My Name Ain't Baby

February 13, 2004
By: Dave Zirin

There is an old joke that "I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out." This past Sunday I viewed a four-hour creative kaleidoscope designed to sell Viagra, beer, cars, and more Viagra, yet somewhere in the middle of it all, a hell of a football game reared its head.
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady completed a Super Bowl record 32 passes. A Patriot receiver no one except his mama has heard of named Deon Branch caught 10 passes for 143 yards. New England linebacker Mike Vrabel not only had two sacks but caught the winning touchdown. On the other side, a Po' Boy from New Orleans, Carolina Panthers Quarterback Jake Delhomme, averaged 20 yards a completion, and shook off a 1 for 9 beginning to lead his squad to the cusp of Super Bowl immortality. The two quarterbacks, one a sixth round pick and the other undrafted were in a zone in the fourth quarter that was simply stunning. It was the duel Montana/Marino, Simms/Elway or Aikman/Kelly should have been in Super Bowls past but never were. Call it a battle for the ages. Yet the next day, the water-cooler conversation concerned a gassy horse and Janet Jackson's right breast.
The actual game suffocated under the weight of flatulent ponies, bleating mules, and an elderly couple violently thrashing each other for potato chips. The best fourth quarter ever played, featuring 37 points and three lead changing scoring drives in the final three minutes was rendered almost mute in the face of a dog biting one man on the crotch (for beer) and a 'bikini wax' applied to another (once again for beer). Not a good day for genitalia. Thank goodness, NFL Hall of Famer 'Iron' Mike Ditka was on hand to assure us, as he threw a football through a tire, that using Levitra is nothing to be embarrassed about.
It cost companies $2.3 million a minute to advertise during the game. $2.3 million for former art and design students to flex their skills at making us feel empty if we lack the best cars, the best beers, and the best brands. Yet for the first time since that other Jackson, Michael, danced with a small army of 10-year-old boys in 1992, half time stole the show.
We saw Kid Rock's Dallas Cowboy fur coat. We saw rapper Nelly grab his private parts so much, you would think he was holding a bud light. And we saw Janet Jackson and Justin engaging in the worst choreographed 'surprise' since the Oswald prison transfer.
But it was the post-half-time show that will linger in my memory. We got a good old-fashioned streaker - an ugly naked guy in the best tradition of the species. This was an espresso shot of reality. All weekend, people from the 'Department of Homeland Security' (just writing that makes me feel secure) were on television saying that 'Houston will be the safest place in the world on Sunday.' Yet, Fortress Houston was penetrated; not by Carlos the Jackal or Al Quada, but a fat guy's weenie. This led to sanctimonious horror from the booth as the cameras cut away, denying us the opportunity to see this guys goal post. You have to love the logic: Hear sexual advice from Iron Mike, but please don't reveal some guy's furry tush.
We also had the third quarter begin under a haze of smoke so thick from the half time hi-jinks that I could hear everyone in my building slapping the side of their TVs. The game was obscured by fog machine remnants surely as it was obscured by the commercial culture around it. The thick fog continues well into this week. Now the most discussed Federal investigation in the United States revolves not around a false case for war but Ms. Jackson's boobery. As the Post's Sally Jenkins put it, call the entire episode a "Weapon of Mass Distraction."
A visitor from Mars (next stop on the Presidents' occupation tour) would surely believe that we must be a society of infinite material comfort if we can spare resources to be regaled by the latest in the commercial training of donkeys and chimps and obsess over 'bosom-gate'. That Martian would be sorely disappointed once he turned off the Tivo.