Larry Star is a funny guy.
He makes his friends laugh, says inappropriate things at work and he loves writing.
And now he's got a new book, a tongue-in-cheek but oddly poignant relationship advice book, "Bitter, Party of One ... Your Table is Ready," from the guy who should least be giving it.
| Check it out
Learn more about Larry Star, The Wedding Dress Guy, at his Web site, www.weddingdressguy.com.
You'll find information on his relationship advice book, "Bitter, Party of One ... Your Table is Ready," which is being sold for $17.95 by various online booksellers. |
You see, Larry Star, a 43-year-old Everett resident, is "The Wedding Dress Guy."
He's the one who tried to sell his ex-wife's wedding dress on eBay last year "hoping to get enough money for maybe a couple of Mariners tickets and some beer."
The date, April 23, 2004, probably sticks in his memory better than his old anniversary.
That was the day Star decided to have a little fun with the dress he found in his attic a couple of years after his divorce.
He put it on, took some photos of himself in it and posted the dress on eBay.
It started as a silly gag to get a chuckle out of his buddies, but the post went up on a Friday and the e-mails started flooding his inbox by Monday.
"It wasn't calculated, not at all," Star said. "Everybody thinks I'm this marketing genius. I'm just a freakin' idiot.
"I basically wanted to make my friends laugh. I put the dress on (for pictures), put the derisively funny ad copy to it and basically e-mailed my friends, saying, 'Hey, look what I did.'"
What followed was a surreal roller coaster of publicity and other odd events, including several marriage proposals from women in the United States and beyond. Star appeared on NBC's "The Today Show," cable news shows, newspapers and magazines as varied as People, the New York Daily News and Crossdressers Digest.
And for all the notoriety and millions of hits that Star's eBay listing tallied, he hasn't heard a word from his ex-wife.
"I don't even know where she is," he said.
Not that he's looking.
He has a new love who he's been dating for a year and a half and who he says knows about his vow to never say vows again.
For the record, Star cross-dresses only when he's posing for pictures and making appearances in the infamous flowing white gown.
It originally had been "worn once, by mistake," Star has said, but the past year and a half has sent the size 12 gown on a journey that no one saw coming.
The wave of publicity and appearances has forced Star to dress up "two, three thousand times," he said.
From spots on NBC's "The Today Show" to the eBay Live convention in New Orleans last year, Star has become the most famous man wearing a wedding dress since Dennis Rodman.
"I wore it in New Orleans and ... this was just crazy to me," Star said. "I'm walking down Bourbon Street with the dress, which isn't that crazy in New Orleans, but it was the eBay convention so they recognized me.
"So I'm there with the cigar and people are just flocking around me, taking pictures, screaming, hooting and hollering. Men, women, everybody. You'd swear I just came out of the space shuttle, or I was one of the Beatles."
The irony is that the dress never sold because the high bidder flaked, which means that Star ultimately didn't even get the money for the Mariners tickets and beer that he was looking for.
"It's kind of like a silver lining," said Star, who wears the dress at virtually every appearance he makes. "I had a book signing in Marysville (recently), and people came just to see the dress.
"So I'm standing out there stopping traffic wearing this stupid thing in the middle of the street, smoking a cigar ..."
It's an image he embraces.
You'll recognize his maroon Ford Ranger pickup around town because it's the one with the "WeddingDressGuy.com" stickers on the windshield and tailgate.
But with his new book, which was released in June, Star finds himself facing a paradox. He's trying to establish himself as a humor writer, but his best chance at recognition and publicity is by way of the gown.
So, essentially, he must get all dressed up if he wants to go anywhere.
"I really wanted to shed it with this book," Star said. "I don't want to be known for 'The Wedding Dress Guy.' I want to be known as, 'That guy's a funny writer.'"
He's also working on his great American novel, as well as humorous play, and writes songs for his band, The Buzzcuts.
"I have songs that I've written for my band and we have them on CDs, but it's not the same as writing a book," Star said. "I've started seven or eight books and never finished it. This whole wedding dress thing gave me the motivation and the gumption to actually finish it.
The rest of the story
"I realized my dream. I have a legacy. I have a book."
“Lucky in cards, unlucky in love” is what they say. Or is it, “Lucky in love, unlucky in cards”?
To Larry Star, it doesn’t really matter.
“I’m unlucky in both,” he said. “I wear my heart on my sleeve and I lose my shirt.”
For all the notoriety that the 43-year-old Everett man garnered after trying to sell his ex-wife’s wedding dress on eBay last year, you’d think he’d have something to show for it beyond the newspaper and magazine clippings and tapes of TV appearances.
Some big payoff?
A huge check?
At the very least, you’d think he would have gotten his baseball game and beers and no longer own the dress, right?
“It’s crumpled up into a ball in a garbage bag in the bottom of my closet,” Star said.
The “winning” bid settled in at $3,850 but the high bidder never paid up.
The bidding reached $99 million, Star said, before eBay officials stepped in and started weeding out what they considered to be bogus bidders.
One of those alleged bogus bidders, he said, was GoldenPalace.com, an online casino that has made headlines by winning eBay auctions for buzzworthy items such as the “ghost cane” for $65,000 and the grilled cheese sandwich bearing an image of the Virgin Mary for $28,000.
“The ghost cane gets a lot of money, the grilled cheese gets, oh, $60,000, $20,000,” Star said. “I get zero!
“My friend Brandon was laughing at me because that’s my (freakin’) life story. The total luck of me.
“I can’t make a one out of a two.”
Reporter Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
