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| ich liebe es |
New York is a sports town, to be sure, with millions of fans and statisticians supporting half a dozen professional teams across leagues in ice hockey, football, basketball, even soccer and of course, baseball ... but only the Yankees, and B-ball's Knicks, seem to whip up actual "New York" hometown frenzy. If you're from out on the island (or like to tantalize and frustrate yourself year after year!), you might prefer to cheer the Mets - or skate to the tune of hockey's Islanders. Often you'll pass through the city to get to New Jersey, to watch the Devils, the Red Bulls ... or see a football game.
"New York", per se -- that is, Manhattan -- is generally flyover country when it comes to football.
So why is Midtown Manhattan in lockdown this week, as hundreds of thousands of additional sports fans, and statisticians, pour in, to clog the streets, drink free coffee and essentially tailgate down Broadway and across Times Square, to experience the first ever Big Game in "New York"?
The Big Game, Super Bowl XLVIII, is not in New York! It's in New Jersey. There, in the clogged and congested bedroom arteries of diners, Italian restaurants, bridge and tunnel noise and traffic, bad roads and off-ramps and overpriced -- way overpriced -- fleabag motels, should be the lockdown!
I start mixing metaphors when I'm angry ... Or when I find myself in a scene not mine, or a world I can't fully comprehend. I'm not a sports fan myself, first off. I couldn't care less about the "Big Game". Super Sunday has become just one more in a long list of endless winter holidays ... Another excuse to be forced to entertain, be entertained, invite friends over and overeat. Except for the nachos, and maybe an off chance of catching a wardrobe malfunction, I prefer to stay in bed and play KenKen each Super Sunday.
"Darla," I'll ask my wife (though that's not her name). "Darla?"
"Yes, Jeff?"
"Are the teams still playing?"
"Yes, Jeff."
"Can you bring me a nacho?"
I used to like football, and all sports. Don't get me wrong. I went to the gym once. I walk, and do things. Why, when I was Lorde's age, I actually played football. Played hockey too, and to this day, can skate a mean crossover.
But unfortunately, I suck at KenKen ... and I can't stay in bed all week! Which brings things around to my original question. Why is Midtown Manhattan in lockdown? Once again, "New York" has subsumed its surroundings, and sucks up all of the hype and attention ... falling over itself to piss me off!!!
As I'm driving up 1st Avenue, hoping hopelessly to cross to 8th, I bump and fender-bend and ding into the first available parking thing I see. I stop the car and get out, and walk across town ... passing buses and taxis and gridlocked thousands.
By the time I get to my morning appointment, it's afternoon. I walk back across town.
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| go, big blue |
