Truesday: You Can Check My Facts. But Please Don't.

That is to say, it will not affect how I view a story I’ve read/heard if I find out it was pulled from deep within the writer’s ass. Unless the story is about ME, or someone I care about, I probably view it as potentially full of shit anyhow. The only question I ask myself is whether or not the story did anything for me. Did it stir my loins? Did I piss myself at any point while reading the thing? Did I get enough utility from bothering with it to make up for what I spent?

Sorry. That’s the economist in me peeking out.

If the story does whatever the hell I want it to do, then its degree of provable authenticity will not change anything for me. Again, I’m a skeptic, so I assume all memoirs I read to have been heavily edited and embellished. Take the following passages from my memo-brain for example. One true, one false.

1) I ran into a girl I made out with, back in high school, at a Houston mall this past Christmas. Awkward. The one time we made out was when we were both high, at my friend’s house on some random weekend. It was of the heavy-petting variety, and I was excited to try and play a girl’s fiddle for the first time, even though I was a little numb from the herb. I was extremely nervous during the whole ordeal but did my best to seem experienced. Like a real pro, I fingered her butt for what-felt-like-an-hour before she claimed to have an orgasm (which made me proud), and then I stopped. To save my pride or something. We never made out again. I lived another two years thinking that women shit from their vaginas. Sad.

2) At South by Southwest last year, I got so staggering drunk that when I wandered into a parking garage to take a piss, and stepped in what was obviously liquid and malodorous human feces, I mistakenly decided that the best solution would be to pee it off my own shoe. In front of strangers who were hanging out by their car nearby. And then I exited the garage with my dick (but not my balls) still hanging out of my pants and a goodly amount of human shit still pasted to my foot. I still own the shoes, as I love them too much to burn them. Sad.

There is no point in telling which story is which. Because the point is that it does not matter. One story will likely “speak” to more people, as it has a more universal appeal to common experience, as evidenced by the general population’s preference for somewhat humorous, but definitely self-deprecating first-person descriptions of awkward events. The other is about fingering a girl’s butt.

If that does little to make my case, then gaze upon the following.

1) I opened the box of Cheerios and carefully poured them into a bowl and ate them while I watched reruns of All In the Family. That meat-head cracks me the fuck up.

2) I opened the box of Cheerios and carefully poured them into a bowl and ate them while I watched reruns of All In the Family. I like to mainline balsamic vinegar when my dealer is out of town. That meat-head cracks me the fuck up.

The stories either appeal to you, or they do not. They’re written in essentially the same style, and have the same basic point. If you would get more from one over the other by a label of “fiction” or “non-fiction”, then I believe you’re fooling yourself into an unhealthy dependency on someone you’ve never met to be honest with you about whether or not a ridiculous story actually occurred the exact way they claim (or you interpret, either way).

Oh, and just in case it has caused you to wonder about your entire existence, politicians lie too. There is no Santa Claus. “Low Fat” does not equal “Healthy For You”. And this entire column is but a mere third photocopy of my personal honesty. For all you know.