Avril Lavigne's madcap new music video for Rock N Roll features a lot of things you don't see every day.

• Like Avril kissing Dancia McKellar, dressed up like cult comic character Tank Girl
• Like ravenous Bear-Shark hybrid creatures threatening the very existence of rock'n'roll.
• Like Billy Zane taking off on a magical rocket-powered Segway PT.

It's a colourful, flashy, and slick comedy clip done in a high-concept, comic book style. However, for the more perceptive souls willing to invest time to dig under this day-glo surface, a powerful, deeper subtext can clearly be inferred. Indeed, it questions one of the key existential mysteries of the human condition, cleverly telegraphing this right from the opening gambit where Avril recites lyrics from her power pop hit Sk8er Boi that helped make her a star a decade earlier, and it is this:` Perhaps old skateboarders never die...they just start scooting around town on Segway PTs. Or maybe we're just reading too much into it all? Well, whatever. In any case, this moment of inward reflection reminded us that Billy Zane was beaten to the clouds by this gorilla on a rocket-powered Segway PT in 2012: And half a dozen years before that - only this time with thrust directed horizontally rather than vertically - the 2005 Rugby World Cup was opened in high-concept style at Auckland's Eden Park by six “...jet-powered Segway PTs racing around the rugby field" emblazoned with Silver Ferns and with red Lion's heads. Of course, this all occurred way back in a more innocent age, in the halcyon days long before the time we now know as The Coming of the Bear-Sharks.