Oprah, what are you doing? You bring James Frey to your show and call him out for fabricating parts of his bestselling book, A Million Little Pieces. I, too, was disappointed when I heard the news that a lot of the book was falsified. But when I gave this some serious thought, and I saw how you were unmercifully tearing Mr. Frey a new a-hole, I thought about how deluded people must be to blow this issue out of proportion. Had the book been published as fiction, Mr. Frey most likely would have fell into the pit of many wannabe fiction writers putting too much of their personal lives into their concoctions and being mis-marketed as creative forces. I personally subscribe to the belief that if a novel-length manuscript has too much real-event truth inside, it should NOT be marketed as fiction at all.

Oprah, I challenge you to investigate MOST memoirs and see how many of them actually adhere to 100% truth. As a writer, I can tell you that a very compelling story requires an embellishment of fact. If you tell your life story, or even a nugget of your existence, you simply cannot go from one point to another and expect to HOLD THE READER'S ATTENTION. Oprah, please remember that you are dealing with the entertainment and publishing industry - an industry that is driven by profit. Not truth. Read Maxine Hong Kingston's memoir "A Woman Warrior" and bring her on stage and ask her about the magic and ghosts she details. I'm sure she'd appreciate it.

Oprah says "It needs to say based on a true story." -- ALL contemporary memoirs should say that as well then.

It just makes me ask, is the real reason you put Mr. Frey on your show to call him out on purported lies, or was it to redeem yourself for awarding him with a boost in sales? I wonder if you would have really gone this far had you not selected him for your book club. Shame.

kendall: http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=47467
richard: i have to disagree with the article
kendall: well, then say so --
richard: because most bloggers are not writers at all
kendall: Absolutely not.
richard: just because you can kvetch out a paragraph a day about who pissed you off doesnt make you a writer
kendall: it takes work to craft blog entries
richard: bloggers are almost threatening to devalue journalistic writing, because of this grand misconception. blogging is nothing much more than instant self-promotion. writers can 'use' blogs, not the other way around. though i can see the trend and there are bound to be some bloggers that turn into overnight successes and publishing gods.  but the day a random blogger (who has never published anything other than their daily kvetch) wins a pulitzer, i will eat my words.
kendall:I agree wholeheartedly

My friend, Adam and I were discussing grossly overrated music when he asked me what I thought were the most overrated bands/groups of all time. So I whipped up this list of 25 groups that get way too much credit for their output. Enjoy.

1. PEARL JAM
2. U2
3. LIMP BIZKIT
4. NSYNC
5. THE BACKSTREET BOYS
6. AEROSMITH
7. RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
8. THE SMASHING PUMPKINS
9. THE FOO FIGHTERS
10. BON JOVI
11. POISON
12. VAN HALEN (WITH SAMMY HAGAR)
13. THE BLACK CROWES
14. MOTLEY CRUE
15. STYX
16. OASIS
17. JANE'S ADDICTION
18. KORN
19. COLDPLAY
20. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
21. NO DOUBT
22. ABBA
23. GUNS N' ROSES
24. PINK FLOYD
25. THE ROLLING STONES

Honorable Mentions: METALLICA and NIRVANA

Dear Powerbook,

Seems like Mr. Jobs just gave you the boot, in favor for a slimmer, sexier upgrade - MacBookPro. Ever since the stunning announcement last summer that your heart was going to be replaced by Intel, there was a distant hope that you yourself would still stick around post-transition. Apparantly, Apple decided otherwise. Shame, because your reputation for excellence should have solidified your standing. Why not the iCrook instead? Sheesh. You won't be forgotten for you have served me well, and will continue serving me until MacBookPro proves her stability and is upgraded to version 2.0, or until death do us part.

Farewell, old friend.

Foreveralways,

Kriheli

I just got my hands on a cool little gadget that I have a glowing recommendation for. The Viewsonic NextVision N4 Video Processor is pretty damn nifty. After upgrading my monitor in my home office, I was shopping my old 19" Dell LCD when I found this device on Craigslist. I can basically use my old LCD monitor as a TV Set without the use of a computer. Excellent. So now I have an LCD TV in my bedroom, one less acquisition before I get myself a big badass LCD HDTV for my living room this Spring/Summer (cashflow permitting). /End Geek Talk.

So, now that it is pretty apparant that we are all getting spied on, I have a few words for the big Dubya. Whats up fool? Too busy to knock instead of just peeking in the windows? Too bad you had to break U.S. law by withholding this domestic surveillance spiel from the full congressional oversight committees. Isn't that grounds for impeachment? More so than a guy getting it on with an intern, I reckon. No hard feelings, though, bub. I should be pretty amped about this, because it guarantees one thing. My blog has more of an audience. Welcome aboard, you old cronies. Oh, and don't forget to leave comments.

Most writers are fed crap. Kendall regularly shoots interesting freelance writing ads my way, but I cannot help but feel outrage for the industry when I get to the compensation portion. Mere table scraps. Publishers who eat the lionshare of the profits should be ashamed of themselves. Selling a square inch of advertising for thousands of dollars while throwing pennies at the scribes who bust their ass filling up page after page is a dishonorable act. And the only reason the writers put up with it (presumably) is the hope of getting noticed, a following, a meatier cut of the steak. The problem here is that there are writers who are always hungry enough that the charred flakes will suffice.

Studies in the area of attention show that people generally have "spotlight" attention and can primarily focus on one thing at a time, although the spotlight could be enlarged to cover more ground. Well then color me a "flashlight"... or two. Lately, I have been jostling between a couple of novel-length manuscripts, The Sirius Key and Sinker (both tentative titles). I am having a difficult time focusing on one as my mood has been weathering rapid-fire spurts of inspiration for each piece. This division is disrupting any chance to make a sincere effort to complete just one piece. I don't suffer from attention deficit disorder or anything of that nature, but I think this is definitely cause for some kind of concern. Or am I just paranoid?

I hate small spaces. You can say that I might have a borderline case of claustraphobia. With that said, watching the development of the West Virginian Coal Miner catastrophe has me completely on edge. My number one fear of being trapped in a small space unable to move, only gets heightened when I hear of others who are actually suffering, real-time, in that predicament. Though the situation in Tallmansville appears to be bleak at best, I cannot help but hope that the rescue effort is successful. I know it would drive me mad for sure.

Resolution typically translates to firm decisions to do or not do something. Such black & white parameters do not mix well in my system. Truthfully though, I was never big on making New Year's resolutions, simply because I find sticking to a decision to do something that is out-of-routine to begin with, somewhat onerous. So I won't sit here and write about how 2006 will be the year that I will blog every single day, or how I will stop procrastinating in becoming truly 'filthy' Rich. Change will not beset all of the idiosyncracies that make up who I am, or all of the things that I do. The way I am used to doing them. If that isn't a firm enough resolve, I don't know what is.