Marketing-as-life

For strangers have risen against me;    ruthless men seek my life;    they do not set God before themselves. —Psalm 54:3

I ran across it, sadly, while considering an ironic jersey purchase on eBay, because I am apparently an 11-year-old trapped in a 47-year-old’s body. While looking for ironic vintage Chicago Bears jerseys (Curtis Enis, anyone?) I ran across a current image of Bears legend Steve “Mongo” McMichael, who is headed to the Hall of Fame, and who was a part of my favorite team of all-time (the 1985 Chicago Bears). He was a famous, strong, ruthless man. Today, McMichael is bedridden and in the final throes of ALS, waiting for the end.

I had forgotten him, for the better part of two decades, after worshipping him as a child who looked at the NFL, and the Super Bowl, as the ultimate validation of any athlete’s existence. The Super Bowl, to me, stood as the one thing that would allow a man to live forever in grainy NFL Network footage.

But even Super Bowl champions are forgotten, and even Super Bowl champions die of fatal, wasting, body-destroying disease. Time and chance happen to us all.

Juxtaposed against this, I am watching the four-and-a-half hour CBS pregame show, which is an ironic parody of all pregame shows up to this point and looks a whole lot like the NFL that was parodied in David Foster Wallace’s postmodern novel Infinite Jest. We’re basically there now. There is Giants backup quarterback Tommy DeVito trying to sell me a pizza. There is Travis Kelce declaring his love for Taylor Swift but really declaring his love for Travis Kelce. The whole affair is allegedly fun as evidenced by the canned guffawing. Now Kelce is selling me an Experian smart money debit card.

Wayne Newton is, apparently, still alive, as evidenced by the four-and-a-half-hour CBS pregame show.

My son and his roommate will be here in a few minutes to make fun of Taylor Swift and eat chicken wings. We will all go to school tomorrow and by lunch will have forgotten most of this. I should care about this because I love football, but I don’t. I haven’t cared—not like that—for a long time.

The whole affair promises permanence … immortality … but it will fall short. The world will forget Isiah Pacheco and Patrick Mahomes and whatever they do tonight. The world will forget being mad about Taylor Swift intruding on our football season with her unique brand of marketing-as-life-life-as-marketing, which is quickly becoming as natural as breathing, for most of us. We don’t know when we’re living or when we’re selling.

There is a litany of ads for CBS shows that nobody under the age of 65 has ever watched or heard of. There is Gayle King, who is famous for being Oprah Winfrey’s best friend. Brock Purdy has come out for pregame warmups but pauses to pose for photos with … his family. Television is a strange thing.

The Chiefs are preemptively congratulating themselves for “being a dynasty.” In reality they are a collection of rich young men—some of whom will be around next year, some of whom will be retired, and some of whom will get cut. Most of them probably do not set “God before themselves.” Football is a game (basically) for strangers and ruthless men. At the end, one group of rich young men will put on oversized T-shirts and ballcaps, and will pantomime what it looks like to celebrate together for a television audience, as they have seen many other teams do before them.

What I do know is that watching a football game makes me miss having my “hand in the dirt.” I miss being bruised and sore after a game, and driving home to eat pizza with my parents (high school), or walking across the street from our apartment to eat pizza with my wife (semipro). I miss riding home on a bus in France after playing in a football game 48 hours after landing in the country (two broken ribs and a concussion—the French are tougher than I thought). It was all very forgettable, to everyone except me. I don’t care about any of this, except that I wish I had a football game to play.

CBS is trying to convince us that Usher, the halftime act, ever really mattered to anyone besides his parents.

I can’t stop thinking about McMichael, who during his career was the picture of strength. Now he is emblematic of the world of sin and decay we live in, where our only hope in life and death … is Christ. No amount of money, or Super Bowls, or even the Hall of Fame, will keep man from his fate.

Oh that I would set Christ before my eyes. Oh keep me from wasting days or moments wishing for things I can’t have, or things I never achieved.