This is a long piece. If you have the patience to read it all, it seems the timeline makes it unlikely Cody spent a year stripping in Minneapolis.
Let's start with the bio (complete with typos, misspellings and odd syntax) on www.diablo-cody.com. (I've underlined items which caused confusion as I later uncovered other career facts in her blog archives):
Diablo Cody had graduated studies with a degree in media. Her first job was a secretarial position for a banruptcy firm in Chicago, where she lived at the time. She also worked for a while editing and proofing advertisement copy that appeared on the Twin Cities radio. With her move to Minnesota she deciced to try something new and exciting, so she went to a local strip club, and applied for the amater night. Even though she lost, she actually enjoyed the entire experience, and decided to become a full time stripper. Although stripping was the name of the game, that is not all that went down, as she later told her readers and described the private shows and simulated intercourse she was involved with. She also tried working in the phone sex industry for awhile. Eventually becoming bored with the strip scene she started a carreer in journalism, working for the local newspaper.
At the age of 24, Cody finished her book Candy Girl: A Year in The Life of an Unlikely Stripper. This book began after a publisher showed interest to the extreme popularity that her blog P-ussy Ranch had been receiving. See: http://www.diablo-cody.com/diablo-cody-biography.html
A University of Iowa press release stated she graduated that school in 2000. There are many other references to her writing her memoir, Candy Girl, at age 24, in 2004, after being discovered by a publisher on The P-ussy Ranch blog. Including this recent Wired article:
"Diablo Cody's Tips On Blogging Your Way To Hollywood":
Step Three: Write Your Memoir at Age 24 and Publish It.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/h...s/2007/11/cody
Let's recap: Doing the math, if she wrote the book at 24 in the year 2004, it appears Diablo graduated college in 2000 at the tender age of 20. Okay, that's possible. Now let's see how much she crammed into those four years.
From 2000-2004:
- Graduated University of Iowa in 2000
- After graduating, worked as a secretary for a Chicago law firm.
- Met her future husband online and moved to MN to live with him.
- Worked for an ad agency as a proofreader in the Twin Cities, MN.
- Left agency to work as a full-time stripper for one year in the Twin Cities, MN, with the full support of her future husband.
- Left stripping to work sex phone lines.
- Quit sex industry and became a journalist writing articles for City Pages, an alternative Twin-Cities weekly owned by the Village Voice.
- 2004, discovered online via her P-ussy Ranch blog, by a publisher who prompted her to write her book Candy Girl: A Year in The Life of An Unlikely Stripper.
Blog history, listing most recent first:
- P-ussy Ranch blog under the name Diablo Cody.
- Darling Girl and/or Red Secretary blog detailing the fictional exploits of a secretary living in Belarus, Eastern Europe. (note: it's not clear if Darling Girl and Red Secretary were two separate blogs or the same blog but I got this from the site: http://www.diablo-cody.com/
- Girls, Cars & Surfing blog under her real name, Brook. Here's a 2001 entry archived in the Red Secretary link where she talks about being in Oregon(?):
http://web.archive.org/web/200112151...com/index.html
A very busy 4 years indeed, one of those years stripping full time and blogging non-stop about her stripper life on the "P" Ranch. Did she ever sleep?Or, could this resume be a little untrue? Then I find some of her own archived "P" Ranch blog entries from 2005 which contradict published reports. Edited from her blog postings:
Ten Years Ago: I was a newly minted high school senior and utterly secure...
Five Years Ago: In September of 2000, I was three months into my first job
out of college, as the "creative assistant" (read: aimless secretary) at a
midsized advertising agency in downtown Chicago...
One Year Ago: I had recently been hired as a claims adjuster (really) in the Minneapolis 'burbs, and was writing freelance for City Pages. ...My book had just sold to Gotham, which seemed (and still seems) incredibly surreal.
http://blogs.citypages.com/dcody/2005/09/)
My note: Wait -- her press releases say say she worked in a Minneapolis ad agency before quitting to become a stripper. Now she says the ad agency job was in Chicago? No where in this list does she mention her year of stripping full time or her phone sex job. Odd, no? It gets better. Here's another contradiction about her age found (complete with birthday photo) in her own blog archives:
"Tomorrow is my birthday. ...So as of tomorrow, I'm a 27 year-old non-gravid Earth female." Posted by Diablo Cody at June 13, 2005 9:07 PM (see: http://blogs.citypages.com/dcody/2005/06/)
Hello?! If she turned 27 in 2005, how did she write a book at age 24, in 2004? Some sort of loopy time travel trick? Okay, okay -- women lie about their age all the time. But why shave only two years from your age while compressing your four-year career history from office worker, to full-time sex industry worker, to published author, and risk someone like me questioning your honesty while doing the math?
Then I find more contradictions in a very recent Q & A with Diablo (December 2007) The opening sentence reads:
A paragraph doesn’t seem like enough space to tell you all that’s happened to Diablo Cody in the two years since we introduced her, let alone to encapsulate the entire life of the twenty-nine-year-old, just-gone-Hollywood screenwriter. But what the hell. Former Catholic schoolgirl Brooke Busey moved from Lamont, Illinois to Robbinsdale, Minnesota (via college in Iowa) after meeting her One True Love, Jon Hunt, a Minneapolis musician she met on the internet. She was a secretary at Fallon when she adopted a stripper’s alias, Diablo Cody, before actually becoming a part-time stripper..
My note: A part-time stripper? I thought she spent a year as a full-time stripper? And she adopted the name Diablo Cody before she actually became a stripper? Every bio says she came up with the name when she started blogging about her life in the sex industry. How could she start blogging as Diablo Cody the stripper before she became a stripper? Is this some kind of Zen Koan?
Could it be possible that since she had the fictional blog about being a secretary in Eastern Europe, the "P" Ranch was a fictional blog about her exploits as the stripper? Here's another exerpt from the same Q&A referenced above:
So how did this come together so fast? Cody: I wish I could understand. I wish I could find a reason behind it. I think about this a lot, because I’m aware of how improbable this all sounds, and I know it’s definitely an atypical situation for a writer. A lot of the time I feel like a fraud, because my peers went about things the usual way and had to fight to be where they are.
(My note: "Hmmm. You feel like a fraud?" muses the ghost of Dr Freud.)
But you were a secretary in Minneapolis? Oh yeah, before Hollywood, sure, I faced my share of rejection. Absolutely. But as soon as this happened, it happened. I mean, God knows, I never succeeded at anything prior to trying my hand at writing. Never. I’ve been fired from so many jobs. I’ve been told that I’m incompetent, socially retarded, maladjusted. I still know that I couldn’t function in reality. Los Angeles is a good place for me.
(My note: So many jobs? How many jobs can she hold from 2000 through 2004 when she wrote the book, especially when one of those years was working as a full-time stripper?)
How long did you live in Minneapolis total? I lived there for four years ....
Interview is here: http://www.mspmag.com/features/features/79839.asp
Then I find this on the Austin Film Festival site:
Writer Diablo Cody penned her debut screenplay JUNO while working as a phone sex operator/insurance adjuster in Minneapolis. http://aff.bside.com/2007/?userId=30...yfestTab=blogs
I thought she quit the sex industry before she wrote the book, and the book preceeded writing the screenplay? Then there's this interview:
She chose Diablo Cody for its cool, androgynous sound while visiting Cody, Wyo. As a stripper, though, she used names such as "Bonbon" and "Roxanne." ...."I could not get out of college soon enough," says Cody, who graduated in 2000. She eventually met her 35-year-old musician and graphic designer husband, Jon Busey-Hunt, on the Internet and moved to his hometown of Minneapolis in 2003. http://archive.seacoastonline.com/ne...cody-jy19.html
My Note: Wait a second! She moved to Minneapolis in 2003? Yet she penned her stripper memoirs in 2004 after she quit stripping in Minneapolis? The timeline is compressed again. And this same article ends with:
And she bristles at suggestions that anyone who strips could write a book. "If that were the case, the legions of women that I worked with, who were desperate to get out of it, would have done the same. There's a reason that I did it and they didn't. And the reason is, that I'm a storyteller."
My note: She worked with legions of women during a year as a part-time or full-time stripper? Yet I can't find any reference to one woman who stripped with her? Maybe the last quoted line says it all. She's a storyteller. And her bio is tall tale too.
Let's start with the bio (complete with typos, misspellings and odd syntax) on www.diablo-cody.com. (I've underlined items which caused confusion as I later uncovered other career facts in her blog archives):
Diablo Cody had graduated studies with a degree in media. Her first job was a secretarial position for a banruptcy firm in Chicago, where she lived at the time. She also worked for a while editing and proofing advertisement copy that appeared on the Twin Cities radio. With her move to Minnesota she deciced to try something new and exciting, so she went to a local strip club, and applied for the amater night. Even though she lost, she actually enjoyed the entire experience, and decided to become a full time stripper. Although stripping was the name of the game, that is not all that went down, as she later told her readers and described the private shows and simulated intercourse she was involved with. She also tried working in the phone sex industry for awhile. Eventually becoming bored with the strip scene she started a carreer in journalism, working for the local newspaper.
At the age of 24, Cody finished her book Candy Girl: A Year in The Life of an Unlikely Stripper. This book began after a publisher showed interest to the extreme popularity that her blog P-ussy Ranch had been receiving. See: http://www.diablo-cody.com/diablo-cody-biography.html
A University of Iowa press release stated she graduated that school in 2000. There are many other references to her writing her memoir, Candy Girl, at age 24, in 2004, after being discovered by a publisher on The P-ussy Ranch blog. Including this recent Wired article:
"Diablo Cody's Tips On Blogging Your Way To Hollywood":
Step Three: Write Your Memoir at Age 24 and Publish It.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/h...s/2007/11/cody
Let's recap: Doing the math, if she wrote the book at 24 in the year 2004, it appears Diablo graduated college in 2000 at the tender age of 20. Okay, that's possible. Now let's see how much she crammed into those four years.
From 2000-2004:
- Graduated University of Iowa in 2000
- After graduating, worked as a secretary for a Chicago law firm.
- Met her future husband online and moved to MN to live with him.
- Worked for an ad agency as a proofreader in the Twin Cities, MN.
- Left agency to work as a full-time stripper for one year in the Twin Cities, MN, with the full support of her future husband.
- Left stripping to work sex phone lines.
- Quit sex industry and became a journalist writing articles for City Pages, an alternative Twin-Cities weekly owned by the Village Voice.
- 2004, discovered online via her P-ussy Ranch blog, by a publisher who prompted her to write her book Candy Girl: A Year in The Life of An Unlikely Stripper.
Blog history, listing most recent first:
- P-ussy Ranch blog under the name Diablo Cody.
- Darling Girl and/or Red Secretary blog detailing the fictional exploits of a secretary living in Belarus, Eastern Europe. (note: it's not clear if Darling Girl and Red Secretary were two separate blogs or the same blog but I got this from the site: http://www.diablo-cody.com/
- Girls, Cars & Surfing blog under her real name, Brook. Here's a 2001 entry archived in the Red Secretary link where she talks about being in Oregon(?):
http://web.archive.org/web/200112151...com/index.html
A very busy 4 years indeed, one of those years stripping full time and blogging non-stop about her stripper life on the "P" Ranch. Did she ever sleep?Or, could this resume be a little untrue? Then I find some of her own archived "P" Ranch blog entries from 2005 which contradict published reports. Edited from her blog postings:
Ten Years Ago: I was a newly minted high school senior and utterly secure...
Five Years Ago: In September of 2000, I was three months into my first job
out of college, as the "creative assistant" (read: aimless secretary) at a
midsized advertising agency in downtown Chicago...
One Year Ago: I had recently been hired as a claims adjuster (really) in the Minneapolis 'burbs, and was writing freelance for City Pages. ...My book had just sold to Gotham, which seemed (and still seems) incredibly surreal.
http://blogs.citypages.com/dcody/2005/09/)
My note: Wait -- her press releases say say she worked in a Minneapolis ad agency before quitting to become a stripper. Now she says the ad agency job was in Chicago? No where in this list does she mention her year of stripping full time or her phone sex job. Odd, no? It gets better. Here's another contradiction about her age found (complete with birthday photo) in her own blog archives:
"Tomorrow is my birthday. ...So as of tomorrow, I'm a 27 year-old non-gravid Earth female." Posted by Diablo Cody at June 13, 2005 9:07 PM (see: http://blogs.citypages.com/dcody/2005/06/)
Hello?! If she turned 27 in 2005, how did she write a book at age 24, in 2004? Some sort of loopy time travel trick? Okay, okay -- women lie about their age all the time. But why shave only two years from your age while compressing your four-year career history from office worker, to full-time sex industry worker, to published author, and risk someone like me questioning your honesty while doing the math?
Then I find more contradictions in a very recent Q & A with Diablo (December 2007) The opening sentence reads:
A paragraph doesn’t seem like enough space to tell you all that’s happened to Diablo Cody in the two years since we introduced her, let alone to encapsulate the entire life of the twenty-nine-year-old, just-gone-Hollywood screenwriter. But what the hell. Former Catholic schoolgirl Brooke Busey moved from Lamont, Illinois to Robbinsdale, Minnesota (via college in Iowa) after meeting her One True Love, Jon Hunt, a Minneapolis musician she met on the internet. She was a secretary at Fallon when she adopted a stripper’s alias, Diablo Cody, before actually becoming a part-time stripper..
My note: A part-time stripper? I thought she spent a year as a full-time stripper? And she adopted the name Diablo Cody before she actually became a stripper? Every bio says she came up with the name when she started blogging about her life in the sex industry. How could she start blogging as Diablo Cody the stripper before she became a stripper? Is this some kind of Zen Koan?
Could it be possible that since she had the fictional blog about being a secretary in Eastern Europe, the "P" Ranch was a fictional blog about her exploits as the stripper? Here's another exerpt from the same Q&A referenced above:
So how did this come together so fast? Cody: I wish I could understand. I wish I could find a reason behind it. I think about this a lot, because I’m aware of how improbable this all sounds, and I know it’s definitely an atypical situation for a writer. A lot of the time I feel like a fraud, because my peers went about things the usual way and had to fight to be where they are.
(My note: "Hmmm. You feel like a fraud?" muses the ghost of Dr Freud.)
But you were a secretary in Minneapolis? Oh yeah, before Hollywood, sure, I faced my share of rejection. Absolutely. But as soon as this happened, it happened. I mean, God knows, I never succeeded at anything prior to trying my hand at writing. Never. I’ve been fired from so many jobs. I’ve been told that I’m incompetent, socially retarded, maladjusted. I still know that I couldn’t function in reality. Los Angeles is a good place for me.
(My note: So many jobs? How many jobs can she hold from 2000 through 2004 when she wrote the book, especially when one of those years was working as a full-time stripper?)
How long did you live in Minneapolis total? I lived there for four years ....
Interview is here: http://www.mspmag.com/features/features/79839.asp
Then I find this on the Austin Film Festival site:
Writer Diablo Cody penned her debut screenplay JUNO while working as a phone sex operator/insurance adjuster in Minneapolis. http://aff.bside.com/2007/?userId=30...yfestTab=blogs
I thought she quit the sex industry before she wrote the book, and the book preceeded writing the screenplay? Then there's this interview:
She chose Diablo Cody for its cool, androgynous sound while visiting Cody, Wyo. As a stripper, though, she used names such as "Bonbon" and "Roxanne." ...."I could not get out of college soon enough," says Cody, who graduated in 2000. She eventually met her 35-year-old musician and graphic designer husband, Jon Busey-Hunt, on the Internet and moved to his hometown of Minneapolis in 2003. http://archive.seacoastonline.com/ne...cody-jy19.html
My Note: Wait a second! She moved to Minneapolis in 2003? Yet she penned her stripper memoirs in 2004 after she quit stripping in Minneapolis? The timeline is compressed again. And this same article ends with:
And she bristles at suggestions that anyone who strips could write a book. "If that were the case, the legions of women that I worked with, who were desperate to get out of it, would have done the same. There's a reason that I did it and they didn't. And the reason is, that I'm a storyteller."
My note: She worked with legions of women during a year as a part-time or full-time stripper? Yet I can't find any reference to one woman who stripped with her? Maybe the last quoted line says it all. She's a storyteller. And her bio is tall tale too.
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