THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE: 30th Anniversary

I grew up on a steady diet of old television and oldies music. Nick at Nite’s original programming, shows from the 1950s primarily, were burned in my brain: Mr. Ed, The Donna Reed Show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, etc. There were a few ‘60s shows I watched, most especially the Adam West Batman, but even though I didn’t grow up watching The Brady Bunch, I was still a Nick at Nite fan in junior high school and an entire week was blocked out to celebrate the opening of The Brady Bunch Movie by airing not only the original Brady Bunch but is various sequels and spin-offs. I was baptized very quickly and have been a fan ever since.

I don’t exactly know why I settled in for this block of programming, except for a rather immediate crush on Marcia Brady. But that was enough. Even though the show itself is cringey (and even was when it first aired), there is something endearing about it and its message. These problems solved in 22 minutes, the importance of family, and—again—Marcia Brady. C’mon—I was 11!

After I watched the block of programming, I saw the film. Gary Cole, Shelley Long, and an outstanding cast of young actors (including Christine Taylor, who I grew up loving on Hey Dude!) rounded out a very, very funny movie indeed. Instead of updating the Bradys, director Betty Thomas and writers Laurice Elehwany, Rick Copp, and Bonnie & Terry Turner, decided to freeze the Bradys in the mid-70s version of themselves and pit them against a punk-infused, mid-‘90s setting where they didn’t belong. The result is a classic.

Dotted throughout are harkening-backs to famous episodes of the show itself as well as the sheer hilarity of their clash with the culture surrounding them. In the film, Mike and his family are the only hold-outs in their neighborhood who will not sell their house so their neighbor Mr. Dittmeyer (Michael McKean) can make millions. In addition, four original cast members appeared in the film as well as members of the Monkees and, in a hysterical cameo, Davy Jones, who had played himself in the original series.

This year, The Brady Bunch Movie (which itself spawned two sequels, one for television, turns 30, but it doesn’t make me feel old. I’m sure my VHS copy is worn out somewhere, but this last Christmas, my present to myself was The Brady-est Brady Bunch TV & Movie Collection, perhaps the biggest DVD set I have aside from a beautiful 70^th anniversary box of The Wizard of Oz. All three four series, two movies, three made-for-TV movies, and, yes,...

I have a problem.

A Divided Country: How the Terrorists Won

I’ve shared on the blog my experiences on September 11, 2001. I was a seventeen-year-old kid who barely knew what the World Trade Center was on his first day of college in a school where a large portion of the population were either New Yorkers or wannabes. I was out of my depth even as we all pondered how such a thing was going to change us as a nation.

I recall my college roommate said we would be more interested in non-fiction and documentary film. That has certainly been the case for me. And we wondered all these things while a President called the “reckoning” the War on Terror. Looking back amidst the recent political assassinations on both sides of the political spectrum, the terrorists won that war.

What is terrorism? What is its intended purpose? Look around you. A divided country plunging into perhaps one of the most violent times any of us have ever experienced. Protests that become riots. The murders of outspoken critics on both sides. Much like what we imagined “third world” countries were before the 21^st century landed in our first-world laps. People don’t even know their own identities anymore, latching onto any fabric cut to today’s rhetoric.

Now, no one can be on the progressive or traditionalist sides because those sides are called, pejoratively, “socialism” and “fascism.” While our current President isn’t even “Republican” if you think about it, and there well may be neo-fascists who support him for one reason rather than another, socialism (or democratic socialism) is certainly gaining ground. I’ve never seen young people more open to it.

I’ve read the Communist Manifesto and other children’s literature and undergraduate papers. That Utopia could only be dreamed about in a time where dystopic literature is at its height because artists look around the world and see it crumbling before their very eyes. But they can only dream of this if they believe the last decade has seen any kind of progress.

I don’t see progress. I see communities descending into tribal units. I see the idea of individualism being pooh-poohed by academics, and yet none of us (any side, as I am neither Democrat nor Republican) are happier. Some think they are, especially those with the red caps, but they’re not. They (and their behavior) are biproducts of what terrorism is known for: gripping the imagination and dividing a people.

If we are not a divided country, what could you call us now?

Swiftology: Theology, Scriptures, and Sacraments

This recently added, removed for defamation, and unearthed section of Walter Martin’s seminal book on new religious movements, The Kingdom of the Cults (with revisions by Len Krakauer) is offered here to the public for the first time. I found it, oddly enough, tucked into a marked-down copy of Eat, Pray, Love in a bin at Books-a-Million.

CHURCH OF SWIFTOLOGY OF LABOR DAY SAINTS

est. 1989 (West Reading, PA—the capital city of Country/Western Music)

Many cults use music as part of their indoctrination. However, few are started by musicians, except for perhaps the Manson Family and L. Ron Hubbard, who was apparently amazing on the jaw harp.

The Church of Swiftology of Labor Day Saints (hereafter called by their moniker “Swifties”) is unique in that it preserves the legacy of the millennialist zeitgeist singer/songwriter Taylor Swift, named after James Taylor, perhaps the most slanderous (and hilarious) aspect of all of this.

THEOLOGY: Swifties are known to hold their “services” dressed all in “red.” One cannot become a full tithe-paying member until the age of “22,” which is usually the age of a single mom having to pawn her vehicle for tickets to one of Swift’s tour performances.

Swifties are among the most litigious and brainwashed of any cult on Earth. While large in number, we feel the term “cult” still applies as they have an unwavering devotion that borders on the edge of insanity. More has been written in print (online, social media posts as well) on their leader than Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Herbert Hoover (put together!).

This goddess figure with doe eyes and a penchant for writing songs about the many men dumped in the swamp through song can do no wrong, making her not only the most attractive cult leaders anywhere, but also the most sacrosanct. Should anyone criticize her, Swift punishes them by accusations of misogyny, even if the criticism is about what kind of fruit she puts in a smoothie. The members of the cult back her up on this, shouting down toxic masculinity, and replying (often in unison) to friends and family members: “WeeeeeEEEEE will never ever ever ever…” etc.

SCRIPTURES: Unique in cults, the hymnology is the primary source of scripture. Though Swift wrote a novel as a twelve-year-old, this material can only be accessed when you’ve been in the cult for at least seven years and have paid a substantial amount of money to the Church. It is given to you in a locked briefcase, zip-tied to your hands and reveals the source of all our miseries and woes have something to do with a galactic overlord from the planet Mayer. Even Edward Snowden has been unable to leak this document.

SACRAMENTS: The “Eucharist” of the church changes frequently. While once diet soda was the norm, the current preference is the French Blonde—a concoction of grapefruit, Lillet Blanc, gin, elderflower liqueur (which is often replaced by her poverty-stricken followers with Pabst Blue Ribbon) and lemon bitters.

Notably, the chronicler of this book can see no wrong with “Blank Space,” a perfect pop song from someone who used Country music (the only industry where half an album’s worth of songs can be #1 hits) to propel herself to cultdom.

Damn. That’s a good song.