This Sunday a hundred million people (or more) will gather world-wide to watch something that is a mixture of religion, US jingoism, and a sporting event that usually falls way short of the hype.
Here is why we're not going to watch the super bowl:
Because with the understanding of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) , the sport is no longer building character, but destroying minds.
Because more Americans know who Tom Brady is, than Iago, or Doctor Alexander Manette.
Because more Americans know the story line of any particular super bowl than the story line of Hamlet, or a Tale of Two Cities (Doctor Manette is a character in the story.)
Because the game has assumed a religious fervor.
Because Cities and States spend more money on building new football stadiums, than on building new schools.
Because the Super Bowl becomes a festival of gluttony in a country where children still go to bed hungry at night and go to school hungry in the morning.
Because the average fan can't afford a ticket to the game.
Because the average fan can quote the forty-yard dash time of their favourite superstar, but can't run forty yards themselves.
Because the NFL makes heroes out of people who kill (OJ Simpson and Rae Carruth), people who traffic drugs and plan to kill judges (Darryl Henley), players who beat their girlfriends and spouses (pick a team, every team has at least one), players who sexually harass staff (Brett Favre) and players who beat helpless children (Adrian Peterson). You can't find a group of people less worthy of admiration.
Because we are contrarians by nature and when everyone likes something and wants to do it, we want no part of it.
Because it is in the end, a meaningless game in which men spend hundreds of hours devoted to the minutiae of the game. Spend that time and care and consideration on removing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere, we say.
Because in the end, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to anyone but a few dozen players and coaches who wins this game. And those people mean nothing to us.
So we will not be watching the game. We will be going to a fascinating lecture on Ayurvedic health and yoga.
But fear not, we will have our picks, including the deadlock winner coin toss, and a special feature available only on your favoritie blog: the REGJB-Super Bowl special prop bets.
For example, will Judge De La O's Monday calendar have more pages than Broncos TE Owen Daniels has receiving yards?
Stay tuned, and enjoying super bowl weekend doesn't mean you have to watch the game.
Is this some kind of joke or did Rumpole lose so much money gambling this year that he's joined the war on football?
ReplyDeleteYou're such a rebel. I will be in Hong Kong, and will find a place to watch the game because it is fun and great. Football needs to get the head injuries under control, but it. Is a sport that builds character. Big time.
ReplyDeleteYes.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a war on football. I think, after much reflection I have a war on the decline of the culture in our country. I am worried that technology provides so much access to so many things, many like video games stimulate the brain much like drugs do, that we just don't pick up a book and read Henry V, or the Taming of the Shew, or Of Mice and Men- which you can read in one rainy afternoon.
ReplyDeleteAs to football, it has become too much, with the worship of the game today becoming akin to being a good American. The reasoning is that if you don't go to a party, eat a ton of bad food, become obsessed with even the smallest points of the game, spend a moment at the beginning of the game honoring some poor american solider grievously wounded overseas, then you aren't a good citizen. Somehow enjoying the super bowl became wrapped up on honoring first responders from 9/11. It's become a patriotic event, not a sporting event. And yet we've become a society that can mostly watch sports we can't perform.
Every now and then this lack of culture just becomes too much for me, so I hopped on a plane at the last minute yesterday with a back-pack, flew to NYC, checked into one of these old, sophisticated hotels where there is a library in the lobby, got tickets to a show, had a nice meal, and today I will wander through the Met and have a quiet dinner at a super french restaurant, before taking an early morning flight home tomorrow. Just two days of quiet culture, a good meal, some art. Plus, the lecture on Yoga is next week.
lol @ De La O. Best comment ever.
ReplyDelete