A quick peek outside this morning found no mystery objects floating over the Sandias, but I understand that some sort of “sporting event” lurks just over the western horizon.
Something involving the “feets ball,” a televised gladiatorial spectacle designed to indulge the American appetite for mayhem, shopping, and bad noise.
We do not follow the “feets ball” here at El Rancho Pendejo. It reminds us of the Marvel nonsense, in which people are paid handsomely to put on uniforms and helmets and then butt heads like randy goats. Herself calls it “punch porn.”
Marvel’s costumed employees generally enjoy longer careers than the “feets ball” gang, because they are only pretending to stomp each other into a thin paste. The NFL’s grunts ain’t playin’, though they call their line of work a “game.”
In that “game,” the average career is just 3.3 years, thanks to injuries, retirement, or getting cut by one’s team. Robert Downey Jr. lasted 11 years as Iron Man. And the only brain damage he has was self-inflicted, before he signed on with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Though I’ll bet his head hurts when he thinks about trying to count all the money he made playing Marvel’s souped-up Tin Man with attitude.
Anyway, instead of watching the “feets ball” or “Ant-Man and The Who: Quadrophenia” we will be checking out Marc Maron’s new HBO special, “From Bleak to Dark.”
Maron riffed on Iron Man and the MCU during his last standup special, “End Times Fun,” available on Netflix. Like Downey Jr. (and Your Humble Narrator), Maron chose the scenic route to brain damage over getting spiked nose first into the Astroturf like a lawn dart, six inches shy of the goal line.
Maron’s not for everyone. But then neither is the “feets ball.”
Mad Blog Media 
Saw this today:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-forgotten-history-of-head-injuries-in-sports
Gee whillikers … turns out that if you bop people in the brain-box often enough, bad things happen.
We’re awfully slow learners, ain’t we?
Incidentally, I’ve only been knocked out once — that I can remember, anyway — so we can’t blame CTE for this blog.
Meanwhile, a fourth “balloon” bites the dust. Only 95 to go.
We went to the local community theater group’s performance of “The Odd Couple – Female Version.” Then out to dinner. Scott Simon had a good opinion piece about the NFL yesterday. At the end he said he would watch the game anyway, and that struck me as odd for him.
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/11/1156271868/opinion-who-are-the-real-winners-in-the-nfl
How was the show? Maron’s standup was a good hour. Better than his last outing, I thought. Some rough stuff in there about his girlfriend’s death and his dad’s dementia; the dark voice in the back of everyone’s heads that we try not to hear.
Scott Simon has been on NPR since Heck was a pup. What keeps that guy ticking? He’s almost exactly two years older than me (born March 16, 1952), and we went pro about the same time (1977), but ol’ Scotty has made a bit more of himself than Your Humble Narrator. And he’s still on the job.
It was good. Some of the players were doing it for the first time, and I know how hard that is. We played at the neighborhood rec center Saturday afternoon, and I lost the jitters after the first song. So, they will get better. The standout performance was the lady that played Olive (Oscar). They did the FU, Florence Unger, bit.
Nice simonized transition from Neil to Scott!
Can’t find the clip, but I still crack up thinking about the scene where Matthau is reading the notes that Felix has left him, which all end in “F.U.” “It took me a few minutes to realize that F.U. stood for Felix Unger!” I thought I was pretty slick getting that joke as a precocious 7th grader.
Lemmon and Matthau were big fun to watch. And Lemmon could play anything. He killed in “Glengarry Glen Ross.” And he was in some elite company there.
I’ve seen “handegg” pop up a few times this week. Can’t remember who started that. I wanna say it was an Accidental Tech Podcast thing, probably Marco Arment.
You do mean the Super Commercial don’t you? Something about marketing crap to the masses. According to the TV schedule, the pre-game show was as long as the game. I believe I also saw something about a show the day before talking about the commercials that were going to be aired. Wow ! Really?
I actually like football for a short time. The broadcasters do a fine job of displaying color, action and excitement. Something that my attention lacking mind can enjoy. But it gets old quick.
I realized that when the “big commercial” started, that the roads would likely see less traffic. I fired up the old pedal bike and roared off at about kick off time. I can only afford short duration rides these days so I was back before the bell rang and all the temporarily self-convinced smart folks poured out of the pubs, post commercial.
My brother is marooned in Phoenix and informed me that he was staying off the streets and keeping his head low. He told me that when the Super Con came to town, an element of mass hysteria erupted. I wonder if it isn’t also due to some pro club swinging event that also takes places in his neck of the woods at the same time?
Hey, did I read something in a previous post about simonizing? My van could really use a wash and a wax. I’m thinking about picking up tickets to a Neil Young concert coming up and I sure wouldn’t want to break his heart of gold arriving at the Cripple Creek ferry in a dirty rig.
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/neil-young/albuquerque
Phoenix must’ve been nuts with the Stupor Bowel and the big golf tourney going on. Hell, it’s nuts when nothing is going on.
Well as it was a good excuse to gather family for over eating and snarking. So, we watched the whole shebang and the actual game was very good. The commercials were inane and perplexing with “famous” people hawking stuff. At least I think they were since most of the time we couldn’t decipher what the hell they were selling. The half time show with Rihannna? was an eye opener with her grabbing her own crotch and spanking her own butt. And she is supposedly preggers I’m told. So much for family entertainment but the Dubious Bowl lost that aspect a long time ago….
But my son’s broasted chicken was excellent…
I hope the chicken breast didn’t have a “wardrobe malfunction.”
I just can’t pretend to take an interest. My sis used to watch the “feets ball” with the old man, grab some quality bonding time, but I was always off somewhere reading or goofing off outside.
Dad watched the golf, too, which boggles the mind. The onliest thing duller than playing golf is watching it, especially on TV.
The only redeeming value that golf on tv has is that it works better than Benadryl, melatonin, and tryptophan all rolled up together.
If you talked about halftime crotch grabs and butt spanking while getting coffee at the office on Monday morning, could that be construed as soft core porn (corn pour?) sexual discrimination?
But really, is a halftime show like that actually original or simply rehashing the same old crap from the past. No, I would have preferred a more global political statement such as performing in Ukrainian colors costumes, dancing in an expanding fashion driving the invading foe back to their stage pits, and then in the end, urinating on the beaten effigy of Vlad the moron.
Looks like another normal Monday Morning in Albuquerque…
https://www.abqjournal.com/2572855/pedestrians-killed-in-two-separate-wrecks-early-monday.html
Anybody who walks across Montgomery at Pennsylvania against the light at 1 a.m. after the Stupor Bowl is a suicide.
Yep. Blame the pedestrian. That will absolve the issue.
Dude. Google Earth that area. The cops have clocked drunkards and dope fiends doing 140+ mph in that stretch of Montgomery. Three high-speed lanes in each direction with a median. I wouldn’t cross Montgomery on foot at 1 a.m. after the Stupor Bowel if the light were in my favor. Sheeyit, I wouldn’t cross it in an Abrams tank under sunny skies at high noon on Easter Sunday.