So, I woke up yesterday and turned on NPR, and the topic of conversation was James Frey. In case you don’t know, he’s the guy who wrote a memoir about his drug recovery and lied about some shit in his book. By doing so, he ran afoul of Oprah Winfrey, who had included his book in her book club.
I got up, went to the computer and proceeded to write a lengthy screed (perhaps the longest blog entry I’ve ever written) about how ridiculous I find the whole situation. After numerous revisions – yes, I’m a huge loser and I revise my entries before posting – I decided not to post it. This is mostly because I felt guilty about putting so much effort into an issue that is so inconsequential. I’m very embarrassed.
Nonetheless, I can’t help thinking a lot of you might share my feelings on the situation. Here’s a quick run-down on my entirely unsolicited opinion:
1) I bet he’s not the first person to lie in his memoirs.
2) Truth does not necessarily equal meaning.
3) Why would you ever read someone’s memoir and automatically think everything in it is true?!
4) If a guy who used to be a drug addict tells you a lie and you act like Walter Cronkite just told you he shits Fabergé eggs, you might want to reconsider where you’re getting your information.
5) I don’t like Oprah.
6) Oprah is evil.
7) James Frey IS an asshole. About 10% of this is because he lied in his memoir. Roughly 40% is because he’s probably just an innately selfish person and just generally an asshole. A good 50% of his asshole nature is due to the fact that he made himself Oprah’s tool. Seeing news clips of Oprah’s bloated ego being fed with righteous indignation was a really pathetic spectacle.
8) Some people are conspicuous consumers. Oprah is a conspicuous philanthropist.
9) Dr. Phil can fuck off, too.
10) During the NPR show, an interviewee referred to Frey’s misdeeds as “the great brain robbery”. I think she was referring to Frey. I’m not sure. She might have been referring to the public relations juggernaut that has created the monstrously absurd cult of personality that is The Oprah.
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So, now that I’ve vented, I can get on to more important things. I thought I would share the following anecdote because we all know what a big germ freak I am, and I’m always more than willing to oblige my friends with a good laugh at my expense.
This past fall was unseasonably warm (compared to what was seasonable about 15 years ago, that is). So warm, in fact, that in the middle of November it was nice enough to drive around with the windows down on your car. This is exactly what I was doing one sunny day – a day which had gone particularly well.
I had gone to class that day and had a considerable amount of spare time before I had to work, so I went to get some Mexican food. I wasn’t too bent out of shape about going to work, as work consists of data entry (which I find tolerable) and listening to music (which I love more than almost anything in the world and, without which, data entry would be intolerable).
So...there I am...the sun is shining, the climate is temperate and I’ve got the stereo turned up. I’m driving along, happy as can be and then...SPLAT! A bird shits on my car.
Now...when I say a bird shat on my car, I actually mean he shat in my car. And...when I say he shat in my car, I really mean he shat on me. You see, this bird – who had apparently been trained at the US Air Force’s bombardier school – planted his little turdlette right on the edge of my car window, which was less than halfway up. Furthermore, he was somehow flying in the opposite direction my car was going. The effect was that the window cut the poo in half. Part of it smeared down my window and the other splattered toward me, hitting my hand, my arm, my shoulder and a bit of my neck.
I share this because I find it interesting to dissect my reaction to these situations. I’m not someone who visibly freaks out about these things. On the inside, however, my brain has stopped time. My fight or flight reaction kicks in immediately and, by the time the first second of the situation has passed, my brain has said “what the fuck,” has proceeded to figure out what “the fuck” is and has just about finished calculating what parts of me “the fuck” has gotten on and how much time it will take to clean up “the fuck.”
The next minute is spent mentally solidifying that plan. The minute after that is spent consciously trying to regulate my heart rate and breathing. The third minute is spent giving up on the efforts put forth during the second minute. The rest of the time until cleanup is spent vacillating between remaining calm and being frustrated by the short and inadequate supply of vulgarities in the English language.
Then there’s cleanup. To make a long story short, I did pretty well. That is to say, I did not scrub the flesh from my body.
In the end, I begrudgingly admire the bird. Not only did he have fantastic aim but also, if his goal was to make a human miserable, he could not have picked a better target. That said, a little part of the nature lover in me died that day.
I think it hurt even more because the bird was probably a sky rat (a.k.a., the common gull). How ingratiating is that – to be shat on by the white trash of the avian world? If a bird with some mystique – like a falcon or an owl – relieved itself on me, I might not feel so bad. My brother, an ornithologist, might even have been impressed.
