James Franco, who recently made headlines for posting a mostly-naked photo of himself on Instagram, has written a short story for Vice called “Bungalow 89,” inspired by the time Lindsay Lohan allegedly refused to leave him alone while both stars were at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.
And it is, quite frankly, more than a little odd.
The piece alternates reality and fiction, with Franco ruminating on everything from his Gucci ad campaign to memories of late-night hours spent with troubled LiLo at his bungalow.
Here is a passage:
There was a Hollywood girl staying at Chateau Marmont. She had gotten a key to my room from the manager. I heard her put the key into my front door and turn it, but I had slid the dead bolt and that thing—I don’t know what you call it; it’s like a chain but made of two bars—that kept the door from opening.
She said, ‘James, open the door.’
Across the room was a picture of a boy dressed as a sailor with a red sailor cap, and except for his blondish hair (closer to my brother’s color) he looked like me.
She said, ‘Open the door, you bookworm punk blogger f*ggot.’
Another excerpt reads:
I ran my fingers through her hair and thought about this girl sleeping on my chest, our fictional Hollywood girl, Lindsay. What will she do? I hope she gets better. You see, she is famous.
She was famous because she was a talented child actress, and now she’s famous because she gets into trouble. She is damaged. For a while, after her high hellion days, she couldn’t get work because she couldn’t get insured. They thought she would run off the sets to party.
Her career suffered, and she started getting arrested (stealing, DUIs, car accidents, other things). But the arrests, even as they added up, were never going to be an emotional bottom for her, because she got just as much attention for them as she used to get for her film performances.
She would get money offers for her jailhouse memoirs, crazy offers. So how would she ever stop the craziness when the response to her work and the response to her life had converged into one? Two kinds of performance, in film and in life, had melted into one.
But I suppose a tabloid-performance run is limited for anyone. After a while it’s just an out-of-control vehicle running on fumes.
What do you think of James Franco's literary efforts?