USEDCARSALESMAN

Best-of-the-Bomb

The previous post about IMAX and the Air And Space Museum has led Usedcarsalesman to recall both his life in Washington D.C. and the city's Cold-War, political climate during the Carter and Reagan years.

             

Obviously, back then, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was still alive and kicking.  To the young, impressionable Usedcarsalesman, it looked like the U.S. would, unfortunately, be "wrestling" with this nuclear Super-Power in to the 21st century and beyond.  Frankly, the aforementioned Super-Power "wrestling match" seriously scared Usedcarsalesman, especially growing up in proximity to Washington, D.C. -- a city obviously a target for numerous Soviet warheads.

                   

Hollywood hadn't helped Usedcarsalesman's young perspective much.  He had watched highly publicized movies like 1983's, The Day After , with Jason Robards, Steve Guttenberg and John Lithgow and basically thought, "it's only a matter of time; two sides have all this nuclear firepower sitting there, one sides going to cough and the other side is going to "seize the day," push the button and that's that."

With this backdrop of Nuclear Armageddon, Usedcarsalesman was embarrassed to say it, but he literally sometimes had trouble investing himself in daily, "real" life in and around Washington, D.C. To him, what was the point? It was all just going to get blown up.  Usedcarsalesman couldn't really see a "cup-half-full" when it came to the portrayal of nuclear war scenarios.

And you'd be amazed at the calculations that could run through a little Usedcarsalesman's mind on a subject like Global Thermonuclear War . He'd drive with his father to his office in D.C. and look at all the traffic and think, "there's no way all these people are going to be able to make it out of a city within 30 minutes of a launch alert." He'd watch stops of the Washington D.C. area metro being built and think, "hey guys, the subway tunnels are just going to collapse, come on we're talking 10 megatons, 200 times Hiroshima here!"

                  

Usedcarsalesman would ask his family if they had a real idea of what they were going to do if a nuclear strike was eminent, what plans they had for meeting up, regrouping, escape routes planned. He'd become angry when I heard through friends of friends that X's Dad at the CIA was moving his family out to the "safety" of Jefferson County in the West Virginia panhandle and taking the train to Langley each day. He was bothered when the issues of nuclear warfare were not taken seriously by friends, family, adults, etc.; and like Usedcarsalesman said, he was only about 12 years old.
               
But strangely, life seemed to move on. There never were any sirens or a mad rush of millions from Washington D.C. to the safety of the countryside and many of the underground bomb-shelters closed. And apparently, it was a flaunting of the West's economic freedoms on TV screens that seemed to be the real, overriding "tip-of-the-spear," the one to apparently cause Soviet citizens to demand change in their governing system. Usedcarsalesman saw the Cold War end and terrorism emerge as the only "continuation of politics by other means" that the U.S. didn't seem to have a "lid" for.

               

In conclusion, Usedcarsalesman don't really know what the moral of this post is. Maybe it's that when a situation seems to have no "cup half full" perspective and you can't do anything alone or in a group to control it, then you ignore the situation? Usedcarsalesman guesses so.  That's what most healthy people seemed to do during the Reagan and Carter years.

                        

Of course, just the other day, Usedcarsalesman read that the U.S. is building a nuclear bunker buster weapon to destroy deeply buried enemy fortifications, likely in the Middle East.  In light of this, Usedcarsalesman wonders if Starz online or anybody on Kazaa might have a viewable file of The Day After sitting around, you know, a "cliff-notes," "Best-of-the-Bomb"-type version to help him take an abbreviated, digitized stroll down Washington D.C., Cold War memory lane?  After all, Nuclear strikes might be "back on the table" for the U.S.; and, if you "give," you are probably going to "get," so to speak.

IMAX Helps Movie Theatres Do More Than Just "Survive"

In the post 8 days ago, Survivor: Movie Theaters, Usedcarsalesman gave his reasons why he did not exactly see an end to movie theaters in sight.

A couple of days later, he saw a Washington Post article detailing the growing popularity of IMAX theaters. In the article titled, The Next Big Thing, Richard Gelfond, co-chairman and co-CEO of IMAX, which is headquartered in Toronto and New York said, "Consumers are saying, in order to get me out of the home, you need to wow me, you need to give me something special.'" 

Usedcarsalesman wholeheartedly agrees with Mr. Gelfond's statement. And, as a matter of fact, so does the public it seems. IMAX Theater attendance is apparently up by 37% over the last fiscal year.

For those who aren't familiar with it, Usedcarsalesman will fill you in on his own experience with IMAX. In 1976, The Air and Space Museum opened in Washington D.C. along with its Samuel P. Langley IMAX theater (today known as the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater). As a kid and young-adult growing up in and around D.C., Usedcarsalesman's first exposure to a giant-screen IMAX projection system was in this theater IMAX was in the theater.

The "Langley" (now Lockheed) IMAX screen measured 75-feet wide and 50-feet high; by comparison, your basic theater screen was and is about 30-by-20.  IMAX, as the world's largest film format, used and still uses a frame three times larger than the wide-screen 70mm format and 10 times larger than the basic 35mm format used in most movie theaters then and today. So as a little kid, Usedcarsalesman was understandably, especially impressed by the large, IMAX experience; and, this was in around 1977-1978 when people were looking to have their first go at that hip new arcade game, Space Invaders.

The first movie Usedcarsalesman saw on the 5-story Air and Space IMAX screen was called To Fly. This film fit that IMAX theater like a Saville Row suit, the content seemingly tailor-made for the awesome size of the screen. In one segment of the film, a camera facing downward from a plane's belly shows the audience an overhead view of the ground and continues with this vantage as the plane flies over a cliff. Usedcarsalesman still recalls the feeling of nauseating vertigo he had the first time he saw the ground fall away in to a steep canyon! That's the kind of impact that the screen has induced upon its viewers. Usedcarsalesman saw To Fly again in the late 1990's at the Air and Space on the same IMAX screen and it was still just as fun to watch as in the 1970s.

Obviously, IMAX has been around for a while -- the technology is 40 years old.  And it can have a big, powerful effect on an audience. However, most modern multiplex theaters are simply not equipped to accommodate the 5-story tall screen used to show the IMAX feature.  Usedcarsalesman doesn't know if this means that theater-goers are going to see U.S. theater chains ripping the roofs off their current houses to accommodate vertigo-inducing IMAX screens. It might, since IMAX screens are seemingly a growth attraction for an otherwise stagnant industry

However, Usedcarsalesman thinks that you're probably more likely to see IMAX just in newly contructed private theater complexes. But, the fact that IMAX viewer-ship is up while regular movie-theater attendance is down shows that, hey, at least in some venue-type is drawing more people to buy tickets. Theater operators just need to give the public more of this kind of reason -- IMAX (or maybe 3D without glasses) -- to go out to a movie theater

The Theater Unlimited Work-Shop in Hollywood, Ca.

Usedcarsalesman is participating in a work-shop for actors, writers and directors that was organized by his friends, screen-writer, Ray Lopez and director, Keith Hammons. Their work-shop currently takes place at "Theater Unlimited" at Lankershim and Camarillo in North Hollywood, Ca. and performs 3 new scenes every Sunday evening at 9pm (Usedcarsalesman wants to add that he is impressed by how the site, Craig's List, may have helped Ray and Keith a great deal in forming and managing this large, industry-specific working group;  If Craig'sList can get people together on something arts related, it can probably get people together on just about anything.  It pays to use Craig'sList).
            
Before The Theater Unlimited Work-Shop, Usedcarsalesman was off to an expensive start training in Hollywood.  He had been in L.A. for a couple of years and, like many newcomers to the entertainment industry who were drawn to doing on-camera work, took advantage of the numerous dramatic scene-study acting classes offered by the area's renowned instructors. Typically, these classes met once a week and the monthly cost to him averaged about $250 per month for each class.

               

A typical dramatic class for an actor -- Usedcarsalesman, in this case -- would involve performing a short 3-5 minute scene (with or without partners) which he had selected during the previous week; often times the scene was something that thousands of actors had performed thousands of times or was a scene from a too familiar film or television program.  Prior to performing, the actor would essentially have to "direct himself" (there was no "second-person" director with a visual idea of how he or she wanted this scene to look). Then, he'd perform the scene after self-direction and the class instructor would generally make comments about what he or she liked or not and what you needed to work on. Basically, the instructors "directed" you "after-the-fact," usually with the vigor of a certain, dark-haired, male, Reality-TV celebrity of British descent; and, the instructors would generally not assist in the area of scene selection.

                  

As far as Usedcarsalesman could tell, this "process" was par-for-the-course for acting classes in Hollywood (nonetheless, he did find that the classes he took here in L.A. were still immensely valuable, with instructors often providing him with performance insights that were worth many times the price of the courses and which an actor really couldn't get anywhere else). 

                        

However, The Theatre Unlimited Work-Shop-- versus the aforementioned format of traditional, expensive and autocratically-led scene-study classes in L.A. -- seems an evolved "animal."  Still a peer "creature," just cheaper and more economically shrewd.  For example, monthly costs for each Theatre Unlimited member run 1/6 the price of a traditional scene-study class. And there is no option of, "because-I-was-so-busy-working-this-week-I'll-just-sit-back-and-watch-while-somebody-else-performs." Everybody has to act in, write or direct a Work-Shop scene every week for the group to fully function.

                      

Usedcarsalesman will run through a typical week with the Work-Shop in the following:  At the beginning of each week, the group's screenwriter members each submit a 7 page scene that they have written; actor members are cast for the scene and each receives the "sides" (an emailed copy of the scene) early in the week; a director in the work-shop pairs with each screenwriter and organizes the physicality of the scene: it's look, interplay between characters, positioning of characters, use of props and its timing and pacing; when the Sunday work-shop meeting rolls around, the actors have memorized the scenes and, with help from the screenwriter, the director organizes the scene's operation for its performance that evening; The scenes are then performed. 

             

What's great about this Work-Shop process for actors is that they are dealing with fresh written material and are receiving great direction before the scene is ever done in front of an audience. And, the finished look of the scenes really shows.  Usedcarsalesman cannot say this was the case with traditional dramatic scene-study classes in Hollywood.
                      
The Theatre Unlimited Work-Shop also provides major value to its screenwriters. It enables a screenwriter to actually see his or her work performed each week, to actually see if what they imagined will trigger the emotional reaction or impact they are looking for.  Usedcarsalesman believes this is a great advance for screenwriters who often get together with other screenwriters and maybe do a read-through of each others work, but never get the "edge" of actually seeing their work performed in it's early stages.

               

The Work-Shop also benefits the member directors who find themselves confronting the weekly and uniquely "directorial" adrenaline rush of organizing actors around a fresh scene. Again, Usedcarsalesman is hard-pressed to think of a venue that enables directors to really hone their skills under such dynamic conditions. Normally, a director who wants to practice "directing" has to literally create work around himself or herself by way of producing, directing, writing, and recruiting actors for their own short film or seeing if they could get a gig directing a local stage play.  Both of these options, though useful, involve considerable effort beyond simply "directing" and certainly lack the dynamic characteristics of directing fresh, weekly scenes and regularly-changing working-partnerships.
                      
Finally, actors, writers and directors in the Work-Shop also have the advantage of having their Sunday performances videotaped. This allows all three types of participant to accumulate video material in to a "reel," a video copy of the work that they act, write or direct. Other than the minor costs involved with video reproductions, the Work-Shop itself, at present, costs each member only $40 dollars a month, and that's just to cover the fee for use of the theater.

                        

Personally, Usedcarsalesman would say that the value of the Ray and Keith's Theatre Unlimited Work-Shop is on par with some of the best acting classes that he's taken in L.A. And, for $40 a month, Usedcarsalesman feels like he is getting a ridiculous bargain.

Survivor: Movie Theatres (With a Little Help From Digital Projectors)

(This post is 21 hours late according to my "Every 4 days" Time-line! Usedcarsalesman will adopt a "news-type" schedule so that he will always have something ready every 4 days regardless of outside intrusions.)

Usedcarsalesman read a post the other day made by Cory Doctorow (a post which was apparently pulled from a blog called MarginalRevolution.com) in BoingBoing.net called "What's Killing Hollywood? (And, Its Not Piracy!)"

Usedcarsalesman believes it was posted there on July 13, 2005. In the post were listed a lot of reasons for the on-going "murder" of Hollywood's theatrical releases: high-quality TV programming making people avoid theaters, High Definition plasma-screened televisions becoming more affordable and keeping people at home, movie-executives who are understandably risk averse and box office expectations that are higher than in the past (so the variety of theatrical releases is suffering).

The BoingBoing post suggested to Usedcarsalesman that, pretty soon, when the viewing public seeks visual entertainment we are all going to avoid movie theaters and basically just stay home and turn on the HD plasma screen. Well, it "suggested" this to him, yes, but "convinced" him, no.

Why? Let's face the following facts: going out to a movie theater has the "going out" and "social" elements going for it. "Let's go out to the movies," "let's go see the latest Speilberg flick," "it's going to be a full house," are all thoughts that most people have entertained. Often people -- Usedcarsalesman, too -- settle on going to a movie because it's a relatively easy co-ed social event to organize and because there's little socially to do with your friends in the evenings (besides getting bombed at a party, that is :).

Sure, movies aren't the only thing you go out and do that have a social element. You also have live-theater and music, religious services, professional sporting events, sports-participation, charity participation, conventions (at least a ton in So. Cal.), and amusement/theme parks, too. But going to a movie theater is admittedly still one of the few economical and entertaining things that you can do in a large room with other individuals.

Maybe movie theaters and attendees also offer -- at least to "Joes" like Usedcarsalesman -- a hard to quantify value such as an answer to how "strangers" will respond to visual stimuli.  Usedcarsalesman guesses you could say he gains inadvertant "political insight" from within movie theaters.  And, movie theaters offer other "political" benefits, too, not just for Usedcarsalesman. What viewer isn't subconsciously heartened by the warmth of reacting to entertainment in the same manner as people they do not know?

Usedcarsalesman thinks that movie theater chains and single theater operations, rather than closing up shop, may build on the inherent "social" aspect of movie theaters by installing new Digital Projectors. To start, Digital projectors may enable theater operators to download a new feature straight from the film distributor, greatly streamlining theater operations, eliminating film, film storage, film maintenance, and shipping costs/delays.  But the largely unheralded, potential "social" benefit of digital projectors is that they will make it economical for theater operators to provide a more diverse array of entertainment to a paying public. 

With mostly digital projectors in theaters, you may see niche market films which formerly would have been prohibitively expensive to distribute as a film print, live network-video-game championships (games are often more profitable than Hollywood films at this point and need a stadium type venue to allow a mass audience to cheer the top players), and even the next generation of 3-D films that are viewable without special glasses (Trust Usedcarsalesman, far more enjoyable in a big theater than on a relatively puny 70 inch plasma HDTV).

Frankly, Usedcarsalesman thinks that the new digital projectors may enable theater operators to hedge the financial risk of showing standard Hollywood fare by drawing audiences with the aforementioned variety of novel entertainment alternatives. They might save and strengthen traditional movie theater enterprises which may lead to a new post in BoingBoing.net titled, "What's Saving Movie Theaters?"

You Still Have To Buy A Political Party's "Whole Album" To Get That One, "Favorite Song"

In July and August of 2004 Usedcarsalesman worked as a "logger" (a logger provides a type-written "log" of all researched video/film footage for a respective film production) on the film, Celsius 41.11. The film was one of a number of conservative/ Republican-funded films produced at the end of last year in response to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

         

For Usedcarsalesman, the production -- regardless of the politics it involved -- represented two months' pay. He wanted it to appear as professional as possible. And, he'll also admit that if liberal or Democratic party members or even Ross Perot's or Ralph Nader's old supporters had been looking to hire people to work on film projects indirectly supporting their candidates, he would have been the first in line there, too. So, if you call Usedcarsalesman a mercenary and don't find him exactly lovable, he understands.

Anyway, Celsius 41.11 finally wrapped production and Usedcarsalesman later went to a screening of it in October 2004 at the conservative Liberty Film Festival at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. Mainly, he attended the festival to see the end result of two months of production work. But, it also allowed him to sit in on lectures conducted by entertainment industry people of who he is a big admirer. One of those people was David Zucker, the writer of Airplane, the Police Squad TV series, Naked Gun 33 1/3 and numerous other hugely, entertaining productions.

David Zucker took the stage at the Liberty Film Festival and described how his political views had changed in the last few years -- how he as a former liberal Democrat had begun to side with the Republicans only after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001. As Usedcarsalesman listened to Mr. Zucker's statements, he was made to recall their similarity to the rationale put forth by Democrats who voted for Republican, Ronald Reagan, in the Presidential elections of 1980 and '84.

       

Then it seemed that a single issue was responsible for this 80s-era Democratic change of allegiance -- a desire for a stronger national defense, lower federal taxation or a reduction in the size of some areas of the federal government. Usedcarsalesman was struck by Mr. Zucker's statements and how, even today, one political issue is still enough to push a voter to side with one party or another at the expense of all other issues. And, how there still doesn't seem to be an a-la-carte menu in U.S. politics, where a voter can truly make political choices based on the entirety of his or her political views rather than what issue is on center-stage at the moment.

Mr. Zucker's talk made Usedcarsalesman think that U.S. politics has simply not yet begun to evolve in the way other areas of U.S. popular culture have. When you vote in the U.S., as evidenced by Mr. Zucker, you still have to buy a political party's whole "album" to get that one "favorite song" (in his case, an aggressive anti-terrorist stance) Usedcarsalesman says that it is high-time that politics in the U.S. take on the more customer-directed focus that has begun to pervade in industries such as music (MP3 downloads), investments (on-line trading) and retail (on-line grocery shopping).

               

Sure this may turn U.S. politicians in to nothing more than "voice-boxes" for the voters of their country, state or district: ie., "I am U.S. Senator Smith and I represent the will of the people of Rhode Island in 2024: strong national defense, free marijuana, 200 MPH highway speed limits and an Equal Rights Amendment..." But, voter-directed, "voice-box" politicians may truly provide a complete expression of an electorate's political will and keep voter's, such as Mr. Zucker, from having to sacrifice one issue or issues to secure another.



Edited: LI

More Efficient Emergency Medical Treatment

Usedcarsalesman hasn't written any comments since July 2 and here it is July 9, so his goal of keeping to the above "new post every 4 days, so read regularly!" subject-blurb kind of went out the window or at least took a temporary hiatus. He should actually have a partner "Usedcarsalesman" (/woman) or two who can continue to bring "truth" to the world if "yours-truly" is in any way incapacitated or if people otherwise seek a little variety.                  

Anyway what's his excuse for this delay?  Well, Usedcarsalesman had to go to the Kaiser-Permanente ER (in Los Angeles on Sunset Blvd.) about 9:30pm on the evening of July 7 to have a little "emergency oversight" done. He finally got out of the Kaiser ER on the morning of July 8th in one piece and with a substantially lighter wallet (he has health insurance through Kaiser Permanente and he was a bit surprised by the "deductible" a Kaiser member has to pay after a Kaiser Hospital ER visit vs. if he had gone to a non-Kaiser hospital ER). Needless to say, July 8 and most of today were spent picking up loose ends from July 7 in an effort to prevent the occurrences that led to my hospital visit that day.

Obviously, when you have a brush with the medical community outside of your normal doctors visits, you may tend to evaluate your surroundings and see where things could be more efficient, easier, and better for both Doctors and Patients. After his ER stay on July 7, Usedcarsalesman certainly thought of a few areas where technology could make the provision of medical treatment more efficient for myself and a generation of aging Baby-Boomers:

1. A small, inexpensive, portable solid-state electronic record of a person's medical history. The US military has been working on something like this for a while, you know, medical history incorporated in to modern dog-tags. Great idea, I know that I would definitely want one. Such complete medical information would give doctors a frame of reference regarding a patients display of symptoms, thus potentially cutting out some of the stress involved in making a diagnosis. Doctors would still have to test the patient to insure that nothing was overlooked as they were making their diagnosis, but they would clearly be in a less stressful position. Sure, to some extent this already exists with Medic Alert (call the number on the bracelet and somebody will tell you for what the wearer is currently receiving treatment). I'm talking, instead, about a total life story of medical treatment, including all the details, medications, tests etc.
2. Team-based Medical Treatment involving doctors living in Different World Time Zones. Frankly, when the worst happens and you need medical help, often times its going to be late at night or in the AM. If medical doctors partnered up using modern telecommunications equipment and teleconferencing gear, they could effectively always work daytime hours while providing their patients with near 24 hr emergency consultative service (think a partnership of physicians across Australia/New Zealand, The U.S./Canada, and The United Kingdom). This would also eliminate the early morning emergency pages they may occasionally receive. Physicians at an ER might more quickly directly contact physicians working within such a 24 hour framework, thus again taking some of the stress out of treating the patients before them. Obviously, such a partnership would require taking different rules and jurisdictions in to account, which would be no picnic. But, it might help patients and medical doctors in many cases.
3. An "On-Star" System for People. General Motors offers it's satellite-served, On-Star system as an accessory on their cars; it causes a satellite to locate your equipped car's position, communicate with the driver and dispatch help to him/her if an accident was detected. What about having such a system for people? Basically, such a system would constantly remotely monitor your condition using a sensor and signal transmission gear of some kind. If the "On Star for People" system detects a problem with one of its users, it notifies the HQ, attempts to call you by cell-phone and/or help is dispatched to your location. Something like that.
4. Bring the Doctor to the Paramedics/Patient, rather than vice versa- Ok, typically, a paramedic is going to have a doctor on the phone when he is treating a person in trouble. So the Doctor is, by phone, effectively able to oversee and advise treatment from his location at the hospital. But, using teleconference and tele-presence gear, you could effectively bring a doctor to the paramedics and the location of the patient and allow the Doctor to directly, physically treat the patient at the scene. To some extent this is already being attempted by the US military in an effort to speed surgical treatment on or near a battlefield. Civilian society could use it too.
5. A small alarm Device w/bio-sensor which alerts people in a wide area if a person is having a medical difficulty. Look, bracelets and jewelry are nice, but they are inanimate and require a passerby to come up and read the bejeweled item to find out what is wrong with the wearer; if the rescuing party is especially ambitious in his or her care of you, he or she may call the Medic Alert phone number listed on the bracelet and get more details about the wearer's condition. Usedcarsalesman says, if a person is on a city street and dying, he or she is not going to mind so much if a loud, electronic alarm sounds and a loud voice message plays from a device on his person saying "This man/woman/child has "Fill-in-Blank" Disease, please do not be alarmed and provide him with this or that assistance and he/she will gratefully pay you (PayPal) you $100 cash for a few minutes of inconvenience!!!. That kind of thing. Usedcarsalesman remembers the old U.Va. Sociology class, 'Kitty Genovese-" story, where a woman was getting murdered and yelling for help as people watched, but nobody came to her aid. Conclusion was that she should have yelled "Fire!" instead of help. Apparently, when peoples' property is at risk, they tend to take action (at least in NYC). So, Usedcarsalesman says put some money on the line and people will definitely come to your aid (in this case, no property at risk, but financial "property" to be gained).

Usedcarsalesman realizes that all of the aforementioned thoughts will be cheap and easy to implement. So, we'll give business and government 24 hours to work cooperatively to implement these changes, starting now. :)

Sports For Fans; Sports and Art For Athletes?

If Usedcarsalesman was a professional athlete he'd take every drug in the book to insure his competitive advantage. He'd use Human Growth Hormone and Steroids and even Insulin to gain muscle mass, he'd pop Amphetamines to improve reaction time, he'd dose Ritalin and Modafinil to improve intelligence and decision-making and he'd take an assortment of foreign drugs that would complement the aforementioned "hyper-pharmaceutical" cocktail. 

Although, he would have a vague idea that these drugs could be harmful to his long-term health, he would also know that pro-sports careers are inevitably short in duration, so use of these drugs wouldn't be in his system forever. He'd know that he was "drugging" to preserve his livelihood, advance his career and help his team. He'd sleep ok at night and so would, he suspects, most professional athletes.

Though Usedcarsalesman doesn't know too many professional athletes personally, he speculates that as athletes advance through the high school and college ranks of their respective sports, they see that certain things are "done" to improve athletic performance. 

Coaches may also make certain indirect demands: "Jim, the guy I need as a defensive-end in four weeks weighs 240lbs." Jim, the defensive-end, currently weighing in at 210lbs, gets the picture about what he needs to do. So, certain impressions may be made on athletes that stimulate their need to utilize performance drugs.

Of course the various Professional Sports Leagues, the Olympic Committee, The Tour De France all host what many speculate may amount to a pre-contest charade -- the side-stepping of various "legitimate drug tests" by one means or another in order for professional athletes to be around for the game.

Usedcarsalesman recalls that Andy Warhol once said that "Art is whatever you can get away with." It would seem that if the speculators are correct, Pro athletes may have to "get away with" quite a bit to stay at the top of their respective games. 

Thus, Usedcarsalesman might reasonably draw a conclusion -- if the aforementioned speculations have any merit -- that pro "Sports" as the fan sees them are just athletic contests with a winner, a loser.  

But from the Athlete's perspective, pro sports may be more a hybrid of Sport and Art.   You have the athletic contest, winners and losers of course.  But then you may also have an environment in which Warhol's definition of "Art" may come in to play:   pro athletes may -- some suspect -- have to "get away with" quite a bit pharmaceutical-wise to stay competitive within their respective field of endeavor.

So is this theoretical Sports and Art dynamic wrong? Shouldn't the public demand an end to the use of performance enhancing drugs? 

Usedcarsalesman doesn't know, really. He thinks that the public seems to grudgingly accept that when they are "paying" for seats at a sports arena, the people they will be watching are often pharmaceutical augmented in some fashion. 

He thinks where the public starts to raise questions is when an individual player's performance transcends the competition so completely (certain baseball players come to mind). Or, if say all NFL players from the 1970's era die of heart failure when they hit 55 years of age due to Cardiovascular trauma brought on by performance drug use. Those issues might cause the public to look at professional athletics and potential performance drug use more critically. 

Regardless, Pro sports does seem a reflection of the demands of society and of the athletic competition itself.  Those demands may require that the best athletes be artists of sorts also.