As you probably don't know because you only come to this blog to eye up scantily-clad cheerleader photos, I like poetry, and post, on many Fridays, a poem on my blog Thinking The Lions. (A listing of all such poems ever posted is right here, and to appeal to readers of this blog, I'll note that almost every one of those poems has a picture of pictures of some Hot Actress alongside them.)
I have on occasion actually written the poem that was posted, and I am an award-winning poet, having been awarded the prestigious States Viar Poetry Award for 1986 for a sonnet I wrote. (I was not especially popular in high school.)
I am also currently at work on a poem, an ode to McDonald's Cheeseburgers, but I haven't posted that yet because I want this poem to rhyme, because anyone can write non-rhyming poetry. Free verse is the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is think up something you want to talk about and then say it in a poetical way, like by including an obscure color or perhaps by messing with the order of words.
Consider, for example, Jeremy Lin, the subject of today's post, kind of. I woke up this morning after sleeping in my easy chair because I had a coughing attack in the middle of the night that came out of nowhere and didn't go away until I sat upright (and also drained most of a bottle of Benadryl, so to be honest, I can't be sure it did go away; I might have just fallen asleep while coughing, because Benadryl is powerful stuff.)
Anyway, I woke up this morning and heard about Jeremy Lin, who is a New York Knick and who briefly was the front page massive headline on Huffington Post, and who, I gather, is something of a rockstar right now in the NBA, a sport I don't usually pay attention to until it is crammed down my throat like Jeremy Lin is being today.
Jeremy Lin is sort of the exact opposite of Tiquan Underwood, the Patriots* player who was cut 24 hours before the Super Bowl and thus missed out on getting cussed out by Gisele Bundchen and an all-expenses paid trip to Aruba, a vacation destination that decided it would be better known for serving as a consolation prize to losers than the place where college students can be murdered without any fear of punishment and so offered the Patriots* a free trip to that land of beauty and astonishingly ineffective judicial systems.
Whereas Underwood is left looking for a job and hitching back from Indianapolis, Jeremy Lin is inspiring the kind of fervor that we previously reserved only for quarterbacks who wear so much religion on their sleeve that it interferes with a proper throwing motion.
Lin is, as probably everyone knows by now, the previously-unheralded (except that he was very much heralded in college) basketball player who this week took the (pro) basketball world by storm by scoring more points in his first three starts than any other player in modern NBA history, and by doing for for New York, which helps spur him to greater fame because of the media focus on New York, and also by doing all that in the week after the Super Bowl, when people were already sick of talking about Gisele ripping Wes Welker and were looking for something new to briefly obsess over.
Hence, "The Harvard Hurricane," and his slow-news-cycle filling temporary fame that has inspired, already, rhapsodic and poetic pieces in fora as nonsportsy as The Wall Street Journal:
When The Garden is full and the right moment hits, it sounds like a riverbed canyon during spring thaw. The roar is deafening, and it rebounds from wall to wall, off the rafters, and into your face with tangible force.
The first time you felt that sonic boom was a few minutes into last night’s program, when No. 17, Jeremy Lin — the man of the hour, the evening and just maybe the season — trotted into the strobing lights of the world’s most famous arena for the first time this evening. As every screen in the house lit up with his picture, the packed crowd let loose with an ear-splitting cacophony: Shrieks and hoots and applause and shouts of “MVP” and behind it all, the roar, that thunderous roar that some call the Knicks’ secret weapon, at least when the Knicks aren’t being utterly terrible. You know, like they were B.L. — Before Linsanity.
The Wall Street Journal has to cover sports, I suppose, so that the stock brokers who read it will get to feel even more like they still exist in the world of Wall Street where men slick back their hair and wear suits to go out at night and can chest bump about basketball without feeling weird about it.
Jeremy Lin is so famous, right now, in fact, that his Wikipedia page -- which previously had 50,000 page views as a high-water mark back on January 15, 2012 -- has been viewed 400,000 times in the past two days, with (I'm sure) 90% of those views being people like me thinking "who is Jeremy Lin?"
The answer to that question is: Jeremy Lin is whom people are talking about today, including me, although I am Jeremymandering this post into something that is more to my interests than basketball: poetry, and how easy it is to write a rap song.
That's where I began, remember: poetry, like the poetry that Lin inspires in so many people, including Spike Lee, interviewed by the Wall Street Journal for that Lin piece:
Lee proceeded to spend the next ten minutes rattling off new handles for Lin, slam poetry style, that he’d invented or received from his vast Twitter following, waving away cameras and other fans: “Jeremy, moves so sick, they need insu-Lin.” “Jeremy, hang my jersey from the cei-Lin’.” “Jeremy, the Lakers, you better be double-Lin.” Lee, he knew who this kid was.
See? Slam poetry -- a/k/a free verse a/k/a "stuff anyone can write without even trying"-- is simple enough for kids on Twitter to do it, and for Spike Lee to then quote them.
Which is why I discount both free verse and rap as poetry and music respectively: it's not that they don't have their merits, it's just that both are bottom-of-the-barrel artistic endeavors, pretty easy to do in a competent way.
Consider music: Writing a symphony, say, would be incredibly difficult. Writing one of the complicated songs that bands like The New Pornographers
Is slightly less difficult, and so on downto rap, where, yeah, you have to rhyme and have rhythm and I'm not saying I could do it, but I couldn't not do it, because even nerdy guys can rap:
And not just that one guy:
So it's not like rapping is any more difficult than free verse. Rapping is, after all, just couplets with a bit of rhythm, and that, too, is no more difficult than free verse is for any half-wit writer like me.
Let me demonstrate by off the top of my head coming up with a free verse poem about Jeremy Lin:
Once passed over Now passing fancy-- Then surpassing expectations, Boards pitch beneath his feet, Orbs commanded by his will float as he does-- through the air on brilliant trajectories that mirror the arc of his fame-- his fame presaging the arc of his brilliance. He is in our eyes-- Our hearts Our minds-- Our headlines For now.
So, back to how easy rap is: Couplets, remember, set to a rhythmic beat. And to prove how that can be done, let me take Linsanity, the poem, and recast it as couplets. Start the clock!
They once passed you over But like a four-leaf clover Your name came back On a flying attack.
Now you're in the news And you're getting page views Twitters all yours Fame's opening doors
They didn't know how good You'd be on the wood Passing, dribbling, dunking ball The Harvard man has got it all
Spike's got your name on his lips And you're on Kobe's hips Contracts signing, stars aligning Even nonsports blogs are rhyming Your name Your game Your fame is insane 'cause you're on another plane.
One minute, 40 seconds.
Not the best work, but give me a little more time and a beat to set it to and I'll have a hit single, which is what finally leads me to the Song About Sports,
Mega Ran saw Jeremy Lin as a "teachable moment," according to his website, and wrote the rap about it, he says to teach kids something about something.
But it seems to me more likely that Mega Ran is perhaps hoping to take advantage of a white hot flash in the pan who is so suddenly famous that Harvard is now known as "Jeremy Lin's college" to promote his own upcoming tour. Ran's site, after all, mentions that his video has been on ESPN, in a blog post that mentions the tour, too. In case you were wondering.
Which, if that's the case, that Ran is using Lin to jumpstart his own career (Ran's Twitter icon is a picture of Jeremy Lin), then more power to him -- I'm certainly not going to down someone for noticing Jeremy Lin and jumping on that bandwagon. Although Mega Ran went about it the wrong way. Sure, a rap song will get you noticed, but you know what gets page views?
And that's even easier than writing a rap.
Here's a question for you: Will we still be talking about Jeremy Lin next year at this time? My guess is, no.
You may find yourself asking some questions when you come to this blog, questions like “Why am I here again?” and “Where are the pictures of the scantily-clad cheerleaders that are pretty much the only reason to visit this, since this guy knows next to nothing about sports?”
Those questions do not have answers, and I’d appreciate you keeping them to yourself. Also, we’ll get to the cheerleaders in another post.
Another question you may have is “Where does the incredibly handsome, cool author of this blog keep all this information that he then talks about on this well-written, informatively funny site?”
Yeah: Maybe you should have started with that one, to get us off on the right foot.
The answer to that question is: “Yes, I am very handsome, thank you.” And also: I am constantly reading online about various topics of interest to me: Not just sports but politics and books and culture and science and Star Wars and things that talk about Star Wars and people that talk about people that talk about Star Wars and things that are tired of all the Star Wars talk… I’m starting to see why I never get anything done.
And until now, I have not had an easy way to organize that information – I have notes and bookmarks and emails and a jumbled collection of thoughts that amounts to “Star Wars… cheerleaders… whah?”
Clipix is a new site to help me organize information and keep it handy, and then to easily share things with other people. It lets me save websites and share them with one or two clicks, and the minute I figured out how great it was, I signed up. (Even signup was easy: I used my Twitter account (you can use Facebook, too) and it was literally a two-click process, after which all I had to do was drag a button to my browser bar, at which point I could surf the web and take reminders with just another click or two.
Here’s how it works: I find an article, say, about how Bradying is a new thing, and I click the “Clip” button to open a little panel:
Asking me which clipboard I’d like to add this to. I have a sports folder, where I can save it and find it later, or even share it with others through this thing they have called “Syncboards” which let you and your friends or family “clip collaboratively,” adding clips to the clipboard for everyone to see, while anything THEY add, you can see. There’s also “Multiboards,” which groups your clipboards so you can have all your blog clippings in one article.
Clipix is great for publishers and group workers – you could have all your buddies online and clip an article and EVERYONE could make fun of Tom Brady all at once. It was stuff like that which made me sign up. You should too. I mean, what else could you useClipix for? (Seriously: If I’ve missed a use, tell me in the comments.)
Thursday Scramble! is when I take a post from one of my blogs and put it on all of my blogs, to show you what you're missing if you're a uniblogolist. Which is a thing. Today's random number came up with Lesbian Zombies Are Taking Over The World!, so I decided to give you the first-ever post from that site, a good intro to the ongoing serialized sci-fi erotic story that is taking the world (well, three people) by storm:
WARNING! NSFW! (I'm not just saying that to guarantee that you'll read it, but I'm sure it had that effect.)
THIS IS PART ONE OF MY STORY:
"Lesbian zombies are taking over the world!" Reverend Tommy hollered. He was in a lather.
So was I but that's because Brigitte was sitting next to me and had her hand on my knee. Above my knee, actually. Her little, soft, pink hand was resting right where my miniskirt would end if I wore my miniskirt to the Church of Our Savior of Living People Only, but I don't wear it there because Reverend Tommy wouldn't approve.
He wouldn't approve of my thoughts, either, or of what Brigitte and I had been doing just before we left for church in our church-y clothes: We'd been having sex, which Reverend Tommy disapproved of. Reverend Tommy disapproves of any sex, and he's not one of those preachers who say they disapprove of sex but then they're fucking the girls (or the boys) behind the curtains by the chapel; he was the real deal. Reverend Tommy hated only one thing more than sex, and that was zombies. And he hated only one thing more than zombies, and that was lesbian zombies.
That's what he was tearing on about, and it made me wish that Brigitte and I had not rushed to get there because if I'd known the whole sermon was going to be about nothing but how I'm supposed to be taking over the world, I would have skipped. But I doubt Brigitte would have skipped. She's not like that. Even though she's a lesbian, she's very religious. I don't know how she got mixed up with the Church of the Savior of Living People Only. I don't know how she got mixed up with me, either. She's going to be mighty confused when she finds out. If she finds out.
And I don't want to let her find out. Not yet, anyway, because I've got plans. I may just make her like me, for one thing. But even if I don't, I can't resist her lips. That's what almost made us late for church. I took a look at her lips as she was putting lipstick on them, and couldn't resist. Without even strapping on my bra, I had to lean over behind her and turn her head to face me and started kissing her.
I pushed my tongue into her mouth, forcing her lips apart so I could feel them on either side of my tongue, soft and pliable and gently sucking on my tongue and she pushed her tongue into my mouth, so I tried to return the favor, but my lips are always a little dry, probably (I think) as a result of being me and probably because I'm not very ladylike except in public and I associate wet, soft, moist lips with ladies. We kissed like that for a while, pressing our lips more and more firmly together, and I couldn't take it anymore, I wanted those lips everywhere else on me. I moved her mouth away from mine and stared into her eyes for a few moments and then lowered her head down to my breast. She took the hint, and she took my nipple and she nuzzled it and sucked on it. God, her lips were so soft that I almost came right then and I cupped her hands in mine...
So you can see why we were almost late. And here's Reverend Tommy, who's actually not a bad guy except he says I'm going to hell and he wants to kill me, and I don't even know why, ranting and raving:
"These lesbian zombies walk among us. They dress like us, they talk like us, they look like us..." although technically, Reverend Tommy, I don't look like you, because you are a man, I wanted to say. Brigitte squeezed my thigh. I thought she did it inadvertently but she leaned over and said
"They don't look like him," in a whisper that tickled my ear and made me start to perspire. She was so much like me already! Could I make her more like me? Would she like me more if she were more like me? Word games in my mind were better than Reverend Tommy:
"And they will come out in broad daylight and mock us, and then after dark they will steal into our houses and steal your wives and your daughters, they will corrupt them and drag them down to the bowels of hell with them. They move freely between the Life and the Afterlife."
That startled me. Do I? Do I move freely between the Life and the Afterlife? I'd never thought of it. Maybe those dreams I have where I go to Hell aren't just dreams?
"And they will leave our women in the fires of Hell and return to take your souls and eat them." I looked around, furtively. We sat midway back in the Church, and the Church attendance was evenly divided between men and women and children. Most of them were attentively listening to Reverend Tommy. Some of the women looked a little flushed. I guess maybe they wouldn't mind a little corrupting.
"And Jesus doesn't want them. He wants YOU. He wants to save you, but you've got to be vigilant against the newest trick of the devil. The lesbian zombies are out there. They are after your souls, and they are taking over the world!"
I should a few things straight.
First, I am a lesbian.
Second, I am not a zombie. I don't think so, anyway. I'm not a revenant, either, because nobody controls me. I'm some kind of creation. I think that because none of my parts match. I have dark black, straight hair, but my pubic hair is brown. My left hand is larger than my right and doesn't look the same. I have one green eye and one blue eye and who ever heard of that? Plus, my right shoe is size 6 and my left shoe is size 9. I have a slight limp. At least my torso appears to be all one piece and I don't have any scars, so I'm not a Frankenstein. I don't think. I've never met anyone like me. Or at least, anyone who I knew was like me.
Third, I'm not sure why I'm here. Not here in the Church of Our Savior Of Living People Only. I'm here because Brigitte goes here and I'll do anything for those lips. Not here in this town, either. I wandered here a few months ago after living in New York City for a while and then deciding that I couldn't go on working at a diner and wondering why I didn't have parents, or didn't rememer any parents, or even a childhood, or even anything before one day I was just there, working at the diner and serving people egg platters and refilling their coffee without any idea of who I really was. People called me by my name (Rachel) and seemed to know me but nobody talked to me much and I didn't live with anyone. That first day was kind of scary -- I left work at 5 and I didn't know why I was leaving at 5 because I didn't remember being scheduled to work or even that I worked or who anyone was, and then I started walking home and got on the subway but I didn't know what a subway was, and I was riding the subway and I realized that I was going home but I didn't know where home was or if I had one at all.
I got really scared, then, and then tried to clear my mind and relax, which worked because when I stopped thinking about it I just headed home, which turned out to be a kind of crummy little studio apartment that had a view of a wall and some furniture and a TV in it. So maybe someone is controlling me because I went home, but I don't think so because why would they let me just wander away?
But fourth, I think maybe I am trying to take over the world.
I'm not entirely willing to be done with football yet even though talking about football makes me feel exactly the same way looking at a Christmas tree on December 26 does -- tired, a little depressed, and sad that I'm going to have to take it down. Although this year, when we decorated our tree by hanging candy bars on it as ornaments using colored yarn, taking the tree down was much more fun.
So here's some post-football, pre-nothing else I much care about happening in sports until, say, July, updates on the four people who matter most, in (rough) order of importance: UPDATE ON GOD! I was getting ready to go to the office for a bit on Sunday morning and had the NFL Network's pre-pre-pregame show on, and they were talking about how this was the Year Of Tebow or something like that. A montage of people saying "Tebow" was played, and then a guy said something about Tebow's phenomenon transcending the NFL, and added this:
"When it transcends the NFL in the United States, it essentially transcends God"
Which:
(a) Take that, NASCAR. I told you you weren't a sport, and
(b) Really? The NFL is bigger than God in the U.S.? To check that dubious claim, I googled "NFL vs. God," because googling things is how scientists prove science these days, and I found this site that claimed to have "NFL vs. God poll results," only the actual poll wasn't NFL vs. God, and I went back to the results and went all the way to the second page of Google results, which nobody ever does (when was the last time you even paged down to see a result?)(What? You're not as lazy as me?) So I've set this up as the poll over there to the right. Make sure you vote because either God or the NFL is going to smite you if you don't. Brett Favre's Legacy Update! Did this Super Bowl almost see a surprise return of the Ol' Sext-slinger to the gridiron? If you said yes then you, like me, were probably overcome by oven cleaner fumes and lost for a few hours in a hazy fever dream in which the entire league was made up of Nothin' But Favres.
But that's to be expected, given that the allure of the Super Bowl was enough to get Brett talking about how maybe he misses playing just a little:
Brett Favre joined 1340 The Fan in Lubbock with Jack Dale's Sportsline with Steve Dale to discuss being away from the game of football, his retirement process, what it takes to play in the NFL and his Super Bowl memories.
Do you feel a little antsy during the week leading up to the Super Bowl?:
"I do. This'll be my first year removed from playing. I get the question all the time: Do you miss it? I really, in all honesty, have not, but once the playoffs came around, especially [last] week, and in year's past as well, this is kind of the time the juices get flowing again. Even in past years, when I wasn't in the Super Bowl, I wished I was. This week was really no different than in year's past, but as far as the regular season went, I didn't miss it a bit. … It kind of started out for me, in my career, when we got to play on a primetime setting … that was kind of the start to the Super Bowl lead-up. Just being the only show in town was a big thing for me."
Wouldn't it be great if Brett Favre could only play in the Super Bowl? It's the natural progression, right? He didn't like training camp and so began to join his team about a week before the preseason. Now, he doesn't like the regular season, so why not just get to where we all want to be, and require that Favre take the field only for the Super Bowl.
This year, for example, he could have played for the Patriots*, and that would have freed up Brady to catch the ball, relieving him of the obligation of doing both.
Aaron Rodgers also probably doesn't like those two guys who like Drew Brees better than him. But, then, Brees had a better postseason, didn't he? (He did.) Never one to let things just slide, The Anointed One graciously accepted the award by taking a jab at the 49ers:
Rodgers, who grew up in Northern California, acknowledged childhood heroes Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Steve Young of the 49ers before saying this with a sly grin: "Big Niners fan as a kid -- thanks for drafting me."
To paraphrase Vince Lombardi, "Show me a poor sport, and I'll show you Aaron Rodgers."
For some reason, this year's Super Bowl seems a little underwhelming, doesn't it? In fact, the past several Super Bowls have seemed less than exciting. Steelers-Packers last year didn't seem, running up to it, like it would be all that memorable -- it seemed to me like the Steelers didn't really want to be there while the Packers seemed like they didn't know they were there.
And Super Bowls before that? Well, I had to go look at a list of Super Bowls to see who had played in recent years because while I can obviously remember the last Giants-Patriots* matchup and I can remember Colts-Saints, I can't think of who else has been in the Super Bowl recently, which in and of itself says a lot about how exciting (or not) the Big Game has become.
Going back a few years, there were Patriots-Eagles, Steelers-Seahawks, Colts-Bears, Giants-Patriots*, Steelers-Cardinals, Colts-Saints, Steelers-Packers, and of those, how many games were truly memorable for the game?
And more: how many were exciting in the build-up to the game?
I can think of only one, really: The Giants-Patriots* matchup where the Patriots* were denied a 19-0 season. That game had a lot of anticipation going into it, because the teams had played a great game to end the season, it was Eli's first Super Bowl, and the Patriots* were still mired in Videogate, plus the Giants had to put Brett Favre's Green Bay Packers out of the playoffs in a thriller just to get there, all of which set up an amazing storyline.
The runner-up would be Steelers-Cardinals, because Kurt Warner is a good story even if he's kind of a jerk himself, and the Cardinals hadn't made it to the Super Bowl before, and that was after Roethlisberger's troubles began, so there was a good-vs-evil component to that one.
But other than that, the storylines and setups to football games haven't been that compelling. The Saints winning was a good story, what with Katrina having happened to New Orleans and Drew Brees getting some respect, but they did that at the expense of the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning, which, Manning is overpaid and himself kind of a jerk, I expect, but publicly the Colts were considered "good guys" back then, so it was good versus good, and what kind of matchup is that?
I mean, imagine if Luke Skywalker and Han Solo got into a fight. Wouldn't that be cool?
I thought of that. George Lucas thought of this:
And yet George Lucas is the millionaire while I sit around in my pajamas typing a blog post.
Anyway, no, a Han-Luke fight would not be cool, because they're both good guys, so the only way they fight is if it's one big misunderstanding, like the time Spider-Man and Superman got into a fight -- doing so only because they were tricked into it by Doc Ock and Lex Luthor.
Colts-Saints was Han-Luke: an upstart goodhearted kid against the cocky older hero but they were both on the same side, so it wasn't a fight we wanted to see.
Sports, to me, is entertainment -- and that means that I want someone to root for and someone to root against, and I want the outcome to seem to matter, even though it doesn't matter at all; the outcome of the Super Bowl is financially important to some people, and personally important to most of the players, but it's not important at all to me and you and the rest of the people who will be sitting around stuffing our fat faces while we deny basic protections to other human beings. Your life won't be any different at all tomorrow, no matter what happens today, unless what happens today is that just after winning the game, standing at midfield with the Lombardi Trophy, Belicheat rips off his mask, Mission: Impossible style to reveal that he's one of those Crystal Skull aliens, and roars into the microphone:
At last! I have the fourth Stanchion of Power! Minions! Open the Warp Rift and allow the fleets to pass through! Earth shall be under my dominion for all eternity! Bring me the heart of a newborn baby for my triumphal feast.
It could happen. And imagine the shock for those people who didn't bother watching the fourth quarter and only found out about the Earth being taken over by logging onto the Internet Monday morning to see what the most popular ads were.
There should be a storyline here, this week, and it should be a good one: After all, the Giants were the ones who denied Belicheat and Brady Football Immortality, costing them 19-0 and turning them into a punchline (because only in football can going 18-1 and losing narrowly in the championship turn you into a laughingstock -- I've said before and it bears repeating: it is better, in the NFL, to not make the playoffs at all than to lose the Super Bowl, and before you dispute me, answer this: Which team is more of a loser to you, the Buffalo Bills or the Jacksonville Jaguars?)
(See what I mean?)
But there's no storyline at all -- partly because Belicheat and Crew don't ever talk at all about anything and partly because the NFL has so clamped down on any kind of interestingness at all that it would be amazing if the Giants or Patriots* even acknowledged that earlier Super Bowl existed, let alone that one or the other had something to prove here.
The Patriots*, in fact, are going out of their way to say that revenge isn't an issue, which is to be expected. Lots of Patriots* players are downplaying the revenge factor:
Wes Welker said:
"Does it take care of what happened (if we win this time)? No. I don’t think so... What happened, happened, and we’ve moved on. The only thing I am worried about is this game and doing what we can to win this game.”
While Belicheat, speaking carefully so as not to tear his mask on the spiky crystalline killing appendages it hides, said:
We are where we are now, and we’re different than where we were earlier in the season. The Giants are where they are now, and I think they’re different than where they were at different points of the season. To take it back years and years before that, I don’t think it has too much bearing on anything. I don’t think anything in the past has too much of a factor in this game.
But again, that's to be expected: they don't want to admit it got to them, don't want to give any "bulletin-board" material (because athletes playing at the highest level of the game in the most important game at that level for millions of dollars cannot be expected to give 100% effort unless you give them a quote to motivate them), and so they say "It was no big deal, the way they made us go from legendary status to laughable footnote in one game."
But what's surprising is that the media, which has a rooting interest in having a good storyline and which isn't 100% controlled by Roger Goodell's Homogenization Machine, is going along with it.
Other media outlets have focused on things like "Will Peyton play again next year?" and the like; in a week of Super Bowl hype, I actually heard very little about revenge and how that might motivate people in this game.
But tabloid papers or not, there's no doubt that this year's Super Bowl is short on storylines, and so to give you and me and everyone we know something to root for or against tonight, I present you with this year's WHODATHUNKIT!?, the three best things you really want to know about the Super Bowl -- this year in the form of three storylines that will help you have a rooting interest in the game.
1. Bill Belicheat vs. Niceness: Football is a game played by large, athletic men trying to hit other large athletic men as hard as possible in order to make bad things happen to the other team -- so it's not what you'd generally associate with niceness.
But, with all that, still opposing defensive lineman occasionally help up the quarterback they sacked, and teams shake hands after the game, so football has room for a little sportsmanship and heart amidst the controlled (and sometimes uncontrolled) violence. That's why movies like Rudy and Brian's Song and Invincible exist: Because hidden among the injuries and sacks and bone-crushing, spine-mangling, concussing violence are tiny gems of heart, growing like a flower through the cracks of a slum sidewalk.
Except in New England, where the only hearts visible are those served up still spurting blood in sacrifice to Belicheat's remorseless winning machine.
Remember last year, when the world was all a-flutter because the Green Bay Packers weren't going to let their injured reserve players be part of the team picture? Well, take a back seat, minor kerfuffle of meanness, and consider this display of coldness that would make even Darth Vader go "What the H, man? Have some kindness.":
Wide receiver Tiquan Underwood has been cut by the Patriots less than 24 hours before the big game ...Underwood had three catches in five games this season.
(Source.) With that, Tiquan Underwood became perhaps the unluckiest man to ever play in the NFL, and I'm including Scott Norwood in that calculation.
He was 24 hours away from the game that all NFL players want to make it to. 24 hours.
I confess to being a nervous type. I got my first partnership bonus this year at my law firm, and until the check was actually cut on New Year's Eve, I didn't think it would actually be given to me. In fact, it wasn't until I was actually holding the check in my hands that I believed it existed -- and even then I went to the bank to cash it immediately before someone could change their mind.
Sweetie thought I was crazy -- but I bet Tiquan Underwood would sympathize. He even practiced all week for it. He's in the team photo. He's there in Indianpolis and they cut him.
That is cold-hearted. Tiquan Underwood has to fly home using his own money, having gotten within shouting distance of his life's dream.
I wonder if he'll watch the game.
If there's any justice in the world (and there's not, so this is a pipe dream) Tiquan Underwood will be signed by the Giants today and suited up for them.
Which isn't actually a bad idea: Tiquan Underwood is only 24 hours removed from game-day preparations and would be a pretty good catch for Tom Coughlin; he could suit up and help the Giants know what the game plan is. I doubt even Belicheat is smart enough to install an entirely fake game plan and feed it to a little-known wideout with the plan of cutting that wideout the day before the championship in order to get him signed by the other team just so that the other team would have false information about the Patriots*' intentions.
Or... is he?
Tiquan's loss is Defensive End Alex Silvestro's gain -- the Patriots* signed Silvestro from their practice squad, which means Silvestro just won the lottery in more ways than one: practice squad players are paid a minimum of $5,200 per week, but being on the roster for the Super Bowl will likely get either $42,000 (for losing) or $88,000 (for winning.)
But, put another (and far more sad) way: Tiquan also lost $42,000-$88,000, just 24 hours before he got the check.
Soup, of course, is a terrible snack for the Super Bowl, because you've got to look at it to eat it -- you can't just put it into your mouth without thinking about it, you've got to watch the spoon going in and hold the bowl and all that, and if you're watching what you're eating, you're not watching the commercials around which the NFL puts a game. You've got to put some thought into what you're going to serve your guests.
(Me, I don't have guests, as I've found that having anyone around but my immediate family during the game tends to (a) interfere with my watching the game and (b) reduce the number of pizza rolls I, personally, am able to eat in five hours.)
Which brings up matchup number two: Wings vs. Salsa. Over on USA Today, wings have shot up to second on the list of Super Bowl favorites, polling at 23% -- so wings are the Mitt Romney of snack foods!-- second only to chips and salsa, which pulled in 32%. Trailing at 14% was pizza, which tied with "salty snacks," which brings up a major problem in that poll: aren't chips also "salty snacks?" So aren't chips actually 46%?
Questions about the legitimacy of their finish not only serve to emphasize the Mittitudinity of wings, but also bring up the question: Why are wings associated with sports? which brings up Why do people eat wings at all?
In short: how did someone somewhere manage to convince people that the second-least-edible part of the chicken -- I'll get to the first in a minute -- is something they not only should eat, but do such a good job of it that 23% of Americans would rather gnaw a chicken's elbow than eat a Dorito?
1. Wings were invented as an hors d'ouevre because the Anchor Bar, which is credited with inventing the Buffalo wing, got a shipment of wings instead of necks and backs, the necks and backs being what the bar usually used to make spaghetti sauce, and now I'm never going to eat spaghetti sauce again without uncomfortably imagining that I'm eating a chicken back, and up until this moment I hadn't even considered whether chickens have backs, but obviously they do and we eat them which is gross and that's why I hate nature; according to this version, the wife of the Anchor Bar owner didn't want to use the wings for sauce and so made them into hors d'ouevres and they caught on, and that version comes right from the owner of the bar so it must be the truth except
2. The son of that man says it wasn't a mistake at all, he just came up with the idea of having something free to pass out to Catholic bargoers at midnight on a Friday, and his mom used wings because that was the part of the chicken that wasn't good enough to sell so they gave it away free.
Either way, the wing was born at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, as an enterprising bar owner sold you garbage and offal and made money off of it, which brings me to chicken paws, which are this:
and which are simply chicken feet, but which, when deep-fried, are considered a delicacy in other parts of the world, other parts of the world being places where they eat bugs and things, too, because they have not yet discovered the joys of processed food and never knowing where your food came from. If I never have to eat a deep-fried thing that looks like a chicken hand, I will be a grateful man.
Chicken paws aren't just disgusting; they're also behind some of our big international disputes: in 2009, the US shipped $648,000,000 worth of chicken paws to China, in what can only be described as brilliant foreign policy: the Chinese loan our government money to pay for Dennis Hastert to have a $900,000 a year office to do nothing from, and in exchange, we ship them the parts of the chicken we find too disgusting to even think about (but not too disgusting to picture on a blog.)
Also: Maybe the whole Buffalo wings/Anchor bar story is bunk after all: Trillin goes on to note that a guy named John Young had a restaurant named "John Young's Wings 'n' Things," which served wings in "mambo sauce," and that he registered that name about the same time the Anchor claimed to have accidentally invented this snack food by trying to foist off garbage on its patrons.
In any event: If you are eating wings, you are exemplifying the American dream in that wings are a way to eke money out of you by selling you something you didn't want and didn't know existed, but also keep in mind: Salsa is still number one, so there's another American job taken over by a foreigner. Thanks for nothing, NAFTA.
3. Cars vs. all the other crap advertisers want you to want to buy:
To other car ads, what America will be watching tonight will largely be car ads, and what Americans will largely be thinking tonight, if they're smart, is
"Why would someone pay millions of dollars for a Super Bowl ad and then release the ad ahead of time, thereby spoiling the surprise and virtually guaranteeing that you will not actually watch the ad during the game?"
That's what I was thinking, anyway, when I saw that some carmaker had stolen my idea for Ferris Bueller's Next Day Off and then, not wanting to wait until the game to actually show the ad, had simply put it online -- I watched that ad Tuesday, sitting in front of my laptop, with Sweetie telling me "this is my favorite Super Bowl ad," nearly a week before the ad "officially" aired.
What's behind this trend? Maybe it's what I said -- having a party detracts from actually watching the ads, so advertisers want to make sure you see them anyway; in that sense, what they're purchasing, by spending millions on an ad slot, is not eyes during the game, but media coverage of their ads prior to the game -- getting their ad to go viral in a completely nonviral way.
Or maybe it's that Super Bowl ads no longer spend much time advertising the product -- many of the best Super Bowl ads are memorable for the ad, but not for their product. What, after all, was Terry Tate advertising for? And what were those cats being herded trying to get you to buy? In some cases, the ad becomes memorable for the ad, not for the product. You probably know Whassup! but you have to think to associate it with a product.
I watched the Ferris Bueller ad, but I never actually realized what car it was advertising. (It's Honda; I checked.)
Or maybe it's because most Super Bowl ads don't actually do much. This article notes that it takes controversy (or junk food) to make a Super Bowl ad worth all the expense. An Eau Claire study found that sexy ads particularly do not do much (although the king of sexy ads, Go Daddy, has benefitted from its stupid Super Bowl campaigns). That same Eau Claire study found that firms get a small boost in stock prices in the week after a Super Bowl ad airs -- which isn't the same as being profitable, because stock price increases benefit shareholders but not necessarily the company, so maybe it's that Super Bowl ads are used to make the company seem more valuable to investors without actually increasing the value of the company, a particularly American innovation -- we'll pretend to sell you goods so that our company will look more worthwhile to investors, while not actually increasing our sales or our worth.
Boy, if it isn't one thing with the Patriots*, it's another. First, they steal a bunch of Super Bowls from guys like Kurt Warner (a guy who knows just the right amount of holiness to keep Jesus from wanting to smack you one) by cheating, and now that they've finally made it back to the big game, wouldn't you know it, they turn around and decide to get God all on their side.
And what better way to get The Man to root for you than by having a supermodel pray for it? Man, is there nothing Belicheat doesn't think of?
Here's what's going on: Mindful that the last time Not Actually Anywhere Near As Good As Joe Montana and his New England Cheatriots squared off against The Better Manning, Gisele Bundchen has asked everyone to stop praying for insignificant stuff like world peace and/or an end to hunger because if supermodels can get by on just cigarettes then why can't the poor, and instead to pray for something that really matters, like Tom Brady getting a Pinky Super Bowl Ring:
In a disgustingly sappy e-mail, supermodel Gisele Bundchen implored friends and family yesterday to pray hard for her pretty-boy hubby to win Sunday’s Super Bowl against the Giants. ... The note, obtained exclusively by The Post, is hardly the stuff of Knute Rockne. It’s filled with a touchy-feely request for “positive” thinking that one might expect from a Brazilian catwalk stunner — especially one concerned for her loved one’s safety against Big Blue’s fierce pass rush. “My sweet friends and family,” the e-mail began. “This sunday will be a really important day in my husband’s life. He and his team worked so hard to get to this point and now they need us more than ever to send them positive energy so they can fulfill their dream of winning this super bowl ...So I kindly ask all of you to join me on this positive chain and pray for him, so he can feel confident, healthy and strong. Envision him happy and fulfilled experiencing with his team a victory this sunday. Thank you for your love and support. Love, G :)”
In Gisele's defense, she didn't want everyone to know that she felt God had nothing more important to do than making sure Tom Brady didn't continue sucking in important games; contacted about the email, she told the Post it was supposed to be private, so the message she wants to send is: It's okay to ask God to spend His time making sure that your boyfriend wins a game, provided that nobody knows about it.
In Gisele's defense, though:
(A) God is probably pretty good at multitasking. I mean, if I can type this post while I'm supposed to be listening to this Supreme Court justice on the phone drone on and on about ex post facto this and my client going to be executed that... get to the point, already! You'd think we pay you by the hour to geeze up the Court!... then God can probably handle making sure Brady doesn't throw more than, say, two interceptions on Sunday while also keeping the universe from collapsing by continuing to spin out "dark matter," and
(B) She's pretty hot, so I'm 100% certain nobody is going to get mad at her about this. Look at her:
She could have sacrificed a kitten on a Satanic altar and 99% of America wouldn't have noticed it because they'd be willing that top to loosen its grip just a little.
I know, surprising, right? I mean, The Anointed One has thus far been more or less a friend to all mankind.
In what might potentially be the least important news out of football ever, the 21st century's version of Trent Dilfer who in his lifetime is 1-2 in his first playoff game each year, has spoken out against fellow NFL'ers' lack of effort in a the meaningless flag-football after party that is the Pro Bowl:
"I'll be honest with you," Rodgers said on ESPN 540 in Milwaukee. "I was a little bit disappointed. I felt like some of the guys on the NFC side embarrassed themselves."
The AFC routed the NFC 59-41 in a game that drew boos at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu for its lack of early intensity. Rodgers, who started and played the first quarter for the NFC, didn't name specific players."I was just surprised that some of the guys either didn't want to play or when they were in there didn't put any effort into it," Rodgers said.
(Source.) The fact that Rodgers (shown above right, giving 100%) even noticed the lack of effort marks him as perhaps the only person in the Western Hemisphere who bothered watching the game.
Rodgers didn't confine his criticism to a local radio show: he put it right out there on Twitter, the same place where America learns who Demi Moore is stalking:
On Wednesday, Rodgers poked fun at his criticism of the Pro Bowl via Twitter.
His tweet: "Just read this quote by Bruce Lee, 'the less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be'. Maybe I was wrong about the pro bowl?"
(Same source.)
After checking out Rodgers' Twitter posts, I saw that Bruce Lee isn't the only philosopher Rodgers likes to plagiarize: He also ripped off this tweet from Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts:
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
Rodgers posted that on February 1, and it was retweeted fifty times. Which doesn't prove A-Rodg is an environmentalist. It just proves that he can search a quote site. But, then, what else does he have to do? We're at least 11 months away from when he'll have to overthrow his receivers and scowl at them next year.
"Jerral," according to this site, is ranked 1185 on a list of the 1,220 most popular baby names. ("Somewhat popular", the site says.) It peaked in popularity in 1991 or so, when it briefly rose to about 650th on the list. So somewhere, there is a group of about 13 21-year-olds named "Jerral."
WHODATHUNKIT!?: The Three Best Things You Really WANT To Know About the 2010 Super Bowl:
You know what one of the most impressive things about the NFL is, to me?
They can get closed-captioners to do what they want.
There are organizations that you assume have some power -- Wal-Mart, the people who make Zhu Zhu pets -- and then there are organizations that really have power, like the NFL. They don't go around showing how much power they have all the time, not in an obvious way. (Unless you count "suing everyone in sight about everything imaginable" as an obvious way of "showing how much power they have" but I don't count that, because I don't want to get sued by the NFL.) No, the NFL is so powerful that it doesn't need to advertise its power, and it does not need to make blatant attempts to mis-use its power, by, say, using its position as a newly-elected famous Senator to get its daughter a record deal.
Here's a question for you: Let's say you are a newly-elected Massachusetts Senator whose election was so improbable that it made national news and propelled you into the national spotlight, inviting comparisons to another newly elected Senator whose own election from a high-profile state had shortly thereafter springboarded him to higher office. Would you, if you were in that position:
(A) Try to live up to the hype by learning as much about national issues as you could so that you could 'hit the ground running,' or
(B) Use your national position to really push those issues you think are important and 'set the agenda' for a big political year for your party, or
(C) Immediately blow what little credibility you actually had by making your first official act be an attempt to use your office for personal gain by attempting to intimidate American Idol into having your daughter come back on?
If you're Scott Brown, the choice is obvious: Opt for (D), which is the secret hidden correct answer and which is "Use the office for personal gain through American Idol," and also pimp out my daughters and make jokes about how they might be whores."
The NFL does not need to pimp out its 17-year-olds or use its office for personal gain. It's already powerful enough, as I said, to get what it wants, as evidenced by the fact that this past week, I was watching TV while jogging on the treadmill at my health club, and the TV was set to a channel where the people on it mentioned something about the Super Bowl. I don't listen to the TV; I listen to music while I work out, so I had the closed captioning on, and when the captions got to the part of the Super Bowl, they read:
Super Bowl XLIV.
Keep in mind that closed captioning doesn't always spell Obama right -- I've seen it Oh Bamma -- but they used Roman numerals (the NFL's Numeral Of Choice, and the subject of a lawsuit the NFL once filed against Romans, trying to get the numerals called NFL Numerals) to number this Super Bowl.
That's power: Even if you're deaf, or listening to Karen O's All Is Love while you jog:
You'll know it's Super Bowl XLIV, and not Super Bowl 44. Or forty-four. Or Oh-Bamma.
The NFL wants to make sure that people get it right because the Super Bowl is big -- annually, more articles and television news stories are written about the Super Bowl than the next top 10 entertainment and sports stories combined, according to the website "Statistics That Sound About Right".
Don't go look for that site. I just made it up. But that would be an awesome site, wouldn't it? I call dibs.
So the NFL can't just leave things up to chance; they've got to ensure that their army of goons... I mean entertainment lawyers ... keep on top of things and control the message and stay focused and present the best possible story and do all those other things that somehow have completely eluded the Obama administration's capabilities so far, all to make sure that the NFL rakes in billions and billions of dollars... I mean presents you with a quality football game.
Unfortunately for the NFL, I'm not part of their media machine. Not for lack of trying; I'd love to be part of the NFL's media machine, making tons of money while sitting in Miami talking to Joe Montana about whether it's the catch or the throw, as Dan Patrick gets to do this week. Who wouldn't rather be doing that, instead of what I'm doing, which is sitting in my cold office, listening to Karen O's soundtrack for Where The Wild Things Are and getting ready to drive to Merrill, Wisconsin to argue about mortgages?
Not that this
Is bad, but it's no Miami-Plus-Joe-Montana, is what I'm saying.
Because I'm not part of the NFL's conglomerate, though, I am free to present to you the only article about the Super Bowl that's not sanctioned by The Man, that doesn't toe the NFL's corporate line, that doesn't just rehash all the tired press releases that Roger Goodell forces down the throats of those drones and lackeys who call themselves real sportswriters.
I don't do that, because I don't get paid by the NFL to do that.
By the way, Sweetie thinks Roger Goodell is hunky, but I don't see it:
Instead of meekly parroting back the NFL's tired stories like all the other "sports" guys do, I go out on a limb annually and present to you:
Whodathunkit?! The Three Best Things You Want To Know About This Years' Super Bowl (Super Bowl 2010!)
And you can tell I'm not afraid of the NFL, or beholden to them, because I don't use Roman (NFL) Numerals. I call the Super Bowl what I want, dang it!
Pat Hill: Grandmother, real estate agent,and deadbeat season ticket holder.
Daniel Snyder: Redskins owner, billionaire, and the man who decided to sue Pat Hill. Also, according to insider knowledge I just made up, Snyder asked the judge if he could "eat her heart while it's still warm."
But enough of this talk of lawsuits and billionaires eating people's hearts! It's time to get to the point of this post, which is those Three Best Things You Want To Know About This Years' Super Bowl (Super Bowl 2010!). Here they are:
After all this time, nobody knows what the stadium is actually called. Where is Super Bowl 2010 going to actually be played? Who knows? Not the NFL, which says it's going to be played at Dolphins Stadium. Trouble is, "Dolphins Stadium" doesn't exist. It's called Sun Life Stadium now, and like everything else in creation, Sun Life Stadium has its own website. Which also doesn't know what the stadium is called. Witness this very first line from the "History" page of Sun Life Stadium: Entering its 22nd year of operation, Land Shark Stadium, originally known as Joe Robbie Stadium, was the first of its kind to be constructed entirely with private funds.
So, on a page labeled "Sun Life Stadium..."
...the stadium is called something else.
The confusion is understandable: Call-It-What-You-Want Stadium has been, in its time, called "Joe Robbie Stadium," "Pro Player Stadium," then "Dolphins Stadium," then finally it was called Land Shark Stadium to celebrate a partnership with Jimmy Buffett, who not only still exists but who also is the secret force behind this Super Bowl, apparently, given that last week he had dinner with Saints' coach Sean Payton and now he's responsible for renaming the stadium the game is held at.
Don't be surprised to see Jimmy Buffett filling in for injured Dwight Freeney in the second quarter.
I'm not sure how much Jimmy Buffett, or Sun Life, or any other company or person paid to name the stadium whatever it's called this minute, but I suspect whatever it was, they overpaid. An article in the Journal Of Sports Economics(we all subscribe to that, right?) suggests that there's a 1.65% rate of return on the investment... for three days, beginning with the day before the official announcement of the naming rights being bought.
You may be thinking to yourself: How can there be a return on an investment before that investment is announced? Wouldn't that hint that insiders are secretly spreading the word that MegaCorporation has just bought naming rights, and doesn't that mean insider trading, and isn't that illegal?
If you did think that, though, then you're part of the old world where investing and banking was regulated. In the new world, regulators date lobbyists, and Senator-elects get their daughters onto American Idol.
Amongst other legislative priorities.
The bottom line of that article -- the article I mentioned before all the nudity, remember? -- includes several startling conclusions, and by "startling" I mean "not at all startling if you remember that business executives have shoe polish for brains." Those conclusions include:
"marketing executives acknowledge that they have no way to measure the value of naming rights to the firm..."
"companies that own naming rights saw their stock values decline more than twice the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2002..."
"our main finding is that naming rights offer no economic value."
Whew! No wonder Sun Life doesn't want their name on it. The study also includes a table showing that of 12 companies who bought naming rights prior to the study, all twelve had run into financial trouble, including 10 of the 12 filing for bankruptcy. But to be fair, it probably wasn't the naming rights that drove them into ruin; it was the fact that they were run by morons.
I'm sure things will go better for YOUR company, Jimmy. (Snicker.)
Did you ever wonder if there truly is a "stadium naming curse?" You probably did now, and, having now wondered that, consider this: The Dolphins were 9-7 in 2005. In 2006, the stadium was renamed "Dolphins Stadium" and they went 6-10. In 2007, renovation of "Dolphins Stadium" was complete and the new stadium was unveiled to the world. The Dolphins went 1-15 that year.
If they'd kept the name, the odds are that the Dolphins would have ceased to exist as a legitimate football playing operation (you know, the way the Buffalo Bills have). Luckily, in 2008, a new guy bought 95% of the Dolphins, and in 2009 the stadium was renamed. The Dolphins went 11-5 in 2008 and 7-9 in 2009, winning as many games in 2009 alone as they did the entire time the stadium was named after them.
What Would YOU Do For Super Bowl Tickets? Remember the lady who tried to trade sex for World Series tickets? Didn't you kind of think her real crime was in making her offer too explicit? What if she'd told those cops, "Look, I just want to go to the World Series, have a beer or two, and, by the way, my friends say I'm really trampy?" What crime would be committed then? If it's no crime to decide to sleep with someone after the date, why is it a crime to let them know up front how the date will end up?
Or is it a question of how subtle she was in letting them know? There are are other ways of advertising the same message, the message that if you take that person out, you'll be getting some:
Last week, this read "Sun Life Stadium."
Anyway, because of that crack police work by Philly cops who apparently think the biggest threat to their city is sleazy Phillies phans...
Book 'em, Danno!
... the world is safe for people who don't want other people to trade sex for tickets. Instead, enterprising Craigslisters are playing on guilt and other emotions to get their tickets. (No, sex is not an emotion.)
Like this guy who wants to take his wife to the game for their 15th anniversary. That's sweet, right? Oh, and also, he's a policeman! So, you know, you kind of owe him your tickets, 'cause of 9/11 and all. But just because he's a cop with a wife doesn't mean he needs a bunch of spam from you. Or, as he says: "I don't want spam or fraud so keep that shit to yourself."
Too bad you other posters didn't think to tell people not to defraud you. Caveat poster!
Those were all from the South Florida Craigslist. Things get weirder if you go elsewhere. This chef will trade his cooking services on Super Bowl Sunday, and says he's "looking to trade my time for anything of value." I know lots of movies that start out that way. Movies I'm not supposed to have watched.
Looking to turn misery into something happy. Looking to trade a Diamond Engagement ring with platinum setting for 2 Super Bowl tickets. Ring is appraised for $13,000. Willing to meet at any jeweler for exchange if trader wants ring verified. Email me for more details/questions.
Maybe if she'd stayed with the guy who could afford to buy her a $13,000 engagement ring, she'd have been able to get him to buy some tickets to the game, too?
TV Saves The Day, As Usual:The NFL may want to crack down on realtors, as well as on churches that want to show the game, but it certainly has no problem with convicted drug offenders referencing its work. Home Improvement is among the many TV shows that have made references to the Super Bowl or built episodes around the game. In Super Bowl Fever, hijinks no doubt ensued when Tim Allen invited friends over to watch the game... but Jill got the flu! Here's a sample exchange: Tim (about his Super Bowl party): I've been planning this for a long time, it's a tradition, honey.
Jill: You've never had one before.
Tim: Well, traditions start someplace.
Everybody Loves Raymond went to the Super Bowl, too, when Ray took Gianni to the Super Bowl, but then felt bad about not bringing Debra, so he ends up [SPOILER ALERT!][REALLY?][YEAH, SOME PEOPLE MIGHT NOT HAVE SEEN THIS YET AND MAY CARE][WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE, EXACTLY?][I DON'T KNOW, MY DAD, MAYBE?][OKAY. CARRY ON.] inviting Debra down, and then tearing up his tickets to the game just to show how much he loves her.
Debra then goes on to place an ad trying to trade her engagement ring, and maybe some cooking, for Super Bowl tickets.
Why does the NFL let TV get away with so much, when grandmothers, churches, and other so-called innocents are sued into submission for merely mentioning the Super Bowl? Maybe it's because TV has saved the day for the NFL, as shown in the movie Two-Minute Warning. In that movie, which might just be a documentary, a sniper who hopes to shoot fans at the Super Bowl is revealed on television by the Goodyear Blimp camera, leaving the SWAT team -- headed by Charlton Heston -- not much time to try to take him out before he can wreck everyone's day.
[SPOILER ALERT! FOR REAL THIS TIME] They fail. (So I guess TV didn't save the day, after all. But it did show us how cops and the NFL failed to save the day, which is worthwhile.)
That wasn't, by the way, Heston's only brush with Super Bowl fame: He also, as it turns out, played "Cat" Catlan, a quarterback who had previously led his team to the Super Bowl, but now, at age 40, ignores a tempting job offer (executive at an auto-leasing company! Sweet!) and comes back to try one more run for glory with his old team.
That team? The Saints. So after Jimmy Buffet lines up for the Colts, expect to see this as a surprise late fourth-quarter play:
