Guest Post: Andre Agassi And The Attack Of The Meth People

So each Thursday we’re going to run a guest post, featuring the best and the brightest writers in all the land … or anyone we can get to write for us for free. Today’s author is Jelissa Castrodale, a freelance writer who loves sports and dabbles in blogging and the dark arts. Please give her your full attention.
Whether you’re an aging athlete or a forgotten sitcom star, writing an autobiography means it’s time to unearth the most sordid details from your personal life and type them out in 12 point font, all in the name of having the biggest stack of books on the front table at Borders.
In late September, former child star MacKenzie Phillips sat on Oprah’s sofa spilling the details of an incestuous drug-fueled affair with her father John that shocked the studio audience and permanently ruined every song The Mamas & The Papas ever recorded.
Last week, former eight time Grand Slam winner Andre Agassi leaked excerpts of his forthcoming book Open in which he revealed that his famous bleached Randy the Ram-style mullet was a wig. He also claimed to “hate tennis”, confessed to doing crystal meth and to lying to the ATP after failing one of their mandatory drug tests.

Agassi’s meth experience came at the hands of a personal assistant named Slim, proving yet again that you shouldn’t hire people whose names are adjectives. In what has since become the book’s most cut and pasted paragraph, Agassi recalls that Slim “dumps a small pile of powder on the coffee table. He cuts it, snorts it. He cuts it again. I snort some. I ease back on the couch and consider the Rubicon I’ve just crossed.
“There is a moment of regret, followed by vast sadness. Then comes a tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I’ve never felt so alive, so hopeful — and I’ve never felt such energy.
“I’m seized by a desperate desire to clean. I go tearing around my house, cleaning it from top to bottom. I dust the furniture. I scour the tub. I make the beds.”
Ignoring his clunky use of the word Rubicon, I don’t believe him. I mean, I have no doubt that he got zonked with his assistant, but he risked his reputation, his legacy and what was left of his career so he could wipe a few smudges off his countertops?
Bullshit, Andre. I live in the American South so I have more than a passing familiarity with Meth People, the ones who churn drugs in their bathtubs and spend their afternoons waiting for their incisors to fall out. Meth People aren’t known for their personal hygiene; there’s a reason Walgreens doesn’t keep the Windex locked up behind the counter with the Sudafed.
If you’re going to confess, brah, confess. Tell us what you really did after you snorted those lines off your furniture, whether you grilled and ate your neighbor’s Labradoodle, grilled and ate your neighbors, or woke up in the middle of sex with John Phillips.
Any time these hardcover confessionals start hitting Amazon.com, I always wonder what the author’s motivation is. Before paragraphs from Open started appearing on the internet, the worst thing Andre Agassi was known for was wearing fluorescent spandex underneath acid washed denim.
He longer plays professional tennis, instead devoting his time to number of causes that help underprivileged or terminally ill children. He’s by all accounts a loving husband and father. In an informal poll of people who rode the elevator with me this morning, he was called everything from “a class act” to “a hell of a competitor” to “why are you still in your pajamas?” Why tarnish that reputation with a half-assed admission that he snorted meth and spent an evening furiously vacuuming the carpet?
I guess we’ll find out when we all buy his boo–OH I GET IT! Well played, Andre. Well played.
– Jelisa Castrodale is a writer and comedian who has learned a lot about life by making a mess of her own. She chronicles her failures at The Typing Makes Me Sound Busy, covers music for London’s BitchBuzz and twitters while she waits at stoplights. Castrodale was featured in the book Twitter Wit and was named one of Mashable’s 10 Funniest Twitterers.