More Proof I Was Born 40 Years Too Late

I'm going through a really, really difficult time right now. I'm thinking about giving up watching the NFL for the season. I was thinking about it when Brett Favre retired, and I'm considering it much more strongly now that it looks like he might be unretiring... with a different team.

And I guess this all begs a question... yes, I am in love with him.

In all seriousness, though, this whole issue goes way, way back. Back to 1994 or 1995, when I was kicking ass and taking names on the blacktops of Tolenas Elementary school. I wasn't much into sports (unless you count Four Square and Jail Tag), but at some point I started reading the sports page, and checking the box scores, and noticing Green Bay at or near the top. So when I started watching football with my dad, I was watching the Packers. And when I watched the Packers, I watched Brett Favre.

The day he retired, I was eating breafast, turned on ESPN, and got blindsided by his press conference. He was in tears. The whole thing resulted in two things: I was almost late to class, which happens all the time; and I almost cried, which almost never happens (in fact, maybe I even did cry and just refuse to remember it).

It was a weird day.

The more I thought about it, I realized that it was the end of an era for me... and not as a Packers fan, or as a football fan, but as a sports fan. Football was the first sport I watched, and when I started watching it, I watched it for Brett. I've long told people he was my favorite athlete of all time - not football player, but athlete - because for me, he was the embodiment of everything I loved about sports. He was tough, he was flawed, he was rash, he was talented... and he loved to play, and never took that for granted. I got older, and got more into sports, and starting watching other games and other teams, but my sports life has always revolved around fall, football, Lambeau, and Brett.

So this year, I realized, was going to be my first season as a sports fan without Brett Favre. I wasn't sure if I could do it... and I'm still not sure if I can, no matter what happens. But the reality is that things got a lot uglier when the unretirement stuff started happening. When reports surfaced that Brett felt an "itch" to play again, I think I handled it with a little more cool than most Packers fans did, because, after all, how could you expect a guy who'd been playing a game he loved for his whole life not to miss it when the new season rolled around? It only made sense. And besides, I have to admit, I honestly thought Brett liked being with his family and riding around on his tractor too much to let the itch bring him back.

Nevertheless, before long, the itch got stronger, more reports surfaced, and things started to get surreal. We started to hear about phone conversations, and text messages, and Brett's agent, Bus. Finally, Brett himself came forward to speak, on Fox News - Fox News! - and talked about an irreparably damaged relationship with the Packers organization.

I think that might be when things got to be too much for me. And here's why: this situation is a about a whole lot more than whether or not a surefire Hall-of-Famer will come out of retirement with the only team he's ever really played for, or with another team. See, anyone who watches football, or maybe even just follows sports in general, will without a doubt tell you two things about Brett Favre:

1. He's fun to watch because he is always having fun; he loves to play the game.
2. He's a throwback.

I don't think that going to a different team will change (1). That is something completely intrinsic to Brett, and I'll continue to admire it, even if he plays for another team (if I'm actually watching football, that is).

The problem is with (2).

For me - and I'd guess that this is true for most football fans - Brett Favre has always been the last bastion of what sports used to be. He is decidedly different from most modern athletes:

He goes home with his family in the off season - to ride a tractor and take care of his land. Reminds me of Red Grange, who stayed strong in the offseason by delivering ice in his home town.

He isn't a sculpted athlete with a superhuman body manufactured by relentless hours in the weight room and other "substantive" practices. What he is, on the other hand, is tough and gritty. There's a lot of stories about this, but my favorite, probably, is the time he got a concussion, left the game, put himself back in the game without getting cleared by the medical staff, and then threw a touchdown on his one play before they noticed and yanked him for good. Oh... and he didn't remember the play after the game.

He is an old-fashioned player, a true pocket passer. He didn't have to prove his NFL legitimacy by showing that he could run and throw. He is in the tradition of Elway, Marino, and Montana - and I don't think you can really say that about anyone else left playing. He's the last of that breed.

He doesn't play by a code of maximized expected value. In other words, he doesn't have any aversion to risk-taking, even when its not the best idea. Too many teams and coaches in the current NFL would rather play it safe at every turn, because there is too much scrutiny not to. But not Brett. He throws way too many off-the-back-foot, into-too-small-a-window passes to ever have stood a chance at not becoming the all time leader in career interceptions. But we love him for it.

He is human. I'm sure Brett's agent does damage control like every other agent does. But we know Brett was addicted to painkillers and checked himself into rehab to save his marriage. We know how hard he took it when his father died, and when his brother-in-law died, and when his wife got cancer. We relate to the guy. We feel like he's one of us, the same way Steelers fans did with Terry Bradshaw.

At this point, I don't think its irrelevant to bring up the father-son factor, either. Maybe its a cheap trick, but its a valid one too, dammit. For all little boys who love sports, the story of their love of sports is really the story of their relationship with their fathers. And because of all the things above, Brett Favre was the one athlete who really connected me to the sports my dad watched, and who really connected me to him. My dad and I could love Brett together, my dad feeling like I was understanding what sports meant to him, and me feeling like I could idolize someone my dad did as well. And that, in a nutshell, is how sports connect fathers and sons.

All of that said, what is (hopefully) becoming clear is that the current "Favre Fiasco" is troubling to me because, when it comes down to it, it is the result of everything that Brett Favre represents running full steam ahead into modernity. In the past, all we knew of Brett's offseason was that he was in Kiln, Mississippi; all of a sudden, we know the content of his text messages! In the past, Brett's press conferences were only after games and were conducted in the same old Nike golf hat; now, he's airing his dirty laundry on "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren." That kind of stunt should be left to T.O. and Chad Johnson.

There's one more thing, and it deserves its own paragraph. Back in the day, you rooted for a team because that team represented your city. It was made up of men who gave their blood, sweat, and tears for your city. Pro sports started as localized clubs who played one another, and for a long time, athletes played for one team for their whole careers. They became heroes to their cities, their histories forever intertwined. But eventually, like everyone else, athletes started to follow the money. One of my favorite authors, Chuck Klosterman, likes to point out the absurdity of the fact that in modern sports, we are really just rooting for a jersey. We can't be rooting for a city's pride, let alone a team's identity, when that identity changes every year. But Brett was never a part of that. He was traded once, before he'd played even one meaningful game. His career was the Packers. He took a once-proud franchise to the top of the heap, and even if he only came out on top once, he kept them up there. He gave them back their pride and restored them to a place of honor they had long lost. And he only did it for them. But now, it seems, Brett would like to ply his wares for another team; to offer his services elsewhere for another shot at being King of the Hill.

To be honest, I can't fully blame Brett. He loves the game, after all, and that's what we love him for. I can blame him for not standing by the decision he made in March, or for announcing his decision before his mind was made up, or even for trying to leverage his legend status against Packer's management. But I can't blame him for wanting to keep playing.

What I can do, however, is mourn the passing of the last true throwback in major sports. I'm not sure if I'll actually be able to do that by not watching football for a whole year. But I do know that the mourning will take place. It'll take place when I refuse to talk to friends about the situation, or when my dad and I look at each other and shake our heads, or when I sit and look at my Brett Favre bobblehead, signed plaque, posters, or Sports Illustrated covers. Yes, the mourning will happen one way or another. And that's not a bad thing, because its justified. After all, it is the end of an era.

And I suppose the end of an era always marks the beginning of another one, and this new era will have its own heroes... it's just that, right now, I wish I had spent more time living in the last one.

"I think you and I are destined to do this forever."

In The Dark Knight, Alfred tells Bruce a story about trying to catch a thief in Burma. The thief had stolen precious stones, and the strategy of his pursuers was to find people he had sold the stones to, and use them to find him. But, Alfred explains, they never found said customers. What they did find, eventually, was a young boy playing with a ruby - and with that discovery came the realization that the thief wasn't trading the stones at all. He was stealing them, and then discarding them. He was doing everything for the sake of nothing.

The point of Alfred's story is to explain to Bruce that for some men, there is no method, rhyme or reason to the things that they do. There is no motivation behind their actions - and this is precisely what makes them dangerous. Of course, Alfred is warning Bruce about the Joker... because the Joker is precisely this type of man; the type of man, according to Alfred, that "just likes to watch the world burn."

Batman goes on, later in the film, to tell the Joker that he only has one rule. The Joker tells him that he'll have to break that rule if he wants to be a worthy adversary.

I took a film class a few years back, and when we were getting ready to discuss John Ford's The Searchers, the professor told us, "I don't like to say that particular movies are 'Great Films.' And I don't particularly like Westerns. But this is a Great Film. It's flawed, certainly, but the things that it attempts to do and the things that it succeeds at doing constitute greatness" (Ok, so that was an epic paraphrase, but it gets the point across). Well, at the risk of sounding like a comic book geek, I'm going to go ahead and say that The Dark Knight is a great film. It's flawed, certainly, but the things it attempts to do and the things it succeeds at doing constitute greatness. It takes a well-defined pulp form, the comic book movie, and uses it to launch a thematically-rich narrative. It represents high water marks in production values. And, most importantly to me, everything in the film operates on two levels. Every action scene is visceral and popcorn-satisfying, but at the same time speaks to the core of the characters involved.

But enough gushing.

The first few paragraphs of this post were about one particular theme that caught me, and that is the tension between the incredible amounts of will-power it takes to maintain rules, and the equally incredible amounts of will-power it takes to completely abolish them.

This isn't a new idea, and I'm not even sure I have anything particularly insightful to say about it - but it's definitely worth thinking about. For me, its clear that anarchy is a fickle thing, as is utopia. But I'm curious why that is... and I think the answer has something to do with the implications regarding the state of one's heart. In order to be a complete anarchist, to fully and completely care about nothing, the heart must be completely empty. On the other hand, to live unerringly by a moral code would seem to imply that one cares only for the good of others, or for some greater good. It seems to imply that one has given himself away completely to something else.

I think both are inconceivable. And yet both are present, and real, in everyone: the superego and the id and all that Freudian stuff. I know that I could never be either, but I cannot help but respect the complete lack of weakness present in the Joker, and the complete presence of purpose in Batman.

The fact that they both have such allure is frightening.

For obvious reasons, I couldn't help but think of Heart of Darkness while watching The Dark Knight. When I think of Heart of Darkness, I can't help but think of Apocalypse Now. And when I thought of Apocalypse Now, I thought in particular of a story that Kurtz tells Willard near the end of the film. I was going to paraphrase it and compare it with Alfred's story to start this post, but when I found the transcript online, I decided I needed to include the whole thing. So I'll end with it:

"I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... But you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces... Seems a thousand centuries ago... We went into a camp to innoculate the children. We left the camp after we had innoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every innoculated arm. There they were in a pile... A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried... I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead... And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters... These were men... trained cadres... these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordal instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgement... without judgement. Because it's judgement that defeats us. "

Some Collected Thoughts for a Sunday Evening

Just a few quick thoughts...

1. The issue of GQ pictured above (sorry it isn't bigger) has been causing a bit of a stir in my house of late. Apparently, the picture of the lovely Ms. Bundchen is a bit much for some people. Personally, I welcome such pictures into my house... but I guess I'm just wondering what the purpose of such a picture is. I tend to believe that there is some middle ground between "wholesome portrait" and "soft-core porn" called "appreciating the human body." After all, it is a thing of beauty. I'd put GQ covers in that last category, but obviously some don't. And regardless of where you put this particular picture, what exactly are the differences? I'm not sure. But I don't mind my roommate continuing to receive GQ until we can sort it all out.

2. Does anyone besides me listen to Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band's Trout Mask Replica? BBC DJ John Peel on the album, as quoted on Wikipedia (where else does anyone get information these days?): "If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work." I think that's one of the most true strong statements I've ever read in a critical evaluation of a piece of art. This album is weird, long, nonsensical, and challenging, to be sure, but it's also skillful, thought provoking, and clearly a work of genius - even if it's mad genius.

3. I just watched The Lives of Others. Drop what you are doing and go out and rent it. It's phenomenally acted, superbly directed, and extremely well-written. The pacing feels right, the characters feel real, and you sympathize completely. And what it's about, when you get down to it, is the transcendence of human relationships. It's one of those movies that makes me wish I knew the native language so that I could fully appreciate it in every way. Nevertheless, even without knowing German, it was excellent.

4. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and I think Radiohead will go down as the greatest band of my generation. They aren't necessarily my personal favorite, but the way that have pushed the boundaries of their art form, pushed the boundaries of their industry, and made really good, really relevant music blows my mind. And I feel for some reason like I need to be on record as having said it.

An Addendum, or: Dostoevsky Knows His Shit

A little while back I wrote about the Information Age and moral relativism. Well, I had another point that I wanted to make about the Information Age that I completely left out. I have no idea how I did this. However, the time that it has taken me to realize my error has allowed me to realize one more thing: that Fyodor Dostoevsky basically makes this point (a lot better than I can) in The Grand Inquisitor. Check it out.

Anyways, I was talking to my dad again and he told me that one thing he likes about the Internet is that it will straighten out politicians, because everything they lie or flip-flop about will become public knowledge.

Now, I don't think that it is particularly likely that politicians will stop lying for fear of the internet exposing them, and I believe this for various reasons. Chief among them are the beliefs that (a) it's really easy to dismiss the internet as un-credible, (b) it hasn't stopped anyone so far, seeing as how we've seen senators solicit prostitutes, presidents cheat on their wives, etc., and finally, and most importantly, (c) to lie is part of human nature.

All that aside, I think what's more interesting is the question of whether or not its really better to know every time a politician lies. Actually "better" is probably the wrong word to use - maybe "more satisfying" is a better choice of words. Yet another choice: Are people really happier knowing everything that is wrong with their politicians? I don't think so, or at least, it'd take convincing to get me to believe that.

History itself is a dubious source because it is written by winners, but it at least seems like there were times when the public was able to admire political figures (Kennedy) or work together to support a cause (World War II). That doesn't seem like much of a reality anymore, because we know entirely too much about public figures and their private lives. In today's world, we wouldn't have whispered speculation about "Happy Birthday Mr. President;" we'd have a leaked sex tape of Marilyn Monroe doing her country a great service. I don't know which of those scenarios is "better" in the moral sense, but I think I know which one feels better for the public. After all, ignorance is bliss - but as I (thankfully) did remember to say in my last post, ignorance is getting harder and harder to come by. And given that some of the consequences of this fact are post-modern ultra-cynicism and a divided nation, that troubles me.

Anyways, I hope that was coherent, but like I said, check out the Dostoevsky version.