Through hellfire and Oprah

It's always been my dream to make it big some day as a writer. In my fantasies (the ones not involving Naomi Watts and a riding crop), I always pictured myself in a posh New York City apartment, throwing fancy dinner parties where all of my guests suck up to me because my book has been number one on the bestseller list for months and Hollywood just optioned a screenplay based on it. Then, at the end of the night, all of the other party guests leave and it's just me and Naomi Watts ...

I even have a kick ass manuscript that I think is going to catapult me to the ranks of superstardom. I don't want to give too much away for fear that one of you will steal my idea, but I will tell you it centers around a rockstar ninja cowboy from the future who comes back to our time to stop a robot biker gang and their pet dinosaur from setting off a bomb during the main event of Wrestlemania.

Surprisingly though, most publishers have passed on my manuscript so far. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps they think the whole story sounds a little too formulaic. I’m not worried though. You see, I have a plan. I’m going to resubmit the manuscript, but this time I’m going to say that the book is nonfiction. I’ll just say that I’m the rock star ninja cowboy from the future and that I’m simply recounting my personal struggles. People love real life stories of triumph over adversity.

I figure I’ll send a copy of the book to Oprah and get her to do a show about me. After all, it’s the least she could do after I saved her life at Wrestlemania (she was wrestling Kane in a Buried Alive match in the main event). Oprah and her staffers will all read the book, have a good cry and then feature my story in Oprah’s book club. A nice endorsement from Ms. Winfrey ought to be just what I need to get on the top of the New York Times best seller list.

Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking I look incredibly handsome in my photo at the top of this column ... no wait, sorry. You think it’s wrong and unethical to take a fictional story and claim it as truth. And you are probably also thinking that there is no way Oprah would ever support a writer who would rewrite their own past just to sell a few books. You might also be thinking that a plan like this would never work.

If you feel that way, then you probably aren’t familiar with James Frey. Now Frey never claimed to have defeated a gang of unruly robots and their pet dinosaur using only his car keys and a stick of gum, but according to The Smoking Gun web site, he did fictionalize large parts of his past in his supposed autobiography “A Million Little Pieces.” And his book was indeed a selection of Oprah’s book club (even though he never saved her life during the biggest spectacle in sports entertainment), which helped him sell more than 3.5 million copies and has kept him on top of The New York Times nonfiction paperback best seller list.

His book is a story of his troubled past and his road to recovery. In “A Million Little Pieces,” Frey talks about being wanted in three states, hitting a cop with his car, almost inciting a riot as he was arrested for hitting the cop, and then he recounts a tragic story about how he was blamed for the death of the only girl who was nice to him in school.

The Smoking Gun, who says they were originally just trying to find mug shots of Frey for their site when they started noticing things didn’t add up, went through police records and court documents and talked to people from the town Frey grew up in.

According to their findings, most of what Frey says seems to be either exaggerated or an outright lie. They say that he wasn’t really as much of a bad ass criminal as he claims to be and that he never really spent much time in jail. TSG even talked to the officer Frey supposedly ran over with his car, who had a completely different version of the incident. The officer didn’t even remember Frey, but he found the original police report, which said that Frey pulled up near the cop and was arrested for drunk driving. The report also says Frey was polite - no mention of him trying to start a riot. The officer said he was pretty sure he’d remember if Frey struck him with his vehicle.

TSG web site even talked to the parents of the girl who was killed in the train accident that Frey claims he was blamed for. In the book, Frey talks about how he went to the movies with her that night, but she was picked up outside the theater by a high school guy and later that night, the boy she was with tried to beat a train across the tracks and she was killed. Melissa Sanders’ mom told TSG that her daughter wasn’t out with Frey that night, his name was never mentioned in connection with the accident and no one in the town blamed him for anything. She says at best her daughter and Frey were acquaintances. Nothing more.

Now trying to paint yourself as a bad ass criminal is one thing, but if he really did exploit some girl’s death to sell a few books, that is pretty low. And it’s something I would never do in my book. Outside of the biker robots, no one in my autobiography gets harmed and none of my fabrications hurt anyone (except maybe Kane, who had to job to Oprah in the main event).

So, if James Frey is allowed to earn millions of dollars off of his made up past, then I want a piece of the pie, too. I mean, after traveling back in time to risk my life for a stadium full of wrestling fans, I think I deserve it. That’s why I think I need to call up Oprah and get the ball rolling. Then, I think I’ll give Naomi Watts a call.

Random thought of the week:
According to news reports, several parents are complaining that when the buttons are pressed on their copies of an interactive Sesame Street book, Elmo says, “Who wants to die?” Perhaps it was some sort of malfunction or a factory worker’s sick joke, but I think Elmo might have just gotten tired of being tickled all the damn time.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He also has some really hot friends. You can contact him at: murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com