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First Super Bowl? Step This Way
Posted: Thursday January 27, 2000 12:01 PM
Due to unforeseen circumstances, it looks like we're going to have to hold another Super Bowl, the sporting event that is to excitement what Rosie O'Donnell is to the thong bikini. This year, because the St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans have never been in a Super Bowl, I'd like the fans of those teams to review our introductory Super Slide Show in order to get the most out of their Super Bowl experience. Would somebody get the lights? Great. Now, it's important to get to know your host Super Bowl city -- Atlanta. While in Atlanta, be sure to visit ... click ... Underground Atlanta, with its terrific shopping and restaurants. What's not so terrific is ... click ... Aboveground Atlanta, which is basically a string of Shoney's restaurants connected loosely by jammed parking lots, many of them disguised as interstates. Atlanta's a wonderful place to live if you happen to be a muffler. Going to a Super Bowl in Atlanta is the equivalent of a honeymoon in Wichita Falls or a sweepstakes vacation in Biloxi.
... their baseball team, the Braves, even though one small element of the club was revealed to be racist and ugly. Of course, we all know that element is ... click ... the Tomahawk Chop. The Braves' owner, Ted Turner, can be just as offensive, but this week he's only the third strangest owner in town. The first is this man ... click ... Titans owner Bud Adams, the lumpy 77-year-old millionaire who wears his gray hair long over his ears, much in the style of a man emerging from a Philippine cave asking if World War II is over. Adams jilted the city of Houston and took his team to Tennessee three seasons ago, and poor Houston hasn't fielded a team since. Which is funny because that's exactly what this woman,... click ... Rams owner Georgia Frontiere, did five years ago to Los Angeles, which still doesn't have another team. Of course, L.A. doesn't seem to want a new team, possibly because it had to put up with Frontiere all those years. Married seven times, the 72-year-old astrology nut doesn't sign important papers when Mercury is retrograde, danced at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas, was a TV weather girl in Miami and gave her players Cabbage Patch dolls before a game. Spotting Georgia in Georgia is only one of the many exciting things to do during Super Bowl week. You'll love going to the NFL Experience, which this year added several unique fan-focused exhibits, including ... click ... Waiting in Line Two Hours to Meet Phil Simms or Boomer Esiason (I Can Never Remember Which Is Which), Paying $5.50 for a Freaking Hot Dog and the most popular new game, Which Trunk Is the Fugitive Wide Receiver Hiding In? Oh, and be sure not to miss one of the most revered Super Bowl traditions the night before the big game, the time-honored ritual known as Captain's Choice, wherein each of the teams' captains leaves his hotel room, his wife and his family and proceeds in secrecy to one of the host city's more historic urban meeting points to patronize the time-honored ... click ... $40 hooker. Now, during Super Bowl week, try to meet as many real football fans as you can because, come opening kickoff, they'll be watching the game in one of those Shoney's. Instead, you'll be sitting mostly with ... click ... corporate suits, marketing veeps and trophy spouses -- the VIPs who make the Super Bowl the deadest crowd since the one for Mike Night at the Tomb of the Terra-cotta Soldiers. That's because only 35% of game tickets go to the two teams, and precious few of those go to their fans. That can be depressing to the average football zealot, sort of like finally getting to heaven and finding only members of the Palm Beach Canasta Club. Of course, the game will be dreadful and mostly over by the end of the first quarter (average Super Bowl margin of victory: 16.2 points). In that case, do what all Atlantans do when things go bad. Find this man,... click ... Richard Jewell, and blame it on him. He's used to it.
Issue date: January 31, 2000
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