“Trying ahead to the Tremendous Bowl?” a man buddy requested just lately, not with out a little snigger. Larry’s the sort of man who finds burping as punctuation to his phrases to be inordinately humorous. I additionally suspect he’s keen on manscaping. However since we’ve by no means gone swimming collectively–I’ll solely go within the water if I’m swathed in material, very similar to the saris outdated girls put on whereas bathing within the Ganges–I’ll by no means know.
“Yup,” I mentioned. “I feel the Tremendous Bowl is probably the most thrilling quarter-hour of the sports activities 12 months.
“Fifteen minutes?” Larry seemed perplexed, like a canine who turns his head facet to facet when listening to an odd noise.
I nodded. “The halftime present is the best.”
Right here he took a wider stance and sucked in his sizable middle-age intestine stretching his “Greg Brady 12” T-shirt. I might see I’d challenged his Armchair Jock Privilege on what’s the holiest of holy sports activities days for straight males. I used to be about to capitulate and let him off the hook when he mentioned it.
Sure, he mentioned it.
“The Tremendous Bowl’s not about all that fluff and feathers. It’s about the traditional mano-a-mano custom of brute power to win and vanquish.”
Until my mediocre public schooling fails me, I don’t recall the Greeks and Spartans ever partaking in a rousing recreation of toss-the-pigskin.
And fluff and feathers? Fluff and feathers? How dare he! Now, he had offended my Onerous-Received Homosexual Fabulosity Privilege.
Didn’t he understand how a lot these halftime reveals meant to little boys who secretly practiced the choreography of the Jackson 5 and Tony Orlando and Daybreak of their basements? And when those self same little boys grew as much as be homosexual males and gathered in entrance of the TV for these treasured quarter-hour, quaffing prosecco prefer it was Budweiser and stuffing their faces with completely coiffed deviled eggs, swirls of do-it-yourself pâté, and, after all, Nancy Drew Blondies, they felt…included.
Didn’t he perceive that each time Katy Perry stands and sings on high of an unlimited golden lion, or Girl Gaga flies by means of the air, or The One’s idol, Diana Ross, tells the group, “Right here comes my trip!” as she jumps right into a helicopter and lifts means, it takes away The Sting?
The sting of getting needed to hunch by means of hours of inscrutable performs and tortuously lengthy timeouts with bully cousins who stored stuffing your copy of “The Unimaginable Journey” down their pants, so that you have been pressured to observe.
The sting of getting been the brunt of your gymnasium class’s jokes since you couldn’t catch or throw a soccer.
The sting felt by a barely plump, significantly impressionable school sophomore, who in 1980 was requested by his secret crush to come back over and watch the sport collectively, solely to find his crush’s girlfriend mendacity on the sofa. (For the file, the halftime present that 12 months featured Up With Folks, so all three and a half hours have been a waste. Double sting.)
No, Larry, the Tremendous Bowl halftime present isn’t a couple of bunch of fluff and feathers; it’s probably the greatest 15-minute home events ever. And the sport, oddly in these divisive instances, is presumably probably the most inclusive in our nation.
For just a few transient shining hours, you and I–homosexual and straight, Dleft and proper–come collectively (metaphorically, for I’ll by no means step foot in a person cave), and also you get to observe your guys, I get to observe my women, and we each get to giggle at a few of the most hilarious commercials of the 12 months. (The solely distinction? I’ll in all probability have one hell of a greater unfold than you. Simply saying.)
So this Sunday, sir, The One and I’ll as soon as once more tune in to catch the previous couple of minutes of the primary inning of the Jets and Sharks giving one another lawsuit-grade concussions as they make their means up and down the grillwork–gaining and dropping Watership Downs–all of the whereas gunning for these house runs. Then we’ll sit again to get pleasure from within the climax of the night: Justin Timberlake.
And the next day, I gained’t have interaction in Monday-morning quarterbacking and even be capable of inform you the rating. However I’ll be pleased to convey horny again by recreating each transfer of JT’s halftime choreography. And, as The One is aware of, that’s a spectacle to not be missed.
Chow,
