The Year of the Goat

Part of the reason I don't always write about the Super Bowl this time of year is that, writing on a regular Thursday schedule, it isn't always relevant in the moment. Sure, it's the biggest, shiniest thing going from a mass-culture perspective for the two solid weeks between the conference championship games and the Big Event itself,* but when you've got an attention span forged and honed in the crucible of MTV and home video game consoles, the chasm between Thursday and Sunday, focus-wise, is Valles Marineris.**

Also the game itself is normally beside the point. It has always been way more interesting to talk about it as the corporate stake being driven that much deeper into the heart of the American civic corpus as we all make appointment viewing out of the latest bumper crop of televised advertisement. We can all lean back when the game starts again and laugh because we know we're capable of appreciating the ads for their artistry or cleverness without being hypnotized into patronizing any of the brands. And yet if you're over 30, you've definitely heard of GoDaddy-dot-com even if you have no idea what it is or what it does. Something's not only getting through but sticking.

This year, between the Then of two Sundays ago and the Coming Up of four days from now, we've only got the whole entire apparatus of American government creaking and listing, pulverizing bits of itself for kindling and we seem to have selected an actual wildfire for the job of keeping it upright. Also! We have YouTube and Pornhub and Twitter and other people's FaceTime conversations to keep us busy besides. Compared to all of that, how does a football game that a) isn't even immediately happening RIGHT THIS SECOND and b) historically known the be a competitive letdown and c) again features the goddamned New England Patriots draw the stupefied, content-starved gaze away?

I'll tell you how: it features THE TEAM I ACTUALLY ROOT FOR.

I know it doesn't seem it seeing as I write in terribly florid sentences and I know what the word "florid" means, but I am a Sports Person. Further, I am a Football Person. I don't say "Football Guy" because all of the most obnoxiously dedicated football people I know are women, but yeah, I've been known to ruin an otherwise peaceful Sunday afternoon by shouting swear words at a television like a totally non-scary normal person.

I'm 44 which means I've been at this sports-watching business for a while. I'm a pretty annoyingly strict only-root-for-the-local-teams stickler, so native Southern Californians wearing Yankees hats or Golden State Warriors shirts will DEFINITELY be getting a lingering stink-eye from a distance and probably slightly from behind where they can't see me. And because I live among them, Lakers fans have instilled in me a deep and abiding loathing for them and their stupid team, so the one team out here that wins anything*** I found a way to alienate myself from entirely.

That means that after the 2002 Anaheim Angels World Series, the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII is the second time in my entire life I have a team I support in a championship/final round of anything. Yes, 2002 was a long time ago, but I remember exactly how it felt: exactly like it feels now. Elation? Satisfaction? Relief? Vindication? Sure, maybe flashes of those here and there. But mostly... confusion. Something in me fundamentally refuses to commit to the idea that it's actually happening. I know how championships go. Two teams I don't really care about, I sort of pick one that fits the most pleasingly invented narrative in my head, I enjoy a tiny bit of deflation/affirmation as I take in the results between glances at the freecell game I've got going on my phone, immediately fire up the YouTube app on the smart TV and watch someone else play a video game I like.

It's even weirder this time because, like I said, I only root for local teams. I grew up an LA Rams fan, back when they played at Anaheim Stadium, about 30 minutes from where I sit and type this. Then in 1995 they fucked off to St. Louis and I immediately gave them up forever. The best I could do was the San Diego Chargers, geographically speaking, so I assimilated, recovered, moved on. And a couple of years ago, holy fuck, horrible anti-community corporate greed worked in my favor and the SAME TEAM fucked off FROM St. Louis to come back here. Loved the Chargers, but those Rams colors, that swirly-logo'd helmet, local... even owned by shitty Wal-Mart people, I couldn't help myself. The childhood connections run deep. It's the same reason I feel as strongly as I do about rum.

So now when Sunday rolls around, I'm going to be in the unprecedented position of Giving A Shit About The Game. I already don't really want it. When the U.S. men's soccer team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup I was gutted and humiliated of course, but when the actual tournament started, there was no team left to gut me. I enjoyed watching every second of it IMMENSELY. It was a blissfully tension-free experience. Not the case here. There will be pacing and swearing and compulsive comfort-eating. It's going to get so bad I'm even going to WANT the commercials to be over.

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*I know the Pro Bowl happens in that space, but it's such an afterthought even the people elected to play in it don't regularly attend. Bless its little heart.

**NO, I didn't have to look that up, I totally just knew it, how dare you.

***Yes, I know the Ducks and Kings have won a couple of Stanley Cups a piece, but like most Southern Californians, I was pleased when I learned about each of them in the headlines the day after they were over.