The Strangest Fanfic Obsession of All

" Hello, and welcome to my homepage. My name is Ulrich Haarbürste and I like to write stories about Roy Orbison being wrapped up in cling-film. If you have written any stories about Roy being completely wrapped in clingfilm please send them to me and I may put them up on the site. If you have a site with stories about other pop stars being wrapped in cling-film mail me and we can exchange links."

How many people could there be writing about pop stars wrapped in cling-film? It's too frightening to contemplate.  Somebody has put one of Ulrich's stories to music and it's hilarious...whether it's meant to be or not, that's another story. Here's the link.

(For more on this, see my brother Tod's post here in January.)

Comments

[Anea]

Dude. That is some specified fetish there... Roy Orbison in Clingfilm?! I need a giant scrubber to clense my psyche from the visuals that brings on. YIKES.

[Tod Goldberg]

I've since learned that it's all a joke -- I can't remember who the guy is or the specific details, but it is a parody.

[claire]

*gasp*

I spent all those years in the Roy Orbison in Cling-Film Fandom only to find out now that it's a...a...parody?

*starts frantic campaign to remove all her remaining Roy Orbinson in Cling-Film Fanfic from the internet.*

Why, WHY, didn't I go for the Laverne and Shirley bearing Cheerleader Pom-Poms Fandom? Nobody EVER mocks saddle shoes.

[Tod Goldberg]

http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/ -- it's all made clear.

[Jocelyn]

Two questions which in all honesty I probably DON'T want to know the answers to...

1) Who the hell is Roy Orbison?
2) What the hell is cling film?

Freaky...

[kitty]

OMG! That is hilarious! The voice sounds like Robert Vaughn's.

[P M Rommel]

I have to second Jocelyn and ask who Roy Orbison is.

[kete]

Jocelyn and Rommel:

http://www.nashvillesongwritersfoundation.com/fame/orbison.html

and cling film? isn't that this thin see-through plastic film you use to wrap leftovers or sandwiches in? or is it sticky tape? sorry, English second language.

kete

[Jim Winter]

"1) Who the hell is Roy Orbison?"

Heathen. He's one of the founding fathers of rock and roll and one of the Traveling Wilburies. (Sp?)

"2) What the hell is cling film?"

Since this is a parody, I wouldn't worry about it.

Pop star fanfic gives me the most squicks. If anyone is writing about Michael Jackson's slumber parties, please, don't tell me. I want to keep what little innocence I have left.

[Guyot]

I would have expected Jocelyn to be on the cutting edge of Roy Orbison/clingfilm fanfic!

Guess she'll have to stick to that Ian Ziering/wax strips prose.

[TME]

Reading the last name was enough to make me laugh out loud - "Haarbürste" is German for hairbrush! Hardly a common name here... ;-)

[Bill Crider]

Every time I think I can't possibly feel any older, somebody asks a question like "Who the hell is Roy Orbison."

Good grief.

[Jim Winter]

When I got out of high school, I used to hear, "Peter Gabriel was in Genesis?" Ten years later, it was "Phil Collins had another band?" Now it's, "Who's Phil Collins?"

[P M Rommel]

"What the hell is cling film?"

It's what they call saran wrap in the UK.

Bill Crider So, Roy Orbison is a member of some beat combo? Or something like that?

I am honestly baffled - I listen to three radio stations: BBC Radio 3 (serious classical music), BBC Radio 4 (news, current affairs, radio plays and comedy) and, for light relief, Classic FM, which is classical music with the challenging bits removed. Any reference to modern popular music defeats me, and though I gather that Orbison is not new he's obviously not someone who was making much impression on the UK rock scene when I was a lass in the 1970s.

[Mark A. York]

Really? Orbison has been huge since the '50s. As for the Wilbury's perhaps George Harrison and Bob Dylan ring a bell for the UK rock scene.

[David J. Montgomery]

Roy Orbison was one of the original hillbilly rockers who came out of the South in the 50s, got his start recording for Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis, along with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, etc.

He's probably best known for "Oh, Pretty Woman," plus "Only the Lonely" and "Crying." He was quite a famous dude.

Never cared for him much myself... mostly I think because he was kinda creepy lookin.

[Pauly D]

I don't know about you, but Roy Orbison in cling-film has nothing on my current fetish: Drawing Groucho Marx faces on bananas, and then having women in high-heels crush them while they sing "We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner.

Mmm. That just gets me good!

[Anea]

The easy way to identify Roy Orbison is this: He sang the song "Pretty Woman" that was used as the theme to the movie "Pretty Woman". I am (I assume) the youngest person reading this blog (26) and even I know who Roy Orbison is... of course, I was raised by Burl Barer and know all the words to every Travelling Wilbury song... my favorite is "Tweeter & The Monkey Man".

[Lee Goldberg]

PM - You've never heard of Roy Orbison? Next thing you're going to tell me is that you've never heard of The Beatles, Ray Charles, Elvis, or Frank Sinatra.

[claire]

Warning, Will Robinson! Age alert. Actually had a kid ask me what a Beatle was when he heard me belting out "Good Day, Sunshine."

Hey! Mr./Ms. PM Rommel. By chance, do you know who Herman's Hermits are? Benny Goodman? The Andrew Sisters?

Methinks I've learned what evil lurks in the heart of Mordor...er...Fandom.

[claire]

Roy Orbison:

www.orbison.com/

Cling Film:

www.food.gov.uk/safereating/packagingbranch/61812/

Google is your friend.

[Jocelyn]

Oh, that Roy Orbison!

Forgive me, I'm terrible with names. If it had said "wrap the guy who sang "Pretty Woman" in saran wrap," I'd have gotten it...and still wished I hadn't.

(Swats Guyot) And who the hell is Ian Ziering!?

[claire]

Ian Ziering:

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-3192

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005575/

Google is still your friend.

[Jocelyn]

Claire:

facetious=http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=facetious

Dictionary.com is your friend. ;-)

[claire]

You or me, Jocelyn? In either case, I missed it.

[David J. Montgomery]

Cat fight!!

[Claire]

*chagrined*

Was just thinking the same thing. Jocelyn should come mix it up with me on our blog, instead of doing the hair-flounce thing here.

Lincoln's more than won back his losses at this point. I'm going to have to get a line of credit.

[Graham]

From a Fark.com headline last week: "Cream to reunite on stage. For those under 40, Eric Clapton was in Cream. For those under 30, Eric Clapton used to be a big rock star. For those under 20, 'Rock' is a type of music they used to play on the radio."

Favorite Wilburys: "She's My Baby"

[claire]

Audio enrichmnet for Eric Clapton/Cream 101

White Room

Sorry - partial cut.

[P M Rommel]

I've heard of the Beatles, Elvis, Frank Sinatra (hate hate hate that kind of music), Eric Clapton and Cream. The name Jerry Lee Lewis is vaguely familiar but I couldn't tell you what he sang or when. If the Andrews Sisters is what I think it is, I have heard of it. But it may not be. Herman's Hermits and Benny Goodman, no, they're a closed book, sorry.

I seem to remember once having seen a billboard advertising a film called "Pretty Woman".

[David J. Montgomery]

Sheesh, I can't imagine the UK is that backwards, is it? Rommel must be living under a rock. How do you access this blog, from a computer made of stone?

By the way, I talked to Frank, and he said you're a "dingy broad."

[claire]

For educational purposes only:

You have to be from outer space not to know this one:

Andrew Sisters Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

I want to say the same about this one also:

Benny Goodman

His Biography

When we're talking the British Invasion on this side of the pond with this next one, we don't mean the War of 1812:

Herman's Hermits Henry VIII

Those same fellows did one that I KNOW The Shaking Heads and The Legions have tossed around doing for all those Hermione/Snape shippers out there to be titled "Mrs. Granger, You've Got a Lovely Daughter."

Agreed, this isn't a generational thing. Two fo these predate me by decades. Wonder if the Pop Culture Phd's know about them...

[Daisy]

Fortune cookie message that cracked me up when I was 8:
Preserve your friends. Wrap them in plastic.
Damn; it's still funny.

[P M Rommel]

Rommel must be living under a rock.

No, I just don't own a television and haven't for a good few years now. Despite what you might like to believe, they are not compulsory.

[claire]

No, I just don't own a television and haven't for a good few years now. Despite what you might like to believe, they are not compulsory.

Do you read magazines? Listen to the Radio? Read newspapers? Rent an occasional old movie? Most of the references given either predate television or are from its infancy.

Well...enjoy the references given. There's a big, wide world out there awaiting your discovery. You'll like it. Have fun!

[David J. Montgomery]

I don't think Roy Orbison has been on TV lately. :)

[Mark A. York]

Yeah he was, on a PBS music special a month ago or so.

[P M Rommel]

Claire Do you read magazines?

Probably more than you: Ansible (online monthly fanzine), The New Statesman (weekly), Private Eye (fortnightly), The Spectator (weekly), New Scientist (monthly), Pensions Week (weekly), Sewing World (monthly), Threads (bi-monthly).

Roy Orbison doesn't have a high profile in any of them. Tony Blair, George Bush, pension schemes and sewing machines, yes, beat combos, not usually.

Listen to the Radio?

I toldyou this so pay attention: BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, Classic FM. Placido Domingo, Aled Jones, and Lesley Garrett, yes, beat combos, again not usually.

Read newspapers?

The Financial Times. (That's the one on pink paper which comes out in London.) Very occasionally they may mention how well music publishers are doing on the stock market. Oh, and I occasionally dip into the Frankfurter Zeitung, but my German is too rusty to make reading it anything other than hard going.

Rent an occasional old movie?

What part of "I do not own a television" did you not grasp?

I do, however, occasionally go to see brand spanking new films in cinemas - last saw Oliver Stone's "Alexander". About which, thank goodness I already knew the story of Alexander the Great, because that movie took bollocks to new lows. The best that can be said for it is that it is very pretty and the costumes were nice and about as accurate as Hollywood is ever likely to get. The script stank on ice, I don't think even the actors knew what they were on about.

Before that I saw "Troy". It bore a passing resemblance to a book I once read called "The Iliad" but someone seemed to have removed most of the plot. (Achilles and Patroclus were lovers, not cousins.)

The moral of that is this: never assume your cultural icons are shared even by those who speak the same language as you do.

[David J. Montgomery]

Why does someone with such rarified tastes go slumming on Lee Goldberg's blog and rave about fanfiction? You're full of shit, PM.

Oh sorry... Methinks thou art full of shit.

[Mark A. York]

It's obvious he's in his own private Idaho like the rest of them. Age is irrelevant.

[P M Rommel]

Where do the "rarefied" tastes come in? I know, it must be the reading of Pensions Week. Or possibly Sewing World.

[Mark A. York]

What are pensions?

[P M Rommel]

I often wonder that myself.

[Lewis Perdue]

We're all just lucky the guy left out the part about the nine midgets and the drum of Krazy Foam.

[claire]

We're all just lucky the guy left out the part about the nine midgets and the drum of Krazy Foam.

GASP!

Rips up latest plot changes to her raison d'etre.
Shit.
Wait.
I'll make it 12 midgets and a can of Silly String.