Part II: What do you mean now, James Frey?

Okay, okay. So if you've read Frey's A Million Little Pieces, to completely over-simplify it (sorry), you could say that the moral of the story is: drugs are bad. Don't do them, don't sell your soul to them, because if drugs aren't bad enough, rehab is surely ten times worse, what with the yelling and the withdrawal and the voices and everything else.

The secondary moral would perhaps be to drop your manuscript in the correct genre pile when swinging by the publisher's office.

Either way, we're over it.

Since his public disgrace in 2006, Frey has come out with his latest literary contribution, a novel (yep) called Bright Shiny Morning. Within the first few pages, Frey immediately comes out with the disclaimer that states:

"This is a work of fiction. References to real people and locations are used fictitiously. All other names, characters and places, and all dialogue and events, are the product of the author's imagination."

Well how's that for covering your bases. If all two billion of us didn't know better, we might think that Frey made up Los Angeles altogether.

Los Angeles mostly because that's the blissful location that Frey uses for the setting in his 2008 novel. (I can't help it, I smile every time I write it).

So I guess to begin, the questions start with, why California? Why do so many musicians write songs about California? About escaping there, playing there, relaxing there, driving through/towards there? Why are almost all movies that are not set in New York set in California? Why the flocking, why the obsession, why the dazed looks as we sit there and stare off thinking, yeah, now that's the place to be.

Well, I can start by telling you I've always tended to be one of those people. I'm a gazer. And part of the infatuation has always been the unknown. It's not really (just) the fame or the money or the industries that thrive there. Rather it's living in a world outside such things that makes us curious. That, plus the beaches. Oh, and Ditty Riese. (Trust me, if you've been there, you know).

So Frey, all wrapped up in creating fiction, decided to write about and for an audience that is in love with the fantasy of California. He reached into the character jar, picked out a slew of losers, addicts, victims, wannabes, threw them across the page, tossed in a hopeless and/or devastating situation every so often, and called it life. Life in Los Angeles, that is.

Because, seemingly, according to Frey, life in Los Angeles is just that: devastating, and a farce. Everyone dreams about it because that's all it is. Everyone dreams about breaking through or in or out because nobody ever does. They go driving or flying or walking with no money and no place and no job, but oh well, because they have huge hopes. The hugest. And to read Frey's words is to feel mocked, pointed and laughed at for thinking California is anything more than a landing space for modern-day hippies, traveling actors, street venders, American Apparel employees.

We've been tricked.

These are your neighborhood waitresses. Your gas station attendents. Your janitors. These are your classmates who dropped out to be divas talk show hosts singers porn stars junkies. They are in one-man plays that open and then close, they are clerks at the ninety-nine cent store they are maids they go to night school.

Bottom line, guys, I think Frey's making fun of us. I think he's calling California a huge old phony and trying to force us to agree. Throughout Bright Shiny Morning, the characters remain somewhat bland, a little boring, mostly outlines of what could turn out to be anybody's story. And while that bothered me at first, about halfway through, I realized that Frey did this because that entirely was (and wasn't?) the point.

Now, maybe that's giving Frey or anyone a little too much credit. But I think what he's really saying is, hey, look over here, California seems pretty great, it seems pretty promising, it seems pretty huge and infallible and beautiful and the perfect place to start anew.

And then they lose everything. And then their best friend is shot. And then they blow their third audition that day. And then they hate their life. And then they hate their life. And then they hate their life.

So why do we want it so bad? Why do we take all of those statistics, those people who went to be directors or models, to be discovered, to be a one-hit wonder, and believe ourselves to be better or different or more committed? Is it because we want the Freys of the world to be wrong? Do we want to say to them, from way up high on that Hollywood stage, who's laughing now, Mr. Nobody-Makes-It?

Is it because we really believe that, despite all the failure that does take place, that if it's going to happen anywhere (and it is), it's going to happen there (probably so).

Or maybe Frey is just bitter. Maybe his harsh exposure turned him, maybe there was just never enough success, maybe he wanted a book-turned-movie, maybe he's writing about me me me, maybe he's assuming we'll understand this, nod knowingly, coax him along, buy this book off the shelves, say, Come on, James, give us more, we love you! we love you! we love you!

Because that's really just it, right. Fame is adoration is love is happiness. Right?

Oh, geez. Cut to me getting way ahead of myself and all selves and all things.

We'll define happiness another day. For now, Mr. Frey: On behalf of everyone who has ever inhabited, been to, or dreamed about going to California, we apologize if She has ever hurt your feelings. We're sorry if your apartment isn't statuesque or your paychecks seem small, if book sales seem down.

But here's what you might have overlooked: all this unbelievable pressure that we've put on California to sustain us, to satisfy us, to give us something out of the ordinary, something to strive for, is it any wonder that she should crack now and then under the burden of so many aspirations? Sure, there's room for everyone, but somebody's going to have to stay average. Someone's going to have to bag the grocercies and babysit the kids. I know, I know, if it was going to be anyone you didn't think it'd be you.

But here you are. Getting paid by the hour, having roommates, writing when you have the time, escaping now and then, hoping someone notices, someday.

So keep trying. James might laugh. Something like a sardonic cackle.

But I promise I won't. I might find it difficult to believe you want to write a hit vampire movie or be a backup dancer for Britney.

Either way, these are your dreams. Let the last person to stop you be a begrudged, balding (and yes, talented) writer. We have enough problems of our own.