Dear Reader,

Welcome to my substack! I’m going to treat this like my super secret diary, writing down all the details of my seriously crazy life the way I would have if I had kept a journal as a heartsick pubescent boy. Only the select few like yourself will be able to join me on my journey to realizing my biggest dream: becoming the prom king of the content world!

Do you dare to read more?

It’s June 17th and I’m in Dalkey, Ireland for the Dalkey Book Festival. I’m with a lot of fabulous writers here, and while I’m too painfully shy to rub shoulders with them, I do get asked to a lot of dinners and drinks and such, and several glasses of wine and my customary martini always manages to loosen my tongue.

Last night at dinner, I sat next to the wonderful Fiona Hill, whom I greatly admired from the first Trump impeachment hearings and we compared our lives growing up in Leningrad and Northern England. Apparently they’re not so different! Next to us was Bono and I thanked him greatly for his role in helping Ukraine, which he has visited and all. What a nice fella. I also told him about my secret, secret project, which I will only tell youabout, dear reader. My dream of turning a recent New Yorker article about my botched circumcision into a one-person play starring yours truly! Yes, I can sling content all day long, but there’s also a performer deep down inside me.

You can read more about my schlong and its travails here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/11/a-botched-circumcision-and-its-aftermath

Anyway, I could tell that Mr. Bono was very intrigued by mention of my penis and did not run away at all.

I’m staying in this weird old castle hotel and I’m trying not to drink a lot. That’s not easy, because Ireland. Ran into an old friend of mine in Dublin the other day and we drank four glasses of grappa and wine and gossiped the day away. Did you know that a “moderate” drinker only drinks 14 glasses a week and no more than four a day? That shall be my mission, too! So far I’m up to 12 and it’s only Friday afternoon here. Goddamnit. Well, this week will be a wash, I can tell already.

Oh, I was on a great panel about how shitty Russia is these days with Fiona and Merve Emre, who also writes for the New Yorker and is super, super great and I talked about how Putin’s breasts keep haunting my nightmares ever since the invasion. I can just about picture those horrible flabby pink nipples – oh, god, dear diary, why is living such hell?!!?

Also, next month I turn 50. For a Russian that’s like turning 150. Okay, off to do a reading and then drink some more. But I will stop at four drinks, I swear! Please keep me honest, dear reader. I love you. Ta ta.

Yours,

Gary aka Gari aka GarBear

Gary’s Journey Through Hell

Is this thing on?