Mitch Alborn is a Liar

But you already knew that, right?

He's the sports columnist who wrote the treacly, somewhat embarrassing death memoir "Tuesdays with Morrie." It's about an old teacher he reconnected with, a free spirit named Morrie, who was dying. Mitch would visit him every Tuesday and learn valuable life lessons, life lessons that he apparently had never heard before, like "stop and smell the roses" or "how the courage to face the unknown with a smile" or "sometimes, when you get old and you're sick, you can't wipe yourself after doing #2, and someone has to do that for you, and it's kind of embarrassing".

And then Mitch wrote a book capitalizing on his friend's death. And it became a big best-seller, and he wrote some more books, and now this douchebag's a best-selling author. They even made a TV movie out of Tuesdays with Morrie, which would contain the final performance from the legendary Jack Lemmon, who really didn't deserve to go out that way. The basic theme of this story, as best I can recall, is the following: Death's really poignant provided it happens to someone else.

If it happens to you, though, it's less poignant and more, oh yeah, unpleasant and painful.

Alborn wrote another book after Morrie which I haven't read. It's called The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It's about an old man, Eddie, who dies saving a young girl at an amusement park and goes to Heaven. When he gets there, he discovers that Heaven's not really a place with clouds and angels and harps. It looks a lot like where you spent your life, and you meet people you knew when you were alive, and they tell you stuff about yourself.

Sounds like a riveting read, I know. I'm betting the final person Eddie meets in Heaven is the young girl he saved. Either that, or he meets Morrie, in an odd book-crossover technique that will really give the marketing department a much-needed boost. They made a bullshit movie out of this book as well, starring Jon Voight. Alborn's started this kind of TV-movie cottage industry. You find old actors who don't get much work any more and have them elaborately die on screen for two hours. Then you sit back and watch that advertising and DVD money roll in.

So, you might think this is why I've called Alborn a liar. Because he sugarcoats death, inserts deep meaning into situations that lack meaning, and pretends there's a Heaven, which there clearly is not.

But, no, the guy's just a liar.

Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom wrote a bogus basketball column. Based on earlier interviews of two NBA players, he submitted a Friday piece about a Saturday event (as if it happened) for the Sunday edition. The game was up when the two players mentioned in the article failed to show.

Oops. This is why you shouldn't write a column about a basketball game before it has actually happened.

Now, yeah, yeah, I know...Mitch was under time pressure from his editor's and it was for the Sunday edition. And he was, like, super-tired. But come on! Why bother reading the sports page at all, if they're just going to make up what happens before the games are even played? Hell, I could do that. Why doesn't the Detroit Free Press give me some column inches?

This is an egregious ethical lapse. Prophesying the future should be clearly labeled as such. Columnists do not fabricate events or characters and pawn them off as truth. His sports column in question was not satire. Mitch Albom, a long time award winner and best-selling author, should understand these essential ethics better than most.

Mitch, and any professional journalist, should clearly understand why this was not appropriate behavior. I kind of think "ethical lapse" is too kind for this scenario. This is more like being exposed as a fraud.

It also explains why Mitch enjoys writing about the dead so much. They can't voice a rebuttal when he just starts making shit up about them.