Why does watching the Super Bowl make me feel as if I just survived two weeks of CIA brainwashing at Gitmo? When it's over, I can barely speak other than to say, "God bless the NFL."
How many times can a dehumanizing, violence-addicted corporation express its eternal love for America, in between promos for shows like The Following, in which a serial killer exerts mind control on masses of people? How many times are we supposed to ingest this crapola before we all run out and try to kill Kevin Bacon?
I'm sorry, but when every two minutes brings another heartfelt pang of pure patriotic joy, does patriotic joy really exist at all? After last night's Super Bowl mind blitz, just to suggest that the NFL is a money-making machine, which grinds employees into simple-minded gimps, so billionaires can fondle trophies, is to speak blaspheme about God and America, which we should know are linked together... by the NFL.
I can't take it anymore. I wish instead of running puppy bowls and kitten bowls, and alternative halftimes, some network with a little courage ran a flat-out anti-NFL pregame show, sort of the way The Daily Show looks at politics, or Talk Soup once did for reality shows, and studies the crap being troweled out by these suited Alfred E. Newmans with microphones. The GOP gets to rebut the State of the Union. Shouldn't the rest of America -- that is, people who don't buy into the NFL propaganda blitz -- have a place to vent?
Yesterday, before the game, they recited the Declaration of Independence. Then they sang America the Beautiful. Then they sang the National Anthem. During the game, Coke sang America the Beautiful again, in different languages. At halftime, Bruno Mars dedicated a song to America. Bob Dylan made a patriotic speech about American cars. Budweiser wrapped itself in the flag. If corporations are people -- as the U.S. Supreme Court believes -- then they are better Americans than we are, because they never resist the chance to sing a patriotic song -- and usually with a children's choir. It doesn't matter if they've moved their factory to Brazil. What great Americans they are. Can't you hear them sing?
Insert sigh here.
Listen: I cannot blame anybody else for my decision to plop down and watch five hours of the Super Bowl from pregame prayer to the locker room tradition of thanking of God and country. But there is an element of "cultural jury duty" here. You want to be like everyone else -- that is, to know what happened, to be conditioned to lean forward when Howie Long takes off his glasses, because you know that means he's about to make an important point. They somehow sold us the notion that the Super Bowl is America, and if you don't watch it, something is wrong with you. I turned on that TV all by myself. Michael Strahan did not force me. As a result, I am preparing to roam the country with two thoughts looping in my head today: Football, GOOD... Must DESTROY Kevin Bacon.