DETROIT – The woman wore a snappy, black, pin-striped power suit, obviously an executive of some kind, walking in the purposeful strides of someone in a relaxed hurry to her destination.
In the days counting down to Super Bowl XL, security is tighter than a bank loan officer. On every downtown street, it’s not uncommon to count a police officer on every corner and at least two more patrolling the sidewalks.
Cops are everywhere.
The woman reached the crosswalk as the red “DON’T WALK” sign flashed. The woman took a quick glance right, then left, then crossed the street. Against a red light. With the police officer looking on.
The officer didn’t even move a muscle to explain to her the reason for streetlights. He stood as still as though he were made of stone. How cool is that? I have dreams about this stuff.
Yet, I didn’t have the guts to repeat what she did. It’s not embezzlement, but still, I stood at the curb and waited for the green light. No cars were in sight, but with my luck, I’d be the one to get busted.
Nevertheless, I bet the cop giggled behind my back.
Maybe jaywalking isn’t an offense in Detroit. Lord knows, the police have enough real crime to worry about without chasing someone who crosses the street against the light.
Like, providing security at the World’s Largest Sporting Event when nine-tenths of the Islamic world has a beef against the United States.
In that case, go ahead. Run amok across the streets. Create anarchy galore.
We’re winding down our time in Detroit now. I won’t be depressed when The Game finally starts. Frankly, I’m pretty pre-game hoopla-ed out.
But I have to say, I’ve seen things this week I’ve never seen before. Like the woman flouting the law in front of Detroit’s finest.
An hour before I started to write this, I stumbled on Mike Tyson buying shoes. Nice shoes, too. But then it got me to thinking.
Isn’t he so far in debt that he can’t see natural sunlight? How does that work, exactly? Does he get unemployment? Is he on food stamps?
After he paid for his Bruno Maglis (cash) he was whisked away in a chauffeured Hummer that was roughly as long as a city block.
I’ve seen plenty of homeless people this week. I don’t remember him in the bread line.
I wonder if I’ve rolled up enough credit card debt to earn a beach mansion with a helipad on it.
Then there was Joey Porter.
I’ve never seen such bad acting since “Gigli.”
Anyone who bought his tirade against Jerramy Stevens this week needs an immediate psychiatric evaluation. Porter supposedly whipped himself into a lather because Stevens had the audacity to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the Seahawks might give the Steelers a game.
Porter’s reaction: see Tyson, Mike, predicting he would eat the children of Lewis, Lennox.
Give me a break, Joey.
If that’s what it took to turn Porter into Mr. Hyde, we have three words for him: “Anger,” “Management” and “Counseling.”
Porter was no more ticked off than I am when my daughter suggests that I might be better off if I lost a few pounds. He couldn’t stand that he wasn’t getting the attention he apparently craves.
And the media, so starved for controversy in a week of lethal boredom, made it a national event on par with President Bush’s State of the Union message.
Steelers coach and Porter apologist Bill Cowher said something to the effect that it was just Joey being Joey, and that his tantrum was a way of getting him into the proper frame of mind (or proper frame out of his mind) for the game.
Newsflash: This is the Super Bowl. What other reason does he need to get geeked up?
I saw more Gilbert Gottfried than I’d anticipated (read: none). The pint-sized, squinty-eyed, screeching New Yawkese comedian was funny for a while, admitting that he was shamelessly promoting his CD, which apparently is second only to Rap in its profanity quotient.
But at about the third time I saw him – I think it was during the Rolling Stones press conference – I’d heard enough of his shtick. I let it bother me that ESPN gave him a press credential.
Press credentials are for working media. All he was working were the crowds.
It’s not unlike the multitude of newspaper editors who are here simply to be here. They’ll tell you they’re in Detroit to “advise” or “organize” their writers for Super Bowl coverage, but I wonder if they realize how transparent that is, as though they can’t get it done with one conference call, at the most, from their Seattle office.
But no. They’ll charge their newspapers for airfare, lodging, a rental car and board so they can be at The Worlds Largest Sporting Event.
Ah, well. Maybe they ARE working hard. I saw one holding a microphone at a Mike Holmgren press conference.
But, gee, I’ll be whipped if I saw it plugged into anything.
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