Super Bowl Beh-lues (Is Mick Jagger Clinically Dead?)
While I generally agree with Tim Cavanaugh's Super Bowl comments below, I'm surprised that he left out arguably the greatest lowlight of the evening: the half-time show in which Mick Jagger limped around the stage like he'd just stubbed his toe while wheezing out the lyrics to "Start Me Up," just about the worst song in the Stones' legit discography (roughly defined as anything up through, well, Tattoo You, the LP that contains "Start Me Up," a fake signature song that the World's Oldest Rock and Roll band has foisted on audiences for going on 25 years now). Sir Mick even had old lady flapping triceps on display, arguably more offensive than any wardrobe malfunction could ever be.
Dast I say that Michael Novak was as right about Super Bowl extravaganzas as he was wrong about the "unmeltable ethnics" (who ended up blending right into an oh-so-tasty All-American dessert fondue of identity–oh so good on marshmallows especially)? Recall his Kurtzian (as in Heart of Darkness or, even more so, Marlon Brando in the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now), "exterminate the brutes" rant in the wake of Lady Janet's exposed nipple from just two years ago (A.D.):
Why does the NFL do this? Why do they want to dramatize in corrupt "art" the very opposite of what they dramatize on the field, in the inherent beauty of football itself? Why do they turn halftime over to people who loathe every virtue football stands for and depends on?
There are so many beautiful events in the history of our nation that our children and our families deserve to know, so many glorious episodes to dramatize. Why doesn't the NFL stage a ten-year sequence of halftime shows that tell the great story of the Founding of our nation? For this story embodies all the virtues required by championship football, and many others besides….
Why can't the NFL support the Herculean struggles of besieged families, and overworked schools, against the horrid drudge of a sick popular culture, and help parents and teachers to fire the imaginations of our children with ennobling images of greatness and achievement? Why does the NFL put our families through the sludge of an exhausted, desperate pagan culture that is going nowhere, and celebrates losers and freaks? Our families have enough enemies to fight through. Must they also fight the NFL?
On a deeper level, why does the NFL go against its own nature, beliefs, and strengths? Why does it embarrass and demean itself?
Indeed, why NFL, why? Novak's whole unintentionally hilarious blast, which includes a call for "a ten-year sequence of halftime shows that tell the great story of the Founding of our nation" and which will make even the biggest Seahawk fan (you know you're out there) forget for a minute the drubbing your team took, online here.
