I know I wrote about the grossest but I’ll do it again (I’m good like that, you know). On a hot day a large shirtless guy wanted to buy a lock. I’m working quickly because he’s sweating on the counter. I tell him the amount and he reaches into his. . .sock.

I gave him his ten dollar change, scraped the twenty off the counter and plastered it on the desk to dry. About ten minutes later he came back because he wanted to buy another lock. I didn’t ask any questions (but he told me. In ten minutes he’d lost it) but hoped he’d give me the dry ten. He didn’t. He reached into his sock and gave me another sopping twenty. They stayed stuck to the desk until the next morning when they were dry enough to use.

Yeah, any contact is, as Stuart from Mad TV warns, is in the danger zone.

@ Teeni – Oh, okay, I get it. I’ve seen books about WordPress. I should probably read one too.

@ Joan – I think it’s really sad that people who were helped by Frey’s book felt so betrayed. If it helped them, why can’t they leave it at that. I think many people would have, because his addiction was very real, but like Bound and Gags said, Oprah dismissed everything Frey wrote as a lie and the lemmings just followed along.

You should write a book about your own experiences and dealing with Damon, Joan, because you’ve learned so much along the way. I hope you do write about it someday. You’ll probably end up with a career public speaking on the subject and helping lots and lots of people.

At the time the book came out I was going to a healthboard forum on drugs and addiction every day. Everyone was reading the book but it was a great disappointment to a lot of people trying to get clean and a disappointment to parents of addicts when the truth came out that is was fiction. I didn’t read it so I can’t really comment myself.

Someday I may just write the story of Damon and I because I had a big part in it as his enabler. I certainly was in denial about his drug use. But since then I have helped a lot of parents realize what they are doing when they enable their children. It probably would never get published because I am not a writer but it would be good for me to write it.

I’m sure Thompson didn’t get hung out to dry because it was fashionable to like him, he was breaking new ground (whatever that means. He still used words, right?), and he was protected by what could be considered a media conglomerate of the time, Rolling Stone. He was following the ‘real life is boring’ school of writing so went about entertaining. I remember when we used to call it taking things with a grain of salt.

When you said, “. . .a compelling reading, and at the time I didn’t really care if it was true, it never entered my mind. . .” that should be the end of it. Oprah liked it, pimped it, and then pimp handed it. A simple,

“I cannot condone your actions. I am hurt that you lied to me which forced me to lie to my audience. I will request my audience not support you in the future. You will never be asked back.”

The horse is dead so stop beating it because now you’re just annoying the flies.

I’d like to know if people were helped by the book then, after the Oprahfuckation, went back to using. If they did I’d have to place that blame on Oprah. He wrote a story that touched people. Success. She took that away. Failure.

I read the Smoking Gun article when it came out and, yeah, it was a scam but it was a team scam; yeah, he lied and people got pissed but when it started, he was only writing. The lie truly only began when it was a team sport.

It’s back to a writers perception. Yes, when I write I did say that line to that person. But, many times, the person on the other side of the event doesn’t see it the same way I do. Often the situation goes in a different direction but, do you know what? In the end I’m the one writing it so I decide how the spin goes. That’s why I never consider it reality because I have an agenda. When writing reality you should have no agenda.

I have a two scene piece coming out tomorrow. Yes, both events happened. Even more surprising, they happened the same day. It reads like a two minute event when, in reality, they were an hour or so apart. It happened but it’s not reality.

I write jokes. I’ve called what I do foible fables. I’m not making any grand statement. I’m not trying to help anyone. I’m calculating the amount of jokes per words. And, you know what? People have thanked me because I made them laugh on a bad day. A bonus! I’ve always said, my job is to entertain. What the reader takes from it beyond that is their personal business.

Sure, there’s not as much touching being storage guy as with a manicurist but I’m also sure, when it happened (and it did), it wasn’t as pleasant.

Frey’s agent couldn’t sell the book until she called it a memoir, and he’s defintely guilty of perpetuating the lie. I probably would have stuck to my guns AFTER it was published, I would have gone on all the talk shows and said it was fiction. He didn’t, and that’s where I guess he made his mistake. But Oprah, in my opinion, is more the bad guy than Frey…she’s a media monster and in this case she used her power to try and ruin someone. She liked the book, didn’t she? Would she have liked it less had she known it was fiction? Thousands of people said the book helped them in their own recovery, does that invalidate whatever wisdom they took from the book? I don’t think so. His message, even on a fictional level, was a broad stroke of his own true experience with addiction in general, and that has value in itself. The verifiable fact is that he did clean himself up, and that’s worth everything. The Bible is fiction, for crying out loud, a collection of stories re-written about a million times, yet people still gather wisdom from it.

In Frey’s case I don’t think the punishment fit the crime, I think his being used as a whipping boy is disgraceful. When Normal Mailer told him to take advantage of being a “bad boy” I think Mailer was right on, Frey should take the horror of what happened to him and play it up to his advantage. He’s a good writer and storyteller, and I hope he takes Mailer’s advice.

I could talk about this forever, so I should probably get off my soapbox now. Don’t you hate these smiley things? I hate them, they’re embarrassing, yet I use them constantly.

On another note, I’d also like to discuss Lab Rat endlessly because your experience at the storage unit is so similar to mine when I was a manicurist in a beauty salon (except that I actually had to TOUCH these people).

> James Frey
When the story came out that he tried to sell it as a novel but was passed on so they said it was a memoir, I thought he was stupid (greedy, angry, didn’t feel his genius was getting it’s due – use your own description for writers here) for letting it go that way. That’s why I said it was an illness. They needed a hook and, even though he helped set it, he bit.

So as far as that goes, he’s culpable. He allowed deception with his face on it then feigned indignation when caught. He can’t be a stupid guy but to get pissed because everyone jumped ship, please. It’s an industry of rats. The only difference is the level of rabies and who swims first.

I know why he fell into it. It’s so fucking alluring. They ride you like you’re the great write hope. But, from what I heard, it’s a hell of a read. And that just goes to prove the axiom I use when working with people on ‘real life’ stories.

Real life is boring.

I’ve had people get pissed at me when I’ve suggested changing details to tighten it up; combining two characters who are doing the same thing; make the dialog ‘less real’ because, although that may be ‘how we did it on the street’ it’s doesn’t translate to the page or screen. And there’s a big ass reason for that:

Real life is boring.

I was working on a script with a cop and, after spending time fighting (I’m all about the story), I edited his story like it really happened. When I was done I and made sure he was happy (he does, after all, have a gun). He was happy and sent it out. Not too many months later it came back and he was sad. He got stomped because, as written, it was not salable. It had elements but because it had to be real life it had no shot at being good. He gave it back and the first thing I did was rip out 40 pages. And, once again, he was sad. As always, it was his favorite part. I don’t know why that is but it always seems to work out that way. But he did it and do you know why? To increase the chance of him becoming famous, rich, laid, I don’t know what his gold ring it but he has one.

So when Frey was given the chance to have experts tighten him up, bring the stories to a higher level, place the cash bug in his ear, what’s he going to do? He needs this validation. And he proved, saying no to that is more difficult than saying no to drugs and booze. Then what happened?

> Oprah
His anagram for heroin.

He was, to quote Warren Zevon, strung out, painted in the corner of a limousine. As it was pointed out in the article, she was livid at his deception but, and this is how I saw the interview, it was the deception to her. It was about her image of her image of herself. So she spanked the fuck out of this grown man on national TV. He was shell-shocked. He did, to me, look blindsided (even thought I think he should have been prepared for it).

I remember telling my girlfriend I would have walked. No adult deserves to me spanked by anyone, even a cult of personality, on national TV (unless they are consenting adults). Her side was that maybe she’s soften at the end. I couldn’t see a way for her to do that without making the spanking look like a time out. No way. She was done with him and wanted to make sure he was a pariah. And, as pointed out in the article, they, in this quote by Maureen Dowd, quickly and deeply drank from Oprah’s kool-aid,

“I would say that Oprah should kick James Frey’s bony, lying, nonfiction butt out of the kingdom of Oprah.”

“. . .the kingdom of Oprah.”

What does that say? It says everyone in the industry knew he was the sacrificial cow so the cash cow that is Oprah would keep dripping into their gaping maws.

But, hey, it’ll pass, won’t it? There will be other newsworthy fuck ups, right? The article mentioned Augusten Burroughs and J. T. LeRoy. That should take some of the heat off but no. Okay, Cheney filling a friends face with buckshot that’s gotta give the guy a breather! What? Didn’t? Why the fuck not.

As Judith Clain said in the article, “It’s probably true that no one wants to alienate Oprah.”

Ahhhhhhh, that’s it. He hadn’t paid his penance. Not even a sitting VP popping shots into a guys face is as grievous as a writer writing! He fucking lied! You know what? I don’t know a writer who doesn’t. What if you’re writing an exact document of an event and you leave out something. You could have put it in, it happened, but you, as the writer, chose not to. In the Catholic religion there is a little thing called a lie of omission which, by leaving out that part, makes what you wrote a lie.

Okay, I’ll give that that’s a stretch but, you know what? So was the penance Frey paid. I don’t care if you like him, hate him, got your money back, felt betrayed, will never read another word by him, never read a word from him, you’ve got to ask yourself one question,

Did the punishment fit the crime?

Sorry to be so long, Wendy, but, after all, you asked.

It IS amazing that Barbara saw Oprah and I’m as shocked as you are.

@ Bound and Gags – Oh. My. Jeebus. Graydon Carter bought shirts from you? What the hell did that feel like? Was it like looking into the face of God? Regardless of what he’s become, he is the father of SPY Magazine and so, for me, he will always be pure wonderfulness. He and I are friends on MySpace.

Yes, your book is funny and I love it. But let’s talk about James Frey. I always felt that he was getting fucked over and after reading the VF article I’m sure of it. I read A Million Pieces when it first came out and was shocked when, like two years later, people started going berserk over it. It’s terrifying to think that what happened to him to could happen to anybody. Let me know what you think of the VF story. By the way, “Fraud” is good, you’d probably like it a lot. “Memory of Running” is a book I carry from room to room with the idea that I’m reading it, but actually haven’t started it yet.

@ Barbara – OPRAH? How did you even know about this woman Oprah Winfrey? I’m so impressed. Not that I watch her show, because personally I can’t stomach her, but I am impressed that you found it. I wish I’d seen that particular show. I did catch clips of it, though, and I felt really bad for Frey. She totally raked him over the coals, lied to him, etc. And she opened the door for people to start questioning the validity of humorists like David Sedaris of all people.

I’ve never seen Frey interviewed in person so I can’t comment on his creepiness factor, but I do believe that he wrote the book as fiction and told his agent it was fiction. I believe he was a pawn, albeit a willing one. But really, who wouldn’t sell out and lie if your big name publisher was encouraging you to do so? I know I would. I’ve been waiting my whole life to sell out, though now I’m scared to call my memoir a memoir. Maybe I’ll call it a “fictional memoir.” Let me know what you think of the VF story. We must discuss this.