The super bonus

By Drew Millard

Another year, another Super Bowl. The game started out excitingly enough; the Bears jumped out to an early lead and proceeded to forget how to play football shortly thereafter, while Peyton Manning, easily the most boring major sports figure of the 21st century, predictably played predictably well, and in the most predictable moment of the night, was named Super Bowl MVP. I think that the issue that spelled the Bears’ demise that everyone in the press corps wrote them off to the point that when Chicago starting playing well, the team was so surprised that they just let the Colts have their way. That, and Rex Grossman threw approximately seventeen interceptions, proving once and for all that the best quarterback on the Chicago Bears is not named Rex Grossman.

But I have a confession to make: I hate football. In fact, the only reason I watch the Super Bowl at all is for the halftime show. I think that the halftime show really shows how much progress our culture has made. For example, in 2004, Kid Rock performed wearing the American Flag as a shirt, showing that America was hyperpatriotic and wanted a Bud Light. Soon after Kid Rock left the stage, Janet Jackson had a wardrobe malfunction, and America realized that it needed to tone things down a bit. So in 2005, the promoters got the benignly entertaining Paul McCartney who probably thinks that “Football” is played with feet kicking a sphere. The next year, we made the transition from one of the members of the greatest band of all time (The Beatles) to all of the surviving members of the greatest Rock N’ Roll band of all time (The Rolling Stones). Unfortunately, our timing was off, and the Stones delivered a geriatric set that reminded everybody—well, me at least—that the Stones could have played at the first Super Bowl in 1969.

So after a mediocre few years of halftime shows, whoever at CBS was in charge of the halftime show said, “To Heck with it, let’s call in Prince.”

And call in Prince they did indeed. The question that endures in my mind is this: Why Prince? I mean, I know the guy’s a genius and everything, but he hasn’t been popular since the early 90s. That, and he wears blouses and head-scarves.

That said, whoever booked him made the right decision. He was amazing. To jog your memory, he first played one of his own songs, and then moved on to a medley of popular songs that included the oft-covered “Proud Mary” and “All Along the Watchtower.” He then played “The Best of You,” which is a song by the Foo Fighters that he vastly improved, if I may say. He then closed the set with a shortened version of his signature song “Purple Rain,” during which he erected a curtain and suggestively played his guitar like it was — both physically and musically — an extension of his own body.

Which brings me to another thought. Prince is one of the best guitarists alive today. He played like it was second nature, fret-tapping and gesticulating wildly as if at any moment, both he and his guitar were going to explode, so he better get all of the notes out as soon as possible. My English teacher said that he thought Prince was doing his best Jimi Hendrix impersonation, but I think that he was only half-right. Prince might have been trying to be Jimi Hendrix, but he was also striving to emulate Elvis. Just look at the way he dressed, in his over-the-top blue and orange suit, and the way he sang Proud Mary, an Elvis live staple.

When it’s all said and done, Prince is undeniably The Man. What other dude could wear a suit like that on national TV and have penned a song called “Purple Rain” and still be considered a pillar of masculinity? Exactly.

Wait and see, or make things happen

By Drew Millard

During a semi-long drive the other day, I had an existential crisis. Am I, I thought to myself, in control of my own destiny? Am I behind the driver’s seat of life? Am I, in a compound-word, self-actualized? To find out, I turned off my CD player and listened to the radio. I was unpleasantly surprised. I must have spent half an hour searching for a half-decent radio station, only to find that there are none. So I listened to some random pop station and was miserable.
This is no way to live. This simple experience led me to a realization. There are two types of people on this earth: those who wait and see what will happen, and those who make things happen. And there are two tests to determine whether a person is in the first group or the second group.

The self-actualized, forward-thinking man (or woman or hermaphrodite) will always listen to a CD in his car, because he understands that the only way to begin controlling his own destiny is by controlling what comes into his ears. Be it the classical stylings of Brahms or the classic rock of the Rolling Stones, real men (or women or hermaphrodites) will fight to the death for their right to listen to what they want. Putting in a CD shows that one is making a proactive decision and taking his future into his own hands.

Meanwhile, those who listen to the radio are weak. These heathens don’t care what they’re listening to, only that there is music on. People such as this never get anything done, only complain and change the station. Now, I know that the argument can be made by some that radio-listeners want some variety coming into their ears, but that’s why God created the CD-R, or as I like to call it, the burnable CD.

The burnable CD allows you to pick eighty minutes worth of music to play in your car. Enough said. But credence must be given to the location where one travels within one’s self-actualized compartment of music. Really, everybody — even the self-actualized — have to go places they don’t want to go. But they can, ninety percent of the time, control which restaurants they patronize, and therefore choose what food will enter their bodies.

The only place that allows one to eat and be truly free is the Chinese Buffet. Why, you may ask, would such an establishment, famous for its endless variety of food and questionably food-like accessories, be a key in the establishment of independence?

Because. Some things just work that way, and this is one of them. The Chinese Buffet is (a) sinfully delicious, (b) delightfully full of variety, and (c) delectably cheap. If one has limited funds, as any good self-actualized man does (jobs prevent the independent from doing what they want), then you must eat there or risk normalization.

The truly self-actualized have complete control. This is why they listen to CD’s instead of the radio, eat at Chinese Buffets instead of regular restaurants, and will one day rule the world. This is the unquestionable truth. If you have a problem with it, talk to me. I’ll be at the Chinese Buffet in Forest City.