NickMortensen.com

Last week I hatched a plan to buy the domain name TheFavreologist.com and offer myself up to radio shows and podcasts as the nation's leading scholar in all things Brett Favre. This was done as a reaction to the intense scrutiny the Brett Favre comeback saga has gotten in the media fo the last couple of weeks. I'm trying to horn in on that action.

I'm working on the Favreologist as a more tongue-in-cheek character right now. I got a nibble from ESPN 710 in Los Angeles and I'm supposed to do a segment during their drive time show this week, so that is encouraging.

Sports talk radio shows and podcasts are running 20-30 minutes of Favre talk an hour and breaking very little actual news. I reason that my ability to talk out loud, my insane Packer and Brett Favre fandom, my origin in Green Bay, and the fact that I share my last name with ESPN head NFL Insider, Chris Mortensen would seem attractive to podcast and talk radio producers all over Wisconsin. Few wouldn't want a person who can fill a 5 minute block of time on their radio shows or podcasts during the slow sports news time between the NBA Finals and the beginning of the NFL training camps. I came up with a clever name and bought the domain site and set about the task of creating something of a sham character for the purposes of driving traffic to my new website and creating an awareness of who I am.

It is easy for me to crack wise about Brett Favre and the Packers and I'm getting to be something of a shrewd PR person these days. Also, my study of the Joomla! content management system has allowed me to see opportunities like this and take advantage of them by using the internet.

The first thing I did was a podcast with fellow comics Jason Nash (Little Bush) and Jeff Baumgarner (Top Gear America) called GuysWithFeelings, or GWF.  The show is the number one place to catch up with the really hot alternative comics in the country right now and I felt pretty good about being on it.  We taped the episode last Wednesday evening and we were going to discuss the ego of an athlete retiring and needing to come back, but the segment got cut a little short by technical difficulties and a call-in from the head writer of the Simpsons, Matt Selman.

Selman is a somewhat regular guest on the show and I'd like to ask you to follow the link to the GuysWithFeelings homepage and in turn follow the link it provides for the July 14th Episode entitled "Nash Will Do What He Wants on This Show, Selman".

The podcast has had its ups and downs the last few months, but it is turning into a daily thing lately and it is great if you are a guy or gal that likes to listen to something while puttering around the house or working out. Hit the subscribe button. In the world of podcasts, a couple dozen extra downloads of an episode tends to lead to a few extra subscribers and I know that if I can increase their listeners they'll let me continue to work with them. I pitched them a GWF Midwest a few months back and they were receptive to it, so I'd like to show them I can bring in a few listeners to their show so they'll let me use the name when I launch my podcast in a month or two.

You'll like it if you like comedy. They mostly make fun of me, as is their custom. Even if you don't think you are going to like it, download it and subscribe anyway. You don't have to listen, you can delete it next week and unsubscribe then. I just need their downloads to bump up on this episode so they know I can bring in some Midwesterners.

Thanks. I consider it a solid.

I've been often asked what my particular take is on the Brett Favre comeback story by most everyone that I know.  I'm keen to discuss it because of my emotional attachment to Green Bay.  Just knowing what the average Green Bay resident knows about the Packers qualifies me as an insider to most of the people that ask.  I suppose having the same last name as ESPN's Head NFL Insider gives me credibility beyond just having been born in Green Bay.

I have yet to grow tired of discussing Brett Favre or hearing about Brett Favre's possible comeback in any medium.  I did not realize that the country would still be discussing Brett Favre's potential comeback a week after the news first surfaced.  The story has legs because of Favre's ability to capture the imagination of the public. Since the news first surfaced, the blog posts that I've written on the topic have netted considerable traffic on my new (and still very much unfinished) website.  While I am not terribly thrilled to have people seeing such an unfinished product, I've been consoling myself with the idea that nobody beyond web programmers can really tell.  I've enjoyed several hundred emails from people who happened upon my site or some clip of mine on YouTube and have a comment.  

It occurred to me yesterday that I might just want to go whole hog on this.  The sporting world is in a lull heading into next weeks Major League Baseball All-Star Break and my guess is that Brett Favre's comeback will stay on the lips of every sports talk radio host until training camp starts whether anything develops or not.  

I've decided to horn in on that attention the best I can and offer myself up to the media as "The Favreologist".  I even bought the domain name and it redirects to a section on my web page.  Someone has to be the world's leading authority ont he emotional significance of Brett Favre in today's society.  It might as well be someone who can crack wise while doing so.

If someone has a radio show or podcast and they want to book a guest that knows exactly the same amount of information about the Brett Favre comeback as they do, they are welcome to reach me.  I'm a comic from Green Bay with plenty of thoughts about Brett Favre, the Packers, and the existential angst that Brett's been feeling as he struggles to redefine himself. I can carry a segment or two in this slow news cycle.

I nearly missed this opportunity to expose myself to new audiences by doing something that comes easily to me.  I'll be making up for it in the next few days.

If you'd care to reach me for a phone interview,  please do call or text me @ (920) 562-7780.  If you are going to text, please remember that I am 30 and press the shift key after punctuation.  You can This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it me as well

Not too long ago,I wrote some material  that touched on my personal admiration for Brett Favre over the years.  With all this talk about his possible comeback, I thought I'd test whether I can get away with writing something up about it on the Press Gazette's new website.  (The Musings are re-published there without the swears)

I call the material "Gay for Favre" and I'm always tickled to perform it.  It touches on what Brett Favre means to me as I grow older, what Brett Favre has meant to me over the years, and how conflicted I feel over having such a profound and intense admiration for a man that I've never actually met.

Gay for Favre isn't meant to be mean to anyone.  It is about a level of profound appreciation that a ton of men and women seem to have for Brett Favre  that goes beyond ordinary fandom. Women come up to me after shows and admit that they've often wondered just how intense their boyfriend/husband's mancrush on Brett Favre is.  Men come up to me and tell me that they've discussed it with their wives/girlfriends and they've decided that it wouldn't really be cheating if it were with Brett Favre.  These people are from all over the country- not just from Wisconsin or northeast Wisconsin.

Nobody is theoretically letting Peyton Manning nail their old lady in Indiana.  Maybe Mellencamp,  but not Peyton Manning. 

I admire Brett Favre  as much for what he means as what he's done on the field.  He embodies an ideal work ethic for any Midwesterner.  He's always struck me as a reliable and humble person in an industry where inconsistency and ego are not only tolerated- but celebrated.  I think his toughness has colored a lot of people's opinions about me over the years for the better.  I think  many people around the world actually think-You'd best not mess with anyone from Green Bay, they are tough enough to make you regret it- on account of Brett Favre.

The fact that Brett has extended his career beyond that of all  of his peers allows me to stay young in my mind.  I turned 30 this year and being 30 has made me face up to the fact that I am aging in all the ways people can age.  Most of them are admittedly for the better, but I still know that I have to accept it where I must and slow it down where I can.  

An aside on aging...  Just last week I was honestly outraged at where teenagers are letting their pants droop down to nowadays. That is a story for another blog, but you can see my point. I remember old timers chastising me for the same infraction just ten years ago.  In my defense,  pants are below people's rear ends now and it seems to fly in the face of the inherent logic of pants (to cover one's rear end), but what matters is that I am not able to comprehend this.  I'm too old to be able to understand it.

I can love the Packers in the same way if Brett comes back for one more year.  I want it more than I want most things. It is just easier to live and die with a football team starting a quarterback that allows you to remember who you were at the age of 15 than it is to do with a quarterback that was in 5th grade when you graduated high school. 

Another year of Brett at QB means you and  I can deny that we're aging for 12 more months  It means the same for Brett. 

Being "Gay for..." something just means that the level of love you have for  something extends beyond what is typical.  I know people that are "Gay for Coffee" or were "Totally Gay for The New Kids on the Block". 

 
Admit it,  you are just as "Gay for Favre" as I am.   

Here's hoping he comes back to play another year.  

Comedy clubs are supposed to foster the growth of local comedians. The Comedy Club on State does a shitty job of it. The worst I've ever seen

  I'm not trying to be a jerk in mentioning it, I think the people that run it are good people. Good people who don't serve their audience well. The reason I feel compelled to bring it up is that I believe that Madison would be fertile ground for comedy if only it had a comedy club that respected its audience enough to book up-and-coming acts. Some of the locals here are really good- as good as anyone I've seen moving through the clubs at the middle level and often much better than the headliners. I really fear that not having club support is going to stifle the growth of guys like Sean Moore, Mike Schmidt, Tim Egan, or Chris Waelti. It already has done that to Mark Kump and I can't help but wonder whether KeaLynn Kees would still be performing if she'd gotten better support from the Comedy Club on State when she needed it. I can't stop those people from measuring themselves based on what the home comedy club thinks about them. The club is going elsewhere to book middles and headliners and I know if they'd just give some of these up-and-comers a chance, they'd help them grow.

I doubt there was anything as formal as a pact when it comes to the pregnancies of the 17 high school girls in Gloucester, MA. There aren't any situations in high school where 17 girls are on the same page. Maybe on some sports teams, but girls that play high school sports tend to have higher self-esteem than it takes to base their future around the guy they are dating in high school. At the beginning of my senior year of high school, Dawn Noren showed up with a nose ring. Spring came and 26 other girls had one. If you were to ask them, every single one of those girls had theirs first. There was no nose ring pact.

If you are fond of conducting impromptu social experiments;  next time you see two women with the same anything interject yourself into their group and ask them who had (or did) it first and who was copying. If you ask without seeming condescending (it is an accomplishment to do so) you are in for a rare treat. Each age group has a different reaction, all reactions are fascinating.