Last night I found a book I bought long ago but never read. It made me laugh about my favorite run in with a Celeb and my favorite quote from him that was aimed towards me. One year I decided to volunteer at an Annual Latino Book Fair here in town. It was a fun experience and one of their guest speakers was a well known author by the name of Junot Diaz. I had read up on him and read his most popular book “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”. He’s a Dominican-American writer who teaches creative writing at MIT. He did a reading from this book and I really enjoyed it. His reading of it added Dominican flavor to an already vividly visual text. Being an everyday person I started to feel a little star struck and to crush on him like a little girl as he read.
After a while he found his way back to where I was and suddenly in a loud drunk obnoxious voice says “Hey I remember you now! You bought my book Drown today”. I smiled and told him I was looking forward to reading it. He then said “I was trying to talk to you! Then you just took off”. I wasn’t sure what to say he seemed so upset. I told him it wasn't my intention to be rude, that I felt guilty for taking so much time with length of the line that was behind me. His reply was “Whatever, rude Texas bitch”. I started laughing so hard, what a douche bag! I said “Hey hey take it easy you don’t know me”. He said “yeah I guess that was out of line, let me buy you a drink”.
My friend whose a writer said he was working on a book inspired by this very story. The book is about children of immigrants that due to their parents hard work and suffering somehow feel entitled as if they themselves had done a courageous act. I wonder how his book is coming I think he's living in Mexico somewhere now. He had read all of Junot's work and found it overrated. Personally I'm not that harsh of a critic I like his writing very much and I'm sure it wasn't an easy ride to where he's at today.
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| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junot_D%C3%ADaz |
Last night I found a book I bought long ago but never read. It made me laugh about my favorite run in with a Celeb and my favorite quote from him that was aimed towards me. One year I decided to volunteer at an Annual Latino Book Fair here in town. It was a fun experience and one of their guest speakers was a well known author by the name of Junot Diaz. I had read up on him and read his most popular book “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”. He’s a Dominican-American writer who teaches creative writing at MIT. He did a reading from this book and I really enjoyed it. His reading of it added Dominican flavor to an already vividly visual text. Being an everyday person I started to feel a little star struck and to crush on him like a little girl as he read.
After his talk I bought a copy of an early work of his called “Drown” and patiently waited in line to have it autographed. The line was ridiculous and when I finally got there I found him pleasant and engaging. A little too engaging actually. Considering the line behind me and my nervousness I cut him a little short by saying thank you then leaving. I spent the rest of the Book fair reading to kids and coloring with them. Afterwards we did a clean up and everyone was going to meet at a little bar downtown.
I’d been to the bar before because an acquaintance was dating the owner. The Book fair crew had reserved the room up stairs and I showed up all dolled up. A friend of mine was sitting at a table with Junot who was dominating the conversation with his verbal exhibitionism and loud Yankee Dominican accent. When she saw me she perked up and called out to me. “Girl you need to come over here. I know you will appreciate him because ya’ll both keep it real.” He looked me up and down with a big bad wolf face and started to chat me up too. It felt crammed at the table with his ego taking up most of the room. We were all laughing and cutting up. I played some Perez Prado on the juke box and everyone started to dance. The drinks kept coming, the laughing got louder and so did everyone’s swagger. I danced a little with him and then went back to chat with some other people.
After a while he found his way back to where I was and suddenly in a loud drunk obnoxious voice says “Hey I remember you now! You bought my book Drown today”. I smiled and told him I was looking forward to reading it. He then said “I was trying to talk to you! Then you just took off”. I wasn’t sure what to say he seemed so upset. I told him it wasn't my intention to be rude, that I felt guilty for taking so much time with length of the line that was behind me. His reply was “Whatever, rude Texas bitch”. I started laughing so hard, what a douche bag! I said “Hey hey take it easy you don’t know me”. He said “yeah I guess that was out of line, let me buy you a drink”.
Anyway, I haven't been star struck since. It’s like when I was in NY City and a girl at a bar told me a wonderful analogy. She said “Some people are like coconuts all hard and scruffy on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside. Others are like peaches all smooth and supple and appealing on the outside but a hard black pit on the inside.” AMEN! Watch out for those charmers.
