You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy?™
Super Bowl Sunday.
I love it.
It’s Christmas with bean dip. It’s St Patrick’s Day slathered with Hot Sauce. It’s Mardis Gras with touchdowns. It’s a jail house riot dripping with guacamole.
I’m watching ESPN for what will be 8 hours of pre-game hype.
I love it.
Trent Dilfer and Steve Young and Boomer and Ditka all reminiscing about being at the big game, being nervous, telling us what to expect.
Well you know what, I have super bowl memories too. I can remember tingles and excitement just like them.
Not as a player, but as a partier.
No party is better than a super bowl party. It’s an excuse to eat like it’s Thanksgiving. It’s a chance to drink like it’s St. Patrick’s day. It’s an excuse to put three tv’s in the same room all on the same channel.
My Hall of Fame Superbowl Moment is 1985.
Bears vs Patriots.
I was living in the ghetto, on Scarff Street off Adams Blvd. Our apartment building had bullet holes in the stucco. The street was a danger zone full of hobos pushing shopping carts full of aluminum. It was random gunfire in the night. It was LAPD helicopters swooping over rooftops.
We lived in an apartment at the end of the building, past the African family, past the Mexican families, past the families of questionable origin. We were the lone Americans in the end apartment. We lived in the stucco bunker that hung over the alley with the chop shop gang known as the Harpy’s.
The Harpy’s stole batteries like it was candy. They cut open Corvettes and scooped out the innards like they were gutting a deer.
This was Scarff Street, an apartment with bars on the windows and a horse on the ceiling. This was the apartment with the L.A. Sports Arena turn style in the doorway and furniture with the sawed off legs.
It’s in this dirty dumpster of a venue that we were hosting our annual super bowl party. For some reason people said they would come.
Why anyone would purposely exit the Harbor Freeway, pass Felix the Cat, dodge drive by shootings and turn down Scarff Street, a boulevard of shattered dreams, is beyond me.
It is with this understanding that I woke up early and began the ritualistic, war dance of the Super Bowl.
I put on my moo moo and began the day. The moo moo was a brightly colored Hawaiian wrap that my friend, Buffy had given me years before. Sometimes I wore underpants, sometimes not. I can’t recall if I was swinging commando for the Bears vs Patriots.
Nobody rocked a moo moo like me. I had high top sneakers and a tank top. I wore pukka shells and had long flowing blond hair. I looked like a crack head from a Magnum P.I. dream sequence.
The Super Bowl starts early in L.A. So the party has to start early.
By 9am I was down at Mr. Lee’s grocery store picking up the keg.
The market was a mix of old Korean women, black guys hustling forties and white boys wearing Hawaiian moo moos and high tops.
Mr. Lee loved us. We spent a fortune on beer and beef jerky. Breakfast of champions, right? I think we helped Mr. Lee pay off his mortgage on that little corner rock house grocery outlet.
Back to the Scarff Palace to begin setting up.
Ha.
Setting up.
That was completed when I brought the keg into the apartment and poured ice into the tub.
Set up? The place was a pig sty. It was broken furniture and shattered glass and a torn toilet seat of confusion.
Set up?
Place a bowl of chips on the counter, shoo away the cock roaches and wait for the idiots to come.
Honestly, who cared. The beer was here. It was cold. It was 10am. Time to start partying.
Hey Harpy’s Kiss our ass!
Armed with a beer bong, a quart of tequila and a moo moo, we began the national celebration.
By noon the apartment was filled with a bizarre array of humanity. It looked like a Benetton commercial. white people with red hair. Black people with dreads. And a white boy wearing a moo moo.
There was Gilmore and Schultzy and battle cat. Some of these people wore under garments, some didn’t. Nobody cared. Nobody worked for Homeland Security.
Suddenly the apartment was alive with the flavor of crazy. Someone was grilling outside the front door. Someone had a hibachi fired up in the back bedroom roasting hot dogs. A fire code violation? of course.
Compared to today’s hi def 1080i world of flat screen excellence, we were cavemen. Our 20 inch TV had rabbit ears covered with tin foil and tied to the bars on the window to help with reception.
Every time a jumbo jet flew over, the video distorted.
The only time that game was close was at the opening kick off. After that, the Bears went on to embarrass the Patriots.
I don’t remember watching much of that game. Too many beer bongs.
Like every day in L.A. the sun was shining and the windows were open and the Harpy’s were stealing car batteries and the smog was thick with anticipation.
Refrigerator Perry scored a worthless touch down. I remember looking around the apartment and laughing.
People sitting in chairs with no legs. Can you imagine walking into a room now and seeing people seated on a chair with no legs? A beer and chips in their lap, their legs extended straight out before them in a very uncomfortable manner.
What’s the point? I guess they sat on the chair so they didn’t have to sit on the toxic disgust that was our carpet. It was sort of like a furniture condom, I guess.
Now I go to Superbowl parties where the homes are immaculately decorated and the plasmas hang on the wall. Every single chair has legs.
Imagine that.
Not saying I would ever want to go back to a Super Bowl Party at Scarff Street. But I’m not saying I would turn down the invitation either.
And that is crazy.™