First-of-all, I don’t think the Arizona Cardinals got a fair shake in this game – even though the Steelers seemed to be the better team – but I’m very glad that Kurt Warner’s wife is looking passable these days (and not like some alien being [like she did in the last Superbowl]).
I really didn’t want to write about the major media hype that this particular sporting event is –(television commercials have truly ruined those games that are televised [college and pro alike]) – but I did want to zero in on the media and how television has pretty much made this country crazy – certainly much crazier than it needs to be.
On any given day – I might be able to cite a litany of examples of what I’m trying to talk about – except when I’m trying to write about it! Today’s case-in-point are those television commercials that seem to suggest (seem to suggest? Damn! They actually do!!) that it’s OK to break the law and/or injure your fellow man – and there will be no consequences to pay.
Suffice-to-say, I have seen a multitude of such advertising (not to mention any Adam Sandler movie you care to mention) – but I can’t specifically remember any-of-them except the commercial I saw on tonight’s Superbowl: it was a Doritos commercial. It was the one-in-which a guy was able to get his free Doritos by smashing the glass of a vending machine. What-in-the-Hell are we teaching our children? From this one I got – it’s OK to vandalize and steal. But as Fish sang in MARILLION’s “Fugazi”: “This is (truly) — no place for children.”
I had some of the most incredible dinner conversation that I’ve had in-some-30-years last night – I thought that the joys of meaningful conversing were lost to me: thankfully they weren’t – and I hope that the spiritual assemblage can recreate the experience on a monthly basis…and the key word here is “meaningful.” Here in the U.S. we have raised the banal, the trivial, the insipid, and, in many cases, the absurd – to a pedestals they never should occupy. What on earth is all-this-bullshit supposed to leave us with?! What are we supposed to feel!!?? Does any of the nonsense help us raise children or become better parents? Does any of it help us move families across time? Does any-of-it help us stay in dead-end jobs without medical assistance? Does any-of-it raise our consciousness to sustain a state of bliss? Does any-of-it stop us from coveting our neighbor’s wife? I don’t think so…Obama, you got one tall order…cuz Bruce Springsteen got nothing to save-the-day: Bruce is all played out – he looked like a pudgy elf, ready to fall-of-the-stage at-any-moment. I never cared much for Bruce…
Which brings me back to the Superbowl – how are colleges going to afford THIS sport with declining enrollments and endowments? How are high schools going to afford THIS sport – I mean, how much does it cost to outfit a single, football player?? Of course the sport MAY survive at the professional level – but how many corporations and people are going to be able to afford their seats, not to mention the commercial time? It’s a sport that mirrors the people that birthed it: it’s full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing.