Open Letter to a Douchebag

Dear James Frey,

Hooooooo wee! Having a tough week here, huh kid? Damn those pesky investigative types! Who the hell do they think they are, trying to debunk a genius like you? The nerve!

I just wanted you to know that you have my full support throughout this ordeal. I'm serious. I mean, how could I, a fellow writer, NOT be behind one of my brethren in his hour of need? Honestly, you've done so much for American writers, we'd be remiss not to fall at your feet in undying gratitude. Remiss, I tell you!

Now, before I go on, I need to qualify this by saying that I haven't actually read your "memoir." Well...wait. That's not exactly true. I read about ten pages of it last week, before this so-called scandal hit, while I was in Barnes & Noble waiting for my roommate so we could go to the movies. Ten pages was about all it took for me to get somewhat put off by your...ummm..."creative" grammar, capitalization, and your blow-by-blow (pun fully intended!) descriptions of mundane events. But that's just me. I wouldn't know brilliance if it humped my leg at the laundromat. And besides...your writing style is not the issue here. Clearly.

Anyway, back to the need for writers to venerate your nearly holy name...especially me...See, for the last year or so, I've been working on a memoir of my own. Yeah! AND...you won't believe this...it's about my own struggle with addiction! Are we like, soulmates, or what? But boy oh boy, did I go about this all wrong! This whole time, I've been doing all this bullshit legwork...you know, documenting and corroborating the dates and other details of events, getting the necessary permissions from people I write about, censoring my overly-fantastic or exaggerated accounts, crap like that. So tedious! Such a raging timesuck! But you...you've proven all that writers' integrity stuff to be archaic, unnecessary, obsolete! I mean, my god, think of all the work you're saving future writers. It's staggering! All anyone really has to do to become a bestselling megawriter in America now is slap together some crazy drug-related fish stories, swear up and down that every word is true, and try to appear as genuine and sensitive as possible on the talk show circuit. Easy as falling off a barstool! Who.fucking.knew. (Besides you, of course, you clever, clever man!)

Man, I feel great about this, as all writers should. That pesky pressure to be truthful in purportedly factual works was really a bitch. You've opened some big, big doors here, my friend. I mean, can you even IMAGINE what Dubya's biography will be like, now that he is that much freer to lie his balls off? AWESOME!

All in all, I'd like to congratulate you on becoming the Jayson Blair of American biographical literature. Not an easy feat, my friend. I mean, ol' Jayson had the New York Times behind him when he was bullshitting America. Not you! No sir! You were just some Alcoholic/Addict/Criminal dude from bumfuck nowhere who wrote a crazy little (fictional) book about his crazy little life. So kudos to you, Jimbo! Way to git er done! I'd tell you to pat yourself on the back, but based on interviews I've seen on TV, I'm sure you've done that already. Repeatedly, even.

I tell you what, though, buddy...I'm a bit concerned for your well-being. The thing is, you messed with Oprah Winfrey. I know she's defending you now, but you made her look foolish, and that there was a hellacious mistake. As a third-generation Italian Brooklynite, I can tell you that you'd have been better off fucking with the Cosa Nostra than with Oprah Winfrey. The mob'd just kill you. Two to the skull, lights out, party's over. No problem. Oprah, on the other hand...well, she controls the universe. Oprah's gonna make you wish you were never born.

Good luck with that.


A Million Little Warm Regards,