Found this video via The Worst Bestsellers podcast, they did a damn funny rip job on this book, too. The Freak Wharf part had me on the floor - that was the one most WTF phrase in the book, and that’s saying a lot. And then there’s that other hilarious phrase - “I don’t know who or where or what it was, I only know I am now a Priestess of Satan!” (And nope, it wasn’t a bunch of Dragnet writers in snap-brim hats who wrote this - it was a Mormon youth counselor named Beatrice Sparks, who just happened to COINCIDENTALLY find a bunch more Real Diaries of troubled teens).
Two things kept me from suspecting that it was fake: (A) I was young and rather sheltered, and (B) I knew it was published in 1970 so I just thought that this was how teenagers talked in the late sixties/early seventies. (I was born in 1972, and my main exposure to Sixties culture was Beatles music and Scooby-Doo and Monkees reruns.)
[small voice] I believed that Go Ask Alice was true when I first read it. (My sister had brought it home from the library and I read it after her. I guess I was about twelve or so.) At that age, it didn't occur to me that it was a bit odd for a runaway who was strung out on drugs and struggling to survive on the streets to be keeping diary entries on "paper bags and scraps of paper." Or that she'd kept them. Or that they'd be found afterward.
+Jennifer Schillig Me too. Read it about 1987 or so, when I was 12 or 13. What made me look up info about it tonight was I was thinking about how this "true story" didn't scare me enough to not try drugs a couple years later. I started thinking about details of the story, started wondering if maybe it was a fake even though it said it wasn't. So I looked it up on Wiki and elsewhere; sure enough, no experts believe it is a real diary. And this dude makes it even more (hilariously) implausible.
My mother had me read it as a kid and I also thought that was true. Read through it again when I literally was strung out on heroin, basically just looking to kick and wanted some autobiographical motivation, and it immediately becomes clear the book is completely fake. Whoever wrote it's understanding of drugs and drug culture is pretty limited, even granted the fact that I was doing drugs in 2010s and the book was written in the 60s, there's a bunch of obvious tells that it's just meant to scare kids from doing drugs. Frankly I think this whole idea of exaggerating the negative effects of drugs when teaching kids is stupid. The truth is bad enough. They tell them all these tall tales about how after your first hit of heroin you''ll be on a death spiral, completely unable to snap out of it as your body and life quickly falls apart. The truth is pretty far from that - you can have several good years where people hardly notice you're addicted, it becomes immediately clear that the immediate dangers of a drug like heroin are grossly overblown so you go ahead and assume all the hype is for nothing while you truck along enjoying life like you never have before and still managing to hold all your responsibilities down. Even after years of heavy abuse my body is still relatively fine - it's really the psychological addiction that gets you. Heroin doesn't have the "big bad drug" reputation because it's going to kill you quickly or because the addiction is so hellish - it's the "big bad drug" because *it's so much fucking fun* and you can go years and years and still reasonably think it's not worth it to quit. It feels so good, it makes you feel so content, it makes you feel so motivated, it makes you feel so at peace, that physical addiction and crippled financials seems like a small price to pay for the secret to happiness. They don't stress that enough in drug prevention - they just talk about ODs and collapsing veins and HIV... all those things can be relatively easily avoided if you take the necessary precautions. It's not the drugs themselves that necessarily cause those ailments - it's the apathy and desperation that comes from being addicted that leads people not to care about taking care of themselves anymore. All because of the one true factor that makes it such a life-ruining drug - *it just feels so right*, no matter how much you know deep down that it's the wrong thing to do.
i remember being that age when animal planet made a fake documentary about dragons (their biology, behavior, etc) and all my friends and I were very unsure if it was real or not
I read it and I believed it for like a week and then I was like ‘...Wait.... why would a total super drugged out girl still keep her diary? Why would she write on papers and stuff and keep it?’
The thing that tipped me off that it was fake was when she described the Digger Free Store and the Psychedelic Shop as being in Coos Bay, Oregon. Anyone who’s read as much as one book about the Summed of Love knows those locations were in San Francisco!
They made us read this book in high school. I had the copy with a needle , joint , acid ready to drop and a red pill on the front cover. I had no idea what this stuff was but ty go ask Alice, I did them alllll.
My oldest sister gave me this book when I was 12. Scared the hell out of me. When I later found out it was bull, I was less than impressed. 100% of the reason I skipped on acid was due to fearing I'd end up like Alice
You have no idea, I occasionally stalk his page hoping for some activity to no avail. And finally today I almost fucking wet myself just seeing he liked something haha. #BosHoes
i remember reading something very similar to this (the one that was written in poetic form or whatever) when i was ten and flipping my shit. i thought it was so cool and ~mature~ to be reading it, but never once thought any of it was real. (i don't think people who get duped by this are dumb, though. i think the poetry clued me in, lol)
the one i think you’re referring to (Crank by Ellen Hopkins) is written by the mother, from the perspective of her addict daughter. it’s loosely true but obviously not 100% accurate because she’s not telling her own story, she’s telling her daughters. the daughter actually has a youtube channel recounting her actual experiences if you’re interested, her name is Cristal Thetford.
+theEarlofChip They are both alluding to the same idea though - the song was playing on the fact that a lot of kids stories seem drug influenced (like Carroll's book). The song has the same theme as the diary/novel, kinda. Innocent kids getting lured into the wonderful world of drugs. Go ask Alice and have what she's having, cause she's in wonderland, dig?
Didn't think it was funny. Everything was out of context and I imagine that he forgot that the book was published in 1971 and was probably written years before. It was childish humor and people just laugh at the most unbearably stupid shit.
I like that even through her descent into madness that required a trip to the wharf, Alice kept up her diligent journal writing.
So unlike the youths of today, never bothering to document their drug-induced descents into madness and squalor.
"The phoniest of balonies" is now my new favorite saying.
Found this video via The Worst Bestsellers podcast, they did a damn funny rip job on this book, too. The Freak Wharf part had me on the floor - that was the one most WTF phrase in the book, and that’s saying a lot. And then there’s that other hilarious phrase - “I don’t know who or where or what it was, I only know I am now a Priestess of Satan!” (And nope, it wasn’t a bunch of Dragnet writers in snap-brim hats who wrote this - it was a Mormon youth counselor named Beatrice Sparks, who just happened to COINCIDENTALLY find a bunch more Real Diaries of troubled teens).
Thanks Bo
Paul F. Tompkins is the shit. One of the most under-appreciated stand up comedians of our time. Right up there with Bill Hicks. Sort of drunk sorry.
Freak Wharf is a great band name.
I was just thinking that haha
it was the name of the album
It would be a great name for a bar, too
Two things kept me from suspecting that it was fake: (A) I was young and rather sheltered, and (B) I knew it was published in 1970 so I just thought that this was how teenagers talked in the late sixties/early seventies. (I was born in 1972, and my main exposure to Sixties culture was Beatles music and Scooby-Doo and Monkees reruns.)
He is hilarious!!! OMG As a Spanish boy it's really hard for me to laugh with American comedians but this guy is just amazing!! Imfao Freak Warf!!!
My love of Paul F Tompkins sent me here
[small voice] I believed that Go Ask Alice was true when I first read it. (My sister had brought it home from the library and I read it after her. I guess I was about twelve or so.) At that age, it didn't occur to me that it was a bit odd for a runaway who was strung out on drugs and struggling to survive on the streets to be keeping diary entries on "paper bags and scraps of paper." Or that she'd kept them. Or that they'd be found afterward.
+Jennifer Schillig Me too. Read it about 1987 or so, when I was 12 or 13. What made me look up info about it tonight was I was thinking about how this "true story" didn't scare me enough to not try drugs a couple years later. I started thinking about details of the story, started wondering if maybe it was a fake even though it said it wasn't. So I looked it up on Wiki and elsewhere; sure enough, no experts believe it is a real diary. And this dude makes it even more (hilariously) implausible.
My mother had me read it as a kid and I also thought that was true.
Read through it again when I literally was strung out on heroin, basically just looking to kick and wanted some autobiographical motivation, and it immediately becomes clear the book is completely fake. Whoever wrote it's understanding of drugs and drug culture is pretty limited, even granted the fact that I was doing drugs in 2010s and the book was written in the 60s, there's a bunch of obvious tells that it's just meant to scare kids from doing drugs.
Frankly I think this whole idea of exaggerating the negative effects of drugs when teaching kids is stupid. The truth is bad enough. They tell them all these tall tales about how after your first hit of heroin you''ll be on a death spiral, completely unable to snap out of it as your body and life quickly falls apart. The truth is pretty far from that - you can have several good years where people hardly notice you're addicted, it becomes immediately clear that the immediate dangers of a drug like heroin are grossly overblown so you go ahead and assume all the hype is for nothing while you truck along enjoying life like you never have before and still managing to hold all your responsibilities down.
Even after years of heavy abuse my body is still relatively fine - it's really the psychological addiction that gets you. Heroin doesn't have the "big bad drug" reputation because it's going to kill you quickly or because the addiction is so hellish - it's the "big bad drug" because *it's so much fucking fun* and you can go years and years and still reasonably think it's not worth it to quit. It feels so good, it makes you feel so content, it makes you feel so motivated, it makes you feel so at peace, that physical addiction and crippled financials seems like a small price to pay for the secret to happiness. They don't stress that enough in drug prevention - they just talk about ODs and collapsing veins and HIV... all those things can be relatively easily avoided if you take the necessary precautions. It's not the drugs themselves that necessarily cause those ailments - it's the apathy and desperation that comes from being addicted that leads people not to care about taking care of themselves anymore. All because of the one true factor that makes it such a life-ruining drug - *it just feels so right*, no matter how much you know deep down that it's the wrong thing to do.
i remember being that age when animal planet made a fake documentary about dragons (their biology, behavior, etc) and all my friends and I were very unsure if it was real or not
I read it and I believed it for like a week and then I was like ‘...Wait.... why would a total super drugged out girl still keep her diary? Why would she write on papers and stuff and keep it?’
The thing that tipped me off that it was fake was when she described the Digger Free Store and the Psychedelic Shop as being in Coos Bay, Oregon. Anyone who’s read as much as one book about the Summed of Love knows those locations were in San Francisco!
They made us read this book in high school. I had the copy with a needle , joint , acid ready to drop and a red pill on the front cover. I had no idea what this stuff was but ty go ask Alice, I did them alllll.
"Given the choice, I would go to the freak wharf every single time, because you get to meet carnival folk, and you're by the ocean."
YES! Bo likes Paul F. Tompkins! My favorite comedian liking my 2nd favorite comedian!
The freak wharf part made me laugh so hard I began coughing for five minutes lol
like that this is now mentioned in the wikipedia article for Go Ask Alice
going through bo burnham's liked videos, just ignore me.
Same! I just binged all his shit for a few days.
His imitation of a typewriter at 5:05 is hilarious
He liked it, and it was on his page
A white person on drugs? B-b-b-b-but I'm white!
omg bo burnham liked this vid 1 week ago so that prooves he isnt dead
He liked this video, and on his channel is says what videos he likes.
He favorited it! :D
He like the video in his feed. ... And we're all stalkers checking on his channel.
I read this book as a kid. It's crazy silly. There's a copy in every thrift store. Read & laugh!
He liked it from his youtube channel
He liked the video.
the lovely john green sent me here (via retweet) ^_^
That was hilarious...
I couldn't believe it!
The funniest.
This video is getting the triple B, or the Bo Burnham Bump.
freak warf probably a misspelled ward haha
Thats why im here too lol
Feel like i can hear edgar wright laughing in the background
Bo Burnham, you're alive
haha I was scared of this book as a kid, too. Even the cover scared me. If you go on snopes there's even more info about how it's not an actual diary.
I loved that book it was really good
Or you read Go Ask Malice, Faith liked a band called Freak Wharf.
He wasn't too far off. See #6 of www.cracked.com/article_21394_the-6-most-ridiculous-lies-ever-published-as-nonfiction.html
Coincidentally, I once said "crazy cove" while high. So, yeah, it's legit.
My oldest sister gave me this book when I was 12. Scared the hell out of me. When I later found out it was bull, I was less than impressed. 100% of the reason I skipped on acid was due to fearing I'd end up like Alice
@HatterMRULEZ gotta love the name! And, of course, Paul
HAHA BO
hi. :)
I thought this was a clip from the comedy bang bang podcast...still funny though :)
Sounds like Eugene Cordero laughing in the audience.
one pill...
I recommended this to people. It actually helped me with my alcoholism. Then I found out it's BS. Yeah, you're such a nice Christian, LYING TO PEOPLE
Sounds like something bo would like
@4:57 - Patrick the Starfish resemblance much?
You have no idea, I occasionally stalk his page hoping for some activity to no avail. And finally today I almost fucking wet myself just seeing he liked something haha. #BosHoes
Mooncat we are BOners
two words: Naked Lunch.
kinda looks like Ralph Garman in that picture
Quite a resemblance to Jack Black.
+ryanfarroow I think he looks more like Dana Gould in the thumbnail above
only because he's making a face and is stretched horizontally
I don't know about all the rest of you guyz, but the very clever and sexy Bo Burnham sent me here.
i remember reading something very similar to this (the one that was written in poetic form or whatever) when i was ten and flipping my shit. i thought it was so cool and ~mature~ to be reading it, but never once thought any of it was real.
(i don't think people who get duped by this are dumb, though. i think the poetry clued me in, lol)
the one i think you’re referring to (Crank by Ellen Hopkins) is written by the mother, from the perspective of her addict daughter. it’s loosely true but obviously not 100% accurate because she’s not telling her own story, she’s telling her daughters. the daughter actually has a youtube channel recounting her actual experiences if you’re interested, her name is Cristal Thetford.
That book might be fake but some of the slang from that era has not aged well. Try reading The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test with a straight face.
I never knew that lyric in White Rabbit was a reference to this. Yes, I am literally a baby. Nice to meet you
Nah, the book title was taken from the lyric, came out four years later~
***** that's lame. that's not even a good title then. I liked it more when I thought the lyric alluded to the scary book.
+theEarlofChip
They are both alluding to the same idea though - the song was playing on the fact that a lot of kids stories seem drug influenced (like Carroll's book). The song has the same theme as the diary/novel, kinda. Innocent kids getting lured into the wonderful world of drugs. Go ask Alice and have what she's having, cause she's in wonderland, dig?
lool my mate did lsd and mephedrone before he tried weed
Bo BURHAM
I'm allergic to smoke so I actually did try LSD before pot. My girlfriend highly pressured me / guilted me into trying it. I do not recommend it
Wtf...my names Alice :/
free quorf!?
It's supposed to be a hand-written diary
Not funny it all it was actually a good book
not really
Didn't think it was funny. Everything was out of context and I imagine that he forgot that the book was published in 1971 and was probably written years before. It was childish humor and people just laugh at the most unbearably stupid shit.
the book's fake, it's a fiction
that's not how you spell wharf...haha