ZONER: ON JAMES FREY

"Laugh hard it's a long way to the bank."- Isaac Brock

I take particular interest in this Frey topic because I read the book a little over a year ago. Throughout the book I kept saying to myself "Yeah, right". Well the other day I read the TSG report. I cried, "I knew it!".

So I watched Frey on Larry King Live tonight. The show was live. I'm not sure if Larry King is. I think so though, because a robot or clone could have done a better job. King takes phone calls but tonight he was the one who phoned it in. He repeatedly asked questions about facts that had been established and it was obvious that he had not read the book. He seemed really weird. Frey was describing to King how a certain author took liberties with his memoir about the holocaust. King quickly chimed in with "He committed suicide." It was an odd exchange as was most of the show. Besides that he threw mostly softballs and didn't hit back when Frey issued his boilerplate responses. Frey also took like 94 sips from his mug when his mom was on set and he looked increasingly uncomfortable as the program went on. Hot lights and half-truths will do that to you. Or it was some sort of strange bio-electrical feedback from the robot called Larry King.

I also thought it was total rubbish that they took only 3 calls by my count and they were all supportive of Frey. That was some bush producing.

And then Oprah had to call in and endorse the book saying that it was "much ado about nothing". I expected nothing less. It's so new-agey to not let facts get in the way of a good time.

Some have brought up bio-pics like "Ray" and "Walk the Line", etc. When I view one of these films I realize that the person who wrote the story likely isn't crafting the film. I also realize it's a film and not a book. I don't buy the comparison. Nor do I buy the "Non-fiction novel" argument. With "In Cold Blood", Capote indeed introduced a new genre to the world and along the way surely took license of some of the dialogue and recreating of scenes and characters. But I still knew that he wasn't writing about his life. Frey was.