When Self-Help Heroes Help Themselves

I wandered into a pawn shop on 6th Street the other day, curious to see how much I could get for my moral compass.

"Sorry, buddy," the pawnbroker said quickly. "I've got plenty of 'em. Can't get rid 'em. Was a time they were worth something. Everybody wants to pawn their moral compass these days."

Crestfallen, I shuffled off, berating myself for stooping so low. I never thought I'd voluntarily part company with my treasured moral compass. I had it since I was a kid. I'm reminded of a Woody Allen joke. "This watch belonged to my grandfather. He sold it to me on his deathbed."

All this malarkey about my fictional visit to the pawn shop with my imaginary moral compass is really all about the choices we make when we tell a story, publish a column or write a memoir. Does it have to be true? Is it a moral choice when we embellish and/or simply make up passages and recollections? Is it a bad thing to lie for the sake of a good yarn?

When Oscar Wilde was in trouble with the authorities, the prosecutor tried to trap him when Wilde was on the stand. The question was "Did Wilde think there were moral books and immoral books?" His famous riposte was "There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are simply well-written or badly-written. That is all." The response cracked up the courtroom. And the Brits threw the most-talented writer of the time into prison.

Some of us can't resist a good line -- even if it means our own destruction. But parables of self-destruction have always fascinated the audience. Look at all those rehab stories that saturate the tabloid television shows.

Which brings me to James Frey, the author became famous when Oprah Winfrey embraced his drug and drink-soaked saga called "A Million Little Pieces." He's far more famous now for having made up a lot of his story. The deception was exposed not by the fact-checkers, not by the people at Publisher's Weekly or at "60 Minutes." He was found out by the diligent staffers at the renegade website, The Smoking Gun, best known for publishing celebrity mug shots. Frey lied about his time in
prison. He didn't go to prison. He had some minor scrapes with the law when he was loaded. Maybe. While most of us might downplay our crimes, he exaggerated his to make his story about his addictions more poignant and flashy. And marketable. The story goes that he first tried to proffer his book as fiction but the publisher didn't go for it. Now this story is under suspicion, too. Why would you want to make yourself look bad? Because it sells. The more shocking the account, the better.
Then Frey could say, "Look how far I've come."

Not long after the book came out, Oprah was on TV, heaping praise on the fellow with "Look how far you've come."

Now he was a rich recovering addict. And a hero. What's the harm in profiting from your story if it helps others? Doing well by doing good. Imagine an alcoholic and an addict not being truthful. Shocking!

"A lie has more lives than a cat," observed Mark Twain. It takes a lot of effort to cover one's cover story when you're living a lie. Frey got caught. But it was beyond a mere lie. There are three categories of truly villainous acts: crimes against God, crimes against humanity, and crimes against Oprah. In our culture, Oprah Winfrey has become King Solomon, Judge Learned Hand, and the Oracle at the Adelphi all rolled into one. You might be better off trying to snow a federal grand jury.

Frey was summoned back to the Oprah show to stand trial. He had embarrassed the lady after she had created him as a public figure. She also regretted calling the Larry King show to defend Frey, saying words to the effect that it didn't matter if he fabricated a few facts: his redemptive message to addicts and alcoholics remained the same. After she received a cascade of angry e-mails, she changed her mind. La Oprah was mad as hell and someone was going to pay.

She used a cudgel. Bringing in heavyweight social critics that included Maureen Dowd, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, and Frank Rich of the New York Times, Frey was fried, drawn and quartered on the air. He was summarily sentenced to getting another edition, this time, it includes a bonus apology. A second gulp of mea culpa. Why would Frey go back on Oprah to take this drubbing? He couldn't resist. He's a narcissist. Imagine an alcoholic and addict being a narcissist? Shocking! Believe me, I know, It's the truth. I am all of these things. Nope, I didn't make it up. But does it matter? Does it matter that Frey fabricated his memoir when we are bombarded by so many other lies and deceptions from the government and the media. Surely that's much more serious -- but they seem to go largely unnoticed.

"As far as I'm concerned," says Paulette Millichap, the publisher of Council Oak Books in San Francisco, "all stories are fiction. I am terribly underappalled (by the Frey affair)."

All of the stories in the AA Big Book, the bible of Alcoholics Anonymous, could be made up, too. Though I doubt it. Even if they were, it should not shake the foundations of one's sobriety or spirituality.

The message is still there. But I think the anger about Frey's deception lies in the fundamental need for authenticity, which seems to be hard to find these days. People hunger for it.

It stings us when we have invested faith in people and they betray us. But they're people. At the heart of recovery is the notion of fallibility and forgiveness. We don't have to collapse into a million little pieces when people let us down. If James Frey wants to go to the pawn shop and hock his moral compass, that's his business. I hope, for his sake, that he got a good price for it.

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Bruce Bellingham is the author of "Bellingham by the Bay." He's currently working on a new book called "A Million Little Excuses," which is a collection of ornate apologies in advance for loathsome things he may or may not do sometime in the future. His e-mail is bruce@brucebellingham.com

Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye

Bay Area artist Bijan Yashar decided to have a little fun again this year with President Bush's State of the Union Address by projecting the speech live through different filters and lenses onto the blank walls of an abandoned gas station at Market and Duboce Streets in San Francisco. The artist also did this last year and in 2003.

Yashar wanted to emphasize what he thought was the president's political distortions by using twisted visuals and what Yashar calls "shifting angles." Nice touch to use the empty shell of a Shell station.

How long will it be before kids ask the question, "Grandpa, what's a gas station?"

"Well, children, that was where people could buy that nasty stuff that people fought wars over back in the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century."

But I'll leave the projecting to Yashar.

Back in the 1940s, Orson Welles made a film here in San Francisco called "The Lady From Shanghai." The most famous scene was the movie's climax, filmed in the now-long-vanished fun house at the also now-long-vanished Playland-by-the-Sea. Welles built the tension during a shootout in the House of Mirrors through distorted images, shifting angles and shattering glass. Nothing was as it seemed. It was dark and it was frightening. We knew someone was going to get hurt, hurt very badly. It was a triumph of film noir.

San Francisco has become an international capital of film noir. And why not? It's a natural landscape for it. The City was built on shifting angles, steep hills, creepy cul-de-sacs, and treacherous alleys.

I've always liked the undercurrent of menace of crime that permeates this once truly naughty town. Orson Welles even pays homage to the raucous Barbary Coast Days with his title, "Lady From Shanghai." We've all heard the cautionary tales of the unsuspecting traveler falling prey to nefarious criminals on the waterfront who'd "Shanghai you," that is, drug you and sell you into bondage on the high seas bound for the Orient. Sell you for a song. A bawdy sea chantey, no doubt.

"I think San Francisco is resting on its laurels," a young woman said to me recently. She, like so many others, is quitting The City and heading back to the East Coast.

I don't think San Francisco is resting on its laurels. I think it's resting on someone else's laurels. Those laurels were stolen a long time ago. San Francisco is the shady lady from Shanghai, or she could be the lady from Chicago or the lady from Shreveport. She lies. She plays all the shifting angles. She's a thief, and she'll break your heart because you expect so much from her.

Who can say what San Francisco is really up to? That all depends on whether she was nice to you this morning. Because, it seems we all have a different point of view about this City by the Bay and the world around her, projecting onto her our personal interpretation. Not unlike
Bijan Yashar's broken, distorted images of an American president, projected onto the walls of an abandoned gas station, telling us that everything is just swell.

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Bruce Bellingham is the author of "Bellingham by the Bay." He hasn't driven a car in about 20 years because San Francisco is such a good walking town. This probably has been an unintended contribution to public safety. bruce@brucebellingham.com