Vanderbilt Jeans...

Jon and I attended a book reading and signing yesterday at Brookline Booksmith with the author Augusten Burroughs. If you dont know, Augusten has lived quite the life and his memoirs are living proof that not only is dysfunction and addiction funny, its a goldmine. Both Running with Scissors and Dry are witty, unreal true life tales. In Running his real parents ship him off to live with his mother's shrink and his psychotic and free family. He's raped by their family friend, encouraged to not attend school and lived a life of squalor. In Dry he talks about his battle with alcohol and codependency, love and death. He's an incredibly honest and at times scary author. To top it off, he is really good friends with my friend Haven Kimmel. If you know Haven and her work, you're a lucky person as she just plain rocks. Hello, this is a woman that dated Axl Rose in high school... come on!

A couple Augusten observations...
- His real name is not Augusten, not is it Burroughs. I didnt realize, but at age 18 he legally left his identity behind. We learned during Q&A that he picked Burroughs not because of William, but after a computer. He was going to be a computer programmer before he eventually got into advertising. How knew? Back to his name, apparently this week he told Teri Gross (NPR) what his real name is, so he was going to be signing books with both his birth and taken name.

- He's a lot taller and thinner than I thought him to be. In pictures he is always wearing a baseball hat (which he was this night) and has facial hair (which he was wearing this night) so its hard to get a full read on his face as not much light reaches a cheekbone or jawline. But, he is TALL and looking svelt. I know in Dry he talks about his physique and the gay cultural phenom with body image, but he seemed like a semi-portly fella in my mind. Now, its not like the radio dj flip-flop. You know, where you have been listening to a certain DJ for years and you think he/she has a hot voice and is so cool on air... He must be Jake Gyllenhal hot right? No, he's Rush Limbaugh size and missing a tooth and a hairbrush. It wasnt like that. I was just surprised at how attractive he actually was.

- His first reading was very funny and very David Sedaris (almost to a fault though). It was a story called Vanderbilt Jeans and he was recanting how as a child he went with his family to the Vanderbilt Breakers Estate in RI and knew he was "home". Convinced he was kidnapped by his parents as a child, he dreams of what his life must have been like as a Vanderbilt. It was funny. But as Jon reminded me later... David Sedaris did the exact same story a while back. Regardless, funny.

- His second reading was about turning the harrassment on telemarketing calls. He scored the number and extention of a guy calling about a master card and continued to sexually harass the guy for the remainder of the night. It was short and perfect in execution and intent. We all want to do this... he has. Genius.

- The new book is called "Magical Thinking" go get it.