Adrastos, Bigotry, Diary, Political Crack, Race, Sports, Television, Twitter

Confessions Of A Super Bowl Troll

I’m a bad American sports fan. I don’t *have* to watch the entire Super Bowl unless there’s a team I like playing. Last night, we watched an old John Ford movie, then tuned in for Lady Gaga’s half time show and the rest of the game. A lot of people missed her subtle political subtext but my friend Roberta did not:

Sometimes the subtle can be radical. I found her opening with snippets of “God Bless America,” “This Land is Your Land” and the pledge to be audacious and absolutely brilliant. She let the righties know that they have no monopoly on love for the USA, and she reminded lefties that there are bigger reasons to fight for what’s right than whatever our own, personal identity may be. And then came the Big, Gay Anthem. It was a million times more brilliant than an overt FU to Trump. Had she done something blatant, it would have fulfilled the negative expectations of the haters and allowed them to dismiss her as just another rude, obnoxious liberal. By making the song selections she did, she made it impossible for them to do that. It’s really quite genius.

Thanks for boiling that down so I don’t have to, R. It’s good to have clever friends who understood that Gaga was working with a scalpel and not a meat dress cleaver last night. And, yes. I like Lady Gaga. Sue me.

Everything is political in the winter of our discontent including this Super Bowl. (I refuse to use the Roman numeral: it’s pompous beyond belief.) Much of the country was rooting for the underdog Atlanta Falcons and against the plutocratic Patriots with their overt ties to Trump via owner Robert Kraft, Coach Grumpy, and Brady the ball inflator. I was too despite the fact that many in New Orleans consider rooting against the Falcons to be a Nolier than thou litmus test. The Falcons are, of course, the Saints arch-rivals but that’s mere sports hate. Real world concerns trumped sports hate for me yesterday.

One reason I pulled for the losing team is some of the people who were rooting for the winning team. The president* was one but so were some more blatant bigots. Here’s a sampler from my old “friend” the erstwhile Gret Stet Fuhrer and that punchable Nazi, Richard Spencer:

https://twitter.com/DrDavidDuke/status/828448832379830272

Rumor has it that Trump wants to gay marry Tom Brady but is afraid of Mike Liar Liar Pence On Fire’s reaction. I suspect the white-haired prevaricator from Hoosierland could find a way to rationalize it. It’s his specialty as Trump’s Veep.

Let’s do some virtual Nazi punching:

Can’t have a majority black city’s team win the big game. Of course, it’s already happened with the Saints. (I’m too lazy to research other possibilities. Again, sue me.) Also, one of the white receivers is Jewish. Chew on that, you fourth-rate Streicher.

Spencer also called Brady an Aryan avatar. I am not making this up. Does Spencer’s fulsome praise make Brady a white nationalist or neo-Nazi? Of course not, but his silence about his less savory fans makes him look like a worm, weasel, or toady. The Patriots represent one of the bluest regions in the country so I hope that someone in the Commonwealth calls him on this shit. It would give Brady the chance to spout *new* clichés. The old ones are getting a bit shopworn.

Another thing that makes me a bad American is that I didn’t pay much attention to the ads. I’ll let others talk about them elsewhere. I was too busy trolling lefty Saints fans who allowed their sports hate to overrule everything else. I don’t get extreme sports hate. I dislike some sports teams but I *hate* racism and bigotry and those who go along with it infinitely more. There’s a perfect example here at First Draft of putting real world concerns above sports hate. Athenae and Mr. A are ardent Packers fans who hail from Wisconsin yet they live in Chicago, which is home to the Packers arch-rival, Da Bears. I guess they should move in order to satisfy the purity trolls. It’s just sports, it’s supposed to be fun and unimportant. Football isn’t life, it’s just a game.

I, for one, am glad that this particular Super Bowl is over. Its peculiar mix of sports hate stupidity and politics will not be missed. One good thing that happened was that Roger Goodell got booed last night in Houston. Sometimes you get the sweet with the bitter.

I think Mick and Keith got it right by analogy with this song so I’ll give them the last word:

 

 

 

7 thoughts on “Confessions Of A Super Bowl Troll”

  1. i am puzzled.
    why was having goodell booed a good thing?
    isn’t he responsible for causing ray rice not to get a gig in the nfl after the abuse tape came out? isn’t he the guy who tried to show that brady & belicheck cheated?

    1. He’s the guy who first temporized on Ray Rice and delayed the Adrian Peterson suspension. He also was responsible for the so-called Bountygate mess. His take on the situation was repudiated by an inquiry conducted by his predecessor as Commish. Guy’s a douchebag who occasionally gets things right.

      1. see, junk like this is why I’m a Spurs fan.

        Well, that and women’s college basketball, which (until this year) I have loved for years; Below the rim didn’t mean boring. A double-double average could still be done without a lot of fanfare, and a good three-ball shooter who could double up as your bench PG was worth her weight in platinum. but now they dunk, too, and defense and ball movement have gone the way of the dodo bird. You don’t see an O with 12 passes per possession in college ball anymore, even in D2 women’s ball, much. It used to be the norm.

        But then I found Coach Pop and Tim Duncan and Matt Bonner and Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker and Marco Belinelli and Andre Miller and now there’s Jonathon Simmons and Kawhi Leonard and Pau Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge and Danny Green and … and it is good.

        Even when, like tonight, it goes the other team’s way.

        And part of what makes it so good is that it is so NOT LeBron or Russell Westbrook or KD or Steph Curry or Melo, or as was the classic antithesis of Spurs ball, Kobe and a bunch of guys.

        It’s a team.
        Looking out for each other.
        Good to great.
        Until your better is the best there is.

        But the best part?
        DJT who lost OUR vote has no idea what this game even is, and isn’t open-mouth-kissing bill belichek (spit, spit, spit) on the Teevee machine.

  2. i watched the first half of Casablanca on TCM and then switched over to Victoria on PBS. caught the last few seconds of OT.
    p.s. you are aware, aren’t you that Athenae and Mr. A are originally from the other side of the Cheddar Curtain?

  3. Re: Brady sympathies, one does have to keep in mind how Gisele Bundchen’s family ended up in Brazil.

    — good lord – what happened to my nym!?

Comments are closed.