This weekend I sat back and watched a new breed of small miracle happen. Chances are, so did you. And the amazing thing is, you probably barely even noticed.
Seen the latest GM commercial? No, not the one with the 18-wheeler brodying into the dealer parking lot, although that one is badass too. I did that once in my truck-driving days myself. Unintentionally. I was coming down the side of a mountain at the time. In the snow. In traffic. Needless to say, I lived, but I'm not so sure about the elderly driver in the car beside me in the right-hand lane. If I nearly had a heart attack (and I did), I can only imagine what sort of extreme pants-loading palpitations that poor old codger went through when he realized he was about to be swept off the side of a mountain by a sliding, careening, out-of-control fifty-three foot trailer like a fly off an elephant's ass. I was too busy trying to get said trailer back in line with the tractor to notice whether the guy went over the side clutching his chest and praying to the Big Skipper for deliverance. Hope he's okay. But all that's another story for another day, and probably another blog as well.
No, the miracle I'm talking about is the miracle of a musical meme being born in front of our very eyes — or rather, ears. The commercial is the one featuring drivers of assorted GM vehicles playing a game of Frisbee in various shifting locales. The soundtrack is a too-catchy-by-half tune by a somewhat-obscure band from Portland called the Dandy Warhols. You've heard it, and it stuck in your head like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth, too. That's the whole idea.
This business of TV advertising launching unknown alt-whatever bands to new heights of fame and (presumably, but maybe not; in fact, probably not) fortune is a new thing. Remember a certain Mitsubishi commercial a while back that had a song in it you never heard before but couldn't forget afterwards? That song was called "Days Go By," by a band that wasn't even a band at the time called Dirty Vegas. You know the one I'm talking about, and there's a way better chance that you've heard of Dirty Vegas now than there was before that commercial aired. It all might be water under a well-traveled bridge by now, but the inescapable fact is that Dirty Vegas was Somebody for a few minutes there, and they had never had any real expectations of that happening before Mitsubishi came along. Says so right in their bio.
Article comments
1 - JR
No, not the one with the 18-wheeler brodying into the dealer parking lot...
This is some truckers' term for sliding? 'Cause I haven't heard it before. Is it a specific kind of slide, or does it signify just being generally out of control?
2 - Mike Hendrix
Well, I may have it wrong myself, JR, but when I was a kid riding dirt bikes we always called that locked-up sideways slide a full brody. Just breaking the back wheel loose a bit and having it spurt sideways was a half-brody. We picked it up from the dirt-bike magazines, but it's probably considered archaic by now. A lot like I myself usually am. ;)
3 - Eric Olsen
Always great to hear from you Mike, nice one! I knew what a brody was, but I dirt-biked long ago myself.
4 - Mike Hendrix
Thanks, Eric - as always, I very much appreciate the opportunity to drop in here now and then, soil the floors, drink all your beer, and generally stink the place up. :D