The Secret of His Success Is No Secret

Psssst.

Our topic today is secrets. And to get things going, what I’m about to reveal is just between you and me and the other 1.2 million readers of this newspaper:

When I was in the third grade, my best friend was named Ronnie. Then Bobby moved to our block and he became my other best friend. One day Bobby and I were mad at Ronnie’s parents and Bobby dared me to throw their afternoon newspaper on the roof. So I did it.

The next day, Ronnie’s dad looked me in the eye and asked if I happened to know how their paper ended up on the roof.

Nope, I told him. Not me.

Here’s another secret: Jerry Biederman really ticks me off.

After all, if it hadn’t been for Bobby’s challenge to my boyhood, I would not have even thought of such a shameful deed. And if it wasn’t for Jerry Biederman, I would not feel compelled to reveal it. (I also shoplifted a couple of times. Baby Ruths and Abba Zabbas, if memory serves.)

Biederman is a 35-year-old Sherman Oaks author who, not unlike a psychiatrist or a priest, has found a niche in listening to confessions. When we met the other day, Biederman seemed like a nice enough human being. With his Columbia sweat shirt and Warner Bros. baseball cap, he looked like a screenwriter. Except something about him seemed entirely trustworthy. His open, friendly manner has no doubt served him well.

But there was a moment, I must confess, when I felt like shoving his Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection down his throat.

It’s called “Secrets of a Small Town--The Extraordinary Confessions of Ordinary People,” and now that it’s out in paperback, Biederman is working on his sequel.

This one will be titled “Secrets of the Big City--The Private Confessions of Perfect Strangers.” The big city is Los Angeles. And Biederman wants you, yes you, to bare all, simply by calling his L. A. Secrets Hotline.

Biederman is the kind of guy who buys lottery tickets at your favorite liquor store, only his come up winners. There are authors who devote many years to researching and writing complex books that nobody buys. Biederman was lucky enough to have come up with an idea that is beautiful in its simplicity, because everyone has secrets they are yearning to share.

To gather material for “Small Town,” Biederman says, he simply drove into a hamlet “somewhere in the United States” and conducted more than 100 interviews in three weeks.

Three weeks!

It was at that point I felt like making Biederman eat the words of his “ordinary people.” Three weeks and Biederman scoops up the raw material for a book that netted $92,000 in an auction for paperback rights. And now there’s even talk of TV and movie projects.

The secrets that Biederman collected may not be what the reader expects. They weren’t what the author expected.

“I thought this would be a sexy, controversial, dark book,” Biederman said of his sojourn to Small Town, USA. “But what I ended up getting and responding to were secrets that force you to identify with these people.”

Secrets, as Biederman discovered, range from the titillating to the trivial, from actual events to suppressed urges. Secrets can be terrifying, funny, sad and disgusting. Reading this book is like munching from a tray of mixed nuts. Amid the juicy cashews and rich macadamias are the peanuts, such as this one from “Sally, age 66, mother”:

I have this wonderful daughter who is very much into saving the world, being her own person, and living naturally. I admire her strength, but deep down inside I really wish she’d shave her legs.

Los Angeles, for all its shamelessness, should provide a worthy sequel. Madonna has already marketed her secrets, Hugh Hefner has acknowledged his bisexual dabbling and now Heidi Fleiss, the alleged Hollywood madam, may tell all. But for all the coverage of L. A. the tabloids provide, Biederman won’t be hurting for material. “Secrets of a Big City,” one suspects, will be less “Hollywood Babylon” than 80 “Peyton Places” in search of a city.

Biederman, a Tarzana native, has rounded up his confessors by passing out flyers and putting ads in college newspapers that advertise his L. A. Secrets Hotline.

“A MILLION PEOPLE MIGHT READ IT,” the flyer declares. “BUT NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW IT’S YOU!” The fine print warns: “All submissions become the property of Jerry Biederman. You grant permission for use of your secret in all forms and media through the world.”

Biederman shared a few Secrets of the Valley. Do any of these sound like someone you might know?

There is, for example, the stranger who approached Biederman at a wedding and said he worked for a company that illegally sells weapons to foreign countries. And the 12-year-old girl who admitted helping an older boyfriend push his car over a cliff to collect on the insurance. And the young woman who had an affair with her father’s business partner when she was 16 years old. And the manicurist who, fed up with physical abuse from her boyfriend, dreams of how to murder him and make it look accidental.

Rather than reveal the phone number to L. A. Secrets Hotline, I have a better idea. Jerry Biederman wants to own your secrets, so why should I help him do his work? Me, I just like a good story.

And so, dear reader, you will soon be able to share your private life over the L. A. Truly Hot & Shocking Confessions Hotline. (You tell me yours and I’ll tell you somebody else’s.) The number will be published here, as soon as I get my hot line set up.

Remember, confession is good for the soul. That is why I’ll be providing this public service. For your convenience, the number will be easy to remember--something like 1-900-DOTELL.

Just $2 for the first minute.