Thursday, March 08, 2007

Halftime Homo?

Short answer? → “No!”
Long answer? → “Some people are idiots!”
I like Prince.
Once, I had occasion to be found in the very presence [vicinity] of Prince, or…. The Artist Formerly Known As Whatever He Is Currently Calling Himself.
More on this later, but for now, I just wanted to say a few things regarding this insanely crazy thing I read today in the Metro paper.
Thursday’s copy was making the rounds in the lunchroom, and when it got to me it just happened to be open to Rick McGinnis’s regular writeup, called Idiot Box.
Never was the title more appropriate than today.

It involved actual complaints that were filed with the FCC concerning this year’s Superbowl halftime show.
For those of you advanced-veteran Puddlers who are really paying attention, you will recall that on Superbowl Sunday, [the day the Bears should have won!....] I was in Puerto Vallarta, confined to my hotel room, sicker than a bag of chihuahaus!

At any rate, in between bouts of violent vomiting, I thought the halftime show was one of the best ever.
Really.
Even in the [purple?] rain….. Prince rocked. He was fabulously good. That is my opinion of it.
OK, so get a load of what one person [I mean really, one wonders if this was a serious complaint even, so asinine is it]…. but someone filed the following official complaint with the FCC:

“It was obscene to show Prince, a HOMOSEXUAL person through a sheet, as to show his siluette [sic] while his guitar showed a very phalic [sic] symbol coming from his below-midriff section. I am very offended and I would preffer [sic] not to have showed it to my 4 children who love football. One of them has hoped to be a quarterback and now he will turn out gay. I am actually considering to check him for HIV. Thanks CBS for turning my son GAY.”

I nearly fell off my chair reading this.
Is this person even half-serious?
Spelling errors aside, is this person….. conscious?

First of all, and not that this is the real issue here, but to my knowledge, Prince is not a homosexual. If he is, I have not heard of this.
And whether he is or not, I don’t see how that has any bearing upon whether or not he should perform at the Superbowl!
As I mentioned above, I once had an all-access pass [too long of a story to explain] to a Lilith Fair in Toronto, at the Molson Amphitheatre. One of the performers [and my favorite, by far, for the whole two nights I was there], was Sheryl Crow.
Well, unbeknownst to the acres of Lilithian audience out front [and unbeknownst to me also], on the second night, Prince was going to make a surprise appearance to simply perform a screaming guitar solo during Crow’s song, “Every Day Is A Winding Road.”
I was sidestage, sitting on a road case, when all of a sudden this purple-velvet sort of…. antelope-like person was squishing past me, an absolutely beautiful woman in tow.
It was Prince, and his umm….. date.
As they stood next to me for about five minutes or so, I can assure you of one thing. → Neither one of them were being gay! Not for even one of those minutes.
Prince does not let any time go to waste!
I have never, before or since, seen so much sidestage hetero-activity!

A guitar-tech came over, Prince stepped forward, the guitar [not the “phalic” one] was draped over him, he fiddled with it for a few seconds, and as nonchalantly as one might exit the house to take the Dalmatian for a walk, he strutted out from the sidestage area and launched into what remains as one of the most incredible guitar solos I have ever heard, witnessed, or imagined. The guy is a genius!
The audience went NUTS!
It was glorious.

And so, while he was out there, I took off with his woman!

No, just kidding.
Anyways, I say all of this, the complaint to the FCC and all, to merely point out that some people are just so incredibly ignorant, almost to what you could call a sad degree.
Sad in the sense that you are tempted to feel sorry for them.
But you don't, you don't feel sorry for them, because it's more fun to laugh!
I am not sure but I think the complainant is sort of suggesting that a person can become HIV-positive by watching someone play guitar on TV.
When everyone knows you can only get it from toilet seats!

************

5 comments:

Merisi said...

That gentleman is nuts, dangerously so if he really meant what he's writing. ;-)

I miss the Super Bowl night terribly. We used to gather with our neighbors and enjoy the show and the company, most of all the commercials and the halftime show. ;-)

They do show the Super Bowl on Austrian TV (!), after midnight, local time, yet I needed my sleep (and I still haven't figured out how to programm the DVD recorder here).

Lisa said...

Great post!

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh! As if you can become gay just by looking at someone who is. And of course, if you are gay you can't be a football quarterback. And you are right Cip, you can only get HIV from toilet seats ;)

Prince Rocks!

Cold Molasses said...

Interesting...yes...he's crazy. Having said that, I now have a much better of understanding of why you have that sheet draped over your balcony Cip!

Cipriano said...

Good one Cold Mol!
You've seen my sheet!
But you should see my......guitar!
It's a doozy!

Hey guys and gals, [all respondents], isn't it crazy how crazy the world can be about this sexual orientation thing?
I mean.... chill!
Relax!
Be happy!
And, you know.... PARTY LIKE IT'S 1999!