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    Laszlo & Laszlo

 

Senior – French by nationality, born Austro-Hungarian but remembered mainly as a Spanish writer – was agented by Jenny Aspenwall Bradley, and thus associated with writers such as Joyce, Camus, Hemingway, etc. Senior hung out with the existentialist crowd in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, was a keen observer, had a melancholic disposition, was one heck of a writer, and has been forgotten only because he has too many mother countries. He was also once enough of an actor to “do Rosencrantz” on Budapest’s main stage, a theatre stage manager, a script-writer, an antique-dealer pushing forgeries to von Thyssen in Madrid, and a maybe insufficiently appreciated father. Arguably he should have been thrown to the wolves already in 1911, and allegedly there was a scheme afoot to see this done.
Andres Laszlo Sr.
 

  • BIOGRAPHY

    Andres (Andras) Emerico Laszlo (von Keller) was born in Szinna, Austro-Hungary in 1910 (now Snina, Slovakia) and died in Evry, France in 1985. His mother was Baroness Ilona von Keller (d1966), and his father was Maximilian Leibrowitz (d1931). The family later assumed the name, Laszlo. Andres' brother, Adalberto Laszlo, was a successful biochemist (d1972) and Andres' son, Andres Ulf Laszlo was born in Lund, Sweden, in 1955. A well-known author, Andres Laszlo Sr's fiction has also inspired three movies. He is remembered as a Spanish author, although born Austro-Hungarian and nationalized French: a "quadruple EU nationality" that could be the reason that no country has "claimed him" as his own: something that has caused his authorship of lately (arguably unfairly) get neglected/forgotten.

     

     

    Born the son of a baroness and the traveling theater impresario that she eloped with, much of Andres' early youth - when not traveling with the theater company - was spent in Budapest where he hung out around theaters, and eking out his weekly allowance by selling cherries on the ferries that navigated the waters between Buda from Pest. He went to school in Budapest and worked as an art critic, an actor, a stage director, and as manager of his father's traveling thespian society. He left Hungary for Paris in 1938 where he allegedly attended Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts at Sorbonne. Not returning to Hungary after the war, France and Spain were to become his new home countries. Before the outbreak of the war, he brought his mother, brother, and oldest nephew from Hungary to live in Madrid. His later years were spent in Spain and France, making trips to Canada and the US to exhibit his art collections. In 1956 he bought a house in Evry, outside Paris, where he lived for five years with his wife, Ulla, and me (his son: Andres Laszlo Jr.). During the sixties, seventies, and part of the eighties, he spent summers in France and winters in Spain. Laszlo Sr. had a great interest in art and put together two collections: Goya’s engravings and naïve Spanish art. Both collections were exhibited all over the world.

  • BIBLIOGRAPHY

    NB. The texts here listed are paper books only. Since 2014 most of these books have been published in Kindle- and POD format and many new translations have been added. More about these books is available elsewhere on this site. Note that all books have been translated (5)/retranslated (2) into English while getting proper content editing and general polish.

     

    1946. Francisco Goya, Spain: Editorial Tartessos. Several books on Goya and on Laszlo's own collection have been published earlier/later.
     
    1947. El Castillo de las Focas, Spain: Janez.
     
    1948. La Rapsodia del Cangrejo, Spain: Janez.
     
    1952. Donde los Vientos Duermen, Spain: Janez & Ediciones, Mere Inconnue, France: Stock, Die Mutter Meines Sohnes, Germany/Austria: Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1958.
     
    1952. Donja Juana, Don Juan, Juan y Juanito, Spain: Janez.
     
    1955. Solo el Paisaje Cambia, Spain: Janez.
     
    1956. Mi Tio Jacinto, Spain: Janez, Pepote, Italy: Paravia, 1956. Le Muchacho, France: Gallimard, 1957 Mein Onkel Jacinto, Germany/Austria: Paul Zsolnay Verlag 1957 My Uncle Jacinto, Japan: Sogensha & Co, 1958. My Uncle Jacinto, U.S.A: Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1958. My Uncle Jacinto, UK: Jonathan Cape, 1958.
     
    1956. Paco el Seguro, Spain: Janez, Paco l’infaillible/Paco le Prolifique France: Editions Gallimard, 1959. Paco Never Fails, UK: Secker & Warburg, 1960.  
     

     

  • FILMOGRAPHY
    Sin Uniforme is a movie based on a script that Andres Laszlo co-wrote with Ladislao Vajda and others. Though the underlying text (assuming there was one) has gone missing, my guess is that it was produced by Senior, as he related strongly to the "without uniform issue". Back in Austro-Hungary in the late 1920s or early 1930s Senior did spend time in prison because of his refusal to wear a uniform. IMDB
     

     

    My Uncle Jacinto was a Spanish-Italian co-production released 31st of May 1956. The movie was directed by Ladislao Vajda, who co-wrote the script with Laszlo. The movie starred Pablito Calvo and Antonio Vico. Calvo went on to win the Premio del Public in Berlin for his performance, and the movie won a silver bear. The director and Laszlo were close friends, and the screenplay remained faithful to the original text. Unfortunately the last "cut" of the film has removed the wonderful undecidability that should result from that the viewer doesn´t know (and shouldn't know) whether Pepote's "they threw me out" is the truth or not. IMDB
     

     

    Paco el Seguro was a French-Spanish co-production released 1979. Directed by Didier Haudepin, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Laszlo. Bloody Mary Productions were the main producer, but Filmoblic, Lotus Films, Record, and Tanagra were also involved. There were contractual disputes which resulted in that the film has not been shown outside Spain. IMDB
     

     

    Mother Unknown. At his demise, Andres Laszlo Sr. was in the process of turning "Solo el Paisaje Cambia" into a film script. 
     

     

    Marcel Marceau performed his interpretation of Senior's Don Juan, Doña Juana, Juanita, and Juan, that I have renamed Doña Juana. The performance received good reviews and Marcel Marceau enjoyed the script (or choreography). I do not know the extent of Senior's involvement in the production of this play. View 
     

     

 

 

Junior, though he cannot write very well, feels that he has something important to say about drug illegality as well as about money becoming the measure of what it ought not to be allowed to become the measure of. He also has some unusual ideas about how to arrange/structure texts, and a less negative weltanschauung than Senior. As his thoughts on drug policy were not appreciated in his native Sweden he made himself a bucket-list to become “listenable-to,” something that has given him the sort of life that one really shouldn’t be able to get away with in this time and age. Thank You.

Andres Laszlo Jr.
 

  • BIOGRAPHY

    Andres Laszlo Jr., aged less than two, was placed in the lap of Marilyn Monroe who allegedly said he was adorable, so from that point onward his life by definition has been downhill, and eighteen years later he found himself the 3rd worst student of his school despite studying more than most and weighing in at 26 stones. A year and a half later he was the fastest student in the world (or close to it), occasionally sidelining in modeling.

    PASSING TWO CUTE GIRLS IN THE STREET, LISTENING TO THEM GIGGLE AT ME, ONE PART OF ME SAID “THEY THINK I’M HOT,” THE OTHER PART SAID, “I LOOK SO DISGUSTING THAT THEY WANNA THROW UP.” OF COURSE, I WENT TOTALLY BONKERS.

     Anyway, Junior assumed himself to be God’s gift to humanity and went in search of something good enough to devote his newfound self to fight for. Finding only scales of grey, he changed his approach, and instead, he went in search of something bad enough to fight against. The scales were still all grey, but since the darkest grey stuff on the "fight-against-list" (drug illegality and money becoming the measure of what it oughtn't to become a measure of) seemed closer to black than the lightest grey seemed to white on the "fight-for-list" (more/broader education and thinking for oneself/skepticism) he settled for "against", and though money becoming the measure of what it oughtn't to become a measure of bothered him a lot (and still does), he settled for drug illegality.

    However, in his native Sweden, he found no encouragement: "We strongly recommend against such a thesis, and there’d be nobody outside police and academia allowed at your disputation," said his supervisor. "I don’t understand what you want to achieve," said Hans Holmér (Sweden’s “National Police Commissioner”), and "We cannot support such an approach," said Vienna (UNODC).

    As going from "best" student to mediocre (or at least unrecognized) Ph.D. wasn't a very attractive prospect, Laszlo Jr. gave up on academia and embarked on an all-the-things-a-man-should-have-done project, in order that if he one day got into the position to say something worthwhile to an audience that would be willing to listen, he would be properly prepared to do so. The first thing on his list was to sail around the world.

    "ANDRES, YOU MIGHT BE BIG AND STRONG, BUT ONE NIGHT WHEN YOU SLEEP, I WILL KILL YOU," A LITTLE GIRL ON THE BOAT TOLD ME. I HAD TO LEAVE AND LATER THE BOAT SUNK: I LOST MY LAST CORONA.

    Laszlo Jr. gave up: broke and humiliated he returned to Sweden with the unpalatable knowledge that in order to do all those things he figured that a man should have done, one needs not only a cool bucket list but also money. Charlotte, a friend at Bukowski's (at the time sort of Sweden’s “Sotheby’s”), told him: I say you should buy Swedish art deco, and my boyfriend says Swedish art glass. Out of this Laszlo Jr. came up with "Orrefors 1925 – 1950." He emptied the glass shops, bought cheaply at auction, sold the lesser part of his collection, wrote a book, and became well off and famous.

    "I TRIED TO TELL THE SWEDES THAT ORREFORS ART GLASS 1925 - 50 WAS THE ONLY THING THAT WE HAVE BEEN BEST AT SINCE THE VIKING'S WOOD AND SILVER, BUT AGAIN: NOBODY LISTENED."

    For a second time Andres Laszlo Jr. set up an “all-the-things-a-man-should-have-done-list" - actually, he based it on a list he had composed at the age of 9 or 10, and he then spent 20 years pursuing the things on the list:

    ENGLISH AS WRITTEN LANGUAGE (√), ATHLETE (√), 3Y AT OXFORD (√), B.A. PHILOSOPHY (√), B.A. WRITING (√), OALD BY HEART (√), SHOOT MAN-EATING TIGER (AN ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING RESOLUTION - SORRY), SURF PIPELINE (√), 200 COUNTRIES (187 WITH VERY CREATIVE COUNTING) & ACT JAMES BOND (FAILED BUT I APPLIED; THEY ARE PROBABLY STILL LAUGHING AT ME).

    For 20 years, he had an indecent amount of fun and good fortune, doing (and failing to do) these things, while starting out on various writing projects. He then settled down in Fuengirola, Spain, where he has worked on his own texts, while also blowing some fresh life into the writings of his once-famous father.

    Also: Laszlo Jr. is Swedish and French by nationality and has lived “everywhere,” people and animals have tried to kill him a dozen times. He speaks English, Swedish, Spanish, French, and Danish (though most Danes don't realize this). He is a bit of a giant, and he has probably done more brainless things than your five daftest friends together. Laszlo Jr. has also been: a mediocre actor, a too-tall model, an arrogant bridge player, a chess protégé, a slicing golfer, an art collector/exhibitor, a should-have-been rower, and a pathetically unexplosive discus-thrower.

  • BIBLIOGRAPHY
    SVENSK KONSTGLAS/SWEDISH ART GLASS (Sellin & Blomqvist) is a book about the glory of Swedish art glass from the early 20th century to the mid/late. It is a coffee table book, designed to make "the sort of people that influence public opinion" aware of the fact that Swedish art glass 1925 - 1950 was the best in the world, and thus to protect our cultural heritage. Unfortunately, though it sold well and caused fame, the "message-part" didn't work out as well as I had hoped. The book is available on the second-hand market at places such as eBay and Swedish Tradera. 
     

    OTHER BOOKS ON GLASS (work in progress). I have been fiddling about with the writing of a bilingual SWEDISH CRYSTAL. Also, I have gathered the material for a book on FLYGSFORS/COQUILLE but that will remain unfinished unless assistance is offered.

     
    THE CHALLENGE is a book inspired by Andres Laszlo Sr.'s best-seller/blockbuster MY UNCLE JACINTO. Senior’s: Madrid, "La Quinta," 1940s, bullfighting, and 17,000 words in my hands become Cape Town, Mandela Park, 2010, boxing, and 75,000 words. It is a book for children of all ages. The book, which comes either as plain text or with 70 illustrations in the same style as the cover, is presently available in English THE CHALLENGE, Italian LA SFIDA,  German DIE HERAUSFORDERUNG,  Spanish EL RETO, French LE GRAND DEFI, and Swedish UTMANINGEN. THE CHALLENGE also comes as a film script in English.
     
    THE DRUG PROBLEM is a book arguing that drug illegality is a dysfunctional discourse and that a society with a more liberal approach to drugs would be a better society. The book offers no opinion on whether drugs are good or bad in themselves but emphatically corroborates that the harms suffered under legalization probably are much greater than they would have been, had we taken a more liberal approach. It is a controversial book on a depressing subject matter that nevertheless is intended to be entertaining: a drug policy book like no other. It is also the first book in the series DYSFUNCTIONAL DISCOURSES. The book's first half is available also in Spanish: EL PROBLEMA DE LA DROGA. 
     
    DRUG ILLEGALITY IS A SCAM. Drug illegality is bad. Drug illegality is a scam, as well as the main cause of what you think of as “the drug problem”, and at the end of this short book, you will be convinced that it is so. This book is: 1) An introduction to The Drug Problem by the same author, 2) A promotion of his Youtube talks & 3) An attempt to make you understand that drug illegality really is a bad policy. Also available in Swedish: NARKOTIKAOLAGLIGHET.
     
     
     
    LASZLO & LASZLO CHRONICLES PART II is a collection of short stories from my own life. Several stories are taken from the adventure series The Caspian Connection and The Drug Problem. You will find that I have led quite an adventurous and - at least when I did not appear to be on my way to becoming a tiger’s lunch or executed by General Noriega's drug-trafficking police officers - quite entertaining life. Many of these stories read like treatments/scenarios, something that could make them interesting to producers.
     
     
     
    THE LASZLO & LASZLO CHRONICLES  is a collection of 49 (23+26) short stories. Both my father and I have led adventurous lives. Many of these stories read like treatments/scenarios; i.e., they are often designed to attract the attention of movie- and theatre producers. The stories are structured (and Senior’s adapted) to provide 110 years of continuation and biography. The text is available in English, Spanish (bad translation of part 2) and French, Italian, and Swedish.
     
    THE CASPIAN CONNECTION is one of my two remaining major unfinished projects. In this series, we follow the adventures of Odin's son as he walks the earth in the 21st century, unaware of his ancestry and subjected to plenty of temptations. Two books are written, and are presentable in English (THE SEVENTH LOT and A QUESTION OF HONOUR) and Swedish (DET SJUNDE UTROPED and EN FRÅGA OM HEDER). The back- and hidden stories are quite elaborate, and in potential complexity, I think of them as close to THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
     
    DYSFUNCTIONAL DISCOURSES II: WHY & HOW? is my second remaining major project. It will hold that we (as in "we humanity") organize ourselves dysfunctionally - as when we, for example, illegalize the supply of drugs, or allow money to influence outside its natural realm - and tries to through some light on how and why we do so.
     
    TRANSLATIONS/ADAPTATIONS x 7. I have (sometimes outsourcing the rough-translations) translated and adapted all Senior's 7 works from Spanish to English, and the texts have been given the content editing that 5 out of 7 had not previously received.
     
    MY UNCLE JACINTO is a translation and minor adaptation of Andre's Laszlo Sr.'s original text MI TIO JACINTO (an earlier English Random House translation exists). This English adaptation has then been translated also into French 2017: MON ONCLE JACINTO, and into Swedish 2017: MIN FARBROR TJURFÄKTAREN.
     
    PACO NEVER FAILS is a translation and minor adaptation of Andre's Laszlo Sr.'s original text PACO EL SEGURO. This adaptation is designed to make the book more attractive to contemporary readers and especially to filmmakers, who in the past have shown interest. The murder-mystery aspect has been enhanced.
     
    SENIOR'S SHORT STORIES is a translation and major adaptation of Andres Laszlo Senior's collection of short stories SOLO EL PAISAJE CAMBIA in which I have modernized Senior's stories and turned them "towards the screen." These stories have also been translated into French, Italian, and Swedish. This text, as part of a family chronicles, forms the first part of THE TALE(S) OF TWO KNAVES.
     
    MOTHER UNKNOWN is a translation and major adaptation of the only of Andres Laszlo Senior’s three "big" novels that haven't been turned into a movie (though Senior was negotiating a film contract at his demise). This book was never published in English and never given any content editing. As I translated it from Spanish to English, I have also adapted it towards the screen.
     
    DOÑA JUANA is a translation and major adaptation of Andres Laszlo Senior's used-to-be-theater-play-dressed-up-as-a-novella. This novella has now been returned to the theatre script it used to be, and I hope that it now showcases Senior as the theater person that he was before he started out as a novel-writer. The novella is available in Spanish, English, and Swedish: the script only in English.
     
    THE CRAB’S RHAPSODY is a translation and a major adaptation of Andres Laszlo Senior's LA PAPSODIA DE CANGREJO where we autobiographically follow Andres Laszlo as he starved his way through pre-war Paris: a dark comedy related to THE SEAL CASTLE but not to any other of his work.
     
    THE SEAL CASTLE is a translation and major adaptation of Andres Laszlo Senior's EL CASTILLO DE LAS FOCAS. Just as THE CRAB’S RHAPSODY it appears to be autobiographical, and we follow Senior as he takes up residence in the famous Turkish Baths of Budapest: the "seal" castle.
     

     

 
“I think of myself as one of the last who managed to capture some interesting slices of 'real reality' before it slipped away, leaving us with little more than virtual.”
Andres Laszlo Jr.

 

 

 

Andres Laszlo Senior and Junior are/were both tall, well-built, charming, and handsome (especially Junior). Also, they are both writers (especially Senior) and avid collectors. Both have lived their lives well outside of “normality,” both started their literary careers by writing art books designed to promote their collections, and neither of them could really complain over the title of their family chronicles: The Tale(s) of Two Knaves. If you like one of them, you’ll probably like the other (the opposite is probably also true). 

Andres Laszlo Sr.Andres Laszlo Sr., a mid-century feminist in the Paris’s ‘Bradley-circle’ – with titles such as Doña Juana (where Don Juan gets upstaged by a young girl); Mother Unknown (where the mother’s identity is unknown); Paco Never Fails (where the father of thousands realizes he is not the father of his wife’s child), and My Uncle Jacinto (where a womanless uncle/nephew relationship is explored – is being revived, upgraded and adapted (the main part of this article has been taken from Wikipedia ). More

 
Andres Laszlo Jr.At the age of one and a half, Marilyn Monroe put him in her lap and said he was adorable; 40 years later Richard Dawkins had him evicted from New College, Oxford. Andres Laszlo Jr. – adventurer, drug policy researcher, and budget jet-setter – has probably done more brainless things than your five daftest friends together. But, maybe more remarkably, Andres Laszlo Jr. is a fat and unattractive guy who has managed to convince life to let him lead the life of a looker. More
 

I HAVE MANAGED MUCH THANKS TO often famous "OTHERS", SO, THANK YOU:

1. MAKING ME BELIEVE IN MYSELF 1.

Marilyn Monroe, for by putting me in your lap at the Cannes Film Festival (where either father’s Mi Tio Jacinto or his friend Latzi Vajda’s Tarde de Toros was presented/rewarded). I do not remember anything of this – father said you ruffled my hair and said I was cute – but though my life per definition has been downhill since then, I've always figured I ought to have thought; If at the age of one or two…     VIDEO

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ANDRES LASZLO Sr.

BIOGRAPHY

Andres (Andras) Emerico Laszlo (von Keller) was born in Szinna, Austro-Hungary in 1910 (now Snina Slovakia) and died in Evry, France in 1985. His mother was Baroness Ilona von Keller (d1966), and his father was Maximilian Leibrowitz (d1931). The family later assumed the name, Laszlo. Andres' brother, Adalberto Laszlo, was a successful biochemist (d1972), and Andres' son, Andres Ulf Laszlo was born in Lund, Sweden, in 1955. A well-known author, Andres Laszlo Sr's fiction has also inspired three movies. He is remembered as a Spanish author, although born Austro-Hungarian and nationalized French: a "quadruple EU nationality" that has caused no country to "claim him" as their own: something that has caused his authorship of lately to be unfairly neglected/forgotten.

Born the son of a baroness and the traveling theater impresario that she eloped with, much of Andres' early youth - when not traveling with the theater company - was spent in Budapest where he hung around theaters, eking out his allowance by selling cherries on the ferries that navigated the waters between Buda from Pest. He went to school in Budapest and worked as an art critic, an actor, a stage manager, a stage director and eventually as well as manager of his father's traveling thespian society. He left Hungary for Paris in 1938. Not returning to Hungary after the war, France and Spain were to become his new home countries. Before the outbreak of the war, he brought his mother, brother, and oldest nephew from Hungary to live in Madrid. His later years were spent in Spain where he owned an important antique shop and France, making trips to Canada and the US to exhibit his extensive art collections. In 1956 he bought a house in Evry, outside Paris, where he lived for five years with his wife, Ulla, and his son (Andres Laszlo Jr.). During the sixties, seventies, and part of the eighties, he spent summers in France and winters in Spain. Laszlo Sr. had a great interest in art and put together two collections: Goya’s engravings and naïve Spanish art. Both collections were exhibited all over the world. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NB. The texts here listed are paper books only. From 2014 most of these books have been published in e-format, and many new translations have been made. More about these e-books is available (elsewhere) on this site. Note that all books have been translated (5)/retranslated (2) into English, while getting proper content editing and general polish.

1946. Francisco Goya, Spain: Editorial Tartessos. Several books on Goya and on Laszlo's own collection have been published earlier/later.

1947. El Castillo de las Focas, Spain: Janez.

1948. La Rapsodia del Cangrejo, Spain: Janez.

1950. Sin Uniforme. Spain, film-script (Ladislao Vajda directed).

1952. Donde los Vientos Duermen, Spain: Janez & Ediciones, Mere Inconnue, France: Stock, Die Mutter Meines Sohnes, Germany/Austria: Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1958.

1952. Donja Juana, Don Juan, Juan y Juanito, Spain: Janez, Don Juan: French theatre-play performed by Marcel Marceau.

1955. Solo el Paisaje Cambia, Spain: Janez.

1956. Mi Tio Jacinto, Spain: Janez, Pepote, Italy: Paravia, 1956. Le Muchacho, France: Gallimard, 1957 Mein Onkel Jacinto, Germany/Austria: Paul Zsolnay Verlag 1957 My Uncle Jacinto, Japan: Sogensha & Co, 1958. My Uncle Jacinto, U.S.A: Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1958. My Uncle Jacinto, UK: Jonathan Cape, 1958.

1956. Paco el Seguro, Spain: Janez, Paco l’infaillible/Paco le Prolifique France: Editions Gallimard, 1959. Paco Never Fails, UK: Secker & Warburg, 1960.  

FILMOGRAPHY

Sin Uniforme is a movie based on a script that Andres Laszlo co-wrote with Ladislao Vajda and others.

My Uncle Jacinto was a Spanish-Italian co-production released 31st of May 1956. The movie was directed by Ladislao Vajda, who co-wrote the script with Laszlo. The movie starred Pablito Calvo and Antonio Vico. Calvo went on to win the Premio del Public in Berlin for his performance, and the movie won a silver bear. The director and Laszlo were close friends, and the screenplay remained faithful to the original text. Unfortunately the last "cut" of the film has removed the wonderful undecidability that should result from that the viewer doesn´t know (and shouldn't know) whether Pepote's "they threw me out" is the truth or not.

Paco el Seguro was a French-Spanish co-production released 1979. Directed by Didier Haudepin, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Laszlo. Bloody Mary Productions were the main producer, but Filmoblic, Lotus Films, Record, and Tanagra were also involved. There were contractual disputes which resulted in that the film has not been shown outside Spain.

Mother Unknown. At his demise, Andres Laszlo Sr. was in the process of turning "Solo el Paisaje Cambia" into a film script.

The main part of this article has been taken from Wikipedia.



BIOGRAPHY

Andres Laszlo Jr., aged less than two, was placed in the lap of Marilyn Monroe who allegedly said he was cute, so from that point onwards his life by definition has been downhill, and eighteen years later he found himself the 3rd worst student of his school despite studying more than most and weighing in at 26 stones. A year and a half later he was the fastest student in the world (or close to it), occasionally sidelining in modeling.

PASSING TWO CUTE GIRLS IN THE STREET, LISTENING TO THEM GIGGLE AT ME, ONE PART OF ME SAID “THEY THINK I’M HOT,” THE OTHER PART SAID, “I LOOK SO DISGUSTING THAT THEY WANNA THROW UP.” OF COURSE, I WENT TOTALLY BONKERS.

Junior assumed himself to be God’s gift to humanity and went in search of something good enough to devote his newfound self to fight for. Finding only scales of grey, he changed his approach, and instead, he went in search of something bad enough to fight against. The scales were still grey, but since the darkest grey stuff on the "fight-against-list" (drug illegality and money becoming the measure of what it oughtn't to become a measure of) seemed closer to black than the lightest grey seemed to white on the "fight-for-list" (more/broader education and thinking for oneself/skepticism) he settled for "against" and though money becoming the measure of what it oughtn't to become a measure of bothered him a lot (and still does), he settled for drug illegality. His drug-thinking was, and still is: Let others occupy themselves about the users; what worries me is that illegality's higher prices create a whole lot more than less use: criminals, corruption, oligopolizacion, giant supplier surpluses and the way these monopoly-like surplusses are laundered and invested. What little good stuff follows from illegalization doesn’t come even close to compensate for this.

However, in his native Sweden, he found no encouragement: "We strongly recommend against such a thesis, and there’d be nobody outside police and academia allowed at your disputation,"said his supervisor. "I don’t understand what you want to achieve," said Hans Holmér (Sweden’s “National Police Commissioner”), and "We cannot support such an approach," said Vienna (UNODC).

As going from "best" student to mediocre (or at least unrecognized) Ph.D. wasn't a very attractive prospect, Laszlo Jr. gave up on academia and embarked on an all-the-things-a-man-should-have-done project, in order that if he one day got into the position to say something worthwhile to an audience that would be willing to listen, he would be properly prepared to do so. The first thing on his list was to sail around the world.

"ANDRES, YOU MIGHT BE BIG AND STRONG, BUT ONE NIGHT WHEN YOU SLEEP, I WILL KILL YOU," A LITTLE GIRL ON THE BOAT TOLD ME. I had to leave and LATER THE BOAT SUNK: I LOST MY LAST CORONA.

Laszlo Jr. gave up: broke and humiliated he returned to Sweden with the unpalatable knowledge that in order to do all those things a man should have done, one needs not only a cool bucket-list but also money. Charlotte, a friend at Bukowski's (at the time sot of Sweden’s “Sotheby’s”), told him:I say you should buy Swedish art deco, and my boyfriend says Swedish art glass.Out of this Laszlo Jr. came up with "Orrefors 1925 – 1950." He emptied the glass shops, bought cheaply at auction, sold the lesser part of his collection, wrote a book, and became well off and famous.

"I TRIED TO TELL THE SWEDES THAT ORREFORS ART GLASS 1925 - 50 WAS THE ONLY THING THAT WE HAVE BEEN BEST AT SINCE THE VIKING'S WOOD AND SILVER, BUT AGAIN: NOBODY LISTENED."

For a second time Andres Laszlo Jr. set up an “all-the-things-a-man-should-have-done-list" - actually, he based it on a list he had composed at the age of 9 or 10, and he then spent 20 years pursuing the things on the list:

ENGLISH AS WRITTEN LANGUAGE (√), ATHLETE (√), 3Y AT OXFORD (√), B.A. PHILOSOPHY (√), B.A. WRITING (√), OALD BY HEART (√), SHOOT MAN-EATING TIGER (AN ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING RESOLUTION - SORRY), SURF PIPELINE (√), 200 COUNTRIES (187 WITH VERY CREATIVE COUNTING) & ACT JAMES BOND (FAILED BUT I APPLIED; THEY ARE PROBABLY STILL LAUGHING AT ME).

For 20 years, he had an indecent amount of fun and good fortune, doing (and failing to do) these things, while starting out on various writing projects. He then settled down in Fuengirola, Spain, where he has worked on his own texts, and on blowing some fresh into the writings of his once-famous father.

Also: Laszlo Jr. is Swedish and French by nationality and has lived “everywhere,” people and animals have tried to kill him a dozen times. He speaks English, Swedish, Spanish, French, and Danish (though most Danes doesn't realize this). He is a bit of a giant, and he has probably done more brainless things than your five daftest friends together. Laszlo Jr. has also been: a mediocre actor, a too-tall model, an arrogant bridge-player, a chess protégé, a slicing golfer, an art collector/exhibitor an unbalanced rower, a should-have-been rower, and a ridiculously unexplosive discus-thrower.