An interview with Maxwell Yezpitelok

When a work colleague learns that I will be interviewing Maxwell Yezpitelok, he visibly blanches.

“It will be like a dichotomy obliquely juxtaposed onto an idiom,” he warns me.

After giving these words careful consideration, I decide to keep things casual and elect not to wear a bow-tie. We arrange to meet in the lobby of the same Kentucky-based McDonald's restaurant where former U.S. president John F. Kennedy used to conduct government business. Yezpitelok arrives on time and immediately orders several items from the top-secret menu.

In an attempt to break the ice I remark that his surname reminds me of a meso-American god, while his Christian name evokes the popular coffee brand - Maxwell House.

“People are always confusing me with the Aztec feathered serpent deity, Quetzalcoatl,” he replies with characteristic self-effacing humour, adding “I have on occasion drunk coffee.”

In 1994, Yezpitelok became the focus of Chile's one-man army program, in which all military duties were delegated to a single individual.

“I was given 60,000 assault rifles and a pair of tanks that I wore like roller-skates. A general instructed me to invade Uraguay, which at the time was part of the planet Krypton and had been trademarked by DC comics. After I blew up Kyrpton a great big chunk of it fell to earth and landed on what is commonly known as South America.”

In 2007, Yezpitelok left the army and became an independent soldier of fortune. He funds his military escapades on earth, and on the planet Saturn, with the proceeds raised from the sale of his patriotic webcomics. In 2012, he built a robot to assist him with writing dialogue:

“The robot went berserk,” he recalls. “It grew a goatee and began writing and editing articles for the popular humour website - Cracked. Recently it has started framing me for murders that I didn't commit, while attempting to legally overthrow convictions for other murders that I did carry out. (You can read robot Maxwell's Cracked columns by following this link: http://www.cracked.com/members/Mxy/ ).

By the time our interview commences the convivial atmosphere that characterised the first five minutes of our meeting has evaporated. I find myself an unwilling participant in a Mexican stand-off, with me, Yezpitelok, and my assistant/transsexual fuck-buddy, Geoff, all yelling and pointing medium-calibre pistols at each other.

In between threats to take him down “John Woo style,” I interrogate Yezpitelok on the subject of his well-documented badassary:

In February your name was added to America's list of People who you absolutely do not want to fuck with under any circumstances. How does it feel to be thrust into the illustrious company of hard-men such as Bradley Gleaves and Steven Chinery?

A great honor, even if it convinced everyone I have syphilis.

Which is ironic considering the restraining order preventing you from venturing within 50 yards of syphilis. Is this why you no longer tour North and South Dakota?

 

I was banned for simulating masturbation Jim Morrison's corpse on stage, even though it was clearly a plastic corpse (everyone knows the real one is in Paris, on display at the local Hard Rock Cafe), and the substance I shot at the audience was clearly vanilla yogurt. Furthermore, a corpse of that age wouldn't even produce semen.

That's very true. The human testes stop producing semen six months after death. Returning to the list, everyone seems to have a theory as to how Alan Netting came to be included on it. Would you care to share yours? 

 

It's most likely something to do with his epic takedown of Martin Lubbock for that slight diss published on Trousers Monthly; as you know, Netting arranged for live lobsters to invade Lubbock's estate in Bedford, killing all residents and driving down its market price to the point where Netting could purchase it for pennies. He then persuaded the lobsters to move to a small apartment in New Jersey, directly across the street from the new home of Lubbock's grieving widow, and re-sold the Bedford estate for millions, which he then used to bribe the jurors into putting him in the list.

You are one of eight people recognised by the UN who can legally declare unilateral war on a nation state. Last year you became the first person to kill a country (Spain). Do you have any words of consolation for the 47 million or so stateless people who must now eke-out an existence on the rotting carcass of their home country, as it swells with gases and fly larvae and slowly decomposes into the North Atlantic?

I hadn't thought of them. I have a hard time conceiving individual people as sentient beings (right now, my brain registers this as a conversation with the south of England), but I wish them the best and hope they find a new home country soon. Just stay away from Angola because that motherfucker is next on my shit list.

Ha ha! Those Angolans sure are crazy!

In your press briefings you occasionally mention “those clowns in the White House”. I recently visited the U.S. capital and was surprised to learn that not one of these people is a professional clown and only two have received any kind of circus training.

Is the lack of certified clowns in North American government a cause for concern, or do your subscribe to Aleister Rorty's theory that clowns effectively fill the role of terrorists for the under fives?

I'm glad you brought that up, Diane, because I'd like to clarify that I was misquoted: of course I didn't say "those clowns in the in the White House", because I know that clowns have been legally forbidden from holding public office in the U.S. since Krinkles was ousted as Speaker of the House in 1934. What I said was "those COWS in the White House", which should have been obvious since I was talking about the deplorable state of the front lawn at the time of my latest visit. I refuse to maintain trade relations with a government that won't even invest in a simple shed to shelter its cattle.

Never speak Aleister Rorty's name in my presence again.

In 2012, the U.S. Military announced that it would be discontinuing the manufacture of M-prefix weaponry (The M16, M60 etc) having exhausted the fire-power potential of the 13th letter of the alphabet. You recently tested the new N1. How do you rate its performance?

Gosh, that was so long ago. I was impressed by the performance of the N1 when I had a chance to try one in my garage two weeks ago, but mostly I remember being frustrated by the slow development of these weapons: I was told we would only reach the O series by late May 2019. I decided to tinker with the materials on my own and by Thursday at brunch time, I'd developed a Z99999 missile capable of wiping out the known universe twenty times over. Having completed every human alphabet I have now moved on to the emojis provided by my phone. As of now the most devastating weapon is the emoji of a monkey in diapers holding a flower-2836, which can destroy an abstract concept so completely that it will never have existed; for example the other day I tried it with [indiscernible] My neighbors complain about the noise and the radiation, but they can lick my bunghole.

I always found it strange that the M4 came into service decades after the M60. Going off on a tangent, did you know that M4 is one those words like 'pants' or 'fanny' that means different things on either side of the Atlantic. In the UK it's a motorway that goes from London to South Wales. In the U.S. it's an assault rifle. Imagine the many hilarious misunderstandings that must have occurred!

Anyway, getting back on topic, is the inability of the US military to name their weapons in ascending sequential order a deliberate ploy to confuse their enemies? Or can it be attributed to poor counting skills?

 

As far as I know the weapons were produced in sequence, but the rampart time travel abuses of the 2060's have wreaked havoc on North America's history and shifted the order of several events. It's why Lincoln, currently a 14-year old playing Xbox and masturbating constantly in Kentucky, only became president in 1861. When the European settlers first arrived in Virginia 400 years ago, they found the city of Richmond fully constructed and as a first order of business had to deal with a major deficit in the public transportation budget left over by the previous administration in 1986. The current mayor of San Diego is an amoeba, but no one is sure if it's a primitive one from our unicellular past or a super-evolved lifeform from our distant future. She dodged the issue when I met her at Val Kilmer's house.

I always figured the English M4 transformed into a giant gun, like Megatron. I may have to reconsider my decision not to invade if that isn't the case.

Lincoln called my friend - Viscount George Pauly - a dick on Xbox live. I hope someone shoots him in the back of the head at the theatre.

In 2013, the UK government, under advisement from the Obama administration, classified barn owls as a state secret. No one is allowed to acknowledge their existence. My step-sister's niece – Baroness Hamilton - saw this kid who had just bought a calender with a barn owl on the front cover get bundled into the back of a van by an MI6 snatch team. 

 

The other night I saw a barn owl. It had the words TOP SECRET stamped across its breast in big red letters. What on earth is going on?

[Upon careful review, this message has been classified as TOP SECRET by Her Majesty's Government. HTTP://WWW.UK.GOV We're Working For You! Renewing your trouser license is now easier than ever. Save time and trouser hassle at the Online Ministry of Garments and Furniture Homepage. HTTP://WWW.UK.GOV We're Working For You!] 

Finally, you dedicate an appendix in your third autobiography to a list of highly-classified information that has only been seen by yourself and a few others in the global intelligence community. Featured on this list is the Boston-based sitcom Cheers. I think this has actually been seen by quite a lot of people. At its peak over 23 million households in the US alone were tuning in. The show won numerous awards and spawned a successful spin-off series (Joey - starring Michael J Fox) which also netted millions of viewers.

Haha, no, the show I mentioned is the secret one from which Cheers (and every other classic sitcom including I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver and Shasta McNasty) spun off from, but it's so secret that most people are physically incapable of perceiving it, so their senses attempt to cover up the "hole" in reality by going to the nearest point of reference: in your case, Cheers. If you've ever seen a rerun of ALF at 3 AM on C-SPAN, it was probably a rerun of the secret sitcom that you couldn't comprehend. If you experienced any headaches, nosebleeds or small pieces of metal shaped like triangles in your stool for the following week, it was definitely it.

It's a pretty good show that has been running for a good while (it still uses the theme song Luigi Boccherini composed in 1779, except for the 95-96 season where they went with a techno tune), but the main problem is that since only the sixteen most powerful people in the world can know about it, they have to write, direct, perform and edit most of it themselves. Richard Nixon played fan-favorite cousin Marvin until his death in 1994, at which point he was replaced by Harry Hamlin, but many still refuse to accept Hamlin in the part. There's currently a petition to replace him with Angela Merkel. Curiously you can still see bootleg copies of some of the most popular seasons in used DVD stores, but if you attempt to watch them they will turn every electronic equipment in your house into produce.

Thank you. Please decontaminate yourself using the sachet of alcohol-based gel provided, and then exit the room via the door that doesn't have a tiger behind it.

Shoe Zone bids for University Status

Shoe Zone recently got rather butt-hurt on Twitter after being called-out on their dubious unpaid apprenticeship scheme. The following should be regarded as satire. The reality as black comedy.

Shoe Zone bids for University Status

School leavers who have been excluded from higher education by eye-watering course fees have an unlikely new champion on their local High Street! Footwear retailer Shoe Zone now offers an eight-week unpaid work experience/apprenticeship scheme to those wishing to build on their knowledge of maths and English.

A spokesperson for Shoe Zone said:

“Spreading the course over two months allows us to venture far beyond the normal classes in basic adding and subtraction offered by half-day apprenticeships. Currently our lessons touch on algebraic field theory, Dirichlet's unit theorem and Kirby calculus, specifically how they relate to the sale of shoes in our provincial retail outlets, up-and-down the United Kingdom.

He added that English-language skills also featured highly on the intensive curriculum:

“Our students require finely-honed communication skills in order to pass on their understanding of how our shoes function to our customers, who may lack the same grasp of advanced mathematical concepts.”

Reading material for the apprenticeship includes the old English text of Beowulf and the selected animal poetry of Ted Hughes:

“We encourage our students to break the fundamental rules of grammar and syntax in the hope of uncovering deeper ontological truths about our range of competitively-priced, quality footwear,” said another Shoe Zone spokesperson.

They continued:

“Research carried out by Shoe Zone's statistics team shows that in 2013, 70% of the UK's top mathematicians were successful graduates from our course. While some choose to work in other fields, many of our former apprentices decide to stay on and continue their research in branches of Shoe Zone".

Animal victims of nature documentary crews recall their experiences

Matthew (Desert Monitor Lizard)

I was sunning myself near a big pile of rocks when a sandy-haired man-child, dressed in khaki shorts, grabbed me. I tried to bite him but he held me firmly in his grip. He angled my head towards the camera as if he was filming me for a kidnap ransom video!

All the time this was happening he kept saying: “You're alright mate. You're alright mate.”

In fact I was far alright. My wife, Angela, had been eaten by a Booted Eagle the previous day and I was still getting over the shock.

After the man put me down I ran away and hid under a boulder, where I have remained ever since.

I will come out when I have evolved venom glands.

Jennifer (Great Blue Heron)

After I left university in 1972, I lived at London Zoo for a while. The late children's television presenter, Johnny Morris, would often drop by, dressed as a zoo keeper from the 1920s. He would stand outside the enclosures of his favourite animals and enact pretend conversations between him and us, with him doing both of the voices since none of us couldn't speak English. In most cases his impressions played heavily upon stereotypes and were extremely insulting.

Because I am a heron, and therefore predisposed towards perching beside bodies of water for long periods of time, Morris developed a routine in which he would imply that I had accidentally dropped my house keys into my pond and was searching for them like an idiot.

He deliberately portrayed me as a Canadian hick. In fact I was born in UK. As I previously mentioned, I am also highly educated and have a degree in Economics from the LSE. I was in the same year as Barbara Morris and took some of the same classes that she did. You probably haven't heard of her but she is very clever.

Bridget Mason (Bengal Tiger)

As one of the few remaining wild tigers, I am constantly being trailed by the wildlife paparazzi. They want to know everything about me: How many wild pigs I've eaten; the relationship between me and a male Bengel Tiger called Colin who occupies an adjacent territory, and so on. They even go through my stools!

I don't mind when the focus is on me. When they start following my cubs around it's a different story: The other day, one of my three sons was nearly eaten by a crocodile! It was only through the timely intervention of my line-manger at the call centre (a Kingfisher called Claire) that a disaster was averted. You read about these things happening to other tiger families but you never imagine that they'll happen to you.

The camera crew who filmed the incident later informed me in a letter that they didn't want to intervene, as they were there in an observational capacity and couldn't be seen as interfering with nature.

I take this as meaning that they wont get involved when I indulge my natural instinct to tear open their director's soft belly and feast upon his warm entrails.

On an unrelated matter, I recently discovered that I have been 'adopted' by hundreds of different people around the globe under a 'save the tiger' program. I would like state for the record:

• I have no direct involvement in this project.
• My name is not Mindy.
• That photo isn't me. If you look at the date you can see that it was taken in 1991, several years before I was reincarnated as a tiger.
• I didn't write any of those letters. That is not my paw-print at the bottom. If I were to write you a letter I would sign it using my proper signature.
• I am not on Twitter or any other social media platform.

Ben (Wright Whale)

The newest addition to our pod is a robotic submersible device that is supposed to resemble a whale. Some of us had taken to calling it the 'Gayle' until we were told off by Karl for being intolerant.

It greets us with pre-recordings of whale song, which I suppose its designers imagine are opening pleasantries. In fact they are recordings of Graham complaining about the krill-to-saltwater ratio in the North Atlantic, and asking where he can score some methamphetamine. It's actually quite poignant as Graham died last month from a heroin overdose.

Last week me and Nigel wrote 'Fuck Poseidon!' on the sub. I also wrote 'Clean me' in the algae on its underside.

Whenever it's around, my friends and I make a point of singing offensive whale punk songs, which are full of swearing and anti-establishment sentiment! When the researchers at National Geographic play these recordings back and get their heads around what we're saying, it's going to totally blow their minds wide open!

Julian (Meerkat)

“That camera/rock that the BBC put outside our burrow: I pissed on it. It's my rock now and I'll bite any fucker who tries to take it away.”

Simon (Lowland Gorilla)

That bastard David Attenborough sat down no less then ten feet away from where I am now and started talking about me like he knows me. You don't know me Attenborough. Fuck You.

Harriet Bowden-Steward (Lioness)

I was lying in the shade of a baobab tree, swishing my tail at some flies, when my my partner mounted me and engaged in 20 seconds of uninspired humping before wandering off to growl at a hyena. While this was happening, no less than three camera crews were filming from the back of those stupid open-top safari jeeps.

I don't come into your over-priced, 2-bedroom terrace in Clapham and gawp, while you and your partner attempt to rekindle the cold ashes of your decade old relationship. Show me the same respect bitches!

I am woman and also a lion. Hear me roar!

Keith Tyler (Barnacle Goose)

I would like to thank the presenters of Springwatch for broadcasting to the nation the fact that my wife Claire and I have recently flown north on our annual migration. I expect we will return next year to find our nest has been burgled. Is this what I pay my TV licence fee for?