Did You See His Name?

Us old guys are on a roll. Yeah, I know it's a little early in the New Year to boast, but I need to exult before Nurse gets back with my quiet-time meds. The National Football League has reached very deep into the 'huh?' bag to pull out this year's Super Bowl entertainment who happen to be (small drum roll, or crescent roll if you haven't eaten)....The Who.

Yeah, the same guys who elevated destruction on stage to an art form just about two generations ago....the same band who lost their drummer to the excesses of rock and roll followed two decades later by their bassist in about the same style (I've often wondered if the two Who survivors were to join forces with the two surviving Beatles, what that band might sound like or even be called, The Whotles? The BeaWho?) will be serenading us with (perhaps) We Were Always Sweethearts. Or not.

I loved The Who, both on vinyl and in concert but I'm not sure what they're doing at the halftime show of the Super Bowl. I'm a fossil who roamed the earth when the FIRST Super Bowl was played in a the Los Angeles Coliseum and wasn't a sell-out (the Green Bay Packers beat the tar out of the Kansas City Chiefs and then came back the next year and smacked the Oakland Raiders as well), and I have to tell you, I don't recall that half-time show at all.

Show of hands: who tunes into the Super Bowl for the half-time show? Yeah, that's what I thought, and yet, there you go again as the guy who got second billing to a chimpanzee said, repeatedly, to Walt Mondale. Usually the grumbling and mumbling or shouting and pointing happens after the broadcast (Janet Jackson had breasts! Who knew? Justin Timberlake must have felt like Christopher Columbus-though to be accurate, he'd have removed her shoe, I guess), but this time the 'concern' is about Peter Townsend's previous world wide web wanderings on child porn sites.

Townsend, and I offer this as someone who sat downstairs in the Frankfurt InterConti hotel for two and half hours waiting for him to either get together for the radio interview his manager had set up or to tell me to get lost (but who did neither) is a complicated person whose greatest music (all past tense) is a formidable obstacle to his continuing ability to be a musician for the present and the future. This happens all the time, especially in rock and roll, where you're only as good as your last hit (or hot download). And in a band with the monstrous egos The Who had, a personality like Townsend gets taken for granted, which aggravates his issues in the first place.

Meanwhile, back at the 'why did the NFL and the TV broadcast partner go to so much trouble?' portion of the question--I have no idea. I'm assuming the folks in the stadium (all of whom have purchased tickets costing the GNP of many Third World nations) are getting a burger, a dog or a sparkling beverage at halftime and/or eliminating one or more of the previously ingested and digested items at the rest facilities, rather than remain rooted in their seats to imbibe in The Greatest Show on Turf getting even greater.

As an at-home 'fan' I've long since reached the age where I don't remember what I do at halftime of the Super Bowl (hint: not use Pete's bookmarks on the web), assuming I even remember the game is on at all (just now I struggled to remember who was in last year's game). As for evaluating the entertainment offered between halves as the gridiron gladiators regird their loins, file under 'Me, You've got to be kidding'. I'd suggest just before hitting the stage for the really big shoe, Rog and Pete take a peek at themselves on film and then in the mirror, and consider leaving through a back exit.
-bill kenny