Todd Terwilliger

Yesterday I eschewed the twelve hour pre-game marathons of coverage leading up to the championship game so I missed all the heart-warming rags-to-riches success stories, the riches-to-rags cautionary tales, and the miscellaneous blather used to pad out hour after hour of build-up towards the actual on-field portion of the program.

The first half commercials were almost universally awful. I shouldn’t have paid attention to the commercials yet it is now impossible not to. Somehow, the marketing around the game has snaked into the game itself like a case of ringworm- it’s now embedded too deeply, distending our bellies with talking horses, koalas being punched in the face, and a frightening digital Alec Baldwin demonstrating how TV melts our brains even as we are powerless to stop it. That last spot was too real to be unreal, George Orwell’s “1984″ become so manifest it was rendered unbelievable even as it was crushingly true.

Until fairly late, I had no plans to watch the game. I knew I’d watch it but not where or how. I was able to invite myself to friend Josh’s house for the event which worked out well. He has a good setup for gatherings, both people and place. Some people prepared food. I brought chips, pretzels, and a bottle of wine. The wine disturbed me greatly.

It wasn’t the wine. I don’t drink and everyone else was preoccupied with beer. It was the bottle cap. The wine bottle didn’t come with a cork or even a fake cork. It came with a bottle cap- like a beer bottle twist-off, like a bottle of Grape Nehi. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.

I bought it off the recommendation of the two people working behind the counter at Gnarly Vines and I don’t doubt their knowledge as I know nothing about the subject. It’s only the bottle aesthetics that I object vehemently to. There’s no better way to cheapen the presentation of a wine then to pop it open with a bottle opener. You might as well bite the cap off with your teeth and serve it in a brown bag like OE or Ripple, great hobo beverages to be sure but not for consumption at such a hallowed event as this.

At any rate, I didn’t notice the bottle cap top until it was too late. I could only hope that my trespass was beneath notice and, if not, that my defense of ignorance would stand up. The jury is still out.

I had no real rooting interest in the game. If I wanted the Cardinals to win it was only because I wanted the Steelers to lose and only that because I know someone who wanted them to win desperately and such desperate desires naturally fed my contrary nature.

If the commercials seemed to get better in the second half of the game, it must have been an illusion or else some dubious effect of the conditioning perpetrated on our brains by the first half of the game. I can still see Alec Baldwin’s head, big as the moon, hovering over me as my brain melted away. Or else I dreamed it. I think the Steelers won the game on the field but something tells me the real winners were the marketeers. I can’t tell you what exactly told me, I’m not exactly sure myself, but I don’t think it’s friendly.

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