Website © 2003 by Tyler Carey
All Content Creator-Owned
The Great Hobo Party
2004 Campaign
!!!Mark Hugo for US President!!!
Independence Day
For the Fourth of July, we all gathered at Mark Hugo's Connecticut estate. It's actually just a house on a very nice plot of land, but a man running for President can't refer to home and hearth as anything less than an estate. It's not proper. I drove up the winding drive and parked behind a Buick Skylark that has been passed down from Great Hobo to Great Hobo. It was once owned by the Mad Doctor, and then sold to the Bear for a mere six pack and bottle of aspirin. The Bear then passed it on to his brother. In between, almost all of us have driven it on a road trip here or there. I even started a rumor that once, many years ago, it had belonged to the Unknown Hobo. Who knows if that might even be true? Lord knows we've shown with this little magazine that fiction is often more accurate than truth. I mean last year, when we first launched a Pat Paulsen-esque campaign for a resident of Connecticut to be the Governor of New York, who would have thought that California's Gray Davis would be recalled this year, only to be replaced by any one of the following: Arnold Schwartzenegger, Larry Flynt, or one of six men named Gray Davis, who thought it would be amusing to replace their accidental namesake. God bless our mad brothers on the west coast…
I stepped over the bits of the President-to-be's old Volvo, which lay in parts littered across the driveway. It looked like the victim of a sadistic mechanic. As I rounded the turn into the spacious yard, I heard Andrew W.K.'s "It's Time to Party" roaring from every corner. The sound reverberated through the grove of trees, against the back wall of the house, in and out of every corner of the deck… It looked like cabinet speakers had been strung up in the branches of the trees. Lord knows Mark had had Karl at hard work again… Dozens of people were gathered in a crowd, facing the grove. I could hear a down-home voice bellowing drunkenly from the crowd. Shit, what was Mark up to this time?
The report of a shotgun sent me falling to the ground. Goddamn! Was somebody trying to assassinate our candidate? I threw attendees aside, running through the crowd. I was in full Secret Service mode, hoping to dive on top of my liege, and protect him from whatever wild man had threatened him. Was it that madman Moore? Ever since the Mermaid parade, Moore had been fancying himself a leading candidate. Heaven knows, he might have just as good a chance as Mark. His campaign notions were less quixotic…
I found Mark safe and sound at the center of the crowd's horseshoe shape. He was sitting in a barcolounger, wearing a beer cap with straws laced into his mouth, a t-shirt that said, "I Choked Linda Lovelace", and shorts. Far from presidential. Across his lap lay a double-barrel shotgun. He had a case of shells open on one knee, suspiciously close to a cigarette in his left hand. "You're safe!" I bellowed.
"Yep," Mark said, not even looking up. "But that Frisbee never saw it coming." He sucked on one of the straws coming out of his beer cap, pinched it, and held it up to me. "Want some Beam?"
"You're drinking Jim Beam out of a beer cap? That's awesome," I said.
"Yeah! It is!" Mark said enthusiastically. Looking off to his right, he yelled, "Pull!"
I turned to see Karl Moore standing near the tool shed, a sack in hand. He yanked out a red disc and threw it in the air. Almost instantly, Mark fired the shotgun into the grove of trees, and my ears began to ring.
"Damn!" Mark yelled. "Son of a motherhumping turdburgling asshole! I missed!" Even the crowd seemed stunned. Mark stood up and looked at the crowd. "That did not just happen. If anyone ever asks 'Hey, is Mark Hugo still a perfect shot?' the answer is yes. Are we understood?" The crowd didn't seem to understand. "Are we?" Mark looked around for a sympathetic face. "Hey, what happened to the music? Who does a guy have to blow around here to have some Andrew W.K. blaring from speakers strung up in the trees of his yard?" Karl started to raise his hand for a second, presumably as a goof, but stopped when he saw the madness in his candidate's eyes.
A half naked man barreled through the woods, breaking the silence.
"What the crap?!?" Mark yelled at the half-naked fella, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Like the Wendigo... "Walrus, I could of effin' killed you! Why were you in the woods?"
"I do what I want, when I want," the Walrus said. "And it’s FUCKING not 'effin'," bellowed the Walrus, continuing his beeline towards Mark. Just as he was about tackle Mark, Jacob (Great Hoboes famed comic book genius and staff artist for the Hugo-Moore campaign) side tackled the balding and enraged Walrus.
"Lutheran bastard almost got me," Mark mumbled to himself, dusting his shirt off.
"I just wanted a fucking beer," the Walrus said. Jacob loosened his choke-hold long enough to let the man speak.
"Jacob, give him a beer and push him in to a lawn chair so he can sleep it off," instructed Mark.
"Isn’t this a problem?" I asked. A few faces in the crowd reflected my own bewillderment.
"Nah, not his fault. Guy loves Jim Beam. Beam makes a man fightin' drunk." The Walrus was calmly sipping his beer in between bursts of unintelligible babble.
"Say, Mark," I said, "It's hot as hell out here. Why don't we go into the bunker for a few minutes and talk. You got A.C. down there, right?"
Mark grinned, "I got A.C. and AC/DC. Let's go."
The lilting strains of AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds" echoed loudly through Mark's basement living quarters, which were sealed against the elements, Y2K, and any form of attack.
"I still say that this should be your campaign theme song, not that Andrew W.K. crap," I said.
"Ah, Tyler, Tyler, Tyler," Mark said, now significantly calmer, "That always was you, living in the past."
"It's tough to pave new roads, Mark. I think our campaign shows that."
"Why cling to these old ideals, though? I mean, do you even remember when you were a hippie? That at least was a nostalgia kick that sought progressive ideals. Now, you're bottled up in the suburbs, commuting to work on a train, talking about working with the system. Sometimes, I'd think you were a Republican."
"Hey," I said, testily, "I voted for a Democratic congressman in the last election."
Mark chuckled, and sipped some water out of a glass. He always was an expert at manic pacing and hydration. "You mean after last year's fetal run through the political gamut, you still think that voting Democrat is a sign of one's progressive leanings? You're such a populist that you should be Andrew Jackson."
I sighed. Mark was right. "Well, what do you propose?"
Mark shrugged, and sipped some more water. "I don't know anymore. I thought that we'd actually get quite a bit of attention with the open container law bit, being as so many of the Great Hoboes alone have gotten caught on that junket, but it seems that the public reaction treats it as more of a novelty bit. You saw the looks on the faces in the crowd at the Mermaid Parade."
"I'm surprised you did at all," I joked, "You were off drinking with Jo-Jo the Dog-faced Boy at the sideshow, after all."
"Just more legend-building, Mr. Carey." Mark patted my knee and grinned. "Tell you what, let's go upstairs and enjoy the party. We'll meet again in a month or so to review some new plans. I'll work on some, you work on some, and we'll even get Karl to hash some stuff out. Sound good?"
I nodded.
Back up in the yard, the crowd had regained its composure. They roared as Mark came outside. Damn it, he was a cult of personality. Even after his outburst, they wanted more of the derring-do of his double-barrel-and-Jack act. "Who wants to see more Ultimate Skeet Shoot?" he yelled. The cheer was enormous. The crowd might even have grown while we were down there. I'm not sure. All of a sudden, I felt like I was thrust into some black and white newsreel, watching a crowd react to some crazed dictator. This was the adrenaline and handshake show, kids.
Mark resumed his throne and yelled, "Pull!" firing the gun off just as he said the word. Karl had a quick hand though, so Mark's shot was actually well timed. Bits of red plastic shrapnel littered the crowd, and they ate it up.
I walked over to Karl, and shook his hand. "How goes?"
Karl grinned. "Oh, it's going great. What'd you and mon capitane talk about?"
"We're just streamlining the campaign to hit things better," I said.
"I'd say he's hitting things fine enough on his own," Karl said with a wink. The word 'Pull' was vaguely discernible over the crowd's cheers and chatter. Karl quickly grabbed a Frisbee and threw it up into the air. BAM! Shrapnel everywhere.
"Say, where'd you get these things, Karl?" I asked, reaching into the bag.
"Uh…oh…um…don't be mad at me, Tyler," he said.
I looked at the Frisbee and realized that it was one of the promotional ones I'd had made up for Mark's gubernatorial bid. "Vote for me, because I can't vote for myself," it said across the top, and "Mark Hugo for NYS Governor, 2002," along the bottom, underneath a picture of our leader. I smiled. "I'm not mad, Karl. It's all about new beginnings."
"Pull!"
Karl tossed another Frisbee. "Phew! I thought you'd be pissed."
"What are we gonna do with them? Use them for coasters? Throw away, Karl." I patted him on the back and walked to my car.
"Pull, damnit!"
Karl tossed a Frisbee. A terrible crash was instantaneously heard, like the crack of thunder. With that, a tree limb, a cabinet speaker duct-taped to its underside, fell on top of the remnants of the Volvo. Never had a stronger anti-import statement been made by a politician. Brilliance in every act. A truly grand mind at work across the political spectrum. I realized then that I'm not even of comparable acumen.
I had a lot of thinking to do.
THE MARK HUGO ARCHIVE
The Article That Started it All - Mark's Gubernatorial Campaign Announcement.
Bad Night in The Bunker - Strategy Gone Awry.
Strike A Pose - Image Consultancy in the Post-Carville Era.
Mark's Gubernatorial Concession Speech.
The Beginnings of Mark's Presidential Campaign.
Angry Sports, Elmer Gantry, and Freedom Fries.
During the months of June and July, we will have weekly insights from the inner circle of this, our last best hope for president. 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 President '04 Campaign