My Super Bowl LIX Running Diary
The Big Game is more than football. There's Carnitas, IPAs, and Confusion over Kendrick..
It goes without saying that the Super Bowl is the single-greatest cultural event of any year.
The game that crowns the annual champion of the National Footbal League isn’t just the biggest one-day sporting event in the U.S., and, arguably, the entire Planet Earth. The Super Bowl is the one thing that here, one-quarter of the way through the 21st century, everyone is aware of and is true Appointment Television. Right now, the only thing that comes close to the importance of the Super Bowl in the average American’s psyche is President Trump’s raft of executive orders, which hopefully will include getting rid of those paper straws that disintegreate and go limp after about 5 minutes of being submerged in a glass full of Coke.
I am a lifelong Seattle Seahawks fan, and I have been fortunate enough to watch the Seahawks play in three Super Bowls (one win, two losses). The Seahawks didn’t make the playoffs this year, and, thus, didn’t play in Super Bowl LIX. But, I love the Super Bowl regardless of who is playing in the game. It could be the Chicago Bears against the Cleveland Browns, and I might only be able to name one player on each team, but I am watching the game. And, like every year, my wife and I invite some friends over, put out a bunch of food, offer up a selection of quality beers and adult beverages, and settle in for several hours of Super Bowl watching and awesomeness.
This year, I decided to keep a running diary of my Super Bowl Sunday because…Well, why the hell not? I figured there would be a fair amount of ridiculous acitivity to keep track of in between rounds of shoving food and beer down my gullet and sightings of Taylor Swift after Travis Kelce touchdown catches.
So, it began:
4 a.m.: I get up before anyone else because I need to prep a four pounds of pork shoulder to make for carnitas in the slow cooker. I typically do pulled pork, but my wife and I got to talking and decided to do carnitas, just to mix things up.
5 a.m.: After seasoning and searing the pork, I put it in the slow cooker on low and set the timer for 7 hours. I then go back to bed.
6 a.m.: I get up for good after spending most of my time in bed working on the Sunday New York Times Crossword on my phone.
6:15 a.m.- 3 p.m. Just a bunch of various activities that include picking up my daughter from a sleepover, taking two of our three cats to the vet to have their teeth checked, watching Tottenham Hotspur lose to Aston Villa and get knocked out of the FA Cup tourney, finishing up the carnitas in the oven and trying to find the 3:10betting slip from the sportsbook at Tacoma, Washington’s Emerald Queen Casino (“The Entertainment Capital of the Northwest”), where last week I laid $100 on the Chiefs to win the game and complete their SB Three-Peat.
3 p.m.: The TV is on and we are watching video of President Trump signing an Executive Order aboard Air Force One to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the the Gulf of America. I can’t wait for us to take Greenland and re-name it something like “Frostyville”.
3:10: Harry Connick Jr. shows up in public for the first time since he was a judge with J-Lo on “American Idol.” Also, he’s from New Orleans and the NFL needs a guy from New Orleans to pimp the Super Bowl that is in New Orleans.
3:23: There’s a commercial for “Jurassic World: Rebirth”. Maybe calling it“Resurrection” was too much? I wonder what the NFL would do if a Brontosauraus stomped through the Super Dome on a Chiefs drive downfield?
3:29: Jon Batiste is doing the “Star-Spangled Banner” and playing a piano that looks like Jackson Pollack spilled his oils all over the thing. I still can’t name a single Jon Batiste song. Meanwhile, we see Trump saluting the U.S. flag in the first Super Bowl held on the Gulf of America.
3:35: The YouTube Pre-Kickoff Show. I am only suprised that each guy on the YouTube Pre-Kickoff Show isn’t individually sponsored by Chick-Fil-A, Home Depot and Dodge.
3:47: After the Chiefs go three-and-out, the Eagles get the ball. Jalen Hurts drops an absolute dime to A.J. Brown…that is called bac on offensive pass interference. I wonder if we are seeing Shades of Super Bowl V, aka, the Turnover Bowl…
3:56: Commercials kick in. Eugene Levy is selling Crazy Puffs from Little Caesar’s. Eugene Levy has had a hell of a weird career: Canadian. One of the stars of SCTV, which as great as it was, was also really a cult-TV show. Played Lou Glutz, the used car dealer in “National Lampoon’s Vacation”. Was in a few B-level comedies. Got in good with the “American Pie” franchise. Won an Emmy for “Schitt’s Creek”, another cult-TV show. Became a go-to “That Guy” for many TV programs. Hammers checks from the likes of Little Caesar’s. And all he has really done is play himself all these years. Not to shabby for a kid from Hamiltion, Ontario.
4:12: And now, we have Eugene Levy’s fellow SCTV alum, and Canadian, Catherine O’Hara, shilling for Michelob Ultra with Willem Defoe. I’m working on a Hazy Double IPA called “Get Off My Lawn” with an ABV of 8.2% and I’d rather have one of these than 15 Michelob Ultras.
4:19: The Chiefs sack Jalen Hurts, and get called for encroachment. There haven’t been any Taylor Swift sightings since before kickoff.
4:25: Seal is a great singer, but let’s be honest. Can anyone name any of his songs since “Kiss From A Rose”, which came out 30 years ago? It doesn’t really matter. Someone finally made Seal into a seal for a commercial. Mountain Dew Baja Blast could be the worst soft drink ever and it wouldn’t matter because have Seal the Seal and it is glorious.
4:26: Snoop and Tom Brady are in a “stop hate” commercial. I’m glad they told me this because my hatred of cantaloupe was threatening to knock my hatred of communists from the top spot on my Hate List.
4:27: Chiefs snag an INT, and end up on their own 2-yard line.
4:29: And they go three-and-out after Travis Kelce botches a catch. Cue the jokes about Taylor working on her next breakup song while up in her suite.
4:43: Patrick Mahomes is sacked on back-to-back plays. The Eagles are attacking the Chiefs like their fans once did against Santa Claus.
4:44: The Eagles Cooper Dejean pulls off one of the rarest plays in football: The White Guy Defensive Back Pick Six, as he intercepts Patrick Mahomes and takes it to the house. Philadelphia is now up 14-0. I still think the Chiefs have a chance.
4:51: Mahomes and the Chiefs go three-and-out. I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have bet that $100 on KC at the casino in Tacoma, Washington.
4:53: Coffee Mate runs a commercial for its new cold foam…additive?…There are a lot of tongues lapping up the cold foam and this both scares me and makes me want to start a heavy metal band called Cold Foam.
4:59: Tom Brady is on the call and tells us that the Chiefs need to stop the Eagles. He also has seven Super Bowl rings, so…Yeah…
5:10: Patrick Mahomes throws his second INT of the game. The Eagles soon score again, and are up 24-0 going into halftime. This is beginning to look like when my Beloved Hometown Seattle Seahawks steamrolled Denver in SB XLVIII. I actually won $80 on the $20 I laid on Seattle in that game.
5:12: Every straight man watching the Super Bowl spends the next 38 seconds starting at, and drooling over a commercial that for 38 seconds is full of glorious shots emphasizing women’s cleavage. And then Wanda Sykes shows up and every straight man watching the Super Bowl wants to bleach his eyes out. And then it becomes a commercial for Novartis telling us all to be aware of breast cancer and every straight man watching the Super Bowl then feels guilty about loving the first 38 seconds of this commericial.
5:28: Angel Soft toilet “tissue” reminds us that it is OK to go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW!.
5:29: Well, Kendrick Lamar shows up for the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show. I know none of Kendrick’s songs. I do know he is in the middle of some feud with Drake that may or may not have anything to do with Drake being Canadian. There’s a car that might be a Pontiac. Samuel L. Jackson is playing Uncle Sam and emcee-ing this. SZA shows up. We get a shot of Serena Williams doing…something for a split second. I am told that another guy up there with Kendrick is his producer—who goes by the name of Mustard and I wish I had just made that up. I am also told that Kendrick has just performed his Drake diss track, “Not Like Us”. Of course he did. I still know none of Kendrick’s songs.
5:53: Back to the game. Mahomes gets sacked. Again. KC looks like an overcooked slab of ribs.
6:13: Post Malone and Shane Gillis might just succeed in gaslighting the world into forgetting that Bud Light’s terrible Dylan Mulvaney pivot ever happened.
6:17: Travis Kelce gets his first catch of the game. No Taylor shot.
6:17: KC goes for it on 4th and 5. It does not work.
6:18: More commercials: Hims and Hers will ship me all the meds I need for just about any problem I have. Poppi is apparently a soda that sounds like I was named for a third-grader’s pet hamster.
6:25: Holy SHLIT! KC finally scores, so there won’t be a shutout.
6:34: I am now drinking Ski Turtle Hazy IPA (7.3% ABV) from Urban Family Brewing, in Seattle. You can’t go wrong with a beer that has a turtle skiing downhill on its label.
7:06: The Chiefs get another TD to make the score…40-14.
7-Something: KC manages to get another touchdown on what is an awesome pass from Mahomes to Xavier Worthy. In fact, when the Chiefs have scored, they have looked like a back-to-back Super Bowl-winning team. Unfortunately, KC has looked like hot garbage on nearly every play that the Chiefs didn’t score on, and that’s why Philadelphia has won by a score of 40-22 and it wasn’t even that close.
8:00: I get up to find that all of my carnitas have been housed during the game. I guess I planned out the amount of meat I needed about as well as the Chiefs did with their three-peat strategy.