AP Photo Bad Bunny performs during the Apple halftime show of the NFL Super Bowl 60 last weekend.

As a musician with at least some degree of sophistication, I’ve never paid much attention to Super Bowl halftime shows. I’m not being snobbish. I’m just saying, as someone who’s never cared much for mainstream pop music, that Super Bowl performances typically feature all of the overly produced, overly dramatic, overly formulated, and way overly commercialized (capitalistic) aspects of pop culture that annoy me.

But I am a fan of Latin music, and Bad Bunny’s show was enjoyable, even inspiring. Aside from the usual cadre of scantily clad dancers twerking, torquing, twisting and air-humping, there was some real singing and real music happening within all the commotion. I love the percussion and the horns! And I have to admit I found satisfaction in witnessing the warm acceptance and wide appreciation of Latino culture on display across America even as masked thugs with guns patrol the streets of some of our cities. Puerto Ricans especially can reflect on pseudo comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s reference to the “Island of Garbage” at a Trump rally in 2024.

Some critics have argued that you couldn’t understand what the Bunny was saying because it’s in a “foreign” language. I would agree it was not understandable, but not not because of the language; I never was able to understand what any of the halftime performers were saying. I tried to read lips but they’re never in sync. But it doesn’t really matter anyway, because the lyrics are always some variation on “Gotta have it now, ooh yeah baby” or “Baby I know you want me” or “Baby you know I want you” or “comest thou hither and we shall embrace like mad dogs in heat”

As for the commercials, as usual, there were plenty of the ludicrous and bizarre and spoofy. Toilets and shaved off hairs sang sad songs about yellow pee and forsaken-ness (Liquid IV and Manscape, respectively). Poppi featured a sexy girl taking over a college class from a boring teacher (very trumpian). There was the celebrity loaded take for Dunkin Donuts, and a Hellman’s commercial featuring “Meal Diamond”. Of course there were several technology related commercials, but I couldn’t understand what they were selling.

Another theme I can’t seem to wrap my head around came up in the Everybody Coins ad. Here are the intriguing lyrics of the commercial (imagine a canned disco beat to get the full effect):

Oh my god we’re back again / brothers, sister, everybody sing / gonna bring the flavor gonna show you how / got a question for ya better answer now / Am I Original? (yeah) / Am I the only One? (yeah) / Am I so secure? (yeah) / am I everything you need you better rock your body now / everybody, rock your body / every body coinbase.

Because the speaker in the poem answers all his own questions, all that we, the prospective consumers, need to answer is the call to invest in coinbase. So simple!

But my problem is that I have no idea what coinbase is. It’s a cryptic thing, and understood best by very wealthy investors who use it to become more wealthy.

And I wonder, how do you buy money?

Lays potato chips used the old nostalgia ploy, featuring a potato farmer grandpa who passes the tractor keys to his daughter. We get multiple flashbacks to when she was growing up on the farm with her pop, planting spuds and eating chips and what not. I think, though, that if the woman is smart she’ll sell that tractor and rock the coinbase. Then she might hit the jackpot and expand so she’ll be able to compete in the real world of industrial agriculture.

Budweiser came through with the latest in their animal pathos series. Clydesdale and retriever have a new rescue mission – a baby bird. The humans are in awe as the bird grows strong, and the lot of them mutate into a giant American eagle. That is enough to make any middle school kid want to drink bud!

On a more serious note, I sincerely appreciated one ad. Redfin and Rocket Mortgage told the story of folks moving to new neighborhoods, where they are initially distrusted or ignored. Only after a storm hits and the newcomers prove their humanity by lending a helping hand does acceptance come. The ad doesn’t overplay the class card, though one newcomer is a man of color. The message here is one that America needs to hear more often, one that reminds us that we are in this journey of life together. That we are neighbors, not enemies. That we share streets, towns, cities, states. That we share America.

Musician, writer, house painter Pete Howard lives in Dunkirk. Send comments to odyssmusic20@gmail.com