by Jim Harris

My fellow citizens, as we approach another Super Bowl Sunday, I’d like to remind you that this is the most super day of the year for all Americans. In fact, “Super” is too paltry a word. The Super Bowl has the intensity of a thousand suns. Perhaps it should be called “Colossal Bowl Sunday” or “Hyper-Bole Sunday” because there is simply no place for modesty or understatement in football.

It must be celebrated with unbridled ferocity. Just look at the names of our professional teams: Panthers, Jaguars, Lions, Eagles, etc., all fierce predators. You won’t see any “Pigs,” “Cows” or “Chickens” in the tough-guy, tattooed NFL. Those are the animals that the predators EAT. You never have to call a cab for an NFL player; you just have to call an ambulance for them.

Even the Super Bowl TV commercials will be brimming with bravado. Nothing about soy milk, gourmet cat food, low-fat granola or the latest Dame Judy Dench movie. Just crappy beer, dancing monkeys and $1.98 bacon, egg and cheese breakfast biscuit burrito burgers. When Beyonce sings the National Anthem before the game, she should still be singing half-way through the second period. Can I get an Amen? Thank you.

And just to be perfectly clear, the billion-dollar halftime show will not have any Broadway tunes or old men in hemp vests playing bongos, so don’t look for them. Rather, a young dynamo appropriately named Bruno Mars will hop around frenetically while emitting a powerful sequence of high-pitched sounds. Hold on to your seat. His segment will be sponsored by Baron’s Rum, which, of course, is an anagram of Bruno Mars. There are no coincidences in the Super Bowl.

What’s that you say? You prefer baseball? Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Step aside, son. Only a wimp would watch a game between teams with names like the Padres and the Angels. Sounds exciting — NOT. Where are the broken bones, gushing blood and concussions? Face it, these days, baseball is only slightly more popular than cricket, and just as unpalatable to the masses.

And so it is with immense pride and determination that I prepare to host my seventh annual Super Bowl soiree — I mean ‘bash’ — at my house. As all my attempts in the past have been somewhat less than successful, this time I have enlisted the aid of Fat Tony, a professional Super Bowl party-planner from South Philly. The first thing he made me do was knock down my garage in order to make room for a bonfire pit. He told me that if anybody gives me a problem at the party, I should stick their hands into the pit. Next, we installed a dozen indoor Porta-Potties so there’ll be less time away from the boob-tube.

In addition, each room of my house will have a different theme. The kitchen will be the “Scooper Bowl,” where guys can power-chug guacamole until they turn green and burst out of their shirts like the Incredible Hulk. The bar area will host the “Stupor Bowl,” where losers can drown their sorrows, and the upstairs bathroom will be the site of the “Grouper Bowl,” where sportsmen can pop in and catch some wily fish from the fully stocked bathtub. At halftime, those of us with dogs will take them outside for the “Pooper Bowl.”

As if all of that wasn’t fun enough, we’ll also be having face painting (you stick your face into a can of paint), strippers on stilts and appearances by a phalanx of Philly celebs including Ed Rendell, Fabian, weather-hottie Sheena Parveen and a Joey Bishop impersonator. But the biggest treat of all will be a visit from "Slapshot," the short-lived mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers.

One caveat: since being fired after just one season in 1976, Slapshot has lost a step or two. He's 73 years old now and can't go anywhere without his oxygen tank, but he has promised to tell some off-color jokes before the van comes to take him back to the home.

This whole process has been costly for me. For one thing, every time I write, say or think the words “Super Bowl,” I have to pay the NFL $3,000. Plus, Fat Tony is charging me a huge consulting fee, and I had to purchase $10 million of event insurance, but hey, it’s the Super Bowl. If we don’t observe it properly, we might wake up one morning and find that the game has moved to Russia. So remember, the USA has a lot of bowls, but only one is Super. Party on, football fanatics!