Live From Italy

One night in November of 1994, I met a girl in the tunnel behind the visitor's bench at the Orlando Arena. I was a newly hired television producer and radio sideline reporter for the Magic; she was an intern in the marketing department, assigned to game night operations. She walked up and asked me what I was doing with that earpiece attached to my collar. Three and a half years later, in January of 1998, we got married.

Two kids, two jobs, three houses, and one minivan later, my wife is one savvy television viewer, and not by choice. Sitting next to me on the couch can be an educational experience, but it can also be maddening.

In the movie "Goodfellas," director Martin Scorcese orchestrated an elaborate scene in which Henry Hill brings his girlfriend, Karen, into a nightclub via the back door, with the camera following them up flights of stairs, through the kitchen, across a dining room, and into their front-row seats, just in time to see Henny Youngman start his act. The first time my wife and I watched that movie together, I pointed out that the entire scene was one shot, via a Steadicam - meaning, if one actor screwed up even the tiniest assignment, missed a cue or flubbed a line, the entire scene would have to be scrubbed, and they'd have to completely start over, from outside the building. There were no camera cuts, so there was no place to pick it up. "West Wing" does the same thing, frequently. You cannot imagine how passionately she wants to deck me when I bring up crap like this. Hey, it's my career field.

However, she has learned a thing or two.

Saturday night, with children finally wrestled into bed, my wife and I sat down to watch an evening of Winter Olympic coverage from Turin, or perhaps Torino. The event happened to be the figure skating pairs short program. The announcing crew included two-time Olympic gold medalist Dick Buttons, a man known for his Simon Cowell-level criticism of competitors. After a few minutes of listening to Buttons rip the skaters for the slightest mistakes, I started to do some math in my head.

Torino is six hours ahead of the U.S. east coast, so obviously, the prime time Olympic coverage on NBC is tape-delayed. Assuming that the pairs figure skating was a prime-time event at the Torino Games, it probably ended no later than 11pm local time, or 5pm here in central Florida - and that's the worst case scenario. For all I know, they skated in the afternoon. With NBC's coverage starting at 8pm, that left at least three hours (and probably longer) for the television crew in Italy to put the finishing touches on the pre-packaged coverage that Americans would enjoy on Saturday night.

Hmm. Buttons really seems to be nailing these skaters on their faults. It's almost as if he knew the outcome while he was speaking the words. Wait a minute...

"You know what?" I said to my wife. "I'll bet you a hundred bucks that they didn't record their play-by-play live. I'll bet they taped the routines, brought the announcers into a production truck, and had them voice their commentary over the video. Hell, they had plenty of time - Torino is six hours ahead of us. That's how Buttons knows what the skaters are screwing up before we see the scores - he's already SEEN the scores."

My wife, who has been down this road with me way too many times, never even looked up from her crossword.

"You can hear the crowd noise in the background," she said. "If they were in a truck, wouldn't it sound different? Plus, that one female announcer keeps gasping when the guy tosses the girl across the ice. She sounds like she's seeing it for the first time. Couldn't they actually be rinkside, doing the play-by-play as it happens?"

Umm, yes. In the business, we call that "live to tape." And she was right. Never mind.

Dick Buttons really knows his figure skating, doesn't he? Maybe he can lend me 100 bucks.

And now, this public service announcement, from our friend Mark McLeod of Gator Country, the UF Scout.com site...

"The Joe Girvan Celebrity Scramble to benefit the Association for Retarded Citizens of Alachua County will be held February 25th at Plantation Oaks in Gainesville. Come out and have a great golf outing while helping benefit programs for the ARC. For more information call 352-334-4060 or go to JoeGirvan.com."

...on a side note, Plantation Oaks has hosted Brady Ackerman's charity golf event several times in the past, and it's a terrifically fun track. For those who share my love for the great game, I urge you to come out on the 25th and support a worthy cause.

Furthermore, once Brady's charity event comes around again this summer, I pledge to recapture my title as Second Best Charity Golfer, behind Judd Davis. After finishing second to Judd twice in the Celebrity Division of Brady's event at Plantation Oaks, I put up an atrocious number last summer when the event moved to the CC of Ocala. Now that I've seen the new course once before, I might even sneak up on the kicker this year.

Nah, probably not. But I'm looking forward to it anyway.