Because the days are long and dreary I’ve been consuming book with a vengence. I recently read two ‘celebrity books’ just for fun and bubbles.
Traci Lords: Underneath it All was incredibly disappointing. It was badly written, over-edited, and full of holes. Lords, in case you don’t know, broke into the porn business at the ripe age of 15 (courtesy of a fake i.d and her Mom’s ex-boyfriend who posed as her step-father). She had a hideous upbringing, claimed to be on drugs during her entire porn career, and rose above it all to become a model/movie/techno/tv star. Surprisingly, given all these circumstances this memoir was without juice. Titillating photos from her modeling career (all rated very PG) are sprinkled throughout the book and yet she condemns the entire industry from hence she came. When the government stepped in and investigated her underage porno career, we get very few details–only that undecover agents followed and harassed her for years and drove her into therapy. And ok, she had a bad start in life, but Lords is a beautiful woman who was given a lot of opportunity due to the fact that hot women tend to get a lot of stuff handed to them–good and bad. The book was so badly written (and it’s evident she did not have a co-author) that I had to skim through most of it, realizing that, unless you’re a huge Lords fan, there isn’t much to this self indulgent, ego-stroking, memoir. (It did make me put the John Water’s movie, Cry-Baby, on my Netflix list).

The flip side was the fairly well written book, Just A Geek, by Wil Wheaton. My grandma was a huge Star Trek: Next Generation fan–she had a huge crush on Patrick Stewart–and I used to watch the series with her. I loved Wesley Crusher because he was a kid on an adult show, driving space ships around and holding his own. I remember reading up on Wil Wheaton in Tiger Beat and learning that his real name is Willow, Stand by Me was what made him a star, and that he was five years older then me. What I didn’t know is that Wil left Star Trek to pursue a movie career when he was 18 and his career never took off. His response to this is emotionally, bitterly, and thoughtfully documented in the blog he started in 2001 (when weblogs were fairly novel). Just A Geek is a compilation of many of his earlier blog entries mixed with commentary about what was going on his life at the time. There’s a lot of failed auditions, comic-cons, and angst over the fact that leaving Star Trek in hindsite was a terrible idea. It’s also apparent that the producers slighted him at every turn and omitted him from everything from the Next Generation movies to recognition events with the cast. But it’s also evident that without Star Trek and the fan base he developed Wil would not have the writing career he is currently enjoying. In fact, it was bittersweet for me to read about another actor’s struggle for recognition, career advancement, and financial success only to realize that he was a writer all along. I can certainly relate to this, although I think much of celebrity success comes with luck and not necessarily talent. Many times I’ve thought about throwing in the acting towel and declaring myself A Writer–although I don’t have the funds to start my own publishing company in order to self-publish. I also wonder if it is still possible to launch a writing career from a blog…I certainly fantasize about doing so. (If anybody knows how to go about this please let me know).