By GARY KAMIYA

Illustration by Charlie Powell

There are certain under-the-counter pleasures which afford far greater happiness than the glossier items one displays on the living room mantlepiece. In my case, the plain brown wrapper contains pro football. Yes, football -- that pariah of male supremacist pastimes, that gross, gladiatorial, corporate, high-tech, violent display of power at its most egregiously all-American.

For five months a year, the knowledge that a three-hour block of minor bliss waits for me on Sunday sits in the back pocket of my mind, as reassuring as a bridegroom's flask. It's embarrassing to admit, but if some mischievous deity were to force me to choose between never watching another football game and never listening to another note of classical music, I'd have to give Ravel the heave-ho. He may have great lateral movement, but no way can he cover Jerry Rice one-on-one.

Football is the most popular sport in the country, but it don't get no literary respect. There are no Ivy League presidents singing its praises ad nauseam by citing obscure lines of Renaissance verse. The New Yorker doesn't assign essayists to wax rhapsodic about the beauties of the corner blitz. Poets don't choke up at the thought of playing catch with their sons, unless the ball is small, white and round. Ken Burns doesn't make lyrical, banjo-twanging documentaries about its mythical glories.

Instead, football is relegated to the bozo-bonding category. Like such disreputable, vaguely retro entities as poker nights, stag films, prizefighting and fraternity beer bashes, the sport is a token of maleness at its most retrograde and obtuse. It's not surprising that most women grow restless when football is invoked. They'll tolerate the odd mention of basketball, even baseball, but bring up football and you feel as if a large sign reading "Crude Replica of Cro-Magnon Man" has been hung around your neck.

At the risk, then, of falling into the rubbing-sticks-together category, I submit that there is nothing in sports more gripping, even beautiful, than a game between two great pro football teams. This beauty isn't immediately apparent: unlike soccer, with its simple rules and elegant, ceaseless sweep of movement, or baseball, with its dramatic duel between pitcher and batter, football is a complicated, seemingly chaotic, start-and-stop business, punctuated by mind-numbing pile-ups and arcane penalties.

What it lacks in simplicity, however, it makes up for in vicious drama. Compared to lemonade pastimes like baseball or tennis, football is a hit of crack cocaine.

Next page: A monstrous fascination