Favre Won't Starve

Tuesday March 4th, 2008 - Lake Villa, IL

Today was a day of disarray all around. Brett Favre retired from the Green Bay Packers and the entire state of Wisconsin is at half mast. Being a Packerholic myself I felt a bit of sadness when I heard he was finally hanging it up and then it turned to utter disgust when I heard how much it seemed to be affecting people. It was wall to wall media like 9/11.

All I heard on radio and TV all day were interviews with everyone he ever stood in line at McDonald’s with or sat next to on a bus about what kind of socks he wore and what his favorite salad dressing was. ENOUGH already. He’s a multi millionaire and he’ll be fine.

Yes, he was a great athlete who had a stellar career. He’s right up there with any name a person can think of that is synonymous with success. There aren’t all that many who have attained that status either. In the modern era in no particular order it’s a Michael Jordan or a Wayne Gretzky or a Tiger Woods and that’s about it. Maybe a John Elway or a Dr. J.

Who else gets to achieve head and shoulders above the rest for such a long time and get to experience everything we all dream of? Not a whole lot and Brett Favre is one of them. I’m a huge Packer fan myself and I loved watching him play for as long as he did but he’s done. Do I think he deserved to have a tribute on TV? Absolutely. He was one of the best.

It just seemed unfair that his retirement was treated like a fallen religious icon or a head of state. They interviewed one clueless boob on TV after the next on ESPN and it made it apparent that my home state is filled with more losers than I originally thought. It was just nauseating to see some beer swilling oaf lamenting about what ‘we’ are going to do next.

Well, the PACKERS are going to keep going and find some other guy to play next year and life will go on. As far as WE goes, I doubt if the team is thinking of that fat slob as a part of the equation. He and all the other halfwits (myself included) will offer our worship and blind allegiance to the next guy they trot out there. We did it for years after Bart Starr.

Why am I getting so cynical in my old age? Maybe I always was and it’s just now to the stage of maturity. I’m happy for Brett Favre and I am a Packer fan and always will be but it would be nice if life was just a bit more fair. They talked about his ‘mental fatigue’ as a reason he retired. What about the single mom working two jobs to pay bills for her kids?

She doesn’t have any mental fatigue? Brett Favre has more money than he could burn in a wood stove in twenty winters in Green Bay. He’ll be ok. He’s got a gorgeous wife and a house that could hold an indoor tractor pull. He’s not even 40 years old yet and his future looks pretty bright. He won’t be begging for change with a cardboard sign any time soon.

Most of the rest of us however have to work to keep our heads above water every week. I am living in a basement hoping my car will start every time I put the key in the ignition. There are a lot more of me than there are Brett Favre but we don’t get any tributes on TV.

Part of me won’t miss Brett Favre at all. Will he miss me? Nope. So there. Life goes on.
The rest of today was pretty much in disarray personally as well but at least it was all in a positive direction. I went over to my new web person Shelley’s house to get cracking on that ugly situation. Everything is in shambles from the situation with the other guy so now I have to start all over again. In the long run it will be very good but for now it’s not fun.

I don’t enjoy doing this part of the business but it’s very necessary. A website is now an integral part of being in the comedy business and business in general and mine was down for several weeks. I had a monthly newsletter that has now been dormant for a while also. I couldn’t ignore it anymore and I’m hiring Shelley to help me get it back up and better.

She’s a lot different than the last guy and I needed that. He was good at some things and what he was good at was great but they were some of the things I’m also good at so when something came up that was a weakness it was a deal killer. Plus his hobby of embezzling money kind of cast a shadow on the whole thing too. I got scorched but that’s over now.

Shelley is good at a lot of stuff I’m not and I could tell in the first five minutes that this will be the refreshing change that I’ve needed for a while now. I’ll gladly pay her to keep my site fresh and help me offer things for sale and update my schedule and all the things I have never been good at. It’s a shame it had to work out how it did but that’s how it goes.

A lot of people have things happen in life and they overcome them. That’s what success is all about. Moving on when it’s not pleasant isn’t easy but the true winners in life do it. I want to be a winner so I did it too. Shelley is also a Packer fan so that will be interesting.

She was crying after she heard Favre retired and then she found out her job is ending. It happened just as I got to her house so that was yet another example of Mr. Lucky timing. I felt bad for her and I hope it doesn’t make her life too hard because she has two kids and a husband. She’s a go getter though and she’ll survive. I want to work with that mind set.

Shelley and I sat down at her computer and she got me signed up to keep my domain for another five years. It’s paid for and I own it and her sister in law is the web host. She took time to explain how things would work and I felt comfortable with it all. I paid for the fee to host the site and also to host the Uranus site too. That’ll be the next order of business.

For now I need to get my own website back and running and in my control. I will write all the checks from now on and NOBODY will be able to steal from me again. I learned a very painful but valuable lesson and I hope I don’t have to learn it again. It’s still stinging.

I also have a large cork board I bought a while back that is finally up on my wall. I’ll be able to put a things to do list on it and get more organized and hopefully stay on more of a steady path of improvement rather than bounce all over the place like I’ve been doing. It’s all a lot easier if I know where I’m going. Today was positive in that I made some steps.

I’m happy for Brett Favre’s success and I wish him well. His name rhymes with ‘starve’ but he won’t be doing that any time soon. I need to get myself in gear so I won’t either.