Errata

Errata in the Film Version of my Memoirs

I know it's a great privilege to have one's memoirs made into a feature film, and I realize that a film needs to have mass appeal and can't have the sophistication of a book, but (and I don't mean to gripe) I have a few complaints about the liberties taken with my work. First, the title. My memoir is called "Wasted Soul." Although the film retained one of the words from my title, "Waste of Space" has a very different tone. As far as casting, Rosie O'Donnell was perfect as my wife, but why resurrect a bloated Andrew "Dice" Clay for my role? I was thinking more along the lines of George Clooney (we both have salt and pepper hair and an inimitable way with the ladies.)

I am going to assume you've seen the film, and so as I set the record straight, I'm going to refer to everyone by the name of the actor that played him or her. It's easier for you—you don't have to strain your imagination—and it's easier for me, because I'm starting to forget what my real friends, enemies and acquaintances actually looked like. I guess that comes with fame. For the few of you who haven't seen the film version of my life, this will relieve any cognitive dissonance when you do—you won't have any uncomfortable thoughts like: I thought the janitor would look like Chris Cooper, not Morgan Freeman. You're welcome.

For minor characters (who may have been played by actors you don't know and therefore can't readily imagine) or characters that simply weren't in the film—and there were plenty of egregious omissions, such as my Canadian girlfriend—I'll refer to old sitcom stars, and you'll have to imagine them as they were in their prime. For example, if I say I sat down in a diner next to Arnold Drummond and Freddy "Rerun" Stubbs, you'll have to imagine Gary Coleman and Fred Berry, respectively, during their stints on "Diff'rent Strokes" and "What's Happening!," not the freakish model railroader and the sad (but still portly!) addict.

My affair with my high school French teacher is completely misrepresented in the film. First, Kirstie Alley is fat, not big-boned and athletic like Madame Pouncet. Madame Pouncet once coached a state championship field hockey team! Second, the scene in the boiler room-- when I penetrate a roll of Madame Alley's stomach fat rather than her vagina, and Morgan Freeman, the wise old janitor, who is surreptitiously watching from behind the electrical panel, says "Hey kid, if you need a road map, health class is right down the hall"-- that was completely fabricated. I did not need a road map. I had a girlfriend in Canada at the time, and we had had sexual intercourse several times. But where was she? Left on the cutting room floor, I suppose. Several times. If Madame Alley and I did anything, then it was in the back of the band truck during her prep period--but like I said in the interview in People, "I didn't do anything with Kirstie Alley, not in the boiler room, not while holding onto the tuba straps in the band van, and certainly not in the walk-in freezer in the cafeteria." Even as a teenager, how could you maintain an erection in a walk-in freezer?

The animal in the attic was not a stoat. It was a squirrel. I know stoats are scarier, but they're not even indigenous to central New Jersey. Accidental? Highly unlikely.

Although my parents really didn't let me watch R-rated movies when I was a kid, I still figured out how to curse properly. The scene in the school yard when I said to the bully, "Stop trifling with me, you yellow-bellied blowhard," and he punched me in the nose, knocking me to my knees, and then said, "Getting ready to blow me, faggot?" and everyone laughed? That didn't exactly go down like that. I talked to my friend Adam Sandler, who was there, and he said he remembered me getting a couple of good scratch marks on his arms. Also, my father, Robert Duvall, did NOT beat me mercilessly if I made noise while he was listening to classical music.

The scene where my wife left me home alone with both kids, but had her reservations? Never, while changing Chucky, did I intercept a stream of his urine with my open mouth, gargle it, and then spit it all over him to make him laugh. Even I'm smart enough to know that the uric acid would burn his eyes. That was just gross-out comedy.

I did build an automaton to model good behavior for my students; Beth would raise her hand before she spoke, and she always did her reading. She never wore t-shirts that revealed her navel or low rider jeans that revealed the top of her thong underwear (though she did wear thong underwear). She did once have a gravity-defying rack, but my puritanical wife called me a pedophile and made me reduce her to a B-cup. Automaton Beth even managed to have a social life outside of school—she was elected president of the chess club, the first time ever for a girl. She couldn't really chill at a party though, because she wasn't programmed to use slang or handle crystal meth. But I absolutely did NOT build an evil automaton named Ali to model bad behavior—nor did I make him have a raucous bout of flatulence during an exam or program him to sell drugs that he pulled out of his turban. Those were cheap and tasteless laughs. And I certainly did not decapitate Ali in front of the class with a softball bat to elicit fear and intimidation. Even with tenure, they'd fire you for that—even if it was an Arab automaton. Tasteless. No wonder the film got two thumbs way down.

The mortgage was actually a thirty-year fixed rate and the life insurance was twenty-year term. I know an adjustable rate is sexier, but using the amortization table to create dramatic irony was juvenile.

I don't drink Grolsch. It tastes like it's skunked. Total product placement. As was the Testor's model cement. Do you really think I'd start huffing glue because my roof collapsed? I bought the glue to make a dinosaur model with my son and I was checking inside the bag to see if I had dropped the change in there. The glue wasn't even open.

I researched four different roofers. Got quotes and references, the whole nine yards. The movie makes it look like I opened the yellow pages and called the first name I saw and then fell in love with Bronson Pinchot's wacky accent. Not true! The roof collapsing was NOT my fault. I did more than enough legwork for the job. And our roofer is from Portugal, not Mypos. Is this what passes for parody these days? The moral of the movie is NOT: if you don't check out your contractor then you're going to get ripped off and disaster will ensue. Or even: illegal immigrants don't know safety codes. The moral is that sometimes fate deals you a bad hand and you've got to be stoic and survive as best you can. And we did. The end of the movie? When I'm wearing a stained pair of boxers, chasing my wife amidst the ruins of our house, waving a copy of our life insurance policy, asking her why she couldn't have been hit by a falling beam? One word for that: hyperbole.