Super Bowl Thoughts

Believe it or not I actually watched some of the Super Bowl. I wanted to see the ads really since everybody says they're the best part--and I love New Orleans as witness by the earlier blog on my visit there on Halloween. So I am happy the Saints won. What I'm not happy about is the anti-abortion ad they allowed and the gay dating site they did not. I have no problem with Focus on the Family buying ad space if they can afford it, but Planned Parenthood should be given equal time. (And I understand CBS turned down a commercial from MoveOn.org last year because it was an advocacy ad, why did they change their policy now?) Also apparently the football player's mother who decided not to have an abortion for medical reasons was risking her life and that was her choice. But neither she nor her football-hero son has the right to tell any woman what choice they should make, or even suggest that they visit Focus on the Family's website.

Now to the gay dating ad. I don't get CBS's decision not to run for Man Crunch, the gay dating site's ad. Well, I do, they were scared of homophobic negative reactions or maybe Man Crunch didn't submit it in time. But logically it doesn't make sense. All things being equal and if Man Crunch and Focus on the Family had the money and made the deadline, they both should have been on. But something curious happened while I was watching the commercials that did make the cut--

There was one ad for a telenetwork or something and there was this supermodel in her bathtub telling about how this wonderful new service will update her Facebook and twitter and email and everything all at once. Then she took of a picture of her naked self with her Iphone and said "I wonder what would happend if I sent this picture out using INSERT NETWORK here." There followed a series of quick scenes of what would happen if that naked picture went around the world. One had a mother knocking on her adoloscent son's door asking what he was doing in there. It was pretty obvious he was pleasuring himself (which is pretty risky for a family football show. So it's OK to hint at masturbation, but not have two guys kissing?) In another scene a wife slaps her husband for apparently looking at this girl's goodies. One second later, we get a shot of two men and one slaps the other. It went by pretty fast, but it looked like two stereotypical queeny types and one was jealous of the other looking at the same naked supermodel picture. WHAT???

That was wrong on so many levels. First of all, I was offended that CBS rejected an ad rejecting gay stereotypes--the ManCrunch ad featured two manly football fans discovering their attraction while reaching for the same bowl of chips--but accepted an ad which, however fleetingly employed gay stereotypes--two flouncy queens, one of whom only needs to see a hot woman on his cellphone to straighten him out. Number Two, why would a gay couple have a spat over a naked woman's picture? Or maybe he who got slapped had a bisexual history. But that's too much subtext. I'll bet the ad was a one-time thing and we'll never see it again. But CBS needs to grow up and stop being scared of homophobes tearing down their studios. If they allow Janet Jackson's nipple, why not some ManCrunch?

Doesn't that sound like a breakfast cereal? Maybe if they had marketed it that way, it could have gotten on the air.

Halloween on Bourbon Street

Exhausted after putting together a huge event for my job, my partner and I decided to get away and have some fun in the Big Easy. By coincidence, it was Halloween weekend, so our trip would be capped by a big costume party on Bourbon Street. I had been to New Orleans before--it was the starting point of a cruise I took with my friend Diane--but Jerry had never been. It really is a unique city in the US. Very relaxed and casual. These people have a party at the drop of a hat. In addition to the bacchanal known as Mardi Gras, they have parades on St. Patrick's Day and then so the Italians don't feel left out, another one a week later on St. Anthony's day.

I bought a Superman costume in New York before leaving (I had a layover in the Memphis airport which looks like a bus station). We had a wonderful time, had dinner at some great restuarants (Arnaud's, Pauline's, the Gumbo Factory), listened to jazz at the Maison Bourbon, took a walking tour of the Garden District, a bus tour of the whole city including the Ninth Ward still dealing with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, walked around the French Quarter, visited the Confederate Musuem, and dressed up for Halloween. I had my Superman outfit, complete with muscles. We bought a funny hat for Jerry which he wore with a mask and a feather boa--he was a sort of a generic Mardi Gras person. We ran into lots of costumed revellers on Bourbon Street including a group of superheroes consisting of Captain America, Batman and Robin. The photo above is of our meeting plus one non-costumed partygoer. One man was dressed as a priest with a doll of a young boy strapped to his groin. He was a big hit. There were Halloweeners as beer bottles, traffic lights, Sumo wrestlers, Jesus Christ, and lobsters.

The whole city was beautiful and fun, smelling like sweet blossoms and beer. Wonderful food of which I probably ate too much. The famous cemetries were interesting. They bury whole families in one crypt, above ground. When a new body needs to go into, they just sweep the remains of the old one to the back of the crypt. This saves lots of space. Our guide also told lots of fascinating stories including one about Edgar Degas and his brother--who lived in the city. The brother left his blind wife for the younger woman who was hired to read to her. "You can't make up a story like that for Days of Our Lives," the guide laughed.