Strike A Pose

We here at the Great Hoboes are trying to give you as accurate a glimpse inside the political machine as possible. What follows documents one of our not-so-glamorous photo sessions for the Mark Hugo gubernatorial campaign. This is a bitter world - making politicians look sexy. Between image consultants like myself, a pen-and-ink portrait artist and a photographer, The Great Hoboes are doing their best to make Mark Hugo the most charismatic man in politics, today.

I pulled into Mark's driveway around 1 o'clock on Saturday. The photo shoot was on. We had anticipated a rainy day and bagged things, but at the last minute the crew had gone up to Connecticut to take advantage of the sunshine. I was awoken at ten A.M. by a call from Mark. "The Bear is on his way! Let's do this thing!" Within an hour, I was shaved and showered and on the road.

This campaign manager gig was beginning to become quite natural. I don't actually do anything. 95% of the time, I just seem to be dashing off somewhere to supervise the collection of delinquents on our staff. The other 5% of the time, I'm putting out fires. Sometimes literally.

The Bear was trying to find an innovative way to get Mark's cat up a tree, as I walked into Mark's yard. The little feline projectile was falling back to earth as The Bear dove and caught it in his hairy palms.

The kitten scratched a gash in The Bear's nose.

"Aaagh!" The Bear bellowed. "He scratched me!"

"Do you blame him?" I asked. "Where's everybody else?"

"Jacob and Mark are watching video footage of Bob Torricelli," the Bear said. He stood up, dusted himself of and wiped the blood from the wound on his nose. "Mark wants to learn from the master."

"I'd better get in there," I said.

Mark was on all fours, barking at the TV, while Jacob sketched him. "Cut that out!" I snapped at Mark. I then turned my wrath on poor Jacob. "And you! You should know better! Tear up that picture of The Candidate! You know that we have only three accepted poses for Mr. Hugo - Superman, Colonial Hero and King of the Bunker."

Jacob glared at me silently. I had been wrong. You never challenge an artist. Henry Miller said that an artists' job is to shake up convention. Or something.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked Mark.

"I figure now that Torricelli's out the race, I ought to get in the head of my competitor, so I'm doing my best Doug Forrester impersonation," Mark explained while dusting off his jeans.

"What? Doug Forrester's running for U.S. Senate in New Jersey. You're running for Governor of New York."

"Oh," Mark said. "Right."

"I wanted to speak to you about that. I've got the latest polls in..."

"We ranked in the polls?" Jacob asked, laughing.

Mark grabbed a bullhorn from the floor and squealed in Jacob's ear, "THAT WILL BE ENOUGH NEGATIVITY!" He turned to face me. "WHAT WERE THE LATEST..."

I smacked the bullhorn out of his hands.

"Oh," Mark said. "Sorry. I forgot I was holding that thing. So, what were the latest polls?"

"Well, Pataki got 51%," I said.

"That's not good," said Mark. "We need some sort of dirt on him."

"What kind of dirt can you get on George Pataki?" Jacob asked. "He looks like Goofy, but that's about it..."

I shook my head. "Carl McCall got 29%, Golisano got 15%, and get this, 5% said 'Other Candidates' or 'Undecided'!"

"WHOO-HOO!" roared Mark. "Undecided! That's awesome! We've managed to confuse the whole state of New York!"

"Five percent of it, anyway," Jacob added.

"No, you idiot," I said to Mark. "There really aren't many third-party candidates in this campaign, so a good chunk of that 5% has got to be us. And there's a 3% margin of error, so we might have almost 8% of the vote!"

"That sounds like fuzzy math to me," said The Bear, who was walking in from the garage. A bloody bandage was taped onto his nose with duct tape. Various cuts and wounds dotted his arms and hirsute chest. "Say, Mark, do you have any large elastic bands, or maybe some old tires or something?"

"Why?" asked Mark, horrified.

"I'm having trouble getting your cat up the tree, and I figured they'd help with the trajectory and..."

"You've been trying to throw my cat up a tree?" Mark screamed. He picked up the bullhorn and clubbed The Bear with it. "I told you to set up for the shoot!"

"I was!" The Bear protested. "You told me to get ready for the photo shoot, where we were going to have you rescue a kitten from a tree! I was just trying to get the cat up the damn tree!"

"Boots wasn't going to go up the tree, you nimrod!" Mark bellowed. He loves his kitty. "I was just going to stand at the base of a tall tree, with you taking a worm's eye view photo of me holding the poor thing! I just wanted you to set up your cameras!" Mark was a film student - a brilliant one at that. So was The Bear, once upon a time, but five years living in the basement of a Vietnamese monastery had changed him somehow...

Mark was on a roll, now. He was running around The Bunker with his fists pumping, wisdom spouting from his mouth. "Get me my Chief Pollster on the phone!" "Where are those leaflets?" "Which track at Grand Central am I supposed to wait on, greeting morning commuters on Monday?" "Has anybody seen my medication?" "Great Gods! Where did that purple thing come from?!?"

The Bear tapped me on the shoulder. "The biker babes are here. I explained that all that they have to do is pose with Mark and pretend to be his co-running-mates, Cindy and Mindy."

"Excellent," I said. "Let's just get this damn cat photo done first. What are we paying those girls with anyway?"

"Beer," The Bear said.

"Jesus," I said. "Where did we find these girls?"

"I think they're Mark's second cousins or something."

"Oh," I said. "Good. That adds to the whole family values thing." I dragged The Bear and Mark out the door. "Come on. Let's light this candle..."

The next thing I knew, there were flash bulbs flashing, a cat meowing, and Mark standing proudly at the foot of a tall oak. This man is a hero, and I'm proud to be part of his Dream Factory. He's like Andy Warhol, really - he's a brilliant talent himself, and he turns everyone who surrounds him into geniuses...genii...genae?

I was told there'd be no spelling when I took this job.

THE MARK HUGO ARCHIVE
The Article That Started it All - Mark's Campaign Announcement.

Bad Night in The Bunker - Strategy Gone Awry.

We hope to have more insights from the inner circle of this, New York's last best hope for a great governor, quite soon. In the meantime, please email your support and suggestions to: tyler@greathoboes.com. Remember, vote early, and vote often!

Tyler M. Carey
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, The Great Hoboes of New York
Apparent Campaign Manager, Mark Hugo for Governor Campaign
October 2, 2002