True Lies

From our 1983 parody issue, in which we mostly made fun of ourselves — with a little help from our readers:

New Organ Found, April 1, 1983

There is a new organization that will appeal to all loyal Weekly readers. The Sid Vicious Chapter of the Brentwood Gay and Lesbian Health Spa, Knee-Jerk Liberal, Raquetball and Third World Appreciation Society has been holding biweekly meetings for the past few months. However, only a few people "in the know" are aware of the meetings’ location. (Dropping in at the Zero Zero will not help.) Evelyn "Ed" Asnaw of the Rodeo Drive Spendarama and Tennis Club explains that the Sid Vicious Chapter was formed as a result of the split between the Melrose Plastic New Wave Clothes and Hair Clique, and the Doheny Drive-in Quiche-Eaters and Screenwriting Workshop. "We just couldn’t understand each other any more," says the attractive Ms. Asnaw, who, prior to writing a successful diet book, worked as a waitress at The Palm. "I mean, the Melrose group was absolutely opposed to vacationing in Ibiza again this year while children are starving in Tangier, and they suggested instead we all go down to Compass Point Studios and hang out with Grace Jones and Tina Weymouth! The Doheny crowd wanted everyone to donate a Gucci item to Australasian refugees, as soon as they locate Australasia on the map. The split was considered inevitable."

What started out as an April Fool’s prank became real when hundreds showed up at Griffith Park looking for the Love-In:

From "Love-in in Griffith Park," by Michael Dare, March 29, 1985

Produced by Bill Graham in conjunction with KCET, this promises to be the highlight of the week for any ’60s freak. The last one was in ’71, so it’s about time the flower-child tradition was revived. The entire area around the merry-go-round will be magically transformed this weekend into a time-warp extravaganza, with speakers such as Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman and David Crosby (who still hasn’t cut his hair). At noon, free Kool-Aid will be served, and at sunset the Grateful Dead will start playing till sunrise. Bring a blanket, dig out that flowered shirt and ankh you haven’t worn in 15 years, and let it all hang out.

Following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Weekly created a "what if" scenario — and reported it as though it really had happened here:

From "Black Horizon: California’s Monster Spill," by Michael Ventura (with Pamela Klein, Laureen Lazarovici and Harold Meyerson), September 14, 1990

Last March, the Department of the Interior put the chance of a monster California oil spill at 94 percent. Well, our government was right for a change. At 4:28 a.m. Sunday, September 9, two Valdez-size tankers collided off Catalina. Now, if you look to the west, you’ll see black horizon where the ocean used to be.

Drive toward the coast any way you go (Pico, Santa Monica, Wilshire, whatever) and there’s an eerie moment when the street dips down toward the sea but that splash of blue in the distance — just isn’t there.

In its place is this blackish splotch, as far as the eye can see. Lots of people have commented that it exerts a sinister fascination. You can’t take your eyes off it. In certain lights it glints with delicate colors, the way little slicks in the gutter sometimes do. (Isn’t it better that the gutter is now a fit metaphor for the sea?) But there’s nothing delicate about the smell. They don’t call this oil "crude" for nothing. The stench is a pall, full of carcinogens which, when the wind is right, stink all the way to San Bernardino.

It’s basically the same stuff that’s in your gas tank, but when you look at that huge dark thing out there, it feels threatening, almost alive, as though it wants not only to stain and foul, but somehow suck up, the coastline. Even the L.A. Times has noticed that the U.S.’s biggest oil spill, this "monster" as everybody’s calling it, doesn’t just scare and appall you — it gives you the creeps. I know it’s my imagination, but to my ears it seems the surf no longer pounds — it slurps.

No one caught L.A.’s mood better than CNN on Monday morning, when the stuff reached shore: that little girl standing on the Palisades, holding her mother’s hand, her pristine face a study in apprehension as she said, "It’s icky!" Then, as though on cue, she burst into tears. This being a town full of stage mothers, some cynics wondered whether the bit was rehearsed. CNN denied it, and, with the media’s typical and sentimental single-mindedness, they played it over and over. Every paper ran the picture the next day, right next to the dying sea turtles and the dead gulls. No doubt the kid’ll be on the cover of Time or Newsweek. But it’s not all sappy. Her frightened disgust was real, and she said it for everybody, for we all feel helpless when we look out there. It is icky . . .