SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY’S SUPER BOWL NIPPLE

Of course, I love Paul McCartney so there was already a good chance that I was going to like the halftime show. After all, I’ve been making it a practice to avoid the traditional celebrity glitz-fest for some years now. The only reason I didn’t change the channel or head to the bathroom was because it was Paul.

Fortunately, he didn’t disappoint. The four songs he performed, three Beatles tunes and one solo song, were excellent choices. Paul deftly worked his way through “Drive My Car,” expertly executing the ever infectious refrain “beep-beep, beep-beep, yeah” as though his career depended on it. “Get Back” was well done, too, although I wonder if his shameless singing about the allure of “California grass” will cause any controversy in these FCC challenged times. The one song from his solo career, the James Bond theme “Live and Let Die,” seamlessly slid into Paul’s Beatle song sandwich so well because it’s practically a Beatle song to begin with: longtime Beatle producer George Martin originally collaborated on the song’s construction with Paul when it was first recorded. As with the first two performances, this one was also well done: after many years Paul has finally reclaimed the song from the trailer-trash rock ‘n’ roll recesses to which heroin-vomit band Guns N’ Roses had it exiled. Complete with pyrotechnics and cool lights, “Live and Let Die” was waaaay cool. The Cute One’s final selection, “Hey Jude,” was also performed adeptly, although in a somewhat tarnished fashion due to the cheesy audience sing-along during the “na na” section—the candle waving dancers were both good and lame, absurdly sentimental up close, kinda neat from a distance. In a surprise juxtaposition of song and video image, we learned that “Jude” does not, in fact, refer to Julian Lennon, as had been believed for decades; rather, “Jude” is, in reality, the Statue of Liberty. I never knew.

On the whole, Paul really did turn it up to eleven. The band was tight, and he really threw himself into his songs. I haven’t seen him kicking ass this way for years. Of course, it’s hard for me to not be a bit cynical about this, too. Paul, ever the business Beatle, chose really well known songs and performed them exactly as heard on their famous studio recordings, giving consumers what they want. Indeed, Paul hasn’t performed on a stage this big since the 1960s, and he was obviously hyper-aware of that fact. Perhaps his inspired renditions resulted as much from his desire to increase his net worth as from his personal dedication to his art. Given tonight’s massive audience, the entire Beatle and McCartney catalogues are certain to get a significant bump in sales. Hell, I’d go out and buy another Beatle album myself if I didn’t already have a pirated MP3 disk of everything they ever did. But why am I surprised? Paul has always been the businessman of the Beatles, despite his groovy, feel-good rhetoric.

What I really want to know is why my favorite Knight of the British Empire flat out refused to show us his nipple.

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