Schadenfreude

Howdy! It's been a month since I've written a blog. Look, it's summer, there's stuff to do, and I have a life. Sorry. One note: I'm not going to blog about the Cardinals anymore. It's not that I don't like the team or that I've quit cheering for them, but Ohio State and the Vikings take enough time, or will. So, on to a topic not discussed much over the summer: Brett Favre.


Embrace it, Accept it, Love it

No, not my monkey, you perverts, but the fact that Brett Favre, statistically the greatest quarterback ever to play in the NFL, will be a Minnesota Viking for the 2009 season. As the late, great, Ed McMahon would say:

YES!

Look, I know there’s a lot of anger towards the Vikings in this, and I get that. Some people feel that it’s similar to the Allies hiring Erwin Rommel to close out WWII; it’s just not natural. We’ve grown up to not like Green Bay and their players; hell, about the only thing that ever came out of the entire state of Wisconsin that I care about is Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat Beer (Honey Weiss will do in a pinch). I’ve never liked the Packers, I’ve never liked Favre, but I always respected his talents and ability, and I secretly wished the Vikings had a QB as good as him for a good portion of his career. We had a brief glimmer of hope with Daunte Culpepper, but that disappeared as quickly as the business end of a dildo did on the Love Boat that he captained.

And I think this is what half of the Vikings fans feel as well, and that’s okay. The other half is just pissed off that Brett Effing Favre is going to be the quarterback of their beloved purple, and can’t get over the fact that the former Packers great is going to be a current Vikings great. Maybe I can help you at least deal with your anger, and channel it in a direction that will help you deal with Favre calling the signals this year.

I have one word for you: ‘schadenfreude’.

As a cap tip to the aforementioned Field Marshall, it’s German, and essentially it means enjoying someone else’s misery. Turn your anger into schadenfreude towards the average Green Bay Packer fan. Think about how betrayed, hurt, and angry they feel towards their idol, now that he’s playing for the hated Vikings. I turned on the TV this weekend and I saw people rioting in the streets, soccer players wearing green in solidarity of their people back home, and endless coverage of said events on TV. Naturally, I assumed I had stumbled across Milwaukee Public Access TV and I was watching the unraveling of Packer nation. Sadly, it was only a popular uprising in Iran. As an aside, for a brutal, oppressive dictatorship, I’m not impressed with the mullahs in Iran. Voting, press coverage, street protests, candy ass crackdown, keeping Internet access open—rookie mistakes that they cover in Dictatorship 101. You won’t see any of this shit in Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea, I’ll tell you that much. But I digress.

If, for some reason, you want to somehow cheer for AND against Brett Favre simultaneously, cheer like hell for him to lead the league in passing yards, passing TD’s, fewest interceptions thrown, completion percentage, and a Super Bowl victory. Because the more success Brett has with the Vikings the more his standing with the Packers and their fans drops, and if he has his best statistical season in his career while leading the Vikings to the Holy Grail, he will be burned in effigy in Green Bay and will NEVER be welcomed back there. He would be Green Bay’s baseball’s equivalent to a steroids user, banned as a pariah and when he was spoken of, it would only be in whispers, like that crazy ass uncle that’s in prison for being a kiddie diddler.

The more success Favre has as the Vikings quarterback, the worse he does for his legacy in Green Bay, and the less the loyal fans of the Packers want anything to do with him.

Schadenfreude bitches, schadenfreude.