"The Horse Song" (Iggy Pop)

Rexy, Rexy, Rexy...good God. The Chicago Bears were somehow still in a game where they were utterly and totally (statistically) dominated, thanks to Devin "Tecmo Super Bowl" Hester (because only in the classic NES game is it so easy to break past a few guys at the line and then be gone like Buster Douglas) making for the best beginning to a Super Bowl ever; one mighty Thomas Jones run and a sharp Rex Grossman TD near the goal line; a shitty Colts punt that made a short drive for a field goal quite easy; and the Colts' total failure to score touchdowns and put the game away. But then, Rex, you finally had to give in to your "Gun"slinger nature and say Fuck it, I'm throwing it downfield. Down by five points, you threw an ugly, limp dick of a pass that couldn't not be intercepted; seriously, your wide receiver, Mushin Muhammad, was actually boxed out by one of the two Colts covering him as your terrible dying quail hung there for one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi...and was subsequently returned for a touchdown. And...game over.

The Colts were clearly the better team in this sloppy, sloppy game, featuring two series of back-to-back turnovers (as in, fumble, followed up by fumble on the very next play), Cedric Benson's injury seemed to take a lot of wind out of the Bears' sails, and all the same, the Bears kept it close, in what was an entertaining game down to the end, at least if you'd bet the Bears with the +7. Billy Joel sung what I actually thought was a classy, dignified, and not that showy Star-Spangled Banner, thus covering the under (1:44, of course, being the over/under on everyone's favorite Super Bowl prop bet, except for the degenerates who actually bet the coin flip [and by the way, 5 of the last 6 Super Bowl teams to win the coin flip lost the game]), and the ads were alright, although why Super Bowl advertisements = talking animals and semi-homoerotic humor, I can't tell you. It did seem unfortunate, however, that the only ad featuring talking monkeys was the worst of an impressive crop of Budweiser/Bud Light ads, and I'm including the Carlos Mencia ads in here.

Hail, hail the Colts, and may this be the start of us hearing a little bit less about Peyton Manning, but he was not the Super Bowl MVP, not with one TD, one INT, one shaky half, and one solid half of football.

The MVP was, of course, the skinny motherfucker with the high voice. Sure, his set didn't contain many surprises on his own tracks: three from the Purple Rain OST plus five seconds of "1999", but at least "Baby, I'm A Star" was a surprise from said OST...I would have preferred "When Doves Cry" over "Let's Go Crazy," especially since "Let's Go..." was played ad nauseam in the ads for halftime. But the covers were an interesting lot, with "All Along The Watchtower" (a natural fit, more delicate than Hendrix's version with the right about of guitar God-dery thrown in) looping into...a Foo Fighters song? "The Best Of You?" Which sounded...awesome?

All this on a rain-soaked, glowing Love Symbol, with his back-up dancers somehow wiggling around in high heels. Yeah, Rex Grossman fell down twice in what were counted sacks, Muhammad nearly fell in the middle of his touchdown celebration, and Prince dancers in high heels didn't even budge from the slick ground.

Best Super Bowl halftime ever. With the In Living Color halftime show that caused channels to flip over to Fox instead of seeing the NFL's "A Winter Carnival" as a close second, the now-creepier Michael Jackson halftime show, last year's semi-emasculated Rolling Stones show, and, I suppose, the infamous wardrobe malfunction somewhere in there for sheer memorability.

If you were too busy watching Puppy Bowl III and missed the other Bowl, here's the only highlight reel you need. Now I'm going to go see if Jerome knows where my mirror at.