Ulli's Roy Orbison In Clingfilm Website


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.

A joyous new development! I have published a Roy in Clingfilm novel! Click here to find out more!

(News updates and interviews with me can be found below)


Roy in Clingfilm Story 1
Roy in Clingfilm Story 2
Roy in Clingfilm Story 3

Roy in Clingfilm Story 4
Roy in Clingfilm Story 5

Roy in Clingfilm in Space
Roy in Clingfilm at Christmas

The Orbison in Clingfilm Adventure Game

*NEW for 2011! The Roy in Clingfilm Conspiracy


To contact me:

Apologies, I have ceased answering mail personally
because of weirdos. Please address all enquiries to
Mr. Kelly, who is acting as my semi-official manager
and press agent:

michaelhoratiokelly@yahoo.co.uk


Updates

2019

A new edition of my book has been published by Dover in the US!

As if that were not enough, anyone with an interest in cinema, or anyone who has despaired of cinema and longed for an auteur with a bold new vision to rejuvenate it, or anyone with eyes, should watch this.


January 2016

My manager Mr Kelly desires me to mention that he has a new book out. I am hereby doing so. It does not mention Roy Orbison or clingfilm, far less any combination of the two, but then lots of books do not and I suppose it will be no more boring and pointless than they. Doubtless I will be expected to contribute some excitable blurb for promotional purposes. I hereby do so: 'This book contains no errors in punctuation that I have been able to detect.' It is vulgar hucksterism but a certain amount of log-rolling seems unavoidable in the literary world, of which I start to sicken.


Summer 2015

Please note that the account that has been set up in my name on a fashionable web-platform for exchanging short, badly punctuated messages is nothing to do with me. It is the work of some impostor or sinister ETA Hoffmann-esque double who is unable even to spell properly and I have asked for it to be removed. This matter has caused me great distress and a certain amount of palm-sweating as it has been the occasion for stern disapproval from my fellow burghers of Dusseldorf. Indeed at a civic reception I attended the Mayor himself was heard to mutter, 'Here he is now, Mr Megaphone. Perhaps next he will wear platform shoes or a striped tie to draw even more attention to himself.' I would like to reassure my neighbours that I am not getting above myself, remain averse to all publicity and will not be reporting on any of their doings, not even Frau Gewissermassen who is tardy taking her milk-bottles in and has twice sent her children to school with insecurely-fastened satchels.


Seasonal Update Christmas 2014

I have been sent a link to this story, about David Bowie and Bing Crosby being wrapped up in Clingfilm. Stories about people who are not Roy Orbison being wrapped up in clingfilm make me uneasy and often downright nauseated. It seems unnatural somehow and I do not know why I ever offered to exchange links to them in the first place. Nevertheless this one diverted and tickled me and impressed me with its exemplary production values - for it is an audio story and therefore made out of sounds rather than writing. I highly commend it and the diligence, creativity and clear enunciation of all involved. The fact that two such stars agreed to be wrapped in clingfilm, if only for dramatic purposes, gives me much to hope. Be warned that the production contains an impolite word and an unhygienic piano.


Summer 2014:
Attention! News of an important literary breakthrough!

Diligent students of interviews with me will know I have several times alluded to my neighbour and literary protegee Frau Schneemann, the one writer I know whose intensity of vision and purity of punctuation rivals my own, who writes fictions set in an alternate world in which Michael Bolton is a vampire and David Hasselhoff is a werewolf.

I am delighted to announce that one of her works is now available online for your perusal.

You should go there immediately and please share this exciting development with your friends.

The story has been commissioned by the excellent Fanciful Fiction Auxiliary, devotees of all that causes the bosom to heave and the toes to curl. As cosmonauts of the passionate and imaginative they have no equal and I am forced to concede that their writers, too, have an eerie force of vision that leaves one stunned and reeling, and you will enhance your inner life perceptibly by perusing the rest of their site.

Please note that this story is all Frau Schneemann's work and my contribution was limited to correcting her posture at her desk and rapping her on the knuckles if she left ink smudges or went over the margins. It therefore features no Roy Orbison or clingfilm.



March 2014:

Roy Orbison emballé dans du film alimentaire! C'est une chose incroyable! French translations of my first stories have just been published in the tres chic Décapage literary magazine, issue 49, available now.


News for 2014

To induce bookshops to stock my book my handler thinks I should mention that a Miss Moran has chirped about me. I do not know what this means but I am told she is very popular in Britain and has almost half a million followers. It may seem harsh and ungrateful but she should probably be assassinated while there is still time. In Germany there was a man who started with so few as five followers in a Munich beer-hall and it did not end well. (Incidentally that poem that starts 'First they came for the Trade Union members' is a lie. The fact is, it was the people who like to wrap people in clingfilm who were the first to be sent to the camps. Actually Hitler just kept them in his shed as there were so few of them it was not worth opening a camp. When they were released at the end of the war they were broken and pitiful men. They had not so much as glimpsed clingfilm in almost ten years and had been forced to the expedient of wrapping each other in chickenwire. However they had become the world's greatest experts on garden tools and went on to design a safety rake that would not whack you in the face when you stood on it, now mandatory in Germany, so perhaps it all ended well and some good came out of evil. Who can say?)

Speaking of celebrity endorsements I was informed some time back that the Welsh actor Barry Sheen mentioned me on a chat show. I admire his chameleonic impersonations and wonder if he owns a pair of dark glasses. If so, or if he is good at bowing and looking polite, or if he is able to mimic the facial expressions of terrapins and is prepared to wear a fake carapace, there may be a part for him in the Orbison in Clingfilm movie I hope to make one day.

The one celebrity whose endorsement I despair of obtaining is Queen Elizabeth of England, who I am now tempted to write off as a snooty recluse who has lost touch with her fanbase. When I was in London I thoughtfully left a free box of copies of my Orbison in Clingfilm book outside her palace gates in the hope that she would not only read it herself and pass it on to her loved ones but could hand them out to the other crowned heads of Europe at croquet parties. However it was destroyed in a controlled explosion. We all know the tales of the Emperor being rude to Mozart, King George mocking Gibbon and Abraham Lincoln headbutting Harriet Beecher Stowe but I do not see how royal perfidy towards genius can go any further than this.

Update -

I am informed that the above explosion will have been for security reasons. I have posted Her Majesty another free box and have e-mailed palace flunkeys to be on the look out for it and not to blow it up or they will cause a regrettable diplomatic incident with Germany, Britain's oldest ally, or Britain's oldest sparring partner anyway.

Update to the update -

Disaster. Quizzing the flunkey I was informed that the books had arrived safely but that, far from wishing to endorse them, Queen Elizabeth has blown them up personally after a brief glance inside, apart from one which she tore up and used to line one of her corgis' litter trays.

I had thought of offering her, too, a role in the movie as Roy's platonic friend, but now she is out. In fact I hope she is replaced as head of state by Miss Moran and her corgis are set to work pulling carts in coalmines. Out of sheer spite I have purchased a book of British stamps and am sticking the Queen's head on pornographic postcards as fast as I can work. I am through being polite and from henceforth am at war with the world.

Oh and I was interviewed by New Zealand TV news, but my lengthy disquisition was edited down to a mere couple of soundbites, doubtless to make way for sheep-related gossip.


--

Note for November:

I am alerted to a review of Rod Stewart's autobiography.

'In these pages he asks, and answers, some uncommonly character-revealing questions, including, "What would it be like if I wrapped myself entirely in cling film?" The answer: "You will look like a packet of uncooked chicken breast, but it will feel quite cozy."'

Naturally Rod Stewart wrapped entirely in clingfilm would look unappetizing and ridiculous and the very thought of it is absurd and horrible. But it is good to know the rock star elite are clingfilm-curious, and certain other popular entertainers in such a state would not only feel cosy but look like a rebirth of Apollo.


Update April 2012:

Yet another interview with me. I am starting to know how Greta Garbo felt.


Update December 2011:

I have added a brand new Orbison in Clingfilm tale! Please note it features scary chase scenes and is not for those of a nervous disposition or children under the age of 25.


Update August 2011:

I have performed a brief question-and-answer for a Mr Warfield. It can be read at his website here. He is interviewing what he holds to be the ten greatest living writers of all time. I am only number two on the list, but very properly he is ranking us according to our punctuality in responding, and Mr Kelly was reprehensibly dilatory in forwarding me the questionnaire. Even so I pride myself that only Mr Crisp was more prompt, and as he sometimes deals with the supernatural and uncanny his reflexes are quicker than those of other men. You can also read Mr Warfield's stimulating interviews with the other writers, and stories he has written himself, although you should be warned that none of them mention Roy Orbison or Clingfilm.


May 2010:


Even though it is filled with violent bootleggers and jazz-addled floozies, I have long had a soft spot in my heart for the metropolis of Chicago. The inhabitants would sell you out for a dime and rub you out for a quarter but they have impeccable literary taste as well as gats and blue jowls. The excellent Quimby's bookstore there was the first in the US to stock my book and a perky local magazine named the Review of Contemporary Fiction was the first literary journal to review it.

Now some students at the Snell-Hitchcock dormitory at the University of Chicago have written a tribute to my Roy in Clingfilm stories. They have asked me to put it on the site and as they are good at begging and grovelling as I imagine one needs to be to survive for long in Chicago I have agreed. They inform me they are taking part in a scavenger hunt. You see how bad things are there.

Here is their story. It is rather a good one and I enjoyed it very much.

Please note this is a one-off, I must ordinarily refuse to host other people's stories of Roy in Clingfilm for a number of reasons. I have departed from my usual practice only because I felt sorry for Miss Goldberg who wrote to me, because she is forced to scavenge and will doubtless end as a jazz-addled bootlegger's moll. Anyone else who has written their own story of Roy in Clingfilm should place it on the designated livejournal group in the regular way.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/roy_inclingfilm/

There are many very good ones there already, if I have not said so before, and my congratulations to all involved.


March 2010:

The best and most comprehensive interview with me yet has been published in Lodown Magazine No. 70, available for six euros or British pounds in shops in many major cities worldwide or by online order. It represents exceptional value for money and there are many other things in it although obviously not as interesting as I am.


Update February of 2010:

Thrilling new news! The famous Italian scholar of linguistics Professor Negroni has translated my original Orbison in Clingfilm stories into her mother tongue! The only Italian I know is 'Ciò sunbed è riservata dal tovagliolo' (This sunbed is reserved by towel) but I am sure she has done a fine job of capturing all my nuances. It sounds so beautiful! The Italian word for 'clingfilm' is pellicola. Hitherto I have written in English as I considered that the language of poetry and romance and the word 'clingfilm' the very acme of sensuality, but now I wish I had known Italian. And Jetta is not a terrapin but a tartaruga. That is so appropriate for her, an adorable little tartar.

I am delighted. This is my first translation. I hope there will be more. The only language I despair of getting anything beautiful out of is the dour Swedish, where the word for clingfilm is 'Aas-schvunk.'


Update May of 2009:

Pulp Pusher is a webazine devoted to gritty tales of surly imperfectly-shaven men shoving and punching each other, exchanging improper repartee with floozies, and rudely shooting people in the organs on the slightest provocation. The whirlwind high-octane cocktail of cliffhangers, adrenaline overload and raw sensuality that is the Roy Orbison in Clingfilm Novel was obviously right up their shadowy, ill-swept alley. They have procured from me an article talking about the genesis of my tome which may be read here. This was followed by a frank Q & A session although the version there has been severely cut for reasons of conserving space. Lest some of my words be lost to the cruel winds of time I have placed the full version here.

[Edit: as the Pulp Pusher website seems not to be there at the moment I will now put the article here too.]

March of 2009:

You should be apprised that a person has made an animation of my first Roy Orbison in Clingfilm story. Now even a merely competent version would have been the greatest development in the film world since Citizen Kane. But this is of such a brilliance I do not hesitate to call it the Eighth Wonder of the Modern World. (The other seven are Clingfilm, Clingfilm, Roy Orbison, Clingfilm, Clingfilm, Clingfilm, and the automated tollbooths on the Dusseldorf autobahn, which are so smoothly efficient I often back up and use them twice for the sheer joy of it.) I cannot locate it on the German-language Dutube yet but it may be viewed in English here.

January of 2009:

I have now added the 'Jelly Roll' interview with me alluded to below. It is here.

New for November of 2008:

I have just added an all-new feature - an interactive Orbison in Clingfilm Adventure Game!

Added October:

Here is another interview with me. It is pleasant to be interviewed but I sometimes worry that my entire soul will be quarried out by the tireless excavators of the press. If I can arrange some regular and efficient deliveries of clingfilm to my house I may become a recluse. But then perhaps I will lose touch and my tales will cease to be grounded in reality. Who can say?

Update August of 2008:

Also. Readers in the Kingdom of Britain can peruse an interview with me in the September edition of 'Jelly Roll' zine, available for free in record shops and cafes in London and Manchester. It is perhaps my most revealing interview yet and will be drawn on heavily by my biographers.

Update October 2007:

A New Zealand edition of my book is now also available to buy, published by Lawrence & Gibson. A new world record for the most number of people simultaneously wrapped in clingfilm was established at the launch party.

Readers in Chicago or indeed the rest of the US should note that Quimby's often have the original edition in stock.


Update September 2007: A review of my book in the noted Guardian newspaper in Britain! It concludes: 'This self-published novel may appear to cater to specialised tastes. But it is highly recommended to non-fetishists, who will find it inventively hilarious.'

I am somewhat bemused by the people who congratulate me as a humorist. I am not above light-hearted asides but really I see myself as the last romantic. Nevertheless the review is gratifying.

(However the reviewer makes the mistake of ascribing the work to Mr. Kelly, who is merely my business manager. Asking for it by his name will get you nowhere in bookshops as only mine appears on the work.)


Update March 2007: Here is an interview with me conducted by a newspaper journalist.


Attention!

Mr. Davidson's excellent song of Roy in Clingfilm Story 1 now has a new and more permanent home at this location. It would be the act of a fool not to listen.


Other People's Roy in Clingfilm Stories

I regret to announce that I am no longer able to host stories of Roy in Clingfilm written by other people.


Stories of Roy in Clingfilm written by people who are not myself
Another site with stories of Roy in Clingfilm
Roy in Clingfilm haikus


Other Links of Interest

Michael Kelly's Fan Fiction archive