The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 38

Sunday, Januu.y 18. 1987 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER College fOOtballC-13 America's Cup competition needs Soviet presence BY DAVID N. ROSENTHAL 1 Commentary Knight News Service Pardon me if I look a little green around the gills today. I've been watching the America's Cup and I think I'm seasick. I'm also a little sleepy.

you know that each race goes on longer than an extra-inning baseball game? Or an overtime football game? Or Block's explanation of the new simplified tax code? Or all the episodes of "Life with Lucy" combined? I didn't. So like a knucklehead, I sat up until the wee hours of Tuesday and Wednesday mornings watching these boats sail the Indian Ocean live on ESPN. r- I think I've found out what's more hypnotic than a gold watch swinging back and forth in front of my eyes it's two $15 million yachts swinging back and forth in front of my eyes. Am I getting tired yet? Am I getting wet yet? Anyone got a good posthypnotic suggestion, like turning this thing off and going to bed? I've watched these boats for two nights now and I still can't figure out what's happening. I guess that's to be expected when you grow up in the Midwest and the only thing you've ever sailed is a plastic Nautilus with baking soda in the bathtub.

All I know is, I'm supposed to feel some patriotic pride when one bunch of rich guys from San Diego with zinc oxide on their faces beat another bunch of rich guys from New Zealand with zinc oxide on their faces. If they do that four times, then I am expected to get really excited when the rich guys with zinc oxide on their faces from San Diego beat more rich guys with more zinc oxide on their faces from Australia for some piece of silver mugware with a hole in its bottom that used to be bolted to a table at the New York Yacht Club, but that now lives in Perth or at "Crocodile" Dundee's house, I forget which. The boats are actually pretty, but for $15 million, you'd think they'd put a motor in them, or at least a bar. Whoever heard of a $15 million sailboat without a bar? If you can't drink one of those drinks with a little jlarasol in it while you sail, or at least a Jack Daniels on the rocks, what good is a $15 million yacht? No damn good at all, I say. And did Oliver North know that there were people in this country with $15 million to fling around on a boat while there were empty numbered accounts in Switzerland and hungry contras begging for bullets.

Probably not. But imagine how the sultan of Brunei feels. He forked over big bucks to the Clothe-a-Con-tra Campaign and he could have had his own 12-meter sailboat for a lot less hassle and gotten $5 million back from his $20 million bill. And the people of Brunei probably could have gotten really inspired watching the sultan's boat beat New Zealand or Australia. me again, but as a loyal American, I just cannot get too worked up over our beating New Zealand and Australia at anything.

If you ask me, this is a little like watching Sylvester Stallone punch out Arnold Stang. We ought to pick on someone our own size, and you know who I mean. 'Cause hoist up your Sloop John grandfather and me, but if America's Cup is such a big deal, then how come the Russians don't enter, so we can really have someone to hate? And how come the Japanese haven't built a boat for half as much money that's twice as good? I don't know, but after two nights of watching tacking and covering and luffing and puffing, windward and leeward, I think I know what America's Cup competition is really for. It's for Keith Jackson to tell me that the only thing as exciting as America's Cup is a visit to the Conrad International Hotel and Jupiter's Casino, a subsidiary of Hilton USA. He actually said that on a commercial I saw about 52 times between the luffing and the puffing each night.

I hope it doesn't cost $15 million to stay there, and since watching snakes molt is more exciting than watching tacking and covering on television, I hope he was just kidding about this hotel being that thrilling. Otherwise, it's a good place for a nap and not much else. But he's not the only one doing commercials with a nautical theme on these broadcasts. There's Martin Sheen doing the voice-over behind a lot of spiffy shots of racing yachts for some financial institution called Atlantic. No last name, just Atlantic, as in "Why sit in the doldrums when you can ride the crest the Atlantic difference.

Get the Atlantic difference. Eight percent on your money market, guaranteed for two months." Let's see, $15 million for two months at 8 will probably get you a night or two at the Conrad International and Jupiter's Casino, if you don't gamble too much and stay away from the women with painted faces. But my favorite Cup-related commercial is one in which Dennis Conner himself comes on (without his zinc oxide) and says, "Hi. I'm down here in Fremantle and I've found something I'm definitely going to bring back along with the Cup an official first-day cover of the 1987 America's Cup, featuring my very own Stars Stripes." Yeah, but do you know where these beautiful stamps are from? The Solomon Islands! They don't tell you that, but you can see it on the top of the stamps. Imagine that $19.95 for stamps that if you get real desperate you can't even use to mail a letter.

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