Friday, Feb. 02, 2007

Football Silliness


Let's talk about the Super Bowl, shall we?!

(Oh, come now... only a couple more days until I cut back drastically on the football chatter. You'll miss it, admit it.)

And, specifically, I want to talk about...

These four crazy dudes.

If you choose not to click the link and read the story (or are otherwise unable to get it to work), it's about these four guys in North Carolina who are petitioning to get the Monday after the Super Bowl declared a national holiday.

Now.

I love me some football, as anyone who's been reading at least for the last four months can attest. I love (some of) the players, I love my team, I love the sport itself. However, I think that these guys are In. Sane. Totally.

Maybe it's *because* I love the sport so much. You see, once upon a time, the Super Bowl was about... well, football. It was, first and foremost, a football game. There was no insane halftime show, no ridiculous parade of commercials which are, in the end, still silly snippets where people try to sell you something you may or may not even want or need, and no giant parties where the main focus seems to be beer and buffalo wings instead of the game. I miss those days.

So, to me, having the day after the Super Bowl declared a national holiday so that people can recover from their hangovers guilt-free is... embarrassing. Now, don't get me wrong -- I have no problem with people having a good time, or people drinking, or people embracing the sport of football. I choose not to celebrate with kegs of alcohol and vats of barbeque sauce but, hey, that's my choice. And that's exactly it, to a point... I choose not to get so wrecked on a Sunday afternoon that I need a day off of work to recover from it. I choose not to stage such a production in my house that the clean-up requires an extra day to make it right. If I really wanted to celebrate with a crowd, I could go down to the local pub, have a beer and yell along with the rowdies. But somewhere along the years, in much the same way as with the winter holidays, the capitalist engine has roared to ear-splitting life and turned a popular tv event into a larger-than-life, orchestrated-to-the-teeth, Broadway-level production. The Super Bowl became an easy backdrop on which to hang the scenery of the capitalist society: the uber-commercials, the high-powered musical acts that want a piece of halftime, the pushing of the parties and the groceries and the metric tons of snacks and food that would not be sold or prepared without the all-mighty Super Bowl celebrations.

It's. A. Football. Game.

And I don't mean that to detract from what it is, or to make it sound somehow less. Actually, it doesn't need all of the other trappings to be awesome -- it's like trying to wrap an orchid in gaudy metallic Christmas paper with shimmery bows and tinsel. The orchid doesn't need all that extra crap to be beautiful, and in fact, all that shiny shit detracts from the natural elegance of the orchid itself. And, yes, football has its own problems with money and politics, and I don't claim that the NFL is some pristine, flawless entity because, hi, have we met? I know better. But I take the Super Bowl for what it is. It's a football game, and that's what's important.

So, I'll watch on Sunday, from the comfort of my own living room. I may have a beer or a glass of wine. I'll use the commercials for bathroom breaks, as the football goddess intended, and I'll use the halftime show to do some laundry because Prince and football is like gasoline and a lit match -- you don't put them together unless you're going for a fiery, destructive death. And otherwise, I'll watch me some football. When it's over, I'll heave a great big sad sigh and look eagerly forward to August.

If you feel you need a day to recover from your Super Bowl extravaganza, just take a sick day for crying out loud.

saturncat at 9:29 p.m.

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