Vomit Caked Years

I may be a little behind in my reporting these days, so for the purposes of this entry, we'll just blame it on the recent barrage of drugs that I have been taking to cure my ills.
Within the last couple of months there has been excessive talk about how writer James Frey managed to con Oprah and hoards of readers with his book of lies "A Million Little Pieces". The very thought that Oprah was "more than disappointed" by this discovery had me thinking back to when I was a kid and when I did something really bad, instead of getting punished, my parents would play the "disappointed" card which in turn, made me feel much worse than any grounding could possibly accomplish. Now I know how James felt having to face up to the chief cook and bottle washer of all media moguls. I think I saw him lick his lips, take sips of water and shallow gasps of air during his couch side interview much in the same way anyone testifying before congress would. It was both eye opening and unnerving.
So, the guy made some stuff up, took creative license, changed various details of his past. Who in the world could blame him? This is what writers do, each and every time a new non-fiction book hits the shelves, at some point, we all have to ask ourselves, is this for real? How many times have you read a story in a news magazine and wondered the exact same thing? Does anyone else remember the New Republic's associate editor Stephen Glass? It took months and months of investigation before anyone was able to prove that the self proclaimed Fabulist created stories out of nothing for the more than 90 year old famous publication, which ironically is bent on both political and social responsibility. If anyone should have stepped up to protect Mr. Frey it was his own publisher. The very moment he was publicly accused of lying, they should have come forth and made a statement saying that the manuscript he turned in originally was in fact a novel, but that they decided to release it as a memoir, all for the sole purpose of selling more units. End of story.
Instead, James is now being lynched by the media and a very ignorant and hypocritical audience. This is a guy, who in my opinion, is by far more talented than many of the other so called writers we've had to kiss the asses of in recent years (I won't name names, but suffice it to say, there is a lot of literary shite out on the shelves at the moment). As for Frey, I predict an Adaptation style screenplay to pop up within a year. Will it be any good? Hell no! But it will get made because it will make tons of money, just like the book has.
I read this priceless comment on one bloggers site and I think it sums up the interview with Oprah perfectly:
"Frey's 'memoir' of the Oprah incident: And then Oprah did lines off the couch while the audience threw rotten vegetables filled with cyanide."