Friday, January 22, 2010

The Story Of My Life



Well, we come to the end of yet another week in the sorrow that is January and find out that (gasp!) Jonathan Edwards has indeed fathered a love child. This does not surprise me. He is a rich man who was having an affair with a woman who stands a lot to gain from such a situation. (For further reference, Jay McInerney wrote a story about her titled "The Story Of My Life.") Also, the baby looks just like him. What surprises me is the outrage of the pundits on his lying, many going so far as to call him a pathological liar. Really? The man did not act well. He lied about it. For about two years. With a terminally ill wife to boot. But what do we know of his life? While huffing and puffing away on the elliptical, I heard a woman on television say that he did irreparable harm to his daughter by denying paternity and that she would never get over it. I grew up in a place where a young boy suffocated to death in an abandoned refrigerator because of lack of parental supervision, where kids got routinely beaten and starved and bullied because their parents didn't have money, chances, or the sense God gave a goat. Perspective, please.

I've made many mistakes, large and small. I've done stupid shit, lied about it, ruined relationships, broke my own heart, covered up mistakes. Sound familiar? It should. Everyone has regrets, even the ones who say they don't. We've all been the dude in the Bible who buries the talent and has to pay the piper when the time is up. No doubt that Edwards acted the fool. Let's just say he's not the only one trying out for that part.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"A mistake in judgment isn't fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is." Pauline Kael

Cocktail Hour
All right, I'm really wanting to see Crazy Heart. I'm a total sucker for that type of movie. Has anyone seen it yet?

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Friday! In answer to the Macomb question, yes, guilty as charged!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The Story of My Life" is a first-person narration with one of the best unreliable narrators in all of fiction. McInerney had a good short story teacher, too--Raymond Carver.--Herman Northrup Frye

Anonymous said...

Gloria Steinem was a Playboy Bunny. Whatever happened to her?--Al Goldstein

Jason said...

MICHELE!

Anonymous said...

Detroit-area attorney Geoffrey Fieger(Dr. Jack Kevorkian's former legal eagle) contributed over 100K to the Jonathan Edwards presidential campaign and then was charged by the federal government with election campaign fraud. But famous lawyer "Buckskin" Jerry Spence, along with a sympathetic judge and jury, got ole Fieger off the hook. Those trial lawyers like to hang together.--Mudslide Slim

Lana Gramlich said...

I'm just waiting to hear the dish on all of the idiots pointing their fingers at him, y'know? It always seems to happen...Whoever crows the loudest about some other politician's immorality ends up the next one publicly shamed.

Anonymous said...

Brett Favre will lead the "Black and Blue" division's Minnesota Vikings to VICTORY!!! against Drewk Breeses(?) New Orleans Saints down in the Big Easy in the prelude game to the SUPERBOWL. The Minnesota defense will win this one. They eat raw red meat for breakfast.--Night Train Lane

Anonymous said...

REMEMBER ALL THOSE FOLKS WHO JUMPED ALL OVER CLINTON FOR HIS AFFAIR WITH MONICA. HA THEY WERE THE VERY ONES WITH SKELETONS IN THEIR OWN CLOSETS. AND HE LIED. I WONDER HOW MANY POLITICIANS COULD PASS THE TRUTHINESS TEST.

Anonymous said...

I remember going to a Play Boy club with my husband. WHAT I REMEMBER THE MOST, FERRANI AND TEICHER AT THE PIANOS.

the walking man said...

I would rather turn my mind away from the secrets and shame of a man who tried to hide them and wonder at the motives of them who tried so diligently to expose them.

Who is the bigger whore? John Edwards or the trusted friend who wrote the book because the advance hit 6 figures?

Do you know what I love about all the writers and poets I know, the best of them anyway? They allow the closet door to remain open and unashamedly breath life into their skeletons.

chris said...

Hi M. I'm still here. The one that got me was, Tiger is in a sex rehab clinic.
I just cracks me up these days, how we can just make up excuse's.My twisted mind says Woods liked women and lots of them. Did he abuse them,beat them etc,or should we just call somone like him a man whore. They all played and now the Devil want's his due.

chris said...

Damn, I almost forgot while admiring the picture. Nice ears.