Really happy you stopped by on your way to the Super Bowl. I knew all this hype had gotten out of hand when the "pre-game" show on NBC started last Tuesday. I'm surprised, in light of Florida athletes' prominence in the SEC that the Republicans didn't move their primary because it might have been a distraction (on the other hand, considering the choices, a distraction might have been a small mercy).
I am so ancient I can remember the first Super Bowl, also on NBC and carried simultaneously on CBS (we had two leagues, not conferences back then: the National Football League and the upstart American Football League and each had its own TV network who carried the games). It was held in the Los Angeles Coliseum and it was not a sell-out by any means. And if you were a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs (Len Dawson at quarterback and Fred "The Hammer" Williamson at defensive back), it wasn't very much of a game, either.
But through the years, the Super Bowl has become the ultimate triumph of style over substance, packaging over product, Siskel over Ebert and Laurel over Hardy (I didn't think that would ever end). We've all seen the sneak previews of the commercials that will air later, at a cost per insert, in the millions (how'd you like to be someone who shelled out three or more million bucks for an availability in the fourth quarter and the game is a blowout? It happens) and that doesn't include the expenses of making the ad. Bets that Matthew Broderick made more money from Honda than he ever saw from Ferris Bueller?
I've watched the Super Bowl in recent years for the half-time entertainment. Bread and circuses and all that comes with it springs to mind which is why I think the game should always be played in the LA Coliseum and the Commissioner of the NFL gets to go thumbs down on the losing team and this huge massacre takes place at game's end near the fifty yard line while the music swells and the credits roll. Try being the show on NBC after that feces hits the ventilator later tonight.
I've sat through execrable half-time performances by Bruce Springsteen (and I adore his music), the Rolling Stones, what's left of The Who (seriously guys, you still need the money?). Was it last year the Black Eyed Peas were there and sucked? God, they were awful and that guest solo with Slash? Why? I wasn't watching Justin and Janet so I may well be the only man in the United States who's never seen her nipple (a true statement before Super Bowl Sunday as well), so you can probably imagine how excited I am that Madonna is performing.
I appreciate her 'no wardrobe malfunction' promise realizing at her age with physiology and gravity being what they are, we'd only have a problem of breast exposure if she took off her knee-high boots. But so much for the goings-on between the hash marks, and speaking of hash, and all foods in general, Super Bowl Sunday is the second greatest gorging day in the US (Thanksgiving being first). Over a billion and a quarter chicken wings? What do they do with the rest of the bird?
It's not that we've forgotten about the scourge of world-wide hunger, but we don't want to hear about it today or see any reminders. In the hours before kickoff, as we're figuring out which salsa goes on avocados and if we've purchased enough antacids (the answer is 'no!'), we'll have trouble enough squeezing in the time to go to church unless the sermon is on how Brady/Manning is the Second Coming of You Know Who.
Now turn to Page LMMMVII in your hymnals and join us in singing "Jesus is My Wide-Out." And tell that kid in the back, near the nave, Tebow, to get on his feet and quit goofing around. That's my job.
-bill kenny
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