MAGA Pushes Back Black Uncle Sam

It took too long but eventually I put sports and my “fandom” in perspective. I loved competing back when I played and later refereeing and umpiring. Had I not gone into the Marines at age 26 I was on my way to becoming a helluva ref. Already at that point at the end of my final season as a zebra I had some (albeit smaller towns) ADs asking me if I thought I was ready to start working Varsity games! Well, for all the liberalism anyone who has read my work knows I possess I DO have a few old fashioned qualities. I believe in old-fashioned sportsmanship. You play your heart out, fiercely even but not dirty and when the game is done win or lose with some class and grace. I failed at that a couple of times and all these decades later am still ashamed of myself.

Sports has devolved a great deal during my lifetime in this regard, yet there’s something about a championship game that still I can enjoy. Except for the Super Bowl. Not that I haven’t enjoyed many a Super Bowl in the five-plus decades of watching them. Some have been truly “super” football games but some (many in fact) have not. Part of that is because even when both teams are terrific one team simply gets outcoached. A team can have a vulnerability the other team is uniquely able to exploit, and/or a coaching staff that knows how to use their personnel to do so. And even if the other side is aware of what could happen (not always the case) their attempts to counter what they fear is coming are ineffective. I’ve seen my share of them going back to when I was a kid when the game was effectively over by halftime. If halftime was a week long a team getting whupped might, seeing what the other side was doing be able to make adjustments but that’s not how it works.

I’m old school enough that when watching a football game I pay attention to what’s going on between the tackles. By the end of the first quarter last night it was clear the Chiefs’ offensive line, a source of concern all season long was way overmatched. The greatest quarterbacks and running backs in history have faced the same nightmare the Chiefs did last night, even and including in championship games. Including the Super Bowl. On the flipside a stout Chief’s defense and line was better than the score showed but still outplayed. In part it was because their offense forced them to play far more downs/time than it the case if teams expect to win. It’s more difficult and tiring to play defense, especially at that level.

So it was apparent the Chiefs, a team I’ve rooted for since I was a kid in the 1960s were going to get whipped. Many a quarterback including Patrick Mahomes has shelled out big bucks for extravagant gifts for their offensive line after a season (hugely expensive rings or even luxury cars/SUVs) but the Chiefs’ O-line knows while they’ll get something it won’t be all that much! They didn’t do all that great a job all year long and completely failed their team in the biggest game. Oh well.

So sometimes the Super Bowl game is great and compelling and sometimes not. The problem I started having with it decades ago is the game itself became if not a SECONDARY consideration then an event that had to share billing on an equal footing with commercialism and entertainment. The whole phenomena about the fucking commercials became as much a topic of conversation before and after the game as the teams and game itself! Not to mention how much money advertisers would blow on a 30 second spot. And SO fucking many of them. One thing that’s hurt sports at the college level but especially the pros are “TV timeouts” so more fucking commercials can be aired! If you’re a player it messes with the flow of the game and that shouldn’t be the case. The Super Bowl is in a class by itself in that regard. It’s ONE game to determine the year’s champion and as bad as TV timeouts are during the regular season having longer ones in the playoffs and even more during the fucking championship game, the Super Bowl long ago disgusted me.

Then there’s the whole halftime show business. WTF? Halftime is SUPPOSED to be a break in the action. A time for some rest and talking over any adjustments that might be made in the game plan. What’s working and what’s not and what/how plays or strategies should be used in the second half. A bit of time to assess and treat injuries and make decisions on how effective players might be in the second half. Fifteen minutes it used to be. It’s been extended a bit in big games (TV of course) but what shouldn’t happen is that is goes on so long that the players literally “cool down” most or all of the way. Yet in the Super Bowl because of these extended halfttime shows that’s exactly what happens.

It harms the quality of a game, at least the competitive ones. Worse, it affects player safety! But in the Super Bowl the halftime “star” it seems MUST get to show their ass! And things got to the point where they made goddam sure THEY were as big a focus as the game itself. Big productions, with sets that took as long to set up and take down as an old-school halftime used to take! That’s not right. If in the middle of one of their concerts, a big blowout show that was going to be broadcast LIVE they were forced to not only have an intermission where they could at least have a bathroom break but have a little food and drink but have it last a HALF HOUR (or more) so that some athletes could take over the stage for some type of competition they’d freak the fuck out! REFUSE to perform at all because the show was SUPPOSED to be about them! How many Super Bowl halftime performers who insist on putting on these large productions in the middle of a CHAMPIONSHIP game would put up with preparing a major live concert for months and then have to deal with repeated TV timeouts, AND a ridiculously long intermission where they had to sit in their dressing room, losing all the crowd energy from the ‘first half’ while a group of jocks put on some mini-sports competition? Basketball players doing dunks or shooting contests after clearing out space on the stage for goals. Or a three-on-three game. Or golfers doing trick shots/putts. Or football players doing skills demonstrations, like quarterbacks throwing footballs through a swinging hoop, etc?

I’d love to see a performing artist go out on a simple small stage and perform say three songs without all the backup dancers and effects. A ten to twelve minute show and then hurry their ass off the field so the players can get back out there and loosen up for the second half of what IS after all the season’s CHAMPIONSHIP game! I know. I’m crazy. Yet show me ANY other sport where in a championship game, a one game/match that’s for all the marbles they do what’s done in the Super Bowl. Extra interrruptions for commercials. A LENGTHY intermissions so some music “star” can try and make the whole event about them instead of the competitors trying to earn a trophy they’ve spend an entire season to earn!

So that’s why I seldom watch all or even most Super Bowls and haven’t for a long time. IF the game is a hard-fought/well-played one as sometimes happens I’ll watch most of it. I do however keep missing the start of second halves however because for many, many years I REFUSE to watch the fucking halftime shows! I’d rather miss some of the third quarter action than see one fucking second of some musical performer HOGGING the player’s spotlight!

If that makes me an asshole then so be it. Championship games including and especially the Super Bowl would do well to take a lesson from the members of the Augusta National Golf Club which hosts each year’s first major Championship – The Masters. It’s billed as “A tradition unlike any other” and that’s by god accurate. The members of the club are rich, in most cases the way Trumpty only dreams of being rich. Yet even now they only charge a dollar for a bottle of water, Only a little more for a soft drink, tea or lemonade. A couple of bucks for a sandwich and their pimento cheese is always a favorite. The fans get first class treatment every bit as much as the players do. Best of all the broadcasts each year have limited commerical interruptions. On average only four minutes in a given hour! The COMPETITION, the players trying to earn the right to put on that coveted green jacket when all is said and done is the entire focus.

THAT is what a championship level sporting even should be like. Every one. Even in other sports, be it baseball, basketball, hockey with a ‘game seven’ to decide it all, or other events like a soccer World Cup while there might be a few extra commercials the focus is the fucking GAME and the players. As it should be.

So when it comes to halftime Super Bowl shows and performers I don’t give a fuck. I make it a point to IGNORE that shit.

I don’t remember the old gag “The Revolution Will be Televised.” I do remember Gil Scot-Heron’s proto-hiphop poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” (1970)

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and drop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruption.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell,
General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
Hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.

The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and
will not star Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
Thinner, because The revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie Mays
Pushing that cart down the block on the dead run,
Or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not predict the winner at 8:32or the count from 29 districts.

The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of young being
Run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
There will be no slow motion or still life of
Roy Wilkins strolling through Watts in a red, black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the right occasion
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and
Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant,
and Women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.

The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock News
and no pictures of hairy armed women Liberationists and
Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key,
nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash,
Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.

The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a germ on your Bedroom,
a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that cause bad breath.
The revolution WILL put you in the driver’s seat.
The revolution will not be televised,

Will not be televised, will not be televised.

The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

My husband played football in high school. He took out Napoleon Rogers (Played for UGA and in the NFL) twice in the same game. He doesn’t want h football. Or basketball . Or baseball. I hate all team sports that involve spherical.objects; I was terrorized by gym.teachers. We didn’t watch the Superbowl. For all of the reasons above we could care less who.performs in the halftime show.
As a Wiccan n pagan ,I guess I am.in Denny’s bad graces. Yawn. My spouse spent 23 years in the military defending Denny’s right to be a jackass. How about you,,Benny? Did you serve? And you’re a plagiarist to boot,with Russian ties. Wow, what a great American.
I loathe rap. The cranked up.bass gives me a sinus headache. But I will take the most disgusting bit of rap.music over this piece of human toilet paper any day

Actually, 50.1% of all voters voted for someone other than Trump**. Unfortunately, they didn’t all vote for the same someone, so he won with a plurality – not a majority – of 49.9%