Actually, I didn’t catch Christina Aguilera’s National Anthem gaffe in real time prior to Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast. For that, I would have had to, firstly, committed the lyrics to memory and, secondly, more acutely followed her rendition.
I was looking at her image on the screen, however, but listening much more like I would to an alto-saxophone solo than if it had been a vocal interpretation of, say, “But Not For Me.”
Now I understand, with the Super Bowl having, over time, morphed into such an über-patriotism rally, and especially since Whitney Houston had so ecstatically raised the bar for the gig, that the performance is scrutinized much more closely during these times of ongoing war.
I suppose the only reason I was paying any attention at all had to do with Ms. Aguilera’s brilliant guest shot in Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones IMAX concert film “Shine a Light.” Jack White and Buddy Guy also shined their lights during their respective featured spots, but they were already known quantities.
Who was this chick? Not exactly having followed her early career with the “Mouseketeer” set, I was astounded by her ability to flat-out rock with the Stones! I began to pay attention to the point of checking out “Burlesque” when it was released a few months back.
But enough of that! If I’m not mistaken, there was a game afoot. And a quite exciting one at that — with a quorum of soon-to-be award-winning commercials from the current generation of “Mad Men.”
First things first! As kickoff approached, I grabbed the “Cal Golden Bears” ballcap I purchased from a Memorial Stadium concessionaire prior to the 2003 USC v. Cal game on the day a much younger Aaron Rodgers might well have come into his own.
As a card-carrying Trojan fan, I had chosen the white Cal cap over the much-darker USC versions as protection from the sun on what had become a most-beautiful early-autumn blue-sky day in Berkeley. The Bears, of course, would be little more than a speed bump for the men of Troy. NOT! Cal won in 3-overtimes 34-31.
In only his second career start, Rodgers had his Bears up 21-7 before injury forced him to the sidelines in the 3rd Quarter. They didn’t need him much after that. Once the dust had settled and the Cal student body had hauled off the goalposts to People’s Park (had to throw that in due to all the recent Reagan hoopla), off I crept in search of solace, finding myself in Sproul Plaza, awash in cultural history.
The powers-that-be had somewhat recently renamed the concrete stairway up to Sproul Hall the “Mario Savio Steps.” careful search I located the bronze nameplate imbedded into the stairs, supposedly near the spot where Savio delivered his famous rallying-cry speech: “There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious “
Although I found Mario and the “Free Speech Movement” to be seminal, I couldn’t shake Mr. Rodgers. Due to the classy manner in which the young man from Chico had dissected my boys that day, I would continue to follow his slowly rising stock — including his humbling free-fall in the 2005 NFL Draft and, as a Packer, his long wait for Brett Favre to come to terms with time.
Meanwhile, back at Super Bowl XLV, my thoughts turned to Max McGee, MVP of Super Bowl I, played in the L.A. Coliseum on the Ides of January, 1967. Max, a veteran wide receiver, found himself way-down the depth chart that season. He knew the only way he would actually get to play was if starter Boyd Dowler went down to injury.
Sooo, Max figured a way to out-maneuver Coach Lombardi’s curfew security and spent the night hitting clubs along Sunset Boulevard. Returning to the hotel around 7:30 am, he could barely stand up on the sidelines for kickoff. Well, of course, Dowler went down early and McGee stumbled under enough passes to become the hero of the day.
My MVPs for this past Sunday were, besides my man Aaron, the creative geniuses who thought up the Budweiser ad where an old-west saloon-full of bad hombres breaks into the Elton John Bernie Taupin classic “Tiny Dancer.” I’ll never hear “Blue jean baby, LA Lady, seamstress for the band” in quite the same way again.
And then there was Eminem’s and Chrysler’s homage to the city of Detroit featuring a dolly-shot of one of the 1932 murals Diego Rivera painted at the Detroit Institute of Art. And they say football ain’t illuminating!
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and an observer, participant, and chronicler of the Park City and Wasatch County social scenes for the past 40 years.