Ruminations on the Stupid Bowl

I blew it.

My Monday post should have been an exhaustive recap of the Super Bowl. But after three rum and Diet Cokes and a plateful full of smoked St. Louis style spare ribs and my wife's incredible spinach and artichoke dip -- the only way those two vegetables enter my body -- I just wasn't game for hitting the keyboard and clicking and clacking.

Also, and let's be honest here, the game sucked. It had all the excitement as one of those ESPN hardwood classics featuring the 1987 mid-season battle between the Buffalo Snoweaters and the Milwaukie CheeseRollers.

And let's be vocationally-carefree here and say the advertising sucked too. 

Apart from the occasional laugh delivered by Will Ferrell, Tracy Morgan and the Alexa new body, it was as lackluster as the Kansas City front line.

Don't even get me started on the Bruce Springsteen yankfest for Jeep. I'm a Jersey-adjacent guy and consider myself a fan, though he does have an annoying tendency towards self-importance. But this message, adorned by many, many, many crucifixes, about coming to the middle is a bunch of midwestern-hewn horsecockery.

At the risk of being redundant, I'll repeat the point I made on Facebook upon seeing the 2 minute "film."

To suggest both sides have to meet in the middle is to imply both sides walked away from the middle. A false premise if there ever was one. 81 million Americans just elected a Centrist president. 81 million Americans want a better health care system. Affordable access to higher education. A reduction in our seriously bloated military. Racial and judicial equality. In short, a more perfect union. 

Hardly the gateway drug to communism. These are not even far left "socialist" positions. They're about as middle as one can get.

On the other side of the aisle you have right wingers who allowed themselves to fall into a cult of personality. People who embrace hate. Fear. And authoritarianism. To the point that their leader incited a violent insurrection at our nation's Capitol, our House -- (Al Pacino Voice), "where our representatives do the work of the people!"--that resulted in death and injury. 

And guess what? To the amazement of sane Americans, many of these right wing Neo fascists still want to kiss his undersized wrinkly feet.

I'll have none of it.

You want to meet in the middle? Come on over. 81 million of us are already here.

Back to the Super Bowl. 

While coming excruciatingly close to having a spot on the Big Game, it has never happened for me. And now, at 44 years of age and fast approaching the sunset of my less than glorious career, it probably never will.

I'm perfectly fine with that. 

Particularly since I'm all too familiar with the process that precedes the airing of a Super Bowl spot. 

Did you know, for instance, that some agencies are already setting up the war rooms, getting out the colored Post It sticky notes, refreshing the loose leaf binder of local restaurant menus, handing out and then reading the briefs (word by painful word) to half awake creatives who will give up birthdays, weekends and anniversaries, not because they want to, but because they have to, all in order to get a spot in Super Bowl 56?

Yeah, in the words of Danny Glover, "I'm too old for this shit."