Five years ago a writer on the cusp of literary royalty received a public flogging from the Queen of daytime television, better known as Oprah versus James Frey.

The short story is James Freys book, A Million Little Pieces caught the attention of the unofficial ruler of the universe Oprah. Oprah liked the book, called him asked him to be on the show, he obliged, lied, Oprah called him back and James was fried!

Either you didn't care or you didn't watch television because Oprah and James caught hell when the truth came out that James made up (or lied) about a good deal of the book. Oprah was accused either being too hard on him or pushing her agenda on the public and James was accused of well, being a liar. Now I love me some Oprah Winfrey but I remember thinking "if she was talking to me the way she is talking to him I'd let her ass have it".  I also remember thinking "James is handling this very well." Yes he was shaken and you could tell he was to say the least uncomfortable but bigger men or women would have crumbled getting slaughtered verbally buy the Queen of talk.

Fast forward to 2011 and for her final season the Queen has invited the subject of her most controversial show back. Now lets be clear this is about ratings and promotion, James has a new book and the Queen is signing off to go do her OWN thing and for those reasons I was slightly skeptical about how this would play out but my skepticism was changed to respect and delight by the end of part 1 of the interview.

So far James has not lashed out at Oprah, confronted her about her treatment of him, blamed anyone he's done the opposite he owned HIS portion of the situation and I respect that. I respect that because he said he asked him something while he was in the fire "how did I end up here" and thats what I've asked myself when I've found myself in the fire. Unless someone attacks you (physically or verbally) unproved or some other extreme situation BLAME IS USELESS AND A WASTE OF TIME!  Blame keeps you in denial, angry and most importantly stuck!  The only way you can pick up the pieces of any broken situation is own your part to yourself and EVERYONE else then move on, it's the only reason I'm not a broken man and have been able to rebound from situations that nearly broke me.

I find it ironic that James Freys most popular and polarizing work was titled "A Million Little Pieces" because it took him being broken into "a million little pieces" to realize he never wanted to put himself in that situation again. My favorite part of the interview with Oprah (from 5/16/2011) was when he told Oprah that after the flight and on the ride home from her tongue lashing that after he noticed the sun setting he was able to break into laugh; not a snicker but an all out loud belly laugh, one that he was sure made the cab driver think he was nuts since he was alone in the cab.  James gets it, the perfection is in the imperfection, learning from and admitting our mistakes.  I have a new found respect for James Frey.