Super hype. Super hoopla. Super shindigs. Super headaches.
Whoo! Thank goodness it’s over.
The Super Bowl blows in and out like a hurricane, folks, and the good thing is there are no tree branches left to pick up.
Has it already come and gone? All these years of preparation, and it’s over like that? Little left to show for it but stale beer cups and pins that didn’t sell.
For me it was not successful. My attempts to rent a room at the last minute to some needy celebrity pretty much went down in flames. Amenities! It all comes down to amenities. And when all you have to offer these people are overdone poached eggs, a bowl of Special K, slightly worn slippers, whatever beer’s in the fridge and the promise that you will be woken up in the morning by a dog sitting on your face, it’s a tough sell. Real tough. And my asking price — $100,000 or a part in their next movie — was a little steep.
Alas, my room went vacant.
There weren’t many celebrities that I could tell. No shortage of sightings. Everybody had a sighting. Vin Diesel spotted at the drive-thru at Chick-Fil-A; Brad Pitt shopping for art; Celine Dion staying at a B&B downtown and breaking glass with her singing.
A few you may not have heard:
• Hugh Heffner and a couple of the Playboy Bunnies enjoyed a bag of pork rinds at a Jiffy Mart before heading for the airport.
• Donald Trump was seen firing a homeless man who he didn’t think did an effective enough job begging for a quarter.
• Charlton Heston coming to see the Castillo de San Marcos because he couldn’t believe there was anything older than he was.
I think it’s best that I don’t see or meet celebrities. I wouldn’t know what to say, yet something about me always feels I must say something. And it’s usually ridiculous because I can’t help myself.
If I met Donald Trump I would probably ask him whether he has someone warm up his deodorant in the morning before putting it on.
“If I were rich as you, Mr. Trump, no more frozen shocks to the arm pits,” I would say with a shiver.
My wife would clutch her head like she had an ice cream headache.
If I met Brad Pitt I’m worried I would — like a pig-tailed fifth grade girl — tell him I thought he looked really “hot” in “Troy.” Why would you say that? But my brain, it just can’t be contained.
Lucky for me, I don’t get the chance to meet a lot of celebrities so I minimize the depth of my embarrassment.
I did see an extreme number of limos, and in fact on some of St. Augustine’s tightest streets, they’re still trying to pry a couple loose.
It appears they will stretch anything into a limo these days. Stretch Ford Expeditions and even the .20-mile-to-the-gallon stretch Hummer. But you never see any originality. Where’s the stretch Pinto? Has there ever been a convertible limo? What about the stretch VW bus?
Plenty of stretch yachts, my eyes did see. Boats worth more than most buildings in town. Oh, there was money around. Champagne flowed until the gutters were full. Furs, Ferraris and food that would make you wonder, “Do I eat it, frame it or beat it with a mallet?”
And all the while poor Jacksonville got skewered by the national media because the city’s idea of an expensive night out is a can of Cheese Whiz and a six pack of Miller Lite.
Be glad we live in cosmopolitan St. Augustine. Things will get back to normal here, just as soon as they get those stuck limos out.