I’m Painfully Out Of Touch

Last week Aaron and I had a discussion concerning recent trends and how out of touch he feels looking at the kids these days and seeing what they are wearing or doing. He said he’s reached that point where he just looks at kids and thinks, “what? that’s in style..wait, is that even a style?”. To which I replied, “I felt that way a long time ago, I sort of took it as a rite of passage.” That being said, there’s a trend that people my age and older are completely obsessed with and I don’t get it. Rather, I don’t get him. I don’t get this Harry Potter character. I mean, I get that he’s Harry Potter, boy wizard, but so what?

Have you ever gone to a theater the night that a Harry Potter movie opens? Seriously…remember in “The Wedding Singer,” they had table 9? I feel like I’m in theater 9. There are weirdos everywhere, it smells like body funk, people are dressed like movie characters and they’re waving wands. It’s worse than a Star Trek convention during a full moon. I have a limit to how much douche baggery I can tolerate in one day and that exceeds my monthly limit.

People go nuts over these books too, it’s crazy. They are like the Cabbage Patch Kids of the new millennium. I love Laurie Notaro and Douglas Coupland, but I wouldn’t be running to my local B&N to get their book at midnight, or even noon the day it comes out. I can wait. However, if you wait around too long, people start talking and posting on the Internet about the latest Harry adventure and then the book is ruined and people are ready to punch babies. I haven’t read JPOD yet, but I’m not going to harm small children or animals if you tell me what happens.

I’m anticipating some Harry hate crimes in the near news future.

Would I Lie? HECK YES

Ok, so I’m sick and tired of all this James Frey Million Little Pieces/Oprah feels duped drama. I feel the time has come for me to chime in, and then put it to rest.

First, on Oprah. Look lady, you are not Jesus! Does she know this? Because I don’t think she does. If so much as a commercial for my least favorite Harpo airs, my dad will yell “I hate that feminist..I don’t need men, yes you do Oprah!” I’m sorry she feels “duped”, as if this is the first time someone has lied to Oprah in her life. She acts as if she thinks the entire world is honest and she is just now learning that people lie. Get over yourself Oprah. You are not the book goddess. It’s not like the books on her list are so profound that the average boob couldn’t read them. Heck, most high school kids have already read them. Not that they aren’t good books, but it’s not like Oprah discovered “Night”, “East of Eden”, or “The Poisonwood Bible.” I mean, she pays people to read for her, THEN she puts these books on her book club list…who knows if she ever reads them herself. Just like I don’t believe Kathy Lee ever wore her own clothes. Celebrities slap their name on everything that looks like it might make them money.

Now, onto James Frey. He lied..in a BOOK…should’ve called it fiction, instead slapped the word memoir on it and now the public is ready for a stoning. But here’s the truth: Everyone who has ever written a memoir/autobiography/biography has exaggerated the truth to some extent. If you want to test this statement, go ahead and read two biographies of the same person, and you will see that I am right. You can’t rely on human nature to tell the exact truth. And I think we can all agree, expecting the full & exact truth from a recovering frat-baby crack head is a lofty expectation to begin with, so cut the guy some slack. Even frat boys need to make a living eventually. Just because he embellished the truth…a lot, does that make the book any less good (or from what I understand, any more pathetic)? Does it change “the message” of the book? No.

If it were me…would I lie to get my book published? HECK YES. Why you ask? Because I need to eat. We’ve already established that I look like an anorexic train wreck. So yes, if it would make me money I would lie. Then take my liar’s money and buy some tacos and a cherry coke. And UDF ice cream…lots of it.

p.s. Hasn’t this happened before? I mean, wasn’t the book “Go Ask Alice” supposedly a true diary, and then it really wasn’t? I guess that was the 70′s and no one cared, hippies were cool that one time. Then they grew up, forgot about Alice and caned James Frey.