#47 - The Anti-Jack Webb

The Anti-Jack Webb

11/22/04 (#47)

"Just the facts, ma'am." Four words that secured Jack Webb's place in the pop culture lexicon. He was a busy man, and while he pretended to edit the witness soliloquies under the guise of good police work (separating facts from "impressions"), we all know the truth -- left to their own devices, most people will prattle on like they're trying to win an exhaling contest. Imagine how much pointless drivel the average policeman has to hear in a single day -- "I wasn't home during the robbery, but I suspect my neighbor did it because I always smell spicy food wafting from his house, and you know how foreigners are: first they take your job, next thing you know you find them clipping the lilacs from your tree, claiming it was okay because they were hanging over their yard." It's no wonder he wanted just the facts -- it was his only weapon against a migraine.

Me, I am the opposite. I don't want the facts at all. I want lies. And not just white lies; I want whoppers, complete fabrications. I want people to boldly go where no liar has gone before.

Now I agree with Jack in one regard: if you aren't going to lie, make the truth as short as possible. If I ask you how your cat is doing and you hear yourself mentioning that your cousin who lives in Colorado used to work for UPS but the benefits weren't good so he moved to Arizona to open a vegetarian restaurant, know that I am only pretending to listen. What I am really doing is wondering if my friends in the auto industry can sabotage your car in such a way that your Buick will crash and the only damage will be your broken jaw, and if so, what excuse can I use to get you behind the wheel immediately? It's a common misconception that people like stories; what they like is GOOD stories, and a good story is told in response to questions such as, "Is it true your plane was hijacked over Austria?" or "How close behind you was the guy who won the bronze medal?" A good story is NEVER told in response to, "What time is the meeting?" or "Nice haircut." (Unless, of course, it was cut by a hijacker over Austria.)

Bad stories have no embellishment, they are merely factual elongations, opportunities for passive-aggressive retribution for a childhood spent hearing the phrase, "Be quiet." Your cousin might be a real cousin, and UPS might offer skimpy benefits, but outside of mathematical calculations, keep your facts to yourself.

I think there is altogether too much truth in this world. Outside of politics, people seem almost pathological in their honesty -- ask them the score of the game, they report it with ESPN-like accuracy; ask for the time, people will actually research their answer with a glance to their wrist; ask what a particular word means, and...well, that one is hit or miss, but I don't think that's because of proactive lying.

Have you ever seen the machine used to make taffy? It's an ingenious device that takes a lump of semi-soft sugar and by means of rotating paddles and levers stretches the product over and over again, wrapping it back on itself, repeating this process for hours. By this process, barely edible globs of sugar are miraculously converted into barely edible strings of taffy. I think the truth should be put through this same machine. For instance:

Question: "Damn, it sure is chilly out there, isn't it?"

Probable answer: "It sure is." (Jack Webb would love it.)

Unacceptable answer: "Not as cold as it is in Bozeman. I had an uncle who worked at a pig farm and he used to have to sleep with the piglets to keep them warm, and once in 1987..."(insert pointless, seemingly eternal monologue here.)

Preferred answer: "Yeah, and it's going to stay that way because American corporations have developed a weather machine, and when productivity is low they crank down the ambient temperature in order to keep their employees from walking down to Starbuck's for coffee."

Would that be so hard? Quick, concise, and completely fabricated. Who wouldn't enjoy that more than either the truth or the extendo-truth? In fact, if possible, you should try to make it even more preposterous:

Question: "Is this free range chicken?"

Probable answer: "Um, I'm not sure. Let me ask the cook."

Unacceptable answer: "When I was little I had a stuffed chicken doll -- I called her Chickie -- and one day the neighbor's dog, this was before they moved to Nebraska, which turned out to be a bad move for them because the mom met a guy at their new church who owned a button store -- it seriously sold nothing but buttons -- and he was..." (go out for coffee, drink slowly, and this answer might be over when you get back.)

Preferred answer: "Free range? These things are downright nomadic. Each year this company lets about 100,000 chicks free into the wild, then a year later they send out a few dozen guys to round them up. The thing is, the chickens grow up street-smart, not like those dumb-ass chickens in the chicken coop, and find really clever hiding places like petting zoos and wax museums. (You didn't think those wax museum chickens were real, did you?) So, out of that 100,000, they only find about six dozen or so, and that's why they're so expensive."

See? You were excited by that wax museum diversion, weren't you? Lies are so much more interesting than truth. Plus, you don't have to remember them--if you tell a lie that contradicts another lie, whose law is that breaking? When asked to explain yourself, you can just say, "Well, I was lying. Both times. The truth is..." and proceed to tell another lie.

Most important, don't be timid about your lies. Heck, You can lie to me about things I know to be true, and I will still embrace the lie. I may not add it to my internal encyclopedia of knowledge, but if it's far fetched enough, I just might. For instance:

Question: "Wasn't Billy Preston called the fifth Beatle?"

Probable answer: "Yes, though he was never an actual member."

Unacceptable answer: "My mother had a chance to see The Beatles in 1966 but her train was late. In those days, trains were rarely on time because the technology of building track was still rudimentary..." (Carefully sneak away, leave the building, fall in love, get married, have a child, raise the child to say, "Wow, really?", cut the child's hair like yours, sneak back, and place the child in your place -- story will just about be coming to an end by this time.)(Though I should stress, this isn't a nice thing to do to your child.)

Preferred answer: "Member? Don't be naive---Billy Preston WAS The Beatles. John and George and company were a record company artifice created as a front for Preston's phenomenal talent, knowing as they did that a black man could never get a Top Ten hit in America during those turbulent times. Instead, they hired these British blokes to pretend to be the Beatles (since, as Brits, no one in America could say, "Hey, I went to school with that bass player -- he's not a singer!"), hired a bunch of girls to scream so loudly that you couldn't actually hear the band when they played live, and let Preston do all of the recording. Listen to the mediocre solo careers -- it's clear that none of them were the brains behind the operation."

Now not only is this a great lie, but it gets bonus points because it contains within itself even more lies: In fact, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Diana Ross and many more African Americans had enjoyed chart-topping hits by the time Preston was recording with the Beatles. The omission of this information gives the lie a delicious conspiratorial tone, and the irrelevant inclusion of the screaming fans lends an air of credible possibility -- you know it's a good lie if, despite stretching incredulity further than even the finest taffy maker would dare, you can actually make someone think, "Hmmmm, I never thought of it in that light." (This is a good model for the amateur liar; feel free to use it on anyone except me. After all, for me, it wouldn't be a lie -- I have already accepted it as truth -- and as wordy as it is, it would be one of those extendo-truths, and as I said, those stories immediately make think about car crashes.)

So there it is. If we're talking and you hear me say, "look, be honest", I'm lying. Please return the courtesy.

©2004 wpreagan