YUP, YOU CAN MAKE THIS STUFF UP.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH MEDIA

Considering the heaping helping of coverage that suffocated readers during the opening week of the NFL season, it would have been easy to miss this story that appeared exclusively on only just one Internet site this past week:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A moment of silence was held at Washington's FedEx field Monday night for victims of NBC's NFL kickoff special, which aired Thursday night before the season opener.

The show, which featured a performance by P Diddy as well as numerous other atrocities, was seen by an estimated 20 million victims, many of whom will never be the same again.

``What I want to know is where was the NFL during all this,'' said Richard Menkiewitz, a Miami Dolphins fan who saw the show at a bar in Fort Myers. ``Where was the new commissioner, Roger Goodell, when the producers decided Pink, that shrieking harpy, should sing the theme song? ... I just hope my kids never see this footage. I don't want them to learn how bleak the postmodern condition is until they get older.''

During the season, NBC plans to air an abbreviated version of the kickoff special, featuring the new opening theme by Pink, before every Sunday night broadcast. Producer Fred Gaudelli believes that eventually, people will learn to love it.

``See, it might seem strange that I could get excited by a football song sung by Pink, but try to remember that I'm a TV producer, which means I'm completely out of touch with what people want to watch on TV.''

For Dave Saraiva, it's a story that needed to be written. If only to make himself feel better.

The 33-year-old Massachusetts-based sports fan who since 2003 has run his fake sports news site, The Brushback (www.thebrushback.com), makes no apologies for the fact that a) he's not the only one who considers sports and the sports media unusually ripe for satire, but he just does it better than most; b) his inspiration for starting the site was definitely based on the established success of The Onion, which set the standard of how phony news operates and has recently branched into regular fake-sports news; and c) not everyone gets it, which means he has to put a disclaimer on everything despite what appears to be obvious.

The former dead-end computer worker who at one time aspired to be a legitimate sports writer says he simply works under the assumption that if the so-called ``truthiness'' of sports can't be done correctly by others, he'll give it his best sarcastic shot.

``I don't think I'll ever run out of material because so many sports stories are so over-the-top, they just parody themselves,'' said Saraiva, whose ``best-of'' collection of stories from The Brushback have been published into a book, ``The Brushback Report: All The Sports News That's Unfit To Print'' (Ballantine Books, $14.95, 212 pages).

Even moreso, the sports media becomes a viable target because, in Saraiva's thinking, there's very little perceived separation between it and the events it pretends to cover.

``It's the media that perpetuates athletes as either the heroes or the horrible, evil villains, and that just feeds into the obsession of sports, so they're as culpable as anyone,'' said Saraiva. ``ESPN is really the worst offender and has become the Microsoft of sport that kind of runs everything, and they have an effect on everyone who's trying to get their audience and make it more entertainment than sports now.

``Today's media isn't just third-party reporting. To me, they're part of the story and they want to be part of it. So, if they do, they're subject to satire.''

Whether it's skewering Stuart Scott for his def poetry, silencing Stephen A. Smith for his loudness, grilling Fox for trying to make everything glow or torching every broadcaster who overuses the word ``tremendous,'' Saraiva's high-and-tight heckling doesn't show any signs of letting up.

Already a contributor to the ``Weekend Update'' staff on NBC's ``Saturday Night Live,'' Saraiva spent a couple of months in L.A. this summer to help write for a pilot called ``Sports Central,'' a spin-off of Comedy Central's ``The Daily Show'' that could become part of the 2007 lineup. Paul Mecurio, the Emmy-award writer for ``The Daily Show,'' offered Saraiva a staff job based on his one-man ``reporting'' on TheBrushback.com, which attracts some 2,500 visitors a day.

Believe it or not, Saraiva also had one of his faux stories, headlined ``Make-A-Wish Foundation Asked to Punch Barry Bonds in the (Groin),'' optioned by film producer Trevor Engleson, who is in the process of adapting it into a script.

You can't make this stuff up. Can you?

``That NBC kickoff show, I'm sorry, it was an abomination,'' Saraiva said, referring back to the story he posted for this week's edition. ``I understand trying to appeal to non-fans, but I can't believe they're that out of touch. I had to watch that and I think I'm still scared by it. I have no idea who those performers were, so maybe I'm glad I'm out of touch. If that's what it's all about, I don't want to be in touch.''

CAPTION(S):

photo, 3 boxes

Photo:

no caption (The Brushback Reports)

Box:

(1) RIPPED IN THE HEADLINES

(2) WHAT SMOKES

(3) WHAT CHOKES