Monday, August 25, 2003
FUSCATIONS
Patricia mentioned to me a month or so ago that she and Bobby had been thinking it would be fun to see how well we knew each other by sharing our stories and fibs, and seeing if we could tell when the others were lying. Over a few weeks this turned into something rather larger, and I just wanted to thank everyone who posted obfuscatory stuff over the past weekend - I’ve enjoyed the hell out of reading so much excellent and believeable mendacity, and visiting so many old friends, new friends, and total strangers. This became an experiment in mass action, with hundreds of connections interlaced among us liars and our friends over the course of a weekend. Huzzah for us.
So let’s see where Chuckles can be trusted.
As of Monday morning I’ve had 25 posted guesses: 10 for #1, 10 for #2, and 5 for #3. Chuckles is well amused.
#1. Fame was on network television when that meant something, in the heart of the 80s. I was a theater geek so the national recognition of my little neurosis was most welcome, but I never saw hotties dancing around the hallways and utility spaces of my school like they apparently did in New York on a daily if not hourly basis. After high school, however, I did work for an independent producer at Lorimar studios and he did take me on a tour of the studio and I did see the Fame dancers rehearsing and was asked to explain myself and I just couldn’t or wouldn’t or for some unfathomable reason just simply didn’t. Not matter how you slice it, I came up peanuts. That one happened.
#2. Elk are enormous animals. Yes, bison and moose are larger, but that hardly makes a difference when the shadow of an elk blots out your sun. We have never been back to that part of the peninsula to see the elk again, but that one time was pretty memorable. In fact, about 7 years ago we did see a wild herd and watched their competitions and got the attention of the main elk, who hustled us on out of his crib quite persuasively. It was one of the most impressive things ever to take specific notice of me, and it scared the hell out of all of us. This one happened too.
#3. Lloyd’s Lake is at the north edge of Golden Gate park, and represents about a 20 minute walk from my front door. Emptying into Lloyd’s Lake is a long artificial stream, which runs quietly along JFK drive. Just before the lake, by dint of some very creative work with grades and levels, the stream is directed along a very slightly downhill path while the road drops much more sharply. By playing with the angles, they make the water run uphill, as best the eye can tell, to a little waterfall that cascades into the lake, terminating in a foam of mallards and widgeons. Great stuff. That’s where Andy’s then-girlfriend Heidi was when she saw the cops cutting a corpse down from a tree, a vagrant who’d used “police - crime scene” tape, ironically enough, to make a noose. The lake is lovely in a sad, possibly haunted victorian sort of way - lost, verging on getting choked, but the reflections of the egrets in the green water give me an emotional jolt every time. And that spooky doorway with no door, where a house thrived and then was incinerated… the things those columns saw… from the Towne family’s triumphs to the dangling corpse of a lost soul next to a stagnant pond. Yeah, this one happened to - but not to me. The falsie is number three.
So about 20% of you saw through my obfuscation: Kim, Jeremy, CW, MissBliss, and Doghaus. I’m particularly impressed because I don’t think some of these visionaries make the ‘hut a regular habit - but maybe that helped you see through the murk of my storytelling. Thanks, all of you, for playing. Now clean up the area around your seat, dispose of garbage in the appropriate recepticles, and don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. I’m kidding - there is no door. Gotcha.
