Bounds of taste may blur, but please, give us notice

Dang, I must’ve missed the announcement.

I know they played it somewhere.

Probably more than once.

Had to for special Super Bowl "entertainment" like that.

I just flat missed it or — more likely — forgot all about it.

Not unusual for me these days.

I often find myself standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open, an empty glass in my hand, an even emptier look on my face, wondering just what the heck I’m supposed to be doing.

Thank the Good Lord for my ever more exasperated wife.

"Milk, Larry. You were going to get some milk."

"Right. I knew that."

"Then quit trying to reverse global warming all by yourself, get your milk, and close the refrigerator door."

"Milk. It would’ve come to me."

"So will the electric bill."

I hate getting older. My attention span is headed the wrong way. The light of understanding burns a bit more dimly. Realization dawns more slowly. Understanding comes only with effort. And I tend to miss things.

Like announcements.

That’s how, on Sunday, I found myself watching an over-produced bump-and-grind routine that was interrupted by a football game.

I do confess I enjoyed the game even though I didn’t have a dog in the fight.

I’m originally from New Orleans and I like to think that, one day, the Saints will come marching in.

Given their history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, however, I won’t be holding my breath waiting for it to happen. A fellow could die trying that.

Still, when they did let the teams play between "dance" numbers, commercials touting animal flatulence, and the apparently widespread and ever-growing epidemic of male dysfunction, there was a passable case being made for watching.

It used to be I even enjoyed the halftime shows. In my own lifetime, I can remember bands marching all over the field, spelling out different things, forming assorted objects and playing recognizable music.

It was kind of fun. Not in any memorable way, mind you. Just a sort of a half-smiling, "Hey, look at that. They’re forming the Space Needle" kind of way. A couple of minutes later, the teams would be back on the field, the announcers and analysts would take over, and we had us a game again.

Then someone, somewhere, with an even leakier mind than mine lost something.

It was that darned line between good and bad taste. The line that separated elegance and coarseness. The line that marked the end of decorum and the start of vulgarity. The line that separated "enough" from "too much."

I admit the line was never really well-defined and it tended to move around a bit, but you could usually get directions to one side or the other if you needed them.

Friends would help. Parents and grandparents would speak up. Aunts and uncles chimed in when needed. Neighbors would point the way. Teachers could lend a hand. And, if you were really confused, then that guy who stood in front of the congregation on Sundays was an absolute flashing neon sign.

The bad news is that, nowadays, there’s this lobotomy box that’s usually on most of the time and it’s drowned out everyone and everything else around it. Unfortunately, a lot of the messages it puts out have gotten us pointed in exactly the wrong direction. And, more and more, we seem lost.

So now, there’s a good chance that bare boobs and crotch-grabbing may become the benchmark for "fine" entertainment. And the kind of stuff that used to be confined to dockside bars around the world could become a regular part of the halftime show of the most widely viewed sporting event in the United States.

I guess those dockside bars were just ahead of their time.

Whodathunkit?

Coming soon to a Super Bowl near you, "routines" that’d make a sailor blush.

I just kind of wish they’d make those announcements about such entertainment a bit more obvious and, perhaps, a bit more often. That way, folks like me could sort of tune out and maybe read a good book.

Too, such announcements would help with these things called kids.

A lot of them (and their parents) thought they’d just be watching a football game with a somewhat overblown halftime show.

I bet they missed the part about getting to watch a second-level hootchie-kootchie act that included an anatomy lesson to boot.

Larry Simoneaux is a freelance writer living in Edmonds. Comments can be sent to: larrysim@att.net.