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Friday, March 29, 2002

Fake Bios

On a totally separate topic, today I ran across Laura Ingraham's web site for her radio show. I don't want to get ranty, especially about one of the Eva Gabors of political punditry ("WHY is she famous again?"), so I won't. But one thing about her site was really annoying: her fake bio.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a huge fan of fake bios. I've written a lot of 'em, like this or this or these).

But boy, Ingraham's fake bio is just lousy. Because it reads like a wish list, instead of something funny or interesting or fresh.

She completed high school in Connecticut at age 13, and at 15 became the first person to ever win gold medals in both the winter and summer Olympics. After graduating at the top of her class at Dartmouth one year later, she decided to take time off to write her memoirs for which she won the Pulitzer in 1985. Miss Ingraham, recruited by various intelligence branches of the government, eventually signed on with the CIA, rising to the position of Director of the Agency's Middle East operations. Later Miss Ingraham returned to academics at Oxford University, where she received a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. At age 26, she became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Prize in Biology for her work in isolating the key proteins involved in the breakdown of nerve cells in degenerative diseases.

I mean, that's just dull. Second rate. For someone who can twist a fact until it screams for mommy in the service of her views, you'd think she'd have a little more supple imagination about something besides the Gay and Lesbian Organization at Dartmouth and Bill Clinton's blowjobs.

Crap, that was getting close to rant land. Sorry.

Full disclosure: the fake bio idea is one I swiped from Harlan Ellison, though I'm sure it's been around for longer than that.

Here's one from Ellison, from his collection The Essential Ellison:

Born in Jaipur, in the Indian province of northeast Rajasthan, HARLAN ELLISON is the son of a man who flew "Over the Hump" to BUrma with Chennault's Flying Tigers just prior to WWII. Ellison, the air wing's mascot, spoke only Hindu and Urdu till the age of thirteen. Himself wounded twice in the battles of Provo and Needles, Ellison has been confined to a wheelchair since 1961l from his home in Erewhon, Colorado he has, since 1970, produced seventeen full-lenth epic poems of 50,000 words each. His favorite foods are curried monkey brains scooped steaming from the trepanned skull, and french fries, very crisp."

And here's probably my favorite fake bio of Neil Gaiman's from the whole passel of fake bios he did for the trade paperback collection "The Sandman: Season of Mists":

Neil Gaiman, writer: To set certain popular misconceptions to rest once and for all:

1) He was not found wandering the sewers of London as a child during the winter of 1864, unable to say anything more than "Powerful big rats, gentlemen."
2) He was never exhibited in public houses to the curious, only briefly in July, 1865, to selected gentlemen of standing in the scientific and literary community.
3) He did not have a vestigial tail.
4) He did indeed have what most people would commonly understand as “eyes.”
5) He was not actually the pilot of the Zeppelin, although he did disappear for good following the explosion.
6) There is quite obviously no “underground kingdom beneath London inhabited by huge, intelligent rodents.” And even if there were, any suggestion of Neil's involvement in the mazy territorial negotiations between Londons Above and Below can be considered a joke, and in poor taste at that.
7) He was afraid of neither mirrors nor street conjurers.
8) There were no tooth marks on the bones.

Just lovely. 8 short stories, for your pleasure. The trade paperback also has excellent Nadar*-style photos of the contributors. The fantastic graphic design (usually by Dave McKean, I think) of the Sandman trade paperbacks is one of their finest, and possibly most overlooked, qualities.

* Nadar (Felix Tournachon) was a bohemian who took up the photography in 1850s Paris. He made portraits of people like Baudelaire, Dumas, Berlioz, Sarah Bernhardt, Theophile Gautier, and others.

Posted by Morgan at 1:36 AM
Edited on: Friday, March 29, 2002 1:38 AM
Categories: Arts, Errata, Profiles