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A weekend with Gary Busey is a harrowing experience.
For instance when I first met him he asked me if I wanted a mixed drink: I assumed he meant alcohol so naturally I accepted his offer. Imagine my surprise when he came into the room kicking a jug of milk with one foot and kicking a can of chocolate syrup with the other.
"What the hell are you doing Gary?" Yes, even I was surprised by how crass I was being.
"Mixing chocolate milk."
"What the hell do you mean? They're in two separate containers. . . how is such a thing--"
"What?" He then came real close to me, close enough to allow me to peer into his Godless crazy eyes. He smiled like a demon, with those Goddamn choppers of his, making me fear he'd bite my nose off like some ornery parrot, but he just stared at me. "Just because they are separate, doesn't mean that they're not together!"
"No Gary, actually thats exactly what that means."
"What?! What?!"
"Fine no drinks Gary, no drinks."
"Fine, no fucking drinks."
He then produced a groan similar to one made by a dieing animal, or a man about to succumb to a seizure; the mind screams and the voice tries to say so many things at once it simply groans, before the eyes flicker and the body twitches. Quite frankly, its one of the most sickening sounds a person can hear, and anyone who has ever heard it before knows what it does to you, and what rotten waves of sickness come up your spine in tingles of pure electricity. . . Yet with Gary its different, he does it so often that the sickness eventually subsides and no longer makes you want to wretch, but instead makes one want to punch him.
Which is why Gary has those fake horse teeth of his.
He told me, he pulled me in real close and told me, the bastard.
"See these?" Chomp, chomp. His left eye squinted, he looked as if perhaps he was shitting his pants. He then told me.
Listen:
"Boy, you do know, that when you look an animal in the eye as you eat it, you can take its soul and let it nourish you forever. . ." Before I had time to ask just what the hell he was talking about, he continued, but not before jutting out his right arm and shaking me by the shoulder violently. "It'll nourish you forever. . . I was at some bar and some bastard thought perhaps he could impose himself upon me." MAD MAN SCREAMS. "Yeah, thought he knew a thing or two about me. But listen, what you don't know is almost exactly what you know, only more dangerous. . . " Again, before I had time to ask what he meant he continued. "Now you're a star in the galaxy. There are many stars around, but there are no stars like you. You haven't died out yet, you still burn pure. And thats a good thing. . . And if you take the energy from these stars, gather em up, you can really make fire. And thats what this bastard did, right on my teeth. The universe is eternal, unlike all things in it."
He smiled.
"Wait, so how did you lose your teeth?"
He frowned, disgusted.
"Why, I just told you Goddammit! Are those ears of yours clogged with ignorance?"
The thing is, Gary was right. You'll see.
"I guess so Gary, I guess so."
Other people will give you a decipherable story, you know one with an actual linear plot line, like the one his ex-wife, Judy Helkenberg told me days later:
"Gary, as you probably have noticed, has a bad cough. Or we called it a cough anyway. If anything, its more like a mind cough. Or a hiccup. A wildman whoop."
"A goose dieing."
"So you've heard it. Yes, well back in the eighties, Gary had himself a bad motorcycle accident. You know its funny, I miss that noise. He wasn't wearing a helmet or anything, and it severely injured him. The doctors feared it gave him brain damage, and rightfully so. I think it did. I really do. Everyone thought it did too. Everyone except Gary. He thought it just brought down the barriers, the guards, but we know better. He said it just made him impulsive. Made him say things and do things most people think, but never do. Well, he was at this bar, and he just starting his outbursts. He was yelling all over the bar, dropping stuff on people like he was saying something real revolutionary and important. Well after awhile, this guy got sick of it, and the two got into it, and well he just about knocked all of Gary's teeth out."
"Wow."
"Yeah." She seemed very sad. "Yeah, but it was all the accident you see. . . I don't know why you're here, I assume to write some article about Gary, but would you please do your best not to defame him? I mean, he's really got some brain damage going on up there. After the crash, he never was quite the same. At least now the doctor has him on some medication, but sometimes he forgets, and he goes off. . . Be kind to him, won't you? Won't you?"
Gary was right, I was ignorant. Lots of times thats the case. Media just isn't fair. They spin things a certain way and people take it for the truth. People just don't like investigating further, it isn't in their interest. Its easy to assume certain things. Its easy to assume.
"I won't." I said.
She was very grateful. She tried to offer me coffee, but I don't drink that stuff. So she tried to offer me some sponge cake, but I told her I don't like sweets either. I left her with a thanks and a promise to do right by her ex-husband. When I got back to Gary he was launching golf balls into a nearby lake.
HIIIIYAH! The white ball took off and disappeared into the clouds, and as gravity had its way it came down and plopped into the water like a dead fish.
HIIIIYAAAH! Another and another. . .
"So I Gary I spoke with your ex-wife. . ." I said.
HIIIIYAAAAH, another.
"Oh really?"
"Yeah, Gary."
HIIIIIIYAAAAAH! Another.
"So how bout that motorcycle accident?" I asked, I knew it was kind of a douchey move. But work is work. Yah dig?
"What about it?"
"You tell me?"
He stopped whacking balls. Instead he took his nine iron and chucked it into the lake HIIIIYAAAAH.
"She tell you how it changed me?"
"Yes." I said. "You think it changed you."
"Hardly. It takes years to make mountains you know. It takes years to make sand. And there's no one anywhere who can say that the sand is any less than the mountain."
"Oh yeah?" I had no idea what he was getting at.
"Yeah, you ignorant boy? Sand, although finite can be stretch across the stars and measure Godliness."
"Yeah Gary..." This was all pointless. "I gotta get going."
"Then go, boy."
"Bye Gary."
"Hello is no different from goodbye."
"Sure Gary, sure."
I stopped. I left and took the notebook I had been writing in and took it home with me. I placed it under my bed, and after a few hours and a couple of drinks, I returned to it and tore every damn page out. It was some asshole story about how Gary likes to eat paint, and how Gary likes to paint with chocolate pudding. About how Gary doesn't like horses, he prefers bulls. About how Gary's got his own line of clothing, modeled after shopping bags.
It was a real rotten piece.
Just tore it up and burned it.
Sorry.
Gary Busey has gotten a real bad rap in the media. Yeah, he's fucking crazy, and at times fucking retarded, but unlike most celebrities, this isn't because he's stupid.
His brain is damaged.
That motorcycle really did him in, kind of like Bob Dylan, but even more so. Even still, Gary Busey has amassed himself quite the career. He's done more than a hundred movies, and has done at least one every year since 1971. All these movies, and all anyone can say about him is that he's bat shit crazy, and thats not entirely his fault.
If you ask me, that makes Mr. Gary Busey pretty damn bad ass.
He's also been in television, most recently Entourage, which has depicted Gary as bat shit crazy. And guess what, Entourage is kind of right about that. Although recently, his doctors have found that his accident did indeed cause brain damage (before that they were just fearful of it,) and Gary never really wanted to acknowledge it (who the fuck would?) but these days he's taking medication to keep all the chemicals in his head right.
If anything, Gary's a really nice guy. He's fucking cool too. Being friends with Hunter S. Thompson just further proves that. Sure he looks like he fell asleep next to a giant set light, but he's all in all, a good guy. I say it, so it is so. Despite being crazy, he's done far more better work than any other actor who's been labeled "sane," and that fuckin' says something.
It is for these reasons, that iR declares Gary Busey, inspirationally retarded.
love, iR
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