More unfinished business
A wildly successful author writes a novel that is a satire of right-wing policies. His editor advises him not to publish it. The novelist decides to go ahead anyway, and publishes the book under a pen name.
Nobody gets the joke and the novel becomes a manifesto for the extreme right. Everyone else to the left is appalled by the book and is calling for the author’s head, accusing him of hate crimes etc.
The novelist, who is a bit of a wimp, panics and goes into hiding. During his mysterious absence, rumours begin to spread and past discrepancies unearthed…
Fun ensues.
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You may contribute to the plot.
- Michael Jackson lends one of his kids’ masks to the author, so as to help protect the author’s identity on those rare occasions in which he must venture out-of-doors. The media goes wild, airing another television interview with Jackson in which he tries to convince the public that he is actually the author in question. The public shrugs its shoulders and buys it. Meanwhile, the real author (hidden safely away in someone’s basement in Pompignan) breathes a temporary sigh of relief: his plan is working, thus far.
— Adam Feb 18, 7:46pm # - The author’s daughter sues Jackson. His editor does the same.
The author meets Marie-Paule in his solitary walks in Pompignan attracted by the pear tart smell. A friendship based on bakery goods is forged. She shall always recall his visits afterwards as those of “a man with a healthy taste in tarts, not very talkative, and clearly appreciative of good bread. A real pity things turned out the way they did”.
— Heck Feb 19, 8:26am # - The author grows Elvis mutton-chops, acquires a false identity as a trucker downsized by globalization, and takes to the road in an mint-condition ‘65 Galaxy 500 with one of those tent-trailers hung on behind. A chance encounter with a What-Would-Jesus-Do-bracelet-wearing teenybopper hitch-hiker leads him to the compound of a Biblical-literalist survivalist sect, where he finds unconditional acceptance for the first time in his life, learns to love his AK-47, starts scribbling notes for the sequel in which he outs himself as an undercover satirist and makes a million bucks [sort of like “Blinded by the Right”], but finds himself falling under the spell of the gum-popping Lolita. Until, one day, it all comes out and a manhunt straight from “Deliverance” begins … Sort of a “death of irony” thing with generous borrowings from “Black Like Me.”
— iggy Feb 19, 11:06am # - When the manhunt comes to a close, it is discovered that our author is in fact a time-traveling cyborg, sent to secure the future by changing the past.
— StaticBoy Feb 19, 6:06pm # - Cyborg though he may be, it seems that our author, to secure the future by changing the past must do some time in the “here and now” working as a drafter of questionnaires for instant polls on the Internet. Is it any wonder then that he would like to piss off both the extreme left and right with one well-drawn stroke of the pen?
— maria Feb 19, 10:25pm # - And then the monkeys. Damn monkeys.
— Justin Feb 20, 11:01am # - [Is this a “Garden of Forking Paths” or a round-robin?]
Waking from his dream in front of an all-night James Cameron/Terry Gilliam film festival on the Sci-Fi Channel, the writer recalls his surroundings: a cheap motel in the Pacific Northwest. Outed, reviled and hunted, he takes refuge with the only people who will have him, a delusional neo-nazi and his African-American sidekick, “The Black Fhrer of Harlem”. Waking again from a dream and discovering that he has been drooling on a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night, the author calls his publisher and cancels the release of his novel.
— Prentiss Riddle Feb 20, 12:06pm # - Pears, cyborgs, monkeys and fascists? This is all getting very Kurt Vonnegutty.
Except for the Lolita bit, of course—So to pull himself out of his slump, the author writes a book called Lolita, about this masochistic professor guy and his unusual approach to human relations, and he’s told that although it’s a fine book
— gail Feb 20, 12:13pm # - It is discovered that the all of novelist’s works were written by a man (woman?) whom he has imprisoned in his basement for the last thirty years.
— Beerzie Boy Feb 20, 12:27pm # - Shame on me…. And it so happens that I had jut finished rereading Lolita some five months ago. Obviously, I spend too much time on the Internet with deleterious effects on my long-term memory.
Thanks for the reminder….
— maria Feb 20, 12:48pm # - After a forced run of morning talk shows and a very special Oprah, the man in the basement is found out to be none other than Thomas Pynchon.
The kidnapper (ex-mutton wearing novelist) plans on enterring Mecca to hide out but instead loses his memory in a freak umbrella accident.
— Michael Feb 20, 7:15pm # - The umbrella appears for sale on eBay, along with other accident artifacts including photographs, pieces of concrete from a nearby sidewalk, and similarly shaped (but not authentic) umbrellas. Michael Jackson places a few bids, and then buys eBay itself.
— Adam Feb 21, 12:27am # - Meanwhile…we follow the ex-mutton-wearing-kidnapper-with-lost-memory into the streets of Paris, where, working as a part-time pimp for the leggy french blondes he somehow comes across a copy of his (actually the kidnapped victim’s) first novel and not knowing it was written by him (actually by the kidnapped victim) he is inspired to write a novel of his own. Sadly, during an air raid by Chechoslovakia (we are in the year 9848398723095) the ex-mutton-wearing-kidnapper-with-lost-memory-who-became-a-pimp-and-decided-to-write-a-novel falls into an open sewerage line and is forced to live in the underground sewerage systems for 15 years, during which time he not only manages to finish his novel on the inner walls of Paris’s underground sewerage system, but also somehow develops a split personality (one of the personalities is gay and develops a crush on Michael Jackson)...
— bluecheese Feb 21, 4:28am # - The other personality is a fusion of Albert Einstein and Macgyver. He develops a time machine out of old wine bottles, a rat’s skeleton and his own fecal matter. The transportation leaves him dazed and confused and walking the streets of his home town where he is kidnapped and forced to write novels in a cellar.
Meanwhile in the future, the immortal Michael Jackson buys the sewers of Paris and ships them to never never land. A maintenace drone, while scouring the sewer of all bacteria, finds and reads the novel on the sewer walls.
— Michael Feb 22, 12:15am # - The maintenance drone, upon reading the last bit of the novel, heaves a heavy mechanical sigh and initiates its self-destruct sequence. The sewers are destroyed in the resulting explosion, and Michael Jackson falls into hysterics over it. The gay split personality tries to console Michael, but he’s already fallen into a deep depression (they were his sewers, after all). The gay split personality leaves Michael (“he always left damn the toilet seat up!”) and runs off to find his Einstein/Macgyver second-half, hoping to strike a deal before it’s too late.
— Adam Feb 22, 1:13am # - During his search for his Einstein/Macgyver second-half, the gay split personality (hereafter referred to as GSP) is initiated into an amazonian secret cult that worships the remains of destroyed underground sewerage systems from all over the world and beyond. It is during one of this cult’s ceremonies that the GSP receives a memory flashback, sending him into a frenzy. He determines to find out his Cyborg-from-the-future identity, still remembering nothing from his novelist/elvis impersonator/kidnapper days. Then a cult-member shows him a piece of a wall from Paris’ underground sewerage system…and GSP starts wondering if he should tell the cult-members he wrote that novel…
During this time the GSP also receives several apologetic letters from Michael Jackson, scented and written on scented purple paper torn from a Brittney Spears Fanclub Notebook. In one of these letters, Michael Jackson suddenly gets angry and files a case against GSP, claiming that GSP was the father of one of Michael Jackson’s children…and demanding child support.
The GSP roams the Amazon, torn between telling the cult-members of his identity as the sewer novelist, and continuing his search for his Einstein/Macgyver self…and trying to ignore Michael Jackson’s increasingly hysterical letters…
— bluecheese Feb 22, 11:59am # - First, a Web blogger notices similarities in writing style between the novel published under the pen name and the famous author. That starts rumors throughout the blogosphere that eventually reach the international press. The rumors allege the famous author, who has since disappeared, has connections to the extreme right. One tabloid publishes a picture of the famous novelist talking to a mysterious stranger at a Club Med in Jamaica … is this the extreme right-wing novelist he is talking to?
The novelist, exploiting the confusion between the pen name and his own name, writes an op-ed for the Guardian condemning the right-wing author’s work.
This backfires. People think the famous novelist is trying to cover up connections to the extreme right. There are reports of financial connections between the two, and the similarities in writing style indicate that the famous novelist may in fact be the mentor of the right-wing novelist.
Turning to his role as a right-wing novelist, our hero tries a desperate “Saul on the Road to Damascus” plan.
He writes a sequel—a first-person account of an extreme right-winger who learns, through suffering and love, to become a left-wing liberal. In desperation, and as the paparazzi are closing in, he fires off an e-mail attachment to his agent—who reluctantly reads it. He understands the world’s mistake, and obtains a sizeable advance which he forwards. Our hero uses the money to narrowly escape.
Meanwhile, the novel is published. But: Everyone thinks the book is another an attack on the left—only this time an ironic one. His best arguments for liberalism are quoted by right-wing radio as if they are ironic and discredited on their face, when they’re not.
Finally, he goes on the Today show to confess. After he tells his story, tearfully, the host has a surprise: They’ve found the right-wing author, who shows up on set and accuses the famous author of denying their professional relationship and his own reactionary leanings. It is the mysterious man from the photograph in Club Med. The novelist denies knowing the man, but that only makes the story more interesting.
Various complications ensue, and it turns out that the television producers don’t care that the mysterious man is an actor, they have their orders. The television network, which also owns the publishing houses that publish both sets of our hero’s books, prefers the sales-generating publicity from the more complex story.
Epilogue: The controversy dies down, and in order to generate sales years later, the story is actually told truthfully.
— IB Bill Mar 2, 7:38pm # - Bill…
Are you trying to tell us something?
(All your contributions were wonderful, by the way, though I’m still a little perplexed about the cyborgs. Do they eat cheese?)
— Gail Mar 3, 8:43am # - No, the cheese is actually for the pet rats he acquired during the years spent in Paris’ sewers. He has now built a home for them in his rolling estate in the south of France, and is earning a handsome amount of money, both from his novels, and from breeding and training rats for roles in TV films and full-length cinema movies. (Did you watch Mousehunt? The mouse used in Scene 7346 was bred and trained by that author. Also, it is a little known fact that the tail of the 3D generated mouse in Stewart Little, the movie, was fashioned after the tail of one of the author’s freak experimental MiceRats™ (they were available on eBay until a short time ago, but Michael Jackson bought them all and put them on display in his private museum, because they brought back memories of pleasant days…)
— bluecheese Mar 3, 10:59am # - The pleasent memories start a small seizure in Michael’s left frontal lobe. The doctor’s believe that there could be one and only cure. It is a risky and dangerous procedure.
The mice sit in their cages and watch.
Einstein/MacGyver and GSP bump into each other at a Star Trek Convention in Montana, they each received seperate invites.
EinMac’s invite came in the form of a soap bubble filled with smoke. This bubble followed him where ever he went, and finally popped. The smoke signal said just one thing. “Spock Lives.”
GSP’s invite was a swiss cheese sandwich he had found floating in the Amazon river. Inside was a very small computer where he purchased a copy of a novel that is a satire of right-wing policies. He hates this book with a passion. On the last page it states that the Author will be apearing as a Red Shirt.
Seconds after EinMac and GSP touch they wake up in a hyperbolic chamber deep within Neverland. They are being watched very closely by the mice.
The doctors come in and tell them both that they must save Michael Jackson. They team up with their cybernetic future self, the famous-author, the right-wing-author-actor and start a new Jackson 5.
6 hit albulms later the mice write a tell all biography.
— Michael Mar 4, 2:19am # - Jerry Springer reads the biography and decides the stuff is perfect for one of this ‘Expose’ shows: there’s incest (um..EinMac and GSP sleep with each other and it’s incest because they’re the same person)...there’s group sex (okay, so EinMac and GSP aren’t the only ones sleeping with each other, the cybernetic future version and the right-wing author are also all sleeping together), there’s men sleeping with men (obviously they’re all men)..AND there’s Michael Jackson and the talk of leaving toilet seats up. Plus there’s the Amazon, eBay, underground explosions, Paris, politics and fraud all involved! Unfortunately, a fan of MJ sets fire to the Jerry Springer studio and the author, MJ and Jerry Springer are presumed dead when the fire is put out some 20 hours later….
— bluecheese Mar 13, 5:39pm #
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