SuperBowel Sunday

1:00am
B-Trip: Home

Poor B-trip....You thought you were done for the day, but I ain't through with you by damn sight. I'm gonna get Medieval on your ass.

That's why I'm dressed as a reenactor. A 'viceroy', if you must know. One with a proclivity for the hammered dulcimer.

So sit back and enjoy this Baroque minuet. In the key of D.

1:40pm
B-Trip: Home

Reading a Good vs. Evil article on the SuperBowl. It seems the Colts became evil when their owners absconded from Baltimore in '83, swiping the team's name and uniforms despite promises that they would start anew in Indy. The Bears, on the other hand, are good because they were founded by the same guy who invented the league and have called legendary Soldier Field home for a generation.

The author goes into tedious detail in his attempt to establish the stakes in today's showdown, but I'm not buying it. To me, he seems like a disgruntled fan who grew up in Baltimore and harbors resentment against the Colts for leaving town when he was a boy. I would too, but I'd also have the common decency to mention that fact amidst my diatribe.

Artificially-inflating both sides just doesn't sit right. Particularly when you're concealing your own personal motivations. (See also: the War on Terror.)

For example, I should mention that, for personal reasons, I took exception to this paragraph:

By and large, the symbolic contest between good and evil rarely enters into the discussion of recent championships: The San Antonio Spurs, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the New Jersey Devils, the Florida Marlins, the Dallas Stars, the St. Louis Rams, the Carolina Hurricanes and even the Denver Broncos do not actually stand for anything. Bereft of mythology, supported by interchangeably bland fan bases, these teams stand for nothing.

It was affronted to see one of my favorite teams (the Rams) listed in this group, and also to learn that I'm an 'interchangeably bland fan'. Indeed, I challenge you to find anyone who can rival my particular brand of blandess!

But upon further review (ahhh, the joys of Taking D.....if for nothing more than the processing time it provides), this argument is simply wrong. Since he's talking about recent championships, he must mean the 1999 SuperBowl victors boasting "The Greatest Show on Turf". Upon hearing that term today, any marginal football fan would know it refers to the Rams of yesteryear. That alone leads me to believe the Rams stood for something. Sure that something may simply have been 'a revolutionary and precise offensive attack', but I doubt even Magic's Lakers or Gretzky's Oilers stood for 'Peace in the Middle East' or other similarly grandiose or noble concepts.

Further, his argument isn't even unique. Since I currently reside in the city from whence the Rams came, I assure you there are plenty of people here who harbor the exact same animosity toward them that this guy does about the Colts.

Oh, in case you were wondering....I thought the article sucked.

10:28pm
B-Trip: Home

Sitting here digesting the SuperBowl as my already-digested breakfast bids farewell. Clearly, the pageantry and excitement of the Big Game really kicks my parasympathetic nervous system into overdrive.

I realize this will come as a life-altering revelation, but here goes: I did not feel strongly one way or the other about these two teams. No hatred, nor unwavering affection. They both seem fine.

Devin Hester's kickoff return for a TD was thrilling (particularly since I spend my NFL seasons following the special teams-challenged Rams), but the rest of the game seemed to follow a predictable script with those allegedly evil Colts coming out on top. (Somehow I don't see a book like this being written about them.)

Only two commercials caught my interest:

1) Snickers

-Starts off hilarious with the kiss, but the chest hair-pulling didn't quite do it for me. Seems like there were a million better ways to go for something 'manly'. You start with the chest hair, but you gotta build on it.

The YouTube post claims you can vote for alternate endings at www.snickerssatisfies.com, but I was unable to find that portion of the site. My futile search left me...hmmm, how should I put it? Oh, yes....unsatisfied.

(I did, however, come across a series of Blaxploitation shorts about Instant Def, an eclectic hiphop crew determined to 'keep it real'. They get magical powers after a tragic accident at the Snickers factory.)

2) "The Late Show - SuperBowl of Love"

-Serendipitous, well-executed, & funny.

But my enduring memories of this SuperBowl will surely involve the bizarre spectacle of seeing two rock legends perform in the rain.

At first I had no sense of how hard it was raining. But a close-up of Billy Joel's fingers caused me to marvel over the sparkly piano keys. Did Elton John loan him the Baby Grand? I soon realized those sparkles were raindrops and spent the rest of the national anthem ruminating over how strange it was to see a piano out in the rain.

The monsoon, however, waited for the headliner. Prince has been rocking the house for thirty-plus years, and has apparently been sleeping in Dick Clark's patented self-preservation chamber. The guy does not age! But best of all, despite his mythical status he's still a gamer, seemingly at his bad ass best in the purple - err, I mean pouring rain. But I suspect it's no big thang to the Artist Currently Known As. He was born to perform...and lives in Minnesota, for Heaven's sake. He'd suit up in thundersnow.

I enjoyed the sheet thing and was on the edge of my seat expecting one of Prince's two high-heeled dancers to slip in a puddle and be sacked for a loss. But they managed to stay on their feet despite furious wiggling and jiggling and therefore deserve, if not mad props, then certainly some that are at the very least, borderline distraught.