All posts by Ira Nayman

US Signs Deal with DUGOO

by ARTURO BIGBANGBOOTIE, Alternate Reality News Service Transdimensional Traffic Writer

[ This is a guest broadcast from the Alternate Reality News Service. ]

The Bush administration has entered into a tentative agreement with the Democratic Union of Great Old Ones which will see that group of ancient deities (or alien beings – the mythology, and, therefore, the government, is uncertain on this point) assist in the efforts to quell the insurgency in Iraq.

“This is a great day for the war on terror,” President Bush announced. “The Democratic Old Ones, they know how to kick ass. See, they been doing it since before man walked the earth!”

“Anything that would speed up the end of the insurgency is welcome,” Iraqi President Jalal Talibani, sweating for reasons that had nothing to do with the camera lights on him, stated in a separate press opportunity. “We, uhh, just hope that, when this is all over, there will be a country left to live in.”

Talibani broke up the room with a suggestion that he could rule Iraq from a safe distance. Like, the North Pole.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the news by complaining that in enlisting DUGOO in its war on terror, the Bush administration was escalating the arms race. It is well known that the Russians have only a handful of relatively young demons at their disposal, and are vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike using mid-range Shoggoth.

President Bush, responding to Putin’s concerns, said, “Pffft.” Translated out of diplomatese, this roughly means, “Hey! You lost the Cold War and now we’re the only military super-power in the world. Get used to it!”

It had long been known in military circles that the War Department (later the Defense Department) had obtained a copy of the Necronomicon in 1927, and had been trying to decipher its long forgotten language ever since.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) took over the project in the 1970s; recently, advances in parallel computing which allowed for the use of sophisticated cryptographic algorithms led to an almost complete translation of the ancient book of dark magic, which in turn led to communication with DUGOO.

“Our first contact was exciting,” General Cathcart Cynthia stated. “We only lost 237 enlisted men before we finally convinced them just to talk!”

Negotiations with DUGOO were often difficult. “Money was of no use to them,” General Cynthia said. “Fame? Well, they already haunted the dreams of men and boys, so there really wasn’t anything we could offer them there. Eventually, we hit upon the idea of a portal into this dimension; after that, the deal came together rather quickly.”

Although the Pentagon will neither confirm nor deny it, the DUGOO is believed to already be in Iraq.

Domestic critics of the agreement pointed out that the beings the White House has summoned had always been known as the Great Old Ones – Bush merely tacked on the phrase “Democratic Union” to make them more palatable to the American public. “There’s nothing democratic about laying waste to entire nations,” Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards pointed out.

“Oh, that’s just silly,” White House spokesperson Dana Perino chirped in response. “Killing every living thing within a thousand mile radius – what could be more democratic, more non-discriminatory than that?”

Perino added that the best way to look at the agreement was that it was just another form of outsourcing.

“Some of our contractors protect our senior officials in Baghdad,” she explained, “some of them hideously dismember our enemies and defile their corpses. It’s just a continuation of the policy we’ve had in place since the war began, really.”

Edwards, one of the few Democrats who haven’t openly or tacitly accepted the agreement with the DUGOO, pointed out that unleashing demons from another dimension to help the war on terror could have cataclysmic unforeseen consequences.

“Did we learn nothing from the blowback from our aid to the Afghanis fighting against the Soviets?” he asked. Journalists knew he was serious, because one hair on his head was out of place.

“Oh, John,” Perino countered, “can I lend you my comb?” The White House correspondents chuckled merrily to themselves.

The Alternate Reality News Service sent stringers into Iraq to get the point of view of DUGOO. Those who weren’t disemboweled and fed their own entrails returned gibbering about an “awful squid-head thing with writhing feelers” the size of a small mountain. Our staff therapist believes that the best we can do is make them comfortable for the remainder of their lives, which we all hope will be mercifully brief.

Under the circumstances, we decided to forego the usual journalistic trope of contacting all sides of the story.


Excerpted from Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be. Copyright 2008 by Ira Nayman.

Print versions of Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be can be purchased through Amazon.com and major bookstores. A complete digital version of the book (except for the amazing cover – sigh) can be found on the Web site Les Pages aux Folles, which also features three new Alternate Reality News Service stories every third week.

The Alternate Reality News Service: “If you don’t like this reality, try another one!”

Seeing Red for the Last Time

by FREDERICA VON McTOAST-HYPHEN, Alternate Reality News Service People Writer

[ This is a guest broadcast from the Alternate Reality News Service. ]

When I got to the viewing area across the street from the subject’s nest, the first thing the two researchers instructed me to do was keep my head down and my conversation hushed.

“She can be a little skittish,” sociobiological Thanatosist Gandalf Jarmusch explained. “We need to be as inconspicuous as possible.”

The second thing they did was hand me a pair of binoculars and a beer. The binoculars were for spotting the subject when she appeared. The beer was to break the tedium.

“We have been observing this subject for several years,” theoretical geneticist Michael Monsantone told me, “and we pretty much understand its migratory habits. It will get off the 37 bus at approximately 5:34 pm and reach the front door of the nest at approximately 5:37 pm. That’s three hours from now.”

“The beer takes the edge off,” Jarmusch added.

While waiting for the subject – which the team had whimsically named Anita – Jarmusch and Monsantone kept busy mapping the data they had collected over the seven years of their research project into various charts and graphs and speculating on their subject.

“We know she’s a waitress of some kind,” Monsantone stated, “because one day two and a half years ago she left home late in her uniform. However, where is a matter of some conjecture.”

Before Monsantone could conjecture, Jarmusch waved his hand and urgently whispered, “There she is! There she is! Subject spotted at…5:36 pm!”

Sure enough, a woman was walking down the street. She was undistinguished save for the mane of blood red hair that fell past her shoulders.

“Look at her plumage,” Jarmusch admiringly commented. “Have you ever seen anything so exquisite?”

“And, it’s perfectly as nature intended,” Monsantone assured me.

The woman – whose name is actually Monique McFelderhoff, as a brief session with the Glasgow telephone book taught me – is the last of her species: a natural redhead.

There is some debate about the decline in the number of fiery haired people in the world. The production of red hair involves a recessive gene, meaning both parents must have it to have redheaded children. Some researchers have pointed out that as redheads procreated with the general population, they diluted the gene pool, to the point where they are now teetering on the brink of extinction.

Jarmusch and Monsantone took a different, more poetic approach to the problem in an article they contributed to The Journal Of Redhead Studies D.

“We did not worship redheads as they deserved,” the two researchers wrote, “and, as a result, they abandoned us.”

When I interviewed her, McFelderhoff claimed not to know anything about being the subject of academic research.

“Middle aged men watching me through binoculars from a house across the street?” she mused. “That’s kind of creepy, don’t you think?”

When I pointed out that, as the last of her species, McFelderhoff should expect to be studied so that the lessons of her extinction could be passed on to future generations, she angrily replied, “Hey! Just because I’m a natural redhead doesn’t mean I’m into the kinky stuff! You tell those perverts that if they come near me, I’m calling the cops!”

It wasn’t quite the spirit of enquiry that one might hope for, but at least her response was, unlike most academic writing, clear and to the point.

Some argue that redheads, while perhaps fewer in number than at any time in human history, are not going extinct. Stylist to the stars and amateur sociobotanical optometrist Jie Matar pointed out that because the gene was recessive, it could skip generations, meaning that somebody with red hair could be born 20 or 40 years from now. “Besides,” Matar added, “I know it’s a heretical thought, but there’s always hair dye.”

“Sacrilege!” Monsantone shouted. “It’s like shaving a regular eagle to make a bald eagle! Sociobiological Thanatosism doesn’t work that way!”

Spirits were high on my last day with the researchers, who had just been awarded a substantial grant from the Edinburgh Academy of Ephemera which would have allowed their research to continue for another three years. That came to an abrupt end when Officer Fleugal MacDougal appeared, telling them that there had been a complaint and asking them what their business in the neighbourhood was.

Officer MacDougal seemed unimpressed with their explanations, even when they offered to show him their degrees. He was a little more impressed with the pie charts and graphs that they had been developing, but not enough to keep him from asking them to accompany him to the station for “routine questioning.”

On his way to the police cruiser, Monsantone shrugged and commented: “The things we do for science.”


Excerpted from Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be. Copyright 2008 by Ira Nayman.

Print versions of Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be can be purchased through Amazon.com and major bookstores. A complete digital version of the book (except for the amazing cover – sigh) can be found on the Web site Les Pages aux Folles, which also features three new Alternate Reality News Service stories every third week.

The Alternate Reality News Service: “If you don’t like this reality, try another one!”

A New Meaning of the Term ‘Undercover Operation’

by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Court Writer

[ This is a guest broadcast from the Alternate Reality News Service. ]

The usually sedate courtroom of Justice Roberta Padwihller erupted yesterday when the star witness in the Macy Maroon murder trial took the stand: the undershirt of Jason Modeska, the man accused of Maroon’s murder.

The protesters, who oppose the idea of smart clothing giving testimony in a criminal case, unfurled a banner that read “Time for clothing to come clean!” while chanting “No shirt! No shoes! No justice!” After several calls for order, Justice Padwihller was forced to clear the court before the trial could resume.

Before the undershirt could be sworn in on a DOS operating manual, defense attorney Marthew Stimson once again raised the objection that it was inappropriate for a piece of clothing, no matter how smart, to be called as a witness in a capital crime. A visibly annoyed Justice Padwihller repeated her ruling that The Province of Ontario v. Hermann P. Grunwald, in which a man’s cufflinks were allowed to give evidence in a fraud trial, was sufficient precedent, and ordered Crown Attorney Michael Michlingburg to proceed.

The undershirt, known in court by the alias John Clothes in order to protect its identity, started its testimony by explaining that it hadn’t originally planned on being an RCMP informer, that it was just hoping to be bought
by some “hard-working regular Joe. You know, a nine to fiver who goes bowling with his buddies on the weekend, drinks just a little more than he should and loves his wife, but will look at other women from time to time.”

At first, the undershirt thought Modeska was that man. It soon became apparent that he drank too much, however, and had a gambling problem. When Modeska agreed to murder Macy Maroon in return for his debt being erased by his bookie, the undershirt claimed it couldn’t believe its auditory sensors. It wasn’t until after the murder took place that the undershirt, realizing the seriousness of what had happened, used its WiFi connection to contact the RCMP.

Some court watchers believe the defense will argue that the admission that it knew of the murder plot in advance makes the undershirt an accessory to the crime, and that it agreed to testify against Modeska in order to get easier treatment from the court. Others believe that this approach entails a substantial risk: if the defense accepts the free will of the undershirt in this way, it could actually strengthen the garment’s testimony.

The undershirt claimed that its story would be corroborated by the shirt, jacket and pants Modeska was wearing the night of the murder. Unfortunately, they have disappeared; foul play is suspected. The socks Modeska wore that evening are not on the Crown’s list of witnesses, possibly owing to the fact that they tell conflicting stories: while the right sock corroborates the undershirt’s story, the left sock insists that Modeska was at home sleeping at the time he was alleged to have committed the murder.

Another of the Crown’s witnesses, the washing machine in which Modeska is alleged to have cleaned the blood off of his clothes after the murder, is set to testify some time next week. The defense has indicated that it is planning on arguing, however, that the washing machine did not analyze the dirt it cleaned off the clothing, so it cannot say for certain that it was blood – not strawberry jam – and that there was nothing unusual about Modeska cleaning his clothes since Thursday is his regular laundry day.

Igor Lipitinsky, CEO of Future Outfitters, the company that makes smart clothing, including John Clothes, was thrilled by his undershirt’s testimony.

“Our original intention was to use nanotechnology to create smart clothes that could be companions, friends, if you will, to the people who were wearing them,” Lipitinsky stated. “It never occurred to us that our clothes could actually develop a conscience, could actually take their civic duty so seriously.

“I… I’m just so darn proud!”

Lipitinsky did allow that Future Outfitters has benefited from the publicity the trial has given the company; enquiries from potential customers have skyrocketed, he claimed. Market watchers are more skeptical, pointing out that anybody with a secret – from cheating spouses to people who cannot stay on their diets – will not want to wear clothing that could potentially rat them out.

The trial continues, with cross-examination of the undershirt expected to start next Tuesday.


Excerpted from Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be. Copyright 2008 by Ira Nayman.

Print versions of Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be can be purchased through Amazon.com and major bookstores. A complete digital version of the book (except for the amazing cover – sigh) can be found on the Web site Les Pages aux Folles, which also features three new Alternate Reality News Service stories every third week.

The Alternate Reality News Service: “If you don’t like this reality, try another one!”

Alternate Reality News Service – Frequently Unasked Questions

[ This is a guest broadcast from the Alternate Reality News Service. ]

1) What is the Alternate Reality News Service?

It’s, uhh, a service that provides news from alternate realities.

2) Like Rush Limbaugh’s brain?

No. Some alternate realities are too dangerous for us to allow our reporters to enter.

3) How does it work?

We use an ion capacitance coil in a particle accelerator to collapse the quantum probabilities of atoms into a different reality than the one that we experience every day. Then, we use a wormhole borrowed from a black hole to transport our journalists between the two realities. The great thing about particles accelerated to near light speeds is that –

4) Whoa! Whoa! Could you explain that in layman’s terms?

Sure. We push the red button, a light goes on in the doorway and we push somebody through it.

5) How do you get the journalists back from the alternate reality?

They’re on a timer.

6) That may be, but how do you get them back?

It’s a really fancy timer. Digital.

7) I’m sure it’s great, but how do you get your journalists back?

We offer them a free meal when they return.

8) That’s it?

You’d be surprised what journalists will do for a free meal.

9) What happens to ARNS reporters who materialize in alternate realities hostile to life?

They make employee of the month.

10) With, like, a plaque on the wall?

Don’t be so cynical. It’s a lovely plaque.

11) Do your correspondents ever bring back pieces of where they’ve been with them?

Oh, sure. It’s hard to get alternate reality out of leather.

12) Isn’t that a problem?

Can be. Funny story: one of our reporters, Alicia Grubskotowskaya, came back from a planet called Ambulster with a fluvianatole. She didn’t know – hee hee – that the fluvianatole was pregnant. Well! Before you could say “If the three yellow suns are aligned, the day will be malign,” the carnivorous race had taken over the Earth, enslaved everybody and started breeding humans for our meat. (They started the human meat farms in countries that already had high levels of obesity – the best argument for dieting we’ve ever heard.) Oops. Our bad.

13) Why don’t I remember any of that?

You don’t? Oh, ahh, we must be getting this mixed up with another reality. Sorry. Still, lesson learned: don’t travel with a fluvianatole unless you know it’s been neutered!

14) Whose idea was the Alternate Reality News Service?

Bill Gates.

15) Really?

No. But after he bought the ARNS, he had the official history of the organization rewritten so that it would seem as though he had created it.

16) And you accept this?

In most realities, Bill Gates is a small sea slug, so it kind of all works out.

17) How can I become an Alternate Reality News Service journalist?

Not everybody can be an ARNS correspondent. It takes a special mix of nerves of steel, the intelligence to be able to negotiate with living beings that are substantially different than you and the wisdom to know when negotiations are pointless.

18) What if I have my own notepad?

You’re in!

19) Why are all of your correspondents’ names so long?

They’re Scandinavian.

20) Is the Alternate Reality News Service based in Scandinavia?

No, we just recruit heavily there.

21) Do you have any correspondents from, you know, any alternate realities?

We’ve considered using superthin 17 dimensional beings in universes with conditions that are hostile to human life. We call this our “Stringer Theory.” It’s still a theory because we haven’t found any superthin 17 dimensional beings to test it out on.

22) What’s the strangest alternate reality you’ve got reporters in?

The one where George W. Bush wins the Nobel Prize for Peace, Love and Understanding.

23) What’s so strange about that?

Alfred Nobel made his fortune in dynamite. Where’s the peace, love and understanding in that?

24) All this talk of alien invasions – the truth is that most alternate realities are just as boring as this one, isn’t it?

Look, when you come home from work, do you tell your wife about the three hours you spent filling out requisition forms for photocopier toner cartridges? Of course not. You tell her about the weasel that got into the coffee pot. Yes, okay, most alternate realities are duller than Jimmy Carter. You happy, now? Man, we’ve had enough of this. We’re going to see if any weasels got into the coffee pot.


Excerpted from Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be. Copyright 2008 by Ira Nayman.

Print versions of Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be can be purchased through Amazon.com and major bookstores. A complete digital version of the book (except for the amazing cover – sigh) can be found on the Web site Les Pages aux Folles, which also features three new Alternate Reality News Service stories every third week.

The Alternate Reality News Service: “If you don’t like this reality, try another one!”