A Super Super Bowl

In case you hadn't heard, the Super Bowl is coming to town. (If you live in Houston and hadn't heard, we should also inform you that there was a war with Iraq recently. We won.)

As far as we can tell, hosting a Super Bowl is just about as close to nirvana as an American city can get. And that impression is not likely to change, at least in the pages of the Houston Chronicle.

Houston, like all cities that are blessed to host this event, has an official host committee, made up of the movers and shakers of our little burg.

And one of the key players on Houston's committee is Jack Sweeney, publisher of the Chronicle. Newspaper publishers have served on Super Bowl host committees before -- Jacksonville's 2005 committee features the publisher of the Florida Times-Union -- but the typical board member is simply charged with raising funds or corralling volunteers to do grunt work.

Sweeney, on the other hand, heads his own subcommittee -- the "Be a Super Host" subcommittee. Its official description: "The world is coming to Houston, and this committee is charged with energizing Houstonians and Texans with the same spirit and Southern hospitality that has overwhelmed NFL advance teams and vendors over the past several months. The goal is to have four-and-a-half million people smile for four days."

And how does the publisher of the Chron plan to do this? The official description continues: "By means of a public relations campaign and other educational and promotional efforts, the benefits and goodwill of the Super Bowl will be communicated to the community."

Gosh. We just hope Sweeney can convince the Chronicle to cover some of these things. Here's a tip: Send a concise fax to the newsroom well in advance of any event. And don't forget to leave a contact number! (We assume your phone extension will do; no need to leave the entire number.)

Public relations professionals tend to warn the amateur publicist not to be discouraged if a newspaper ignores your pitch -- sometimes the editors just decide there are other, more compelling events to cover that day. But we don't think that will be a problem for Sweeney.

This Is My Quest

Everyone's got to have a cause, a movement for which they will head to the barricades and give their all.

For Houston's Mattress Mac, that cause is apparently getting the Houston Rockets to hire Calvin Murphy as head coach. In terms of the characters involved, that's a little like Moe recommending Curly.

Mac took out a half-page ad in the Houston Chronicle's sports section June 4 that was woefully short on grammar but long on the greatness of Murphy, the clownish color man for Rockets television broadcasts.

"As an announcer he has tremendous incite [sic]…As a coach, he is an untapped resource who's [sic] knowledge for the game could bring Houston back to the promise [sic] land," the ad screamed.

To paraphrase the lads in Spinal Tap, Murphy is perhaps a resource best left untapped, but that's essentially a basketball question. We're wondering more about why -- well, to be more precise, why the fuck -- anyone in their right mind would take out such an ad.

With the bulk-buying discount the ever-negotiating Mac no doubt gets from the Chron, there's no telling how much he paid for the ad. At any rate, it'd be just spare change compared to his annual advertising budget.

Whatever the cost, Mac felt the need to tell fans to "Call, e-mail or fax to cast your vote for Calvin and say today 'We Want Calvin.'" No phone number, e-mail address or fax number was included, so we assume Mac is envisioning a very nonspecific kind of campaign.

We wait eagerly to see what cause Mac next takes up. The massive rollout for the "Summer Olympics in 2024!" campaign can't be too far away.

As a side note, Mac also chairs a Super Bowl host subcommittee, Marketing & Sponsorship, which seeks to "further position the City of Houston as the irresistible future venue for world-class sporting and entertainment ventures." What could be more irresistible than cuddly Calvin Murphy as coach?

Good-bye to All This

The dozens of folks who enthusiastically turn to this column each week, several of whom aren't even close relations, will have to learn a new skill.

The News Hostage column, a relic of the 20th century, is morphing into a new weekly feature -- a column called Hairballs. (Really.)

The new column will offer a wider range of targets, not to mention contributions from other Press staffers. But it will still include the occasional look at what passes for mainstream media in this town, so feel free to keep sending along any tips, gripes or ventings of exasperation. The e-mail link below will remain the same.