"The Real 'Fake News'"

Written from a plane.  Please excuse the bumpy typing.

It had happened before.

They had announced for a certainty that the Santa Monica Pier would be collapsing that night.  The stuff holding it up wasn’t doing it anymore.  As a result,

The Santa Monica Pier would be imminently crashing into the sea.

I had a special feeling for the Santa Monica Pier.  When I turned 35, I celebrated my birthday on that pier.  Invited guests, issued individual rolls of quarters, played at the Arcade, returning to our nearby condo later for ice cream and cake.  (I was starting to feel old and I wanted to “party” like I was 8.)

The “Opening Titles” for my series Family Man were shot on the Santa Monica Pier.  (Maybe not the “Happiest Place on Earth” but surely the happiest place in Santa Monica,)

More recently, at my eager suggestion, Anna and Colby staged their wedding “Rehearsal Dinner” at the carousel on the Santa Monica Pier, the carousel serving as “location” for various movies, most significantly The Sting.

Putting it simply,

I loved that pier!

And now – uh-oh, I feel a pun coming on – the renowned Santa Monica Beach would soon be

… pierless.

(I am so ashamed.  And it’s not even a good pun.)

That evening – after every station in town said this was definitely happening – I solemnly step out of my house and walk down to the beach.

To say goodbye to the pier.

The place is packed with “Remote News Trucks”, both local and national.  Reporters with microphones are deployed at scrupulous intervals, so the camera can shoot them without including their competitors. 

Some stations cover the “impending disaster” wall-to-wall.  Others periodically break into the shows.  It was like the New Year’s Eve countdown at Times Square.

“Twelve minutes till the end of the pier.”

“Nine minutes till the end of the pier.”

“Take a last look, folks.   This pier’s going ‘Kaboom!’”

There was a small gathering around.  Kindred spirits, like in Close Encounters.  No words were exchanged.  We just all felt the same.  It was the end of an era.

And then, of course,

Nothing at all happened.

Not totally “at all.”  A piece of the end of it broke off.  But folks, after some new buttressing infrastructure, that pier remains standing today.  (I would show you a picture of it but I am writing on a plane and I do not know how to do Internet on a plane.  I’m afraid I didn’t do “Airplane Mode” right on my phone.)

No one ever apologized, for causing unneeded concern or for wasting our time. There was no,

“Though we did not make it up, we may have exaggerated the jeopardy.  We now return you to your regular programming.  Which may, in fact, be Jeopardy.”

They do this frequently on the news.

And recently – big time –

They did it again.

July 4-5, 2019 – the Ridgecrest Earthquake.  

Centered 122 miles from Los Angeles.  We felt a definite “rolling”, but I was nothing like the heart-stopping jolt of the Northridge Earthquake of ’92.  Not to diminish it.  It was an actual earthquake.  A 7.1.  Which is big.  Though the ultimate consequences, thankfully, were not.

So here’s what happened.

After taking stock at home and finding no one was damaged – though my collection of hats did fall of the hat rack – I switch on a local news outlet, to get the report.

Onscreen, we are told by the studio “Anchor”, is an “On-Site Reporter”, broadcasting from the precise epicenter of the tremor.  She stands outside, microphone in hand, next to the cook from a restaurant pictured behind them, who, as sympathetically requested, is providing his “Eye Witness” account of his experience.

The cook appears calm, and somewhat bemused.  He saw the restaurant chandeliers swaying, stuff fell off the counter.  But there were no injuries.  And the damage was minimal.

The anchor immediately jumps, trolling for “Juicy Bits.”

“You are at the precise epicenter of this disaster.  Tell us in your own words (which doesn’t make sense), how does it feel to have been so close to a terrible earthquake?”

At this point, the “Remote Reporter” sheepishly jumps in.

“We are not actually in Ridgecrest; we are in San Marino.”  (A location considerably guilty closer to the news studio that is is to the epicenter.  (The producers had apparently cut to her by mistake.  And that’s giving then the benefit of the doubt!  Or her.  “Come to me!  I’m there!”  And then later felt guilty remorse.) 

The broadcast “On-Site Report” was more than a hundred miles from the heart of the earthquake.  The interviewed cook had experienced the “rolling.”  But, to the virtually same extent, so had I.)

Man!

This was “The Santa Monica  Pier” all over again!

Nonsense News.

For fun and profit.

No wonder I almost only watch westerns.

When Matt Dillon fake shoots someone,

The guy’s actually fake shot!