Housecoat Diaries

I love storytelling, and I’ve been known to enjoy writing fiction. It’s fun to let the old imagination run wild every now and then. Hell, I’ve certainly put as many words in Beethoven’s mouth as the next guy — maybe a few more — but this right here is my diary and when I tell a story about myself, you better believe it’s true. Take this one, for instance:
   
I once had the record for the highest score on The New Liars Club, an NBC game show. I won a trip to the West Edmonton Mall, where I rendezvoused with my delightful but perpetually on the road blues-singer girlfriend, and we shared an Arabian room at the Fantasyland Hotel — an odd and pleasurable interlude in a life already littered with oddness and pleasure.
   
It was a hassle collecting that prize, though, let me tell you. You know when they say "airfare and accommodation for two?" They actually mean "accommodation for two but airfare for one, and the other person can just figure it out for themselves." Jackie Swanson in Vancouver just about had a fit when I asked her if they were planning to throw a hooker into the prize package. And then I had to get on the horn and go over Vicki Pazoola in Los Angeles’ head to get the hotel date I wanted. Vicki told me if I tried calling the hotel myself, my prize would be automatically forfeited. I called. And got my date. We sent them the bill. And I kept a housecoat. A nice one. White terrycloth.
   
The game-show people never liked me from the start, anyway. I think they knew I was lying when I told them I was a law student. Fred Willard liked me, though. Even if I was a bit smug. And that woman from In The Heat of the Night — I betcha I could’ve gotten her over to the Fantasyland for a threesome if she’d been in Edmonton that spring.
   
Of course, if that had happened, I wouldn’t be able to tell the story because no one would believe me. Like that time that I got from Winnipeg to London, England, for $40. Or when we discovered the bizarre town of Asilah, Morocco, where they’ve been waiting patiently each August — holding all the hotel rooms, no less — for 20 years in hopes that Bob Dylan will come and give a concert there just because Ravi Shankar said he would. Or the night that I got caught in the middle of an L.A. gun battle. Nobody believes that shit, so what’s the point of even talking about it?
   
Sometimes, the problem with having had a lot of wild experiences is that they’re so wild, you can hardly believe them yourself. Life becomes a funny little dream in which anything can and does happen if you let it, if you follow your imagination and learn to trust it.
   
Everything starts from fiction. If you can believe it, you can do it. But there’s no bullshitting allowed in bringing fantasy to life. It ain’t just believing, it’s unhesitatingly, absolutely rock-confident knowing. You can’t doubt it for a second. And then it’s the truth. Nothing but.
   
An expanded version of the preceding column can be found in John Scoles’ new book, Housecoat Diaries: You Can’t Love Philosophy Unless You Don’t.