I reported here last year that Matt P. was busy penning an authorized biography of neo-soul artist Chico DeBarge. Matt emailed me recently with a typically eloquent update. The book, "The Devil Wears Fubu", was published by Scribner in March, and is already in its third printing. It appears to be a critical hit as well. The New Yorker called it "nuanced, pliant" while Dave Eggers gushed: "Everytime Matt P. writes a sentence, an angel laces up his hoodie." Despite the book's success, Matt writes that at first, Chico was upset:

"Sure, initially he wasn't thrilled with it. I had warned him upfront that this wouldn't be a puff piece, that I was in pursuit of something honest. Still, I wasn't surprised by his reaction. I mean here is a guy who has spent his entire life in the company of sycophants, hangers-on who propped him up, inflated his ego. Is it any wonder then, that Chico cut his fashions from the cloth of self-deception? But then show me a man that doesn't. All of our lives are really just ideas; ideas about who we want to be, how we like to think others see us. Selfdom is an optimistic enterprise, it's the front seat of the rollercoaster; but vanity is a funhouse mirror. The thing that did surprise me about this project, though, was how much it taught me about myself. You go in thinking you can maintain a critical distance, but you can only observe something for so long before you begin to see something of yourself reflected in it. Darwin unlocked evolution's mysteries by studying finches. I unlocked mine last summer in a panel van with a man named Chico."

Max R. is a photographer at the Holocaust Museum, which sounded really great until he let slip that the museum is in his basement.

On weekends, Charlie takes his 2 year-old son Harrison to Tenley Mini Mart to buy cigarettes. Charlie still smokes Camel Lights, but he gets Harrison Capri Menthol 120s, which have a slimmer shape and are easier for a young child to hold in his growing lips. Plus the minty flavor encourages brushing.

Labels: James