Intro to “Three Stages” an Entertainment Book
- Posted on 21st February 2019
- in Celebrity book, Entertainment, Hollywood memoirs
- by Ben
It’s hard to believe that I published Three Stages, my entertainment book, one week over six years ago. It’s dubbed an entertainment book because practically all of my adult life has been spent in one aspect or another of the entertainment business. My first sale was on 11 February 2013 to Lincoln Mayorga, my one surviving close friend from high school. Since then I have been blessed with over three hundred-fifty buyers (not exactly best seller class but not bad for self-published non-fiction) most of whom are total strangers.
Today something moved me to blog tweaked excerpts from my introduction to that first literary (or maybe illiterary) effort.
Author’s Preface
This is a book of memory, almost entirely my own and some of it is no doubt factually incorrect. This is unavoidable when writing an honest autobiography. “Honest” because this is honestly what I remember. And memory is… strange, inconsistent, variable and highly subjective. Chronology is slippery. Events collide with one another and a whole year is lost or muddled. But the process of recording all this is fascinating and, I think, salubrious for the mind and spirit.
Among the many things to ponder are inclusion considerations. Is that worth writing about? Should I use her real name? Would anyone care about that or is it only interesting to me? So I have left out a lot of events and people that I remember but don’t think anyone needs to read about and I’ve forgotten a lot of events and people that were important and would most likely be fun both to write and to read. But that’s how it goes. (NOTE: I have written up several worthwhile forgotten events and posted them on this blog: Flushing Pot, Talkin’ Ben Bryant Blues, and one of my favorites, The Silver Cloud Incident.)
– – – –
Obviously no one lives in a vacuum; other people are involved in all phases of one’s life. So I hereby apologize in advance to those I’ve misquoted or mis-reported on or distorted facts about as you remember them. And I have intentionally changed a few names mostly to protect the guilty and myself (from lawsuits). – – – –
I consulted a few old friends for dates and other verifications and clarifications and usually our memories synched, occasionally they didn’t but this volume is mostly my memories about my life, what I did and what happened to me. This is my story and I’m stickin’ to it!
I’ve intentionally endeavored to make this writing as conversational as possible. I want it to read as though you and I were sitting around telling stories. Some results of this style are the frequent use of the vernacular and the vulgar, occasional jumps about in chronology and scattered run-on sentences, so as you read try to imagine yourself listening.
– – – –
Near the end of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men I came across a monologue of “Sheriff Bell”, which seemed resonant with my life: It’s a life’s work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong. … There was always some part of me that wanted to be in charge. Pretty much insisted on it. Wanted people to listen to what I had to say. But there was a part of me too that just wanted to pull everybody back in the boat. If I’ve tried to cultivate anything it’s been that.
Enjoy the first thirty-seven years of my life. I certainly did.
BB – November 2012, NYC
Thank You! to all my readers, friends, relatives and especially those to whom I was previously an unknown author. If you haven’t read it and you’d like to, click here and get a copy of Three Stages.
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