3 Falsehoods, 1 Truth

That miserable bastard of a Yankees fan, Knucklehead, has given me an award and tasked me with the odious duty of completing a meme. Here are the rules:

Write seven things about yourself, one of which is true. The other six shall be outrageous lies. Everybody gets to guess, in the comments section, which one is the truthful statement. Afterward, pass the award along, not unlike a virulent disease. Once everybody in the world has done the meme, Jesus will return and we can all go to Heaven, except for the person who originated the idea of these things, who can go straight to Hell.

Here is the award:



By now, you should all know how I feel about blog awards. I consider them the Internet equivalent of a case of the clap. When you receive it, you feel pretty good, but later on, you realize how little pleasure you got in exchange for the pain. Here's how I usually deal with the things:

Canuck Gives Me An Award, Eh?

Awards Of Smiley Brown Sugar Cinnamon Boobage

Three Awards, A Meme, And A Fondue

Another Frickin' Award

And so on.

The reason I'm not barbecuing Knucklehead is because he is not only a Yankees fan, he is also a Lakers fan, and I'm saving up all possible good karma for when MY WIFE and I attend game three of The NBA Finals tomorrow night. If the Celtics actually win this thing, that will be punishment enough for his despicable purple-and-gold pinstriped ass.

Now, as to the rules, my lies are so damned good I only need three of them. Here they are, plus the one requisite factual happening. Feel free to leave a comment wherein you guess which one is Paul Pierce.

(Hah! That's a sports joke! See, Pierce's nickname is "The Truth", and... OK, yeah, I know. Just take a guess and quit complaining.)

ONE - When I was younger, I had bright orange hair on my head. The hair on my body, though, was always more blond in color. Being blondish, it was not as visible as darker hair would have been. I noticed, in photographs of myself in a bathing suit or similar attire, that it looked as though I had no body hair whatsoever.


I felt that, in fact, I had a decent amount of the stuff (whatever that means) so one day I decided to dye my body hair black, just to see if I really was as hairy as I thought I might be.

I went to the store, bought some black hair dye (Clairol #35, for those keeping score) and applied it to my chest, arms, legs, and... other places. You know what? I was as hairy as I thought. Also - D'Oh! - I realized that the stuff wouldn't just rinse out. In order to not look like a total freakazoid for the next month or so, with dark black hair on my arms and bright orange hair on my head, I either had to shave my arms, which would have defeated much of the psychological purpose of my having done the experiment in the first place, or shave my head (even with my general lack of hair on top these days, I've still never quite had the guts to do that), or wear long sleeves, or explain to everybody what a stupid and silly thing I'd done (which I was much less willing to do then than now, obviously.) I went with the long sleeves (which sucked because it was late summer.)

I wish to hell I had taken some photos. It would have been a hoot to run them now.

TWO - I once shared a beer with Ronald Reagan.

Reagan was visiting Boston, and his entourage came through Dorchester. On February 9th, 1983, much to everyone's surprise, the President dropped in for a beer at the Eire Pub. Lots of photos were snapped, etc., and it made the national news.

I was there having a beer with my buddy, Munch, when in come all these guys in black suits and shades. I was carrying a little herbal something in my jeans pocket at the time, so that sort of action didn't do my heart any favors. Anyway, they were (of course) Secret Service, scoping the joint before the President walked in. When he did, I had a hard time believing it was actually him. I wondered if perhaps Munch had slipped some acid into my beer when I wasn't looking.

Reagan walked around a bit, then bellied up to the bar. He ordered a beer while the traveling press entourage snapped photos and such. Munch and I tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible, but Ronnie would have none of that. He was "The Great Communicator", after all, and he was hell-bent on communicating with some 'regular joes'. And you know what? He wasn't as overblown an asswipe as most politicians with whom I've come into contact. He seemed to care, at the least. I don't know how personable he would have remained if I had pulled a joint out of my pocket and suggested he come out in the alley with Munch and myself to toke up, but it was about as relaxed as I've ever been with pit bull-like government security guys ready to pull the trigger as soon as I made the first wrong move.

And Ronnie paid our tab, too. Gotta like that. Except, now that I think of it, my beers that day were probably paid for by the American taxpayer, so I guess I owe some of you one. Next time you see me in a bar, remind me.

THREE – My first girlfriend had no toes.

Well, I shouldn’t say she had no toes at all. She had these little bitty balls of... I can’t really tell you for sure. While she was my girlfriend, we never quite got to the stage of intimacy where I would have given her a foot rub or engaged in any other sort of physical stuff that would have afforded me an actual examination of her pseudo-toes. But, right at the ends of her feet, where her toes should have been, were these little blobs of skin, or maybe skin-covered bone. It sounds worse than it was, maybe. On her, it looked right because she was entirely unselfconscious about her lack.

I admired that. She just didn’t give a damn that she had no toes. As a matter of fact, Eileen (which I always found to be an ironic name – I lean) ran track on her high school team. I don’t know how well she ran it; I never went to one of her meets. Maybe her school was afraid of a lawsuit if they kept her off of the track team just because she had NO TOES.

Anyway, her lack of pedal phalanges didn’t bother me. I was more interested in other parts of her, being a horny teenager and all. And she was fun, had a decent sense of humor, and wasn’t a bad looker aside from her feet being somewhat incomplete. Alas, just as I never got far enough with her to find out just what her tiny little non-toes were composed of, I also never got the slightest feel of the other bits. For all I know, she made up for the lack of toes by having nipples the size of doorknobs.

And not much else to tell you about this. She had no toes. Yup.

FOUR – When I was 9 years old, I appeared on a local television show called Youth On Parade. The reason I was on the show was because I played a musical instrument. The musical instrument was the flutophone.

Yeah, I know. You’ve probably never heard of the flutophone and you think I’m making this up. Nope. In the Boston public school system of the 1960’s (possibly before and after, too) every student was required to learn the flutophone. It was a simple woodwind, similar to a recorder or wood flute, and had a bell on the end like a clarinet. The fingering was simple do-re-mi stuff. Parents were soaked something like $5 to buy the thing. I think that was the reason everybody had to learn the thing, not because the schools figured it was something useful for the kids to know. They probably bought the damn things for 35 cents from some Taiwanese factory and flutaphone sales paid for a big year-end teachers blowout or something.

Anyway, our flutophone class at the Gilbert Stuart, for some unknown reason, was chosen to appear on Youth On Parade, a Saturday afternoon talent show on WHDH-TV. We were transported by bus to the studios on Morrissey Boulevard, and we went on the air at 5:45 pm, playing Good Night, Ladies.

(The only two songs we ever learned were Mary Had A Little Lamb and Good Night, Ladies, which are very similar. As a matter of fact, the second half of Good Night, Ladies is an EXACT rip of Mary Had A Little Lamb.)

We were supposed to sway in time to the music, left – right – left – right with the beat, except some of us started left and some of us started right, so as the show aired we looked like a bunch of miniature drunks as we banged into each other’s shoulders. The TV lights were hot as hell, too, so we were all sweating bullets in our suits and ties. It was the 1960’s, remember, so they made all of us wear white shirts, red ties, and blue suit jackets, except for the girls. They wore white dresses with red sashes. We were the world’s most spastic American flag.

OK, you still don’t believe there was such a thing as a flutophone. Well, Doubting Thomas (or Thomasina) here you go.



That’s a flutophone.

Now you have to decide which one of the four things I've told you is a true story.

Oh, I almost forgot! I’m supposed to pass along the silly award and the odious task. Well, here’s what I’m going to do. If you guess correctly, you DON’T have to do it. However, if you guess incorrectly...

BWAH-HAH-HAH!

No, not really. If I left it at that, only the insane among you would actually hazard a guess, and I want everybody to take a shot. So, if you want to do the meme, feel free. It IS a good one, and I had fun coming up with the lies. However, I won’t stick you with it if you don't want to do it. And, as a bonus, if you guess correctly, you can proudly display the following award on your blog:



So, what do you think? Which one of the four is the truth? I’ll reveal the answer...

Soon, with more better stuff.