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Lady Gaga is fearless

Watch "Telephone" and you'll come to realize that Lady Gaga is willing to do pretty much anything – which is all one could want in a pop star. In the opening minutes alone, she wears a black and white dress offering up an extraordinary amount of cleavage. Then she's tossed in jail and reduced to wearing little more than a teensy bikini. And in her special way of responding to bloggers who claimed she has a penis, Gaga rubs her lady parts (clearly a vagina) against the bars of her cell as one of the two people who escorted her there grumbles, "I told you she didn't have a dick."

Gaga wears sunglasses covered in lit cigarettes. She weaves Diet Coke cans in her hair. She wraps her body in crime scene tape. She dresses her skull with what appears to be parts of a blue telephone. It's attention grabbing and obnoxious, yet meticulous, visually interesting and, of course, memorable. Gaga doesn't settle for one unruly headdress or flashy top. She uses them all to her advantage. She's fun (cig glasses), sexual (whatever she wraps around her tiny body) and political (the dick gag). People tend to bring up Gaga and Madonna in the same breath. They should.

We finally get to see Beyonce the badass

Fortunately for us, "Telephone" isn't just Gaga. Its dark horse is a scene-stealing, reinvented Beyonce who kills it as Gaga's accomplice. She's feisty, dangerous and does weird shit like baby feed Gaga processed, over-packaged goods and tell her she's been "a very bad girl." At the diner, Beyonce laces Tyrese Gibson's drink with blue poison and, if given the choice, would prefer him to die a sudden death than merely cough a few times.

With all the shiny things to look at in "Telephone," you'd expect the music video's best moment to be an outfit, a line of dialogue or perhaps a subtle movement. This isn't the case. Instead, it's Beyonce bopping around in what appears to be a hotel room – as if she's a skipping DVD come to life. Brief movements – shaking her shoulders, holding a telephone at arm's length or screaming into the phone's receiver – are looped in a row as the soundtrack stutters her vocals. It's a basic edit that looks great juxtaposed with shots of Gaga and Beyonce dancing in outfits fashioned out of American flags. Go to minute mark 8:15 to see it.

Like Balloon Boy, you'll remember when, where and on what computer you watched the video

Without hesitation, I can tell you I watched the video on my friend's computer at about 2:30 in the morning after a night of light drinking, laughs and bluegrass music in my hometown. I was wearing blue jeans, a The National T-shirt, greenish H&M hoody and recently acquired Chucks sporting a funky design. After "Telephone," we streamed Gaga's "Bad Romance" and fooled around with the Internet's latest sensation, Chatroulette. I could tell you what I ate and drank, too, but the point has been made.

Of course, the obvious rebuttal is that "Telephone" premiered just a few days ago, and an average person could recall irrelevant details like the ones I just wrote out in the little time that has transpired between the watching of Gaga's "Telephone" and the writing of this column. But, if I may, I'd like to admit that my brain doesn't work that way. As I sit here, I'm struggling to remember what I had for breakfast. Excuse me while I gather my bearings... Ah yes, I skipped it altogether and shared a noontime burrito with friends at a café downtown. Estimated time of recall: Two minutes.

This oddly mirrors a few news stories that also unfolded in front of me on a computer. In 2009, there was Balloon Boy and the death of Michael Jackson, two breaking events whose extraneous details my brain has yet to expunge from memory. (Balloon Boy: Khakis, blue button down, those dress shoes with tassels that a friend jokes are the eighth wonder of the world, at work at a reality production company in Los Angeles. And MJ: Dark blue jeans, white semi see-through T, brown Chucks, at an internship I hated in Hollywood).

I don't do extra work to remember nonsensical details when big stuff happens; my brain does it on its own. For a music video to have the same effect on my brain as something like, say, the death of Michael Jackson, is significant.

Fans of the video – so, everyone? -- can expect at least one more video like "Telephone" as a "to be continued" tease tells us that Gaga, Beyonce and quite possibly the Pussy Wagon will be back another time. Who knew music videos could be this much fun?

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