Luco & the Superbowl

Some of my acquaintances have inquired of me whether or not I was satisfied with the outcome of the Superbowl this past Sunday. They seemed perplexed that I had yet to mention it, as my great love of football is widely known (football and ballet are, I believe, the two most graceful systems of movement for the otherwise rather awkward human body).

And in truth, my team is the Packers, so it would have been quite gratifying to watch. However, my prison guard is enamored of a certain reality TV show, and that is what we watched last Sunday night. 

If you recognize this man, I feel sorrow for you as you surely must suffer the same affliction as my prison guard. Instead of the Superbowl, I was forced to watch Top Chef. Season Two. An episode that had already aired, and one she could watch at any time.

This man is named Marcel. Throughout the series, he acts the villain, perpetually self-interested and self-aggrandizing, his aim is to win at all costs. He is not interested in how others perceive him. For this I must grudgingly feel some respect, for what do friendships matter, when those friends will someday die? But then, I would argue that winning this television show also matters not, as it is as electronic dust lining the periphery of our vision. Something people like the prison guard care deeply about for a moment and then forget forever.

Would that I had hands with thumbs to wrest the remote from the prison guard so that together we could watch as the Packers threw and tackled and danced their way to victory. 

Although it would be disingenuous if I were to fail to mention this now: football is absurd (as is everything). These beefy men with their brain trauma and extramarital affairs, their million dollar contracts, Gucci everything, and their beautiful, bored wives. We watch them wrestle and fall and call it agony. We watch them triumph and call it a triumph of the human spirit.

This is foolishness. At least in my enjoyment of this sport I can admit to myself that it means nothing. That no trumpets of angels will sing down on their wrecked bodies. That there is no greater meaning inherent in my team's victory. It is, as is Top Chef, I suppose, simply a way to pass the time as we wait to die; something to distract us from that fact.

But I enjoy this distraction. And instead of watching the Superbowl, I watched this man named Marcel as he acted the antagonist on a prerecorded episode of a television show about food where the contestants never even make the most succulent, luscious, delicious, perfect food that there is.

Tuna, more specifically, tuna water - straight from the can, poured into three small bowls so that my fellow prisoners and I can imbibe without fighting each other for each scintillating drop. 

In summary: no Superbowl, no intelligent "top chef" who knows how to cook, and a prison guard entirely indifferent to my needs - a typical Sunday. Although there is one thing this Marcel and I hold in common.

I am not here to make friends.