[It's Valentine's Day. Here at Altrok, we could care less. -Ed.]

Um, Where Am I?
by Shaun "Bastard" Nelson

The Super Bowl, and with it the football season, are over. For once, the game was interesting and the commercials were boring. The players and coaches are starting to get ready to win the next season, or in the case of the Jets, they'll dash their hopes and get set on losing the season again.

The Formula One season is over, the races weren't that interesting, the commercials are normal, and the political driver swapping is winding down, and everybody's getting ready for the new season, except Jos Verstappen. Minardi focuses their preparation on trying to stay ahead of the safety car and carefully removing all chances to finish in the top 20, and Prost finishes packing up all their worldly belongings into carefully wrapped box, where they'll be auctioned off to the populace of France. And Michael Schumacher has, well, gobs and gobs of cash.

As a fairly normal sports watching guy, I watch and follow both of these seasons, closely. I read the news every day, picking out information on both; digesting it and making predictions based the information gathered. An important part of the process is calling my bookie.

Otherwise, though, I pay close attention. And sometimes what happens bothers me.

One: Sheryl Crow's performance as the AFC Championship game. I only saw this on TV, and what I saw of it was bad. Sheryl Crow, while wearing a mustard colored catsuit, signing a fairly bland tune about something. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what she was singing if you threatened me with a beating from club-footed Jehovah's witnesses.

But apart from a few hardy souls waving their Steeler Terrible Towels, not many people were either getting down with their bad selves or putting their hands in the air like they just didn't care. For the most part, the crowd just looked puzzled as to what the hell Sheryl Crow was doing in the middle of their football game.

Two: John Mellencamp at the US Grand Prix. A pompous, "America is Great" pre-race production, complete with a choir singing the national anthem, whose finale had Mr. Mellencamp signing his new song, "Perfect World" to an audience of befuddled Europeans. The two Dutchmen in front of me, wearing their "Jos" (now un-employed, Hey Jos, we need writers!) hats proudly, were very concerned, in the beginning, that they were not actually at a F1 race, normally the pinnacle of world motor racing, but in fact, trapped in a Sartre-like Midwestern hell. I think if the huge American flag spread across the track, with hundreds of human heads poking thru, were to start line-dancing, these men would have run.

I take comfort in the fact that my plaid-shirt-wearing, beer-swilling, corn-dog-eating ways did nothing ease them.

But sports promoters need to learn from this lesson. They need to select musical accompaniment that's both relevant and complementary to the sporting events they're hosting. No more Aerosmith-'N Sync duets. No more Michael Jackson and his halftime salute to the children of the world. No more Up with People and its salute to... um... people.

What if I just settle for no more Up With People?

©2002 Shaun Nelson