Me and James

There was a time when I didn't read. I don't know why, I just wasn't really interested in what I felt my options were book wise. The Scarlet Letter, Frankenstien, The Grapes of Wrath. I know you are screaming, "But these are classics! How could you not read them?" Well, they never really spoke to me. In 10th grade I had basically given up on ever reading anything that I would enjoy ever again. (Oh, the things you decide when you are a teenager.)

So sulking around at Art School dressed in black, doing Physics tutorials after school I was asked by the teaching assistant what I liked to read. And I said "I read nothing and I am a Nihilist." (I made that up.) Him being a writer and all he was saddened by the fact that I didn't read and passed me his latest copy of Granta. This issue was called Crime and had an interesting story in it called Dick Contino's Blues by James Ellroy.

It was the sad and somewhat true story of a polka accordian player named Dick Contino who was suspected of being a communist in the 50's. He wasn't, but to prove his innocence he had to infultrate communist groups in 1950's Los Angeles and rat people out.

Why this short story spoke to me I'll never know, but it did. From then on it changed what and who I read. And after that I read and I read and I read.

Last Sunday I had the chance to meet the man that changed it all, James Ellroy, at the Skylight bookstore. where among other things he read from the Black Dahlia.

His life has been an interesting one, his mother also was a victim of murder and like the Black Dahlia this murder has never been solved. He also did a couple of homeless stints and slept at the park 5 blocks from my house.

I feel like such a nerd, but seeing him was more intersting than running into any of the gossip rag stars of the week. And I got his autograph.

I guess the movie isn't doing so well. I am debating on whether or not I want to see it, but I will have to finish the book first.