the rix mix

My reaction to the Black Eyed Peas Super Bowl performance:

• They've been better. Much better.
• The robot thing is kind of cold - & old.
• Haven't I seen this Super Bowl halftime show before?

Eventually, I think the consensus will be that the whole event was less than memorable. Christina Aguilera's national anthem gaff wasn't scandalous. The game wasn't so exciting; Green Bay never trailed, & it's not easy to feel sentimental about Vince Lombardi. None of the commercials had the stuff of legend. Most viewers didn't care who won.

For all its popularity, power & profit, professional football still lacks the cultural prestige of major league baseball, & I suspect it always will lack it. It's basically a sport of bullying behemoths with few unlikely heroes. Every World Series delivers an over-achiever or two, & it's possible for the average person to follow a baseball season (& a game) without giving it one's full attention. Baseball is paced differently. It's o.k. to become distracted or bored during a baseball game, & do other stuff with the game in the background. The language of baseball, as George Carlin & Abbott & Costello demonstrated, is something everyone can enjoy. But the language of football - if callers to sports talk radio shows are typical - seems designed to make unintelligent men sound smart.

Labels: baseball, culture, sports, TV