Memos from Quarantine #40: No Foolin'

Trust me; no one else will say this to you today:

 I just got done reading Giraffes on Horseback Salad, a graphic adaptation of a Salvador Dali movie script for an unproduced Marx Brothers film. Let that sink in.

So, amidst the surreality, I came across a courtroom scene in which a defense witness takes offense at a comment by the Groucho character. “You find it offensive. I find it amusing,” he says. “That’s why someone like me will always be happier than someone like you.”

 I’d recommend the book if I could understand it, but meanwhile it got me thinking about April 1 – April Fools’ Day. This used to be my Christmas. But that was back in the days before misinformation and disinformation, when it was easier to be amused and harder to be offended - or misled.

 Come back with me a few years. I’d say 30 years, but that would be dating myself, and you know how I hate stepping out alone. But I was a newspaper editor then, and I had a playful dark side that came out to play exactly once a year.

 Every April 1.

 That’s when I would enlist my staff to create fake news stories, which we’d paste up onto a fake front page, use it as the first page of our second section (we never actually replaced the real front page) … and then see what mischief we could make.

 It started at a weekly newspaper in New England. We’d label it “Special April 1 Edition” … but someone would always get fooled. Usually a lot of someones.

 And that’s because the stories were almost believable. Like, the city council and school board – which always were at odds over budgets and how “much of the pie” the schools should get – I had them teaming up for a bake sale, but bickering over how the proceeds should be divided. Literally, how much of the pie should the schools get?

 Or in a town that was famous for its miles of retail outlet malls, where the locals always bitched about “mall sprawl,” we had a story about developers building malls on top of malls. Even faked a photo. It was fun stuff, and the more sophisticated readers really enjoyed it. The less sophisticated readers … well, we enjoyed their reactions.

 Eventually, I migrated west to a small desert community to take over a daily newspaper. I brought my mischief with me, and I’m lucky to be here to recount the tale today.

 Understand: This was a small agricultural community that promoted itself for three things: Clean air, pure water … and its annual duck races. Literally, they built a week-long festival around racing ducks in pens and betting on the winners. There would be games, parties, a carnival atmosphere – it was the community’s biggest annual event, and truly it was a lot of fun. There were billboards on the highways for miles outside the city, depicting a cartoon duck and celebrating “Clean Air, Pure Water, Fast Ducks.”

 You see where this is headed, right?

 My April 1 came. I’d been the newspaper editor for three undistinguished months, and this was my moment. I got the staff to put together a “Not Necessarily …” fake front page, and I personally wrote the lead story about legal action against the Duck Race. My premise: The Disney Company’s attorneys spotted the billboards, thought the cartoon duck looked a little too close to their own famous fowl, and ordered the city to cease and desist. No more ducks. So, city officials were scrambling for a quick replacement. Pig scrambles were nixed because of the Three Little Pigs. Mice were out for obvious reasons. What could the city do?

 I left the story open-ended, thought “ha, ha” and that would be the end of it.

 Then the newspaper hit the streets, and immediately the phone calls began. I heard from irate readers, from the chamber of commerce. From the mayor. Citizens were ready to take action – to convene a special town meeting if necessary. I even got a call from one reader who greeted me with “I just got off the phone with Disney’s legal office in California …”

 With every one of them, I said: “Do you have the newspaper in front of you? Look up in the top left corner. What does it say?” Then they’d see “April 1 edition,” and we’d all enjoy a good laugh.

 Except for the woman who’d called Disney’s lawyers. At first, she screamed and hung up on me, even though I offered to reimburse her expensive call to Disney. But then she called right back, apologized and said “Don’t worry about reimbursing me. Would you please just forget my name and that I ever called?”

 Years later, I may not be remembered in this city as an award-winning journalist. Few recall my Veterans Day address or how the newspaper thrived as a business during my short tenure. But I guarantee I’m remembered for the ducks.

 So, happy April 1. Be creative, be kind, and be mindful: In the age of social media, the line between misinformation and fun is perilously thin. What one finds amusing, another finds offensive, and yet another finds oddly inspiring. Let’s be careful out there.