Re: RAT THE SUPERBOWL?

[NOMADMONAD@aol.com]

Stuck in the middle of the winter just prior to the Groundhog Day assessment, 
Super Bowl has become a kind of final hurrah to the indulgences paid to our 
winter fat.  

The season begins with the Thanksgiving turkey-with-all-the-trimmings but 
then marches immediately on counting the shopping days until Fat Ass Santa's 
coffers are filled.  

The drunken regalement of New Year's eve once was enough of a capper.  But 
this is the Land of Plenty where less is never more.  So we have created this 
almost parody of consumerism to underline our survival of the Pokemon and 
other retail ghouls of the season.  

No real food is allowed on this truly American HolyDay.  Only foodstuffs that 
comes in cans and bags and boxes.  Beer, pretzels, pizza and the like.  No 
real conversation either.  (But hopefully witty playwrights and others are 
present for the sharing of the cheap laughs and box wine.)

Then there is the always-brilliant anti-entertainment of the halftime show.  
And remember that this is also the day Rosannes are allowed to sing the 
national anthem. 

Statistics show that 43 per cent of the Super Bowl audience are women now.  
We've come a long way, baby.  And the real sport to watch on the Super Bowl 
Sunday for many years now has been the new ad premieres.  

The Dot Com companies led the advertisers who spent over 2 million dollars 
for a 30-second spot this year.  Reminding us that even though we survived 
another year of the Big Game of capitalism, they'd be back next year, bigger 
and better.

John started this thread talking about visions of Hell.  I thought that a few 
of the two-million-dollar commercial spots intertwined nicely with one 
another to give a clear preview of what Hell will be. 

There was that trailer for the movie Gladiator that juxtaposed images of 
televised violence from Super Bowl pasts with their fictive representation of 
violence in the Roman Circus. Then a little later out "walked" Christopher 
Reeves.  Next the contemporary Mohammed Ali with Vascular Parkinson's 
disease, still punches away, here in a spot for WebDoctor Dot Com.

I am sure that Hell will be merely some version of ShoppersParadise Dot Com. 
But Creepy in a Night of the Living Dead kind of way as these commercials 
are.  The fat faces of celebrities haunting us, selling us something we need. 
  Both the need and its luminary Stars intertwined in some insatiable eternal 
longing.   

We are all fans of the Big Game.  May we live forever.

--nick