My prediction for this year's Super Bowl is the same as it is every year even when I don't post it: I ain't watching. We all have things that interest others but do not interest us and I seem to be congenitally incapable of caring even the teensiest bit about football. I don't fault others for their love of the game. I just cannot join them in it.
Most years, I don't even know which teams are playing but you can't live in Los Angeles and not know the Rams are in it to win it. That means a lot of people in my city are going to be wildly exuberant or deeply depressed at the outcome. I do not understand that linkage. I was once in Times Square the moment the Yankees won the World Series and I have never seen so many human beings — a few of them even sober — be so happy. You'd think they had actually won something.
I am rooting for one thing to happen this Sunday…
My favorite pizzeria in town, Vito's, had a fire last Saturday evening. They're closed for they-don't-know-how-long and the timing could not be worse for two reasons. One is that it's a bad time for a great pizzeria in Los Angeles to be outta commission. For Super Bowl Sunday? With an L.A. team in the contest? I think they'd sell pies as fast as they could possibly make them. They could probably quadruple the price and still not be able to make as many as they could sell.
Secondly, the fire fighters were still there mopping up when Dave Portnoy — "the pizza guy" — happened to show up to tape a review. Dave misspeaks at first. Apart from the flashback, this all takes place at the Vito's on La Cienega Boulevard, which is the one I patronize. And Dave says "this place opened a week ago" which is misleading.
Vito has two locations — the one on La Cienega and one in Santa Monica. (He briefly opened one in downtown L.A. but that one seems to have closed.) The Vito's on La Cienega is the one that had the fire and it just moved from one space in a strip mall there (where it's been for years) to a larger space in the same strip mall.
Here is Dave's video of what he found when he showed up there. [CAUTION: Excessive use of the "f" word in the following…]
I don't know if they have a prayer of getting up and running again by Sunday but Vito is a great guy who makes a great pizza. It sure would make me feel good if they could pull it off. I wouldn't dare try to order this weekend but it would make me feel like I'd won something if others could.