, piloting a tractor and, well, getting some rather complex air-humping secrets down pat.
"[The song has] lots of words that are quite fast. Plus, my horrible dancing throws off the rhythm inside my head," he explained. "Also, I cannot give up my air-humping secrets for fear that the Goo Goo Dolls will steal them."
As for Galifianakis's hope for the summum bonum fromthe alternate "Can't Tell Me Nothing"?
"My dream has to be getting it on BET," he said. "I don't have a career. So I will make one up for myself."
Zach ftw.
