A Sport You Can Believe In
Hello Non Sports Fans!
I am what you would call a fan of spectacle. A man who will watch the final of the darts. A man who believes in the power of spectacle.
Now I know for you artistic types out there (and I will try not to generalise) sport is something that the 'masses' enjoy and are horribly over the top about. It's probably a school thing (it was for me for many years) but I think I may have found the perfect sport for you, a sport that is secondary to the spectacle. It is the Super Bowl (tm, copyright, coca-cola, burger king, taco bell, all rights reserved).
Now on Sunday night I decided to give three and a half hours of my life to the Super Bowl. By the end I felt like I was partying with half the population of America, and I felt tired! I guess the only thing that felt similar was Obama's big day.
They had a fly over of jets! They had two really famous R'N'B singers sing different important American songs! They had an army man do the toss! They had 100,000 people in the stadium!
It was all very exciting. Then the big moment. The game started. Me and Rowetta watched in admiration (and complete confusion) as the game began. Rowetta had no idea what was going on, but it was all very exciting. I had a vague idea from when I used to play John Madden Football on my Game Gear 10 years ago. So it was hard to follow.
The reason I think it is perfect for non sports fans is that it so much fun to try and work out what is going on. I would love to see an intellectual, a doctor, a philosopher or a Mensa champ try to work out the ins and outs of NFL. It's great! Each 'quarter' is supposed to last 15 minutes, but it doesn't; they can end up lasting up to 30-40 minutes. I have no idea when the clock stops or starts. It seems completely random.
The best thing is the fact that most of them are just fat. Not remotely healthy or strong looking. They just look fat. I suppose it must work, if you hit a wall of fat, it would probably hurt, a lot.
But the best thing ever about the Super Bowl is that at half time, they build a stage in the middle of the pitch, get everyone on it, and then let Bruce Springsteen play for 12 minutes. I won't review him, but it was the best thing in a sports show I have ever seen. Although I imagine the pitch was fucked from that!
Anyway, after an hour halftime break, the guys came back on. That is when it got exciting. I have no idea who was playing, but the teams got close, and the scores got closer, and I was almost drawn in by the power of American sport! It ended, Pittsburgh won, but it seemed completely unimportant.
I turned the television off, 3 and a half hours later. A spectacle on a huge scale. It made me like normal, non American sport. It wasn't stop and start all the time. It was fast, furious, quick witted and non stop, for half the time.
Non-sports fans, Super Bowl is a great night out.
Sports fans, stick to good ole proper sports.
“They had an army man do the toss.” I imagine this is some kind of dance?
Talking of spectacle, it was interesting to see Obama’s inauguration and compare it to political events in the UK. I mean, it’s simply incomparable. Much as I love and respect Obama (and by this I mean I really want to suspend my natural cynicism and give him the benefit of the doubt, because whatever the limitations placed on him he’s clearly a remarkable man), the scale of the inauguration spectacle was a little hard to stomach. That kind of mass event is really quite alien to British viewers. The flags, the Aretha Franklin song, the joyous invocations of God and democracy… It just wouldn’t happen here.
I’m not denying there is a genuine feeling of hope and change in the US, and I’m not running this down. I’m delighted. I think it’s amazing what Obama’s achieved, and I know the massive crowds in Washington were there to express real belief in the need to change America’s direction. It was just a reminder of how different politics is over here. Can you imagine any British politician who could possibly draw such crowds? Even Tony Blair’s celebration (back when he was our great left-wing hope) was muted compared with Obama’s.
This is also a reminder, of course, that we have no great hope to turn to now. It’s a choice between poor and very poor. I’m jealous of America, actually, spectacle or no spectacle.
Do you remember Bush’s inauguration? How different that was from Obama’s. Bush approached the White House in closed convoy, it was pouring with rain, there were no crowds lining the street, and the cameras showed him scuttling out of the car like a beetle and legging it to shelter.
Obama served oatmeal cookies at his Superbowl party: http://www.nytimes.com/20...tics/04web-zeleny.html?hp
Also, regarding scrutiny’s comment: University of Chicago scientists have just proved that there is only .0004% difference between George Bush’s DNA and the DNA of a dung beetle.