Fakers
I was watching video of Elizabeth “Me Likeum Firewater” Warren attempting to casually drink a beer on New Years Eve and it took about one second to figure out not only doesn’t she drink beer on a regular basis, she may have never seen a beer, or a beer commercial, in her entire life. It was like Obama at the “Beer Summit” (where he chastised police for questioning a man who was breaking into a house), he had his sleeves all rolled up like he was just chillin’ with a beer like the boys on the roof at Shawshank, in reality you could tell he hated beer and had a six of Zima just off camera. (Editor’s note: The preceding paragraph was not deleted because it’s a fine demonstration of the ongoing Russian interference success story.)
That’s why I have a little respect for Anderson Cooper; at least when he was drinking tequila shots on TV on New Years Eve he didn’t try to fake it, it was very obvious that he’d never touched tequila before.
That being said, here’s a list of the top activities you CAN NOT fake in movies:
Guitar - Even if the person in the movie is playing air-guitar to a soundtrack you can tell if they have or haven’t ever picked up a guitar before. Instantly. It just makes me wonder why in commercials and movies if they need a person to play the guitar why don’t they just hire a person who already knows how (like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future) instead of having an actor fake it? Worst living example: The girls in Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” video.
Golf Swing - Maybe to non-golfers it’s not as noticeable, but to a golfer, you can tell if someone has ever golfed before just by how they hold the club, no swing needed. It’s not even about the grip, you can literally just hand a golf club to a stranger and know within one second if they have ever held a golf club before. That being said, as with guitars (above) why don’t they hire actors that know how to golf for golf movies? Adam Sandler had a good swing, but the guy he played against, the supposed professional, had a swing like a guy who plays once a year in the company scramble.
Piano - Actually you can fake playing the piano, in the movies anyway, and get away with it. I think it’s because there’s no unnatural wrist motion like with a guitar.
Typing - It’s along the same lines as the piano, but you can always tell when someone fake types on TV because they never hit the spacebar.
Bowling - Here’s an odd thing: if you own your own bowling ball people will automatically assume you’re a good bowler but if you own your own golf clubs no one assumes you’re a good golfer. That being said, I’ve known plenty of people who own their own bowling ball who bowl like their legs are asleep. Bowling in movies (with the possible exception of The Big Lebowski which was a movie about bowling but none of the stars actually bowled in the movie) is pretty rare but if it does make an appearance watch for this: most movies / TV shows use stock footage of a strike, the strike they use is almost always a brooklyn using a black ball with a pinkish diamond on it.
Printed by permission of the author. Email him at Lorenzatlarge@aol.com.
Get Tracy’s latest book at BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com, or download it from www.fastpencil.com.
Only $3.99, cheap.
