Super Bowl Rewind

This is the first Super Bowl since 2005 that I haven’t gone to. Well, I’ve never actually gone to the Super Bowl, if we’re being technical, (the closest I got to that was watching from the top of the neighboring parking structure in AZ in ’96 when the game was played on the campus where I was a student). But, I have traveled to the city hosting the Super Bowl for the pre-game parties the last three consecutive years. Here’s a brief look back at my extreme highs and lows at each.

2006: Detroit

There was a blizzard, need I say more? My mind tends to gloss over horrific memories and forget things best not remembered, so the details of this trip have graciously more or less faded to just glimpses of being stranded in the street inches deep in snow, huddling with a few friends, and Adrian Grenier, at the Playboy party, doing several tequila shots to stay warm, staying at a less than habitable motel on the side of a highway somewhere – and being ever so grateful for being on a plane nearly back to New York by halftime.

2007: Miami

Possibly the best party weekend of my career – and as a professional party-goer for the better part of the last decade, that’s saying something. I somehow got myself into the ultra-exclusive CAA party at the intimate Mokai in Miami. I was hanging out with my friend Christy and the supremely less famous at the time Michael Phelps when a security person came to collect Michael with the request that Mr. Tom Cruise would like to meet him. When taken to Tom’s table Tom gripped Michael’s hand with an iron grasp as he gushed praise on Michael for having the power of being ‘the fastest in the world.’ Meanwhile, Katie Holmes was dancing on a banquette next to Tom.

That same evening (or sometime early morning) I found myself in the penthouse of the Shore Club with Justin Timberlake trapped in the elevator that goes directly into the room – and Scarlett Johansson chain-smoking cigarettes on the balcony. When Justin got out of the elevator he offered everyone cocktails and for himself poured a mini bottle of Jack Daniels into a can of Coke. There were maybe eight of us in the room – and four of them my friends. It was a bit surreal, and as far as celebrities go, I’m not easily impressed.

2008: Phoenix

I was excited for the game to come back to AZ, my old college stomping grounds, but since the stadium moved to the boondocks things were a bit spread out and the celeb calibur not quite as high as South Beach. I made sure to score an invite to CAA again, but the biggest celeb I saw there this time was John Krasinski. While I like John, well, he wasn’t TomKat.

Speaking of which, you can catch John tonight on The Office after the Super Bowl. Usually I’m more intrigued by the commercials and show chosen to air after the game, but since I went to several Cardinals games in my tenure as an ASU student and rarely got to see them win, I’m eager to see the underdog take the game today too. Off to Happy Endings...

GO CARDS! Be safe and happy Super Bowl Sunday  ;) Xo