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Tuesday, June 16, 2015

My Political Life Revisited

Since the other kids  are currently waking from enchanted slumber and declaring candidacy for the coming elections, I thought it apposite to trot out this old essay, update it, and post it before my political rivals fully disenthrall themselves and get the jump on me. 
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Here is a picture of a man. He is 65 years old. He is on a big adventure to find his shadow but is walking in the wrong direction. Why is he doing that? Why is he doing that on a hot June day in California?

He is in training.



He is in training for politics because another goddawful election year is coming, full of upheavals, downheaveals and unilateral global heavals, but he doesn't care about that. This is important. He wants to be Lieutenant Governor of Wyoming. Why? Because he is currently Lieutenant Governor of Arizona and hates the Capitol Building:

That is why he lives in California. Yes, it's still dry here and he despairs of his yard but politics is a strange bedfellow and he prefers to live with his wife who says, "he's strange too because he steals all the covers". But more importantly, he braves the inclemency of the Golden State. In his words: "Those other two states, much as I love them and dedicate my political life to them, are mostly just gravel."

No other Lieutenant Governor of either state has given a kinder description of them.

Why is our candidate special? First off, he was a prime athlete who attended several prestigious community colleges on a full Cockfighting Scholarship.
He became class president through a series of debates, Machiavellian tontines and the slogan, "How do I get out of this chicken outfit? No, really, there's no zipper!"

His platform consisted of fierce promises to clean up campus lavatories --which really needed it-- expressed as, "A vote for me is a vote for sanity (a word he still confuses with sanitation)." He also perfected a directive that thematized his subsequent public life: "If we cannot progress singly, let us regress severally. You guys go first!"

There are some who say the office, to which our candidate aspires, holds no real power. In rebuttal, one can only point out the contributions of Lieutenant Governors in Arizona, Maine, Oregon, West Virginia, Puerto Rico and, of course, Wyoming. If you would like to impress alumni at your next high school reunion by claiming to be a Lieutenant Governor, make sure it's one of those six places. Other states and territories actually have that office.

Oh, and I have dibs on Wyoming.

28 comments:

  1. I' do rather vote for a man in a chicken suit than for most of those goats who are seeking office.

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    1. Arleen, when I was in school there were no goat grants, even though I was good at head-butting and could bleat.

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  2. Your resume is varied and your double-speak is first rate. You possess all the qualities needed to run for office. The chicken suit is a bonus.

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    1. It's a useful suit. I can run flapping at opposing debaters to distract them.

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  3. Anyone who wears a chicken suit and endorses sanity will have my vote. And I'd rather have a candidate who steals covers than state funds.

    By the way, we need more capitol buildings that look like the one in Arizona.

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    1. Jon, I must confess, that is not the capitol. It is a photo of a dust storm over Lubbock that I turned upside down.

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    2. I should have recognized it!

      Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone could turn Washington DC upside down??

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    3. Jon, D.C. could certainly do with some agitation

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  4. I'd say you should go for Wyoming. Wear a cowboy hat, own a battered pick-up truck, have a rifle hanging in the back window, and learn out to lasso. Oh, and learn how to spit. He who spits the farthest wins.

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    1. Those are some valuable life-skills that will serve my political ambitions well! I just have to learn which voters to lasso and which to spit on. I can DO this. Thanks!

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  5. If you should win through and seize the day, I'm assuming that there will be several offices beneath or lateral to you empty (the tontines, and I won't question methods). So, I'd like to toss my hat in the ring for Minister of Public Thought.
    I wish you all success in your quest for questionable goals. I'm with you in spirit, if not actual monetary support.

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    1. Thanks Mike, but money doesn't signify here --all I really have to do is declare myself Lt. Gov. and find an office with a phone in it. However I like your ambition regarding Public Thought, which generously presumes a public brain and could use a minister.

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  6. Those other states are mostly gravel! Finally a candidate who speaks the truth and who can rock a Fighting Chicken outfit. This may turn into a populist movement yet!

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    1. Indeed. Democratic and Republican parties are only offering inflatable bounce-houses and economies, but the Fighting Chicken Party has contests you can bet on. Hmmm, I think I just withdrew my candidacy.

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  7. Lieutenant governor - even for a state such as mine that actually has one - is one of the sillier jobs in the world. If I were one, I would wear a chicken suit every day.

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    1. Good idea, Squid. I think I'd learn to dance. Lt. Gov. salaries go up if they get so they can dance --step-raise, I believe.

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  8. Well, if I can't have Wyoming, I'll take Maine! That chicken outfit was cute :)

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    1. Sage, we could do worse than run on the cute ticket.

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  9. A little too true to be funny. Okay, it was still funny, just scary at the same time.

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    1. I'm not sure truth, funny and scary can be entirely disentangled --there's some quantum coherence at work.

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  10. Your posts are among the most entertaining of all I follow. Soooo, I am nominating you for the "Creative Blogger" award. Go to my site and find out more about this.
    Have you learned how to spit a far distance yet?

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  11. Dear Geo.,
    how I enjoy, coming back from my travels to New York and Crete (both utterly un-political) to find your illuminating post! I will try to support your quest -becoming the keeper of the Holy Grail of Wyoming. Britta Xx

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    1. Dear Brigitta, it is so good to have you visit my blog again! I have a plan for Wyoming that involves each person in America buying a bag of topsoil and sending there to be spread. I hope it will set an example as a solution for all the other states --like Nevada and Utah-- that Creation started but never quite finished,

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  12. Replies
    1. Yes, Roselyn, but do they offer cockfighting scholarships?

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