One big, long party -- plus a little football to top off week
On the public beach behind him, a telecommunications company had taken over a giant swath of sand and renamed it Shula-ville after the former Dolphins coach who engineered the only undefeated season in NFL history. All around town this week you bump into costumed characters wearing massive Shula heads, all of it essentially aimed at getting you to switch cell phone companies.
In front of the homeless guy on Ocean Drive, young people were handing out free samples of three different brands of new energy drinks, while all around milled thousands of people who have either already paid megabucks to see the big game or were plotting how they might still do so.
Then there were all the exclusive parties with rented beautiful women in the clubs across the street, along with many not-so-exclusive gatherings hosted by television sports talk shows and such.
But I had to ask him: Have you given any thought to the Super Bowl?
"Why should I give any thought to the Super Bowl?" said the guy, who identified himself as J.C. "All I do is sit here every day and play Christmas carols and try to look stupid."
I couldn't think of a good answer to that, but before I could even try, J.C. added, "So you're from Daleyville. I hear they've got another one coming after Junior. They'll be going forever," showing that he's not as stupid as he tries to look.
J.C. said he is 63, went to college in New York, worked as a nurse, served in Vietnam.
"Now I'm hurt. I can't walk," he said.
He said he plays his Christmas carols to make enough money to get something to eat, hasn't had a bath in a week and sleeps in the park if the police don't roust him. I couldn't swear to the truth of any of that, although the part about the bath seemed pretty evident. Maybe he's trying to make enough money to buy food or maybe he does it to buy booze or smokes. I asked him to play something anyhow.
"Say hi to Daley for me," said J.C. as I slipped him a few bucks before returning to the fray.
I'm just guessing, but I'll bet you think the Super Bowl is a football game -- because that's what you care about.
Silly me, I used to think so, too -- until I spent the past few days here.
Others of you probably think the Super Bowl is a giant party where at the end they play a football game, and while that may be closer to the truth, it still doesn't quite capture it.
For a while this week, I started believing that the Super Bowl was the annual business convention of professional football -- not much different from the Radiological Society coming to town, or maybe more like a political convention, both of which bring their own share of parties.
It definitely is a convention, I've concluded, as well as a giant party -- and yes, even a football game.
But that still leaves something out.
What I've really come to understand is that the Super Bowl is the ultimate exercise in capitalism -- where giant corporations and little entrepreneurs work every angle possible to scratch every last dime of opportunity out of a mere 60 minutes of football.
It can be overwhelming at times, so much more going on around here than I can even begin to describe for you. I could devote an entire column to just listing the parties. And I'm not saying it's all bad. There's a lot of people having a good time down here.
The two have had season tickets since 1984, but when the Bears went to the Super Bowl the next season, they passed up the trip to New Orleans, thinking, "We'll go next year." When their numbers came up in the team's ticket lottery this year, they didn't make the same mistake.
They told me they'd spent the previous night "bouncing around" Coconut Grove. From their mellow demeanor, I'd guess they'd landed in a few bars between bounces.
I asked if they'd left their wives behind in Chicago.
"I did," Lombardo said. "He left his behind about eight years ago."