Somewhere in Mississippi, an English Teacher is
Ashamed
OUT OF SYNC: A MEMOIR, Lance Bass
Review by Phil Putnam
To those who are
relatively aware, culturally sensitive, and
otherwise not idiots, the question was not IF one of
the sugar-waxed pop idol bois in *NSYNC was gay, but
rather WHEN one of them would tire of pledging
eternal teen love to Babysitters Club alumna and
krump on out of the closet, sequins blazing. Thus it
really wasn’t news when Lance Bass, now aged nicely
into his 28 years with the square jaw and shifty
glance of an extra in the locker room scenes of Top
Gun, announced his love of man-love via the cover of
People Magazine in 2006. We gasped, we murmured, we
fantasized for a few days, and then we figured we’d
just wait for the book to come out and pick up the
details there. If only we could have known what a
colossal waste of time that would end up being.
OUT OF SYNC, Bass’
autobiographical chronicle of his journey from
Mississippi Baptist boy to 1/5 of a global pop icon
to openly gay almost-cosmonaut, shares the details
of the challenges and triumphs of his life so far.
With a setup like that, ya figure it can’t be such a
bad book. However, it’s never wise to assume.
Bass-o-Matic hands down 192 pages of hypnotically
boring personal recollections, 90% of which cover
topics that are only of interest to those with a
life-sized cardboard cutout of him in their love
dungeon, and encases it all in a flat elementary
writing style that may have been considered
conversational if there was any life to it. While
respect must be given to his endurance through the
uniquely difficult circumstances of his emotional
journey, his telling of that journey reads like a
myspace blog on Ambien.
Throughout, Lance
displays a skewed view of what the Lanced want to
know about the second most useless member of *NSYNC
(numero uno useless, of course, is Chris
Kirkpatrick). His accounts of school days in Show
Choirs and the miniscule details of his training in
the Russian Space Program predominate while we never
find out if Justin or JC is the better kisser and
are left to wonder about the exact dimensions of
Reichen’s manhood. These gripes are slightly
assuaged by mentions of happy childhood days spent
playing deep in the woods with his best boy-bud
Darren, and his account of sneaking a cast member
from the 2000 Chicago production of Mamma Mia! into
his hotel room in for his first-ever trip to Funky
Town. Have to give him kudos for picking a member of
the gayest show of the time to pop his cherry.
Even with the boyhood
romps in the woods and rockin’ the dawn with Mister
Mamma Mia!, the most notable hole in the book is the
reality of his sexuality. While he peppers the first
160 pages with mentions of the closet and his
burgeoning sexual feelings, it is hardly the central
theme, as the book’s title and marketing strategies
suggest. Only after slogging through the painfully
pedantic chapter on his attempt to go all SpacePop
with
the Russians do readers
get to his coming out story, which is again sapped
of emotional resonance by a lack of skill and style
in the writing. While it is true that there is more
to ole Lance-a-lot’s life than being gay, his coming
out story was meant to be the primary theme of the
book and ended up being relegated to an epilogue
clumsily disguised as the last chapter. For readers
wanting a solid celeb coming out story, better brush
up on your dealing-with-disappointment skills.
Overall, it’s a shoot
and a miss for our favorite Bass-tard. OUT OF SYNC
will bring joy to the most committed Bass Masters
and hardcore *NSYNC fans who worship whatever the
guys do with the devotion of a retarded puppy.
However, Lancer shouldn’t count on hooking very many
new fans with this hasty and limited view into his
life.
RECOMMENDATION:
Read it if you have to. Re-gift it if you don’t.
