Category Archives: Fan Fiction

Fiction dedicated to whatever I find compelling. No “Twilight” fan fiction here.

I’m With The Engineers & Programmers

In the 1970s and early 80s, Patty Des Berg became the most notorious high tech groupie in the United States. Based  in Silicon Valley, she gravitated to wherever the party was – New Mexico, Bellevue, Washington and even New York. Her autobiography, I’m With The Engineers & Programmers, was recently published by Knopf and includes excerpts from the journals she kept during the heady early days of Apple, Xerox, Microsoft and even Atari.

What follows is a selection of her most poignant entries:

April 4, 1975 – Candy and I hitched out to New Mexico because she said she knew some hot guys. I didn’t believe her at first but I have met the greatest computer engineers alive. First off, I will make Bill Gates my lover, he is such a doll. Paul Allen is SEX. I took one look at Bill with his lean slender body and kind of large head and his doe-like eyes and knew it was fate that brought me there, to the men of Microsoft.

August 2, 1975 – George Laurer and I counted all the way up to good old number 69 tonight, if you know what I mean. I was panting hot and heavy, aflame with desire. He took me to a tattoo parlor and I got a tiny UPC code on my ass. Happiness is IBM.

Sept. 24, 1975 – Palo Alto time! It is all too excellent. So many love orgies. Everybody loves everybody. I was with Doug at PARC and he set me up with a Xerox Alto. I’m not supposed to tell anyone and I won’t. I put it in the dining room where I’m crashing with Candy.

Oct. 12, 1975 – Heavy necking with Nolan in his Nova, then he wanted to go back inside to play Pong with the boys. I called the next day but he had already left. What a drag.

March 4, 1976 – Mobo and I ran into Candy on Alma and she told us Nolan is a millionaire. Warner Com. bought Atari for $28 million. Big party at Folgers Mansion. I’ve never seen true insanity until now. Nolan took a full bottle of beer and threw it at Candy’s head and when she screamed that it wasn’t very nice of him, he said, “I know. I take full responsibility.” I split that scene and went to the game room where Al Alcorn was putting on a Pong display. Al Alcorn! I really grooved with him.

April 4, 1976 – I like the PARC guys but they are obsessed with the future and GUI. I met a guy from Stanford, Dean Hovey, who gave me 152,000 goosebumps telling me about his ideas for experimental pointing-devices. Just to be a part of this scene makes me want to scream and cry. I asked Dean if he thought his ideas would one day go nationwide and he said, “THE COUNTRY IS READY!”

July 31, 1976 – Bill Gates is coming to town today. I don’t know whether I want to be with him or not. Why is he so perverted? Or maybe he’s not? Maybe that’s just a rumor…

August 2, 1976 – I’m in the limo while Bill picks up our order at In-N-Out. Here he comes!

August 8, 1976 – We got carried away into some enchanted fairy land. Our bodies were meant to be one. He held my face and said, “This is all I want to look at, besides OS, for the rest of my days.” Yes yes yes, Mr. Gates!

November 1, 1976 – No word from my demented prince for days and days. I ate so much hash while trying not to think of Bill. Mobo and I went to the Commodore party and the STEVES from Apple were there. I was dancing in my low-cut dress and I could feel his (SJ’s) eyes on me and when the song ended he came over and said, “Hello, lovely lady,” and bowed and kissed my hand. Oh, those lips!

January 10, 1977 – I can’t resist Steve J. much longer. He invites me to his bed day after day and I try to be true to my DOS Prince, but to no avail when he won’t even return my phone calls. I was aching for Steve last night. He said, “I really dig you, you know.” What is Bill doing right this minute?

February 23, 1977 – SJ flew me in for the NY press conference to roll out Apple II. Color graphics! Open architecture! Steve is truly amazing, brilliant, spiritually evolved. He was wearing jeans and tennis shoes – it was the most sensual thing I’ve ever seen. The Woz came up to me afterward and said  he’s never seen SJ so happy as when he’s with me… and that he approves! Will my last name be J-O-B-S some day?

August 4, 1977 – Got really high and ate pizza at Nolan’s Chuck E. Cheese. Jasper T. Jowls came alive and tried to swallow my head and I screamed and fell down, dissolving into a puddle on the floor and no one could help me. I cried for hours and Nolan held my hand. I truly thought I was dying. I slept for 14 hours in my dress and lace-up boots.

January 2, 1978 – Bill is in town and hasn’t called. DOES NOT COMPUTE.

March 14, 1978 – Gary at Xerox gave me a private demo of the 9700. He wanted to give me his ID bracelet and he said, “I love you, but quietly.” I can’t tell him that when I look at him I still see SJ and Bill. Never have I known such indecision. I cry ten gallons of tears.

March 23, 1979 – Flew to Bellevue to confront Bill but he was in meetings with execs from IBM so I sat with Paul in his office. He caressed my cheek and kissed me and said, “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.” I’m tortured and thrilled at the same time. Never got to see Bill so I said, “What the hell?” and slept with Paul. We made TV dinners, watched “The Dukes of Hazard” and made lots of love. Paul really gets me OFF.

April 17, 1979 – SJ invited me to tour PARC with him. I’ve been there a zillion times but he never has. I acted surprised by all we saw but it was dead to me. I pretended not to know Gary Starkweather so SJ would not be hurt. At the end of the tour SJ wanted to do some blow and I had to tell him that I’m having a baby. “Whose baby?” he said. I said I’m not sure and he looked at me so sad. No matter how much code I learn, how many scans I run on my motherboards or how many poems I write about direct and indirect manipulation, I feel him slipping away.

 

*Much gratitude to the book I’m With The Band by Pamela Des Barres for inspiration and guidance.

Dallas Diaries: Season 1

From the diary of Sue Ellen Ewing, a.k.a. Sue Ellen:

sue ellen ewingDear Diary,
Just when I thought I could not experience a deeper sense of despair than the day my husband rebuffed my attempt to reignite our love life with sexy lingerie by calling my black nightie cheap, I’ve reached new lows.

It all started when JR and Ray went to Waco and ended up sleeping with two townies in a motel. Then two men (one of them a husband to one of the women, one of them her brother) came to Southfork to rape Ewing women as revenge. I guess it was that whole Bible-eye-for-an-eye thing.

All this in the middle of a wind storm!

I was upset by the entire episode, to be sure, but I was mortified by how ineffectual JR was in keeping them from humiliating me. He sat there looking guilty, acting like he couldn’t possibly do anything because they had a gun pointed at him.
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The Dallas Diaries: Season 1

From the diary of Pamela Barnes Ewing, a.k.a. Pammy:

pamela barnes ewing

I did a stupid thing. I married Bobby Ewing after one lustful and drunken weekend in Austin. I am so ashamed! But there’s nothing to about it now – I have my pride and reputation and a quickie divorce would make me the laughingstock of  Dallas County.

Bobby and I drove out to Southfork together after the “wedding” and moved into his parent’s house. We have one room. Even though it’s an enormous house, I feel confined. I went down to the kitchen to get some warm milk after Bobby and I made love the other night and Jock was sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, drinking.

The entire time I heated up my milk, he stared at my chest and talked about oil fields. But I didn’t have the guts to go tell Bobby!

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LOST Extras: New Coffee Table Book

In honor of the final season of LOST, ABC and Grinder Press are releasing a coffee table book entitled LOST’S Hottest Extras: The Castaways You May Have Missed.

Most of us were probably focused on Sawyer’s, I’m sorry, James’s shiny chest or maybe Sayid’s curly locks or even perhaps Kate’s… freckles. Here’s just a sampling of the hotties you missed.

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Fan Fiction: LOST, Season One

TRUE CALLING

boarDay ten on the island. I’m going through suitcases on the beach, sorting stuff into piles. Clothing. Toiletries. Books.

It occurs to me that I could start a small island lending library with all the paperbacks we’ve found. Mostly Harry Potter, Tom Clancy stuff, two copies of Memoirs of a Geisha, romance novels, one Life of Pi, Bridget Jone’s Diary. It seems that people tend not to read the classics when they fly. Who can blame them? I’m glad I wasn’t reading Russian literature when the plane started to break apart, or I would have been too paralyzed by depression to reach out for my oxygen mask.

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But You Are In That Chair! Pre-Holiday Edition

baby jane laughing2From time to time, Baby Jane Hudson appears here with her question and answer column, But You Are In That Chair: Baby Jane’s Advice For the Confused, Depressed and Clueless. However, today’s special focus is Holiday Shopping for the Confused, Depressed and Financially Dependent because Baby Jane strongly believes it’s never too early to start in on all the holiday crap as long as it includes festive, spiked punch, scratch-off games and the all-holiday music radio station turned up just loud enough that you can’t hear your invalid sister crying for a moist towelette.

Dear Baby Jane,
I want to give the gift of music this holiday. What’s hot and new this season?
I Wanna Rock, Boys Town, Nebraska

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But You Are In That Chair!

babyjaneface smallFrom time to time, Baby Jane Hudson appears here with her question and answer column, But You Are In That Chair: Baby Jane’s Advice For the Confused, Depressed and Clueless.

Dear Baby Jane,
I’m a filmmaker and I want to enter one of my short films into a competition but it seems as if everyone who has ever won the competition has had many, many more accolades and achievements than I do. Although everyone who has seen my film says it’s amazing, I wonder if I should even bother to enter.
Filmy in Portland

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Anti-Fan Fiction: Heartburn

MerylStreep1Am I the only person on the planet who is not taken in by the charms of Meryl Streep? Whenever I see her get weepy and red-eyed in a drama, I want to run away. Whenever she’s being quirky in a comedy, I can’t bring myself to watch. I have never seen Mama Mia! Can you fucking believe it?? I should turn in my Midwesterner Membership card.

But the movie Heartburn takes the Streep cake. (OK, there’s that “A dingo at my baby,” movie, too.)

I think anytime you’re beginning with revenge fantasy material, you’re in murky waters. Heartburn, in case you aren’t aware, is the “fictional” story of a woman who is cheated on by her husband while she’s pregnant with their second child. I say fictional in quotation marks because it’s really the thinly-disguised bio-pic of Nora Ephron, who was cheated on by Bob Woodward while pregnant with their second child and then wrote the novel Heartburn. Who can really blame her for writing it? They say, “Write what you know,” and when what you know is sensational and revenge-driven, well, it’s gonna sell books and tickets and eventually you’re going to get to make Sleepless in Seattle.

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Fan Fiction: Saturday Night Fever

doreen sat night fever smallEven though I’m only a cashier by day, I’m a dancer by night. Weeknights, I dance in my room, in front of the mirror, until Ma yells, “Doreen, knock it off! The floor is vibratin’ like crazy!”

She hates disco. I love disco.

I tell her I gotta practice. “I gotta keep goin’, Ma,” I yell down the stairs.

“The hell you do,” she yells back.

Every night it’s like that. And every morning she gives me the stink eye while I’m eating my cereal before I go to work to stand on my feet for eight hours.

“You’re too loud,” she says. “I’m gonna have to kick you out if I can’t hear my programs.”

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Fan Fiction: Saturday Night Fever

BRING ME FLESH AND BRING ME WINE

saturday_night_fever_smallerMan, am I sick of this guy, or what?

Tony this, Tony that. Tony, you’re such a good dancer. You know what Connie actually said the other night? She said, “Tony, are you as good in bed as you are on the dance floor?” He was all smiles. I been tryin’ to hit that c*&^ for six months now and it all comes down to Tony being able to shake his ass, pump his fists, twirl that bitch around out on the dance floor?

It’s not easy being part of The Faces. Know what that means? We give good Face – we come to the club, not a hair out of place, nice shoes, top-of-the-line silk shirts and we class up the joint. Saturday night is the only night of the week when I feel like somebody. But I’m co-pilot and Tony is captain and it ain’t fair.

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