THE DAY AFTER THE SUPER BOWL

 



photo by rob carr/getty images

There's no yesterday's news like the day after the Super Bowl. Like Christmas, when it's over, it's over. Christmas is over the moment the last present is unwrapped. Big hype, big expectation for weeks. Then it's over. Poof. Gone to the zone of memories. The Super Bowl game was a truly memorable game for me. The story of the brother coaches, the parents and entire families there for the game, were the real story of this Super Bowl. The worst for the losing brother was this was the first time SF lost a Super Bowl, evidently. SF's last play, fouls committed by opposition overlooked by referee, set the SF coach to wringing his guts. Had the receiver been able to catch ball, both his feet would have landed out of bounds and the pass ruled incomplete. From coach's perspective at the sideline a long ways off looked one way; it was different from the perspective of the camera in close. Hearing news people make noise about the overlooked passer interference turns my ears off like hearing Donald Trump wanting to see the president's birth certificate.

I enjoyed every minute of the game. The best was when Reed ran the ball 108 yards to touchdown. It was the most beautiful run I think I've ever seen. He ran through a channel that opened in front of him as he ran. Ran through the opposition and then outran his lone pursuer. Simply outran him. I enjoy seeing two people running all out and the one in front pulling away from the one chasing him. I believe this was Reed's last game too. Beautiful video to have of that run in his last game. I was pulling for Baltimore, because my friends I was watching the game with were pulling for them. It was important to them. To me, it was White against Red. I could have pulled for the Red as easily as I pulled for the White. The game did not have many good plays at the line, not many runners wiggled through the line. Line defense on both sides was tight. It looked to me like most of the advances were made through the air. I say "looked to me" because if I'd see stats of the game, they would probably say the opposite of what I thought I saw. The teams were so tight that the driving force and the inhibiting force were equal, making for a steady back and forth rhythm.

Baltimore setting out like they did, making the score at the end of the first half 21 to 3, if I remember correctly (I'm sure I don't), did not get my hopes up the least little bit. I was remembering about a month ago seeing Atlanta subdue SF first half to the same degree. Second half, Atlanta didn't score anything and SF caught up with and surpassed them in the second half. They came close to repeating that performance. There was even the time with four minutes left in the game I figured SF would score for certain and win. They were down to the 2 yard line with four downs. Baltimore defense held them in place. SF chose to go for the touchdown on 4th down and it didn't work. Tight game. I like a tight game like that. I also like a loose game. There is something about tv football that satisfies a liking for seeing something different every time, like watching a flame in a fireplace. Years ago, I asked Ted Stern how he could watch tv games, football, basketball and baseball all the time. He answered, "The same way you listen to that music you listen to." I got it. He couldn't have answered it more clearly. It told me he understood that I was hearing something that's equally satisfying to me.

It's the skill I like to watch in the players. I believe that applied for him too. I'm learning a little bit about strategies, though I really don't care to know. I'd far rather listen to music than watch football, though I like to watch football too. Of course, we like to think the games are not "rigged." Yet, considering a Super Bowl game is the biggest money tv event of the year, where it's important that Beyonce NOT lip-sync, and trillions up to be won or lost by gambling enterprises all over the world. Where that much underworld money is involved, it is hard to believe some big money is not drifting around under the table, too. The Super Bowl is about money and nothing else. Four million for a half minute commercial, tells me advertisers know the power of television. In cogressional hearings, they let on like they never heard of television having any influence on anybody. When you can watch films and tv shows about killing around the clock without even trying, the influence on our society is becoming more obvious every week on the evening news. Our tv is about slap-stick comedy, sports and killing. Sports amount to subliminal killing. It is ours to learn to immunize ourselves to the influence of solving problems by killing, every day of our lives. Like everything else that requires an effort of awareness, few will bother. So it's not a solution for the whole, only for a few.

None of us watching the game believed the power outage occurring when it did was anything but sabotage. Before the game, Justin told me the "odds" favored SF in the gambling arena. The lights going out came when SF needed their turn-around that the half-time gave them before. I've seen over and over the half-time change the dynamic of a game. After the 2nd half started, SF had not made the turn to take charge of the game. It was the same momentum as in the first half. When the lights came back on, the dynamic had shifted. SF came out swinging. I saw something today making reference that Louisiana being a "work free" union free state, no electrician union standards were met by the electricians there working the lights. My thought then was that without the union, it would be easy to send somebody in to do one thing in particular and disappear. It has nothing to do with unions or not unions. Offer some working class guy a house on the beach at Waikiki and a million a year for life. His tongue would be hanging out and dripping. He'd be saying, Tell me what to do, boss. Tell me what to do. I was glad to see the ruse was just a few minutes too late for the time SF needed in the second half.

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