Gotta Get It Outta My Head

Well, my rosy optimism about uncluttering the house has gotten off to a unbelievable start, which is to say that, aside from going through my closet, nothing has happened. (The unbelievable part is that I went through my closet.)

I think the thing that bothers me most about all the "stuff," other than the fact that it's just in the way most of the time, is that more than likely somebody spent money on it and it just sits there. It's not being used; it just sits there.

And if money is just going to sit there, it might as well earn some interest while it's at it, however little that interest may be. Instead, the stuff just depreciates in value over time to the point that we just want to give it away to get rid of it. It made me remember this post over at The Simple Dollar.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that I work for a book publisher (which is part of the reason I have so many books in the house), but it also means that I read the trade journals and websites. Well this book caught my attention and it is one book I'm positive will never end up in my house, Sanjaya Malakar's Dancing to the Music in My Head: Memoirs of the People's Idol.

Now I haven't watched American Idol since I was completing an internship in Washington, D.C. It was the season Fantasia won, and the reason I watched then had more to do with my almost-21-year-old-roommates than any true desire of my own. At any rate, whether or not you watch, it's nearly impossible to avoid all exposure to the spectacle, which is to say, okay I vaguely know who this Sanjaya guy is.

But I also know he's only 19. How do you write your memoirs at 19, let alone 256 pages of them? Okay, Britney Spears might have been able to pull off memoirs at 19, but this guy? Does this mean for hom that it's all downhill from here?

Oh, and he's written his memoirs with Alan Goldsher, which really means one of two things 1) either Sanjaya truly did write the memoirs, but the editor had to do so much work to get them presentable as a book that the editor demanded a rather prominent cover attribution, or 2) Sanajaya told this guy Goldsher some slightly interesting stories and Goldsher had to beef them up to make it interesting enough to publish as a book, in which case the title really should be Dancing to the Music in My Head: The Imagined memoirs of Sanjaya Malakar, the People's Idol.

Simon & Schuster is publishing the book (I don't work for them), which probably means the guy got a hefty advance to write/dictate it--I would guess mid-to-high 5-figures, but I always lowball these things; I wouldn't at all be surprised if he made 6-figures. Oh, and it was published as a hardcover! Really?

Anyhow, I certainly won't be buying the book, and I don't really have any interest in borrowing from the library. I hope the library doesn't spend any tax dollars on this piece of pulp.