Sports-Center

Another day (Friday, January 25, 2008) of working out at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA; another day of, horror-of-horrors, Sports-Center.
One of the most depressing side-effects of the gigantical exercise-gym expansion at the Canandaigua YMCA is the wall-mounted plasma-babies.
Thankfully they are close-captioned — no sound — which means no strident bellering.
Used to be when you worked out on an elliptical your distraction was Route 332 out front, and seeing if the pedestrians could avoid getting hit.
Now quite a few of the exercise-machines have “cardio-theaters,” small flat-screen TV displays. —Which I don’t play.
And gigantical flat-wide-screen plasma-babies are mounted on the wall.
There are three: one is tuned to the weather-channel; and one to CNN.
At first the third was tuned to the local ABC-affiliate, so got never-ending soaps. —Some old gray-head ambling into a hospital-room waving a .357-magnum.
And the hospital-bed is occupied by young male eye-candy with a bloody compress on his forehead.
If it wasn’t that it was another hospital-room with a dyeing young sweet thing on oxygen with her eyes closed.
Macho Aiden pleads with her (“I loves ya, babes”), and then waves his .357-magnum.
Why is it every soap-scene involves a hospital-room?
I’m almost 64, and have been in hospitals maybe five times.
And why is someone always wagging a pistol?
I’ve never seen a pistol in my entire life!
Aging tart strides in; lots of makeup and cleavage. “I have bad news, Luke,” she says. “The fertility-clinic made a mistake. It wasn’t my egg. It was Hannah’s.”
“That baby is Hannah’s son.”
“Why are we doing this?” Luke asks.
“Because it’s in the script,” I always say.
“And the reason young sweet thing is dyeing in the hospital is to write her out of the show. She got another job.”
But they changed the channel on that plasma-baby. Now it’s Sports-Center.
There’s too much insanity to relate, so I’ll only report two things: -1) the 10 greatest moments in sport, and -2) Mike-and-Mike.
-A) We’re watching an ice-hockey game. A team is zooming down the ice toward the opposing team’s goal, what is called a “power-play,” I guess.
Suddenly the puck-mover stumbles over maybe four opponents and slides prone past the goal and headlong into the wall.
He ends up out cold on the ice, while a bloody opponent is led to the penalty-box.
But he managed to get the puck in the goal, and I guess that won the Stanley-Cup.
A greatest moment in sport; yessirree; number five.
Looked like the average hockey-move to me: utter mayhem.
-B) We’re watching a football game; it’s the final seconds. Boston College Quarterback Doug Flutie drops back and fires off his gigantical Hail-Mary pass that beat Miami in 1984.
Well yes, I guess that’s a greatest moment in sports; I think they had it as number-eight.
-C) Shaq blasts a pack of tangled opponents under the basket, knocks over a few, and slam-dunks a basket.
“I’m just like you,” Shaq says, pushing Icy-Hot.
Except the average person isn’t seven-foot-one at 325 pounds.
Number three, I guess.
And then there was Mike-and-Mike. Apparently Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg on an ESPN radio program.
There they are, shouting into their mics, making fevered pronouncements on all-and-sundry, fronted by bobbing bobble-heads and football helmets of the Pasties and the Giants.
Is Brady going to play the “Supper-Bowl” with that injured ankle? A You-Tube video of Brady delivering flowers to his girlfriend plays; Brady wearing a walking-boot.
They noisily interview some “authority” about “the greatest football dynasty of all time;” “e-mail us at mikeandmike@espnradio.com to tell us what you think ‘the greatest football dynasty of all time’ is.”
I can just see my brother-in-Boston redirecting is work laptop, even while his beloved Porta-Johns disgorge raw sewage all over Crapo St., to vote for the Pasties.
The commentator had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to say it wasn’t the Pasties. He said it was the 1979 Steelers, for crying out loud.
I try to watch 332 outside, but there’s that plasma-baby, Mike-and-Mike yammering. They yammer so fast the closed captioning can’t keep up. It scrolls by so quickly I only get snippets: like “you have no idea what you’re talking about,” and “I didn’t think you were old enough to have ever seen the 1979 Steelers.”

RE: “Plasma-baby......” My all-knowing macho brother-in-Boston calls all wide/flat-screen high-definition TVs “plasma-babies.” There are other wide/flat-screen high-definition technologies beside plasma, but all wide/flat-screen high-definition TVs are “plasma-babies.”

“State Route 332” out front of the Canandaigua YMCA is the main drag through Canandaigua; an undivided four-lane street with lots of traffic.

“Supper-Bowl” is how my macho blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily insists “SuperBowl” is spelled. Tom “Brady” is the Patriots quarterback — he has a sprained ankle.

“Pasties” are the New England Patriots. My macho blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily claims they are the greatest football dynasty of all time; since they are from his area. Members of my famblee called them the “Patsies,” which he misspelled “Pasties.”

My macho blowhard brother-in-Boston’s onliest daughter lives on “Crapo St.” He is a self-declared Porta-John authority; his greatest responsibility is protecting his beloved Porta-Johns from al-Qaeda attack.