“A Guy I Know Once Told Me…”

The Internet’s rife with urban rumors. (Because, after all, the Internet isn’t just the information superhighway; it’s also the bullsh!t highway. The highway doesn’t care what sort of traffic it carries as long as every bit of it pays the proper toll.)

But this post isn’t about Internet-based urban legends. It’s about offline word-of-mouth urban legends.

I suspect I’m not alone in my certainty that many of these have influenced my understanding of the universe, of people, of life. And I may have lots of company, too, in having no idea what portion of it might actually be true, as opposed to simply fun, convenient, or dangerous — and little intention (or time) to check it all out.

In the rest of this post I thought I’d try a little experiment. What follows are three urban legends, two “true” (in the sense that “a guy I know once really DID tell me”), and one made up just for this post. Furthermore, I won’t tell you which are the real ones and which, the impostor.

(One interesting possibility: that someone, somewhere, will (a) find this post via a search on a keyword which figures prominently in the bogus urban legend, (b) do a “find” within the post itself, looking for the keyword and hence skipping over all this background, and eventually (c) spread the false rumor as his/her own bit of “a guy once told me” folklore. Ah, posterity…)

Here goes:

The Difficulty of Not Falling Over

A guy I know — one of the smartest guys I know, in fact — once told me something interesting about the human body: it’s not built for standing erect. What makes it work is that the brain and the inner ear are constantly assessing our sense of balance as we stand, and making minute corrections first this way, then that, and oh yeah over this way here, too, over and over. Which is to day: we’re always falling over.

(And eventually, when the brain and/or inner ear give out, we DO fall over — just as surely as if the leg muscles themselves had failed.)

One implication of this (he went on) is that sculptors cannot model free-standing human forms accurately. They must either anchor the feet somehow, or exaggerate the size of the feet — make them longer and broader — or adjust the pose to a non-standing one, or a combination of the above, just to keep their work standing.

Statues being notorious for lacking, y’know, inner ears and brain.

The NYC Subway System Music Hall

When I was still living in New Jersey, I had a friend who’d grown up in Brooklyn, NY, and also had lived in the Bronx and out on Long Island. As a result, he’d spent a lot of time riding the subway systems and probably knew as much about them as anyone did.

He said there’s a stop out at the end of one of the lines, beyond the point that passengers believe to be “the last stop” but before the maintenance area. When some highway was built overhead, at the surface, they had to close the station there even though the facilities are intact — dim lights, tiled walls, turnstiles, and token-sales booth (or whatever it’s called). Supposedly, it’s possible to make your way to this station without actually walking the tunnel.

Over time, the station has become a sort of traditional performance milestone for Broadway musical performers who’ve gotten their first lead role. They and their friends meet at the station and the new star sings and dances a solo, then they all share a meal of, like, bag lunches and wine and what-not.

Gotta love New York!

Joe Cocker’s “Sugar, Sugar”

A friend of mine here at work — one of those guys who seems to pick up all kinds of strange info, like a black shirt and lint — and I were once emailing back and forth about the singer Joe Cocker. I sent him this hilarious video — the closed-caption (for the unimaginative) rendering of JC’s “With a Little Help from My Friends,” Woodstock edition:

In his reply, he said:

Do you remember the ABC Show Music Scene?

Joe Cocker was a guest host one week. At the end of the show each week someone would sing the Number One Billboard song of the week. Well it fell to Mr. Cocker to sing that week’s Number One hit, “Sugar Sugar” by The Archies.

He turned that song into something worthy of Leonard Cohen. Best version of “Sugar Sugar” ever. I wish I had that song.

That must be one amazing video — if it exists at all.

_______________________________________

P.S. Feel free to add your own stray factoids — real or imagined — in the comments.