"Stolen Valor" and my pretend life

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A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday it’s a free speech privilege for posers to wear fraudulent military medals. The case was brought to court under the Stolen Valor Act that in 2013 aimed to outlaw non-serving scoundrels from profiting from pretend military heroism.

So the ruling, in effect, will lead to men who falsely claim to have been maimed in service getting truly maimed by enraged men who actually did.

It says something about the degree of respect I have for our veterans that I’ve never once pretended to be one of them.

Because throughout my life I’ve been a great pretender.

And why pretend you are a Purple Heart-earning dogface when you can pretend you are some gaudily decorated Generalissimo from some banana republic nation no one’s ever heard of?

Think of the fun. You could dress in some elaborate uniform, get a hat with feathers, toy sword, head down to the local VFW and say you love America and want to defect.

At the very least, you’d get a good free drunk out of it.

I swear I’m going to do it one of these days.

My inspiration for this is one of the legendary stories I’d heard from when I did swashbuckling features for National Enquirer. This one happened back in the 1980s at the height of Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union.

One of the brainstorming editors wondered what would happen if they dressed up an undercover reporter as a Russian general, dropped him off at the Pentagon, and told him to see how deep he could get by just bluffing.

I remember hearing General Vodkov got pretty far before getting arrested.

Another inspirational one involved the time they wanted to see what happened if they dressed some hapless reporter up as an elaborately made-up alien and set him loose on some hick town Main Street out west.

It was during the summer of “E.T.” and movie goers were expressing warm fuzzies for assorted green creatures from outer space.

This reporter didn’t get arrested. Instead, he nearly got shot.

“Oh, he wasn’t there 10 minutes before three dudes with shotguns got him on the ground,” an editor explained. “He ripped his mask off and started screaming, ‘It’s a joke! It’s a joke!’ It was hilarious.”

I’ve always wondered how the editor would have written the story if the poor disposable bastard had been shot down by the Earthlings.

I for various Enquirer stories have pretended I was a flower delivery boy to get into Tammy Wynette’s hospital room; pretended I was hired to deliver a singing gorilla gram to learn the location of  TV personality John Tesh’s hotel room; pretended my invitation to Julia Roberts’s birthday party was legit; and in 1994 pretended I was in dire need of rehab to gain admittance to the clinic where Courtney Love was being treated for her addictions.

In 1994, that last one really wasn’t much of a stretch.

And, oh, the countless times I pretended I was a real reporter.

Do you ever pretend you know exactly who or what someone is talking about in the hopes your brain will catch up before the person you’re talking to realizes you’re a vapid idiot?

I do that probably three times every day before lunch.

Growing up, I used to pretend I had a tummy ache to get out of going to school. Now I pretend I’m not hungover the morning after I swore to my wife I wouldn’t get too drunk the night before.

I pretend I never grasp the soulful poignancy when Pete Townshend in “Slit Skirts” from 1985 sings, “Can’t pretend that growin’ older never hurts.”

So, no, I’m far too busy pretending I’m other things to pretend I’m a decorated veteran.

And now I’m done.

Watch me spend the rest of the day pretending by it’s been productive.

Related . . .

Long live National Enquirer!

My night with Julia Roberts

My Enquirer ethics

What happened when I spent 72 hours handcuffed to Val

My career advice: Don’t be like me!

A convivial man stricken with "beer sickness"

I had to explain what a hangover was to Josie on Saturday and I felt marginally proud that I’ve been able to conceal them from her for eight years.

During those eight years I’ve had hundreds of punishing bouts with that self-inflicted misery. I used to think that one day the hangover would be nothing but a nasty memory for me, that I’d mature or stagnate to a point where I didn’t feel like staying out too late, laughing too loud or drinking too much.

It’s hasn’t happened yet and it doesn’t look like it’s ever going to.

I’m among the last of the relentless and unapologetically convivial people on the planet. Rare is the day or night that I don’t want to spend at least a portion of my time sipping beers or bourbons and yapping about the events of the day with jolly friends or alert strangers.

“The only reason I write stories is because nobody will pay me to lean against a bar and mumble them.” That’s what the great Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote and it’s something I’ve always embraced.

Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and many of our greatest American writers were robust drinkers, too. Of course, the only thing I have in common with those historically accomplished giants is a fondness for cigars and spirits, but to the I.R.S. we’re all lumped in together as “writers” so the association, however diminishing it is to them, must stand.

Writing is a lonely business. You’re all by yourself. There’s no team. No cubicle chatter. No chummy camaraderie.

But to be a writer you need access to lively people and stories. And you get that at most any neighborhood tavern. The one I go to -- the one that’s strategically located directly below my office -- is a stew of mill workers, cops, tradesmen, lawyers, accountants, heroic veterans, Republicans, Democrats and a motley mix of deadbeats, racists and incoherent drunks who’ll test the skills of even the most polished debater.

So I like to go there for what you could call for professional reasons. Bar time provides a cerebral sort of mingling I couldn’t get if I worked above, say, a coffee shop or a place that sells shoes. Of course, there is the collateral risk that once in a while I wind up drunk, all in the line of duty.

That’s what happened Friday night on a day that started with an ambition-squashing afternoon of televised October baseball. It’s very difficult for any normally convivial person to stay up in his or her office when many of his or her buddies are downstairs quaffing beer and watching playoff baseball.

And it’s way too difficult for someone like me.

So, there I was at 4 p.m. drinking my first beer and philosophically closing the books on another work week of subpar productivity.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Val and I had planned to meet friends -- convivial folks all -- at a local restaurant. I followed the afternoon beers with cocktail bourbon, followed that with cabernet and followed that with still more Tennessee whiskey.

Had I found room for a splash or two of Ouzo or some other cordial, I’d have hit the liquid equivalent of all four major food groups.

And if you’ve ever been a convivial person, you know what happened Saturday morning. It was a hangover or as Val explained to Josie, “Daddy has the beer sickness.”

Josie jumped back as if she thought “beer sickness” could jump from me to her. So I told her all about the convivial person’s curse known as the hangover.

“Is it catchy?” she asked.

I told her no, but I’m really not so sure. I know there are many days when I wake up with beer sickness that many of my convivial buddies wake up suffering from the same symptoms. Who knows? Maybe it is contagious.

“Will you ever get another one?” she asked.

I ran through in my head the remaining schedule for the baseball playoffs. “Probably next Thursday morning,” I said.

I am, after all, a convivial person, one who is conscientious about his professional conduct.