So James Frey got caught. Sorry, Oprah.
And JT Leroy isn't an HIV + ex-street kid; he's a 40-year-old woman.
You know, what I have to say on this is very simple.
I'm a white kid who got moved around a couple times by my parents. Good for you, Mom and Dad, for getting me out of the South Bronx. That probably wouldn't have proved to be rich ground for a memoir. Oh no.
So okay, I live in a foreign country. Occasionally I got teased for having an accent. I'm forever fighting my waistline. I got held up at gunpoint in a bar a few years ago. But I've never OD'd. I've never once spent a night in jail. I haven't huffed, discharged a firearm, or had my stomach pumped. I've never been brought home by the cops. Never sold my blood or plasma for money. Never been in a bar fight. Yes, I had nine years of catechism, and three years as a Catholic altar boy, but in that time, I was never once touched inappropriately; hell, they never even gave me a swig of the sacrificial wine.
And yet now, here I am, trying to make it as a writer.
Mom. Dad. Little Sister #1, Little Sister #2 -- I blame you.
Thanks for the happy childhood. Thanks for %$#@% nothing.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go make shit up.
4 comments:
"I was never once touched inappropriately; hell, they never even gave me a swig of the sacrificial wine."
"Uh, isn't that sacramental wine?"
(Said the guy raised in the Lutheran church, went to a Catholic Academy and graduated from Presbyterian College)
damnit. I just thought of a better line:
"Uh, isn't that sacramental wine?"
"Not in the South Bronx."
See, if my mother had huffed glue and sold me for engine parts and I'd had to step dance for eggs and fresh vegetables, and had been shot at fourteen by a meth-addicted cop...well, I probably would have come up with that right away.
Damnit.
Look on the bright side: There's always the next generation.
So go out there and huff some glue, impregnate an "actress" or two, and hope and pray that this is enough to get your kid on the right path to the Pulitzer, or the Emmy, or if you drink too much - the Gemini.
With as much beer as I drink I figure I got an AVN award winner or two in my future.
I love a good scandal -- especially when it doesn't involve me.
KJC (who doesn't have to make shit up because her life was one wild and devastating soap opera before 2005)
Post a Comment