Once every ten years nearly 8,000 men and women accumulate around the Great Moss (the world’s freshest patch of moss) at the center of Blubbery Island, the largest isle in an archipelago floating at a brisk speed of 3 miles per hour off the dregs of Alasker. Blubbery Island plays host to thousands of neckbearded pirates there to participate in undisclosed festivities related to their fascinating escapades on reality TV and online anonymous chat services. Known colloquially by Alasker Natives as the March of the Bettas, this gathering is exclusive to members of the cult known formally as the Vegetable Coathanger Society.

Having first heard of the March of the Bettas while listening to alt-conservative radio shows during our frees, we were taken aback upon finding out, not soon after, that YouTube political commentator Wild Bill for America was raffling off exclusive VIP tickets to the event in support of the 700 Club’s struggling multimillionaire host Pat Robertson. Two days and $12,000 later, we received our tickets in the mail, the anticipation bubbling in our spleens. They arrived enclosed in a series of rosaceous red boxes, each of which contained a snazzy chrome fairy doll doused in black and purple cotton shavings.

In the center box was an off-yellow crumpled piece of wax paper, containing, what we believed to be a set of directions. Unsure of the language in which the document was written, we called in our big buddy, Hoss Chauvince. Now, Hoss might be a crabby 52 year old Italian man from the Bronx, but he knows his ancient cuneiform. In just hours, we’d learned the names of fourteen different Chinese restaurants and four lesbian pop stars. We were so in love with the language we hadn’t realized the sheet of paper we found in the center box was actually a poorly printed pizza take-out menu. Sitting in the box adjacent were our 80s-sports-car-red tickets--with hillbilly flames and all!

Impressed, we set out for Blubbery Island with haste, but having booked our trip on such short notice we were unable to book a one way flight to Nome, Alaska. Instead, we were forced to book a flight with Tigerair Australia to Anaconda, Montana. After being kicked off a Mexico Viva Aerobus flight, during our connection, for ’harassing’ a flight attendant, we had no choice but to travel on foot towards Old Crow, Yukon. With valour, we marched into the lion’s den of Canada at a steady pace of forty knots.

Upon crossing the Canadian border we thought we were going to miss out on all of the 21st century American mediocrity awaiting us in Alasker! Apparently, we were actually six weeks early. No thanks to Hoss Chauvince for reading the menu upside down! After three days of hitchhiking, having been forced to break our paleo diets by sharing a massive smorgasbord at Tim Hortons--our temporary home--we were apprehended by Canadian authorities for speeding. Since this was Canada we knew they wouldn’t shoot us, so we agreed to a week’s forced labor at an Ontario logging camp.

During our time on the inside, which we have since signed a non-disclosure agreement for, we came across a young lad in his mid twenties by the name of Johnson Stickinson; his true bro-name shall not be revealed. Our chance encounter with Stickinson would alter our nine week spiritual journey. During our first conversation with Stickinson, whose penchant for filthy jokes earned him the well-sought title of Canuck Sailor, we quickly learned he had been picked up several years ago on his way to the March of the Bettas. “I was young...ummmm... penniless, and ummm... restless and free, and feverishly desperate for some of that peggy-legged action,” Stickinson saltily remarked one evening while chewing a roasted squirrel tail.

As Stickinson began to warm up to our, apparently rather slithery presence, he began to exhibit symptoms of intense paranoia, often taking form in spastic jittering. Through close observation we quickly realized his facial tick was pronounced upon the utterance of the letter ’i’ as found in ’I wanna diarrhea’ or ’I wanna like the iodide carbohexetane’. After three hours of interrogation in the log splitting room, he finally cracked, and after another six hours of burying his poorly aged 68-year-old-manboy face into his hook hand, he finally got up and told us the truth--he began to tell us about a man by the name of Ivan Glanderson.

Ivan Glanderson is the tacit messiah of the Vegetable Coathanger Society. In 2005, Glanderson indulged in the federally condemned act of revealing his identity online in a heated exchange specifically regarding Okungo Wambafembe and the schooling crisis in Uganda. Since the incident, he has been under constant threat of neutralization by the USPS secret police. However, due to a state-law preventing the removal of any spiritual vagrants inhabiting geological formations, he has lived the past 11 years of his life in the immaterial caldera of Mount Pavlof. Nonetheless, Glanderson has evaded authorities on a regular basis, cameoing in a number of classic Wakaliwood film productions, as well as hosting his local cable reality TV show American Plastic Lawn Chair, Made in China. But being a proud Betta fish at heart, Glanderson has spent most of his time doing what he knows best: chatting online anonymously with strangers and sucking down mountains of stale cheetos dipped in blueberry pie.

Now even more enthralled by the idea of meeting a man by the likes of Glanderson, we were propelled into angst as we railed against the bars of our Canadian dungeon walls, logs piling everywhere--even in our dreams. Maple syrup began to seep from the tin ceiling, muffling our anguished screams. We soon found ourselves drawing straws to see who would have to suck it all up, but we cheated and tricked Stickinson into doing it. Neither of us shall ever forget Stickinson’s face before he died, as the corrosive effect of the maple syrup worked its way through his swollen glands. That was also the first time we’d ever seen a liver.

The mounties dragged our still screaming mate from the dungeon, cursing us in Canadian. However, they failed to notice as we cunningly escaped through the cell door they conveniently left open; Canadians always hold the door open for their American friends.

Before we knew it, we were flying with the classy ladies aboard Wingo Airlines finally enroute to our destination, the glorious Nome, Alaska, the world capital of UFO sightings. In two days’ time we were reluctantly basking in the luxury of our, unfortunately, single-bedded suite at Anu’s Lodge. At $20 a night, it’s the best deal you’ll get, and irresistible to Trevor’s budget-aware attitude. Dressed in our late-70s elasticin Parisian night suits we hopped on the ferry to the Great Moss, the anticipation bubbling, once again, like thick Himalayan BBQ sauce on your papa’s grill.

The Great Moss was lit up like a gigantic Celtic kwanzaa tree, the epithetic notes of ’Catgroove’, the brain child of electroswing god, Parov Stelar, ringing through the air. Men with beards engulfing their necks like giant squids fending off sperm whales, bald-headed stallions of the night, cloaked themselves in layers of funereal obesity and princes of butt-hurt. The first gust of wind carried with it the smell of failed opportunity riding the utterances of foreign swear words and poorly digested potato chips. It felt as though we had just stepped into a Jason Aldean concert, except this audience had teeth. But amongst the collateralized dignity of lazy American testosterone, where was he? Where was Glanderson, the man we had heard of, the messiah?

As it turned out, we had travelled all the way to Alasker to receive nothing for our efforts. Instead of attending the March of the Bettas, Ivan Glanderson was off in Mumbai shooting footage for American Plastic Lawn Chair, Made in China. With the very last bit of dignity we could muster, we cried our way to the docks. There sat an elderly fisherman by the name of Hansen McDermott, who broke into a verbal flurry shouting out homosexual slurs as we approached him, but we soon realized he was simply asking us to hop into his little purple cigarette boat. After two weeks of boating across the United States--sleeping with our fellow penguin crew members--we had finally made it home.

Our adaption to civilian life was hard and took quite some time. Separately, we were tortured by the enigma which had so seamlessly alluded us. We had to know the truth--we had to talk to Ivan Glanderson. After weeks of internal trauma, we used a loaner from the school to hack our way onto the dark web. There, we were able to get a hold of one of Glanderson’s closest bros, a man by the name of Rashid Al-Hasaham. Al-Hasaham told us we could set up a meeting with Glanderson via the website talkwithstranger.com, under the pretense that we could track him down on the site.

Within minutes we were logged on with our account name, sexysadie, a pseudonym we’d scientifically engineered to entice Glanderson. After four hours of skipping, picture exchanging, and talking about my pet armadillo Terrence, we had the man in our crosshairs: Ivan Glanderson. Here is a direct transcription of our formal interview with Glanderson (NOTE: The interview only commenced after luring in our target with explicit messages, which have been redacted from the interview for the benefit of clarity).

What’s your name?
They calla meeee... Ivan Glenderson.

Glad to have that cleared up, Ivan. In your popular television show, American Plastic Lawn Chair, Made In China, you talked to your viewers about responsibility. What responsibility do you see in being a role model for the millions of generations to come?
Well, uh... it’s tough. It’s real tough. We Alaskerns have it tough out here. Catchen’ feshes all days... it’s super hard. We gotta be in it together.

How’s the secret society coming along? What is it like being a Vegetable?
Whoa...well, uh...it’s pretty rad. You gets to do a whole lotta special stuff like...uh...eatin’ polar bears. Gettin’ free passes inna Tim Hortons. Abortions. It’s the slick life, dude. You gotta feel the Vegetable soul consume yerself. Before ye know it, yer gonna be a eggplant man! There’s a reason my skin turned purple and I don’t think it’s my flunder crumpy talking.

What has been the capstone of your career?
Well, uh... lotsa people say it’s that time I told the Wambo that Ugandan schools are doin’ just fine. But that ain’t true. I would say...it’s gotta be the Big Slasher Incident of ’49. There was lots of lights. Big flashes. Big people. Big women. The whole town was out to buy themselves some of them wooden sandpaper bags from the king Best Buy. It was big ol’ Isa, alright. We hads our guns and our spears up at the mother sky...and, uh...that’s when...that’s when...I unleashed my spells. I said. I said. Begone ye foul beast of sand and land! You ain’t got no power here as long as I got my wangdoodle staff. An’ just like that. That storm was all gone.

Many small townsfolk view you as a poster boy for underground drug use, how do you feel about that, eh, kiddo?
Well, uh... I’m a proud drug user. Muh drugs are off the cherts. I have done all drugs, many time. I like oxygen methylhistamine the most personally... but I think it’s pretty respectable to indulge in some Bovarian diamond dust too. I like to suck in oxygen from my piehole just as reality is melting away in a smooth haze of a near birth experience, it gets me off. I remember m’first rime smokin’ pan, I was with some tribal chief from North Ireland, or so he said he was. He tricked me into ingesting some pretty saucy nightcrack, stuff still makes me wobble every now then when the static from the TV shocks my pineal gland. Oh, also, there’s this giant blue trapezoid that has followed me ever since, I think it’s gorgeous.

So Glanderson, the people wanna know, why do you think you’ve been selected to be Trevor’s person of the year?
Well, uh, I think it’s pretty obvious. My...uh... nouveaux flavour digital ert collection is super dope lit. Hehehe. I spent nearly...uh... four months sleppin’ in a box, hidin’ in a Japanese slem. I pooked a couple holes in the box, I could move around but didn’t really need to unless I was...huntin for dinner or something. Japanese dugs are pretty dope lean. Anyways...uh...what were we talkin about again? Oh, yes...uh, the digital ert. Yuh, I did it all in Microsoft Paint. It’s a pretty darn heavily program, dog. Severely underrated if you ask me. In fact, I’d even go as far as to saying it’s the alpha-editor, strong and dominant like the...uh, ubermensch... like ya’ boyu Ivan.

Any future projects?
Funny...uh...story, actually. Me and muh friend, we’ve been collectin’ footage from some of the world’s dirtiest space themed...Indian restaurants. We’re basically gonna make a sensual exposé. It’ll be expensive. I promise, not monetarily, not emotionally, but you know how it is...expensive...yeah, I’ll take ya to the bridge to the park spoons, real expensive man. It’s got a uh...cameo from a uh...animatranic she-he Patrick Star look alike. I met her-him back in the 90s, eating a smorgasbord at Tim Hortons. In fact--

Our conversation abruptly ended here. Glanderson had left us idle for nearly two hours, so we began to worry. Considering the fact that Glanderson, being the busy man he is, would most likely have moved on, we tried our hardest to brush off the oddity. Turning the computer off and trudging down to the cafeteria for brunch, neither of us could shake off the fear. What had happened to Glanderson? He had slipped right through our fingers just as we had finally taken on the opportunity we had zealously pursued for the last several months. Together, we cried on and on, for what felt like days, into our frosty raisin bagels.

However, time heals all wounds: months later we were moving forward with our lives. However, one autumn evening, CNN reported a UFO crash in the caldera of Mt. Pavlof. The government labeled it a defective product of aerospace testing for a new USPS combat jet, though within our hearts and vibrating tracheas, we knew the truth about the UFO; we knew who it was. Irrespective of where he may lie, dead or alive, Glanderson’s legacy will forever be engrained in the souls of his obsessive fans, the brooding maniacs who wander the streets and pee on extra copies of The Dragon because it provides them with a tingly jingle jangle, their rectangular mouths gaping to suck in the rubber crust