All this is well and good. But Duane, what about the "gay Mummer" article you wrote for Philadelphia magazine which you MADE UP?

And this past Tuesday, the web log Philebrity (edited by City Paper contributor Joey Sweeney) published a letter from an anonymous poster who wrote:

How has nobody nutblasted [Ed-in-chief] Duane Swierczynski at City Paper for his own bullshit, made-up, gay Mummers story when he was at Philly Mag?

The "Gay Mummer" is a story that is going to haunt me to my grave, and should serve as a cautionary tale for any editors who seek to assign a satire, parody or hoax.

Here's the story: In the fall of 1998, I was working as an editor at Details magazine. I received a call from a colleague of mine at Philadelphia magazine, which I'd left in October 1996. He asked: "You used to march in Mummers parades, didn't you?"

I told him yes, wondering where the hell this was going.

The editors were planning a special issue that would detail all manner of Philly "secrets." All true secrets, to be sure. But someone had the idea to throw in one ringer, one "secret" so obviously fake that people would get the gag and laugh.

The secret: All Mummers are actually gay.

Come on now. There is something a wee bit gay about burly, linebacker-looking guys (like me) wearing sequins and prancing up Broad Street, strumming show tunes on a banjo.

So my editor friend said, "Do you think you could write a first-person confession of a Mummer admitting he's gay, after all these years?"

I was assured that, the way it would be presented, there would be no doubt in the readers' mind that it was parody. That in mind, I agreed, and wrote the most over-the-top, screamingly gay—I'm talkin' Harvey Fierstein gay—story I could, peppered with real-life details from my parade experiences.

Too obvious a joke, the editors said. Make it more realistic.

I did. The editors said: Still not real enough. I wrote it again, making it a third-person story this time. And revised it a few more times, based on notes from the editors. I remember being worried that it sounded too real, but I was assured that it was still an obvious parody.

Meanwhile, the story was separated from the "Philly secrets" issue, and slated to run on its own.

The finished story, "The Boys in the String Band," appeared in January 1999, timed to coincide with the Mummers Parade. Despite a few bombshell clues that the story was a farce, it left many readers scratching their heads. Even I was surprised when I saw the story in print and it looked like a regular feature—no clues whatsoever it was a gag.

And then the storm broke, and Stu Bykofsky pounced, as did Frank Lewis in this paper. Before long, the Columbia Journalism Review was throwing darts at me, and I would be asked about this story—and probably will continue to be asked—in every job interview since.

But what I did was not fabrication; it was poorly executed parody.

Parody and satire are fickle bastards; the key is letting the reader in on the joke. There is parody in every issue of this paper, but it appears in "Bell Curve," and anyone who's read the paper more than once knows what to expect in that column. The "Gay Mummer" story failed because the reader wasn't given enough information to know it was a joke.

Would I assign a parody or hoax story today? Like Sean Connery, I never say never. But probably not. Readers distrust the media enough.

Besides, with headlines like we have today, is there really any room for parody?

In last week's issue, a poster in "I Love You, I Hate You" attacked the principals of Barristers Bar & Grille, a Rittenhouse Square-area bar. Our policy is to delete posts that include attacks against recognizable individuals or businesses. This post should have been cut, but due to an unintentional editorial oversight, was not. On behalf of the City Paper, I want to apologize to the owner and staff of Barrister's Bar & Grill. Such attacks run contrary to the spirit of our paper, and I deeply regret the error.