There's a brief interview with one of hoaxdom's star players, Joey Skaggs, in a fun new book I've been reading recently, The Best Time to Do Everything by Michael Kaplan. The book's blurb describes the content pretty well as "a guide to the best time to do everything in life. From buying shoes to cleaning a murder scene, each entry is built around the... advice of an expert in that particular field: Donald Trump on the best time to haggle, Johnny Ramone on the best time to learn to play guitar..." etc.
Next to our own Alex, Joey Skaggs is an obvious choice for an expert in the field of hoaxery. (Hoaxery? Hoaxism? Is there a word for this?) In the entry for "Best Time to Mess with the Media," Skaggs claims that the ideal time for springing one's latest hoax is in the "middle of the week, late in the morning." He further explains, "You can't do something on Sunday because it's a news-off day; nobody will bother coming to cover your press conference.... And you need to do it in the morning so that you can make that day's news cycle." Especially, as Kaplan notes, if you don't want to give reporters enough time to do much fact-checking.
Skaggs also comments on a few of his best-known pranks, including his ongoing non-existent New York April Fool's Day Parade and the Fat Squad Commandos. "The Europeans loved that one; they love any story that makes Americans look fat and stupid."
So during the middle of a slow week, when there's no major event coming up and the media's looking around for stories, keep your eyes out for any odd items that crop up. One of them might bear the imprint of our pal Joey.