I Fool More
Denouement: I like to think that the hallmark of a decent April Fool's Day gag is verisimilitude, providing just enough details and vague context to be plausible and yet remaining more than a bit fantastic and over the top. So, while I'm grateful beyond measure for everyone's good wishes and congratulations, they are, at best, premature.There's no movie deal and, while I do plan (hopefully this summer) to take a pied-à-terre in Chicago, St. Louis will have to put up with me for a long time to come, I imagine. There is a book of sorts, and there once was a handshake deal with a certain New York publisher but, other than that, all embellishment.
My challenge this year was to come up with a yarn that would draw in the folks who don't actually visit the website (instead using an RSS reader or somesuch) and, if anything, I was too successful. There were a few clues if you looked for them and read between the lines. More Fool I said backwards is, of course, "I Fool More" and the particularly observant will note that the entry permalinks on the July 8 pre-saging post and today's note were just one digit apart.
And, of course, as several folks have observed, it's extremely unlikely that I, a gregarious braggart and fellow who can barely keep the smallest bit of good news to himself, could have sat on such a secret for nearly a year. Every one who knows me has a little bit of information all to themselves that can either prove or disprove something in the two entries below. The "laptops" and "meetings" with which I was concerned at South by Southwest, for example, were of an entirely different sort and not really fit for family discussion.
It's April 1, friends, and I encourage you to take everything you read or hear today with a grain or two of NaCl. I've nearly been taken in by two extremely good pranks so far, and I expect more tests of my wits before sundown.
Again, thank you for your notes of congratulations and confidence. I'm sorry for having a little fun at your expense and do hope I haven't disappointed anyone too terribly much. I do very much look forward to the day(s) to come when I can share such good -- or even better -- news with you, my friends.
Comments:
I still love you, even if I hate you a little bit right now. xoxox
I hate you. Die.
~~
If you were a photo-sharing service, you would be called Fuckr.
GOOD! i want you to remain poor and obscure with us. xoxoxo.
About halfway through the post, I thought to myself, This better not be an April Fool's prank.
Then I got to the last line.
Damn.
I knew you couldn't resist, but I hoped you had.
You're a bastard, but at least you're still coming to Chicago. 
Well done. Tip o' th' hat, and all that crap.
Grrrr.
What's the difference between a prank and a big fat lie?
My eager congratulations were all part of my prank on you. Right. You're a clever one, Mr. Graham.
You know, I was thinking to myself: "Why would anyone share great news on April 1st, when people would just say that it was a joke".
I, sir, am too gullible. You, sir, suck. (Nice one though)
So you DON'T have an excuse for lagging on the Fray story after all, hmmn?
Ha ha! Fool me once! I got took by surprise! But not from behind this time, and for that I thank you.
Still, in a world of will-bes and could-bes, your success is near the top of the the list of inevitables, somewhere after my orgy with Petra Nemacova, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Daljit Dhaliwal, and the Williams sisters.
That's it. If you ever set foot in Chicago again, we will beat the living ba-jesus out of you.
Nicely done by the way.
Well thank heavens I'm behind on my reading, otherwise I probably would have been fished in like everyone else. (Unlike with NPR's April Fool story, which was so obvious as to be pitiful. I mean, really.)
thank gahd i didn't see this until today. you are the master.
I refuse to believe this prevarication is, in fact, a prevarication, and I don't even really know what a prevarication is.
As fate pulled a world class Aptil Fools prank on me over the last week (featuring an overheated car, a broken foot, a blown motherboard and a missing dental appliance), I was unable to visit the home of such classic 4/1 Follies as "The Bardlands", "The Brandlands" and "The Bradylands" until today, and was duly disappointed that it did not follow a similar theme: no "Breadlands" or "Braklands" or "Bradhands" or "Bradlends" (which reminds me, could you put a few extra bucks in my PayPal account?), but instead, a shaggy dawg story about the Great Gay American Novel with less hidden clues than an episode of "Celebrity Mole". You've done better. In fact, here's a good example: http://www.bradlands.com/misc/cnot/ And as long as I'm asking favors, you wouldn't happen to have a cache copy of my put-on page ("The Motley Foop") that you were responding to?
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Brad L. Graham is a writer, editor, riverboat gambler, fashion consultant, softshoe dancer, professional assassin, freelance factotum and singer of sentimental ballads.The BradLands is his home on the web. 
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