Time to panic as Atlanta Super Bowl faces halftime celebrity shortage

Less than six weeks out from the Atlanta Super Bowl, this now-epic intermission is reportedly on the ropes. A story in Variety has labeled this halftime show "Music's Least Wanted Gig," because everything, even something more essentially frivolous than a football game - a football game's bathroom break - must be politicized.

To quote from the Variety report: “Who would have thought that the Super Bowl halftime show, an American institution watched by more than 100 million people, would become the least wanted gig in music? But thanks to the ongoing controversy concerning the NFL’s stance on a player’s right to protest, brought to the forefront by football’s top conscientious objector Colin Kaepernick, Maroon 5 learning the precarious stance that the performance represents.”

While no performer has yet been officially announced for halftime at Mercedes-Benz on Feb. 3 – it’s getting rather late, don’t you think – Maroon 5 is believed to be a headliner. But the band has found that no one wants to join it on stage, having been turned down by at least half-dozen top acts, according to Variety.

The entertainment community has joined arms, taken a knee and vowed not to perform for the evil NFL in support of Kaepernick and his rights to be employed even if no team wants to employ him. The nation's leading sports league and its grandest sports event have become as toxic to the beautiful and the talented as red meat and carbon.

Rihanna supposedly has passed on Atlanta. And she has appeared in the United Arab Emirates, whose human-rights record apparently is cleaner than that of today’s NFL.

Comedian Amy Schumer has taken to social media to implore Adam Levine and the rest of Maroon 5 to skip this halftime, too. She has vowed to appear in no commercial that would air during the game – and who could forget her 2016 Bud Light ad, considered the “Citizen Kane” of 30-second beer spots? We will all be left a little poorer by her absence.

If this situation can’t be resolved, what choice is there but to cancel the game?

What’s the point of playing a Super Bowl, if there is no decent halftime? Why that would be like trying to enjoy a fine meal without the soup course.

OK, honestly, there are a couple other choices.

First, you can never go wrong with a Frisbee-catching dog at halftime. They can all be replaced by one spunky Jack Russell terrier and an owner with a decent arm.

A good college band, or even a couple guys wearing rocket packs (that was part of halftime for Super Bowl I) are never bad fallbacks.

Or, secondly, the viewing public can make its own bold statement this Super Bowl, and finally rise up as one and go to the can and grab another beer, as was always the intended purpose of halftime.