07.19.2011 | 10:45 am
An [Updated] Note from Fatty: The pre-order for 2012 Fat Cyclist gear is now over. To everyone who ordered something: thank you very much.
Another Note from Fatty: For those unfamiliar with the Michael Smith saga, today’s piece may not make sense. I mean, even less sense than usual. So you may want to check out a much less opaque editorial here. And lots of details and a chronology with additional resources here.
News Flash: ESPN to Launch New Show: “That’s Hilarious!” With Michael Smith
New York (Fat Cyclist Fake News Service) — ESPN, The Worldwide Leader in Sports™, announced today that it is launching a new daily TV series, hosted by popular ESPN anchor Michael Smith, called That’s Hilarious!
Said ESPN Spokesperson Deb “Tome” Forte, “This is a dangerous world, and terrible, tragic things happen every single day to completely innocent people.”
Continued Forte, “It’s time we have a TV show that laughs at those people.”
According to Forte, “Once in a lifetime — no, make that three lifetimes — the idea for a show reveals itself to us nearly fully-formed, with a perfect synergy of network relevance, human interest, and an anchor who was born for the job.”
Emphasized Forte, “That’s Hilarious! is just such a show.”
Genesis of a Genius Idea
The idea for the new television show came about quite by accident — literally — according to the host of the new show. “I was with my co-hosts of Around the Horn when we saw this bike race thingy. And — get this, ‘cuz it’s gonna just totally going to make you laugh your butt off — a car swipes one of the riders, causing him and another rider to crash and they both nearly die!“
Smith then broke into uncontrollable laughter for the next seven minutes.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But that is just so funny,” said Smith between additional fits of giggles, tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry, it’s just that that crash is hilarious. Every. Time.“
At this point, Smith relapsed into laughter, unable to speak.
“Do you see what we have here?” said Forte, smiling at Smith. “Michael Smith has a rare and wonderful gift. While most people would find Smith’s behavior psychotic and reprehensible,” continued Forte as she patted Smith on the head, “We at ESPN see an opportunity. An opportunity, specifically, to take the pain of others and treat it as if it were funny as hell.”
What Viewers Can Expect
In each episode of That’s Hilarious!, Michael Smith will show clips of human suffering. Smith will watch each clip several times, laughing as other people get hurt, always through no fault of their own.”
“That’s one of our gating criteria for showing a clip,” said Smith. “The person who gets hurt has to be just doing their thing. You know, like riding a bike in a race on a road. Or maybe waterskiing.”
“And then I’ll say something insightful that explains why it’s so funny, like, ‘For real, am I wrong for laughing at that? Can’t get over the driver speeding off as if he didn’t know he hit someone!’”
“Oh, sure, I know that the driver didn’t actually go speeding off, but if you just look at the ten-second clip I watch, then pretend nothing happens after that clip, well: pure comedy gold!”
“At least in early episodes, we’ll try to stick with sports as topics for Smith to laugh at,” said Forte. “But let’s face it, there’s a lot of stuff that happens to people who aren’t doing anything even remotely sport-related, and we want to give Michael the opportunity to laugh at them, too. And there are a lot of ways people can get hurt in this world that we don’t want to exclude. I mean, when someone sends us video of another guy getting bitten buy a shark or maimed in a construction accident, how can we in good conscience deprive Michael of the chance to laugh at those people too?”
“Anyway,” said Smith, wheezing and gasping, “after I laugh for a while, I’ll open up the phones and let people call in. I expect that people who are totally unfamiliar with the way the person in the clip got hurt will agree with me, and we’ll laugh together and probably watch the clip a couple more times, making fun of how stupid that person is for even being on a bike, or going waterskiing, or being a construction worker, or whatever.”
“After that,” said Forte, “We expect the offended calls to come in, with people saying things like, ‘Hey, I was out swimming and got my arm bitten off by a shark and I nearly died and it was terrifying and more incredibly painful than you can possibly imagine; how can you find that funny?’”
“Honestly,” continued Forte, “That’s when the real fun will begin. Smith will start by just baiting and taunting the callers. Then, once we’ve gotten enough calls, he’ll offer a few more taunts, and then maybe a fake apology.”
“We’ll then go to commercial break,” explained Smith, “After which instead of me, there’ll be a guy from legal, with his hand in a sock puppet that looks like me, and he’ll offer a carefully worded, stilted apology that nobody in their right minds would ever believe I would actually say.
“And then,” concluded Smith, “POOF! I’ll disappear! Just like magic.”
Co-hosted by Tony Kornheiser, That’s Hilarious! will air thrice daily daily on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3.com, ESPNU, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Buzzer Beater, ESPN Classic, ESPN Xtreme, ESPN5, ESPN Radio, ESPN Kitchen, ESPN for Kidz, ESPN for Left-Handed People, and ESPN Estonia. Check your local listings for times.
Johnny Hoogerland was unavailable for comment, because he was too busy racing his bike several hours per day, with legs held together by about three spools of thread.
Comments (57)
01.25.2011 | 2:43 pm
Dear Readers,
I’m Pat McQuaid, the President of UCI. As you are no doubt aware, the UCI’s mission is to improve every aspect of the cycling experience, through the medium of making it as bureaucratic and restrictive as possible.
Toward that end, last month we announced an exciting new program, which we lovingly call the “Approved by UCI” process. I’ll spare you the exciting details, but the basic idea is that we’d start making bike manufacturers submit prototypes of their bike frames to us for approval before they started manufacturing those frames.
We would then, at our leisure, forget about those frames for a while, then evaluate those frames, then express concern about the fact that they are not exactly the same as frames we have seen in the past.
Then we would have meetings. Lots of meetings. There would be committees. And subcommittees. We would speak earnestly and seriously about how inconvenient innovation is, and how much we enjoyed the year 1972.
We would make helpful suggestions for improving the submitted frames, such as, “What if you made the top tube four inches longer,” or, “I don’t see why you want to use carbon fiber. Isn’t that material kind of passe at this point?”
One thing we can promise we would not do is return the frame without comment, because then you’d think we hadn’t contributed to the process.
You would then have an opportunity to make revisions based upon our input and resubmit your design, at which point we would express concerns about an entirely different aspect of the frame.
After a period of no more than nine months (and no less than eight), we would tell you that your frame design is approved. At this point, you could send us a lot of money as fair compensation for the help we had given you, and we would grant you the rights to use our “Approved” sticker.
Also, we would send you a sympathy card that you had missed an entire race season while we haggled over your frames.
Because we care, that’s why.
The benefits of this program to the racing and riding communities are as numerous as they are obvious. Such as:
- The peace of mind cyclists will enjoy, knowing their bikes have been approved by an organization that wishes the world of cycling could be suspended in time.
- The knowledge that, should they choose to start racing, the 98% of cyclists who do not currently race on the road could in fact start racing, as long as they have a brand-new bike. Whew!
- Great value for the money: The sticker will only add a few dollars to the cost of most bikes!
- Awesome sticker! Personally, I’m pushing to have this sticker go where bike headbadges used to go, because approval by UCI will certainly give your bike prestige it would otherwise lack.
And I could go on.
So, there we were, all ready to launch. Then, the unthinkable happened.
The bike industry did not immediately fall in line, as we had instructed them to! Indeed, to our surprise and dismay, many people openly expressed that did not care for our new program.
They aired their petty grievances, such as that “it costs a lot of money without giving any value,” or “it slows down our manufacturing process” or “this is really nothing but a revenue stream for UCI.”
All of these claims are entirely ridiculous. True, sure, but still ridiculous.
So, in a display of maturity and collaboration the rest of you would all do well to emulate, we invited comment, listened to the bike industry. We then went back to the drawing board and are hard at work refining the “Approved by UCI” program.
And while there are still a number of details we’re finalizing, I’m happy today to give you a preview of what you can expect from the new and improved “Approved by UCI” program, coming soon to a bike shop near you!
1. Exciting New Sticker Colors!
In addition to the sticker with the oval in black, you will now be able to get the sticker in red (shown here), beige (popular with the Footon-Servetto team), and ochre (popular in Australia!). This will allow you to match your UCI Approval sticker to the color of paint you choose for your frame.
Please be aware that, due to the aesthetics of the colors we have selected for our stickers, UCI will simultaneously begin regulating the colors frames may be painted. Which is to say, if you want a red sticker, you may have either a red or black frame. If you want a beige sticker, you must have a beige frame. If you want an ochre sticker, you must have an orange frame.
Orange goes great with ochre. Trust us on this. We know what we’re doing here.
No other colors, nor color combinations, will be allowed. Further, you must go with the specific hue of the selected color specified by the UCI.
2. Exciting New Areas of Regulation!
It doesn’t take a genius to look at the “Approved by UCI” logo to see that frames are just the beginning. When we roll out our revised regulations, you’ll be required to be very pleased to note that many other components of the cycling lifestyle will have regulations that must be met. We have already established regulations for jerseys (see preliminary logo), shorts, socks, shoes, helmets, energy bars, hypodermic needles, energy drinks, aerosol-powered cheez-food products, helmets, canned meats, vowels, brakes, cassettes, cable housing, lumber, blankets, GPS devices, music players and headphones, music genres, gloves, hairstyles, wheels, tires, tubes, forks, spoons, chocolate treats, breakfast cereals, shrubbery, training videos, magazines, sunglasses, books, and blogs.
Indeed, we are currently working on regulations for UCI-approved logos. Which means bike companies will actually be able to (required to, actually) include our logo as part of their logos.
This, I think you’ll agree, is very exciting indeed.
3. New Pricing Structure!
Originally, there were considerable complaints from the bicycle industry that our “Approved by UCI” program was prohibitively expensive, adding a new cost to an expensive R&D process in and industry was already plagued with razor-thin margins.
Well, we are happy to announce that, due to the expense and time we’ve incurred by revising these plans, that the “Approved by UCI” program will now be only 15% more expensive than previously announced.
What, you didn’t think our time is free, did you? Somebody has to pay for the effort we’ve put into these revisions.
And that pretty much wraps up the changes you can expect. Except the process will take twice as long as originally expected, too. But let’s not bother with minutia like that.
I’m sure that you are — as I am — very excited about this new program in general, and the revisions in particular. Further, I think we can now definitively dismiss the notion that UCI is out of touch with the cycling world.
Best Regards,
Pat McQuaid
President, UCI
Comments (63)
01.6.2011 | 11:40 am
January 6 (Fat Cyclist Fake News Service) – The racers of Team QuickStep took the occasion of today’s team photo shoot to announce that they, jointly, are doing their utmost to try to find the bright side in having Innergetic, a latex foam mattress core manufacturer, as one of their sponsors.
According to Gert Steegmans, as he did his best “come-hither” pose on a piece of foam (see above), “I can think of any number of ways this situation could be more undignified and humiliating. For example, another of our sponsors could be a cooking oil manufacturer, and another could be a prominent leather clothing and fetishist accessories designer.”
Others (pictured below) agreed.
“More than anything else,” said Tom Boonen, “I’m seriously weirded out that Gert (affectionately known to those of us on the team as “Gert”) snuggled up so close behind me. I mean, look at the distance I put between me and the guy in front of me, then check out the way Gert is totally spooning me. Believe me, it’s got me reconsidering my request for seating / sleeping arrangements on the bus.”
“But, yeah,” continued Boonen, “things could definitely be worse. They could have designed jammies with the same look as our cycling kits and made us wear those. Or they could have made us wear sleeping caps, or crowded us into the same bed.”
“Ordinarily, I’d be upset if everything but my left ear and part of my forehead got cropped out of a picture,” chimed in an unidentified (and unidentifiable) teammate. “This time, though, I’m totally cool with it.”
“Still,” concluded Boonen, “Couldn’t we have been sponsored by an Italian auto maker? Or maybe a video game console manufacturer?”
At this point, Gert spoke up. “You guys have no idea how much worse this photo shoot could have been. You should have been here in 2006. “
Comments (45)
01.3.2011 | 1:45 pm
An Explanatory Note Regarding Today’s Post: From time to time, I get notes from the future. For example, a couple years ago, I received several excerpts from Dr. Preston Prescott’s journal, which was (will be?) written in 7114. And about a year ago, I received a letter from near future, in which Lance Armstrong begged me to stay away from him.
Well, it’s happened again. Me getting a document from the future, I mean. Not Lance Armstrong begging me to stay away from him.
This time, the document comes in the form of a letter from Johan Bruyneel, who has recently been given a two-month suspension from his duties as Director of Team RadioShack, for a very serious and detrimental infraction of UCI rules. Specifically, on the final stage of last year’s TdF, he let Team RadioShack wear unsanctioned jerseys designed to raise awareness of the 28 million people fighting cancer worldwide.
Really, the nerve of the guy.
Regardless, I have received an email from Johan, dated April 1, 2011 (the day Johan’s suspension ends), detailing his activities during his two month suspension.
It is my pleasure to publish it for your perusal.
What I Did During My Winter Vacation
by Johan Bruyneel
I can’t remember the last time I had an enforced vacation of two months (and I’m still a little bit angry at the UCI for making it during February and March, the two least-vacation-friendly months of the year) but even before the first day of my suspension, I had resolved to not waste my suddenly open calendar. I wrote down a few high-level objectives:
- Exercise more
- Do some woodworking
- Catch up with old friends
- Get in touch with my inner child
- Grow a beard
Like most things in life, the reality of my vacation was a little bit different than what I had planned on, but I still think it’s worth detailing. These are my notes as the days went on
Day 1
Two months of no responsibilities, no schedules to keep, no pro cyclist egos to massage and keep in check. I should send the UCI a thank you card. Really, though, I have a lot of email to catch up on, maybe I’ll start with that.
More than 35,000 unread messages. Wow.
OK, I just deleted all my unread messages. People who really need me will get back in touch.
Day 2
I got a call from Lance today. We both talked about how weird it was for each of us to have nothing to do, right at the same time. “You should start another team during this two months, and I could announce my first act in my Comeback 3.0 will be joining that team,” he said.
I was fifteen minutes into my brainstorming of a team roster, potential sponsors, and Lance’s role in the team before Lance was able to break in, telling me he was just joking.
Ha ha.
Day 3
Eki called today. In fact, he called four times. This rider wants this, that rider wants that. This pro can’t stand rooming with that pro. This pro is injured, that pro is 2 Kg overweight.
For each of the problems, I just said, “I can’t help you, Eki. The UCI was really clear about my total non-involvement with the team for two months.”
Seriously, I should send the UCI a thank-you card.
Day 4
Cleaned the kitchen today. I can’t believe I let the dishes pile up this long.
Day 5
One of the things about being the director of a sports team is that I just don’t usually have time to watch any TV. I’ve heard about a bunch of shows, though, and think maybe I’ll look into a few while exercising.
Today I got the rollers out and downloaded Dexter, Season 1. I watched two episodes while riding the rollers.
And then I watched the rest of the season, just sitting on my weight bench, still in my bibs and jersey.
I’ll have to be more careful about watching so much TV in the future.
Day 6
OK, so overnight I downloaded seasons 2 and 3 of Dexter, planning to watch them over the next few weeks while riding the rollers. But when I woke up this morning, I thought to myself, “Heck I’m on vacation; I think I’ll eat a bowl of cereal and watch an episode of Dexter before I get moving today.”
Now, 17 hours later, all I have to show for the day are two empty boxes of cereal and the near-certainty that I am the first person in the world to watch all three seasons of Dexter in a space of 48 hours.
I have a headache, too.
Day 7
I started watching season 4 of Dexter today — on the rollers, this time — but the sight of a naked John Lithgow was simply too much to take. I finished my two hours on the rollers in solitude.
Day 8
I called Lance today, and started — in a joking way, of course — talking about our new team again. He laughed along with me for a few minutes, and then said, “But seriously, I’m retired for real this time, Johan.”
“Of course!” I replied. Then I started work on that cabinet, but my heart wasn’t in it.
Day 9
I called Eki today. Just to see what he was doing, you know. See how the team is doing, whether there was any good gossip in the biking world.
He asked me if I was enjoying my vacation. “Of course I am!” I said.
Day 10
I had the craziest thought today. “I wonder if there’s a single bike-related company in the world who wouldn’t send me whatever I want for free.”
So far, I have called Trek, Specialized, Oakley, Giro, Pinarello, Lew Racing, Shimano, SRAM, and nineteen other companies. So far, nobody has said no.
Day 11
I didn’t expect everything to be sent priority next-day air!
So far, I estimate I have received over $128,000 in product.
Day 12
Today I have started a little eBay side business, specializing in new, top-quality bike frames and components. I expect it to be quite profitable.
Day 13
I tried calling Lance today. He didn’t answer. Weird.
Day 14
One of the racers on Team RadioShack is always talking about World of Warcraft. Before today I had never tried it out, and in fact had no idea what this guy was talking about. Just for fun, I downloaded and signed up today, just to see what it’s like.
Tried calling Lance again. Left a message. He hasn’t returned my call.
Day 35
Has it really been three weeks since I’ve written? Huh. I’ve been pretty busy doing stuff. Mostly on the computer. Like email and stuff.
Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve done nothing but play World of Warcraft for the past three weeks.
Day 50
Three minutes ago, I deleted my World of Warcraft account.
I need to get back to work. Desperately.
Day 51
I called Eki today. He says he’s made “a few little changes” to the team and that he was interested in telling me all about them when I get back in a couple weeks.
What does “a few little changes” mean?
Day 52
I couldn’t sleep last night. Kept tossing and turning, half-awake, with increasingly terrifying images of what “a little change” might be.
I have never been so glad to be the light of day.
Day 53
Lance called today. I didn’t answer.
I did call Eki, though. But hung up before he could answer.
Two months is a long time.
Day 54
Lance called three more times today. I have not been available.
Day 55
Finally gave in and answered when Lance called today. Turns out he’s been on a four-week Minecraft jag. (I guess I would have known that if I followed his Twitter account).
He sounded a lot more receptive to the idea of getting the band back together than when we previously talked.
So I’m now considering the whole “Comeback 3.0″ thing, and whether having Facebook as the primary sponsor of a team is really all that great of an idea.
Day 56
Shaved my beard today. Amazing how shaggy it got in just a couple months.
I’m keeping the goatee, though.
Day 57
Built an entire wooden cabinet today.
Day 58
My last official day of vacation. With this time behind me, I now see the wisdom in the UCI giving me a two month suspension, and am truly, humbly penitent. I will never, ever, ever commit the crime of having my team wear unauthorized jerseys in the final stage of the TdF.
At least, not until Dexter Season 5 comes out on DVD.
Comments (54)
08.10.2010 | 9:52 am
LEADVILLE, CO (Fat Cyclist Fake News Service) – Seven-time Tour de France Winner Lance Armstrong announced recently that he, along with RadioShack teammate Levi Leipheimer will race in the 2010 Leadville 100 mountain bike this Saturday, August 14.
Armstrong has also announced that he will not be racing the 2010 Leadville 100 mountain bike this Saturday, August 14.
“To clear up any confusion, I would like to announce that I either will or will not be racing in Leadville this weekend,” said Armstrong. “This either is or is not a very important race to me, and I would like to tell my fans and co-competitors that I am both looking forward to seeing and racing with them, or not.”
“Could go either way,” added Armstrong. “Depends on whether I can find someone to take care of the kids for the day.”
(Armstrong’s children could not be reached for comment.)
“Plus,” continued Armstrong, “I haven’t really put together a crew, and I’d be kind of embarrassed to ask someone to scramble their plans and spend their whole day shuttling from one aid station to the next.”
“But I dunno,” said Armstrong, evidently to himself. “Maybe I could put together a few drop bags and just use the food from the aid stations.”
“Probably too late for me to get a hotel room in Leadville, though,” mused Armstrong.
Speculation Runs Amok
Many people have reacted to the fact that Armstrong will likely not race the Leadville 100.
Levi Leipheimer: “You know how there was always this guy in college who’d beg you and beg you and beg you to come to this party you weren’t even interested in? Eventually he’d beat you down and you’d show up at this party just because that guy said it was going to be so awesome, and then it turns out that this guy didn’t even show up? Yeah, it’s kind of like that. On the other hand, I’m sure glad that I picked the Leadville 100 as my first mountain bike race, ever! It should be a blast racing it against Dave Wiens — the guy who’s won this race more times than he can count — as well as nine-time national mountain bike champion, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski.”
Johan Bruyneel: “As you no doubt know, Lance has been involved in an intense training program to learn to change a flat tire. His progress has been outstanding, but there’s still work to be done. I think that barring any future setbacks, we can look forward to Lance changing his own tires by 2012. At which point, can you say ‘Comeback 3.0′?”
Citizen Pictures, Creator of last year’s Race Across the Sky Documentary: “We were of course very excited to be filming a followup documentary to our very successful film last year. And of course, we fully intended to make the sequel revolve around Lance again. With him out of the race, we’re thinking we’ll make the documentary anyway, and it will still focus on Lance. It will be called Lance Hangs Around Aspen With His Kids. It will be a heartwarming look at a day of Lance. Hanging around in Aspen. With his kids.
Concluded the representative for Citizen Pictures, “We think it will be huge.”
Final Resolution
“I just want to be perfectly clear,” said Armstrong. “I will probably be there, racing the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. Unless I’m not.”
“Or who knows, maybe I’ll just ride part of it.”
Comments (28)
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