From the Sports Editor: Giant Steps

For at least a couple of years I have advocated for the abolition of the Super Bowl as we know it, although not for the usual and often valid reasons: those who claim the game has largely sucked have largely been correct. This year's game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants was exciting enough, and I seem to recall a good one a few years back, but I'll be damned if I can tell you which teams were playing. The conference finals tend to be the good ones, and then, for one reason or another, either the Super Bowl is over by the end of the first quarter or the game is boring until the final minutes when the previous boring 57 have resulted in de facto excitement.

A few years ago, though, things really changed. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the levees crashed, water overflowed, and once again the US government watched poor people die. The requisite sorrows were aired—save by those rejoicing in god smiting that den of iniquity – and then the affair died a typically silent death in the mainstream conscience. Many people reported being worn out by the images of New Orleans, although I suspect most of these people were not from New Orleans.

Anyway, New Orleans is arguably the birthplace of jazz, and while that may be subject to interpretation, you probably cannot say it is wrong. What I can say is that few people seem to know precisely what it means. Jazz is blues. Jazz is swing. Jazz is classic. Jazz is gospel. Jazz rocks. Jazz rolls. Jazz lazes. Jazz goes bat shit crazy. Jazz is that place where you suddenly realize what y ou thought was an end point, an understanding, is simply another blissful beginning, a cornucopia of possibility. Jazz is a mishmash of cultures that is a culture of its own that does not fit into a category. This is true for most arts, but in a culture that seems so hellbent on categorizing everything, jazz stands out. Wonderfully.

When the Pittsburgh Steelers faced the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl three years ago, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the National Anthem was performed by various spokes on that glorious cultural wheel. Sung by Aretha Franklin and Aaron Neville, with Dr. John on piano, it was the best Super Bowl ever. I think the Steelers won the actual game, but I did not really care. And I could have cared less if Aretha had belted out “My Dog Shat My Face,” which may have been worthy under the circumstances of a few months prior. It was the performance that was incredible. I walked downstairs and said to my wife, “Fuck this shit. Why even play the game? Nothing can top that. Why ever play the thing again? Let's go to the bluff and throw rocks at the Miller bottling plant.”

So it was a little strange that I actually sat down to watch this year's Super Bowl. My justification was that the New England Patriots were on the verge of history. They were something like 18-0, and they were one win from doing something no other team had done, namely winning 19 games in a season. The closest competitor was the 1972 Miami Dolphins who finished the season 17-0, winners of the first perfect season in the Super Bowl era (albeit third in NFL history). They say Americans love an underdog, but people were on the Patriots' bandwagon, rooting to be on the side of history. Even I, while playing Jaws as the audio, was interested in seeing this team do something no football watcher had ever seen before.

But it was also a little strange. Here were hundreds of thousands of people in this stadium, and tens of thousands more around the country, wanting to be part of history. We all wanted to be part of something that we could look back upon and tell others, “I saw that,” or if you are one of those persons prone to vicarious grandiosity, “We did it.” Either way, a lot was invested in this collective euphoria—money in buying various team paraphernalia, time in following the Patriots, not to mention watching the Super Bowl itself.

And it all went up in flames. The New York Giants somehow beat the Patriots. I still am not sure how they did it, but they did, and whatever little team allegiance remains in me was pleased. I grew up in the New York area, and I remember some very awful Giants teams in the 1970s, including the 1978 team which squandered a sure victory over the Philadelphia Eagles when quarterback Joe Pisarchick fumbled in the final seconds of what for any other team, even a bunch of geeks from the high school chess B squad, would have been a win. But now this Giants team had spoiled the Patriots' would-be historic moment. Like the upstart Patriots team that beat the seemingly undefeatable St. Louis Rams in 2002, these Giants too left their opponent stunned. I had a hard time processing it, and I probably would have been less surprised if my cat walked up and started singing some obscure Townes Van Zandt tune.

One of my friends and her boyfriend had come over to watch the game. She – born and raised in New England – watched from aboard a cresting emotional wave. Although as far as I know she cannot conjugate verbs like “to run”, “to pass”, and “to tackle,” she claimed to have a lot at stake. As it became clear that the Giants might actually win this game, her demeanor quickly progressed from stony, intense silence to rage, resulting in what she later referred to an “obviously well-deserved” swift kick to her boyfriend's groin.

I know that the word fan derives from fanatic, but as the boyfriend lay huddled on the ground in the fetal position, moaning about never having children, it occurred to me that this fandom was odd. A long time ago, when my friend The Chief kicked the living shit out of his television because his team was losing, it struck me as disturbing, though also somewhat amusing. Twenty years later, with preternatural moans emanating from the pained mass of flesh on my floor, such fanaticism seemed only disturbing. The poor bastard had no medical coverage, and all he could hope for was a free trip to the hospital from the cab company for which he worked. My wife, a doctor and genuine beauty in her time, was in no place to argue as our crazed guest had shoved her face through a window for daring to ask, “Will the Patriots lose?” No doubt they deserved their pain—and even if not, I was not about to dispute the issue (I not only observe the Code of Hospitality, but also of self-preservation)—and I was left to wonder what was to be done?

How much was a cab fare to the hospital? How much would it cost him to get his balls back in place? How much money was spent on the Super Bowl? How many t-shirts did people buy? How much party food? How much was a ticket for the game? And the airfare? How much, how much, how much to gimme, gimme, gimme? All these people whose time and money was spent supporting the New England Patriots in their seemingly unstoppable march on history...to what end? And even had the Patriots won, to what end?

Like jazz, democracy is about possibility and going beyond boundaries. What if we could marshall all these people and their energy toward the cause of single payer universal healthcare? Maybe that guy wouldn't have been kicked in the balls, even as his girlfriend later claimed it had nothing to do with his surly questioning of The Faith so much as what she considered his affront to “general principles.” High morality or gutter football politics, he could receive the care he needed at the hospital.

No, we could all just get together with the same intensity that binds fans of sports teams and be fans of the idea that everybody – by nature of being alive – is entitled to healthcare. If we lose today, we can cry or throw things at the television or smash faces on windows—only our own, though – and then come back tomorrow and fight again until we win. It would be just like Harry Bridges suggested in the late 1970s when he said we could get single payer healthcare tomorrow if we simply didn't show up for work tomorrow.

It wouldn't require a plane fare to Arizona or a ticket to the game. We wouldn't need jerseys to feel like professionals. We would not be spectators and hangers-on. We would be professional citizens – real patriots – and our membership would be known by our presence and resolve. We would be part of the team, creating our own beat, and riding our will to new places that before this moment we never knew existed. And when we were successful, we would be part of history, going down in the annals as the people who, despite the dissent of those more comfortable in a feudal society, brought the United States, at least on the issue of healthcare, into the modern world.

Pete Shaw is a largely retired Jack-of-many-trades, but has never mastered anything. He lives with his lovely wife in Portland, Oregon.