Pantalones en Fuego

I was still in San Diego, working for GEICO insurance. A few months before, the Cameron Crowe film "Almost Famous" had come out. I saw it in the theater - it was one of my birthday movies. I have this annual tradition where, on my birthday, I take the day off and spend it in the theater, seeing a minimum of three movies, sometimes four. This particular year, "Famous" was one of them, and I completely fell in love with it. Sadly, I was in the minority. It didn't do great box office. I think the whole concept confused people - it was set in the mid-70s, an era that popular culture doesn't realize existed. To them, and to much of the public, because of this, American history skipped right from hippies to disco. The arena rock era of music has been erased for lack of popularity. For me, someone who started on music early and remembers music like Frampton, Seger and the Allman Brothers, this was a hell of a treat, and a nice flashback. Though the music was secondary to the great story, fantastic characters and signature Crowe movie magic.

It had just come out on DVD, and I hadn't gotten my copy yet. I happened to bump into a co-worker, who knew of my interest in the film. He let me know that he'd already gotten his copy. And, he pointed out proudly, he'd gotten the director's cut. What?! I had read nothing about there being a director's cut! I'd have killed for one! Again, with pride, he stated that there was one, that it said "director's cut" right on the box, and, his his words, there were some "really nice extra scenes with all those ladies". His voice became purposefully sleazy when he added this tidbit.

Back at my desk, I got on the phone. I was going to head right to Target after work and get my director's cut of my beloved film, and couldn't wait to get home and check it out. The doofus (affirmative action has required chains like Target to hire a large sampling of the doofus community to meet the doofus quota) was confused, used the word "Uh..." repeatedly (if you speak Doofus, you know that this word has several meanings in their language, kind of like a Hawaiian thing), put me on hold several times, and came back and told me he could find nothing but the standard version they carried. Maybe Target just wasn't stocking the special edition. Or, maybe he was just a doofus. Either way, I didn't feel like wasting a trip to Target to find out.

I left work and stopped at Blockbuster on the way home. There, in the window, was the "Almost Famous" poster. I headed in, and they had copies for sale. But no director's cut. I asked the guy behind the counter about it. He, too, spoke fluent Doofus. He got into his computer, scratching his head (a common doofus non-verbal affectation) and said he could find no listing of a director's cut. I insisted to him that it existed - after all, I knew someone who had a copy. This ended up going nowhere, and led to him looking at me like the wheelchair I was in probably meant I had mental limitations as well, so I called it quits on that before he started asking me if there was someone I could call to come pick me up.

I headed home and hit the internet. Amazon. Google. Every vendor that I could find that sold movies. DVD release news as well. Nowhere was there any mention of a director's cut of the film. And it was during this long search that it finally dawned on me.

My friend had lied.

And he had. While there would eventually be a director's cut (the "Bootleg Edition", which I bought the day it was released, and one I hear is now out of print), there was none that day. I sat there, confused and increasingly annoyed. Why would this guy have told me that there was one? And not just that, but that he had it, and he gave me specific details about it? Why would he send me on this really frustrating fool's errand on the basis of a blatant, verifiable lie?

I suppose it wasn't the first time I'd experienced this personality type before, but it was the first time it was connected to something important to me, and affected my life, in its own small way. The world is filled with people who tell tall tales, exaggerate details, and even make up events to make themselves appears cooler, or more interesting, or more attractive to another person. But this usually involved things like tales of hookups with girls from the Niagara Falls area that there's no way to trace. How could someone be so thick as to pull something like this and not know that they were going to get found out?

Well, MY personality type being what it is, I didn't confront him about it, but did stop hanging around with him after that. I've got no time in my life for people who would purposely mislead me for their own sociopathic, self-serving reasons. Trust is something important in any relationship, no matter how casual. And if you violate that trust, then you've broken an unspoken contact, and the consequences are that the deal is off. Friends don't tell friends that director's cuts of cool-ass movies exist when they in fact do not. Made me kind of sad for the guy, though. It made me wonder how many other instances like this there have been in his life, and how his apparent desperation to make himself more appealing to potential friends has likely left few friends in his life. The fabled self-fulfilling prophecy.

I hope he eventually got a clue and took the leap of faith on the idea that people, believe it or not, can sometimes accept you just the way you are.