Super Bored 50!

Oh my gosh, did you hear? Did you hear? It’s Super Bowl weekend, right here in the Bay Area! There are giant “50” statues everywhere, there’s a “NFL Experience” mini city in downtown SF, and ticket prices for the actual game are through the ROOF.

I’m sorry, I wasn’t dozing off there, I was thinking with my eyes shut. Let me just use my shoulder to wipe the drool off my chin.

I would try to think of something more boring to me than the upcoming game, but it would divert my attention from watching the settlement cracks above my office doorframe, which I find interesting in comparison to The Game Formerly Known As Super Bowl L Until The NFL Realized That No One Can Identify Roman Numerals Who Isn’t Roman.

Of course, I wouldn’t even care enough about it to write a blog post devoted to the game if it weren’t being held in Santa Clara this year. Regardless of what the interstitial photography shows you, the game is being played 40 miles south of San Francisco, not at Fisherman’s Wharf with a sea lion cheer squad. It’s like when the Warriors won all those games last year at Oracle Arena right here in the 5-1-0, and every nationally televised game cut away to shots of Coit Tower and Alcatraz, which are bridge traffic, too many tourists, and a $6 toll away from The Town where it all went down.

But it’s inescapable. With the arrival of the game right here in our back yard, the news here is All Super, All The Time. There may be an election season underway, there may be Boko Haram terrorism attacks in Nigeria, apartments may be falling off the erosion-damaged cliffs in Pacifica, but what we REALLY want to know is: who told Cam Newton to wear these pants?

(BTW I’m qualified to say this now, having been officially deputized into US Magazine’s Fashion Police Squad a week ago. Check a newsstand near you for the issue featuring an Oompa Loompa and a supermodel on the cover.)

Also super is the inconvenience to anyone who wants to go into San Francisco for any reason; they’ve basically blocked off 20% of the 49 square miles of the city, and not the 20% that people wish would be blocked off (wherever tech hipsters earn $450k and swoop up the apartments and hog all the outlets at the coffee shops.) So everyone is taking BART and other public transportation options, systems that are challenged at the best of times. Throw in a couple of protests that snarl traffic even further and you got yourself some Bay Area residents who are even less primed than normal to be excited about Denver v. Carolina. Is that even the lineup? I dozed off again.

I don’t hate football, but having grown up in Buffalo Bills territory during the era when they were most famous for letting the championship slip out of their fingers over and over again – and seeing what that did to my dad – I like to keep it at a healthy remove. Which was probably news to my football-loving husband, seeing as during the first few months of our courtship I LOVED football. Why? Because he did, dummy, and it was the only way I could spend an extra four hours with him on Sunday. Once we were living together, I stopped pretending to care. Then I birthed the poor man two daughters who became ballerinas, one of whom refers to ALL athletics with the umbrella term “sports games,” and you can see that he really suffers.

Of course, I’ll still watch the game this Sunday at my neighbors’ annual Super Bowl party, by which I mean I’ll watch the ads and the halftime performance and then leave for the kitchen when play recommences. Because I do have a competitive drive related to this game: It’s just that mine is directed at the buffet table.

Super Bowl L is bringing a lot of big acts to the yard, including Pharrell tonight at Pier 70. Good luck getting there through the protesters, the tourists, and the hipsters.