Stupor Bowl predictions

[Lightning Rod]

I agree

golf is a symbol of everything horrific about excess and consumption.

But I love it. It's the most Zen of sports. It might look easy, but try it sometime.

[perezoso]

I see the ol' links around LA--say on Wilshire where the celebs hang after a rough lunch at Trader Vics-- and one word comes to mind: Bushnell ( and no, not the liquor)

[lescaret]

They should not just be ostracized for lack of education, but for being multi-millionaires despite being morons.

I think internet intellectuals should be showered with adulation, celebrated with parades, and grossly overpaid so they can snipe and type profundities in over-stuffed, garishly decorated apartments. And then go on Oprah.

[perezoso]

Net intellectuals on Oprah? I think not, lescarette. The Charlie Rose show perhaps, or Mystery Science Theatre 3000....and why garish decoration? Just some HR Giger on the walls and a bookshelf of Bakunin and Burroughs.....

[Zlatko Waterman]

And let's not forget the decorative contribution of Carlo Rambaldi:


http://www.giffoniff.it/engver/pou/po2002/ramb-md.htm



--Z

[Doreen Peri]

I never understood the rah rah rah football stuff. I think it's a strategic game but it doesn't interest me in the least.

I'd rather watch a good billiards match.

Actually, I'd rather shoot a game of pool myself.

I've always thought professional atheletes and entertainers were grossly overpaid.

Jesus.... people are starving on this planet! The salary for day's game or one night's performance could feed thousands!

[surfermike]

I'm not in the Mafia, yet I love
football, baseball, golf and tennis
ect. Hockey too. If the Mafia wants
to play golf, then they should.

The good, the bad and the ugly
all ned to be part of this planet

[lescaret]

So, let me get this straight.

Some hyper-athletic but impoverished kid (black, white, mesopotamian, doesn't matter) gets a scholarship out of his crime-infested 'hood or hillbilly hillside hardscabble farm or Tigris River mudhut and goes to college where he/she excels at ....... (fill in the blank with your sport of choice). He/she is then courted by professional sports scouts, lavished with promises, and paid millions of dollars to do something that, for all intents and purposes, is completely irrelevent to society.

So, he/she deserves to be ostracized & condemned & belittled by highly-educated critics?

Isn't that a bit short-sighted? Wouldn't the more appropriate target for opprobrium be the team owners, the entertainment moguls, the very capitalist society itself?

And furthermore, sports, in and of themselves, are, believe it or not, GOOD. As legitimate as reading, writing poetry, cooking, playing guitar, etc. It's been my experience that the people who dismiss sports as stupid, worthless, a social hemorrhoid, etc., either never played sports or, as a youth, had some miserable experience that alienated them from taking part in them forever after.

As regards the Super Bowl. Yes, it's an insanely foolish and over-hyped entertainment extravaganza, often witheringly dull. BUT, stupid commercialism & vacuous halftime entertainment aside, when the game itself is actually competitive, then the spectators enjoy three or four hours of heightened drama, as good as any "theatre" performance or "film" (I'd say movie but that's too quotidian and doesn't get my point across as well). Plus, in this sort of drama, unlike war or politics, no one gets intentionally killed.

To legitimately condemn (and by condemn, I mean expunge from culture) the Super Bowl or spectator sports in general, one must, by extension, condemn movie-going, plays, poetry-readings, musical concerts, spelling bees, etc. It's all spectacle and entertainment (or shades thereof), and believe it or not, it isn't all bad.

[Doreen Peri]

I love participating in sports but I'm not much for watching them.

I'd rather play than watch. *shrug*

But I used to be a gymnast.

And I do love watching Olympic gymnasts.

And figure skating.

I love watching figure skating.

I agree. Sports are a good thing! Good for the athletes and good for those who do enjoy watching.

But those guys are WAY overpaid! Way!

They should be paid a salary on par with other professionals and the rest should be used to feed the starving and homeless instead.

[Lightning Rod]

lescaret--that's is a great analysis. Well said and well thought.

doreen--yeah, feed the poor and homeless. Sounds nice. Don't hold your breath.

[perezoso]

Some hyper-athletic but impoverished kid (black, white, mesopotamian, doesn't matter) gets a scholarship out of his crime-infested 'hood or hillbilly hillside hardscabble farm or Tigris River mudhut and goes to college where he/she excels at ....... (fill in the blank with your sport of choice).

Yeah that's a problem. If the person does as well on his or.her SATs, high school academics, and other entrance exams as non-athletic students, then an athletic scholarship would be, perhaps, acceptable--but that ain't what happens. The athletes are shuffled through with little to no academic skills.

He/she is then courted by professional sports scouts, lavished with promises, and paid millions of dollars to do something that, for all intents and purposes, is completely irrelevent to society.

So, he/she deserves to be ostracized & condemned & belittled by highly-educated critics?

Yes, especially when other people at his college slave away at chemistry classes and equations and scholarship and for that are rewarded with a 30 grand a year teaching job, if they are lucky. Or maybe grad. school if they got the cash and connections.

Isn't that a bit short-sighted? Wouldn't the more appropriate target for opprobrium be the team owners, the entertainment moguls, the very capitalist society itself?

Yes, the owner-tycoons and the market economy that spawns pro athletes are the root problem, but the athletes are not innocent dupes any more than soldiers who voluntarily enlist in the US military are innocent.

And furthermore, sports, in and of themselves, are, believe it or not, GOOD. As legitimate as reading, writing poetry, cooking, playing guitar, etc. It's been my experience that the people who dismiss sports as stupid, worthless, a social hemorrhoid, etc., either never played sports or, as a youth, had some miserable experience that alienated them from taking part in them forever after.

No. Health and exercise may be valuable, I would agree; playing with the Raiders, not so. Organized sports are all about winning and competition--are those qualities inherently good? And while health may be valuable, so are cognitive skills: personally I think Steven Hawking or Einstein or Garry Kasparov or Joseph Conrad are much more valuable to society than great free throw shooters. And if the jox don't make it to the pro's, they weasel their way into the coach-o-cracy: The California high schools and colleges (and I suspect other states) are ruled by the coaches and athletic "directors" --not by teachers or even administrators. The chumps are allowed in often with no degree or CBEST: "yr a semi-famous athlete? yr hired, and if you want, champ, you can fuck the principal when she gets off the phone. Algebra, schmalgebra. "

[Lightning Rod]

good response, zoso.

but the point lescaret was making is that sports and art and literature are all entertainment
and in that sense they are unnecessary.

Who is to say whether Shakespeare is more valid than NASCAR?

They are both spectator sports.

When Tiger Woods leans a three-iron shot up against the pin
or when the kicker makes a clinch field goal in the last four seconds
or when a contestant on American Idol hits the perfect money note
or when you see the perfect slam dunk
or when the home run wins the game
or the dancer hits perfect point
that is a spiritual experience for some people
it just depends who you are and what you like.

"You cannot get the news from poems,
but men die miserably every day
for the lack of what is found there."
- William Carlos Williams

[perezoso]

There's more to pro-sports than just entertainment: it's a huge business (check out the vegas betting biz on pro sports--each and every day, 24/7) and a sort of religion for many Americans. If one were spiritually inclined, one might term it idolatry. And not to get overly clinical, but pro-sports enthusiasm is also symptomatic of a sort of collective hysteria and of "spectator democracy." The Olympics are one thing--and I do respect Olympic athletes; a team of quasi -mafioso thugs owned and operated by Godfather Steinbrenner another.

[Lightning Rod]

I must agree, zoso, that spectator sports and the Stupid Bowl in particular,
are the closest thing we have to a national religion. I have always been struck by
this sense of American unity that it represents. It's a ritual. The streets of major cities
are deserted during the game. It's a national church service, but with a little more violence.

It's much like Greek theater. When an ancient Greek walked into the amphitheater,
he knew just what to expect. Just like when you watch the Stupor Bowl you know
just what to expect. It's a ritual just like Greek theater was a ritual. The Olympics are
a ritual. This athlete or that athlete might win, but the ceremony is the same.

You know when the Olympics begin, that someone will light the flame just like you
know that the Supper Bowl will start with The Star Spangled Banner and a coin flip.
It's spectacle and ritual and we humans seem to require these things. It's a framework
of comforting sameness with the spice of competition and an unknown outcome thrown in.
Yes, pro athletics are Bread and Circuses, entertainment, but so is religion, literature, music
theater, politics and most of science.

[knip]

let's not mix apples with the oranges here...just as hester, in her post somewhere else about renting 7 movies last night, doesn't necessarily support the ultimate stupor bowl of them all - that which is hollywood and all its machinations, being a football fan doesn't mean one is caught up in that hype...people rent movies for the art inside, not because they want to support another boring set of oscars or pay some actor millions of dollars to do what many do for free...i watch football for the football...football is the game...the stupor bowl isn't football; it is spectacle...and the nfl isn't football either...it's just the pro side of it...football is tossing the ball in the backyard with your son; football is sitting in the snow watching high school kids vie for the playoffs; football is timing and art and beauty and savagery...there can be art in savagery...just read some of the stuff zozo writes for an example