So, it was Super Bowl Sunday. My spouse yelled to me from the living room, “When does it go on?” I assumed he meant the game. So, I looked it up on my phone and assured him that he would be able to watch it at 6:30 p.m. The big TV in the family room was his for the evening.
In the meantime, it was my job to fix some Super Bowl food in order to comply with the rituals associated with this event.
So … I made Buffalo cauliflower wings, guaranteed by the writer of the recipe to be as crispy and savory as the chicken wings of the same name, but less caloric. I also produced an old fashioned sort of dip, that is, I poured some hot pepper jelly over the top of a brick of cream cheese which helped to make up for the loss of calories in the “wings.” This was accompanied by some rippled potato chips, which continued this caloric theme. This February feast was rounded out with a bacon and cheese stuffed baked potato. Maybe, if he ate a lot of cauliflower wings, the calorie count would even out. Yeah, I know, a weird combination, but the spouse liked it.
What did I do and what did I eat during this spate of time? Well, first I washed up the dishes that were needed to produce the Super Bowl food. Then I made myself comfortable in the kitchen where I would watch “Around the World in 80 Days” and “All Creatures Great and Small” while consuming a peach yogurt and some sweet tea. Exciting? For me … absolutely.
While I did peek in to watch some of the commercials, I didn’t watch the halftime show, first, because I was watching something else and, second, even if I wasn’t watching something else, I am not a fan of hip-hop or rap. Just like I am not a fan of grunge or some country and western music. I don’t care for the “music” of hip-hop and rap and I definitely don’t care for the violent and misogynistic lyrics that can be a part of this genre, but it is appreciated by a lot of people who are not radicals of any sort.
Today I read the reviews of the half time show, “reviews” meaning the commentaries on Facebook and … wow!
These “reviews” were divided into several categories. The first was age. People of a certain age loved it. That age is somewhere between 20 and 40 or maybe 30 and 45. I’m not sure. Others, admitting to be much older, like myself, knew that this music wasn’t their cup of tea or glass of beer and did something else during halftime. One review, done by a less-than-twenty-something person, advised all who liked the half time show that it was time for them to have their first colonoscopy. It was a generational thing.
Then there were those, the people who see monsters under the bed, who saw the halftime show as a plot to mesmerize our children and turn them into communists or, alternately, a ploy by people with darker skin tones to promote their agendas, whatever they are. There were some who used the term “they” to describe other conspiracies related to Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, Eminem, Mary K. Blige and someone called 50 Cent (my son taught me how to correctly pronounce Mr. 50 Cent’s name).
Really? Visualize me shaking my head in disbelief.
Hip hop and rap are big in the music business. These Super Bowl performers are stars with whom I am not familiar except in the basic, “I’ve heard that name” kind of way. Eminem comes to mind as a bratty iconoclast, Dr. Dre … just a name associated with hip hop, Mary K. Blige … bling costumes and Snoop Dogg? Well, Snoop has morphed from a poster boy for alternative universes to a buddy of Martha Stewart. You will see him and Martha on the Puppy Bowl and in numerous beverage commercials.
I’m thinking that the not-too-distant history of musical genres might have something to add.
To wit: I can remember my Dad and a lot of his friends thinking Elvis Presley would take us all to perdition and that the Beatles were the anti-Christ…so, I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.
And those Buffalo cauliflower wings? The recipe lied.
