Super Bowl: Make it an official National Holiday and why the Ravens will win

SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!

It’s the BIG GAME! Super Bowl XLVII! The HARBOWL!

• The game is called “The Harbowl” because the head coaches of the two teams, the San Francisco 49er’s and Baltimore Ravens are brothers: Jim and John Harbaugh.

OK, for those of you who may be new to the World Wide Interwebs and texting, when writing is in caps, plus bold and italics, that means the writer is SHOUTING!

THE NOISE! THE CROWD! THE EXCITEMENT!

Just put your TV on CBS for the pre-game hype and you’re sure to get some real noise from an excited crowd. Those of you in Baltimore, if you be having a Super Bowl party or going to a party — or maybe a Hooters or other sports bar — you’ll get some excited crowd noise … wherever you find it, what the heck. It’s the effin’ Super Bowl!

I don’t know about you people, but for me this is one America sporting event that should be treated as a holiday. No, I’m serious! Screw the religious holidays … well OK, we can keep those, but here it is, one of those annual events when we get together with family and friends to, what? Most people who go to Super Bowl parties don’t even bother with the game, they’re just hobnobbing with everyone and spilling their drinks all over the place. And trying to hook up.

One year — I swear to God this is true — an employer from years ago, when I first moved to Southern California, always had a Super Bowl party at his home for all the employees. Telemarketing was involved so there were always young people employed working their first jobs. Several of those young employees were high school girls.

During one of these Super Bowl parties at this employer’s house, people were carousing, going from room-to-room hobnobbing, eating food, having drinks and occasionally watching the game. Sometime in the second half, while we’re at this rich guy’s house on his wife’s horse ranch, the rich guy’s wife walks into their bedroom and finds the guy — her husband — in bed with one of these teenage girls!

Needless to say, we didn’t get to stay to watch the end of the game. And all that great food! And of course the rich guy and his now ex-wife no longer hosted any Super Bowl parties. Needless to say I found new employment.

Before I go any further, I just want to emphasize I do not condone cheating on your spouse. An oath is an oath and marriage vows are oaths, we should respect them. Also, the teenage girl was of legal age to mess around older, stupid, men.

BUT, if you are going to cheat — just suggesting here — don’t do it in the bed you share with your spouse and — this is very important — don’t do it in the bed you share with your spouse WHEN SHE IS HOME!

You’re probably thinking, “He just made that up! Nobody is that stupid!”

I swear to you, on the soul of the managing editor, that is an entirely true story.

Getting back to the holiday theme of this, which then would indeed make this a family-friendly story so it ought not get any more salacious, Super Bowl Sunday is one of those yearly events that has, over the years, encouraged groups of people to get together for fun and good times — just like Christmas and Thanksgiving, except that nobody cooks a turkey for Super Bowl Sunday. Well, maybe some people do. Those are the parties to avoid.

For Super Bowl Sunday you gotta have ten different varieties of chips, dips of every description — and please be sure to make or buy enough guacamole — sloppy Joes, hot dogs, burgers with a half dozen different kinds of cheese; maybe some grilled chicken, steaks if you’re getting really jiggy, prime rib if you wanna get arrogant about it, potato salads of every description, get some macaroni salad too. Maybe actual leafy salad, one with lettuce another with spinach — and make one of the dips spinach dip — those little hotlinks cooked in with baked beans, chicken wings, ribs, maybe hire Hooters to cater your party … now there’s an idea …

• One year a friend of mine hired Hooters to cater one of his parties. A manager with four Hooters girls and a cook came out with several different kinds of their wings and other Hooters food. Everyone had fun.

Anyway, you gotta have party food.

In 1998 the Green Bay Packers went to the Super Bowl for the fourth time, and, wouldn’t you know it, the game was held right here in Sunny Sandy Eggo at the Murph, which is now Qualcomm Stadium. It used to be Jack Murphy Stadium. Anyway, this Super Bowl, XXXII, was going to be a cakewalk for the Packers. They were playing the Denver Broncos, led by John Elway. “Seriously? John Elway? They ain’t gonna win. The Packers are 11-point favorites!”

So my brother and I hosted a Super Bowl party at our condo, complete with bratwurst and kielbasa flown in from our favorite sausage shop in Milwaukee. We even soaked some of the brats in beer over night. It was gonna be great!

And then them effin’ Packers went and lost to them effin’ Denver Broncos … I couldn’t eat another brat. The Packers were 11-point favorites! How could they lose!

Anyway, we had great party food, with kielbasa and bratwurst. Effin’ Packers.

So that’s the thing: Super Bowl Sunday is a holiday. It just is and it should be treated as such, complete with the following Monday off, just like we do with federal holidays.

As of this writing I’m not sure what I’ll be doing for the Super Bowl. Maybe just sit around the house and invite a few friends over for some sloppy Joes. I have a friend who wants to avoid the Super Bowl parties because his team is in it — the San Francisco 49er’s.

When your team is in the Super Bowl you don’t wanna be chit-chatting and hobnobbing with anyone, you just wanna watch the game. Forget all the party nonsense. If you’re at a party when your team is playing you have to put up with people walking in front of the TV, maybe somebody’s wife stops to admire the knickknacks on the wall … “YOU’RE BLOCKING THE TV!”

“You don’t have to yell,” she says, just as Aaron Rodgers completes a pass to Donald Driver who apparently caught it one-handed, but you didn’t see it because what’s-his-name’s wife was standing in front of the TV.

• Hey editors! Can I drop an F-bomb here? I mean, come on! Who stands in front of the TV when people are watching the Packer game!
• This is some serious shit here! I know Ravens fans, the real Ravens fans, will feel the same way once today’s game starts.

So you Ravens fans may want to avoid the Super Bowl parties or, if you’re going to have one or go to one, the party should have a room with a big screen TV that’s dedicated to the hard-core fans who are only there to watch the game … and eat a lot of the food.  “Lady! Go look at the effin’ knickknacks in the effin’ bathroom! No wait! Not the bathroom … just, not here!”

So that’s why my friend the 49er fan may come over to my place for the game. He knows I won’t be standing in front of the TV or bothering him with useless chatter. My team, them effin Green Bay Packers, ain’t in it so there’s a good chance I’ll be snoozing before half time. My friend doesn’t have television if you’re wondering why he just doesn’t stay at home and watch it.

The best is to have a small gathering of friends who primarily want to watch the game. They’re not interested in politics or religion, or anything but football and the Super Bowl in particular.

“Obama did what? Yeah, who cares! I’m watching this!”

It won’t be like in the commercials though where you have four 20-something guys crammed together on one couch. C’mon, really? There will be maybe two guys on the couch and we’ll pull the recliner into viewing position (that’s where I’m sitting BTW) and maybe unfold one of those beach recliners if need be. But four grown men on the couch? Not a chance. We need elbow room!

Not to mention, I have a few friends, and I won’t name names here, that start passing gas at the mere mention of bratwurst or the first whiff of hot wings so there’s no way I would cram together on a couch with the two of them.

It should be a good game. The bookies have the Niners as 3.5-point favorites, which means the Ravens could just as likely win it. Last year the Patriots were favored, but the Giants came up big. So, who knows? If I were betting on the game I’d take the Ravens to win.

You never know. Colin Kaepernick could get rattled. He hasn’t so far in the playoffs and in fact, he’s been phenomenal, easily leading his team past them effin’ Packers and Atlanta Falcons. But the Super Bowl is a whole different kettle of worms. It does things to the minds of rookie and second year players who are in it for the first time, especially quarterbacks. QB’s have to think fast and sometimes they rush and think too fast and … “Dude! Really? Another interception? WTF?”

There is this and it is a big thing for all Ravens fans: Super Bowl XLVII will be Ray Lewis’s final game as a professional football player. You can’t discount the emotional lift this fact will bring to the Ravens locker room, from the starters and coaches right down to the guy who mops up the piss in the players’ restroom.

Everyone will be doing whatever it takes to see that Ray Lewis ends his career with a second Super Bowl ring and some of those players, maybe even most of them, will perform above and beyond what anyone thought possible … because Ray Lewis has been, since the Ravens were first brought into existence, the heart and soul of the team.

As much as the Ravens want to win for themselves and the team, they want to win it for Ray more. That’s the main reason I would bet Baltimore wins.

Emotion, heart, whatever you want to call it, is more valuable to a football team than raw skill and right now the Ravens are brimming over with it. Sorry my friends who are Niners fans, but that’s just the fact.

Anyway, it’s Super Bowl Sunday, I’m chillaxing in the crib making my sloppy Joes. If any of my friends want to pop over, no problem, there’s enough to go around, but I ain’t gonna be putting up with any of those socializing shenanigans. You’re coming here to watch the game and eat some food. Period.

And the commercials, Gotta watch the commercials and half time. Can we have another wardrobe malfunction? It’s Beyoncé!

The Super Bowl: the greatest single day sporting event in the world. I just love all the spectacle of it. Now STFU and let me watch the game.

“Yo! Dude! Pass me the tortilla chips and guacamole.”