Idea for a book

[bondguy007]

This'll sell if I actually found time to write it...anybody can write a book nowadays.

I can see the back cover of my autobiography right now:

James Lacerenza was born three months premature. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age two, and anxiety and depression at 18, he lost his mother to cancer, had three major surgeries, was abused as a child by his live-in nanny and went through a crisis of self-worth he still fights to this day. What he decided to do with his life is extraordinary - give, give, and give some of himself more. From calling for a major multimillion dollar overhaul to his local Boys and Girls Club after seeing hazardous conditions to raising tens of thousands for children with muscular dystrophy and appearing with Tony Orlando and Jerry Lewis, to caring for local friends undergoing life-threatening illnesses and tragedy, James has always tried to make his world a better place. Now, he wants to share his story of hope to the world. Using his acerbic, self-deprecating humor and his own experiences, you too will learn how he's Overcoming The Odds: The James Lacerenza Story.

[Vandal]

This'll sell if I actually found time to write it...anybody can write a book nowadays..

No. Anybody can come up with an idea for a book.

It's a great idea and you can find the time.

Just write it.

[Emo Kitty]

This'll sell if I actually found time to write it...anybody can write a book nowadays..

No. Anybody can come up with an idea for a book.

It's a great idea and you can find the time.

Just write it.

I like a guy who carries around mace. Could you just spray a little of that in my eyes?

[Kazoo65]

This sounds like an amazing story!

Write it and I'll read it!

[Bob Juch]

Sorry, it sounds too unbelievable.

[frogman042]

Don't forget to save room for the chapter that covers the part where he overcomes amazing hardships to eventually try out for a game show called 'How Would You Like A Check For A Million Dollars!" and wins it!

---Jay

[bondguy007]

Here's the first three pages. Feedback, encouragement and constructive criticism is appreciated and needed.

_____________________________________________________________

“Say, has anybody seen my sweet gypsy, Rose?”…

August 31st, 2008 was one of, if not the biggest night of my life (so far). I traveled with my father Jim from our house in Stamford, Connecticut to the Unitel Television Studios on West 57th Street in New York City. I was going on local television in the biggest city in the world to present a check for over $30,000 to the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). I had raised the money as de-facto chairman of the MDA ConnectiKids Summer Camp Fund, a charity I created four years before this, with a literal cast of thousands behind me. I had watched the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon since I was four. Much like my love of game shows like “Wheel of Fortune” and “The Price Is Right”, the MDA telethon had a glitzy set, flashing lights, a giant electric tote board where the numbers soared higher and higher as the hours went on, great music, and a beloved host in Jerry. It would be years before I fully realized the impact Jerry’s show had on me - what the true purpose of a sixty-something Jewish comedian in a tuxedo bouncing around a stage at three in the morning meant - but I was hooked. I saw kids in wheelchairs and on crutches and thought, “That’s me!” and “I want to be on that show one day”. And now, here I was. At 8:00 PM that night, dad and I walked the three blocks from the parking garage to the studio (well, I rolled, he pushed me). An MDA supervisor greeted me at the door with a picture of a smiling Jerry plastered on the wall: “Hi, how are you? First time here? Oh, how exciting!” If only we both knew how exciting it would be.

At about 9:40 that night, MDA client John Ryan introduced Tony Orlando to the New York audience for the first time. We had seen Tony come out before the show, and he looked kind of different. Tired and weathered would be accurate verbs. He even relied on me to correct him with his pronouncing of “Polymiositis”, a disease MDA was fighting. However, when he hit the stage, everything changed. Hoarse voice and all, he was full of vim and vigor as he led a raucous audience in a rousing rendition of “Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose?”

During the time that Tony was singing on that first local cutaway, I was holding a facsimile check for what I had raised. At the appropriate time, I would be wheeled into place, where Giovanna Drpic, a sweet, voluptuous blonde reporter for WWOR-TV would interview me about how I raised the money. Controlling my emotions and my breathing, about two hours later, I immediately broke the tension by calling her “darling” on camera. Taken aback by that, she nervously replied, “See, we’re just like a family here!” After telling her how I raised the money and spoke from my heart to the viewers, I decided to ask the audience for some encouragement. Chants of “Go, MDA!” reigned down as I handed over the check to that NRILF (News Reporter I’d Like To…you know the rest!) for $30,110.

Then, a stagehand came over and wheeled me next to the phone bank, behind which was a giant projector that through Flash animation at the appropriate time, morphed into a tote board. I had told them it was my dream to “pitch” to the tote board changing numbers. Russ Salzberg, WWOR’s sports anchor joined Giovanna and me, but before the drum rolled, I asked the studio audience to yell “Rosengarden”. This was my tribute to Tony’s late telethon bandleader, Bobby Rosengarden. The drum rolled, and we more than quadrupled the previous hours’ dollar amount. I thought my 15 minutes of fame had ended. But fate had other ideas for me.

When we went into a station break after the tote, I was wheeled back by an MDA staffer who said he had been given “special instructions” and that “someone wanted to meet me”. Well, I knew who it was, and as we slid into his plain white dressing room, there was Tony, sitting on the couch, talking to his manager. That conversation suddenly stopped, and then the 64 year old “Greek-a-Rican”, as he liked to be called, laid his eyes on me. I told him that he was amazing that first hour. “No, no my man, you, you were unbelievable! Did you see the job he did out there? How did you remember Rosengarden?” Keep in mind, “Rosengarden” wasn’t something he had heard in at least 22 years, the last time he hosted the telethon from New York, and I was 21. I told him that besides watching the telethon religiously, my friend Jose had created a telethon tribute site with video dating back to 1974 and had put it on the Internet as an educational tool. Since Jose had always taped the New York City telethon, that’s how I saw Tony on the show. As his manager hurriedly scribbled down the site address, the topic turned to my mother. Diagnosed with stage four terminal colon cancer in 2004, she went on a trial of a wonderful drug called Avastin that kept her alive for two precious years. There will be more on my mother later, but I brought her up to Tony because I had requested another thing he hadn’t done in over two decades: sing “Just One Person”, a song that was first associated with the “Peanuts” franchise. It had been my anthem the last nine months of fundraising, and reminded me of my mother and the core values she taught of loving everyone I met. Tony apologized and said he didn’t have the arrangement with him to give to the band, but he promised me that next year, he would do it. I told him how much I missed my mother, and, in a look that has been seared into my brain – half hopeless, half “puppy dog” pleading, Tony cried and said my mother was looking down on me. “Look at the job your wonderful son is doing, Mama!” And then he kissed me. Russ, who had overheard this, came in to lighten the mood by playfully telling me to “stop pulling that ‘darling’ sh**! ‘” with Giovanna. Then I told the growing assemblage of people that my dream was to send every child to my local camp in 2009. You could’ve given Tony an entire roll of paper towel, and I don’t think that would’ve absorbed his tears upon hearing that. After posing for pictures with Tony, Russ and Gloria Gaynor of “I Will Survive” fame, I returned to the studio and once again thought that was all. But there was one surprise left.

At about midnight, Tony was on a national cutaway – the part where Jerry actually went via satellite to New York to check on things. Tony started to sing “Candida” and flashed me knowing grins from my front row seat, then vamped into his big hit, “Knock Three Times”. If ever there was a life-defining moment, it was about to happen. “Come on Jerry, look at your city, look at ‘em, look at ‘em go!” And then, he stopped right in front of me. Without even pausing to analyze the situation, I kept on singing and he put a microphone in my face. With the song over, I seized my opportunity. “Look at my buddy, Jerry! James…” “Hey Jerry!” I said. I didn’t hear any audio coming from Jerry in Las Vegas, but he was hearing me, so I went on ahead and in thirty seconds told my idol how much I loved him. “Thank you sweetheart, thank you very much”, he replied. As icing on the proverbial cake, Gloria started to sing “I Will Survive”. Near the end of the song, Tony put the microphone near me again, and now I sang backup for Gloria. Tony was absolutely giddy. The people in the control room, who I had been told were crying when I presented the check two hours before, kept my microphone on as we sent it back to Las Vegas. Only, it wasn’t Tony’s voice they heard saying goodbye. It was mine.

Five years ago, I never would’ve dreamed in my wildest fantasies that anything like that experience could have happened. I had been down a long, hard road to get here.