A photograph of Mark Ames from an eXile article

Mark Ames (1965-) is a Moscow-based American journalist and editor. He is the founding editor of the satirical biweekly the eXile in Moscow, to which he regularly contributes. Ames has also written for the New York Press, The Nation, Playboy, The San Jose Mercury News, Alternet, Птюч Connection, and other periodicals, and is the author of three books. Image File history File links This is a copyrighted promotional photo with a known source. ... Image File history File links This is a copyrighted promotional photo with a known source. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: â–¶ (help· info)) is the capital of Russia, located on the river Moskva. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. ... The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed. ... The New York Press is one of many free alternative weekly competitor to the Village Voice in New York City. ... The Nation is the name of several newspapers, periodicals or magazines in different countries, including: The Nation, an Irish Nationalist newspaper founded by Thomas Davis and Charles Gavan Duffy in the 1840s. ... Classic Playboy logo. ... The Mercs sections vary by day of the week, but Business, Sports, and The Valley are standard daily fare. ... AlterNet is a popular news website that was created in 1998. ...

Biography

Born on October 3, 1965, Ames was raised in Saratoga, California, a then-provincial town in the Bay Area's Silicon Valley, where he attended an Episcopalian private school. His Saratoga upbringing produced a lasting influence on his writing.[1] Nickname: {{{nickname}}} Motto: {{{motto}}} Official website: http://www. ... Bay Area is a common term to refer to a metropolitan area situated around a bay. ... A view of downtown San Jose, the self-proclaimed Capital of Silicon Valley. Like many large cities, San Joses downtown is expansive and encompasses much more area than shown in this view. ... The word Episcopal is derived from the Greek επισκοπος epískopos, which literally means overseer; the word however is used in religious terms to mean bishop. ...

After leaving Saratoga, Ames attended the University of California, Berkeley while living with his father (his parents had divorced when Ames was eight years old). He later described how his college years shaped his later political views in a section of the eXile book (The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia): University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (also known as California, Cal, UCB, UC Berkeley, The University of California, or simply Berkeley) is a public, coeducational university situated east of the San Francisco Bay in Berkeley, California, overlooking the Golden Gate. ...

"I was a student at Berkeley in the late Reagan years. We had a lot of ideas back then, big dreams about getting famous and destroying the "Beigeocracy" that we thought stifled and controlled American Letters. Everything seemed possible then: world war, literary fame ... Anyway, something Really Big, with us at the center of it all. We'd ridicule the boring lefties, our enemies. We'd drop all sorts of drugs and go to the underground shows: Scratch Acid, Husker Du, Sonic Youth. It felt like something might happen, and soon." (excerpt available online)

After college, Ames "lived in poverty and vileness" ("жил в бедности и злобе," according to his publisher's biographical sketch) in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Prague, and played in a short-lived punk band. ([2]) He also lived with a Czech girlfriend in a suburban California nursing home. In the eXile book he recalls this period of his life as a dull one: Nickname: The Big Apple Motto: Official website: City of New York Location Location in the state of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area Total 468. ... Boston is a town and small port c. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Prague (Czech: Praha, see also other names) is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. ...

"The Bush years marked my decline, the Fall of my empire of dreams. When Bush and his golfing buddies got tossed out in '92, I started thinking, hey, Bush and I have a lot in common. Except in one small respect: Bush was a filthy-rich historical figure, whereas I was an unemployed, barely-published, aging zero."

It was during this time that Ames began his gradual migration from California to Moscow. In August 1991 he visited Europe, sojourning for two weeks in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad). "That 14-day Homeric adventure on the streets of Leningrad really made an impression," Ames wrote; and though he returned to the United States to live in Foster City, California, he continued thinking of Russia, and delved into Russian literature. At this time Ames also suffered from a painful case of scabies (possibly contracted through a sexual encounter in Russia), whose severity allegedly merited a case-study mention in the New England Journal of Medicine ([3]). After spending mid '92 to early '93 in Prague, Ames moved to Moscow. In 1995 he published The Rise and Fall of Moscow's Expat "Royalty" in the English-language Moscow newspaper The Moscow Times, and was shortly thereafter hired by its competitor Living Here. In 1997 he left to establish the eXile, where he remains as writer and editor. 1991 (MCMXCI) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland... Foster City is a planned city located in San Mateo County, California. ... Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union. ... The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society with the highest impact factor for a general medical journal. ... Prague (Czech: Praha, see also other names) is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: â–¶ (help· info)) is the capital of Russia, located on the river Moskva. ... The Moscow Times is an English-language daily newspaper published in Moscow, Russia since 1992. ... The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed. ...

Bibliography

• The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia (ISBN 0802136524). Co-authored with Matt Taibbi, and published in 2000 with a forward by Edward Limonov.
• В Россию с любовью (Записки американского изгоя), Мама Пресс, 2002. (ISBN 5-902382-02-5) available in Russia. The title can be translated as To Russia with Love (Notes from an American Outcast).
• Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond, 2005 (ISBN 1932360824). In this work Ames argues that "killing sprees" at U.S. workplace and schools are acts of political insurgency rather than ordinary crimes or the actions of disturbed individuals.

A Photograph of Matt Taibbi Matt Taibbi (b. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Eduard Limonov (real name Eduard Savenko) is a Russian dissident, intellectual, and writer. ... 2002 (MMII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Excerpts

After all, America's wealth was essentially created by slavery and the slave trade. Scholars have traced how the Industrial Revolution was funded directly by capital accumulated slave industry [sic]. . . The American corporate magnates of today aren't derived from a different species that their slave-trading ancestors--they have merely evolved by adapting to different conditions and altering their metaphors with the times.

Going Postal 2005

See also

• The eXile
• Gary Brecher
• Matt Taibbi
• John Dolan
• Gonzo Journalism

The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed. ... The War Nerd logo. ... A Photograph of Matt Taibbi Matt Taibbi (b. ... John Dolan (Born 1955) is an American poet, writer, and essayist. ... Gonzo journalism is a journalistic style, most famously used by Hunter S. Thompson. ...

External links

• A column written by Ames in 2003 for New York Press, about (and against) Spin Magazine writer Chuck Klosterman.
• 'BOOKS' (NY Press, Volume 18, Issue 21, May 25, 2005)
• The Exile - an English language, Moscow-based, semi-weekly alternative paper
• 'Trenchant Warfare!' (Silicon Valley Metro, May 25-31, 2000)
• 'From Russia With Malice' (Reason Magazine, January 2001)
• AlterNet, 3 October 2005, "A Brief History of Rage, Murder and Rebellion" - interview with Ames
• Mark Ames of 'the eXile' - a feature on Mark Ames including a brief introduction by Dan Pulcrano and several excerpts from the eXile book.
• Forbes review of Going Postal, 2 December 2005
• Democracy Now interview with Amy Goodman, Greg Palast, and Dan Briody 8 December 2003