Rant......the Dud Bowl!

i just wasn't made for these "super" bowls...

first of all i'd like to thank my hosts last night!.. they kept me well fed and the drinks were copious.. the TIVO was a nice touch...and thanks so much for the cds..i've been wanting to listen to some shuggie otis for a while.

but last night might be the last "american football" game i ever watch...since the mid 80s when i actually caught the bug while in the bay area where the san francisco 49ers were putting together a dynasty the game has lost its allure for me and its rare that i watch anything other than the super bowl..sure i follow the regular season..read an article here or there in order to be well prepped for the ocassional bar talk..but i am increasingly reluctant.... here are my super bowl super pet peeves:

#1: who wants to put themselves through more than an hour of commercials? i mean the game itself has got to be pretty boring if people watch the game for the commercials!.. and i don't thrive in watching people trying to sell me really really bad beer...i need lots of brew to get through the dud bowl but i need good beer!

#2: the game itself is ridiculous.. each team has over 50 players.. many of whom weigh over 320 pounds! now i've heard the arguments that these are incredible species of athletes but pardon my incredulity .. they must be incredible athletes for PEOPLE WHO WEIGH OVER 320 POUNDS!....these human refrigerators with more padding than a couch run around trying to hit each other down... more ungainly and unseemly and less athletic moves than an offensive line and defensive line going at each other is hard to envision...the spectacle looks like really bad sex.. its as if you take 50 sumo wrestlers divided them by two and have them take a synchronized go at each other!

#3: this game takes way too long!.... i mean a typical game is close to four hours...it takes 4 hours to get through four 15 minute quarters...for every minute you are watching something happening there are three minutes where there ain't nothin' goin' on!!!! now the much maligned baseball (which i prefer) takes far less time and does not feature the incessant stop-starts that are a hallmark of pansyball. heck half time at the superbowl lasts 45 minutes!..which brings me to point 4

#4: when my favorite aspect is watching the half time show thats saying something... at least last night Paul McCartney sounded and looked GREAT!.... what a sweet set list too: drive my car into get back into live and let die into hey jude....which brings me to point 5

#5: the crass commercialism behind the super bowl makes me want to yak... last night as paul mccartney led the crowd into the "nananan" chorus of hey jude we saw the thousans of fans in the stands watching the game at the stadium (those "lucky" enough to have hundreds of dollars to spare for a ticket) being used by the corporate powers that be to hold up signs creating a massive billboard reading na-na-na and featuring the pepsi logo colors.. pardon me but thats just sick!...which brings me to the most twisted nightmarish thing i saw last night

#6: now i know our country is in a very (stupid) important war it CHOSE to be in and had no need to be in.. but do we really need to mix in the military motif with our crass commercialism and the dud bowl itself? this super bowl is the modern day equivalent of the roman circus with none of the fun!.. at least at the circus you got to see lions chowing down on hapless helpless humans....... but i digress.. is it necessary to include a tribute to the world war II fighters in a super bowl?.. would not arlington national cemetery be a more appropriate forum for this?.. and then for the television to switch to our military all around the world with a "see how great we are we got camp 'victory' in irak, we got camp yadadya in afghanistan and these soldiers here..... we are the EMPIRE!!!!!!!!!!! woo hoo!!!!!!! rah rah! lets play ball".. is just sad... i am afraid tis the mark of an insecure nation made up of uneducated people.... the traditional blue angels overflight and anthem should have more than sufficed to fulfill the jingoistic quota....

#7 and i may be beginning to be guilty of this- which is why i will not watch it again- but to a far less degree than many people i've see at recent super bowl parties: if you don't like american football...if you don't know anything about football.. if you prefer watching commercials to the game itself... if you won't stand for people talking during commercials but feel a need to jibber jabber like mork during the game itself and the half time show while the beatle performs.. STAY THE F*&^ HOME! you don't HAVE TO watch the game!.. if all you want is to share a few beers and you don't have any interest in the game do something else...

hence my conclusion.. its going to take a heck and i mean HECK of a party to get me to subject myself to this crap again....that my fellow americans continue to thumb their nose at the beautiful game (the real FOOTBALL lemmings! what you call sock-her) while masochistically torturing themselves with this pansy variant of rugby and crass commercialism remains one of the great mysteries of my time...