Welcome To Bluff Week!
Posted on February 28, 2009
Filed Under Articles, Flashbacks, Staff | 4 Comments
By Mark Rosewater
Special to The Magic Lampoon
Hi, and welcome to Bluff Week!
The theme for this week is bluffing. What better way to celebrate the week than with a little bluffing of my own? I’ve come up with four memories from my own life. I’ve also thrown in one bogus one just for fun. Your job is to separate the truth from the bluff.
———-
When I was in high school, I was a bit of a joiner. At one point, this crazy girl who sat behind me in class somehow talked me into joining her wacky club.
This girl was always obsessing about aliens, or people with psychic powers, and all kinds of goofy things like that. She formed this club, which basically consisted of various misfits and loners in school, and twisted my arm until I joined it.
The thing is, looking back on it now, I really don’t know why I didn’t just ignore her. She was always getting me to do crazy things, and now that I’m a little older, I realize that there was absolutely no reason whatsoever for me to ever have listened to her. At all. It made. No. Sense.
What I should have done is said, “Hey, you’re a weirdo, and there’s no reason under the sun for me to be paying any attention to you and the goofy crap that you pull. At all. Go away, before you get the beating of the week.”
Fortunately, I’m older now.
———-
After I graduated from high school, I decided to take a trip. I was actually very despondent over the passing away of a few close family members.
Feeling an overwhelming need to get away from everyone and everything I knew, I traveled to Tibet. I spent some time in jail there for stealing, but I was eventually released. I traveled further into the mountains. There, I came upon a remote monastery in which a great warrior taught me the dark secrets of the ninja.
Because of him, I learned how to use fear against my enemies. I learned to manipulate the fears of others by mastering my own.
I would take this knowledge and search the shadows. I would join the writing staff of “Rosanne,” and I would create the greatest Magic: The Gathering cards the world had ever seen — by mastering fear.
———-
Returning to the United States, I decided that the time was right to enter college. I attended a relatively small but well-known local university.
There, I joined a fraternity. While we weren’t recognized as the most prestigious fraternity on campus, I would say that we had the most fun. Too much, probably — still in my pledge year, the dean of the college put our entire frat house on “double secret probation.” Between the accidental death of another fraternity’s horse and the seducing of the dean’s wife by one of our members, we engaged in all sorts of wacky, madcap antics.
Because of our low grades and constant partying and pranks, we were kicked off campus.
However, we would have our revenge. We put together an armored parade float and crashed the local Main Street parade, nearly destroying the town in a day I will never forget.
———-
After leaving school, I decided to try to begin my comedy career by moving to New York. I didn’t have a lot of money, so I ended up living in a rather tough neighborhood.
It wasn’t too long before I was basically railroaded into joining the local gang. It was either that or remain a perennial victim. We were good — real good. We had a heavy rep.
After I had been in the gang a while, rumors circulated about a man who would unify all the gangs. The only close to concrete thing that anyone could say about him was — a whole lotta magic. One night, our gang went to the other side of the city to go hear him speak along with a hundred other gangs.
Well, some idiot actually shot him. The ones who did it blamed us, and everyone became convinced that we were the ones at fault.
We had no choice but to bop our way all the way back to our turf. Along the way we had to waste gang after gang.
Fortunately, the city’s toughest gang realized that we weren’t the ones who shot that guy, and most of us came out alive.
———-
Well, I had had enough of the gang violence. I decided then to move to a much better part of town and get back on the comedy track.
I actually started doing stand-up, and things were really looking up. I got a new girlfriend — our relationship didn’t last a long time, but we remained good friends after it was over.
I made some other friends, too, including a neurotic and slightly overweight buddy who bounced from job to job, and my bizarre across-the-hall neighbor who had all sorts of strange habits.
The four of us got into all sorts of crazy misunderstandings, most of them involving our callous insensitivity toward others.
The funny thing is, although we knew one another for years, it seems like most of those years were really about nothing. Nothing at all.
———-
One of the above stories is a complete lie. However, the other four stories are the absolute golden truth! I swear. Can you guess which one is the bluff?
- Feb. 16, 2007
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4 Responses to “Welcome To Bluff Week!”
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The last one is a lie; Mark Rosewater is way too short to be Jerry Seinfeld.
What’s the first one? The best I could think of was either X-Files or The Craft.
I’m… Honestly, I’m pretty sure the first one is The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzamiya, which is weird since it’s an anime? Maybe Maro’s into that? I dunno, but it’s… It’s almost exactly the plot to the show. I mean, I guess the main character’s mis-characterized here as being “a bit of a joiner” but still… Weird.
So, Batman, Sienfield, Sin City (i think that was the name, the only other gang movies i know the name of are Godfather and Gangs of New York. and those dont match)
Im calling b-s on all 5.