Pants on Fire

There are times when I wonder if I should have been a detective or attorney.   I have a good analytical mind and can piece things together pretty well.  I can also pick out inconsistencies in a story pretty quickly.   I guess being a writer and an improviser helps because you have to create stories out of thin air and make them plausible.  So when I see a movie or TV show and the plot points are sloppy – I get pissed.  For instance, if the premise of Once Upon a Time is that no one can enter or leave the town of Storybrooke if they are not part of the cursed world that the queen has banished them all too - then how are they getting food, clothing, gas and other amenities?   Do the truckers who haul that stuff to the city have a special immunity to go in and out?   That’s a pretty significant premise to not at least address in one of the shows (for the record I’m hooked on that show but that doesn’t mean that I give them a pass on details that don’t match up).   Making sure that you have your facts straight is key to being a good story teller – it helps to keep you honest.   When people decide not to be honest and to flat out lie, things start to unravel.  Those stories can turn into liabilities pretty quickly. 

There are several layers of lies that people tell for various reasons.   There are the little white lies that you might tell when someone asks something like: “Do you like my new hair color?”   Since the hair dye is cast  - what is the point of telling that person that it looks like a red fire ball exploded on their head.   A simple smile and a “That’s very interesting – what were you going for there?”  will get you out of telling the truth while not exactly lying.  “Do these jeans make my butt look big?” might be better answered  with “How do they make you feel?”  or “What do you love about them?”   Then there are the tall tales – the exploits of fishing, hunting or great sports acumen that didn’t really happen as the person telling you experienced them but they’re spinning a good yarn, so you let them go with it.  For instance, the one about the 20 pound grouper that was caught but that wiggled off the side of the boat before they could get a picture of it.  Then there's that morning run that went longer and faster than any recent runs, braking any past personal best or the bucks that were fighting in the forest who stopped and ran away when you played “Hopeless Place” on your iPhone because even they could tell that Rianna song was lame.   Those little white lies can spare feelings.   Those tall tales don’t really hurt anyone so they’re really rather harmless. 

It's the other kind of lies - the ones that are told to get out of things, to lead someone on, to further your own agenda, that can can spin wildly out of control.   It can all start innocently enough in childhood when your mother asks you to clean your room and you promise you will.  When she asks,  you tell her you did as you rush out the door to play with your friends.   Then, she actually checks and finds that you shoved all the mess under the bed.  When you come home, you hear about it and get punished.  More than likely, you didn't have a good time playing because you knew you would get it when you got home.   Lying made you feel paranoid, unhappy and worst of all, it let someone you love down.   You'd think most people would learn to stop lying the first few times they feel crappy or have the feeling that they would be found out but some people became immune to that guilt. 

When my improv group holds try outs, I'll usually get about  8 to 10 people who want to come out to audition.  Some of them even friend me on Facebook.  I accept the requests because it gives me a chance to see what sort of stuff they post (hey, it's not snooping if they ASK ME to be their FB friend).   One night, I had an actress use the "family emergency" excuse.   She said that she had to be at the hospital with her family.    The night of auditions finished with a few promising new performers and I went home to check my e-mails and my Facebook page.   The top status update on the feed was from the actress who had the "family emergency."  It turns out her status was that she was bored watching "Dancing with the Stars" with no mention of the being at the hospital.  When she called me later to reschedule, I asked how her family was doing.   She seemed confused and then tried to cover by saying everything was fine now.   I mentioned her post on Facebook which came up on my feed.   Sensing that she had been found out - she took the defensive.  "Oh my God, are you like cyber stalking me?"    She quickly hung up and never called back.   I was actually grateful that I found out before I had even gotten a chance to cast her - it saved me a whole lot of headaches down the road.   

Another time, my improv group had to perform a show with another comedy group the same night because of a booking error.  After that show, I called the woman running the theater to confirm some additional dates.  I was told that she had just received an angry e-mail about the improv show and that it had been sent to the city council and the mayor.   Because of this e-mail she was canceling our shows.  I asked if I could see the e-mail and she replied that it was too angry for me or the other group to see.  I had a friend on the city council and asked her if she had seen it - she replied that she never got it.   When I brought this up - I was met with defensiveness that the e-mail had been written a while ago so they might not have remembered it.   "I thought you said that you just got it,"  I pointed out.   "Uh, the date on it was right after the show because it was so specific but maybe the person waited to send it to me," she said stumbling to keep her facts straight.  "I was going to try to help you out but now it doesn't matter," she fumed and hung up.   Interestingly enough, her group's musical would be ending the weekend before ours - so if she wanted to extend it another week - us not playing there would make the extension a lot easier.   It was at that time that we decided to do the web show which was very successful and got over 225,000 views in nine months.   The theater company that canceled our shows, well - they are not in business anymore.    A little karmic justice goes along way. 

Now it's not that all theater people are dishonest   - but I would think that people who work in the realm of creating fantasy would do a better job of lying - it shouldn't be so easy to pick apart.   One part of me is pulling for them and wants to yell - "C'mon - if you're going to lie to me- dammit - do a much better job of it!  I could run a freight train through the holes in your story."    So as a writer, I would like to offer some pointers on how to lie more effectively.   It's not easy and it takes a lot of thought, planning and a terrific memory but if you work really hard at it you might find it way easier than telling the truth and dealing with the consequences of your actions.

Five Simple Rules for Liars:

1.   Always make the other person doubt themselves if they begin to suspect that you are lying.  Planting self doubt is the best way to make another person question themselves rather than you.  For instance:   When Newt Gingrich's infidelity came up during a debate,  he made it seem like it was not a proper question to ask a political candidate and used media bias as an excuse for his persecution rather than to choosing to answer the question.  It was as if  he was saying that the liberal media made him wrongly appear unfaithful even though it's well documented that he was.  Now that's a master stroke of dishonesty.   Well played Mr. Speaker - no wonder you'll get the Republican nomination!

2.  Paint yourself as something you're not and then spin the story so many times it just might become fact.   Remember the story of the Balloon Boy - whose "eccentric" inventor father Richard Heene claimed that his son Falcon was in the basket of a silver mushroom balloon that he built?  The nation was glued to the TV as the wayward balloon floated over Colorado and finally came down only to find out that the little boy safely "hiding" in the family's attic.   The parents seemed relived that their little guy was safe and sound at home.  After a media storm of interviews, some of the details started to fall apart and little Falcon let it slip that his father told him to hide there.  The whole thing was a hoax.    The parents got into a world of trouble, went to jail and had to pay a $44,000 fine for the time that law enforcement spent trying to find the little tyke.   Another mini lesson to be learned is never trust a small child to keep lying for you.  Their attention span is just not that good - they'll get tired and accidentally tell the truth. 

3. They were mentally incapable of knowing the truth - you did them a favor.   This one is especially good if you are really pushed up against a wall and are trying to justify something really bad that you did - like order that a Marine get killed on Guantanamo Bay to maintain order.   It's especially important to become very angry, stand up, point and yell: "The truth, the truth -- you can't handle the truth."  People will become intimidated and definitely back off - it worked out really well for Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men. 

4.  Do something bad, deny it and get as many people as possible to cover it up -  This tactic worked well for President Nixon after he authorized the break-in to the Democratic National Committee's offices at the Watergate hotel in 1972.   There was hardly any fallout and it was good that President Nixon taped his conversations so that people knew that he was totally innocent.   Even better, he said that  "I can say categorically that... no one in the White House staff, no one in this Administration, presently employed, was involved in this very bizarre incident."   That seemed to satisfy Congress who didn't feel the need to investigate any further and the President was able to serve out the rest of his term - those tapes really helped clear him of any wrong doing!

5.  Play fast and loose with definitions to deflect blame  -  First have an affair with a White House intern, but don't actually have sexual intercourse so technically it's not an affair but do all sorts of stuff that your wife would probably not want  you to do with another woman.   Remember when asked if you had an affair to say in a very angry and direct manner - "I did not have sexual relations with that women."  Just make sure that they define sexual relations only as intercourse - then you're in the clear - President Clinton certainly was.   If possible get any blue dresses that might have incriminating residue.  

So you see if two Presidents were able to get away with it, you can too.  No one found out and they were not impeached.  Oh, crap who am I kidding - they didn't get away with a damn thing and it all came crashing down in flames around them.  I guess it's true - honesty is the best policy and it's also way less emotionally and spiritually exhausting.  With the truth, you just don't have to make up so many details that can be picked apart later.    That's why it's always important to strive to be honest.   Oh, by the way - those jeans make your butt look amazing!

Parenthood and the Freedom of Speech

A few years ago, I was standing around with a group of parents at our church watching our children on swing on the monkey bars.   A young dad-to-be came over with his pregnant wife and started talking politics --  spouting about how the President and Congress were all losers, that the system was pretty corrupt and they were all crooks.   He still was raging against the machine when my daughter Amber came over and asked me she if she could get a cookie in the kitchen.   After she left, another dad pulled almost dad aside and explained that he needed to watch the "People in Power Suck" stuff.  Once his daughter was here, she would need to learn to respect adults that have authority in their life such as teachers and coaches.   This man looked at the group of us and said, "So once you become a parent you lose your freedom of speech?"

The rest of us looked at each other, laughed and said, yes - when you become a parent,  you do lose that part of the Bill of Rights around your kids.   We went onto explain the other rights that parents lose: the right to sleep in late on weekends;  the right to go out whenever you want to; the right to watch the late night talk shows; the right to watch movies that are not animated and the right to curse like a sailor when your little one is in the back seat and a truck has just cut you off from the exit lane.   Yeah, those good old fashioned human rights. 

Parents make a lot of sacrifices - eating the burnt toast at breakfast, waiting until your next paycheck to buy those new shoes because your child needs money for their field trip, etc.  Probably the biggest one is giving up the freedom of speech particularly when talking about other adults when those little ears are around.    I learned this when I was teaching acting in an after school program.   I was getting ready to start the class when a little boy named Conner started to talk about how Bill Clinton was ruining this country and that he was a lousy human being.   Conner was a first grader and I doubt that he came to that political viewpoint on his own (last I heard in first graders are still trying to figure out shapes and colors, not the dynamics of a two party system or the moral leanings of the Commander-in-Chief).   Conner was parroting what he heard from his parents.  Not surprisingly - he was also one of the kids that had the most trouble taking direction from adults.   Why should he show respect to a bunch of educators when his parents didn't show respect for the office of the President of the United States?  Amber was four at the time and I was pregnant with Daniel and from that time on I resolved not to speak badly of other adults in front of my children.  If Max and I had to talk about President Bush - the code name was "Commander Banana Cookoo."  If the kids over heard us talking and asked who Commander Banana Cookoo was we'd just say that he was a character on cartoon that adults had to watch.   When we were with other adults and there were no children around -- then it was cool to let the political river flow. 

I realized that I must have done something right when Amber was eight and the 2004 election was in full swing.  She asked me if I was voting for George Bush.  I had to think very carefully since as a liberal the last four years had been challenging to say the least and the idea of another four years of Bush made me feel as warm as an ice water enema.  I knew that if I couldn't say something nice and said nothing at all - it would invite more questions from my curious eight year old.  I took a breath and said that he is always is dressed neatly and that I'm sure that he loves his mother very much -- but that it was time for someone else to have a turn at being president.   She seemed satisfied with that as I tucked her into bed.    I told the truth without being disrespectful to the highest office in the land and faced four more years of intestinal fortitude.  

Now that Amber and Daniel are older and becoming more aware of the world,  I'm more likely to answer them directly if they have a political question like:  "Are people who disagree with President Obama racist?"   "No,"   I respond, "It's okay to disagree with the president - everyone does at one point or another and that's what makes our country great, you can respectfully disagree."    Sometimes it's hard to explain the personal attacks that pundits on both sides of the isle lob at each other like Molotov cocktails.  You have politicians walking out of meetings with other leaders when they don't get their own way.  How can we use them as examples for our own children to learn how to share and compromise when the people running our country seem incapable of it?   We can't ask more out of our children then we expect of our leaders.  

I'm sure that our founding fathers were not immune to the urge to talk smack about each other but hopefully out of the earshot of their children.  Imagine George Washington giving a speech at Constitution Hall and introducing Thomas Jefferson only to have his nine year old yell out - "Thomas Jefferson, that guy is a crazy ass wipe and a total douche bag!"  (insert awkward silence and  cut to Ben Franklin shaking his head).  My point is that you can't expect children to keep those comments private and they will more than likely be blurted out at the worst possible moment.   

So for new parents that might be lamenting the loss of some of their basic human rights - here are some of the rights you get in exchange for the ones you lose:  the right to break out into silly songs that makes you infant or toddler laugh;  the right to blow a tummy tuba right after a bath;  the right to enjoy the holidays through a child's eyes; the right to show your child how to skate, catch a fish or ride a bike for the first time; the right to dress up for a princess tea party and finally wear that feather boa you bought for Halloween; the right to raid your child's Halloween bag for that last Snickers; the right to get up early on Saturday morning, watch cartoons with them and eat Rice Krispies; and the right to share the best parts of your childhood.     This Bill of Rights might be different then what our Founding Fathers might have envisioned -- but my guess is that even Ben Franklin's dad had to show his kid how to fly a kite.