3 Cups of Tea & A Bottle of 2-Buck-Chuck

I guess I should start from the beginning as to why I even started this blog. See, I've been a writer for the majority of my adult life... Which, some might say "just started." Truth is, I became a storyteller shortly after my lips could form any words and, once I learned how to hold a crayon, I began creating images with trite stories to back those images up-- Not that one should EVER have to justify what he or she creates artistically. Eventually I traded in the crayon for a more elaborate means of communication: a #2 Pencil.  But with the pencil comes the freedom of erasing ones initial thoughts, so I graduated to the almighty Ballpoint pen. No escape here! Whatever words are written on a legal pad can never be erased... Until I discovered the Word Processor (God, am I really that old?!).  Gone were the days of shuffling through (if not filing away), notepads filled with "The best ideas ever!" I now had the freedom of not only deleting my initial thoughts, but also replacing them with even better ideas that could be stored on a floppy disk. Well, I sold that Word Processor in a yard sale (but kept the disks) over 15 years ago when I moved from Manhattan to Hollywood. The Bluffer's Paradise. Or, as Woody Allen once called it: "A place where they shoot too many movies, and not actors who star in them."

So, this is where the initial post "3 Cups of Tea & A Bottle of 2-Buck-Chuck" comes into play.

 

I'd just poured a glass of Charles Shaw, a cheap, yet popular wine that floats around here on the Left Coast (hence the name 2-Buck Chuck),  and flipped on "60 Minutes." They were doing an investigation into best-selling author Greg Mortenson’s book “3 Cups of Tea” because of allegations that his key stories of fighting terrorism and building and supporting schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan are false. To make matters worse, critics of Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute say that the $60 million raised for Mortenson’s charity was primarily spent promoting Mortenson and his book, which has been on The New York Times bestseller list for four years.

 

Now, Mortenson wouldn’t be the first to have dipped his hand in the charitable cookie jar, nor would he be the first author to stretch the truth. Remember James Frey’s book “A Million Little Pieces?” that turned out to be a fabrication of his drug addiction, who even pulled the wool over Oprah’s eyes when she included it in her 2005 book club? But what both of these men have done (should Mortenson’s accounts in his book turn out to be untrue) is ruin it for those of us who have spent endless number of years researching and writing manuscripts in the hope of being published— And shame on their
literary agents, better known as the gatekeepers in the publishing world, for pushing their work without doing their homework!

 

But I'm not bitter (Liar.) Actually, jaded is a more appropriate choice of
words, and for good reason...

 

For the past 10 years, I have been working on a true story about the woman (who shall remain anonymous) that started Marilyn Monroe’s first fan club at 20^th Century Fox. At that time, the woman was a young girl, who had a decade long friendship with the star right up until her untimely death in 1962. I met the woman in 2001, and she was not in great health, but always wanted to tell her story about Marilyn before she left this planet. Sadly, she passed away in 2007, however, while she was alive I played the role of a journalist, recording her fondest memories of Marilyn. I even have pictures of her and Marilyn together, along with her other personal artifacts (i.e. Marilyn’s signature on pictures and notes to “the woman”) that Christie’s auction house authenticated. Yet, it took me ten years to verify her story, not to mention, wrap my mind around it.

 

Sounds like a good story, right?  According to the majority of agents who’ve read the now completed manuscript, it is

 

So what’s the problem?

 

Two words: she’s dead. That’s right, the consensus from the literary agents that I’ve approached are afraid to take on a story reiterated by a dead woman, even though I have her talking about it on tape, along with the previous evidence I spoke about. Mind you, this comes from a few agents (and industry professionals), who I'd approached when the woman was still alive that were all over the story like a fly on… You know.

 

Granted, when I first met this woman, I had questions based on doubts, as anyone would have, of how much of her story was true, and how much was perhaps, to put it gently, a "re-imagining." Once I really got to know her I understood, unequivocally,  that the possibility that she made things up or stretched the truth was zero. She had a solid grasp on what happened, even forty years later. How many of us can say the same? But to reiterate, should anyone question this woman's story, I can state that having gotten as close as I did to her, it was not within her make-up, at that point in her journey through life, to fabricate anything. 

 

So, in my own jaded way, I want to salute  you, Greg Mortenson, for creating another blow to us heroic memoir writers (and the people who love them), for penning your best-selling “Three Cups of Tea,” as I polish off my entire bottle of 2-Buck Chuck, contemplating how to convince a fresh round of literary agents that the validity of my story is true.