Oh, My! Going for the Gold With Couric, Enberg

I had a dream.

After watching hour after hour of Barcelona coverage, I dreamed one night that I, too, was in the 1992 Olympics, competing in a new category that would have made the ancient Greeks and modern Games founder Baron de Coubertin proud. Afterward, I was interviewed on NBC by Katie Couric and Dick Enberg.

KC: As an American, you must be very proud to have won the 850-word, Greco-Roman TV critiquing marathon by beating everyone except the 30 nameless, faceless foreigners, from insignificant pipsqueak countries not worth mentioning, who finished ahead of you. What were your thoughts at the moment you realized you had finished a glorious 31st behind only the unmentionable aliens we’re pretending don’t exist?

HR: You need the exact moment?

KC: In the general area.

HR: Give or take a millisecond?

KC: That would be fine.

HR: I was thinking that the other critics had used performance-enhancing drugs.

DE: Oh, my!

KC: Let’s continue now as I smile broadly and pretend I know the difference between high-jumping and hijacking. We’re now watching videotape of you in action during the qualifying heats whose coverage we of course interrupted with 14 commercials and a feature on Ernest Hemingway’s tips on trout fishing in Spain. Look at your intense concentration. Look at your single-mindedness. Look at your degree of difficulty. Look at your technique. What is it called?

HR: Typing with two fingers.

KC: And doing it through the pain, we’re told.

HR: The hangnail was excruciating, but I refused to stop because I was critiquing for America.

DE: Oh, my!

KC: And what a dismount from the word processor! Absolutely flawless except for the typos!

HR: Yes, I really stuck it.

KC: Are those tears of happiness?

HR: No, my pinkie got caught in the keys.

DE: Oh, my!

KC: We’re now going to show our viewers this poignant profile of you that would make Dick cry were he not now dozing at my side. There you are--so graceful, so balletic--typing in slow motion with a background track of symphonic mood music intended to romanticize you and manipulate emotions, an extravaganza that we would all be enjoying right now if Dick were not snoring. It looks so easy, yet your skills were developed only after years of hard work.

HR: Yes, at a very young age my parents sent me to live and train with the man who would become my coach and mentor, the legendary Bubba Cracko.

KC: And there is Bubba embracing you in a meet last year after your stunning critique of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” earned you a standing ovation by your parents.

HR: Bubba was proud. I finished 42nd.

DE: Oh, my!

KC: Now that Dick is again awake, he’ll agree that everyone knows how Bubba became a second father to you, driving you to excel. But few people know that to reach the Olympics, you had to overcome adversities that few Americans have ever encountered.

HR: Yes, the back surgery.

KC: And most painful of all?

HR: The balding.

KC: But hurdling those obstacles was only one aspect of your courage, for your tribulations were to grow and become even more intense. There you are, in dramatic slow motion, accidentally spilling coffee on your “Laverne & Shirley” notes and word processor, which you then drop on your foot. The anguished expression on your face says it all.

HR: I almost gave up that day. Only Bubba stopped me from quitting.

KC: But it got still worse. You had to overcome having no talent. There you are misspelling seven words in a typically ponderous, cliche-ridden, clumsily written critique that was impossible to read. And then there were the misquotes leading to the libel suits.

HR: I was in the depths of depression.

KC: And you were controversial. There you are being interviewed on “Entertainment Tonight” after shaving your legs in support of Jaclyn Smith.

HR: After she got so many bad reviews from cheap-shot artists, I had to do something to show her I cared.

DE: Oh, my!

KC: The stumbles, the second-guessing by your peers, the gross ineptitude, the inability to write clearly or reason. Yet, you never stopped pursuing your lifelong dream of critiquing in the Olympics.

HR: I just knew I had a 31st in me.

KC: Which is why we decided to honor you with this unbearably pretentious, pseudo-artsy, over-the-top, world-premiere black-and-white music video by the self-parodying Madonna that Dick will not see or hear because he is again sleeping:

Madonna: Oh baby, please critique my loins. . . .

HR: I’m so proud to be an American competing in the Olympics for Nike, Visa and McDonald’s commercial contracts.

KC: And not only am I proud that I got through an interview without confusing Baron de Coubertin with Baron Muenchhausen, but all of us at NBC want to be proud of you. That is why we’re insisting that you sign this U.S. loyalty oath before we allow you to leave the studio.

HR: Is this when we wave our flags and sing the national anthem?

KC: Good luck to you and your partner in the synchronized critiquing.