Patriot Act

Stick a fork in it, stuff a cork in it, football season's over, tra la.

I react to the completion of the Super Bowl as I do to the day after Christmas and the week after New Year's, with relief and a sense of renewal. Sure, we have to face a barren February and sports sections reduced to long listings of meaningless basketball scores. Not even any hockey, and frankly, aside from the players who didn't go back to Europe, who misses it? But my hair-of-the-dog hangover blog has to record at least some thoughts that registered as I experienced Sunday's Great Event XXXIX.

The game was close but dull. The Patriots won through teamwork and patience. Donovan McNabb is like a slot machine--some great pay-offs but a lot of lost opportunities in between. His long TD pass was impressive, but that late fourth-quarter drive reminded me of one of those dreams when the air turns the consistency of molasses as you try hopelessly to rush through it to some critical event. I don't think the Philly papers will be kind to him.

Best musical moment was the pre-game rendition of "America the Beautiful" which, even without the p.c. ASL accompaniment, would still move me. Not just the melody, which is simple and timeless, but those lyrics. American ideals of inclusiveness were never so succinctly spelled out as in the last three lines "God shed his grace on thee/And crown thy good with brotherhood/from Sea to shining sea." That goes for you Red Staters in between the seas, who might prefer "Rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air."

Second best musical moment was Paul McCartney's "Hey Jude," though it struck me that most of the throng of kids in his ersatz mosh pit, if they'd ever heard that song before, probably thought the lyric was "Hey Dude."

The Fed Ex spot, parodying the "ten" critical features of Super Bowl commercials, was a cheesy effort to satirize other cheesy efforts, and I thought not very imaginative. It cheated by mentioning talking animals four times. That's like citing the four most annoying consumer gadgets as cell phones, cell phones in SUVs, cell phones with cameras and cell phones that ring with "It's a Small World." But after viewing a bunch of yakking critters later, including those antic monkeys kissing ass and jumping on whoopie cushions, the Fed Ex people seemed absolutely prescient. Apart from one big-breast entry, most of the themes went to autos or grisly deaths, sometimes in combo (like the guy freezing solid in his Mustang convertible, with the Fargoesque cop). I did get a kick out of the tomato sauce/cat murderer gag. The "History of TV" ad for Direct TV was well-executed but sure made me feel my years. And it was nice to see a very brief appearance by an old poker buddy still earning some acting residuals in an I-tunes commercial.

Was there ever a better visual aid than the yellow first down line? It seems so seamless that it appears a real demarcation on the field. This is easily the best innovation in TV sports coverage since the centerfield camera (although the use of that became too standardized). Will we ever learn whom to credit for the yellow line? Did he or she get a raise or a promotion? We'll probably never know until he or she croaks and we read about it in the obituary.

Joe Buck could well be what a friend of mine would call "the luckiest White man in America," getting to call both the World Series and the Super Bowl. The title could easily go to President Bush, and in fact Buck is the Dubya of the play-by-play universe, having had his route to the top greased by a pioneering father. The difference is, Buck is talented at what he does. (Hey, am I crazy, or was Joe Buck also the name of Jon Voight's character in "Midnight Cowboy"?) The rest of the announcing crew was adequate, although the loquacious Troy Aikman did trip over his words, or was going Yoda on us, when he said "that runner had nowhere to really else go."

I finally to the bathroom went, but not until the game finally over was.