In 2010, when the New Orleans Saints faced off against the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV, actor/comedian Denis Leary volunteered his advice for women everywhere to Oprah.com. We thought it might come in handy this weekend when you watch Super Bowl 2013.
That's right. Eight. Could have been 10, but that's David Letterman territory. Could have been 12. But that's a couple more than Dave and thus a little too show-offy.
In fact, I could have listed 18 or 20 or 25, but those numbers, to use a little football parlance, may just have been perceived as "piling on."
So eight it is.
Eight things to stay far, far away from while watching the Super Bowl with your boyfriend, partner, lover or hubby-poo.
Eight things we men really, really, REALLY hate to hear about while we are watching the biggest football game of the year with a bunch of our best buddies and their wives or girlfriends or fiancées. Eight things men watching men chase other men around while men with microphones say manly things don't want to hear women talk about.
In no particular order:
Other Men's Asses
We don't want to hear about them. Not a single one. Not the ass of Tom Brady. Not the ass of Reggie Bush. Strange as it may seem, we don't look at other men's rear ends. Not even the tight end's end, whether it be tight or fat or anything in between. So if some player's backside begins to strike your fancy during the game, please keep it to yourself. Because I can almost guarantee that any conversation involving Tom Brady's butt or the derriere of Reggie Bush will only lead down a road I like to call the Celebrity Ass Worship Extravaganza, which for almost every single heterosexual man on this planet includes detailed and numerous discussions about just how fantastic Giselle Bündchen's ass looks from absolutely every angle and the walking spectacle that is the keister of Kim Kardashian.
The Cheerleaders
We are aware -- down deep -- that they know nothing about football. We know that as they leap and tumble and toss their little tushes to and fro, it's not because their team just intercepted an opposing pass on third and goal in the red zone. It's because someone standing inches off-camera pointed at them and said, "Go!" We are fully cognizant that they may be only two pompoms and a trumped-up aerobics audition away from serving hot wings in a tight white Hooters T-shirt. Please don't ruin it by pointing out such salient information. We get it. We just don't want to think about that right now. We just want to watch the dancing cleavage for a few seconds in between big plays. If the networks would allow strippers on the sidelines, we wouldn't be watching the football game at all. Which is why the cheerleaders don't take their clothes off. Or talk.
Curtains
Please do not discuss the curtains and which new curtains you are thinking of getting or the carpet or the new carpet you're considering or new chairs or new coffee tables or lamps or bathroom fixtures or tiles or sconces of any kind. We don't care about them on a REGULAR football day, never mind Super Bowl Sunday. We don't even know what sconces are. Sounds like some kind of breakfast thing to most of us. Something like a muffin, only harder. You say sconce, we think butter.
Wine And Cheese
Not today. No wine, no brie, no grapes, no table water crackers, no crudité. It's football. It's beer, booze and beef. Steak and cheese. Beer and Cheez-Its. Cheetos and fried chicken. Pork sausage and potato chips. REAL potato chips. Not baked. No apple slices arrayed on large serving platters with a celery stick section and a little baby carrot area located right next to a petite plastic half-pint container of real Israeli hummus. We want meat. Big, hot, red chunks of meat. And cold beer. Lots and lots of cold beer. Remember: We're morons. Watching a bunch of other morons try to catch a ball made out of a dead cow. Do you really wanna waste your Bordeaux or imported fromage on us? No. Fromage means cheese, right? Or is it a French car? Shoot. I think it's a car. I love French stuff. Mmmm, french fries. Let's get some french fries for the game.
Frenemies
We don't want to listen as you dissect your love/hate relationships with Jenny the Bitch from Accounting, who dresses like a whore and trash talks about all of you behind your backs but who you still stay friends with because of some insane female DNA dollop that requires you to talk unendingly about how much Botox she has had injected into her forehead and how much smaller her tits used to be and how you plan on never talking to her again only to invite her and her human tool of a husband over for dinner next week out of a sick and twisted desire to remain her friend in order to feel more superior about yourselves. We get that. We've already wasted countless hours -- not to mention brain cells and really good cold beer -- talking to the aforementioned hammerhead she married during previous coupled-up appointments. It's one of the prices we pay for being with you. But right now, the only bitch we want to talk about is the one playing quarterback for our favorite team. The one who threw three interceptions last week because he's afraid of getting hit. I'd like to Botox HIS face if we don't win this game.
Other Men's Arms
We know football players have huge arms. They are muscled and massive and bulging and, well, just plain big. We know you love arms that look like that. Here's a headline for you though: We are never going to have arms that size. Ever. Never ever. Not if we buy new furniture twice a week and move it in ourselves. Not if we take the couch we are currently sitting on and just maneuver it around the room six or seven times a day. Not even if we take the trash out every single hour for 67 straight days. We will never have those football player-size arms. So stop ogling them. Or ogle them without mentioning how much ogling of them you are currently involved with to us.
And pass the potato chips.
And the sour cream dip.
And the fried pork rinds please.
The Rules
They are very, very complicated. And it will take a very very long time to explain them. And the time to explain them is not during the most important game of the year. So let me break it down to the absolute most basic of all basics for you: Our team is good. The other team is evil. The point of the game is for our team to beat the living daylights out of the other team. Anything our team does -- kicking, biting, punching, stomping -- should be legal. Everything the other team does should be totally against the law. That’s really all you need to know.
Oprah
We love Oprah as much as you do. We really do. She keeps you busy. She makes you read really large and long and involved books about self-help and self-discovery and Jesus and the civil rights movement -- which lets US read really short and stupid ones about Joe Namath and Vince Lombardi and golf and the history of helmets. But please let’s not talk about Oprah today. Please? Just for like -- four hours? Please? We promise to take out the trash and move furniture and even learn what a sconce is. Please?
To find out more about Denis Leary's books, buy the complete series of "Rescue Me," or contribute to LearyFirefighters.org, visit DenisLeary.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @denisleary.
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