Thursday September 8th, 2011 - Kenosha, WI After seven months of sobriety, and I’m sad to report I’m back on drugs and hopelessly hooked. My pusher has thirty-two varieties, one more than Baskin-Robbins. My pusher is the National Football League, and I’m addicted to the Green Bay Packers. I can’t kick it. My addiction isn’t even the worst. At least mine paid off in February with a Super Bowl victory - the ultimate high. Addicts of the other thirty-one drugs don’t even get that. They have to quit cold turkey when one season ends, and suffer until the next season starts it up all over again. There are poor saps in towns like Cleveland and Detroit who are a mess. They keep getting slapped around like trailer park wives, and I guess I feel their pain to a certain degree, but if it ever got in the way of my own addiction any and all sympathy is out the window. This is a cruel process, but it‘s a cruel planet. I didn‘t make these rules. My drug of choice is the Packers, and I’ve been hooked going on forty years now. It’s a euphoric high when they win, and a crushing low when they don’t. I’ve tried every trick I can think of to kick the habit, but I just can’t do it. It shouldn’t be this powerful, but it is. Tonight’s game was nothing short of orgasmic. They started out great, then had a bit of trouble, then won it at the end with no time remaining. They easily could have lost it after being ahead the whole game, and that’s what makes this addiction so cruel. I had nothing to do with any of it, but I was emotionally involved the whole time and it stressed me out. I’m sure there were hundreds of thousands of New Orleans Saints addicts who felt their drug of choice was going to give them the high they craved, but it didn’t. It held all of our attention the entire evening, and I felt drained as I got in my car and drove home from my friend Mark Gumbinger’s house in Kenosha. He has a big screen TV and it’s a man cave. Mark and his brother Mike and I sat in his basement and partook of our drug together as a group. Crack house, Pack house, what’s the difference at this point? We’ve all invested our entire lives hoping our green and gold knights would slay the opposing dragons every week. This week they did, but just barely. Next week, who knows? We’re at their mercy. The NFL is a cruel master, and if I could quit I would. But I can’t. This season will be a series of ups and downs like all of them are, and I won’t be satisfied unless they return to the Super Bowl and win it again. Or will I? I loved watching them win the last one, but it doesn’t matter anymore. This is an entirely new season and we’re all addicted once again. I sure wish I sold a product as solid as the one the NFL is selling. Nobody dresses up in elaborate costumes and paints their face to come see me perform. There aren’t websites to buy and sell tickets to my shows for over face value and/or analyze my every tiny move. If Americans were as enthusiastic about America as we are about the NFL, we’d be way better off as a nation. I didn’t listen to what Mr. Obama said tonight, I was getting high.
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