Chris Farley Panel Discussion @ IO Monday May 12

[scalumnus]

Hi Folks,
This Monday May 12th at 10pm (It's Free)
Charna, Me and Noah will be chatting about
the new book "The Chris Farley Show".

If you are a Chris Farley fan,this is a keenly accurate
depiction of Chris through the eyes of those closest
to him throughout his life.
Tanner Colby has brought this book in an easy to read excerpt style. Quotes
from his family,his spiritual mentors,co-workers and friends make up almost the entire story. With some longer asides from Farley's brother Tom.

Farley Show is a cross section study in alcoholism and addiction that just happens to be set in the limelight.
The frankness with which some of Chris's closest co-horts speak is fresh, and clear with very little fluff and
false praise.

if you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, or you just want to remember Chris Farley once more, this is a great read.

Hope to see you there,
Thanks,
Tim O

[scalumnus]

last night was a car crash

the main points were glossed over

chris is dead...

the reason the book is significant is
it is honest about a major family illness...DENIAL AND PRIDE AND ALCOHOLISM
and a sad small life of a man saddled with
huge talent, and huge disease ALCOHOLISM, OCD, OVER EATING

he had no capacity to accept the tools to ask for help
due to the family disease, and self loathing

he was offered help 31 times in Treatment

his faith was based on mis-guided fear, his attempts at good works were
sad...his body of work which was small will fade quickly

his attraction to recovery desperate and shoddy


fame is not the goal

the truth of what success is in the long term is...

success
is healthy survival (against the odds) while living a real life on the ground (with the rest of us) with a partner and friends,
and hopefully children... THAT IS THE GOAL

and not to die alone...

what most young artists see is a glittering lie
FAME is a fantasy word, a lie

what is really there... is a long hard road

with crazy odds

and you do not see the pain, suffering,... and the fact that a lot
of your idols in show business from just a few years ago are broke
financially and spiritually or will be one of those in the next ten years

hang on to your life RIGHT NOW
and live what is right in front of you
and stay out of fantasies of what is going on in the lives
of well known people

and pray to God you never become one

well known people are not happier than you

you will not become a better person nor will you find any more peace
than you can find now



just work and be good to each other and
if someone is in trouble... offer help
and if you are in trouble ....do not be afraid to go and seek professional help

in this day and age seeking mental health help is completely acceptable and encouraged

express and name your true feelings
identify your fears
attempt to stop the cycle of poor parenting

if you fall
... get back up, ...when you can,... and walk again

[scalumnus]

TIM O’MALLEY:

Del was a drug addict and an alcoholic, and he spoke to those of us who had that disease. He had all kinds of terrible poisons inside him. He treated the women terribly. He would send them home from rehearsal and say, “We don’t need you today.”

And the guys would all laugh because they looked up to Del, and they had been taken in by that guru status he had. So we absorbed that, and we treated the women pretty badly, too. It was rough for them, very rough.

I was just coming out of my Del-worship phase, because he had chosen someone else to be his prize candidate, and that was Chris. I had been a big star in his eyes when I was in his class, but that had passed. So I was jaded by the fact that Del had moved on from me.

I was just the understudy, and Del would sit at the bar with me, saying cruel things about the cast, about how they would do anything he told them to. And he just laughed about it. “I’m creating the biggest, most expensive piece of crap that I can while making them think I’ve done something brilliant,” he’d say.

It was a dark time. It was a horrible rehearsal process. They were creating material while they were high, and some of the people disagreed with that. But it was still a time when drugs were part of the process.

Years before, when I was a young student, John Belushi came into town and did workshops with us and then performed in the improv one night. And Del told me, “You play your cards right, and I’ll let you watch me get high with John Belushi.” Like it was some kind of reward. Then he didn’t let me come up, and I stood outside his apartment in the rain, crying like a baby. I was an addict, and I’d been denied the ultimate experience—getting high with Belushi. But that was the kind of sick, twisted things that Del would come up with to manipulate all these young kids who looked up to him.

I tried to relay that to the guys, but they wouldn’t listen. I looked like the disgruntled understudy. I remember Brian Doyle-Murray was there at a party and he told me, “You’re just jealous.”

And I was like, “No, I’m not. Del is sick. He doesn’t look at you guys the way you think he does.”

It was a poison, and I think it only spoke to those of us who were drug addicts and alcoholics. There were a lot of us there at the time. It’s since detoxed one hundred percent. We used to throw chairs, break glasses, come in wasted, and produce material that was crap. Del spoke to that. He used to say things like, “The fine line between life and death is where art is.”

And Chris used to say, all the time, “I want to be dead. I want to be famous, and I want to be dead.”


He said it his whole life, and everyone around him was like, “You can’t say that. Don’t say that.”

Del wasn’t the cause of it, certainly, but he was part of the catalyst in Chris’s idea that somewhere in this horrible self-tortured existence is where you found great art. Del was into witchcraft and all this black spiritual stuff, which was the last thing guys like Chris and I needed to hear. And, like I said, maybe everyone didn’t hear this from Del, but those of us who were addicts and alcoholics heard it, because we wanted to hear it.

Chris Farley meeting Del was like the gasoline meeting the match.

Del wasn’t all bad. This is just my perception of him, and it’s colored by my own resentments. But I do believe he passed on a lot of poison, and people don’t talk about it.