Lately I’ve been watching a lot of The Brady Bunch. This is a bizarre turn of my life as I loathed watching this show when I was little. However, being the youngest of three boys, I had no vote on television watching. (This forced me to watch many shows that I had no interest in: A-Team, Miami Vice and Combat to name a few.) Now that cable has come in to great prevalence, recycling old shows is becoming a staple for budding cable networks. So when The Brady Bunch comes on, I watch it, I love it and I revel in nostalgia.
This particular episode of The Brady Bunch was aired on a cable channel either called Noggin or N-Zone. I am not sure, but don’t care enough to really find out. The N Channel had a twist on regular “8 minutes of show, 2 minutes of commercials” format that is typical of most television. Instead they would air some commercials, show the episode nearly commercial-free, then play a video of some “cutting edge” band when the episode was over. Either they are short on sponsors or they are flirting with the idea of letting the record biz buy airtime in place of commercials.
In either case the video that The N Channel aired between Brady episodes (it was a double-header) was a song called “My Coco” by Stellastarr*. Against my better judgement (much like Hot Hot Heat) I was totally taken by this song. It was a toe-tapping fiesta and I couldn’t get enough. So the next day, I bought the Stellastarr* album off iTunes and have been totally digging it since. Though they are very much their own, they are kind of an 80’s throw-back mix between Talking Heads and The Cure.
With luck I won’t soon find out that I am a weird old man who is so out of touch with pop culture that I am jumping on the next Hanson bandwagon only to find that bandwagon is already clogged with 9-year-old girls forcing me to back pedal about why I touted this band; a band that felt it necessary that their band name be complete only with an asterisk.
Now, in the likely event that I am way off on my Stellastarr* enjoyment, I will quickly throw out another dirty Lordleiter secret so that this new secret will instead stick in your mind. (Unless you tried listening to “My Coco” and are totally digging it too. In that case, read no further.) I am a huge “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” fan. HBO has become My Big Fat Greek WeddingBO and I watch this damn movie every time it is on. Even my wife (who is the proper demographic for this film), when she catches me watching this (yes, I watch it in secret to hide the sheer volume of how much I watch this film), says, “Are you watching this movie again?!” I can quote the dialogue of this movie like it is Star Wars.
Not to worry. Within thirty minutes, I am sure Mr. Brady will have some heart-felt advice about how I should not worry what others think of my mass-media choices and that if you choose to poke fun at me for my choices…well, then you really weren’t my friends in the first place. Thank you, Mr. Brady…thank you.