Max Ooberman - Self Made Man
Max began
his long love-hate relationship with pens and pencils in 1935
while writing for Sex, Drugs & Opera in his hometown of
Salzburg, Austria. However, his lifetime love affair with buxom
blondes took an unexpected twist when World War II saw the Germans
post him to Norway to report back on friendly-fire incidents
arising from the fact that both sides were wearing white.
Shaken by the horrors of distant submarine warfare off the Norwegian
coast, Max travelled to Tibet in 1946 to become a Buddhist monk
and work on the Temple Bulletin. He was asked to leave the monastery
less than a year later (something to do with a misunderstanding
over Buddhist nuns) and, shortly thereafter, found himself working
in the galley of a Panamanian cargo ship heading for Cuba. He
produced the first ship newsletter ever during the voyage.
The exact details of his career from this point until 1972 are
sketchy at best, but it did include the publication of several
revolutionary manifestos and a brief spell with a football magazine
in Montevideo.
What Max referred to as “the most captivating event of
the 20th century” compelled him to leave the safety of
the Columbian rain forest in 1972 to cover the Bobby Fischer-Boris
Spassky chess match in Iceland for Chess Mate! He then lived
in Moscow for a few years where it was rumoured that he worked
for the CIA, the KGB and MI6, but not necessarily in that order.
He settled in London in 1983 to work on some Page 3 girls for
one of the tabloids and to write an odd horse-racing column
on the side also. He was due to retire when Viagra gave him
a few more years of happiness.
In 2003, Max decided that he really should do something worthwhile
with his life, so he started Deadpan Pizza with Mr Trimmings
and Mr Pepper.
