Feb 12, 2013

À propos (Doonesbury)




This is us, folks, this is us, Chang saying ""book,"" ("your hobby," "don't get obsessed about it," etc.), and Michael saying "book."  Chang carrying some laundry/garbage bag, Michael not carrying some laundry/garbage bag; der Rest ist Schweigen (we live together for 20 years).

Right, so here are two examples of such paragraphs from the Green Eyes (opening Chapter 21 and 29, respectively; it's usually the first paragraph of a chapter that's difficult):

(Chapter 21, My father and your father were fathers): I'm on my way to the convenience store now, except that I'm not, since the truck doesn't start. Father is in his box, I can forget about him, but my truck is a different box, in particular when it acts up. I never knew it was a truck until Joe, a neighbor, told me so—I thought I had bought an SUV from a stupid lemon dealer, a first generation Mercedes 320 ML from another millennium. But after a few miles it transpired that the fine line between arrogance and hubris had been crossed once again by some autonomous part of my brain in that the lemon dealer turned out to be right. It helps a bit, though, that this Joe—a wealthy oil man from Louisiana who owns the latest version of my model at some six-digit pricepoint and the entire top floor of the condo—that Joe calls his ML a truck, it makes a difference in the delusion compartment whether it's your truck that breaks down, or your premium-brand SUV with leather seats and other luxe options.

(Chapter 29, The sycamore tree): I realized too late what I had done, or not done. In the confusion of my father’s arrival I had left the cell phone behind, and then, despite all the mental notes to self, had forgotten about Alice, because it had been exactly ten PM when Gracelyn suggested, insisted, in fact, that I sleep with Ben in one bed. That must have been it, the mental notes to self, the deities of the English language took offense and punish me dearly now, (or it’s other deities with other concerns that punish me dearly now, but dearly it is).

Feb 10, 2013

Sirrr --- "Couldn't agree more"

More Sirrr-wise, this time as a comment on the Daily Beast (scroll down). Let us explain. Andrew Sullivan has a post on Philip Roth, who, in a NY restaurant, got accosted (if that's the word) by young, budding (and handsome) author Julian Trepper, who has just published his first novel "Balls" (balls). Trepper presents Roth with a copy of said Balls, Roth jumps up, and shoots into a tirade against writing:

“I would quit while you’re ahead. Really, it’s an awful field. Just torture. Awful. You write and write, and you have to throw almost all of it away because it’s not any good. I would say just stop now. You don’t want to do this to yourself. That’s my advice to you.”
Julian has reported on this in the Paris review and on the pages of the Daily Beast, where he's speculating about Roth's career as a bored ex-writer (Roth announced recently he had quit writing), and posits that writing is a very practical way out of boredom. 


Julian Trepper, Philip Roth

And her's our Sirrr-letter:

  Sirrr --- couldn't agree more. Boredom is the alternative to writing, or, more precisely, writing is the alternative to boredom. I'm a retired academic living in a retirement community in the south of France, and people here are bored, bored, so bored it could actually kill them. You need an inner life in order to live a good life, and while there might be other things to help you find it or live it, writing, as Julian so coyly explains, provides a practical and pragmatic way to get one, an inner life.

Folks, as an academic, I always knew about "writing," and I can tell you from experience now that there isn't much difference between writing an academic paper and writing gay pornography, especially when it’s the first draft, when the creative juices really need to flow.

OK, so. Let me tell you. The day I decided to write fiction, I found Jesus. Since I'm writing gay pornography, I'm wearing the flaccid smile of the truly reborn, my wrinkles have disappeared, my hair has grown, my penis has grown, Jesus it is. 60% of the time I'm on a high, the high people normally reach only after three glasses of champagne. And the first novel is almost finished. The first draft was finished in under five month (the first draft of my Ph.D. took two years).

Feb 9, 2013

Green Eyes --- teaser (Maud)

(So let's contemplate:





And here's a fitting clip from the Green Eyes (Chapter 20, "My father and your father were fathers," --- John is getting a phone call from the hospital (Maurice is still alive), and then father shows up prematurely; here's the beginning of the chapter, mercifully short):


The phone rings.

It's not that simple, of course, the phone doesn't ring. Instead, it speaks a pop song to me --- like your partner would in a failed marriage. I've tried everything, even phone calls (I hate phone calls, both ways), tried everything to download a ring tone like "rrringg, rrringg," a tone that nobody remembers from the analogue days. I've hit the Download ringtone now button too often, I've been charged for said tones occasionally, I've stamped on the ground like Rumpelstiltskin, I succeeded once, when my pop song was replaced by a different one that I had to learn with difficulty—it takes some time before you realize that the dahhhduhhdahh is actually yours when it happens in your pocket and not on TV—but it has happened too often now, and I love it like you love your partner during a bitter divorce.

"It’s coming back to me now," the cell sings again.

How about this illustration? Antique pederasts didn't have to bother with cell-phones, or did they? OK, here're two more paragraph from the same chapter:

How to abuse a father in the meantime? Step one, no welcome. Done. Step two, offer poison. Done. Step two-A, let him die. Fail. Step three, let him ask for the booze. Step four, there's no booze left in the fridge (Alex helped). Step five, be unpredictable. On some occasions, I go and fetch a few cans of beer from the nearest convenience store. On others, I don't, I'm off, busy, see you later, leave him key-less behind, there is no spare key, he's off to the beach, he returns, he can't get in, there are no flower pots, my cell-phone is on voice mail. The first day is almost over, two more days to go.

You wonder whether he ever raped me? No, he didn't. My mother just caught him on the wrong side of my body, when the thing stopped. Let me explain, I'm politically incorrect here in a terrible way, I know. I didn't really care. He sucked my dick, it didn't hurt. He never asked me to suck his. I wasn't hurt, or devastated, or desecrated, at least subjectively I wasn't. But I think my bipolarity has something to do with it, I learned to compartmentalize, if that's the word, or at least my brain did, the autonomous part, my father in one compartment, other things in others compartments, and myself somewhere else. These compartments are still there, I always have to think outside of some boxes, go back and forth from box to box, these boxes will possibly stay with me for the rest of my life. This back and forth all the time, it must have something to do with my mood swings, I don't know.

Feb 8, 2013

Sirrr --- "die menschliche Dummheit is grenzenlos"

(We did it again, we did it again. Another Sirrr letter, this time in the comment section of Paul Krugman's latest column in the NYT:)

Paul Krugman

Sirrr:  Following up on the last comment (people can't be reasoned with): why --- yes, in the end, they can. We've been there before, like the Chinese were for more than a thousand years during which time the frequent and devastating floods of the Yellow River basin were answered by raising the standards of the entry exams of the bureaucratic Mandarin elite (mostly writing poetry). Wasn't it crystal clear that the ancestors had gotten upset again about declining poetic standards and showed their anger through provoking natural disasters? Or think about the infamous earthquake of Lisbon in 1755, to which the authorities reacted by staging more autodafés --- wasn't it clear that God had shown his anger and needed to be mollified by more vigorous answers to overall sinning?

Along those lines, isn't it clear that the world will go under if we don't lower the budget deficit now, now (never mind that a significant percentage of the demographic believing this also believes that the world will come to an end anyhow soon, compliments Jesus Christ and impending Rapture proceedings). Isn't it clear that the answer to all economic problems lies in lowering taxes --- because it's the hardworking, dogged, teneacious rich that create jobs, those people that could get discouraged so easily by higher marginal taxes, even though the marginal income tax rate under Eisenhower (when the American economy really grew precipitously) was 91%, instead of 35, or 39%.

My father (who was German) used to say: "Die menschliche Dummheit ist grenzenlos." In this spirit.

(And while we are at it, a fitting fragment from the Green Eyes --- not the first time we're posting this fragment, but there you have it:)


Chapter 38 --- What's Paul Krugman's penis size

You think Trevor would be interested in politics, or the New York Times, or economics, or Nobel prices? Possibly not—you have other problems when you're a confirmed bachelor without a future. Trevor, in any case, who must be looking right into the eyes of Paul Krugman behind me, Trevor shows no signs of recognition what-so-ever, it's crystal-clear, he's not attracted to the fifty-nine year old Nobel laureate. In the distant past, when penises had average size, there was some talk in some quarters that IQs would be sexy, but we have proof now (sample-of-one!) that Krugman either does not look the part or that IQs are out. What's Krugman's penis size? Krugman, I realize, is drinking sparkling water, which is actually penis-enhancing, at least in the sense that alcohol induces impotence. That's what I should do, drink sparkling water, do they award Nobel prices for French? Should I raise my voice a bit so that Krugman can hear me and admire what I have to say about the Normans and their conquest of the Anglo-Saxon tongue? Where am I now, 0.13 BAC? Did you know that French has more words for booze than English? Or vice versa?

Feb 7, 2013

Green Eyes --- teaser

(A friend sends this picture:)


(And the corresponding Green Eyes fragment is?)

Chapter 43 --- A surgical strike into semantic space

"Uhh huuh," he says, sipping his whiskey. "So you want a video installation?"
"In a sense."
"On your own premises."
"Yes."
"You won't have much traffic in your apartment."
"Should I?"
"Perhaps you should contact the MoMa for your work."
“You mean the Museum of Modern Art?”
“Yes, they have more traffic. In New York City.”
"I'm not famous enough," I say.
"I worked in Manhattan, once had sex with the secretary of the director. Of the MoMa. Twice. Three times. My-ooh-my. These people know what they are doing. Four times."
"Hiring secretaries?"
"Hiring secretaries." He smacks his lips, swipes his unruly black hair with his fingers. "A video installation, that could be challenging."
"You are the man."

Feb 3, 2013

Public transport hazards


"This guy should read Michael Ampersant's outrageouos new novel Green Eyes

Green Eyes --- Neologism update

Armani minimum (n.phr.) Giorgio Armani's tumescence when he wears his Armani jeans. Usage (Green Eyes, Ch. 30): "Any hint of tumescence is stylishly kept to the Armani minimum."
dead-wife (n.) A female spouse, now deceased. Usage: "Alice had an affair with his dead-wife." Discouraged, cruel.
i-ding (n.) (i) Collective name for Ipads, Iphones, and similar devices. Usage (Green Eyes, Ch. 27): "He flips his I-ding, sends a text message to Google." (ii) The penis of compulsive app-users. Usage: "This I-man showed me his I-ding, but I wasn't i-impressed."
i-impressed (adv.) The state of being impressed by an I-thing or its doings. Usage: "This I-man showed me his I-ding, but I wasn't i-impressed." Awkward, won't fly (sounds like one of the lesser Urban Dictionary inventions).

Feb 1, 2013

Warm bodies (review) (reblogged)

Lokfire from Hollywood Hates Me writes:

So I saw Warm Bodies (the book) laying on the table at the bookstore. I picked it up and perused the back cover.

I'd've perused the front cover, but it was kind of off-putting.
I'd've perused the front cover, but it was kind of off-putting

A zombie romance? Man, I liked zombies before they were cool. (I kind of hate myself.)  Warm Bodies, a zombie romance, has been made into a movie. Apparently, it's something like a parody of Twilight, which seems silly to me, because why bother to parody something that's already a parody of writing to begin with?

Also, does anybody else think Edgar Allen Poe would be so happy right now. "What's this? Necrophilia is cool now? Huzzah!"
Seriously, though, it just seems like all you'd need to do is point at Twilight and laugh

Jan 28, 2013


"He said I would find the copy of Michael Ampersant's outrageous new novel Green Eyes in the top drawer."

(Artwork by Michael Breyette)

Jan 26, 2013

Green Eyes --- Chapter 34 (teaser)

So, there we are, from left to right, Maurice, Alice, John, Alex, and the legal suit. Alice is angry, you can practically see her fist clenched in her white-coat pocket, but we're all adults, so she is making the honors and presents us to Trevor Howard, the Assistant DA, who has been so kind to come all the way from Waycross to listen to our case. Attempts are being made to shake hands across laps, it would be awkward to get up again. Alex has a last name, Iglesias, which I learn on this occasion (come to think of it, the black hair, the eyebrows, the warm-colored skin, it must have been his mother then, the eyes, Irish?).


Maurice’s IC gear is going quiet, I wonder whether there’s a tumescence meter as well. "Apologies for us being late," Alex says. He owns the room, I don't know how he does it with this depression on his shoulders—he doesn’t know it either, I guess (that’s how he does it). Alice explains the reason for our presence, we're indirect witnesses, she explains.

Hair by Brad Pitt (no kidding)

Rave reviews for the new, and improved writer

Michael &[sic], author of the novel Green Eyes


Oh yes Mike....looks fabbo!!! --- Jenni B.
Very good --- Sacha did this? --- Glenn Ch.
Wow, wonderful......never looked so good....and just look at that hair....!! --- Pauline J.
Bravo, tu as rajeuni de 20 ans au moins !... --- Anne-Marie B.
Hi Mike, I just wanted to close my labtop and discovered your photo! You look 20 years younger. Did you go to the hairdresser? Congratulation. Keep it like that and you will be very succesful. --- Christine B.
Interesting picture, really! The next step: the red carpet in Cannes ? --- Hans E.
You Look Great! I love the Sting Dew (haircut). --- Perry LaP.
Attractive elusive Author this Michael Ampersant!! --- Maud S.
Je sais que l'on ne s'est pas vus depuis un moment mais je ne t'avais pas reconnu. Bon crois en mon avis en femme avisée je te trouve très beau. --- Annie T.

Jan 25, 2013

Green Eyes --- Chapter 18: Agatha Christie


Previously, Alex ("Green Eyes") offered to give us a ride, we took him upstairs for the same, we did it, and somehow we fell asleep. 


One two three, infinity (I’ll explain later). My ass.

Alex has already left his perch as a grand horizontal when I wake up. Better even, or worse, the sheer fact that I could fall asleep testified to his untimely departure, since nobody, not even straight people, would be able to do so with the Green Eyes on top of them. And I did sleep, because I have my usual morning glory, and I am alone, as outlined already, no external stimuli present, only my sleep, and sweet dreams perhaps that I don't remember. I'm too old for spontaneous erections, it's either sexual or it's sleep (not quite true, I remember now, I had one just yesterday, but still).

Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep, and sometimes I don't know whether I did actually fall asleep before waking up in the middle of the night, but then I feel my boner, and know I slept, realizing that my sleeping is better than feared, and thus comforted fall asleep again (only to wake up at a later time with another boner (I think I should stop now)).



(It is what you think it is)

Alex is gone, at least he is not the cause of my erection, and my bed is otherwise empty. Where is Alex? Perhaps he's brewing coffee in the kitchen. I get up, and my pendulous organ—I had learned the term "pendulous organ" from Alex only hours earlier—my organ was still not very pendulous on the way to the kitchen, the place where Alex was not brewing coffee.

My world falls apart, and only the second or third time in 24 hours. Through the haze of my upcoming tears I look around. There's a sheet of paper on the kitchen table, a location where experienced tricks in my days—in the days I still brought tricks home—used to leave their goodbye messages when they had been brought up well-enough to signal goodbye before leaving—after getting up as quietly as possible, hoping to undisturb my sleep, getting dressed quietly, not using the bathroom in order to avoid noises, finding some reusable sheet of paper, and a pen, and then writing in very readable hands, usually, like, like drawing a Valentine heart, signed "M," or perhaps even signed "Michael," or, in extreme cases, writing a grammatically well-formed sentence along the lines of "Sorry that I have to leave early, Michael." Sometimes even the word love was used, carelessly, perhaps, but carefully written, since most tricks live near the literacy threshold, rarely write anything, whence their writing hand is unblemished by later excesses.

Where was I? Yes, In the place where experienced, well-brought-up tricks would leave their messages (Mother: “Michael, there is another thing that you should never forget, your exit should always be graceful, and should it happen that genetic destiny strikes and you end up as a loose homosexual, so loose that his nights are spent as one night stands in the company of other loose men, even then your exit should always be proper and good-byed”), in said place I find a re-used sheet of paper with the not-so-readable words "Dear John, I had to go, I love you, Alex," and a little Valentine heart drawn under the text (he could have encircled the text with the Valentine heart, it would have been prettier, but he didn't).

No home number, address, email, homepage link, twitter, tweet, something. Alex was gone.

Now, the situation isn’t completely hopeless, at least in the technical sense that I know where he works, so I could try to retrieve him by calling the hospital and ask for Alex, the alpha-god paramedic, (“Alexander, you know, I don't know his last name, the paramedic with the green eyes”) and it’s anyone’s guess what the result would be. Perhaps he is a medical secret, (“We cannot divulge the names or other coordinates of our staff, by law”), or not a medical secret (“You're not the first person asking for Alex in this way, you know”). Or I could, in anticipation of such answers avoid any contact by telephone and position myself around dawn near the staff entrance of the hospital, waiting for Alex like fans wait at the bühnenausgang of Wagner's opera burgh in Bayreuth for a famous singer, and ask for an autograph when the alpha-god finally appears.

There are other possibilities as well, think hospital email etc. Let’s do some hand-waving here (an expression I have yet to learn from Alex), you get the gist. Email, stop. Internet, Google. You know, I can't think in panic, so I type "Alex" in Google's main search window of my computer, today enhanced for unclear reasons by a Sherlock Holmes motif. Only more than one billion answers. Without thinking I click on the first link, which connects me to ALEX, the Alabama Learning Exchange. Good, I think, that's in the South. But not in Georgia, I realize, then my thinking stops again since the terrible truth strikes again, that I have lost the Green Eyes to a hopeless, lonesome future in confirmed bachelor county, GA, USA.

I would normally make coffee once detumescence (what a useful word) has com-menced, but don’t feel like it. Instead, I get my thoughts together and start a systematic search for "Alex," the "paramedic" of the "Memorial Baptist Hospital" in "Georgia Beach," in “Glynn county,” "GA," "US," which yields nothing. A hospital is not a university, they won't list all their staff in unreadable, smallish fonts, even people who died 20 years ago of disappearance, like Alex had died of disappearance, this morning, between eight and ten o'clock.

I read the message again. "Dear John, I had to go, I love you, Alex." Nothing, nothing in this message would speak of the future. There are no undertones, no overtones, the message is as neutral as his green eyes were (used to be) when his own studied ambivalence was undecided about a course of action. In the meager space of a few hours I had seen this neutrality more than a few times already, if his eyes talked, something was at hand, and there was nothing of the surreptitious eye language that tends to accompany the meaning-challenged behavior of people who have nothing to say, eyes too open, eyes too small, eyes winking, squinting, and so on.

A message as neutral as his eyes. Why didn't he say anything about a date tomorrow, or on Saturday, or the Blue Moon, or the beach. Why did he "have" to go. He was sleeping next to me, or on top of me, or whatever, his next shift starting, what, possibly at 10 PM or later. Why did he have to "go?" Why did he "love you," why did he "I love you," if he loved me, he would not be gone but embrace me tenderly while sticking his penis into my ass, a routine that we had practice already once, although, during our earlier cruisin' encounter, he had refrained from the poignant anatomical commentary that accompanied his later work.

"I love your work," he could have written, if I’d only shown him my blog. I mean the blog I talked about earlier, about everything and nothing, even the gay condition, perhaps he would have liked it (although I have no followers), and decided that he cannot ditch a person that's not only 'OK, gym-wise,' as he had said during foreplay, but also OK blog-wise, and he would now put his penis into my ass, or at least leave his number, and everything would be all-right.

There is a movement now in trendy USA, of which even I am aware, to replace the words "blogger," "blogging," etc. by better, nicer words, and if such words are ever found, I would not only be a good blogger, I would also be a good nicer word, and Alex would be sure to stay, but he's already gone.

I stare at the Sherlock-Homes-themed Google search window and realize that there is no deerstalker. It not about Holmes at all. It honors Agatha Christie, perhaps her thousandth birthday, and her biography comes to mind, how she had married this racing pilot, much handsomer than plain Agatha herself, and how the relationship had soured, and how she, famous already, had suddenly disappeared, gone, futsch, with search and rescue teams (S&R) in hot pursuit, until she had suddenly and without prior warning reappeared in some country inn, and never returned to her handsomer husband, and later marry a handsomer archaeologist, 14 years her junior, and they would write books together in the sense that when she would write a book he would take time away from his other obligations and also write a book, in the room next to hers.

This is the future that Alex and I deserve. He an accomplished sexologist with a lucrative clinic next door, I an accomplished nicer word behind my laptop, and we would happily live ever after, and he pays the bills.




Go here for more.

Jan 22, 2013

Green Eyes --- Part II (teaser)

You want to know how the Green Eyes are going to continue? Will John and Alex settle into a comfortable relationship? Will there be strife? Connubial boredom? Bliss? There will be a happy ending of Part I, OK, but what's next? 

Well, one thing that's for sure, the statue of Peggy Noonan will be repaired. Peggy Noonan what? Yes, her, the famous Wall Street Journal columnist. She's going to appear in Chapter whatever, we lost count, in Chapter 33 ("The Doorbell Rings"), where John and Alex will make a pivotal walk along the beach; Alex will talk about his depression, for the first time, and they are going to have sex, in the dunes, yet again, but before we arrive at the beach we actually have to get there:

We've arrived at the head of Beach Avenue, which ends right on the beach. There are no free parking spaces left, despite the early hour. We circle around the gigantic statue of Peggy Noonan, the famous columnist, a gift of the Republican Club to its hometown, and find a space right in front of the Tourist Office hundred yards up the road. I explain about Maurice, the exchange with Torquay, his ambitions as a playwright. "How long is it," he [Alex] says, "that we met, three days?" I have to count. We walk back to the beach, past the Noonan statue, which, in its better days, had an endless voice loop about George DoubleYou, him of the Freedom Fries, taken from one of her famous columns, educating tourists and natives about the 43rd president (“Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man”), but some mechanical failure had silenced the sculpture quite some time ago, and the repair work had been delayed for unclear reasons.

Peggy Noonan statue in Georgia Beach

We’ve rounded the corner of Nick’s restaurant and are heading south on the beach. A long stretch of crystal-white sand extends past Dewey Beach and runs for more than five miles along the outer banks to the northern mouth of Simons River. It’s surely one of the finest beaches of the East Coast. The sea breeze is picking up already—the land of Georgia heating up, the warming air rising, cooler air hastening in from the sea in replacement. We're walking past the gay beach section, which is still empty. This is where we met, in the no-man's land between the beach and the dunes of the cruising area. I want to say something about the dunes, then think better of it. He, too, casts a furtive glance at the location of our first encounter.

Jan 20, 2013

Aquarius (Jezza Smilez)


The second inauguration --- reblogged (Ross Douthat)

We usually don't do this, but a friend from Baltimore sent this real nice gif-picture, and we need a pretext to post it, and Ross Douthat writes well, so here it is ...





... and here's Douthat's NYT piece reblogged:


My fellow Americans, I am grateful for the honor of this hour, mindful of the consequential times in which we live, and determined to fulfill the oath that I have sworn and you have witnessed.

[long pause]

Hey, no, just kidding: That’s from George W. Bush’s second inaugural. I just wanted to see if you could tell the difference.

I’m going to keep this brief, because we’re all cold and there’s always a chance that the House Republicans might start imitating the Donner Party if we stay out here too long.

[broad wink at Eric Cantor]

You already know how the better angels of our nature are going to make hope and history rhyme, and all the usual fluff. So I’ll skip that part. But before my second term gets under way, I do have a few people from the last four years I want to acknowledge.

First, my dear friends in the press and on the professional left (but I repeat myself). It’s so nice to have you back on the bandwagon, guys! I’ve been surfing the Interwebs, reading the tweets, and it feels like old times. The Obama realignment is all the rage again. The thrill is back on MSNBC. Newsweek’s comparing me to Jesus. All I need is a will.i.am video to really take me back.

Jan 19, 2013

Freedom Fries --- Chapter 2: "The President is on the line for you!" (Part 2)

Previously, there have been hints that George W. Bush may experience a change of heart in retirement, that Samuel Fisher, founder and CEO of the Lynx (LYNX) network, is concerned about the ratings, and that George Lukacs, the charismatic hedge-fund titan, can't handle fair-and-balanced news. We've also learned that John Yoo, professor of constitutional law at Berkeley University and author of the infamous torture memos of the Bush era, is in some kind of trouble. Change of scene, and scenery: meet Alberrt, a young polymath prodigy in the employ of the Fisher Laboratories, LYNX's research arm, who's soon going to fiddle with the electronic copy of President Obama's birth certificate stored on the server of the Hawaii Department of Health---or is he?


Sangre de Christos mountains

A lab with a view. The pay is good, the canteen is okay, the other guys are usually okay, and the vista of Sangre de Cristos is an extra. Commuting is difficult, almost 40 miles, but it is a nice ride through the mesa, and the Mexican chicks in the retro bars of Santa Fe are always happy to have him back when he returns late from work. Joe always returns late from work since he has nothing else to do. He is supposed to assist Alberrt, the resident whiz kid, but Alberrt never asks for assistance, hiding instead under his head gear and doing his whiz-kid stuff. So Joe hangs around while Alberrt works late into the night — if it is work; it is possibly more some kind of therapy. Having nothing else to do, Joe play the role of a body guard, and he makes sure he looks the part with his shaved scalp.

Alberrt, with his slender body, beautiful mulatto face, short, cropped, light hair is sitting at his desk, the head gear in place, the green eyes fixed on the screen. A virgin version of Tiger Woods, sort of. Joe is bored. Everybody else has left. Joe takes the remote control of the Walkera model helicopter that the lab has ordered for unclear reasons — reasons are never clear at the Fisher labs — and decides to practice. He starts the rotor, has the thing lift off, and hover below the ceiling. It can go up and down. It can go fast. And it can make tight turns, which it does around Alberrt’s head. It can also touch down, which it does on Alberrt’s desk. The model is practically as large as a real chopper. Alberrt ignores it.

Joe crosses the out-sized room and puts his arm on Alberrt’s shoulder. “Man,” he said. Alberrt reacts to Joe’s touch, he is apparently in a good mood. “What are you doing?” Alberrt lowers his head gear. “Skinhead,” he says, “I’m into the computer of the State of Hawaii Department of Health. With System’s Administrator privileges.”

Joe looks at a large green sheet displayed on Alberrt’s screen. It says “Certificate of Live Birth” at the top, above what looks like the seal of the State of Hawaii. To the left, under “Child’s name” it says “BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA II.” According to the certificate, he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The mother’s maiden name is given as “Stanley Ann Dunham,” race “Caucasian,”, the father’s name as “Barack Hussein Obama,” race “African.” He was apparently born at 7:24 pm on the Island of Oahu. The sex is male.

Jan 18, 2013


"We'll find your copy of Michael Ampersant's outrageous new novel Green Eyes, it must be somewhere. Don't worry!"
(Artwork by Steve Walker)

Jan 17, 2013

Is the pope gay?

That's the question that keeps us erotic writers up at night. And the answer is....


Georg Gänswein is the Camerlengo (chamberlain) of Pople Benedict XV (or XVII? --- who cares)

The camerlengo does all sort of things, like, like declaring the pope officially dead when the pope dies.

Jan 10, 2013

Fucking three-ways --- reblogged

The mysterious Mr. E. (the ex-pat in Thailand with this impossible secretary) writes on his blog 50 Shady Gays:

One of my favourite restaurants back in east London was “Les trois Garcons.” I was lucky enough to eat there several times, and I often wonder what it was that made me love it so much. Was it the richness of the food, the opulence of the design (I’ve always had a soft spot for stuffed animals wearing tiaras) or the slightly too cool for school staff? No. it was the fact that you sit in the uber-camp lounge of a big gay 3 way. You’re basically the filling in the physical manifestation of their spit roast.

It isn’t the fantasy of a perpetual daisy chain that enthralls me; I betray my working class roots here, but it’s the peculiarities of the day to day life that I find fascinating. How does it work? Do they nag in stereo? Will their collective mid life crisis result in an ever expanding wardrobe of inappropriately tight disco wear? Perhaps a 3 way would be more stable than a less conventional twosome, who knows? Perhaps I was looking for answers to my own inability to connect in a relationship?

Miguel Angel Reyes

I recently met 3 men in Bangkok who had been in a relationship for over a year.

They were from Moscow and they were painfully trendy and undeniably cute. They wore skimpy white shorts and tight T shirts. For some reason they had all decided to wear matching Mr Spock/elf ears – which contrived to make them appear all the more fabulous. They swaggered through the club, seemingly oblivious to all the attention, in a way that only beautiful men in their twenties can; consumed with the solemnities of their love. I got talking to Alex (the one with the glasses) who spoke English, he told me the history of their relationship and I was – how can I say – both fascinated and horrified. It was just so full on, heightened no doubt by the fact that they were all high. DJ station had closed, and while Alex recounted their passionately mental love story, the cleaning lady waddled past, moping up stale homo-piss from the toilet floor beneath our feet: “Sawadeeeee KaaaaAAAAAAAAAaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Jan 6, 2013

Apple (Computers) --- reblogged, consolidated

Here are our Apple posts concatenated into one story (finally) (this is modern writing, so we start asynchronously):

Act II. Somewhere in 1978 or 79, the Amsterdam department store De Bijenkorff opened a new sales corner on its 4th floor, mysteriously named "huiscomputers," which featured a new product, the Apple II home computer. At that time most people, including myself, would conceive of computers as "electronic brains" (Germans called them "Elektronengehirne" before they called them "computers" before they called them "Rechner"), all built by IBM, all infinitely expensive, large, and remote.

Standard IBM Hollerith punch card

Act I. My first contact with computers had been in 1972, when I took an algebra class at the Free University of Berlin and was tasked to program matrix inversions and some such in Algol68, the programming language du jour. This was done by (1) punching Hollerith cards in the right places, on special machines located in the university's computing center, then (2) placing the cards in the intray located in the hallway outside the main operating room where the computer was located (there was only one computer), (3) waiting for an operator to appear to empty the intray (he would open a wing door, and allow you a glimpse at the electronic brain, humming and chugging along in fluorescent light, tape decks clicking back and forth), (4) then waiting another hour or so for the operator to reappear with the "output," --- folded stacks of paper in a very large format, the name of the "job" (no pun intended) printed in very large letters on the first page. If your stack was very thin (as it usually was) this could mean only one thing: something had gone wrong. You would (5) try to find the error, or try to find some help to find the error, (6) correct it, (7) resubmit your job, and repeat the correction loop as appropriate. Usually, it would take only a few days  until a program of a few lines of code would finally run properly. 

IBM mainframe, system 360 (1964 - 78)


Act II, cont'd.  So far so good. Back to the department store. What could you do with a home computer, I asked the sales person. Well, he said, you could store cooking recipes and call them up when needed. I didn't buy the Apple II.

Dec 23, 2012

Nazi-style

We didn't really have the scoop but were posting on Gangnam-style back in August when its YouTube tally was a tiny 27 million or so (now more than 1 billion), encouraged by the excessive oriental wisdom of our partner, the certain Chang Man Yoon. And we have been posting the Hitler parodies since years, right? So, here goes: 






What else? A suitable quote from the Green Eyes of course, from Chapter 32, The humble worm C. Elegans, the only Nazi reference in the book, by the way: 

Something has changed in that man [John's father], the tide went out, including Boston harbor, and the muddy ground of the nation is packed with naked clowns, wrapped in the flag, whose sole point is that they are angry, angry --- that's how tyrants justify blanket executions --- but their anger is not the point here, they are insulted by a black president who dares to provoke their racism, that’s it. I recall some chain email that Nick passed on last year, with a bunch of Anti-Obama cartoons, plus some language about real Americans, real Americans, and accompanied by the complaint that the nation is under siege because all these cartoons couldn't be published in the US, and when you looked closer, you could easily see that most of them were by American artists and had been published in the Washington Times, the New York Post, or the Times-Picayune, that's how they operate, claiming the high grounds of patriotism and victimhood, supported by nothing but lies and ignorance, assuming that the rest of the world is even more stupid than they are, it's exactly, EXACTLY the way the NAZIS operated on their march to power.

And while we are at it, lets contemplate a chain-mailed "joke" originating from a certain Henning and received today:

For Immediate Release: 


Effective Jan 1, 2013, aspirin will be heavily taxed under Obamacare. The only explanation given was that they are white and they work. No other reason was given, but I thought you'd want to know about it.

Funny? Yeah, right, this is funny only if there's in fact some truth to the prejudice that (1) Obama despises the white race and (2) blacks are lazy. Any evidence, anybody? That's why Obama's mother was white, right? That's why he is from Kenya, right? That's why blacks were imported as slaves, right, because they don't work. From Kenya. Right? 

Very funny. So we complain to Dirk, who sent us this "joke." Dirk mumbles something of political incorrectness in reply. Well, Dirk, political incorrectness is a derived term, derived from its antonym, political correctness (PC). PC was an attitude to language, invented sometime in the late '70s, suggesting or dictating the avoidance of verbiage supposedly hurtful to minorities, so dwarfs became "vertically challenged individuals," blacks became "Afro-Americans," and Harvard professors edited the word "nigger" out of Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn." That's PC. Political Incorrectness, thats pointing out the absurdities of PC. Political incorrectness neither implies nor condones  the stupid, debased racism of Henning's "joke." Dirk. So, let's be politically incorrect again. And please tell Henning.

Dec 21, 2012

Limerinski (Maud)

We sometimes do poetry, right? So here goes:

Monica Lewinski, former White House intern

The Washington Post runs a weekly contest in its Style section.

Ted Kaczynski, former assistant professor, dept. of mathematics, Berkeley University (possibly the best math department in the world), serving a life sentence for UNA-bombing

This week contestants had to use the two names Lewinsky and Kaczynski in the same limerick. Here are the three winning entries:
 
Third Place:
 
There once was a girl named Lewinsky
Who played on a flute like Stravinsky
Twas 'Hail to the Chief'
On this flute made of beef
That stole the front page from Kaczynski.
 
Second place:
 
Said Clinton to young Ms. Lewinsky,
We don't want to leave clues like Kaczynski,
Since you made such a mess,
Use the hem of your dress
And please wipe that stuff off your chinsky.
 
And the winning entry:
 
Lewinsky and Clinton have shown
What Kaczynski must surely have known,
That an intern is better
Than a bomb in a letter,
When deciding how best to be blown.

(Please let us know in the comment section what you think of the ranking, and, oh, Stravinsky didn't play the flute)

Capricorn (Jezza Smilez)



Dec 18, 2012


"Hi, I'm really a sweet guy, and even though something is wrong with the horizon, I, too, read Michael Ampersant's outrageous new novel Green Eyes!"  

(Artwork by Bob Bienpensant)

Dec 16, 2012

Skyfallen (3)

The never-ending story continues, so go here for the previous installment.

Hi, I'm Ralph Fiennes, a somewhat unusual addition to the story in the role of Gareth Mallory, the Chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. I will needle Judy ceaselessly with my perfect accent until (a) her final defenestration, (b) my taking her job ("M") and (c) reappointing her absurdly moderno-style office along the traditional lines of a Whitehall mandarin who gets high on sherry, not whiskey.

Dec 15, 2012


"Shit. Where did I leave my copy of Michael Ampersant's outrageous new novel Green Eyes?"

Dec 14, 2012

Wanted

Michael Ampersant is around since barely 4 months, having been invented as the author of our Green Eyes, but his star is rising fast, and the FBI (Fbi) is already in hot pursuit:

Screen shot of the StatsCounter page following this blog (Dec. 14, 2012)

The spy who trusted Gmail? That's so yesterday, folks, now it's the Agency that trusted Bing.



It wouldn't be us if we wouldn't have a fitting quote from our prodigious literary production, this time not from the Green Eyes, but from the Freedom Fries, our first, and so far unfinished novel. Here it is, from Chapter 5 of said novel (we are at Chapel Hill Farm, George W. Bush's country seat in Texas):


Freedom Fries --- Chapter 2: "The President is on the line for you!" (Part 1)

Previously, there have been hints that George W. Bush may experience a change of heart post-retirement, that Samuel Fisher, founder and CEO of the Lynx (LYNX) channel, is concerned about the ratings, and that  George Lukacs, the charismatic hedge-fund titan, can't handle fair-and-balanced news. We're now in Berkeley, at the law school of Berkeley U. where John Yoo, author of the famous torture memos, teaches constitutional law.

John Yoo, professor of constitutional law, Boalt School of Law, Berkeley University
The classroom with its white tables, whiteboards, and overhead projector conveys the so-so appearance of a better UC campus, yet the carpet reveals that California’s university system has basically run out of money since Proposition Thirteen in 1978. Jim feels slightly awkward in this bluish overall, but he has come solely for the purpose of today’s happening, and so he is sitting nervously next to Liz, who has made him do this.

Liz is obsessed with Yoo because she loves constitutional law. She would sit up in bed at night and read Supreme Court opinions like other girls of her bend would read Jane Austen — not to study really, no, to relish an outdated language with pointers to a distant, politer past. She is the only con law student in America who doesn’t dream of the Supreme bench; she wants a humbler job and become Reporter of Decisions. The reporter is charged with the syllabus, an introduction to court opinions that supposedly elucidate the decision for the larger public, and the syllabus usually does its best to compete with the arcane language of the opinion itself. She would write more language for the record of the court than any individual judge. It’s a nice position, fairly well paid, and you work closely with the Justices. Reporter of decisions under Chief Justice Pamela Nachtrieb Timbers, that is her ambition. Timbers, her aunt twice removed, is actually serving as dean of Berkeley’s law school at the moment, but she was clearly destined for higher things, and Liz would follow her to the Supreme Court. Liz was mesmerized by Pamela, infatuated with Pamela, captivated by Pamela. It wasn’t sexual — let’s hope — but that is the only thing it wasn’t. Pamela and Liz are so close; it isn’t even clear whether today’s happening wasn’t Pamela’s idea.

Dec 13, 2012


Vermeer, dude, Vermeer. What's Michael Ampersant's take on Vermeer in his new novel Green Eyes?

(Artwork by Wes Hempel)

(Gotcha, Gotcha, we haven't pronounced on Vermeer in the Green Eyes, so you'll have to wait for Part II, which will be titled "The End of the World.")

Sirrr --- a letter to Frank Rich

Like most posts involving Frank Rich, this post will  start with the obligatory statement that he is our true hero, even more so than Paul Krugman, our other true hero. To general despair, Frank left his perch at the New York Times for calmer waters at the New York Magazine, where he now writes a monthly column. And the last column, two days old or so, is about Petraeus, the ex-general, and other fallen American heros, how could they fall and why.

The world's leading I-told-you-so artiste

We haven't posted a Sirrr post for two years or so, but here it is.

(Sirrr:)

Frank --- your dressing-down of Petraeus is beautiful, but your analysis of America's adulation-addiction falls short; it's basically tautological: America adulates heros because Americans love a good hero. Who doesn't?

The spy who trusted g-mail

I don't have the answer either, but I have a question. And it invokes Holden Caulfield, another American hero, this one the prime example of a literary anti-hero who suffers as much under the "phoniness" of modern American culture as you, Frank, and us, your readers, tend to do. OK, Holden Caulfield of the Catcher in the Rye. He has his own Wikipedia entry, of course (bear with me), and it runs, quote:

Dec 11, 2012


I read Michael Ampersant's Green Eyes even though it's winter and I have other things to do.

(Artwork by Bob Bienpensant)

Dec 10, 2012

Skyfallen (2)

The never-ending story continues, so go here for the first installment.

Hi, I'm Ben Whishaw, the new-new Q, or quartermaster (we never knew that, or did we). I'm glad to combine the old donnish eccentricity of Desmond Llewelyn with the new donnish eccentricity of mainstream nerdism (computers), while discarding any pretense to step into the shoes of John Cleese, who took over from Desmond in the Bond-brand makeover that also brought about Judy Dench. It's a complete miracle what got into John's head when he got into Q's character --- he wasn't funny, he wasn't eccentric, he wasn't British, he wasn't spy-ish --- anyhow, he did so poorly that they had to ditch him and complete a few Q-less Bond installments.  Is the pun intended? --- I haven't made up my mind yet, sorry. Well, I'm here to stay.

Dec 8, 2012

French for beginning poets (1) --- On se fout de nous



(lyrics)
Et passent [pass], passent, passent, passent, passent, passent les jours [days (as in journal)],
Et rien [nothing], non rien, rien ne change [changes] sur le parcours [parcours],
Ce sont les mêmes [same] pages [pages] qui défilent,
Les mêmes vers [verse] qu'on récite,
Le même vieux [old]  film [film] que depuis cent [hundred] fois [times] on rembobine, [replay, sort of]
Et on s'accroche [acroach] et on s'acharne [acharne], et on s'abime [abime] et on se gâche [spoil], on s'épuise [epuise] et on s'entame [entame], on s'enlise [enlise] et on s'éloigne [eloin],
Et on s'accroche et on s'acharne, on se brise et on s'attarde, ne soyez pas si cons.
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