While the Black Keys and RZA have made a strong bid for this year’s most genuinely hilarious music video with the Chinese restaurant melee of “The Baddest Man Alive” clip, Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard has stepped up with the well-crafted and comparably comical video for solo single, “Teardrop Windows.”

Directed by the multi-talented Tom Scharpling, the clip traces Gibbard’s ill-fated attempts at remaking his image into a pop star bad boy at the behest of a clueless music executive (played by perfectly cast comedian Kurt Braunohler).

Watch Gibbard get a tattoo, swig iced tea out of a Jack Daniels bottle (perhaps a nod to the classic rock legend that David Lee Roth used to pull the same trick onstage during Van Halen concerts) and attempt to get arrested. But really, it’s hard to top the sight of Gibbard in a backwards baseball cap pop-locking in some guys’ face as part of his own MTV Real World-styled reality show, Gibbard House.

While Gibbard is currently touring in support of his first solo album, Former Lives, legendary Seattle record label Sub Pop just made a big announcement in regards to his endlessly revered side project, the Postal Service. As Gibbard and Postal Service partner Jimmy Tamborello are steadfast that fans not hold their breath waiting for a follow-up, the duo’s 2003 debut album, Give Up, was just certified platinum status for more than one million copies sold.

–Scott T. Sterling, CBS Local