Give me your energetic, your rich, your champions of wretched excess yearning to breathe free; ever protected, of course, from the teeming masses!
Like Lady Liberty greeting immigrants to New York, we in San Diego are opening our hearts, and cash registers, to visitors from gated communities all across this great land.
It's time for the Super Bowl, the game in which tickets are like tax cuts, available only to the wealthy. San Diegans are welcoming a stream of Learjets and limos bearing high-rollers eager to gorge on premium booze, shrimp the size of your fist and exquisite desserts with enough calories to sustain an African village for a month.
They're also here to sample the best of our fair city and maybe even watch a little football. But before settling into their penthouse suites, there are a few things the gilded gang need to know about America's Finest City.
First, San Diegans really don't care much for football. That's why the Super Bowl is such a good fit for the city, because it's all about hype and has very little to do with the game itself.
In places such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Chicago, NFL football is a kind of secular religion. In Oakland, it's a satanic ritual.
But San Diegans are fair-weather fans, which is apt, given our weather and the fact that the Chargers make the playoffs about as often as it snows around these parts.
The fact is that in San Diego, we don't huddle around the TV like snow-bound Easterners, sucking suds and inhaling Cheez-Its. We don't watch sports – we get out and play them.
San Diego has close to 80 golf courses and a tennis court on every corner. We surf, swim, fish, hike, bicycle, Roller-Blade and sail – we've got enough pleasure boats here to have overwhelmed the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway.
Our kids play soccer and softball, water polo and basketball, volleyball and football, and run track. Adults do all that stuff, too. San Diego has more baseball leagues for geezers than any city in North America, and record sales of ibuprofen to prove it.
But nobody is traveling here this week to watch us play. They are here for unique attractions.
Lots of common tourists hit Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. But savvy Super Bowlers know the Lakeside Rodeo is the place to see and be seen.
On Super Bowl Sunday, the anointed heading to the stadium will find three-quarters of the parking lot taken over by corporations' party tents.
By then, many will have become honorary San Diegans. They will concentrate on the sumptuous buffet and lavish bar and forget altogether about going in to see the game.
And if they leave by halftime, they can beat the rush to the airport.
