Emphatic Denial

I categorically deny that Senator John Edwards was the inspiration for my senator in Deader by the Lake and further deny that my senator's hooker mistress was based on Edwards' mistress.

Gosh, I hope some reporter somewhere will pick up on that first paragraph and blow it out of proportion, thus garnering me the same sort of publicity, albeit in reverse, that Jay McInerny won on CNN online this morning. (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/).

I deny it because, with my luck, if I claim to have based my characters on Edwards and his mistress they'll sue me. Although, since the book was published in '03 and Edwards' dalliance apparently didn't occur until '06, could I get some Oprah-couch time if I claimed prescience? Hmmm. The psychic angle. Have to talk to my publicist about that.

Whether I deny or admit, I'm afraid nothing at all is going to come of this, darn it.

A couple months back, after Barbara Walters published her tell-all and confessed to an affair with a black senator, I denied that I was her break-up lover but no one picked up on that. I even denied it loudly and vehemently in a downtown Chicago restaurant ("I never had sex with Barbara Walters! How could you say such a thing!"). I was hoping someone in the vicinity might dime me out to a sleazy newspaper columnist or maybe even Matt Drudge but . . . nothing.

I can't even get my publicist to issue a written denial. Come on, Carol, jeez! Used to be, in the old days in Hollywood, publicists issued denials all the time. When I asked her to do it she just smiled the way people do when their stomach is bothering them.

Wait a second. As I write this I'm remembering another CNN headline today about George Clooney denying he's been texting back and forth with future President Obama. I didn't read the article because it seemed pretty lame but maybe I can use this to my advantage. Maybe I can claim I designed Obama's entire approach to gun legislation (always a scathingly hot topic), sent it to him via text but never got the credit!

Author Claims He Laid Out Obama's Anti-Gun Stance! "He never acknowledged me," Doug M. Cummings says, "And I texted him every talking point!"

It needs polish but it might work.