The Angry Czeck

One nipple ruined it for everyone.

When it happened, I didn’t even see it. During the 2004 Super Bowl – six freaking years ago – Justin Timberlake copped the most notorious feel in the history of groping. In the middle of it was Janet Jackson and her bizarre nipple ring. It looked like the sun. It blinded us like the sun. Don’t stare at it! Scratch that. It blinded us like masturbation! Or, at least, it did according to our nation of prudes and Puritans.

It. Was. A. Nipple!

Jesus, no!

A very nice, very conservative friend recently summed it up this way: “Children were watching.”

It. Was. A. Nipple!

Joe Wilson had a mouth malfunction, and he gets millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the nation’s conservative base. Something that vaguely resembles a black pearl is flashed on television, and we’re suddenly characters from a Nathanial Hawthorne novel.

And we’re still being punished for it.

Listen, I like The Who just as much as the next guy. But to dig up their corpses and have them perform for an audience of millions was a disgrace to them and to us. Thunder of Zeus! Peter Townsend could barely move. Roger Daltrey was a perfect Facebook doppelganger of Bea Arther! The Who didn’t deserve this! It was like unearthing the bones of Houdini, wrapping him up in a straight jacket, dropping him in the Hudson, and expecting him to leap onto shore a moment later.

The prudes won. They wrote a few letters, shouted some indignant proclamations, and proceeded to ruin the Super Bowl Halftime show for everyone under the age of 60.

Don’t believe me? Check out the antiquated acts that have followed:

2005 Paul McCartney
2006 The Rolling Stones
2007 Prince
2008 Tom Petty
2009 Bruce Springsteen
2010 The Who

You might be tempted to look at that list and say, “Well, at least we had Prince,” until you remember he became ultra-Christian about 20 years ago and refuses to sing any of the racy lyrics that made him famous in the 1980s. Prince is awesome, but he no longer rocks. No risk of menace! Prince is the Purple Pacifist now. Why not have Barney the Dinosaur perform next?

One nipple, and we cut the nation’s balls off in retaliation. Now we’re treated to obscene spectacles of elderly men forced to perform as though it were decades earlier. (There’s an obvious Viagra joke in here somewhere.) How many Super Bowl viewers in their 20s and 30s watched the halftime show in complete confusion? Who are these old men? What are these ancient songs they sing? Why is the guitar player wincing after every windmill move? Is the lead singer a woman? And if so, why can’t she hit any high notes?

It. Was. A. Nipple!

It wasn’t a clit or a dick or even an ass. Milk comes out of nipples. Like an earlobe, you can hang jewelry off a nipple. Watch an old episode of Friends and note how clearly one can admire Jennifer Aniston’s nipples. Nobody censures her! We didn’t replace her with some elderly vaudevillian. We just sat quietly and admired her nipples’ quiet dignity.

Who’s next for Super Bowl humiliation? Sting? The Beach Boys? Tommy Dorsey? If you’re old, white, near-death and non-threatening, there is a gig waiting for you.