Did He Lie?

Did you see the show yesterday, sozobe? She really seemed to show a side of her I hadn't noticed much before. She has had shows where you knew she didn't care for what the guests had done (criminals, etc.) but she still had this, I guess air of forgiveness is the best way for me to describe it, about her. It might have been me, because I wasn't thinking real clearly yesterday, but even her body language was different. It was almost like she had actually felt betrayed and hurt by what he had done. While it surprised me about her, it also rounded out her character a bit more to me. Did you get any kind of a feeling like that?

i think 2 reasons.

1) she isnt always COMPLETELY aware of what is in the media about her show and its topics/guests etc.
It would be IMPOSSIBLE for her to do so.

2) It makes for great topic/show starters. There will be spin off subjects of lying , publications etc... like this for a long time. Hopefully geared to honest people..but you never know


--


Is it worth the read?
Im kind of partial to it ... as I said, because I can relate.
If you CANT relate.. my opinion would be - If you can borrow a copy from someone, do it.
I wouldnt rush to buy it.

Yes it is a good story.
But with out some kind of common ground with addiction, it doesnt really appeal to many people.
Think about it this way.....
It never made number one sales on its own... so obviously it isnt a GREAT book.

Having said that though, I just want to clarify that there are alot of GREAT books that never hit a number one slot in sales.
This isnt one of them.
The best thing about this book is his writting style wich makes you feel like you are on drugs anyways trying to keep pace with it. It is a really neat experience, going through a book with such a radicaly diffrent writting style.

Thanx shewolfnm. Hmmm. Not sure I want to read something that is going to make me feel like I am doing drugs though. It's been a long time but, that's a scary thought. Did it bother you much reading it? If that's not too personal to ask.

I didn't see the show, no. I haven't watched Oprah in a loooong time. I think it's more likely that she was annoyed at herself than at him, though; or if it was the latter, she was fooling herself. ;-)

honestly, if it were MY show, and I stood in front of millions of people claiming this book to be true because I TRUSTED the person who wrote it to be telling the truth,
only to have that person be proven to be LYING?

and I HAD to stand back in front of those same people, who trust ME to be telling the truth, and to have researched the books on MY show before promoting them.,...... and having to tell those people the person who wrote the book was lying?

yeah, i'd be one pissed off woman as well.

as anything that brings up memories i would rather not have, yeah it bothers me.
but not much.

What I mean when i say it leaves you feeling like you are on drugs , is that his writting style is confusing and often times unclear.
You have to put the book down and replay the statements and conversations in your mind to make sure you got it right and you understood it.

Like i said , he has a really cool writting style. A great break from the norm... I will give him that.

there is a referrance in the book to steven tyler.

at least that is MY opinion.

he talks about a rock star who was treated at that same center. And the star speaks about the worlds obsession with his big lips, and long black hair, leather pants and strange vocal style.


he out RIGHT calls this person a liar.
Simply because James doesnt think that one human body could take 40 pills of valium as this rock star claims , and survive.
James also doesnt think that one person could do about 5 grand of drugs a day.

Those statements shocked me.
As a person who claims to be addicted to anything and everything like James says he was, he of all people should know that , THAT amount of drugs is entirely possible.

yet, he says that person is a liar.


that is one example of the times in the book the word " liar " was ringing in my ears

good godfrey

i have alot to say about THIS subject dont i .
;-)

hahah

shewolfnm,

He said that? Ok, this guy hasn't a clue then as far as I'm concerned.

When I was using it was nothing to take 50 or 60 pills a day! An addict's body builds up such a tolerance it isn't funny. Perhaps this guy felt he was an addict because he took how many of whatever he took, but that doesn't mean it's a universal thing.

It's not the amount of drugs you take that makes you the addict I'm not sure I want to read this book. Might be judgmental but man, he actually said that?!

I will quote the passage.

let me get the book

Cool!

Page 177-

( in his writing he puts capitol letters on strange words for no reason. I will try to copy that, his misspellings, and strange word placement as much as possible. )

a man walks out on stage and everyone starts clapping. I recognize the man as a famous rock Star who was once a Patient here. He holds his arms up in triumph and he smiles and he bows and his black leather is Shining and his long greasy black hair is hanging and his patterned silk shirt is flowing and his large round silver earrings are dangling and everyone is bedazzled. He motions for quiet and the clapping stops and he starts theatrically pacing back and forth across the Stage back and forth again. He stops and he stares at the ceiling for a m,oment as If there is something up there besides the ceiling panels and he look sbac and he starts speaking a deep serious voice.
his first Words are when i had my first hit single and i got famous I started to party really ******* hard. From there he launches into a detailed accounting of his career. He talks about the number or records sold and the number of women slept with and the numbers of awards won. He talks about living on the road and he says it aint easy, man, even if you are staying at the four seasons. He talks about Rigors of recording an album and he talks about the pressures of being a star. He talks about what he calls the national obsession with his lips and his black hair and he talks about the melodic qualities of his loud voice. After a while after far too long a while he talks about drinking and drugs. When he talks of heroin he taps the bend of his elbow with 2 fingers when he talks of coke he sniffs, booze he makes a motion like he has a bottle, pills as if he's tossing them in, he claims that at the height of his use he would do five thousand dollars of cocaine and heroin a day mixed and with four or five fifths of of booze and up to 40 pills of valium to sleep. He says this complete certainty and utmost seriousness.

I am tired I am spent i am nervous I am happy I am calm . Were i in my Normal frame of mind, I would stand up, point my finger, scream Fraud, and chase that Chump mutherfuc.ker down and beat him. Were I in my normal frame of mind, after I gave that mutherfu.cker that beating, I would drag him back here and make him apologize to everyone for wasting their precious time. After the apology, I would tell him that if I ever heard him spewing his bull.s.hit fantasies in Public again, I would cut off his precious lips, and take his god dam.n gold records and shove them up his ass.

I dont like this man,. I dont like what he has to say or how he is saying it. I dont believe him and his Rock Star status isnt even enough to make me buy the **** he is trying to sell.

Four to five thousand dollars a day of anything is enough to kill a Person several times over.
Five bottles of strong liquor over the course of a night would render the strongest human on earth comatose.
Forty Valiums to sleep and he would be taking a nap from wich he'd never return.



( with in the next paragraph he says - )

Quote ( james frey) -
To make light of it ( addiction) , brag about it, or revel in the mock glory of it is not in any way shape or form related to the truth and that is all that matters is truth. That this man ( the rock star ) is standing in front of us, lying about addiction, is heresy. The truth is all that matters.

edited for my spelling.

There are a couple of odd things about this story:

First, Frey's book was deemed bad fiction, but then got a passing grade from the publisher as non-fiction. I have a real problem with that. I understand that claiming something is true might make the story more intriguing, and therefore, more saleable, but it would also seem to me that it would then be the publisher's duty to insure that the story, now non-fiction, was non-fiction. The publisher says that they clear non-fiction books for libelous statements and nothing more. Oprah said yesterday that has to change and I agree with her, but will it? Will the next Hollywood starlet's book of revealed secrets of her whole life, at age 23, be vetted for factual accuracy? Shall I hold my breath waiting for that to happen?

Meanwhile, over at BBB's thread on Aaron Brown, Go there.no responses yet, we are asked to consider the future of the news and the news business. There is a difference. The news is the propagation of information the reporter knows to be true, pronouncements of fact which can be sourced and verified and answer the question "How do you know?" Notice that the words - believes, thinks and considers do not occur in the definition. "Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges." -Randy Kennedy NYT, but the NEWS business provides all sorts of mush masquerading as information: speculation, gossip, rumors and various kinds of infotainment are it's stock in trade.

The dividing line between the news and the news business has been slowly eroding since Walter Cronkite retired from CBS. It is now nearly invisible, making it very difficult for the reader or the viewer or the listener to divine what are the facts. One poster here referred to a "true memoir" as if the word needed an adjective. I guess it does now, but that wasn't always the case. Perhaps in the crawls at the bottom of CNN and FOX et al they could put the disclaimer "Parts of what we say are total bullsh-t." and newspapers could print the news in black and white and the bullsh-t in blue. On radio, well, except for NPR, there IS no newsradio, just traffic reports and weather, but NPR would be required, when they knew something they were about to say was foggy, to roll off some of the bass and make the voices sound thin and tinny.

That would help me.

Joe(I know this much)Nation

Yeah, there is a lot of blame to go around, here. I think the publisher shouldn't have let dollar signs get in the way of integrity; that Frey, who perhaps can be forgiven for what he initially wrote as a novel, should have made sure that what was published as true, was (and not insisted that what was untrue was true when poop started hitting the fan); and that Oprah should have heeded the warnings she got way in advance and been more careful about what she touted.

shewolfnm,

Thanx for typing all that in there. Wow. I am pretty speechless.

I'll have to come back to this. wow.....................

Yes, thank you, shewolf, and after that exerpt, how, I wonder, does one read 177 pages of such tripe, even if it was true.

J

yes. his whole point of saying that , that many drugs would kill someone, renders him a liar in my book.
I know for a fact people do that amount of drugs all the time and still live.
All addicts know that is possible.
he claims it isnt.

That comment of his rang a bell with me before others pegged him as a fraud.


Maybe, as if she REALLY needed it, Oprah kept the discoveries of his lies under wraps so SHE could have the public recognition of bringing him out of his lying closet? on HER stage, on HER show... to boost her ratings?

marketing scheme 101 possibly..

Too lazy to read the whole thread... but I read both of his books... "A million little pieces" and "My Friend Leonard"

I couldn't put either book down, they were so good.. I read both books before all of the media came out saying he was lying, which in fact I don't doubt because it makes sense after reading the books and looking at him that half the things he said may not have been true.... due to the lack of scars he should have had

But that doesn't change the fact that the books were still amazingly written...

I don't agree with his lying at all... but I did love his books and if he choices to write more I will continue to read them

hmm.. good point about the scars.

THAT never occured to me..