...super done
I'm glad to be done with the assignment in
Jacksonville which is currently a weird combo of fear, partying,
corporate shilling, ultra politically correct over-reaction and
services provided by people who don't know Jacksonville and don't care.
Our drivers have had pretty decent challenges in that streets that were
open hours before are closed, traffic backs up, checkpoints clamp down
and just the sheer number of extra people have overloaded all systems.
BUT, here's the real rub. Often for these large events companies ship
in out of town help, labor, specialists and...drivers.
As in the past, all our drivers get lost or are
unable to get us to our destination, usually after showing up late to
pick us up. I mentioned that I had been to a prior event and it turned
out that all the drivers were from out of town and didn't know the
city. The question came up to our driver this morning. He admitted that
he was from Houston and didn't know Jacksonville. He then proved it.
We've started giving the wrong destination to the
drivers to see if it improves our drive time. Tonight the driver was a
sub contracted replacement for the out of town company who was supposed
to pick us up. He claimed he wasn't late because he was replacing
someone who had blown it already.
Tomorrow morning we all head to the airport to
escape this abyss of cultural flatulence. Goodbye to the sponsoring of
the drunken orgy of gluttony, goodbye to the overwhelming of this
city's infastructure and it's overwhelming need to please us all.
It can't...
it won't...
and I don't care.
Tomorrow will be the orgasm of this occupation, the
international attention of the actual game, it's fans, the locals, the
workers and the professional Bowl goers. It will bring the other
strange international phenomonon, the attention to the Super Bowl TV
ads. These things cost more to make and more to buy the space of than I
will be able to earn in the next 20 years and the average Malaysian
will take two centuries.
There is an entire demographic of people who could
give a shit about football, the Pats or the Eagles, or the spectacle of
a championchip event. They actually make a yearly party of watching the
ads. These are not all marketing or advertising people. The fact that
there are articles about them in People magazine is either a brilliant
fabrication of the creators making another holiday for their clients or
the emptiness of a people who need the escape of their own lives so bad
that as a whole a group of TV ads make up an evening's entertainment
once a year.
I'll be watching from home, avoiding the credential
wars, the cell phone jamming, the red state- blue state nature of it
all. I hate the Best Damn Sports Show Period but think it's a joke that
they changed their name this weekend. I'll watch whatever show is
presented even if the performers had to sign releases that they will
behave or won't promote sex, drugs or anything bad and the same people
seed audiences with beautiful people because it's better TV. Keep in
mind the corporate family and guests are on the floor with the spicy
Ahi appetizers while the real fans are in the upper balcony, separated
by distance and black cloth and money and security guards and
holographic credentials. It's always about the haves and the have nots.
I count my blessings, am glad to be back to work but
am certainly pleased that I'll be long gone before the kick off.
Next week I'll talk about Limo parking at the Grammies...
1:56:38 AM 
|
|
