Tryptophan induced coma leads to overindulgence in a different kind of turkey

Thanksgiving means many things to many people, but to me it often means hanging around my Mother’s living room, watching too much TV, and asking questions like “Is there more stuffing?” and “Can I get you a cookie while I’m up?”

With this in mind, it was late Saturday night after Thanksgiving when my Mother and I ended up for at least a half hour watching an infomercial for the "Time-Life Soft Rock of the 70's collection." Why was I drawn in? I must admit that most of these Time-Life infomercials are pretty great, if not only due to the copious clips of rockers of the past delivering versions of their hits on Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert, The Old Grey Whistle Test, or best of all sloppy early ‘rock video’. I mean, really, when was the last time I got to see what Nilsson really looked like? Add to this the allure of seeing of the “hosts” - aging members of Air Supply Russell Hitchcock (the short brunette one) and Graham Russell (the tall guitar playing blonde one) - stiltedly deliver lines about “What fantastic memories these songs bring back…”

The clips recounted many a soggy love song of the past from the likes of Todd Rundgren, Leo Sayer, and America, as well as a wide array of un-memorables like Bertie Higgins, Benny Mardones, Exile, and Player, leading my Mother to demand “Did *any* of these people have a career after these songs?” No Momma. No.

Still, I had to tip my hat to my favorite one-and-a-half hit wonder appearing on the collection - Rupert Holmes. It would be easy to say that my love for Holmes sprung from his profoundly irritating 1979 hit "Escape (The Pina Colada Song) - which tracks a philandering couple, both of who seek to escape each other through placing a personal ad to attract someone new, but accidentally attract each other. Fortunately, the song shows us that their relationship is salvageable once they realize they actually have several important similarities they had gone unnoticed until now; like loving piña coladas, being caught in the rain, and of course a desire to run out on their relationship. But my love of Holmes actually stems from his far less successful follow up single “Him” where Holmes muses about his philandering girlfriend “Him, Him, Him! What’s she gonna do about him? She’s gonna have to do without him. Or do without me, me, me!” Getting to see video footage however, of the scrawny 30-something Holmes whose face is nearly entirely obscured by gigantic computer programmer glasses lip-synching the ultimatum “It’s me or it’s him!” is such a great moment in 70’s hubris it made me laugh out loud. So this Thanksgiving I’m giving thanks for Rupert Holmes and his optometrist. Another cookie anyone?