Like No Business I Know

Read on for a trio of reading recommendations on one of America's favorite topics: fame.

“Stardom isn’t a profession; it’s an accident.”

-- Lauren Bacall

- The Setup: A True Story of Dirty Cops, Soccer Moms, and Reality TV by Pete Crooks.

non-fiction

Chris Butler was a former cop who'd opened his own PI firm in California. So far, so normal -- except that Butler's firm was staffed entirely by soccer moms. Average, everyday women who had become real-life versions of Charlie's Angels.

Even before Lifetime came banging at their door to offer them a reality TV show (to be called PI Moms), Butler and his soccer moms were a hit, appearing in such places as People magazine and Dr. Phil. (They even got a mention by This American Life host Ira Glass.) When reporter Pete Crooks was promised a ride-along one on of the firm's cases, he was just a writer for the California lifestyle magazine Diablo, looking for nothing more than a typical local fluff piece.

But if Crooks's adventure with the "PI Moms" seemed too good to be true, it wasn't long before he discovered ... it was. The PI bust he'd witnessed had been a set-up, the clients and perpetrators played by actors. The whole scene had been staged -- and it wasn't the first time such a set-up had occurred. Soon, Crooks was peeling back the layers of a bizarre case involving disgruntled employees, illegal drugs, and a con intended to make good use of the lack of "reality" often required for a reality TV show.

I was personally hoping for more time spent on the "Moms" themselves, in the hopes of finding out why such ordinary people would agree to take part in such an extraordinary con, and what the determination for fame might truly cost. But if you're looking for a read on the bizarre layers of a corrupt would-be star, give this book a whirl.

Read Crooks's original article for Diablo magazine here.

Request The Setup from the Catalog



- Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction by Jake Halpern.

non-fiction

Fame, author Jake Halpern argues, is one of America's biggest addictions. From entertainment magazines to reality television shows, our obsession with celebrity has never been higher. In this book, Halpern tries to figure out why.

He travels the country to interview three different types of people who are committed to the pursuit of fame: hopeful performers looking for their big break (focusing particularly on would-be child stars), the workers who devote their careers to celebrities (in the forms of paparazzi or celebrity personal assistants), and obsessed fans to the stars (like the Pittsburgh woman who has a room in her house devoted entirely to singer Rod Stewart). Along the way, he talks to psychologists, sociologists, biologists, counselors, and other experts to try to peel back the layers of why we're so fascinated by the world of celebrities -- and the celebrities who inhabit it.

Request Fame Junkies from the Catalog



- Funny Girl by Nick Hornby.

fiction

Barbara Parker only entered the Miss Blackpool beauty pageant because you have to start somewhere if you want to be a star. And Barbara doesn't want to be just any type of star: she wants to go on television and star in a sit-com, like her hero, Lucille Ball. She knows she's got the talent, but she's also a woman in 1960s England, where she's more likely to be offered a job making coffee than making people laugh.

But she's got serendipity on her side, and so a chance meeting, a name change, and her own sense of committed determination leads her to a starring role in a sit-com designed just for her. The ensuing fames is beyond what she'd hoped for -- even as her own life begins to oddly mirror that of her sit-com alter ego.

Her story is intertwined with her cast and crewmates from her series: the show's creators, their producer, her on-screen husband, the occasional guest stars. The various characters gives Hornby a chance to look at different facets of show business: what it means to be famous, the art of comedy, the tension between highbrow art critics versus those in the world of popular culture, and, ultimately, what we strive for in life -- whether we're famous or not.

Request Funny Girl from the Catalog

-- Post by Ms. B 

Staff Recommendation #25: "Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" by Michael Moss

Here are some food facts:

-- The average person consumes 71 pounds of caloric sweeteners each year. (That's 22 teaspoons of sugar, per person, per day.)

-- In 2011, the average American drank 32 gallons of soda throughout the year. (With an additional 14 yearly gallons of other sugar-rich drinks, like teas, sports drinks, vitamin waters, and energy drinks.)

-- Our tongues' taste buds contain no taste receptors for fat. Despite this, fat is a key component of most processed foods for the way it interacts with taste and textures. On average, Americans are exceeding our recommended daily allotment of fat by over 50 percent.

-- Americans are eating 33 pounds of cheese and "cheese products" every year -- three times as much as we were in the early 70s. Since 2001, our rate of cheese consumption has gone up by 3 pounds per person every year.

-- Food companies use five billion pounds of salt every year in processed foods.

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Michael Moss is the author behind Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. The book's story opens in April of 1999, in Minneapolis, with a gathering of CEOs and company presidents from eleven of America's biggest food companies. (Between them, they oversaw 700,000 employees and $280 billion in annual sales.) Hosted at Pillsbury's headquarters, company reps in attendance included those from Nestlé, Kraft, Nabisco, General Mills, Coca-Cola, and Mars. The topic of conversation: America's growing weight problem, and what the processed food industry could and should do about it.

The initial topic of conversation was led by Michael Mudd, a vice president of Kraft, and his point was simple: their processed foods were a leading factor in the rising obesity rates of America. To correct the problem, the companies needed to start seriously working to cut out the massive amounts of salt, sugar, and fat in their products.

But according to several of the participants (reporters had not been invited to the meeting), when Mudd's presentation was over, someone rose to immediately and forcefully protest. The head of General Mills stepped in to wave off health concerns. Consumers had been worrying for years about salt, sugar, and fat, but their concerns seemed to wax and wane. It didn't stop people, in the end, from buying what tasted good. "Don't talk to me about nutrition," he said, imitating his idea of the typical consumer. "Talk to me about taste, and if this stuff tastes better, don't run around trying to sell me stuff that doesn't taste good."

That ended the meeting.

What follows in Moss's book is a look into the philosophies, practices, and histories of the processed food industry. The industry has been shaped by far more than cooks and company owners, with scientists (who determine the correct chemical composition to make food taste good) and marketing experts (who request specific products to target consumers) determining the tastes ... and the products' contents.

Moss's research led him to delve into the worlds of the three weapons most commonly wielded by the processed food industry: salt, sugar, and fat. In each of the book's three sections, Moss interviews nutritionists, scientists, researches, and businesspeople as he uncovers the truth of how these three key substances are used to alter the appearance, textures, and flavors of food -- and hook the consumer on coming back for more. From the acquisition of Kraft by the Philip Morris company (leader of the tobacco industry) to the marketing of sugary foods to kids, from Kraft's fight to use up dairies' surplus milkfat to the Pepsi/Coca-Cola "wars" -- the processed food industry has a long-standing history of doing whatever it takes to hook repeat consumers.

The book never offers a single solution, however. Moss makes it clear that the key to better food choices is to show consumers the marketing ploys and salt/sugar/fat strategy of the companies behind processed food. By knowing the ploys, after all, it becomes easier to combat them. His book is a fascinating look into the history, science, and effects of the processed food industry -- and a window into what we can do to become "unhooked."

"Knowing all this can be empowering. You can walk through the grocery store and, while the brightly colored packaging and empty promises are still mesmerizing, you can see the products for what they are. They may have salt, sugar, and fat on their side, but we, ultimately, have the power to make choices. After all, we decide what to buy. We decide how much to eat."

- Request Salt, Sugar, Fat from the Catalog

- Request the audiobook on CD version of Salt, Sugar, Fat from the Catalog


Also try:

- Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser -- a look behind the making of our processed foods.

- Supersize Me [DVD] -- This documentary follows filmmaker Morgan Spurlock as he spends thirty days on a McDonald's-only diet.

- Five Myths About Obesity [article] - from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

- Sugar Vs Fat: Twin Brothers Take Radical Steps to Show the Real Impact of Our Fad Diets [article] - from the UK Express.

"I feel so sorry for the public."

-- Robert Lin, former chief scientist for Frito-Lay

-- Post by Ms. B

Staff Recommendation #7: "The Pregnancy Project: A Memoir" by Gaby Rodriguez (with Jenna Glatzer).

The Pregnancy Project: A Memoir by Gaby Rodriguez with Jenna Glatzer

Staff Review by Ms. B

You've probably already heard about this high schooler's unique senior project -- I seem to have been the only person who missed the news story when it first broke. Gaby Rodriguez was an eleventh grader living in an economically-struggling town in Oregon. The daughter of a teen mom, Gaby had grown up watching many of her seven older brothers and sisters (Gaby's mum had her when she was in her 30s) also become teen parents. As the youngest child -- born significantly later in the life of her mother than her siblings had been -- Gaby has a strong bond with her mother. It left her with a drive to make her mother proud ... and to make herself proud, too.

An exceptional student, Gaby had strong opinions about people's abilities to not necessarily follow the path of their parents and to make their own choices instead. (She writes more than once about her determination to "not live down to other people's expectations" of her.) When it comes time for her to pick a senior class project, Gaby knows she wants to do something that will help the teens of her high school -- and maybe of her entire community -- realize that they can make their own choices, live their own lives, and be who and what they want to be. That they don't have to live down to people's expectations of them.

So for her senior class project, Gaby decides to fake a pregnancy. Her own.

It's a daring, daunting task to take on, isn't it?  After getting approval from her school principal and superintendent, Gaby only told four other people the truth about her project: her mother, her boyfriend (who had a healthy dose of courage of his own), one sister, and one friend at school. No one else -- her other siblings, her teachers, her friends, or even her boyfriend's own parents -- knew the truth. It was the only way for Gaby to see what people's reactions would really be like if she lived "down" to their expectations of her. (The sister and the friend who were in on the secret were able to monitor other people's reactions and report back to Gaby on what people had to say about her when she wasn't around.)

She faked the pregnancy for six months. Then an assembly was held, giving Gaby the chance to present her findings about the experiences and social treatment of teen moms -- before pulling off her fake pregnancy belly in front of the entire school. I've never called a senior class project "epic" before, but this pretty strongly fits the bill.

I cannot tell you the amount of courage I saw in this teen. Some of the results of her experiment are exactly what you'd expect -- but others were astonishingly surprising, revealing surprising insights about Gaby's community, family, and Gaby herself. And through it all is an important message about family, friends, expectations, and choice ... a message which, now more than ever, needs to be heard.