We live in an age of wretched excesses.
It often seems that no matter which way you turn, virtually all about you is overblown, over exposed, overplayed, overstated, over covered, over rated, and rarely, if ever, kept in anything even remotely resembling proper perspective.
To wit: Taylor Swift.
Now of supercilious Super Bowl fame.
Enough said. But allow me to elucidate anyway, if I may.
I’m not sure who else attended Super Bowl 58 – but, the NFL made absolutely certain we all knew that Ms Swift was there. And that we should all be thrilled with every single move she made. Which they seemed to think was kind of a guide as to what was happening on the field -- and how we, ourselves, should properly react.
Talk about wretched excess.
Can the forever over- (and self-) indulgent Ms Swift sing? Somewhat. Though, despite the endless hype, she is certainly no Ella Fitzgerald, Barbara Streisand, Diana Ross, Kate Smith, (or, frankly, even Millie Small, for that matter). Is she sexy – perhaps, in a sort in a back-seat-at-the-drive-in kind of way.
We all know that what the over-hyped super star really happens to be, quite simply, is the Biden- and Hamas-supporting darling of the radical left media machine.
Hence, the endless excess.
But Ms Swift is only a symbolic totem of the overall problem. She represents a society gone mad over its own insanity. A society that has lost all perspective. A society plunging forever more deeply into an obsessive abyss.
How else does one explain featuring the overwrought “Black National Anthem” at the overblown Taylor Swift Super Bowl?
That, indeed, was the true case study in a nation gone nuts over nonsense.
In a nation of some 340,000,000 people, we are told that a minuscule 14 percent of us needs its own national anthem. The 200-year-old anthem that has long sufficed for the rest of us simply isn’t sufficient for them.
They are somehow so different (though they live, work, and play among the rest of us every selfsame day of the year) that they need an anthem of their own – and the remaining 86 percent of the population better damn well rise to our feet, bow our heads and show our sorry appreciation (and abject degradation).
And one has to wonder: What about the rest of us – all of whom have our own distinctive ethnic ID, often with its own historic bone to pick?
Where, Mr. Wealthy and Woke Roger Goodell, is our National Anthem?
What about the 18 (and rapidly rising) percent of Americans who are Latino? A lot of whom have been called “s**cs” and been relegated to tending lawns. Shouldn’t they have their own National Anthem sung at the Super Bowl? How about 17 percent of Americans who are German (once called “Nazis”)? Or the 12 percent who are Irish (there is that potato thing, after all)?
In fact, why not just dispense with the game altogether, Mr. Goodell, and turn the whole confound shooting match into one big ethnic songfest, replete with marimba bands, polkafests, and “Oh Danny Boy” out the gazoo?
And, oh yeah, don’t you dare forget we Italians! We’re a good, solid six percent of the population. Proud as pizza, pasta, and The Chairman of the Board.
Trust me, for us, there is no sweeter refrain than:
Bells will ring, ting-a-ling-a-ling
Ting-a-ling-a-ling and you'll sing, "Vita bella"
Hearts will play tippy-tippy-tay
Tippy-tippy-tay like a gay tarantella
When you walk in a dream
But you know, you're not dreaming, signore
Scusami, but you see
Back in old Napoli, that's amore
Makes my mouth water for my Calabrese mother’s chicken cacciatore just to think about it. And we darn well expect everyone to stand at rapt and respectful attention until the last melodic refrain is sung and last pungent clove of garlic parmesan is sprinkled about.
Capiche?
So, here’s my recommendation for Mr Goodell’s ever-obsequious NFL in its endless pursuit of wretched ethnic excess:
Next year, just forget about the game altogether. Just hand the Lombardi Trophy to Patrick Mahome before the big show really starts (it’s all become kind of pro forma now anyway) –
And devote the remainder of the festivities to one long, overblown, overwrought, cacophonous, ear-splitting, divisive, disruptive, ethnic anthem songfest.
But, then, really, Commissioner Commissar Goodell, why stop there?
Here’s an idea to make it even more divisive, disruptive and destructive:
Divide the stadium up into ethnic enclaves. Hand out brass knuckles, switchblades, luparas (for my mother’s people), machetes (for my Honduran wife’s people)…
And let’s just extend this wretched excess to its logical conclusion!
Enough with this “E pluribus unum” nonsense as the time-honored motto of this once great country. Sure, it worked for nearly 200 years, producing the greatest, most free and prosperous, unified and uplifting nation in the world.
But, that was then, and this is now.
Now we are over all of that. So, enough with the sugar sweet. syrupy joining hands and getting along for the good of us all.
The NFL has already set the stage and sung its song.
Now it’s time to jettison E pluribus Unum once and for all and emblazon across the end zones, inscribe upon each helmet, and fly from stadium flagpoles:
“Divide et vince” (Divide and conquer).
And maybe, Mr. Goodell, you can get NFL icon Ms Swift to don one of her requisite negligees, gyrate out onto the proscenium and top off the songfest with “In the Year 2525” just to put it all into perspective for us:
Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, Now man's reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it's only yesterday
Or better yet, how about just knocking off the wretched excess?
