ESPN's X Games are slouching toward Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, the first of three new international host cities, where competition begins next week and where staffers are arriving to find that their mellows have already been thoroughly harshed. It seems that money is tight in this corner of the $40 billion empireâ€"tight enough that production assistants are being asked, nicely and obliquely, to work for free. A tipster passes along a memo sent by ESPN operations manager Severn Sandt. It includes the following: