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.

"Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos."
-Henry Miller
Tropic of Capricorn

We needed a gimmick to keep our campaign alive.

I called Mr. Hugo, and within hours, we had twenty of them. By the time I got up to Mark's parents' home in Connecticut, The Bear had already called a dozen radio and television stations to emphatically state that Mark Hugo had never ever had relations with livestock. He proudly informed me of this, as we stood in the rain in the driveway.

"So," I said despondently, "You're taking a page from the Michael Jackson School of Publicity."

"Axiom One," said The Bear, "The worst possible publicity is the best publicity."

"Then we just might win this thing," I muttered. "Where's Mark?"

"He's working on his image," The Bear said, pointing to the open garage door. It was only then that I noticed the scent of incense flooding the humid air. Inside, sitting on the hood of his father's Buick, was Mark. He was wrapped in blankets and sitting over a burning incense holder. I think the incense holder had once been a coffee can, but it was now painted with Southwestern imagery.

"Mark?" I asked nervously.

"There is no Mark," the voice in the blankets said. "There is only the Shaman."

"Chrissake, Mark," I said. "We wanted to get a gimmick, not to reinvent you as some sort of psychedelic medicine man."

Mark talked right over me. "I've heard the sounds of Indians crying in the desert, their dustworn bodies calling to me…"

"Okay," I said. "Enough's enough."

"I think it's brilliant," said The Bear.

I shot him daggers. "Our constituents are old ladies, dirt farmers, hip kids, mothers, fathers, and suburbanites - basically everybody but hippies. This isn't gonna fly."

"But, you liked the goat idea," said the Bear.

"No, I really didn't. You're lucky you didn't get arrested for prank calls. Calling stations about a candidate they've passively ignored, and babbling on about bestiality? And to think I thought you were my ward. The Robin to my Batman…"

Mark croaked back to consciousness. "The robin flies through the sky and perches, whispering secrets in man's ear while he sleeps..." Mark mumbled nonsensically.

"Look, cut the shit, Hugo."

Mark took the blanket off his head quickly and tossed it over onto a workbench. "Come on, Tyler. We're not winning. Can't we just have a few laughs on the way out of the campaign?"

I shook my head. "The Mark Hugo who wanted to use the governorship as a stepping stone to the presidency would never have said that."

Mark sucked on his lower lip and nodded for a moment. The Bear twiddled his hairy thumbs. "You know," Mark said, "You're right. I've been losing focus, lately. It's just like...sonofabitch...we try and try and try, and nothing's working. I figured that making a God of myself might just be what this campaign needed." He sighed. "And now The Bear's gone and done this whole goat thing... The straight didn't work, the freaky didn't work, and now we've come to rely on the super-freaky."

"Well," I said, "A gimmick's a gimmick. It's done. Let's just ride it out. It can't hurt our campaign any more than it's already been hurt."

"Yeah," Mark said. "I guess me going rabid on that soccer mom on the Metronorth platform didn't help much."

"Just because she didn't want a pamphlet didn't give you the right to chase her and shove three or four into her purse. No." I shook my head, remembering how we all ran like lunatics, up the platform stairs, across the concourse, and then scattering through the streets of Midtown. Hours later, we met like fugitives in a seedy bar full of toothless men, former queens of the stardust ballroom, and a few dwarves. It was then that I realized we had hit the high water mark a few weeks earlier, and it was just sheer gravity rolling us down the hill towards our eventual defeat.

And just then, as we sat on the hood of a Buick in a garage in Connecticut, when things were looking bleakest, a beacon of hope appeared. "Mark," Mark's mother said down the stairs, "There's a man on the phone for you. He says he's with the TV station in Albany, and he wants to know about you and some goat?"

"I'll pick it up in the rumpus room, Ma!" Mark said, excitedly. The Bear, he and I all looked at each other. Things were finally breaking free. We all hurried through the breezeway into the rumpus room, and plopped on the couch, looking at the phone, trying to figure out what to do.

"Okay," I said, confidently, "Mark, put him on speaker phone. Bear, you go stand in the corner making bleating sounds..."

"Do goats bleat?" The Bear asked.

"Do what a goat would do," I said. "Mark? If you get stuck, just give me a heads up, I'll work on some retorts." I picked up a pad and a pen. "Oh, and remember: you know absolutely nothing about a goat. That sound in the background?" I shrugged. "I don't know what it is either."

Mark grinned. "I never thought it would come to this. Y'know," he said, "We just might win this thing..."

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 23, 2002