Now first off…I must tell you that I do not give a good goddamn who wins any big time American hypnomedia-sponsored sports event. Not in terms of being a “fan”, anyway. It don’t mean shit to me which group of overpaid, coddled-from-puberty motherfuckers wins a game of this sort on a purely sports or competition-based level. Two or three weeks from now no one except people who have nothing better to occupy their minds will even be able to remember which two teams played the game.
But still…the universe works in strange and mysterious ways, and anything that receives as much hype as the Stupor Bowl has a function in the grand scheme of things on this planet.
OK.
That said?
Here goes….
Read on.
So…like I said, I don’t really give a shit who wins.
And I have better things to do with my time as well.
To wit…I’ve got to get ready for two weeks of rehearsals and recording with a bunch of stone Nuyrorican motherfuckers presently known as “The Mambo Legends”. A band formerly known as “The Latin Giants” until business disputes transferred the name to some less-than-heavy people and left the real band…comprised mostly of people who have deep, deep roots in the Tito Puente/Machito/Tito Rodriquez tradition of rigororously played, Afro-Cuban/NYC-style, clavé-based dance/art music… high and dry with four years of wasted effort and not a pot to piss in.
So it goes and nothing new about it. The music has been preyed upon by wave after wave of no-playing hustlers and I am quite used to it. Immune to the hype, I simply take care of the music and let the chips fall where they may. The music always seems to take care of me in return.
Balance in all things…
To be up to the coming challenge I am in a sort of training camp…an extra several hours of careful practice every day so that I can play parts that have been written expressly for my own particular talents by the greatest writer of that music still active, José Madera.
Challenging stuff.
Plus I have some…socio-familial…obligations to take care of today. My 22 year old working scientist son and his wonderful female friend are in town for a day or two and we must celebrate by eating some good food and telling some tall tales.
And…I am in the midst of editing a book I wrote about the art of playing a certain musical instrument into editions that will work for a couple of other instruments.
Every day full of work, one way or another.
So that goes as well.
Thus the day passes.
And…I am hard at work from 5AM until time to get on the subway and go hang with my son.
Which I do.
Good times had by all, several hours later I arrive back home with the spectre of several hours of necessary practice ahead of me before I can start to kick back and relax into a good night’s sleep to prepare for the next day’s challenges.
I neglected to mention that I had put a Cuban-style pork roast into the oven at slow-cook temperature before I left to go hang. A 7+ hour cook time at the end of which I will have the basis for good sustenance throughout the rest of the week no matter how short my time might be on any given day.
Gotta eat, right…???
And I arrrve back home in da Bronx at about 5PM. A few hours of practice and the roast will be done.
Oh!!!
It’s Super Bowl Sunday, too!!!
I’ll drop into the proceedings and take the temperature of the culture once I am done with my practice.
(Work work work…hours pass…)
Hmmm…the roast calls and now I am fairly well cooked as well.
OK.
Finish up the preparation…rice, beans I made yesterday, a salad, a quasi-Mexicano tomatillo salsa…and here it it. Time to eat and have a couple of glasses of wine.
I turn on the TV to check out the Stupor Bowl and…what’s this!!!?? It’s halftime already and a bunch of superannuated, no-playing motherfuckers are prancing around on stage to the accompaniment of a bunch of many lights and frequent jiveass commercials.
Why…it’s those rich old fakers, “The Who”!!! Daltrey, Townshend et al, still unable to find a good note in a carload. One look at Townshend galumphing about on the stage making believe that he is a guitarist is all I need to see to know where Lindsey Lohan got her start. (Count Basie said that after 30 years of leading great bands he no longer needed to hear people play to know if they had their act together…he just had to see them carry their instrument case. Yup. I can dig it. With the TV sound off I can tell who can really play and who can’t just by the way that they stand and move while playing. Bet on it.)
I immediately click away from CBS (the CIA Broadcasting System…you could look it up) to see what else is on.
And run smack dab into an OVTV documentary…a great small network, along with Link TV one of the few that are presenting real cultural sustenance for the huddled masses…honoring the fine, workmanlike jazz tenor sax player Teddy Edwards. Just about the same age as the “Who” gang…maybe a few years older…only SO much more accomplished!!! He was still playing his ass off in small clubs after 40 or 50 years in the life and on the scene until his death in 2003. He played with Miles, Dizzy, Bird, Dexter Gordon,..you could look that up, too. But he was black, intelligent, uncompromisinng and thus relatively unknown while “The Who” is white, almost totally untalented, perfectly willing to compromise their cocaine-skinny asses off and thus being paid lots of money to sell useless gadgetry to a televsion-sodden hypnopublic.
So it goes.
Go get ‘em, Teddy, wherever you are.
You’ve got my vote.
And so it continues.
Just as it’s always been.
The roast pork is delicious as is the salsa and salad and a little wind-down wine, and eventually the football competition begins again.
The 2nd half starts. The Ratpublicans are ahead by a little.
Oh…did I mention that I consider the Stupor Bowl to be a very reliable predictor of socio-political moves?
Yup.
Joe Namath taught me that one in 1969.
Anyway…
The Indianapolis Colts…a team of Ratpublicans if I ever saw one, running their lockstep game out of a city that has over the last 30 years become a clomp-clomp-clomping Atlanta-style mini-megalopolis based on nasty, polluting industry and equally nasty financial hustle…vs. the Dems. The New Orleans Saints, representing a town that fucking refused to roll over and die after George Butch II gave it the big finger during Katrina.
Saaay…he stands a lot like Townshend!!!
Hmmmmm…
Anyway…back to the game.
What do I see?
I see the Dems/Saints throw a sucker punch at the opening kickoff. Onside kick. And it works !!!
And the Rats?
They go all pouty.
Saaay!!! That’s not fair!!!
Especially Manning. Like his brother, only more powerful. A nasty, nasty spirit.
And…miribile dictu!!!
It continues to work!!!
You can see the Colts start to wilt.
They’re old, they’re small, they’re tired and they are total mercenaries.
Just like the Republican Party.
And…the Saints eventually win.
Hmmmm…
My faith is renewed.
Maybe the Obamas can beat the Cheneys.
My Excellent Super Bowl Adventure.
All’s once again right with world.
To sleep, perchance to burn…
Got good work to do tomorrow.
Ain’t life a bitch!!!???
Later…
AG
