In England there’s a programme on BBC radio four called ‘I’ve
never seen Star Wars’. It’s a comedy show where celebrity guests are invited to
partake in some cultural experience that so far in their lives they’ve avoided,
like karaoke, watching a premier league football match, or going to see Harry
Potter.
We’ve had to move out of our apartment on Gringo Hill, as
Sue has other guests booked. Picaroon is still not quite ready to go back in
the water, so we’re staying in the hotel that Rudolf is staying in, for a few
days. (Remember Rudolf; cruiser with broken leg, can’t get on or off his boat.)
It’s Sunday, and we’ve arranged another Jam session round at his hotel balcony.
It’s at this gathering that we discover that today is a big important day in
the American sporting calendar, today is the day of the Super bowl final, and
Wendy’s bar will be airing it on their big screen. Well actually it’s a white
bed sheet strung up at the end of the room, but for Luperon it’s THE place to
be tonight. So this afternoon session wraps up at six so our American friends
can all get down to watch the match. Apparently
it’s a football game, Rudolf tells me, but it’s not the game that they’re all
keen to see, no, the highlight of this big occasion is the commercials that
punctuate the proceedings. I assume this is American ironic humour, coming from
Rudolf, but the others confirm that the ads, which seemingly will have cost
millions to make, are not too be missed, and I have to remind myself that irony
is not a natural American trait.
So with nothing better to do this evening we decide that we
need to see what all the hullabaloo is about, and trip off down to Wendy’s, for
our very own “ I’ve never seen Star wars” moment.
Wendy’s is already full, an hour before kick-off, well, all
five tables are occupied by ex-pat Americans engaged in loud animated
conversation, and there’s a sense of celebration in the air. We take the last
two unoccupied seats by the glassless window, perched on high chairs with a
perfect voyeur’s view of the bar, and the screen, showing the pundits pre-game
analysis. The volume is loud, and ESPN is in Spanish, which no-ones paying any
attention to; the room awash with conflicting electronic and human babble. A
couple of our American cruiser friends try to explain the rules of how this
football game works so we’ll be able to understand what’s going on when the
game starts.
One team, Alisha tells us, will have the ball and they’ll
get four goes at taking the ball ten yards forward, if they get ten yards then
they get another four goes. The other team, of course will try to stop them,
using fair means or foul, to do so. The quarterback is the massive guy at the
back who controls where the ball goes, by throwing it to somebody (or was it,
catching it). “Hang on, if this is foot-ball, why are they using their hands”,
I ask, only to be met with a bemused stare. So now we know the rules.
The match build up continues, the screen now showing about a
thousand marching band players doing a choreographed parade, spelling out NFL,
in the giant stadium, and footage of the teams trouping out into this massive
area, along with cheer leaders and cameo celebrity shots, then the screen goes
dead.
We’ve had a power cut, just ten minutes before the start. A
temporary supply is rigged up and the screen flashes back to life showing a
close up of some woman starting to sing. At this point something very curious
happens as the bar falls to a hush and the majority of these wayward
independent cruisers stand to attention facing the screen. The singer is
belting out the American national anthem and over half the crew in Wendy’s are
mouthing the words and welling up.
They’re a curious bunch, Americans, the patriotic streak
runs very deep, much deeper than us Brits sat on the sidelines. They are often
astounded that we don’t know the ins-and-outs of our Royal Family, that we
don’t even know the name of the princesses’ new baby.
The big screen is showing commercials for Coca Cola, MacDonalds,
Ford, Doritos, there’s even an elaborate ad for Always, the preferred American sanitary
towel, and then the game begins, and everybody goes back to heated
conversations.
American “football” players are big lads, huge, and they are
all clad in plastic armour and helmets with visor protectors making them appear
twice the size they actually are and look more like robots. They line up facing
each other in a half crouched position in the middle of the field, and a
whistle blows. At this point they appear to run off in all and every direction
at high speed with no sign of a ball anywhere until the camera is focusing on
some poor soul being buried beneath a mountain of players in the opposing teams’
colours. The blue team, are the Seattle Seahawks, last years’ champions, and in
white, the New England Patriots, who are the favourites, so we’re told.
Although I try to follow what is going on in the match, I’m at a loss. No
sooner have they started with all this running about and bumping into each
other, they stop, regroup in the crouched line up and start again. The ball
seems to be illusive, I don’t know if they’re allowed to stuff it up their
tunic tops, but I hardly ever catch sight of it. Not so the audience in Wendy’s
who hoot and howl and holler now as the Patriots gets close to a big blue part
of the field, at the far end of the pitch. Here it’s a bit like English rugby,
this is the touch down area but, whereas in rugby you have to touch the ball to
the ground, in this game it seems that if you’re standing in that area and
catch it, that constitutes a score of six points. Then like rugby they get a go
at kicking the ball over the goal posts for an extra one point, so it’s now 7-0
to the Patriots.
And now it’s swiftly back to the commercials, in fact, so
far we’ve had about ten minutes of play and about twenty minutes of adverts.
This one is showing us how the breadwinner of the family is struck down with a
dreaded disease, or killed in a tragic accident leaving the family impoverished
forever, unless your covered by esurance.com, and another here with a host of
little kids with no legs running about on those prosthetic legs that, what’s-his-face,
the South African athlete made famous. I think it was supposed to be about
never giving up whatever your handicap, or maybe it was an advert for soup.
Another is about a mechanical device that you strap on if you’ve got bad knees,
all very inspiring stuff, I’m sure you agree. Despite what Rudolf said about
people watching it for the commercials, although I am, the rest of the room is
just becoming a cacophony of noise competing with the commercials, and then
suddenly the game is back on.
As I said it’s no easy task following what’s going on, for
instance, why do they keep showing pictures of blokes on the sidelines with
headphones and mics on. They’re not commentators, they look like coaches or
managers, shouting into their mics, but to who, or should that be whom. Maybe
the quarterback, who seemingly is numero uno hombre, and has a similar hidden
headset, or maybe he’s just calling his wife to say that he may be a little
late for supper. It’s most confusing. The rising tide of noise explodes as some
robot in blue catches the ball in the whites blue area before being crashed to
the ground by the incredible hulk.
Patriots 14-Seahawks 14, and thank God it’s half time, I for one am
exhausted, and not just a little deaf, with my tinnitus having been kick-started
into action. I retire across the street to sit with an old Dominican couple sitting
on the pavement outside their house opposite Wendy’s for cinco minutos of
tranquillo.
When I get back to the game, half time has turned into the
closing ceremony at the Olympic Games. Some girl singer is riding the back of
an enormous tiger robot, singing eye of the tiger, I think. Another singer,
again a girl is suspended high above the stadium on a flying wire; tough
cookies these American female vocalists. I notice that the mic has a safety
strap clipped to her wrist although there’s no sign of a safety strap on the
flying vocalist. A massive firework display brings the half time show to a
finale, coupled with another ad for Coke and MacDonalds, and the second half
begins.
All now is unadulterated noise and general pandemonium as
the big screen audio competes with the small stadium which Wendy’s Bar has
become. High fives are being exchanged as the Sea Hawks surge ahead 27-21, and
still I haven’t been able to spot the ball except when someone gets up from
underneath a small hillock of robots, and then it’s gone again, among much
random running about.
By three quarters time I’ve run out of steam, we’ve failed
to win in the sweepstake and my ears can’t tolerate much more of the din. Also
I don’t have any idea what’s going on, and truthfully don’t care, I sort of
enjoyed the commercials. They weren’t that special and, to my mind, there were
too many of them and they got in the way of the game. Had there been fewer ads
I may have got the hang of the rules, but just when you thought you were
getting close, the commercials would break in and when we got back to the game
I had to start over again, trying to figure what the fuss was all about.
We said our farewells, before it finished, came back to our
hotel, poured a couple of glasses of rum and switched on the TV to catch the
end of the game without the backdrop of Wendy’s Bar. I promptly fell asleep, so
I missed the end of the match, I’ve no idea how it concluded, but it was an
experience; big screen Super bowl in Luperon. So now we’ve done Super bowl
maybe we need to subject ourselves to some other meaningless entertainment,
I’ve never been to a karaoke night in my life, the idea sounds positively alien
to my musician ethos but, Friday night is karaoke night at Wendy’s Bar and
everyone says how it’s a cracking night and we must come down.
As for doing another Super bowl, I think just the one time
will be enough, thank you.