Matt Taibbi has a sports column at Men's Journal. It's the perfect combination of vitriol, snappy prose, and bald sensibility that fans of his know and love.
Brett Favre: Honestly, if I hear that fucker’s name one more time, I swear I’m going to drive a bus full of kids off a cliff. There must be numbers from some marketing genius somewhere that show that every time his face appears on TV, two more hicks in Arkansas buy bags of Cheetos and five more pill-popping trailer housewives decide to blow off making home lunches and spend their welfare checks feeding their kids at Applebee’s. I guess I understand it. Football skills aside, Favre is, wrapped in one package, everything that attracts the attention of the superfluous sports hack: an emotional story line about a deceased “hero” dad; an activist, cancer-surviving wife who likes the camera and who never hesitates to go on at length about her and her husband’s “awesome” relationship; an inspirational recovery from pill addiction; a willingness to go on air with Greta Van Susteren; and a seemingly endless, once-a-year, will-he-or-won’t-he retirement controversy. Favre is also a half-literate white southerner who played in the northern Midwest (from a marketing point of view, he’s like both halves of a presidential ticket), giving him natural appeal to all the key demographics. As much as I can’t stand Favre, I’m hoping he outlives me, because the Tim Russert effect after his death would be overwhelming.
