Brian Gerard (Lewandowski)
Brian Gerard (Lewandowski) writes books critics call “aggressively adequate” — better than “aggressively terrible,” yet somehow more concerning, like a smoke detector that only goes off on Tuesdays. He is, by his own rigorous and unanimous internal polling, a genius. He once traded a MetroCard for a pitchfork on a subway platform and now uses it exclusively for dramatic pointing, which is the highest and best use of any tool. He lives on a farm outside Charlottesville, Virginia, with a partner who smiles politely at his life choices, a pig named Trouble McFussbucket who has opinions about the sofa, and a five-pound dog named Professor Archibald Pickles who appears to be held together entirely by anxiety and unearned confidence, qualities Brian deeply respects and shares (And there is a blind dog, one-armed cat, and a Chihuhua).
Inheriting absurdism from Vonnegut and Adams and weaponized failure from Moore, then improving on all three (his words), he writes about conflicted everymen stumbling through supernatural chaos. He has published “The 10-Items-or-Less Apocalypse,” “Not Bukowski,” and “Slop and Swill from a Festering Mind,” three books that will one day be studied, possibly by accident. He also has two new novels seeking a publisher brave enough to deserve them: “Truth Tastes Like Pennies” (available to paid Substack subscribers right now) and “Elliot Nessie.” He remains unconvinced that birds aren’t surveillance drones, and frankly, you should be flattered they’re watching him and not you.
So why subscribe to this joker?
Because you’ve already doom-scrolled through everything else, and this is what’s left, and what’s left happens to be spectacular. Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives, which is a fancy way of saying you’ll be able to read things I wrote at 11 pm while a 167-pound pig stared at me through a window like she pays the mortgage.
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Every new post lands directly in your inbox, which means you’ll know the instant I’ve had a thought. This happens less often than my talent would suggest, but when it does, it’s usually about something important — a NASA toilet malfunction, the existential despair of sperm whales, or why I am categorically not a carwash guy. Never miss an update. Get the Substack app for a spam-free, ad-free experience, plus audio so you can hear these words read aloud by someone who is definitely not me but sounds vaguely disappointed in themselves, which only makes me sound better by comparison.
For paid subscribers: novels, delivered in weekly installments like it’s 1887
Paid subscribers now get exclusive weekly chapter releases of Truth Tastes Like Pennies, a satirical conspiracy novel featuring a synesthetic ex-FBI agent, a government efficiency consultant named Brandy, a janitor named Timothy Splashinski, and a pair of genuinely threatening government-enhanced otters. If you’ve ever thought, “I wish someone would write something deeply unhinged and mail it to me in pieces,” congratulations, and also seek help. This is that.
Also available in the vault: Elliot Nessie, a noir cryptid detective novel set in Dubuque, Iowa, starring a private investigator who may or may not be the Loch Ness Monster. It is exactly what it sounds like. It is also better than it has any right to be, much like its author.
New chapters drop weekly. Paid subscribers only. The otters are watching. So is Elliot.
So, in a sense, am I.
Join the crew
Come for the absurdist humor. Stay because you, too, live on a hobby farm outside Charlottesville, split your time with Manhattan, and have a five-pound dog named Professor Archibald Pickles. Or don’t — just lurk in the comments and nod knowingly, basking. Either way, you’re among people of taste and discernment, which I know because they’re here, reading me.
This stuff is written by me: humor writer, satirist, former stand-up comedian, ex-TV promo guy (IFC, Bravo, the Sportsman Channel — yes, that one), and current Senior Content Pope of a biotech company, a title no one asked for, no one can take away, and which I will be referencing at parties for the rest of my life.
To learn more about the platform lucky enough to keep this whole operation afloat, visit Substack.com.
