I’d like to start this one by stating that my first rant, which was a commentary on Larry Ellison’s speech made to the graduating class of 2000 at some Ivy League school, was all in vain. The speech never took place. It was a hoax – as so many of the loyal Goofball following were quick to point out.
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I guess that’s beauty of the Internet. False information is quickly dispelled and hoaxes uncovered due to the vast amount of facts available to the average person with the ability to use a decent search engine. | 
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The Net conversely provides an avenue for an untold number of con artists to run their various scams – usually involving sex or money.
There were the classic hoaxes I’m sure most of you remember: Spider eggs in Bubble Yum chewing gum, the kid "Mikey" from the Life Cereal commercials ingesting soda and Pop Rocks and having his stomach explode, Rod Stewart having to have his stomach pumped in a hospital since it was too full of semen. All ridiculous, but I’m sure there’s a few of you who were taken in by these.
But why is it that we are taken in by hoaxes? Are we gullible by nature? When I was a little kid, my Mom told me that we of Irish descent had green blood. Now had I seen the episode of Star Trek (where we all learned that Mr. Spock’s blood was green since it was copper based and the blood of humans was red since it was iron based), I’d have never fell for my Mom’s cruel lie. But I hadn’t and I lost a bet to another kid over it. I still want my Mom to pay me that quarter back to this day.
When I grew a little older and was in the seventh grade, I started dating my first true girlfriend. I really liked her and told her just how I felt. She told me so too, but over time I could tell she had the upper hand in the relationship. I kind of realized this fact one night when I was weeping loudly and banging furiously on her front door, only to have her open the door and fire every item I ever saved my allowance to buy her at me. We made up and she even said "yes" when I asked her to the grade school prom. Three days prior to the prom she told me "sorry" and that she was going with the new kid whose father was a diplomat and was springing for a limo, leaving me to scramble at the last minute and ask the girl with the pointy front tooth. The point is the relationship was all a big hoax and I desperately wanted to believe it.
When I was sixteen I pulled a hoax on my parents after coming home from the nightshift at McDonald’s. I went into my room and then climbed out my bedroom window, ran around the corner, to jump in the waiting car of a guy I worked with so we could make the 18 mile trip into "the city" (Manhattan) to buy fake IDs. We drove in, parked the car, walked to 42nd Street (when it used to be a Mecca for Filth), and met some guy on the street very willing to assist us. He took our names and all of our pertinent information and $40 and said to "wait right here" while he went and had them made up for us. He was going to throw in some free switch-blades in the deal too. Of course he was gone. When we went to leave, the guy I was with played a hoax on me by pretending to have an IQ. He had no idea where he parked his car. We walked around feeling like the jackasses that we were for hours before we found it. On the way home, he drove twenty miles past our exit and woke me up to ask me where we were. When I got home and was climbing back in the window, my parents were both sleeping in my bed waiting for me. My mother’s hoax the next day was let me sleep late just enough to be slightly late for school, booting me out of the house with bed-head that morning. An hour’s detention standing up with your arms out like a bird was what we Catholic High School boys got for being a little late to class.
But I’m glad that I was taken in by all of these hoaxes. I learned important lessons. All women I met after the first were given my hoax – the "I could care less about anything" attitude, as opposed to being honest that I was really interested. It’s a shame it had to be that way, but it worked perfectly all the time that I was single. Anyone I don’t know who ever calls me on the phone now gets treated like the guy on 42nd Street who ran away with our money. And basically, this is valid, since anyone who is calling you to sell you anything over the phone will tell you just about anything (i.e. lying) to do so. It goes even further too. In any of my business dealings, I start by thinking everyone is out to bend me over the fence and work from there in terms of trusting them. And forget politics. All politicians are mammoth liars and I’m proud to say I’m not registered to vote and can’t see that I ever will.
So now I’m cynical. I'm jaded. And I’m from New York, so I trust no one. So why is it that I was so willing to believe that Larry Ellison made this speech? I truly think that it is because the speech was so outrageous and that actually believing it was real made it so much more enjoyable to me. It seems our desire as humans for what is pleasing to us clouds our judgment of what reality is far too often. Secretly, I think we all love a good hoax.
So is it better to be a skeptic your whole life or a trusting soul who tries to see good in everyone and occasionally takes one in the keyster? You tell me ...
