i don’t know what story to tell about assburgers gary because assburgers gary is ultimately too neurotic to really do anything of note … that’s not to say that assburgers gary isn’t one of my dearest friends (as well as the last one left in town) … assburgers gary is 72 and received his phd from cal-berkeley at the tender age of 23 … is assburgers gary a genius?--i would say yes, but he’s also almost too “special” to be walking around amongst the proletariat (his word--not mine) … does assburgers gary really have assburgers?--not officially, but he’s old enough to have had “it” before new york invented the concept (to make money off neurotic gentiles) … is assburgers gary a virgin?--well, he claims to have lost his virginity to a swedish grad student under a bridge in stockholm circa 1965, but i don’t think there are any (living) witnesses … assburgers gary is most definitely a millionaire (the urban legend is that he has a $20 bill hidden in every book in his apartment with number in the tens of thousands), but lives like a pauper in the worst slum in eastern iowa … his neighbors are all criminals/drug dealers and my dad would say that one of them will soon “knock him in the head” and take all his money … he actually fell prey to a computer scam just last week--he was on a poetry submission site and his computer froze and a message popped up that he should call a number in canada for virus-protection--he called the number and he gave them his credit card number and they deducted $250 from his account before unfreezing his computer (which they froze to begin with) … gary then spent 36 hours writing a 14-page e-mail warning all his friends of the scam … if you want a better story: gary organized a “co-birthday party” for wiseman and pastor ted a few years ago where we would all meet at the local movie theater for a movie and then go out to dinner afterwards … the three of us arrived at 6, but there was no assburgers gary … we waited until 6:30 and then 7 and then i tried to call him (knowing full well that assburgers gary wouldn’t pick up because the phone call could potentially cost him long-distance charges) … instead of going to a later movie, we decided to drive over to gary’s apartment and bang on his door … it’s also worth noting that, to my knowledge, no colleague of gary’s has ever been in his apartment since dean bell helped him move circa 1982 … when we knocked, gary unlocked the door, but wouldn’t remove the chain … it seems that there had been a tornado warning earlier in the day, and assburgers gary had retreated to the relative safely of a closet in his bedroom … since the tornado warning expired at 7, gary eventually joined us for dinner/drinks (and only ordered a glass of water since he was “dieting” that week) … there was also the story about the time gary almost burned his apartment complex down … he forgot that he was cooking noodles on the stove and by the time he realized it, the fireman were knocking at his door because of all the smoke … the fire marshal paid gary a visit later that week and told him that the 50,000 books (a rough estimate because i really have no idea how many books are in gary’s apartment) were a fire hazard and he would have to get rid of half of them … and much like the beaver from leave it to beaver, gary loaded thousands of books into his broken-down pt cruiser and drove them to school the day the fire marshal came back to inspect his apartment … gary also has a thing about weight (i think because he used to be heavyset as a child) … for the first year i knew gary, he would ask me at least once a week how much i weighed--he wasn’t afraid to come up and randomly say “282 pounds” in the hall either … on more than one occasion, i’ve also seen gary walk up to a random female faculty member and guess how much weight they had put on since the last time he had seen them (and i promise you that women hate that infinitely more than chubby kids--they don’t seem to understand that it’s just assburgers gary’s way of letting them know that he’s paying attention to them) … so what is gary’s life like in 2017 after the fall of shady state with no family and me as his only friend?--well, gary claims that he’s “busier now than when he was teaching” … he joined 3-4 book clubs and somehow talked his way onto the school board and the town human rights commission (not that a tiny, iowa town particularly needs a human rights commission) … he also has lunch every weekday at a different retirement home in the area … did i mention that he writes poetry and emails me 3-4 poems a day for proofreading?--once i proofread them, he sends them out to hundreds of people (former colleagues, retirees, and folks from the nursing home) to the point where i get 3-4 emails a month from his friends asking me how they can “get gary to stop sending them poetry without hurting his feelings”--and the only response is: that’s just gary, you can’t
The Midnight Rider prefers to remain mysterious. You could visit his
website, but he won't say where it is. You could read his books, but
he won't say what they are. You could email him, but I'm pretty sure
spam@gofuckyourself.gov is not a real email address. In a world where
everyone is repping their Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, sex
tapes, line of clothing, new microbrew, virus panic vaccine status, and overall brand, I find that
refreshing. I am happy to have The Rider ride on drinkdrankdrunk.
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