Rooting interest for Super Bowl LVIII

At Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas

I’m gauging my rooting interest for Super Bowl LVIII. Now that the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions are not in contention, I have to recalibrate.

 

For the NFC, there’s the San Francisco 49ers. The team has won five Super Bowls. But they’ve won none since the end of the 1994 season, losing after 2012 and 2019, the latter to the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-20. If the 49ers win, they’ll tie the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots with six.  I liked the team in the Joe Montana and Steve Young years.

 

My parents visited San Francisco in the late 1960s for my father’s business trip, which they enjoyed, in no small part because of this incident.   My sister Leslie and I went there in the late 1980s and enjoyed the place. And my favorite baseball player was stationed in centerfield there for several years.

 

For the AFC, the Kansas City Chiefs have been in the Super Bowl for four of the last five years, winning two after 2019 and 2022,  so they are the reigning champions after beating the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35.
TS & TC

My singular pull toward the Chiefs involves the guano-crazy theories about a billionaire singer dating a Chiefs player.

 

“Theories about Ms. Swift are prevalent online, but suggestions about what her political motivations are, in terms of her relationship with the N.F.L., were promoted last month by the Fox News political commentator Jesse Watters.

 

“‘Have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?’ Mr. Watters said during a broadcast. ‘Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting.'”

 

From Newsnation: “On Newsmax, a conservative news network, one host took the Taylor Swift chatter to the level of obsession, decrying what he termed the ‘idolatry’ surrounding her and claiming it is sinful. Meanwhile, on One America News Network, host Alison Steinberg labeled Swift’s relationship with [Travis] Kelce a psychological operation (psyop), characterizing the entire spectacle as ‘bread and circuses on steroids.'”

 

The Hill notes: “Vivek Ramaswamy, a former presidential candidate who has thrown his support behind Trump, is perhaps the most high-profile Republican to go after the singer so far, stoking theories that the NFL is rigging football games for Swift’s Kansas City beau as Democrats look for her endorsement.” Former Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus called such talk “a powder keg of stupidity.”
Yes, there are TS experts.

On Politico, Swift expert Brian Donovan explains in detail why the political right is targeting a rich, heteronormative pop star. “I think there is a cyclical reaction happening where we saw with the Barbie movie and with the Eras Tour, a kind of woman-centered cultural aesthetic take hold of the American imagination. And I think there’s a ton of backlash to that driven by real basic sexism and misogyny…

 

“I think what irritates conservatives the most is that this attractive, talented, wholesome, white, successful, Christian, self-made billionaire woman is somehow not on their side. I guess that’s because she is also intelligent.”

 

Oh, and she just made Grammy history with her fourth Album of the Year win. Maybe George Soros arranged that.

 

So my loyalties are split. Root for the team that hasn’t won the Super Bowl in three decades, or hope the other team wins and watch a certain segment of the population go insane.

The Las Vegas strip and Fremont East

Meow Wolf

Sun, Sept 24: You’d think two old guys flying three time zones might at least nap before going out. You’d be wrong. We needed to check out the Las Vegas strip.

After checking into our quite lovely Club Wyndham Desert Blue room- thanks to my mother-in-law, who had points that needed to be used up before the end of September – we took the hotel shuttle to the Paradise Hotel. It ran nearly every hour. M-Th until 9 pm going out and 9:30 coming back, but until 1/1:30 on Friday through Sunday.

We just walked a lot, stopping for a slice of pizza.

We spent a good deal of time in the Bellagio. It had all sorts of interesting and unusual features, such as this ceiling.

This room is fantastical.

This view of the Eiffel Tower, which included a water show in the front of the Bellagio, is wonderful  Also, the place was so damn big, and it was difficult to leave without doubling back.

Working for a living

A lot of people were out there trying to make a buck, including so many buskers, their sounds blurred into each other. Instead of the costumed Muppets and Spider-Man at New York City’s Times Square, we see several young women wearing enough clothing not to be arrested, who asked us several times over the first two days if we wanted our pictures taken with them. I was in the “thanks but no thanks” school. MAK was more conversational with them but ultimately answered in the negative as well.

The Las Vegas Sphere opened the day after we left town. This picture does not do it justice, but I was too tired to walk closer that night. Yes, it’s an abomination of wretched excess, it looks really cool, and apparently, the sound system inside is incredible. ( You could read how Darren Aronofsky Describes His Journey to Creating the First Movie for it.)

M, Sept 25: The resort offered a ride to a local grocery store affiliated with Kroegers every Monday. It left at 10 a.m., took ten minutes to get there, and then returned to the hotel at 10:40. We had a half hour to get our food—milk, raisin bran, sandwich fixing, orange juice, etc.

There was a guy on the bus who, especially in profile, looked astonishingly like Barack Obama. With his soft Texas cadence, he even sounded a bit like 44. MAK asked him if he ever… Faux BHO cut him off: “All of the time.”

Old LV

After lunch, we took a cab to East Fremont. It’s an older part of the city, a bit grittier. But a few blocks are covered by a dome that changed color. Below the roof were ziplines that people rode periodically.

The most fascinating place had to be Circa, an adults-only hotel and casino. It had a bank of four dozen monitors and provided the ability to get information to bet on almost everything. We did not gamble at all, and I’m disinclined to.  But it was an interesting anthropological observation. (Read more about the Circa and its Stadium Swim here.)

Omega Mart

Tu, Sept 26: We went to something Meow Wolf. What is it? I don’t know, and I was there. “Meow Wolf opens portals of possibility. We redefine the paradigm of art and storytelling to make a positive difference in the world.

Yeah, that. “We have numerous full-time artists on staff, working in a huge range of media, including sculpture, painting, fabrication, digital art, writing, film, and many more. Additionally, we prioritize collaboration with many local artists in each exhibition location.”

There are exhibits in Denver, CO;  Grapevine, TX; and the original site in Sante Fe, NM, as well as Las Vegas, which has the Omega Mart, “America’s Most Exceptional Grocery Store.” Let’s see: “Every door or box of cereal at Omega Mart is a potential entryway into new worlds and artful revelations.”

You have to go with it. It is part weird, part scavenger hunt, and part meditative space.

Afterward, we ate at an excellent Vietnamese restaurant with a savvy server who said, “You don’t want” the item I was about to order. She told MAK what flavorings to add to his soup. This is someone who cared about her work.

(Note: the cereal box pic is from MeowWolf.com. MAK took the first three and the last two photos. The rest are mine; having seen the REAL Eiffel Tower fairly recently, I was obsessed with getting a good picture of the LV one; the sixth time was the charm.)

Vegas destiny

10 seconds of Rebecca Jade

I’m not big on “destiny.” Still, I called this Vegas destiny because it felt like my friend MAK and I were destined to go to that place on Sunday, September 24.

We had talked about a few dates. It had to be after the 16th when my wife and I had tickets for a play. And it had to be before the 29th when I had my annual physical. Meanwhile, he had to see an Electric Hot Tuna’s Last Waltz show on the 21st in Kingston, NY.

Early start

We stayed at a hotel near the airport on Saturday night because we had a 6:21 a.m. flight. The current conventional wisdom of people who travel far more than I was that we are at the airport 1.5 hours before the 5:58 boarding.

BTW, there are two Hilton hotels on the same short road. The first is Hilton Garden, which my wife and I visited the Friday before to double-check that the shuttle would work. And the second is Tru by Hilton, which we booked. We’re glad my wife stayed until we checked in.

It was a nice room. The most difficult things were two: the big-screen TV in the room had a remote control that we couldn’t control. I called the desk, and a guy came up very quickly. He tried the remote and got the same result, took the remote, and then brought back a remote that worked a few minutes later.

He also solved our second problem: we couldn’t find how to turn on the lights. There are these little black buttons about halfway down the metal trim. We might have seen it in the daylight, but since we checked in well after dark, there was no way we could have discerned them.

The logical strategy would have been to go to bed immediately before our 3:45 a.m. alarm went off. But no! We stayed up until well past midnight talking.

Early morning flight

I slept perhaps three hours, and MAK not all when we had to get up and ready; the shuttle did work. We got to the American Airlines check-in. There are a lot of people there at 4:30.

My friend didn’t mention that we weren’t checking our bags. Our economy status was such that everything, including checked baggage, was charged extra. Fortunately, the total outside dimensions of the piece, length + width + height, were less than 62 in / 158 cm.

We go through TSA without a hitch. You can bring water BOTTLE through, just not water.

We went to Burger King partly because the Starbucks line was longer. A tip: ordering a Croissan’wich without the egg confuses the staff.

On our way to our gate. I saw Steve Hartman. He’s the guy on CBS News who does the On The Road segments started by the late Charles Kuralt. They tend to appear on the CBS Evening News on Friday nights and CBS Sunday Morning.

He’s also on the CBS Mornings on Mondays with his son and daughter on a segment called Kindness 101, which I don’t see often. I wait for him to finish talking to someone; I say to him, “I really like your work,” and then I move on because I don’t like bothering public figures too much, especially at 5:30 a.m. at an airport.

Because American Airlines offered to check a bag to our final destination – for free – I liberated myself from my larger bag. We were each in the middle seats on both legs of our flight, about a row apart. 

Seatmates (1)

I could see the woman on the aisle seat would be flying to XNA from her boarding pass. Where the heck is THAT? Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, serving Fayetteville/Springdale, Arkansas. She goes to Walmart to instruct them in baking their cakes. It was great initially, she indicated, but her workload continues to increase.

She was watching something on her phone: The Chosen, “the first-ever multi-season TV show about the life of Jesus.” I heard of it, and maybe I’d watch it someday, but not on a cellphone.

We only had 45 minutes from landing in CLT at a B gate to taking off from a C gate at least 10 minutes away, and that’s just to the beginning of the C area. As we’re walking, I see coming toward me my niece Rebecca. She had performed in Charlotte on Friday night, then in Montgomery, AL, on Saturday night. She was flying back to San Diego via CLT (east to go west), and she was running from The C gates to wherever her flight was. Seeing her just long enough to hug her was a bit of kismet.

Seatmates (2)

On our CLT to LAS flight were several – at least two dozen – Pittsburgh Steelers fans. We knew this because they wore black and gold paraphernalia, primarily uniform tops and some T-shirts. Most were attending the NFL nationally-televised game that afternoon between the Steelers and the Las Vegas Raiders. Another bit of destiny, being in the presence of a temporary hejira from Steel City to Sin City.

The guy in the window seat beside me slept most of the trip, wearing a hoodie, so I could barely see his face. About 20 minutes before landing, however, Pat woke up. He, too, was going to the game, having nosebleed seats at a severe premium.

We then talked intensely about his interests in football and other sports, COVID-19, his work as a freelance cameraman, and other things. He was delightful.

We all picked up our luggage at the farthest carousel from the gate we deplaned – one must take a light rail to get there.

MAK and I took a cab to our timeshare, passing by Allegiant Stadium. We waited for our room to be ready by watching pieces of football games (Miami 70-20 over Denver, Swifties learn who Travis Kelce is.)

Then we checked in, went out, and did a whole bunch of stuff – more info anon – and ended up at a bar/restaurant, eating and watching the end of the football game less than two miles away.

Viva Las Vegas

Mark Evanier

Viva Las Vegas? Why did my oldest college friend and I go to Las Vegas? Because he didn’t go to Iceland! Makes sense, right?

MAK and I were hanging out at a bar/restaurant in Albany. He told me he and a friend would fly out of Stewart Airport in Newburgh. It’s pretty reasonably priced. So MAK was excited for about 48 hours until his friend got injured moving furniture; he was bummed.

This led to a conversation about travel more broadly. I said, “You know, somewhere I really don’t ‘get’? Las Vegas!” MAK said he’d been there several times. Did I want to go there with him? Hmm. (Actually, I misunderstood him. He had been there but one time but for over a week.)

On the one hand, gambling doesn’t interest me. The few times I’ve been stuck at a casino, always with other people, I was bored silly. On the other hand, there are still 20 states I’ve never been to, and Nevada was one of them. I was up for an adventure.

The window had to be between September 13 and 28. It was after my Anthropocene Reviewed review at the APL and before my annual physical. Moreover, my wife has a timeshare she took over from her parents, and there were points to be used or lost by the end of September. Also, while my wife’s job is busy in September, it’s busier in October, so she could feed the cats.

Ask ME

I asked Mark Evanier, a comic book and TV cartoon writer, among many other things. “As someone who has been [to Las Vegas] a lot, what would you consider are the must-sees (if any) and avoid that like the plagues in 2023? He replied: “Well, I haven’t been there for several years and have very little interest in returning to a city that for many years was like a second home to me.”

Still, he answered at length.
“Perhaps take in a show. They’ve gotten way outta hand price-wise, but in many of those hotel clusters, you’ll find booths with names like Tix 4 Tonight that sell same-day tickets for reduced prices. You can also sometimes find deals through Groupon. Unfortunately, the real superstars who play the city usually only play on the weekend…when I told you not to go…

“But not everything costs money. Walking around and sightseeing doesn’t…yet. So you can have a good time…and one final tip: Avoid (1) street performers who want you to pay them to pose for a photo, (2) prostitutes and (3) the folks who are trying to sell you time-share deal. Actually, (2) and (3) aren’t are all that different except that with (3), the screwing is way more expensive and goes on forever.”

I kept that in mind.

So when DO we talk about this?

“Your thoughts and prayers aren’t going to stop the next shooting. Only action and leadership will do that.”


When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston and most of southeast Texas, it was NOT the time to talk about global warming because of people’s lives and homes and businesses in danger? OK, how about now? No, the recovery is still going on.

So when do we talk about Houston’s rampant growth and urbanization, which merely aggravates the problem of the city’s flat terrain? If they’re going to “rebuild,” then how and where? What are they going to do differently going forward?

I remember some towns in the Midwest that were flooded in 1993 by the Mississippi River moved entirely.

Yet talking about Puerto Rico’s aging infrastructure seemed to be fair game for at least one person, right after Hurricane Maria, a broken system that has made communication so difficult that the aid was not reaching many of the people.

“I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack because we’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico.” You would never have heard this in Houston or Miami.

So what’s the difference? Mark Evanier tweeted: “Puerto Rico doesn’t have water, power or humanitarian aid because of two other things they lack: Electoral votes and enough white people.” I have (jokingly? I’m not sure) suggested that some of the three million residents of the island move to some red states on the mainland before 2020.

(And I will rant that I wish some news commentators would refer to Puerto Rico as a commonwealth rather than a territory, even though commonwealth status is just plain weird.)

Over 58 people were killed and over 500 were injured in Las Vegas. “Thoughts and prayers.” But Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut and husband of former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in 2011 at a constituent event in Tucson, AZ, disagrees.

Messages to the families of victims in the Las Vegas shooting, while important, are “not enough.” Kelly told reporters outside of the Capitol building with his wife at his side: “Your thoughts and prayers aren’t going to stop the next shooting. Only action and leadership will do that.”

The Onion ran YET AGAIN, ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

So when do we talk about a ban on assault weapons that can kill people from a distance of four football fields away? Apparently, it’s just not the right time. It wasn’t the right time after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, FL, which was the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. And it’s not time now, less than 16 months later, when we have the NEW deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

Maybe it’ll be money: After Hurricanes and Las Vegas Shooting, Countries Warn Citizens About Travel to U.S. I’m not sure what awful things will be required in order for us to have the conversations, but I better start praying NOW, because they’re going to be horrific.

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