Can't hate the Packers, but . . .

It’s been a disconcerting week for Steeler fans like me who need hearts heavy with hate for Super Bowl motivation.

Hate the Packers? It’s one of the most storied franchises in football. They shoved Brett Favre out the door when he became a recidivist jerk, a role I’m confident he’ll be fulfilling for at least the next five years.

Plus, I can’t recall meeting a single soul from Green Bay and, as a liberal, I can’t hate, disparage or kill what I do not know.

I do know dozens of darling people from Packer-mad Wisconsin. I spent a fall week there in 2008 on a glorious golf assignment. They wined and dined me with such relentless joy the Badger State vaulted to near the top of my favorite destinations.

They showed me Milwaukee. I had my picture taken with the Bronz Fonz. I reveled in burger heaven at Sobelman’s Pub & Grille. I golfed at prestigious Erin Hills and Whistling Straits. I ate the finest meals and drank free top shelf booze till the bourbon washed all the hatreds from my heart.

They did everything but offer me a free hooker.

(Prospective PR hosts take note: In order, I’d prefer redhead, blonde, bald chick, silver-haired granny.)

Ethical aside: I just spoke to Mrs. Renee Stallings Greater Latrobe High School journalism class about what I for lack of a better word call my “career.” We talked about stories, research, etc., but the class broke down when a sincere student asked me to discuss the importance of ethics.

Four days later and I still can’t quit laughing.

I was laughing so hard I was unable to mention the one relevant line I remember about the importance of ethics, one I try and share with aspiring journalists, but it applies to all professional disciplines.

“Once you get past ethics, the rest is easy.”

That’s a line from J.R. Ewing of the show “Dallas.”

Yes, Dallas. Now there’s something that gets my hateful heart revving.

And I’m talking about the town in general and the Dallas football team in particular. The only thing I like about Dallas is “Dallas.”

The Super Bowl is being contested in the massive Dallas ego dome that is Cowboy owner Jerry Jones’s gaudy $1.2 billion tribute to himself.

My fondest wish this entire football season was the Steelers would play the Cowboys in the Super Bowl. This would have pleased Jones.

Then the Steelers and their fans could have humiliated him buy buying up three-quarters of the seats and turning Cowboy stadium into a home game for the team from Pittsburgh, which is just what Steeler fans do. You’ll see on Sunday.

Then to complete the humiliation, the Steelers would win 52-3.

Still, having the Steelers there will be plenty humiliating to Jones, and that pleases me.

I travel enough that I have a good sense of how the country regards people from Pittsburgh.

My sense is this:

They love us!

It’s true. I refer to an illustrative anecdote from The River Bar at Blackwolf Run, part of the amazing Kohler complex in Wisconsin.

I was sitting there sipping a jumbo triple Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. A group of three couples came in and we instinctively decided to be friendly.

Madison residents up for a weekend frolic, they immediately embraced me when I told them I was from Pittsburgh. A big garrulous fellow threw his beefy arm around me and said, “Man, I’ve never known anyone from Pittsburgh who wasn’t a really great guy!”

I told him he’d yet to know me after three giant glasses of bourbon.

We laughed. They could tell my friendliness would only go up as the bourbon went down.

It may be difficult for those rare individuals who’ve spied me sober to comprehend (sitings of albino rhino are more widespread), but I’m way, way more fun after three big bourbons.

In fact, the world be a happier place if guys like me were encouraged to have bourbon for breakfast.

So what am I to do?

Here’s what:

Kill ‘em, Steelers! Take no prisoners. Beat ‘em like J.R. always beat Cliff Barnes, dirty tricks and all.

Sure, it’ll make my heart heavy to know a state full of people I like and admire for their cheerful generosity will have their feelings hurt, but they’ll get over it.

I didn't drink up all their bourbon.

"Man up!" Never a good idea

Can we all agree from now on the only people allowed to say, “Man up!” are those directing pornographic films?

We live in a world historically awash in testosterone and it’s led to a world of trouble. Manned up men are already starting and fighting wars galore around the globe, running roughshod on Wall Street and the manly men who run the NFL are bent on boosting the regular season schedule from 16 to 18 games.

That’s so much testosterone coursing through our culture it’s surprising we don’t need hip waders to keep from staining our (speaking of guys who really ought to man down), Bret Favre-promoted Wrangler jeans! 

We need men to man down because men are good at causing problems, but not fixing them.

This is a tricky topic for me because I’m staunchly pro-man. All my best friends are men -- and I mean that in the manly sense and not in the gooey, “I married my best friend” sense you read about in things like RedBook, which I browse whenever I’m feeling my manliness is about to bust loose from the sanity corral.

I’m one of those men who’s spent most of his life way, way up, and I don’t mean that strictly in the four-hour Cialis side effect sense of “up.”

I mean boisterous fun.

My whole life I’ve been accepting crazy dares, raising hell and being goaded into so many bone-headed misadventures it’s amazing I’m still upright approaching 50.

I’ve wrestled alligators, jumped out of perfectly sky-worthy airplanes at 3,500 feet and had 50-pounds of concrete smashed on my chest with a sledgehammer as I lay on a bed of nails. I’ve eaten bugs for bucks, guzzled moonshine ‘til midnight and been the last man standing at raucous parties around the planet.

And some people think all writers are sissies.

To be fair, only half of those feats were “man-up” inspired challenges; the rest resulted from some National Enquirer editor asking, “Which of our brain-dead freelance writers is in most desperate need of $1,000?”

“Man up” to me implies reacting without thinking. It means to stomp on the accelerator and blow through the red light, collateral damage be damned.

Manning up inevitably leads to dumbing down. It leaves no room for tact or subtlety.

Three of the most consequential men to ever roam the earth -- Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandi and Martin Luther King Jr. -- resisted repeated calls to man up.

They loved their fellow man. They turned the other cheek.

I don’t think someone like Gandhi ever felt the need to defend his masculinity when his drunken buddies said, “Mahatma, man, don’t be a sissy. Man up and have another shot of Wild Turkey!”

Oh, would if I had Gandhi-like restraint at that challenge every time it’s been issued since I was in the fifth grade!

That all three died horrific and brutal deaths at the bloody hands of really manned up men only exalts the examples.

Contrast their accomplishments of these three historic giants to say, well, me.

I have a happy little family, in a happy little house, a bank account near zero and professional accomplishments that won’t earn any historic comparisons to the mentioned immortals.

Yet, in many traditionally manly endeavors, I could kick all three of their non-violent asses. I could out drink ‘em, out race ‘em and in a barroom rasslin’ match I could have the Son of God yelling “Uncle!”

Would that make me the better man?

No, in fact, it would probably earn me global condemnation, not to mention an express elevator straight to hell.

That and a few shots of Wild Turkey from all the manned up men who’d be impressed by my wrestling prowess over the Prince of Peace.

And I guess that would be fine with me because, alas, I’m da man.

One-way tickets to Mars

Washington State University professor Dirk Schulze-Makuch says the key to inevitable space colonization is sending fearless astronauts to places like Mars -- and just leaving them there.

He makes a compelling argument. He says the risks and expenses of one-way voyages that would last as long as six months would be sliced in half and that these men and women would be like American pioneers from centuries past.

For eternal glory, they would face unimaginable hardship, a barren existence and, he says, a longing for human company that would be unquenchable.

Not if I had anything to do with it.

You let me pick who goes and soon Mars will look like the last day of the month at the downtown department of motor vehicles.

Here’s just a partial list of the folks I’m sending on a one-way flight to the Red Planet.

• Brett Favre -- I’m starting to get the feeling Brett Favre spends a lot of time staring in the mirror saying, man, I’m Brett Favre. Martian mirrors would be perfect for that kind of preening. Plus, I figure he’s going to need some place to live after his wife tosses him out for sending dirty pictures to surgically enhanced sideline reporters.

• Those five guys who chirp, “Hey! Where’s the $20 you owe me?” every time I see them. So long fellas. I’ll pay you the very next time I see you. And this time I really, really, mean it.

• Kate Gosselin -- With all her book signings, dancing shows, etc., this is the only way her kids could possibly see any less of her than they do right now so that makes sending this mom to Mars the responsible thing to do.

• Snickers -- I’m still having trouble adjusting to our new dog and figure him spending his wild years on Mars might ease our transition. I’ll sell it to the girls as a historical opportunity for their little purse puppy to earn enduring fame. I’ll agree we can replace Snickers only on the condition that the next pet is just a wee bit more masculine than our nasty little yipper. Then I’ll bring home a hamster.

• Donald Trump -- My list is not purely punitive. I’d like to see what a master developer like Trump could do with some truly pristine real estate.

• “The rent is too damn high!” guy -- He won’t be able to shout that campaign complaint if he lives in a Martian shack, at least if he beats Trump to the planet.

• My friend John -- Because of his callousness at my choking incident, John’s enjoyed a starring role in my blog the last few days. Here’s what he wrote to our friends about what happened. It’s about 90 percent lie. “Chris, buddy, no need to thank me for saving your life at the Chinese place Sunday. I know you'd have done the same for me if I had been choking on a piece of dim sum too. (And no need to be embarrassed by the shrimp projectile you fired from your throat at the patrons at the next table, it's all just part of the Heimlich Maneuver.) Besides, Val's humble words of gratitude were more than enough. And don’t feel obliged about owing me for saving your life. I’m sure it won’t come up again.” In order for him to one-up me on shipping him to Mars, he’d have to arrange from there to have me sent to Jupiter. Ain’t gonna happen.

• Jeff Probst -- This one’s going to really hurt because he’s my favorite pop culture celebrity on this planet. I’ll miss him when he departs it for another one. Still, the opportunity to set up a “Suvivor: Mars” is too obvious to neglect.

• Conan O’Brien -- I’ve watched his manic and uneven new show a couple of times and can’t help but think sending him to Mars would be a sort of homecoming.

• Dirk Schulze-Makuch -- Pioneering history is rife with tales of cannibalism. If the MREs spoil it would be good to have the guy who dreamed up the whole scheme around in case anyone wants to try their hand at some butt jerky.

• Everyone listed in the Greater Boston Area phone directory -- That wouldn’t rid Earth of every obnoxious New England Patriot and Boston Red Sox fan, but it’s a good first step.

So let’s just call that a start. Once we get done with Mars, we’ll still have about seven planets that need colonizing.

Everyone better behave.

And you’d be advised not to pester me about that $20 I owe you while I’m working on my lists.