Saturday, February 04, 2017

the sun goes down in the mountains; another day is gone. super bowl is tomorrow and i've promised my son i'd watch it. he likes the patriots though, i don't. those are the guys who let all the air out of the balls and got away with it, though i might have my story wrong here. to me, if the government is taken over by a bunch of immoral millionaire liars, why should i root for anyone called "patriots?"

on the other hand, it is a kind of north-south thing, and i dislike the falcons too, although it was said at one point that they have a quaker on their side. he isn't a quaker, someone pointed out, he's a catholic who played for william penn. well what does that mean? and besides he's a football player. this means that if he does what they want him to do, he'll gather up a violent froth and go after those patriots with a vicious fervor. i don't really support football at all, but i support my son, who needs good information to take back to his classmates, for example, a solid grasp of the rules of football which one best gets from one's father, when one doesn't want to admit that one doesn't have a clue, otherwise. he also wants me to take him hunting (like the other fathers do), but i've been dragging my feet.

actually my team is the cleveland browns, who didn't even win their first game until something like december, and are therefore in the very basement and will probably get another good draft pick, like jonny football, who will be wasted away or perhaps traded away. i thought of just switching my allegiance to the cowboys (so now my two teams would be the cowboys and indians), but, the fact is, i have very little love for football at all, though now my wife tells me that they are taking great pains to make sure children are not getting killed in the process of playing it. by great pains, i mean, they are changing helmets, or changing the game, or just making sure you can do it, and not have your brain turn into commas. i decided, a while back, that since the game was dangerous, and fatal, to so many, that i wouldn't support it by watching or doing anything else.

but now, my son badly wants me to watch with him, and even has the channel arranged so we can get it on his x-box (this has not always been guaranteed - we generally live without television). so i agreed to do it, as i have a longstanding promise to spend time with him whenever it is possible, and under his terms. if that's what he wants, ok, i'll be there for him, and i'll give a report too, as the super bowl is the number one advertising venue of the year, as well as the top showcase for the best commercials that exist, or at least the ones that are all geared toward people like me, paunchy, middle-aged, sedentary, semi-aggressive males. although, to tell you the truth, they probably prefer the ones with money, or at least the ones that don't let their wives do their shopping.

from the pure genius-in-commercial-making point of view, they actually have commercials that people talk about the following day, as in, did you see that doritos commercial? or, the bud ones were really good this year. you have people who just watch the commercials. you have other people who are basically football fans, but have been drawn in to the commercials over the years. you have people who just watch because everyone, absolutely everyone else, is.

now that alone is a commentary on today's society, a commentary as bad as electing you-know-who, or saying that violence against women and blatant lying are obviously not deal-breakers for most people, even a few of them who would call themselves christians. in fact there's a wide love of football throughout the nation's churches, and there are even a few quaker football fans, though many are like me, actively disdaining the violence. quite a few just tune in, watch it, have something to talk about among other guys, and don't really have a problem with the fact that the people actually doing it are killing themselves, supposedly. the game was made for television. we have lots of very comfortable living rooms, why not make a plate of nachos and sit down and enjoy it?

one element of it is, it's a kind of mid-winter festival. we've been cooped up a couple months already. the groundhog has given us his wretched news. the snow keeps piling in. but most of all, this house is too small to say no to a kid.

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