Lateshoes

Ya know when you’re at work and you could totally do things to help it not be so boring (like listen to your ipod or something) but, you don’t because you’re already so bored that you can’t be bothered to lean over and grab something out of your purse? Ya know those days?
What about when one of your friends is sick, one’s work computer isn’t working and the other isn’t responding and so you’re in a total email vortex? What about that?
My sister called me earlier, that dulled some of the major lameness that is today, but mostly…I’m just fantasizing about things I can’t afford. I.E. more tattoos and rollerskates.
In fact, I’ve decided that I need to start a fund…maybe even have a benefit concert in order to fund these two very awesome things that I currently desire.
Oh won’t you contribute. *blink*blink* I’d be ever so grateful.

Oh and milkshakes! I’d like milkshakes too. Chocolate.

I watched the James Frey flogging on Oprah yesterday and it’s left me feeling kind of sorry for him. Don’t get me wrong, he can go cry like a bitch on his big bed of money…but, I have to say there was just something “not right” about him. He seemed lost. He was babbling, not the babble of someone caught in a lie, but rather that of someone caught inside of a lie. He couldn’t seem to find his bearings or his way out. He couldn’t answer direct questions and stammered so much, I wondered if he hadn’t popped a quaalude before the show. While Oprah spoke with the other guests he sat there, child-like, waiting for the principal to stop saying those bad things about him to his mommy. It was really disturbing.
I haven’t read his book, because it kind of always seemed like a piece of shit to me. I have read many memoirs though and I can say as an experienced reader that I’ve taken every one of them with a grain of salt (as the cliche goes). Maybe I’m a cynic, but I rarely believe 100% of what I read, even when it claims to be “the truth.” After all, isn’t “personal truth” by definition subjective. Time, passes…details get fuzzy and all you have is what you remember. I always think of those conversations with friends that go something like this:
“You said that you were coming, I totally told you about this.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did….you answered me, we made plans and everything.”
“No way, dude…I totally don’t remember you ever telling me about it.”
Who’s truth can be fact-checked in that instance? Is either party consciously “LYING?” Are we expected to be held accountable for the tricks our own minds play on what really happens in the fact of our lives?
I’m not saying that we should excuse this dork. By all means, string him up…watch his book sales soar. I just wonder if for all of Oprah’s posturing about the importance of TRUTH, she actually understands it herself.
After all she hosts a talk show and offers people the chance to share their “sides of the story.” Why share sides, if only one finite truth exists?
I agree that in this particular time, in America, truth has been cleared from the road in favor of semantics and distractions, both on television (“reality” t.v.) and in politics (yes, we get it….”International”…NOT “domestic” wire taps….sure, okay, okay), but then, I ask Oprah, why not swing the bat at the liars who really matter?
Sure, James Frey wrote a book and you believed that story to be true. Alright, you feel betrayed, I get it….but, I don’t respect you for it.
I’ll start respecting you, Oprah, when George W., Donald Rumsfeld, Condie Rice, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are all sitting in your hotseat, taking the blows. Then I might give a rats ass.

********
From an interview with James Frey in April of 2003

You say that you don’t want A Million Little Pieces to be known as a recovery memoir, and you’re hoping that publishing the book with Nan Talese and Co. will help eschew that generalization. What about Ms. Talese and
Co. will help achieve that, do you think, and what (other than ‘recovery memoir’) are you hoping the book will be known as?
Nan is the premiere literary editor in our country. She works with some of the best writers in the world: Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Pat Conroy, Jennifer Egan. She doesn’t publish crap, and she doesn’t publish sappy, bullshit memoirs. Having her name on my book gives it instant legitimacy.

If it were my choice, it would be listed as literature. It doesn’t really matter though. What matters is how many people read it and how it affects them.

Speaking of memoirs, are there any autobiographies or memoirs that you’re particularly fond of?
I love Charles Baudelaire. I love Celine and Henry Miller. I love Charles Bukowski and Pat Conroy and Tim O’Brien and Brett Easton Ellis. None of these guys actually wrote memoirs, but they all wrote about themselves. Though I used my real name, I consider my work in the same tradition.

All of my usual internet haunts just aren’t doing it for me today. I read Dooce, which was, as always irritatingly well written and hilarious. I read Go Fug Yourself and I giggled at Crispin Glover and Courtney Peldon..(but, mostly because on one of Crispin’s many visits to Salt Lake, Angie and I stalked him in a Hollywood video until her sister, Chrissy, completely embarrassed by us, forced us to stop. I kept saying, “Hey, you…get yer damn hands off her” over and over, kind of hoping he’d hear me, cos rumor has it, that really pisses him off). I’ve checked TheRocksalt a few times and even posted a couple of things, but I’m still fucking ridiculously bored.
Don’t say, “get to work” cos I tried that too…and it just made me more bored.
The heater above my head is working overtime and I think it’s stealing all of the moisture from my brain.
Yeah, that’s it.

In the vast sea of construction noises that take place behind my head each day, I’ve learned to tune most of them out….except, of course the earth moving vibrations that cause my teeth to chatter.
But, right now there’s this popcorn popping sort of a noise that I’m just going to go out on a limb and call a “leak from above” dripping water just behind my cubicle. This can’t be good.
What is good? My quick thinking in giving Lars the camera last night when he decided to shave off his beard.
The conversation went something like:
“You know I’m putting this on my blog, right?”
“(sigh) Yeah, I know.”

I’m on my second 20 oz. “double bagged” cup of “British Breakfast tea,” it’s Monday morning and the bags under my eyes are Louis Vuitton like.
I have a question though… say you have to take a dump in a public restroom. You walk in and see that there is one other person in the room.
Do you (A) select the stall furthest from said person? or (B) park your stanky ass in the stall right next to said person and begin the watermelon drop?

I’m partial to (A) myself, but was subjected to (B) this morning. There’s nothing more uncomfortable in the world. I kept clearing my throat.

He just called to tell me, in all seriousness that I’m forbidden from leaving the television on NBC when I leave in the morning because he feels bad that the dogs have to watch the Tony Danza show.

It’s been a bad month. I’ve even been scaring my own mother with my down-in-the-mouth-ery. Money is tight and my dogs won’t stop eating my blankets and furniture (really…enough with the separation anxiety already). This winter DARKNESS isn’t helping either. DARK when I wake up. DARK before I leave work. Dark. Dark. Dark. Permanent midnight fucking dark.
In the midst of all this stress there is one remaining constant joy… yes, television.
Between Battlestar Galactica and Project Runway…I’ve managed to kick at least 15% of my winter doldrums.
Every week, I wait for Friday. Oh my god! Commander, er…Admiral Adama totally kissed the president and The E.J.O. (Edward James Olmos) really drives it home with that smiling through tears thing he does and I cry…and I feel better and I can’t wait until the next episode. (Ahhh… Dr. Baltar and Toaster stem-cell research, ahhh tomorrow is only tomorrow away).
Last night’s episode of Project Runway made me laugh so hard, I almost died. Besides getting to see all of these snotty designers having to don ice-skating costumes for most of the episode there was also repeated use of the word “tootie” to describe what the rest of the world knows as “camel toe” during judging. “TOOTIE.” A grown woman, with, presumably a million dollar a year job kept calling one of the costumes “vulgar” because you could see “way too much tootie.” Come the fuck on. If that doesn’t cheer a girl up, nothing will.

In exactly 4 hours and 10 minutes I will return to the radio. I’m filling in for the Local Imposters show tonight on KRCL. You can listen live HERE. (or 90.9 fm in SLC) 8:30 – 10:30
Will I remember how to push the buttons? Will I lisp? Will I crash and burn?
You’ll only know if you listen.

Some reporter: So, what are you wearing?
Charlize Theron: Well, it’s haute couture. (“Oat coat-tour”)

Also, is it just me or can you totally see how Natalie Portman tried to use make up to cover up her tan lines? SPRAY PAINT