Enough Already

Just as the world of sailing was sighing a breath of relief after Anarchy Challenge CEO Mr Clean's temporary halt to his incessant begging, into the breach has suddenly stepped Ernesto Bertarelli himself. In a remarkable turn of events, and with a wall to wall advertising campaign, Bertarelli - in obnoxiously loud commercials - is now imploring the public to support what most of us considered a ridiculous, long shot, grass-roots, underdog Challenge by the Sailing Anarchy Yacht Club to win the America's Cup. Away from himself! The America's Cup!!

Bertarelli is even starting to get on his own nerves. Recuperating from his recent failed attempt at time travel, he has spent the past two days at his home in Gstaad Switzerland, watching TV. Every few minutes, Bertarelli pops up in yet another commercial, ("HI EVERYBODY, ERNESTO BERTARELLI HERE!") each time bellowing like a man who thinks that the whole world has gone a little deaf.

There he is hawking the Anarchy Challenge web site, ("THE BEST WEB SITE EVER!"), the Sailing Anarchy Yacht Club ("THEY WILL BE HAVING A HUGE ANNUAL REGATTA!"), the tremendous enthusiasm of the fans on the Sailing Anarchy website ("ALINGHI HAS MET ITS MATCH!") and the Sailing Anarchy graphics team ("THESE UNIQUE DESIGNS LOOK GOOD FROM ALL SIDES AT ONCE, SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO FLIP THEM!!!").

Frankly, that's a little more Ernesto Bertarelli than even Ernesto Bertarelli can handle.

"If I see myself one more time today," he groans, sounding genuinely weary, "I'm going to remove my cap and pull my hair out."

Start pulling, big fella, Anarchists might be tempted to say. The world's preeminent pitchman for the America's Cup, the 43-year-old Bertarelli is now the emphatically gesticulating star of nine commercials for nine separate Anarchy Challenge products, all now in heavy rotation. And he's just getting started! A handful of new shoots will commence as soon he's fully recovered from his travels and back on his feet, and big-league advertisers like Google have started calling, presumably to put his unironic style to additional Anarchy-intensive use.

But wait. There's more.

Beginning next week, Bertarelli will start taping a TV reality show, "Anarchy Challenged," which will follow the creation of an America's Cup challenger, from application to acceptance. With many of his ads appearing 400 times a week, often at two minutes a pop, Bertarelli could already be the single most ubiquitous sports figure on television today, measured purely in face time. His only competition comes from actors in perpetual syndication, like Seinfeld and Bart Simpson.


"You would think there would be a saturation point," says an exasperated Bill Koch, a former America's Cup winner who follows Bertarelli. "But we never seem to reach it."

Every time he comes on with another Anarchy Challenge commercial my wife yells "Turn that thing down! You're waking up the whole neighborhood!" says Ted Turner, another former winner. "It's just amazing the responses he can get. The neighbor's dog from three doors down starts barking and several porch lights come on."

Just last month Ernesto Bertarelli ruptured a vocal chord on the thirteenth take for a new even-louder Anarchy Challenge commercial. The director of the production kept badgering the soundman to increase the volume. "I've got the damn knob all the way up already!"

More recently, an Alinghi TV director had to coax Ernesto to yell even louder into the already sensitive studio microphone. Three, two, one….. and Action! "HI! I'M ERNESTO BERTARELLI FOR ANARCHY CHALLENGE!" Just then a large chunk of Ernesto's vocal chord shot out of his mouth and hit the director right in the face before falling to the floor. It bounced and vibrated on the floor for several seconds until finally settling down.

A Valencian ambulance was called while Ernesto sat - speechless - for the first time since December 15th. Worst of all, the soundman "accidentally" stepped on Ernie's vocal chord in the confusion, almost destroying any chances that surgeons would be able to re-attach the thing and give Ernesto his voice back. Close, but unfortunately no cigar.

If you've watched any TV in the past 2 weeks, then you too know Bertarelli's style. Chummy yet urgent. Lots of pontificating and imploring gestures, a hammy rhyme or two, some juggling acts, and the inevitable act-now kicker. Perhaps you too have wondered: Why is he yelling? How does he yell and smile at the same time? And backing up a step, who is he? He always says his name -- "ERNESTO BERTARELLI HERE!" -- in a way that implies he's respected. But he doesn't seem to actually do anything but shill at the top of his fucking lungs.

Is that, like, his job? Selling us on the Sailing Anarchy Challenge? Why do we have to suffer?

Puhlease! If you want to help end this. If you want to stop all the incessant hollering. If you just want Ernesto Berterelli to shut the hell up. Then we implore you. From on our knees: Please Donate Something. Anything. This is a Good Cause.

It might improve your life!

Plight of the Pombo

America'a Cup Community Fails To Rally Around Pombo

PORT AMERICA'S CUP, VALENCIA, SPAIN — Tragedy failed to strike the city of Valencia this week when full-grown adult Gerardo Pombo García, president of the Spanish Sailing Federation Real Federación Española de Vela (RFEV) fell down a drain hole just after locking the doors for the last time and abandoning the ex Desafio Espanol team base at the Port America's Cup, spraining both of his ankles and drawing the sympathy of absolutely no one.

Gerardo Pombo, during headier times.

According to sources, the not-so-moving accident and ensuing stench has left the normally quiet America's Cup village in a state of utter indifference, with the few passers by neglecting to come together as one and rally around the trapped 59-year-old.

"I don't understand," said Manuel Chirivella, who has spent every day since first hearing of Pomba's plight gardening in his backyard. "What's a man of that age even doing in a sewer to begin with? The whole thing's a bit ridiculous if you ask me."

Added Chirivella, the past president of since defunct boatless, teamless, memberless, Club Nautico Espanola de Vela, "That manhole cover, even cast with that nostalgic Auld Mug logo he loved, is just not worth stealing. He must have been drunk."

The injured Pomba has been ignored by more than just ordinary citizens. An emergency rescue party sent out from the nearby yacht syndicate Alinghi has reportedly been working around the clock attending to several emergencies at other abandoned bases in and around the port. But the local Port Police department has finally sprung into action, with nearly a dozen officers arriving at the scene last Tuesday morning to see the "idiotic klutz" for themselves.

"In a situation like this, there's very little you can actually do," said deputy sheriff Luis Gestoso, who identified the bruised and disoriented Pomba after peering down the sewer drain to see if a young child had fallen in with him. "We took pictures, you know, for our records and such. And afterwards we went down the street for paella and cervezas. But other than that, the whole thing wasn't as much fun as we all thought it was going to be. He was actually passed out for most of it."

Reached for comment in California yesterday, Anarchy Challenge CEO Mr. Clean was quietly relaxing on a sunny afternoon after enduring a challenge that had tested, but did not by any means exceed, his ability to persevere. "The line at the America's Cup entry desk was really long, and I had a lunch meeting at noon," said Clean, recounting the inconvenient event that ultimately did no lasting damage. "Then I realized that I still needed to fill out a form, but I didn't have a pen. If I had left the line to use a pen at the counter, I would have had to start all over. Thank goodness someone in line lent me one." In spite of the unremarkable series of obstacles, Clean still arrived at lunch on time. He promised to post an appeal to Anarchists for donations to help in Pombo's recovery effort, "just as soon as possible" and someone did so, belatedly, late last night.

But despite that call for donations on the 300-million-member Sailing Anarchy web site, to date no money has been raised for an effort to rescue Pombo from the sewer. Nor has anyone in the local community volunteered to chip in and provide the desperate man with food, fresh water, or words of encouragement. Though Pombo has only had a handful of visitors in the past week, sources did confirm that several members of the America's Cup Management organization stopped by on Thursday and together prayed for the 59-year-old to "get his act together."

"Our concern is not just for the well-being of the city of Valencia, the region, and for Spain. Imagine what his parents must be going through," Grant Simmer said. "To hear that your son went out and got himself stuck inside a sewer—it has to be every parent's worst nightmare. Our thoughts are definitely with them during what must be a very, very embarrassing time."

According to Daphne Morgen, who passes by the open sewer every day during her morning jog, Pombo is currently sitting ten feet below street level in a foot and a half of lumpy slowly flowing fetid sewage, and does not seem to be making any progress in scaling the walls with his bare hands. Morgen went on to add that while Pombo might be naked and trying to fashion a makeshift rope out of his clothing, she couldn't be sure as she is currently "training for a marathon and couldn't really stop to check."

"How could something like this even happen?" Chirivella said. "That storm drain has been capped for probably two years, which means that this moron literally had to intentionally dislodge the drain cover in order to fall inside of it. It's almost as if he wanted to shatter his legs."

As Pombo enters his sixth straight day of having been trapped, the ACM remains confident that the whole situation will eventually resolve itself. Simmer is holding out hope that a rain storm predicted to arrive tomorrow night might help to flush Pombo out into the canal and ACM-controlled water space, where someone might dare attempt a rescue. Or at least enough water to drown out the increasingly irritating sound of Pomba's prolonged, tortured, pathetic whimpering.

To help achieve either possibility, a mystery good Samaritan securely repositioned the manhole cover and welded it permanently shut. Luckily for Anarky Challenge readers, he was captured on a cellphone camera in a world exclusive photo by an anonymous man out walking his poodles for their early morning bathroom break. Thanks to this heroic effort captured and reported here first, a lasting peace and quiet has finally returned to the Port.

Problem solved.

Bertarelli Disappears

Ernesto Bertarelli Sends Self Back In Time To Try Prevent Protocol's Publication

Ernesto Bertarelli, announcing his departure on Alinghi TV.

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND—According to a videotaped message airing exclusively on Alinghi TV, America's Cup champion Ernesto Bertarelli has sent himself back in time to July 5th 2007 to avert the catastrophic signing of the Protocol for the America's Cup XXXIII.

"By the time you see this, I will have returned to Moment Zero of AC 33, in a time machine of my own design," said Bertarelli in the three-minute message, which first aired Sunday on his own online video channel. "I will doggedly pursue Lucien Masmejan, Fred Meyer and Augustin Zulueta to stop this horribly misguided Protocol. And I will not return to my own time until the Protocol has been prevented!"












The moment Bertarelli is so desperate to prevent.

The Protocol was signed aboard Bertarelli's private yacht Vava at a time when Alinghi felt flush with success, having crossed the line one second ahead of Team New Zealand in a gut wrenching AC Final. But the Protocol quickly proved ill-fated, as few of the benefits it promised proved feasible or profitable enough, and as the world declared that "it stinks." Within a week, lawsuits were filed in New York charging that the new arrangement had been signed to by a fake adversary. Bertarelli's life has been a desperate struggle ever since but it could take a turn for the worse if his dangerous attempt fails.

Alinghi spokespersons say the mysterious, unseen time-travel device was developed under a veil of extreme secrecy at a new facility somewhere in Villeneuve, Switzerland. Little else about the machine or Bertarelli's mission is yet known.

"From what we now understand, but Ernesto probably did not, the machine acts only on living human flesh," a worried Alinghi spokesman Grant Simmer said. "And so if Ernesto has been successful, he has materialized in July 2007 completely nude, with no ID or money. To survive, he'll need to steal clothing and rely on whatever crude weapons he can fashion with his bare hands."

America's Cup watchers have expressed skepticism about Ernesto's chances.

"The Protocol was signed at the height of the celebration in Valencia, when conventional wisdom was that ErnieVision would be the wave of the future," said Brad Butterworth, his erstwhile Alinghi skipper. "In such a heady, bullish climate, Ernie's warnings of impending doom in a frightening future of multihull giants will likely be dismissed by Lucien and Fred as just the ravings of a naked lunatic."

Hubris, physicists say, is not the only obstacle facing Bertarelli on his dramatic mission.

"Altering the flow of time is a dangerous and complex proposition," said Dr. Arthur Wistrom, a professor at EPFL, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. "If Mr Bertarelli is not careful, he may unintentionally change the course of his own history, causing, for example, something to go awry with his loving, happy marriage to the very beautiful Kirsty."

Suddenly available

Compounding Bertarelli's troubles is an unconfirmed report that enemy forces within the Club Nautico Espanol de Vela have responded with their own time-travel initiative, dispatching back in time 17 cyborg drones disguised as Emirates Team New Zealand sailors to deliver victory to ETNZ instead, thus averting the Spanish Club's own disastrous future of failure and embarrassment.

"Why anyone at CNEV would want to do such a thing remains a mystery, as we lost more in the Protocol than anyone," Butterworth said. "Perhaps somewhere within the vast Internet network of Sailing Anarchy subscribers, some malevolent cybernetic force has achieved sentience and is bent on the destruction of its human Alinghi masters."

Bertarelli's time-jump represents the latest in a series of high-stakes gambits for the playboy sailor and multi-billionaire.

"From his planned conversion of an independent Challenger Selection Series into an 'Alinghi Uber Alles' event, to his crushing loss in court last May, to his narrow surprise victory on appeal, one that appears to be on such thin ice, Bertarelli has built a career lately on taking big risks," America's Cup reporter Bob Fisher said. "But traveling back in time all by himself, a lone sailor soldier from the future facing nigh-impossible odds—that is arguably the most daring move he has made yet."

Though the odds are stacked against Bertarelli, many are betting on him to prevail.

"The court case reduced Ernesto to a mere figurehead and could ultimately cost him hundreds of millions of his personal and potential fortune," America's Cup guru Tom Ehman said. "A lesser man would have crumbled in the face of such adversity. Yet we are talking about the man who just this year piloted his yacht to second place in the Bol d'Or. According to messages we have received from the future at Oracle headquarters near San Francisco, he will in 2013 single-handedly defeat the alien warrior-sailor Zyfax in hand-to-hand combat at the SNG before succumbing to mortal wounds. He is not just a brave America's Cup warrior. He is Alinghi's last, best hope and we wish him full success in his disappearance."

The Alinghi Time Machine, designed at the EPFL in Lausanne and built at a secret facility somewhere in Villeneuve.