Prince Trumps Peyton for MVP

It’s a sign of exactly how big Super Bowl Sunday has become, this movement to make the day after a national holiday from work.

As one wag opined, “Martin Luther King must be turning over in his grave.”

In the last decade or so, the day of the NFL championship has become a major social event. The day on which the most guacamole is sold. Much to the chagrin of those who hold Cinch de Mayo sacred. As the guy at the grocery grumbled during the mid-Sunday rush, “Big chip day. BIG chip day.”

For the record, my crew went with those ultra crispy Kettle Chips, Blue Corn Chips and a last minute entry, Crispy Rice Chips. All were worthy contenders. And of course, some Guac for dipping.

Here the segue to a mention of Prince’s halftime show might have piggybacked on the word contender. Truth is the diminutive hieroglyphic purple one was mo’, actually the Star of Stars. Peyotn Manning might have won the MAP trophy. That should have gone to his running backs in tandem. But the real deal was Prince.

The guy’s gone from naughty on naughty to NFL safe. So what. He can play the guitar like ringing’ a bell. He’s the actual heir to Hendrix the cognoscenti have been looking for all these years. And he can dance like James Brown. That, my fellow rock & rollers, is a grand combo.

The guy’s a genius. A wack job, maybe. But a musical genius nonetheless.

And his performance Sunday night far and away trumped any previous halftime extravaganza. The whole Super Bowl halftime weltschmerz is a bunch of bloat, overhyped and less nourishing — and far less satisfying — than those chips. Prince made it all worthwhile. The word transcendent comes to mind.

I shan’t mention the commercials. Because, well, they are advertisements. And if any of those companies want to pay me for a mention here at culturemaven.com, I’ll quickly return their call or email. I do have one rhetorical question for you though: Who knows what business godaddy.com is in?

The game itself was interesting — inclement weather tends to up the surprise factor — but far from a classic. Best team won. Peyton Manning, the best QB, shook the monkeys from his back. All of whom immediately took residence on the sagging shoulders of his counterpart, Da Bears’ Rex Grossman. Who, if he is a wise man, will spend some time away from Chicago to give the Monsters of Midway acolytes a chance to cool off.

The happiest guy in the Second City has to be Steve Bartman, the pariah Cubs fan who many locals think cost Chicago a trip to the World Series a few seasons back. Grossman is now the Bill Buckner in the Hog Butcher to the World.

That the game itself was relatively forgettable doesn’t really matter. The Colts won.

Good for them. Good for their good guy owner Jim Irsay. How neat a dude is Irsay? A few years back he bought the original transcript of Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road,” the whole 120 foot long scroll. He only paid a couple of $$mill. Cheap.

Now can we concentrate on hoops, the way the good Lord intended?

One thought on “Prince Trumps Peyton for MVP

  1. 1. Does your blog support a straight RSS feed? I want to add it to my feed aggregator at LouisvilleBlogs.com.
    2. Do you have a direct contact link anywhere?
    3. You should post whatever you say on WFPK very quickly, if not coincident. I head over to culturemaven.com to read what I heard today and was disappointed to not see it.
    Thanks.

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