Super Bowl Post-Game Stand-Up Comedy Routine (during which the webmaster promises not to expose his breasts! though he may give us a little leg if we ask respectfully -- he is not a mere slab of beef, after all, he is a human being with feelings and aspirations, just like people with far less attractive bodies than his own!)




Whoo-hoo! What's up, gang?

Mercy, did you see the Super Bowl half-time show? Never in all my born days! Seriously! I don't know whether I was more shocked or more offended! It's a toss-up, I suppose.




The very idea, exposing Janet Jackson's breast like that. What was Justin Timberlake thinking?



Still, you've got to wonder at the chutzpah of CBS, the network of "Survivor" and "Say Uncle," getting self-righteous about a peekaboo breast, especially considering that the commercials they broadcast during the Super Bowl itself featured crotch-biting dogs and gas-emitting horses (turning last Sunday night's game into what Post critic Tom Shales described as "the Super Bowl of Sleaze").



The network's hypocrisy reminds me of a scene from the movie "High Anxiety." Remember? That '70s comedy?




Harvey Korman's character has just been warned by Professor Liloman not to reveal Mel Brook's acrophobia to the hospital staff, right? so the insulted Korman rises indignantly to his full considerable height, tosses back his head, and cries, "Professor, I am shocked that you would even think me capable of such a thing!"

Remember?

So Korman stalks out of the room, right? only to be heard seconds later, whispering in the hallway, with the singsong voice of an inveterate tattle-tale: "Hey, everybody, guess who has high anxiety?!!"




Well, I guess the network felt it had to draw the line somewhere, but who would have thought they'd come down like Pope Pius III on the possibly inadvertent revelation of mammalian characteristics in Janet Jackson?



"The moment did not conform to CBS broadcast standards," sniffed the indignant network. (Yeah, that's right: the director should have zoomed in at once to see precisely what all the fuss was about, but instead he took the low road of censorship and cut away!)



Mind you, I didn't even watch the Super Bowl this year, but for those of you who are as athletically out-of-touch as I am, I have done a little research on the game: It seems that the New England Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers 32-29. Can you imagine? Goodness.




You know something, if I lived up north, I'd find the name "New England Patriots" too geographically general to inspire my allegiance. I could root for the Boston Patriots or the Salem Patriots or the Concord Patriots (even if I didn't live in their specific towns), but the "New England Patriots" is too vague and ill-defined. I mean, how do you take any sort of concrete pride in a culturally diverse swath of six states?

It would be like me living near D.C. and rooting for the Middle Atlantic Redskins. I might bring myself to do it, but I just couldn't haul out the pennant, wig, and pig nose at FedEx Stadium with the same gusto as I would otherwise do for the Washington Redskins.



Of course, there's a lot to be said for the Middle Atlantic region of the United States -- but then that's the problem: there's too MUCH to be said for it. We sports fans need to narrow our focus and take vicarious pride in just one region of such a vast expanse.




Am I right, here?



Sure, the nation's capital has its faults, but at least we know what we're rooting for when we support its team.




On the other hand, what aspects of the variegated Middle Atlantic might we be supposed to be identifying with when we root for a team from that enormous region? The devil himself couldn't tell us.



(Oh, fine, we're cheering for the devil now, are we?)



So get specific, sports fans, okay?

It's like your doctoral thesis in college, right? You don't write it about frogs, do you? Of course not. That would be silly. You write it about the Assa darlingtoni or the Rana aurora draytonii? You know, the pouched frog and red frog respectively? I mean, come on now! (unless things have changed since I was in school, which, I don't think so).



Listen, you've been a great audience. God bless! (And like, Go Panthers, or what have you.)




By the way, I've been thinking about it during this spiel, and I've finally come to a conclusion: I was slightly more shocked than offended by the untimely exposing of Janet Jackson's breast. Okay? It was a close call, but shock won out. (Just in case any of you were wondering.)

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Super Bowl XXXVIII - I


Not that I'm an effete pansy, gang. (Me? An effete pansy? Don't make me slap your face with a white glove!) I like the Super Bowl, too, it's just that this year's game conflicted with a once-in-a-lifetime performance of "Aida" at the Kennedy Center (for which I had bought tickets 5 months earlier, thank you very much).

Last year, on the other hand (on the other calloused and tawny hand), I not only watched the Buccaneers trounce the Raiders in the Big Game, but I did so at that den of mischievous masculinity known as the Knights of Columbus, while swilling multiple steins of American beer, gnawing on pork chops, and telling my share of off-color jokes! (Here, I can prove it: click here to read Dribbling Beer Mugs, Batman! What a Super Bowl party!)

For instance, um.... Three rabbis and a monk walk into a bar, right? (First you might want to put the kiddies to bed, though, gang! This one is a positive lulu!!!)