TAMPA., FL (Special to Sportsman's Daily) So it's about that time again. Super Bowl XLIII. Look, I don't mind the build-up, the hype, the media asking stupid questions -- "if you were a vegetable what kind of vegetable would you be." (I'd be a fucking ear of corn, moron, how bout you?) It is what it is. But something about the roman numerals just sets my teeth on edge. I mean, I get it--football as gladiator sport. A spectacle. Another perfectly acceptable excuse for men to avoid socializing with women, to revert to towel-snapping locker room half wits, and temporarily wash away all feelings of inadequacy in a shit storm of beer and booze. It's what men do.
But those stupid-ass roman numerals. Reminds me of Albert, my third husband. He was a sociology professor. Complete pompous ass. At first I thought it was a charming cover for the man-child that lurked beneath the tweed and mershaum pipe and the footnotes studding his casual conversation--I mean, the fool would insert footnotes when ordering breakfast. One morning, we're staying at some fancy hotel during a three day conference in Palo Alto. The third day there we go down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, the waitress comes to our table and asks for our order: "Loc sit," Albert wittily replies, meaning he'll have the same order as the morning before. Of course she misheard and brought him a lox platter, which got a bad day off to a very bad start.
So I know a thing or two about pomposity...and why I find it so damn insulting. It's all fake superiority, like an executive who props an oversize quill and ink set on a desk big enough for F-16s to land on. We get it: you are very very important and very very powerful. Oooh, I'm so impressed. But ultimately it's all about being forced to take the measure of the guy's equipment--and trust me, man inches have little to do with universal standards of measurement. I call it the "men-tric" system--which is the application of out-sized male ego to the measure of all things, which naturally brings us back to Super Bowl, ugh, XLIII.
Look, I'd be the first to admit that if women were running the show, reporters would be asking Larry Fitzgerald what it feels like to be playing in Le Bowl Fantastique #43--feminized, perfumed, with periodic PMS-driven moodswings. Equally ridiculous and irritating, but the gift bags would be an improvement.
But it's not just the pomposity, it's the message it masks. Anyone who's ever watched the HBO series Rome (highly recommended) immediately gets how stratified Roman society was--if you're a plebe you do what you're told, if you're an aristocrat you get to participate in fruit-laden orgies. That, in a nutshell, is the not so subtle message: if you are a woman you bring the platters and replenish the drinks, if you're a man you might as well be Marc Antony having his way with the women who bring the platters and replenish the drinks.
This week, Tampa will transform into something not unlike swinging Rome in the era before Christ. The all-night parties, the hell-raising, the streets boiling with sexed-up boys and girls gone wild. People don't even stop at traffic lights--to Super Bowl party animals, a red light is just a bloodshot green light.yellow is just a reminder that a urinal is in the vicinity.
Anyway, all this NFL sanctioned male-oriented bullshit won't stop me from kicking back and enjoying the game. Of course I'll be Tivo-ing it and watching it late at night so I don't have to sit through all the stupid commercials.one of the worst rituals is the morning after the game having to dissect and rate the commercials. Not seeing the commercials enables me to say, with complete confidence, that they all sucked.
I know you're all been waiting for my Super Bowl prediction. Other than predicting I'll get hit on by at least eight drunken fools between now and the time this is posted on the site, I'm predicting the Cardinals score II touchdowns in the IVth quarter and win by XIV. (Come back later this week when the above will be translated into Latin. A lapsed Roman Catholic prelate will be online to assist you through some of the knottier passages. We are told that boys between the ages of 8-13 will be bumped to the head of the queue.)