My perfect Super Bowl record

It's Super Bowl Sunday and I won't be watching it. In fact, as I've said here before, I have never watched a football game live or on television. 

Eagles fans rioting, Philadelphia, 2018.

 Part of my reason for this is growing up with a malformed leg; I knew I would never play the game in any real way. When I got older, I got cynical about big money sports. 

In the early 1980s, when I was in my early twenties, I decided it was time to begin watching football games because it seemed like an important aspect of male bonding. Right before I was going to, however, I read that referees call time outs so the network could air commercials. That sort of thing doesn't raise an eyebrow now but it did mine at the time. And more recently, of course, football has been shown to cause lifelong brain trauma.

A part of Philadelphia seen from the steps of the Art Museum.

I'm amazed at how passionate fans get about their city's teams. If any of the players are from that city, it's only by chance, and their loyalty to the city is broken as soon as any other team offers them more money. It would be as if I automatically loved any movie that happened to be shot in Philadelphia because that's where I'm from.

Night time, Super Bowl Sunday

I have never watched a football game, not live or on TV. It simply never interested me. It might have to do with having a bad leg from early childhood on and knowing before most boys that I would never play any version of the game. I could hit a tennis ball decently, and I used to watch tennis. 
(I do know how football is played and seen bits and pieces of games over the years on the news and things.)

As I write this, the 52nd Super Bowl is being played. There's a good chance that it's the last time I, with a recent probable terminal diagnosis, would be able to watch a football game. And there's this: One of the teams, the Eagles, is from my home town of Philadelphia and the mania when I was in the city earlier today was palpable. 
Am I tempted to tune in? No. I'm about to prepare a simple meal and maybe stream a show. Or catch up on the Sunday papers. I went into the city early and didn't read much of them.

Madness and stuff

1. The elderly woman who has been trying to contact her father left a longish message yesterday. (Quick background: She thinks she's in her 80s and her father has the same name as the Loser.) Usually, the answering machine confuses her and she tries to talk to it, gets frustrated when there's no response, and hangs up, despite the Loser's clear outgoing message. This time she left a calm message for "Mom or Dad," and included her name and telephone number. 
The pictures her alone in a comfortable apartment, sitting peacefully, when suddenly the urge to talk to her father, who has probably been dead for several years, bubbles up among tangled neurons and she reaches for a pad with the Loser's name and number on it. The Loser has politely coached her a few times to write "No, not this number" next to the number, but to no effect.

2. The Loser was going to have dinner with a friend who lives half an hour away and has been depressed lately. (Neither cares for football so watching the Super Bowl had nothing to do with this. There are mild weather concerns, but it looks doubtful that the streets will be bad.) The Loser was ready to go, when he got an email from his friend saying that on his visiting sister's advice (she's a psychiatrist) he was checking himself into an emergency psychiatric care facility for a few days for evaluation and treatment. 
3. Yesterday, the Loser went to a funeral service for an old friend of the family's. About four years ago, he went to the same church for the female half of the couple who's male half's death precipitated the service. That time, he drove his parents, who have since died. The Loser stayed for the reception and spoke to two of the couple's sons and their only daughter, all of whom he had known when they were all children. After the service and reception, the Loser and a couple he's friends with went out for lunch. Two others who'd attended, a man and a woman, went also. The Loser thought he felt a spark between he and the woman, but she's far out of his league, being employed and good looking. 

4. Another friend of the Loser's will visit tomorrow. He sounds troubled and says he is nearly broke. He and the Loser shared the same job and were fired together last summer. 

What football is

Football is entertainment, nothing more. The players represent no city or group of people. They represent only themselves. Whatever they may say about the quality of where they're living, throw them more money and they'll leave.
Each game is like a movie. No, two movies. The coaches are the directors, the players the cast. Both teams are trying to make a better movie than their opposing team. The plot is always the same: My people can get this object past your cast more often than your people can get this object past mine. 
The plot is binary and dull. It's not even good versus evil. It's pretend good versus evil. 
And it does much more harm than good for the great majority of those who play it.

Football includes occasional jolts of garish sexual imagery to increase the spike in testosterone levels.

The Loser on Sports

An athletic woman on top of the "Rocky steps," Philadelphia.

Never, not even once, live or on television, has the Complete and Total Loser watched a football game.
As a child he realized he'd never play the game or many others, even for fun. Even now he doesn't understand why his fellow cripples and the old, the blind, and women watch the game. He's seen bits and pieces of football games over the years as he watches the local news and channel surfs. He sees a series of meetings punctuated by television commercials and brief action sequences in which a man catches or carries a ball a laughably short distance.
The Loser likes non-team sports. He watched things like tennis and Olympic sports until the announcers decided there can never be a five second period without their voices telling the viewer what he's seeing. He is not against exercise. He bikes, swims and lifts weights.
Once, in his early 20s, he decided to sit through a football game and learn a little about it. It would help him bond and socialize with other men, the powers that be. The week before he was to watch a game, he read in a newspaper that during televised games there's an official on the sidelines whose sole purpose is to call timeouts so more commercials could be shown. Disgusted by this kowtowing to corporate greed, he didn't watch the game that weekend and has kept the streak going ever since.