Four Guys Walk Onto A Television Set...

So four guys walk onto a television set. It's the start of a joke, but there is a crucial difference. There is no pun, only earnest. But there is a joke...

A man is very angry. He screams and yells. He cares, or at the very least he screams he does, at the top of his lungs. Another man agrees. A third one is silent. He is partly responsible for what it is that angers the other two men, so he remains, wisely, very quiet. The other man screams some more. They care, they care, they care, they scream. A fourth man, the final man, asks them again if they care. They do. He tells them it is so great to see them care so much, and they nod emphatically. They are proud of themselves for caring. Who else is going to, at a time like this? When Feyenoord plays such poor football?

The second man smiles. He likes the sound of that. Feyenoord plays such horrible football, and he can say it out loud right into the camera, as long as he does so in the name of compassion. It vindicates him. If he would say that Feyenoord plays poor football, he would be hung at the break of dawn, like in an old Western film. But if he says Feyenoord plays such horrible football and that it hurts him so much to see it, he gets away - no, better even. He repeats it, and waits to see how long he can wait with adding ‘and I care’. He looks around. He got away with, my god he did. This emboldens him greatly. He gets cocky and tries to push the boundaries a little: ‘ Feyenoord – Ajax should always be a top fixture, but if you look at it this year…Feyenoord losing at home and in Amsterdam…shameful’. He cannot believe it. Nobody else said a thing. There is the smile again. He did it. He finally said what he had always wanted to say, and got away with it.

The third man remains quiet, and absently tries to think of his results with Feyenoord against Ajax. They couldn’t have been very well. None of his other results were particularly good, and there is no reason to assume these would be any different. He looks at the other men. Maybe they remember? But they don’t care. Look at them foaming at the mouth about the sorry state Feyenoord is in. Not his Feyenoord, mind you. If any of them will ask him about his responsibility he has his answers ready. Budget, budget, budget, and that’s the end of it, but only partly because it is true. Mark Wotte is the other part of his two-part excuse. Also only partly true, but everyone dislikes Mark, so everyone has only very little hesitation to blame him. ‘Ruud?’ ‘Mark is such a pushover’, the third man thinks. ‘Ruud?’ He startles into action. ‘Not my fault, small budget, bad transfer policy.’ But isn’t he at least partly responsible for that? ‘No, no, no. Mark Wotte is.’ The four men agree.

The fourth man is starting to get desperate. He has been trying to guilt the third man into taking some sort of accountability in the whole affair, but he just sits there and answers ‘Mark Wotte’ to everything. The other two seem content screaming about a little, even if Frits has been gleefully crossing the line between objective journalism and sheer unbridled bias and Jan is slowly starting to show the first symptoms of anger-induced heart-failure. Ah, well. He turns solemnly to the camera and tells the little red light that ‘that is our show, people.’

It is, indeed.