Hear ye, hear ye. I proclaim the end of political humor. Sorry Al, sorry Harry. Wait, are there any others? Please, don’t even mention O’Rourke, he hasn’t been funny since 1971.
Forget my post here from a couple weeks ago, funny though it was.
It’s not even funny to compare Bush to a monkey anymore. Or to Alfred E. Newman. It’s just not funny.
I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon wondering if the wi-fi is sending my emails to the NSA, or to James Dobson or Pat Robertson or any other member of the Republican al-Qaeda (remember, that’s Osama for “the base”). Because you know, where there may be dedicated professionals at NSA who have no agenda other than to protect the American republic, you have to remember that they work for crooks who would invade their mother’s grave if it had oil under it.
Gallows humor, that’s what it is. “What’s the worst that could happen?” we asked after the Deibold referendums in 2004. You’re looking at it. And it’s not funny.
We who are about to die, write jokes.
Think about how many times in the past year or so you have said the words, “You can’t write something like that, nobody would believe it.” Believe it.
We Americans torture, kill, hate, steal, lie and ignore the Constitution. How long will it be before someone else who has a lot of weapons decides to retaliate? And when they do, if the current bunch is still holding power, how much worse will it be for you and me?
Say they attack us again. Say thousands of people die again. Not only will the Republicans (and Joe Lieberman) not take responsibility for not protecting us, but may give us a sequel to the “Patriot” Act that will allow them to suspend an election or two.
Bush will point to a Congressional authorization found in some small phrase stuck in some piece of legislation in the dead of night and passed by an unsuspecting Congress. His arrogant defense of NSA spying is merely a preview.
See? I’ve stopped being funny.
Ok, how’s this? Bush, Cheney and Rove walk into a bar.
There’s no punch line.
They’re not funny.
Korea is funny. “T’ings wit a K sound are funny.” Sorry, I was channeling The Sunshine Boys.
This also appears on Huffingtonpost.com
Monday, December 26, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Dear NSA
Hope you like my blog. Sorry you have to work on Christmas Eve. I so love an audience. Have a jolly holiday. You guys at NSA are so much better than having a fat old man coming down my chimney.
It's so much easier for you to see if I've been bad or good without any old court orders.
Here's looking at YOU, friends. Thanks for the gift of travel to, oh where? Someplace in Europe? I know, it's like Priceline, you'll tell me later.
It's so much easier for you to see if I've been bad or good without any old court orders.
Here's looking at YOU, friends. Thanks for the gift of travel to, oh where? Someplace in Europe? I know, it's like Priceline, you'll tell me later.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Tom Paine on George W. Bush
"But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is."
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Current Events
The revelations over the past few days, of George W. Bush's illegal spying on Americans, should be ample proof that he should be impeached.
Now.
Now.
Friday, December 16, 2005
something that came to mind after the book was done
There’s No Sex Allowed in THIS Newspaper!
When I was making up stories for The Sun, a supermarket tabloid which, at the time was the equivalent of The Weekly World News (but since has backed off a little and added some other forms of lies), I wanted to write about sex. I wrote “Sex In Space. They’ve Already Tried It!”
I made up a fictitious company in England that was a combination airline and Love Boat and was planning a sex resort on the moon. The spacecraft that got you there was the Sex Shuttle. I made up a spokesperson. I made up his quote, “After all, when was the last time anybody invented a new way to make love?”
The early tests, using single astronauts went well, the only problem being how to deal with the results of male auto-erotic performances in a weightless spacecraft, a floating disposal problem, you might say.
The first “coupled flight” was a great success. The spokesperson said, “Just imagine what it must be like to make love floating in the air?” I made that up too. He went on to explain his marketing plans for gays (disposable income) and old folks (no worries about arthritis).
Unfortunately, the boss shot it down. He told me he didn’t want sex stories. Although he didn’t go into great detail, being the brusque guy he was, it was obvious he didn’t want to offend his readers. It was ok for me to write “Grandma Turns Pet Dog Inside Out Looking for Lost Lottery Ticket.” Just no sex. Normal logic in these cases doesn’t really apply.
I surmised that many of his readers were fundamentalists and therefore opposed to sex but welcoming to violence. It’s one thing to write about celebrities sleeping around as long as it doesn’t include exactly what the sex is. The fact that it’s a celebrity having the sex is enough. Anyway, that paper didn’t have celebrity stories, just goofy made up stuff.
The editor’s decision to cut me off from writing about sex prevented an avalanche of potential. That’s why you won’t find ANY sex in my new book “Rabid Nun Infects Entire Convent and Other Sensational Stories From a Tabloid Writer.” It’s a tell-all about that bizarre world of faux journalism.
I’m sorry to have to tell you that I was never privy to the sexual secrets of the stars because I made up all the people in every story, with the exception of Gay-Darlene Bidart, my own personal love witch and the Dear Abby of Latin America at the time. She was in dozens of newspapers, offering not advice but spells. She wouldn’t tell you what to do about your problem, she would tell you to burn x number of candles, or take a lock of his hair and put it in a box under your pillow, or some shit like that.
She was a wonderful mixture of witchcraft and performance, having a masters in theater from Yale. Originally from Honduras, she had deep roots in “good” witchcraft. She was also married to a millionaire warlock named Sol who made his money in construction.
La Bruja had a book out at the time, on body reading, telling your fortune by reading, kneading, sniffing and otherwise poking around your nearly naked body. You never knew when she was serious and when she was making a fool out of you. Yes, I had a body reading in her 34th floor apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She got everything right about me. Could be she was just a good judge of character, but……
Anyway, I was writing a story for the tab on a tribe in South America who had never seen the outside world and were found dancing around a nude statue of Elvis Presley and chanting something that sounded like “Viva Las Vegas.
I wrote, ““We asked them where they had gotten the statue,” said Rex Vosa, one of the men who found them, “and they told us their ancestors had made it. We asked them how long it had been in their village and they told us it had been there for centuries.” I made up Rex Vosa. I usually made up “experts” in my stories, but I hadn’t talked to The Love Witch since she had given me a potion to put on my big toe, a spell which, she assured me would find me love and get me laid. So after telling her that it only got me a blow job, I asked her about her theories on Elvis and the tribe. After she stopped laughing she paused and told me, “I have a theory about that. Elvis possessed tremendous sexual energy. It could be that, unknown to us, he was able to project his sexual energy anyplace in the world and reproduce himself. Do you know what I mean?
“He could have had the ability to lie in bed and project a map of the world on the ceiling and just point to anyplace in the world and reproduce himself. Remember, it was his sexual nature, his sexy wiggles and the way he carried off that macho sensuality that made him famous. It was a rare thing.”
She nearly said it without laughing.
But other than La Bruja del Amor, everybody else in my stories was made up. This means I can’t be Joe Esterhaz for you and tell you what Sharon Stone did to get parts, or reveal if Tom Cruise was ever Twink-of-the-Month for some Bob Crane type. Or tell you a single thing about the current state of Lindsey Lohan’s tits.
If I were writing for the tabloid today would anything I made up be more unbelievable than anything Michael Jackson has done?
I did anticipate the reality TV trend. I was working as a producer/reporter for the old Evening/PM Magazine in Baltimore. I had done “reality” stories like the series on a bunch of goobers who tried to break the world’s record for eating raw eggs (drinking them from beer mugs, actually).
I had sent another sex-related story to the tabloid editor at the same time I sent the “Sex In Space” story. It was a game show with real sex. It was kind of like The Dating Game except the woman choosing between three men asked them sex questions and then after picking the winner, the show would tape them having sex and would show it the following week when they would be judged, like in the Olympics.
This seemed far-fetched when I wrote it 15 years ago, but not to me. When I saw the movie “Network,” I was not surprised, nor did I think it was exaggerated. I worked in TV. I knew what those people (we people) were (are) like. As soon as the Repuglicans are thrown out of office and the FCC loosens up again, it would not surprise me one bit, if we see my pervy vision come to life.
Hey, I might produce that one myself. Oh, wait I think they already did it. They just stopped short of the good parts.
The point is, the more you try to keep ahead of reality the closer reality gets to your sickest imagination. One story in the book is “Cult Uses Human Heads For Bowling Balls.” That was me at my worst or best, depending on your point of view. When I was rewriting my original stories for the book, I had to stop in the middle of re-writing that one because it creeped me out just like it did when I first wrote it.
Well, a few weeks ago I ran across a story on the web. It read, “A man who allegedly decapitated a 17-year-old boy with a tomahawk in a suburban back yard later was said to have played with the teenager's head, rolling it in a paddock as if it were a bowling ball…Mr. Jones said Mr. Roughan laughed as he ‘bowled the head up the hill, like it was a bowling ball’…A chilling videotape showing police interviewing one of two men charged with the murder of transient teen Morgan Jay Shepherd was played in Brisbane Magistrates Court yesterday." That was from The Advertiser, an Australian Newspaper.
See? Truth catches up with the worst things you can ever think of.
Back when I was writing these things, I would get up, drink coffee, sit at the keyboard in my underwear and smoke a bowl, and then allow either the funniest or the most horrifying (or both) stories come out of my head, through my fingers and onto the page.
Well, I’m in Portland, Oregon instead of Baltimore, Maryland. And I’m not broke. And I’m not lonely. I’m not roommates with a guy (I’m married now), and I burned myself out on these stories. But I am in my underwear, and I do have that same writing aid. Should I?
Nah.
When I was making up stories for The Sun, a supermarket tabloid which, at the time was the equivalent of The Weekly World News (but since has backed off a little and added some other forms of lies), I wanted to write about sex. I wrote “Sex In Space. They’ve Already Tried It!”
I made up a fictitious company in England that was a combination airline and Love Boat and was planning a sex resort on the moon. The spacecraft that got you there was the Sex Shuttle. I made up a spokesperson. I made up his quote, “After all, when was the last time anybody invented a new way to make love?”
The early tests, using single astronauts went well, the only problem being how to deal with the results of male auto-erotic performances in a weightless spacecraft, a floating disposal problem, you might say.
The first “coupled flight” was a great success. The spokesperson said, “Just imagine what it must be like to make love floating in the air?” I made that up too. He went on to explain his marketing plans for gays (disposable income) and old folks (no worries about arthritis).
Unfortunately, the boss shot it down. He told me he didn’t want sex stories. Although he didn’t go into great detail, being the brusque guy he was, it was obvious he didn’t want to offend his readers. It was ok for me to write “Grandma Turns Pet Dog Inside Out Looking for Lost Lottery Ticket.” Just no sex. Normal logic in these cases doesn’t really apply.
I surmised that many of his readers were fundamentalists and therefore opposed to sex but welcoming to violence. It’s one thing to write about celebrities sleeping around as long as it doesn’t include exactly what the sex is. The fact that it’s a celebrity having the sex is enough. Anyway, that paper didn’t have celebrity stories, just goofy made up stuff.
The editor’s decision to cut me off from writing about sex prevented an avalanche of potential. That’s why you won’t find ANY sex in my new book “Rabid Nun Infects Entire Convent and Other Sensational Stories From a Tabloid Writer.” It’s a tell-all about that bizarre world of faux journalism.
I’m sorry to have to tell you that I was never privy to the sexual secrets of the stars because I made up all the people in every story, with the exception of Gay-Darlene Bidart, my own personal love witch and the Dear Abby of Latin America at the time. She was in dozens of newspapers, offering not advice but spells. She wouldn’t tell you what to do about your problem, she would tell you to burn x number of candles, or take a lock of his hair and put it in a box under your pillow, or some shit like that.
She was a wonderful mixture of witchcraft and performance, having a masters in theater from Yale. Originally from Honduras, she had deep roots in “good” witchcraft. She was also married to a millionaire warlock named Sol who made his money in construction.
La Bruja had a book out at the time, on body reading, telling your fortune by reading, kneading, sniffing and otherwise poking around your nearly naked body. You never knew when she was serious and when she was making a fool out of you. Yes, I had a body reading in her 34th floor apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She got everything right about me. Could be she was just a good judge of character, but……
Anyway, I was writing a story for the tab on a tribe in South America who had never seen the outside world and were found dancing around a nude statue of Elvis Presley and chanting something that sounded like “Viva Las Vegas.
I wrote, ““We asked them where they had gotten the statue,” said Rex Vosa, one of the men who found them, “and they told us their ancestors had made it. We asked them how long it had been in their village and they told us it had been there for centuries.” I made up Rex Vosa. I usually made up “experts” in my stories, but I hadn’t talked to The Love Witch since she had given me a potion to put on my big toe, a spell which, she assured me would find me love and get me laid. So after telling her that it only got me a blow job, I asked her about her theories on Elvis and the tribe. After she stopped laughing she paused and told me, “I have a theory about that. Elvis possessed tremendous sexual energy. It could be that, unknown to us, he was able to project his sexual energy anyplace in the world and reproduce himself. Do you know what I mean?
“He could have had the ability to lie in bed and project a map of the world on the ceiling and just point to anyplace in the world and reproduce himself. Remember, it was his sexual nature, his sexy wiggles and the way he carried off that macho sensuality that made him famous. It was a rare thing.”
She nearly said it without laughing.
But other than La Bruja del Amor, everybody else in my stories was made up. This means I can’t be Joe Esterhaz for you and tell you what Sharon Stone did to get parts, or reveal if Tom Cruise was ever Twink-of-the-Month for some Bob Crane type. Or tell you a single thing about the current state of Lindsey Lohan’s tits.
If I were writing for the tabloid today would anything I made up be more unbelievable than anything Michael Jackson has done?
I did anticipate the reality TV trend. I was working as a producer/reporter for the old Evening/PM Magazine in Baltimore. I had done “reality” stories like the series on a bunch of goobers who tried to break the world’s record for eating raw eggs (drinking them from beer mugs, actually).
I had sent another sex-related story to the tabloid editor at the same time I sent the “Sex In Space” story. It was a game show with real sex. It was kind of like The Dating Game except the woman choosing between three men asked them sex questions and then after picking the winner, the show would tape them having sex and would show it the following week when they would be judged, like in the Olympics.
This seemed far-fetched when I wrote it 15 years ago, but not to me. When I saw the movie “Network,” I was not surprised, nor did I think it was exaggerated. I worked in TV. I knew what those people (we people) were (are) like. As soon as the Repuglicans are thrown out of office and the FCC loosens up again, it would not surprise me one bit, if we see my pervy vision come to life.
Hey, I might produce that one myself. Oh, wait I think they already did it. They just stopped short of the good parts.
The point is, the more you try to keep ahead of reality the closer reality gets to your sickest imagination. One story in the book is “Cult Uses Human Heads For Bowling Balls.” That was me at my worst or best, depending on your point of view. When I was rewriting my original stories for the book, I had to stop in the middle of re-writing that one because it creeped me out just like it did when I first wrote it.
Well, a few weeks ago I ran across a story on the web. It read, “A man who allegedly decapitated a 17-year-old boy with a tomahawk in a suburban back yard later was said to have played with the teenager's head, rolling it in a paddock as if it were a bowling ball…Mr. Jones said Mr. Roughan laughed as he ‘bowled the head up the hill, like it was a bowling ball’…A chilling videotape showing police interviewing one of two men charged with the murder of transient teen Morgan Jay Shepherd was played in Brisbane Magistrates Court yesterday." That was from The Advertiser, an Australian Newspaper.
See? Truth catches up with the worst things you can ever think of.
Back when I was writing these things, I would get up, drink coffee, sit at the keyboard in my underwear and smoke a bowl, and then allow either the funniest or the most horrifying (or both) stories come out of my head, through my fingers and onto the page.
Well, I’m in Portland, Oregon instead of Baltimore, Maryland. And I’m not broke. And I’m not lonely. I’m not roommates with a guy (I’m married now), and I burned myself out on these stories. But I am in my underwear, and I do have that same writing aid. Should I?
Nah.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
What Congress should really be asking Alito about
As usual, when discussing the merits of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., both liberals and conservatives are spending most of their time re-re-re debating the abortion issue and how he will or will not deal with it. They’re each missing several other issues, but one thing they’re both ignoring has folks of a certain age in Oregon holding their breaths, and it’s something that should concern everyone. It’s the Bush challenge to the Oregon Death With Dignity Law.
That law allows the terminally ill, after a rigorous process, to be prescribed a lethal dose of drugs (usually Nembutal) by a physician. The patient may then end his life when, where and in the company of whom he chooses.
The Oregon experience with that law has disproved all of the dire predictions that the (mostly religious-based) opponents made before the law was first enacted. I have interviewed many of the major opponents to the law and the only person to freely admit that his opposition was based on his faith was U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Oregon).
The law was passed by the Oregon Legislature and then by the voters in two ballot initiatives. The results of last vote in 1997 found Oregonians voting 666,275 to 445,830 to keep the law on the books.
It’s easy to talk academically, medically, theologically or philosophically about the issue, but when I think about it I see, in my mind’s eye, a bedroom in North Portland on May 3, 2003.
For my collaborator, Greg Bond and I, it was the end of shooting on a documentary we had been producing for twenty-three months, “Robert’s Story: Dying With Dignity.” It tells the story of the struggle of Robert Schwartz, fifty-two years old and terminally ill who had the medication, prescribed legally under the law. The struggle was with the decision when to end his life.
His family and friends gathered that day, and after a back porch communion service, Robert and his partner, his pastor, a representative from Compassion In Dying of Oregon, his mom and dad, brother and cousins participated his death in the most loving way possible.
I said my goodbyes, sat at his bedside and promised I would tell his story, and do right by him. After an anointing service, he drank the liquid Nembutal and went into a coma shortly thereafter, but not before his final act, which was to comfort his crying partner.
I think of the struggle he had trying to choose the right time. Of the two previous dates he had chosen, only to change his mind, because he wasn’t ready. He had more living to do, even in his weakened state. Robert had AIDS and many complications from it.
It was not a snap decision, as the opponents would like you to think. It was the most difficult decision he ever had to make.
Robert loved life, and he allowed us to video a hundred hours of it, in his weakest and strongest times. He gave up the ultimate privacy, his own death, so that others might learn how the Oregon law works.
The documentary is now complete and is in the marketing process.
This issue is not going away. Although it affects hundreds of millions more folks than the abortion issue ever will, it is much the same. The issue is simple, “I want people to have the right to self determination.” Robert told us. “I don’t mean just from their government but in every personal aspect of their life. As long as they are not hurting anybody physically or otherwise it shouldn’t make any difference to the guy next door.”
Isn’t that basic old-school conservative thinking?
When Judge Alito comes before the Senate Judciary Committee, will anyone ask him about his views on this issue, which is before the current court, and upon which his vote could be the difference? There are many terminally ill Oregonians and also those in other states (where the issue has yet to be decided) who are hoping for the peaceful option that we saw in Robert’s eyes.
This is also on huffingtonpost.com
That law allows the terminally ill, after a rigorous process, to be prescribed a lethal dose of drugs (usually Nembutal) by a physician. The patient may then end his life when, where and in the company of whom he chooses.
The Oregon experience with that law has disproved all of the dire predictions that the (mostly religious-based) opponents made before the law was first enacted. I have interviewed many of the major opponents to the law and the only person to freely admit that his opposition was based on his faith was U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Oregon).
The law was passed by the Oregon Legislature and then by the voters in two ballot initiatives. The results of last vote in 1997 found Oregonians voting 666,275 to 445,830 to keep the law on the books.
It’s easy to talk academically, medically, theologically or philosophically about the issue, but when I think about it I see, in my mind’s eye, a bedroom in North Portland on May 3, 2003.
For my collaborator, Greg Bond and I, it was the end of shooting on a documentary we had been producing for twenty-three months, “Robert’s Story: Dying With Dignity.” It tells the story of the struggle of Robert Schwartz, fifty-two years old and terminally ill who had the medication, prescribed legally under the law. The struggle was with the decision when to end his life.
His family and friends gathered that day, and after a back porch communion service, Robert and his partner, his pastor, a representative from Compassion In Dying of Oregon, his mom and dad, brother and cousins participated his death in the most loving way possible.
I said my goodbyes, sat at his bedside and promised I would tell his story, and do right by him. After an anointing service, he drank the liquid Nembutal and went into a coma shortly thereafter, but not before his final act, which was to comfort his crying partner.
I think of the struggle he had trying to choose the right time. Of the two previous dates he had chosen, only to change his mind, because he wasn’t ready. He had more living to do, even in his weakened state. Robert had AIDS and many complications from it.
It was not a snap decision, as the opponents would like you to think. It was the most difficult decision he ever had to make.
Robert loved life, and he allowed us to video a hundred hours of it, in his weakest and strongest times. He gave up the ultimate privacy, his own death, so that others might learn how the Oregon law works.
The documentary is now complete and is in the marketing process.
This issue is not going away. Although it affects hundreds of millions more folks than the abortion issue ever will, it is much the same. The issue is simple, “I want people to have the right to self determination.” Robert told us. “I don’t mean just from their government but in every personal aspect of their life. As long as they are not hurting anybody physically or otherwise it shouldn’t make any difference to the guy next door.”
Isn’t that basic old-school conservative thinking?
When Judge Alito comes before the Senate Judciary Committee, will anyone ask him about his views on this issue, which is before the current court, and upon which his vote could be the difference? There are many terminally ill Oregonians and also those in other states (where the issue has yet to be decided) who are hoping for the peaceful option that we saw in Robert’s eyes.
This is also on huffingtonpost.com
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
USA Today
There's a lovely piece on the book in Thursday (12/8)'s USA Today, by Deirdre Donahue
USA Today
And a special thanks to Random House publicist Karen Fink for landing it.
This will no doubt make or break this book. The response will most likely determine the next year of my creative life.
Or not.
Who the fuck knows?
While I'm doling out thank you's (or thank youse), I'd like to thank everybody who came to my reading at Powell's City of Books on Monday. I knew many of you. I loved signing for you. It warmed my heart.
USA Today
And a special thanks to Random House publicist Karen Fink for landing it.
This will no doubt make or break this book. The response will most likely determine the next year of my creative life.
Or not.
Who the fuck knows?
While I'm doling out thank you's (or thank youse), I'd like to thank everybody who came to my reading at Powell's City of Books on Monday. I knew many of you. I loved signing for you. It warmed my heart.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
This is also on www.huffingtonpost .com
When I was making up stories for one of the supermarket tabloids in the mid-1980s, little did I know that I was making up a template for others to follow, to use and prosper and with which take over America, however temporarily. This template has been used by many Republicans, by Rush Limbaugh, by Bill O’Reilly and his colleagues at Fox News, by foreign religious zealots and similar American Christian fanatics, by The Lincoln Group and of course many American newspapers who fail to check the accuracy of their reporters closely, if at all.
This template served me well as I wrote classics like “Rabid Nun Infects Entire Convent,” which happens to also be the title of a book I wrote on the subject of tabloid journalism. Ok, not capital “J” Journalism, but apparent journalism, let’s say.
Stories like “Grandma Turns Pet Dog Inside Out Looking for Lost Lottery Ticket,” “Woman Gets Pregnant, Has Baby Same Day,” and “Cult Uses Human Heads for Bowling Balls” all followed this simple template.
Here are the Rules:
First: Make up something false. It doesn’t matter how whacked-out it is, or how patently false to anyone with half-a-brain.
Second: Put it in a context that people are comfortable with. If it’s for a newspaper, write it so that it really really sounds like a newspaper story, with quotes, even. Make it sound like you have multiple sources, even though you’re pulling out of your butt.
The same goes for TV. It’s always best to have a distinguished-looking person read it, or a forceful one. Or one who shouts a lot and of whom people will be afraid not to believe upon penalty of being bitten. He (or a bleach-blonde she) doesn’t have to actually be an actual journalist at all. A good way to go is to find someone who has recently been a journalist, come from another network, and can provide sufficient credibility when he or she delivers the lies that you have pulled from your butt.
Third: Tell the story a lot. Play the story over and over if it’s for TV. The more you play it, the more people will believe it. Find a way to re-write that lie repeatedly if it’s for print. The average attention span of those inclined to swallow your lie is approximately seven seconds, and his frame of reference is tends to be in the last-fifteen-minutes range.
The big lie, told often, becomes truth after a while. I think Machiavelli said that, or Stalin. Rove, maybe? It might have been Nick Tosches.
Fourth: Pander to the worst in people. Work their fears, their ignorance and perverse pleasures. A worst-case scenario always worked for me. Predicting a worst-case scenario has worked for politicians since antiquity, be it Mongol hordes or mushroom clouds on the horizon.
Fifth: Quote somebody whom others do not know, or will never check. Hardly anybody checks anything. It’s better to jump on board the bus and run with an outrageous story. Some editors will just let things slide. Other editors or news directors have instructions from on high.
Sixth: Make them feel a very big emotion. Get their blood boiling. Make them cry. My stories “Clown Ghosts Save Dying Boy,” and “Dead Daughter Leaves Message of Love on Daddy’s VCR,” are examples that can never fail to bring tears to those easily fooled.
Gross them out. My stories “Man Sells Bodies from Chemical Disaster to Starving Ethiopians as Meat for Prepared Meals,” and “Bandit Steals False Teeth from the Mouths of Elderly Victims,” are prime examples of this technique. The ability to tell a story in a way that makes the audience react emotionally will keep you employed.
Seventh: Whenever possible, get somebody not connected with your organization to deliver your lie. Pay them well to plant stories, or to give opinions supporting your lies. Pay newspapers cash to run stories you’ve made up.
Eighth: Under no circumstances admit you were wrong or that your butt comprises your two independent sources. When someone comes at you with the real facts, call them names. Impugn their patriotism. Imply that they’re mentally ill. Divert all attention from your story. Make them the story. Make yourself the story. Do anything to avoid the truth.
Not all of these rules applied to the tabloid stories I wrote, but they are good rules and true. If you follow them closely, you too can become the next Stephen Glass and get serious backend money on the movie. You could get Random House to pay to make a book out of your lies, as I did.
Or you could get some fool elected president and start a war.
It’s easy.
This template served me well as I wrote classics like “Rabid Nun Infects Entire Convent,” which happens to also be the title of a book I wrote on the subject of tabloid journalism. Ok, not capital “J” Journalism, but apparent journalism, let’s say.
Stories like “Grandma Turns Pet Dog Inside Out Looking for Lost Lottery Ticket,” “Woman Gets Pregnant, Has Baby Same Day,” and “Cult Uses Human Heads for Bowling Balls” all followed this simple template.
Here are the Rules:
First: Make up something false. It doesn’t matter how whacked-out it is, or how patently false to anyone with half-a-brain.
Second: Put it in a context that people are comfortable with. If it’s for a newspaper, write it so that it really really sounds like a newspaper story, with quotes, even. Make it sound like you have multiple sources, even though you’re pulling out of your butt.
The same goes for TV. It’s always best to have a distinguished-looking person read it, or a forceful one. Or one who shouts a lot and of whom people will be afraid not to believe upon penalty of being bitten. He (or a bleach-blonde she) doesn’t have to actually be an actual journalist at all. A good way to go is to find someone who has recently been a journalist, come from another network, and can provide sufficient credibility when he or she delivers the lies that you have pulled from your butt.
Third: Tell the story a lot. Play the story over and over if it’s for TV. The more you play it, the more people will believe it. Find a way to re-write that lie repeatedly if it’s for print. The average attention span of those inclined to swallow your lie is approximately seven seconds, and his frame of reference is tends to be in the last-fifteen-minutes range.
The big lie, told often, becomes truth after a while. I think Machiavelli said that, or Stalin. Rove, maybe? It might have been Nick Tosches.
Fourth: Pander to the worst in people. Work their fears, their ignorance and perverse pleasures. A worst-case scenario always worked for me. Predicting a worst-case scenario has worked for politicians since antiquity, be it Mongol hordes or mushroom clouds on the horizon.
Fifth: Quote somebody whom others do not know, or will never check. Hardly anybody checks anything. It’s better to jump on board the bus and run with an outrageous story. Some editors will just let things slide. Other editors or news directors have instructions from on high.
Sixth: Make them feel a very big emotion. Get their blood boiling. Make them cry. My stories “Clown Ghosts Save Dying Boy,” and “Dead Daughter Leaves Message of Love on Daddy’s VCR,” are examples that can never fail to bring tears to those easily fooled.
Gross them out. My stories “Man Sells Bodies from Chemical Disaster to Starving Ethiopians as Meat for Prepared Meals,” and “Bandit Steals False Teeth from the Mouths of Elderly Victims,” are prime examples of this technique. The ability to tell a story in a way that makes the audience react emotionally will keep you employed.
Seventh: Whenever possible, get somebody not connected with your organization to deliver your lie. Pay them well to plant stories, or to give opinions supporting your lies. Pay newspapers cash to run stories you’ve made up.
Eighth: Under no circumstances admit you were wrong or that your butt comprises your two independent sources. When someone comes at you with the real facts, call them names. Impugn their patriotism. Imply that they’re mentally ill. Divert all attention from your story. Make them the story. Make yourself the story. Do anything to avoid the truth.
Not all of these rules applied to the tabloid stories I wrote, but they are good rules and true. If you follow them closely, you too can become the next Stephen Glass and get serious backend money on the movie. You could get Random House to pay to make a book out of your lies, as I did.
Or you could get some fool elected president and start a war.
It’s easy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
