“Don’t fly United,” is the musical message from a musician who says the airline broke his guitar. After nine months of red tape, run-arounds and inaction, Dave Carroll decided to get revenge by making three music videos to publicize the experience. The first one hit YouTube yesterday and has already received more than 100,000 views. It’s pretty funny.

Here’s Carroll’s brief explanation of what happened:

“In the spring of 2008, [his group] Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3,500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.”

Be sure to check out Carroll’s website for a more detailed explanation. And don’t check your guitar on United.

UPDATE (July 8, 1:15 p.m.): According to Christopher Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times, the music video has caught United’s attention: “This has struck a chord with us, and we’ve contacted him directly to make it right,” said Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman for United. (Urbanski also said she “loved” the video.) Urbanski said a phone meeting had been scheduled for Wednesday [today, July 8], and that before the airline decides exactly what to do for Carroll, “we need to have that conversation with him directly.”

Chapped lips and a Star Wars-inspired idea helped Ryan Leer of Eden Prairie nab $5,000 and a high-def camcorder as the grand-prize winner of a YouTube contest sponsored by the Milwaukee-based maker of Carmex lip balm, which announced the results today. The goal was to create a video that answered the question, “How do you share the Carmex tingle”? Leer responded with a playful clip, Carmex: Share the Tingle With Caution, in which he cures a buddy’s chapped lips by wielding a “Carmex-saber” – a clever riff on the lightsaber from Star Wars in which a stick of the lip balm serves as the handle for the weapon – complete with convincing visual effects and sound. Leer, 22, can lick his lips all he wants while he savors his victory in the national contest, because he also won a five-year supply of Carmex lip balm.

Leer is on a roll. He previously won a video contest sponsored by KFC.

Check out his Carmex clip:

What do you get when you cross a buxom video hostess and an earthquake? An entertaining YouTube clip – one of many posted in the wake of Tuesday’s quake in Los Angeles.

Cameras are always rolling somewhere in Southern California, even if just to create a video for YouTube. So it’s no surprise that the video-sharing site was flooded not only with news footage of last week’s Los Angeles earthquake but also amateur clips that accidentally caught the subjects’ reactions to the unexpected live event.

Heather the CosmosGAL was filming her daily horoscopes webcast (above) when the quake hit. The resulting clip has gained attention because the buxom hostess is wearing a low-cut top and leans toward the camera as she quickly bolts, yelling for her cameraman to run for the bleeping doorway.  

The award for the funniest clip arguably goes to “The Ryan O’Connor Show,” whose hosts, Ryan and Nina (pictured), were goofing off when the temblor hit at 4:55 into the 9-minute clip. “What do we do?” Nina screams after a little rumble turns into a big jolt. “I don’t know!” Ryan replies, half-laughing, half-panicked. They run for a doorway, with Ryan racing back to grab the camera to keep filming.

The most popular clips showed the reactions of participants during tapings of the TV shows “Judge Judy” and “Big Brother.” The judge seems to have no idea what to do until a producer yells instructions. Clearly, there’s disorder in the court.

There even were parody clips within hours of the quake, including one hilarious clip re-creating people’s reactions with gelatinous dolls. Others worth watching:

A woman’s first quake from a hotel.

During the recording of Free Radio.

Hollywoodphony’s is-it-real-or-fake? clip.

Of course, they’re all only funny because no one was seriously injured. But they are funny. Have you found any?

The Gutierrez family of St. Paul – mom Karen and kids Christina, 14, Rafael, 13, and Marco, 9 — emailed to tell me about their homemade online videos, as part of my quest to track down fun Minnesota-originated clips on YouTube. Their offerings include a flippin’ sweet (if murky) impression of Napoleon Dynamite. But my favorite is the boys’ silly World Championship Finals 1 (with friend Sam Gagnon), in which “the old man from Germany” faces off against Kangaroo Ninja, “the best one we’ve had — in all!” The minutelong clip isn’t anything special by itself, but it features a great unintended punch line in the old German’s victory cry: “Bonjour!” To which one of the boys says, doubled over in laughter, “That’s French!”

It’s the Old German, left, vs. Kangaroo Ninja in World Championship Finals 1.

I’ll be featuring other Minnesota-made YouTube clips regularly in the Technobabble blog. If you have created one or have a favorite, email me at rasalas@startribune.com and let me know what it is and why you like it, and I’ll add it to the roster.

I love tracking down Minnesota-made clips on YouTube. A few months ago, I took a look at several locally made clips that have gone viral on the Web. But others have been popular, too, and even ones that haven’t received a high number of views are worth watching.

Please stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk — no matter how long it takes.

One of my favorites, Crosswalk Madness, focuses on a group of student pranksters in Austin, Minn., whose high school is housed in two buildings that are separated by a city street. To get between them, the kids must take a crosswalk across the street or use an underground tunnel that connects the buildings. For the prank shown in the five-minute clip, the students created a seemingly endless stream of pedestrians by continually crossing the street, circling back through the unseen tunnel and then crossing the street again. Ingenious! As an extra bonus, watch for the chicken and the cow during the shenanigans, which created a mini-traffic jam.

I’ll be featuring other Minnesota-made YouTube clips regularly in the Technobabble blog. If you have created one or have a favorite, email me at rasalas@startribune.com and let me know what it is and why you like it, and I’ll add it to the roster.