Great Hoboes of New York

Website © 2003 by Tyler Carey
All Content Creator-Owned

The Great Hobo Party

2004 Campaign

!!!Mark Hugo for US President!!!

A Radical Departure...

I hadn't heard from Mark in weeks. Calls to the bunker resulted in an extended answering machine message that sounded pretty much like the following...

"...((static))...((clicking noises in the background))...Ummm...You've...you've reached the answering machine of Mark Hugo...Presidential Candidate and jockey aspirant......Yes, that's right, this is an answering machine...That awful campaign manager of mine won't spring for a cell phone with voicemail...or even leaflets, but that's besides the point....I'm not here...((more strange clicking noises))...I've gone to Florida to reenact Seabiscuit...you can get me at the Neilson stables in Dade County...site of the 2000 election debacle...all questions of a political nature should be forwarded to my running mate, Mr. Karl Moore, not to that awful campaign manager of mine, Tyler Carey...DO YOU HEAR ME CAREY?...DO YOU FU---"

It worried me. I tried finding him at these stables, but according to every operator in Florida, there was no such stable or farm by the name of Neilson in that area. The Astoria-based Hoboes apparently heard from him occasionally, but the messages he left for them were just about as sensible. Last weekend, I took matters into my own hands and drove up to The Bunker. The roads to Connecticut were strangely crowded. Simon and Garfunkel sang to me in the background about the only living boy in New York. I sure didn't feel like it that day; the roads were full of living boys from New York.

Mark's car was parked at the top of the hill next to the Bunker. His old Volvo was still up on blocks, for the repairs that had started two years ago. By the cracks in the windshield, it appeared that somebody had been using it for target practice with a BB gun. Not a high-powered air rifle, but one of those cheap little BB guns that shoot those small plastic pellets - the kind of BB gun you could get at a Woolworth's, when there were still Woolworth's. The back door to The Bunker stood wide open. I stepped inside the kitchen and pulled the door shut behind me, blocking out the cold. The place was a disaster. Empty cans of beer and Dinty Moore beef stew littered the place. If Mark was in Florida, he'd left a heck of a mess to clean up when he returned. I got a trash bag out from under the sink and started to dump cans into it when I heard a sound from the basement. I walked down the stairs into the actual bunker that The Bunker was named for. I saw that the TV was playing I Love Lucy reruns at low volume. Mark was sat in the chair with his head tilted back - he was either asleep or dead. "I'll sleep when I'm dead," that old Warren Zevon line, popped in my head. Well, Warren's sleeping now alright.

So was Mark. That is until he jumped up with a start and shot me right in the nuts with one of those cheap lightweight yellow BBs. "What the fuck was that for?" I asked, rubbing my balls.

"Sorry," he said. He reached forward to help rub, thought the better of it, and sat back down, facing Lucy and Ricky.

"Where the fuck have you been?" I asked. "And if you're back, why didn't you change your answering machine message?"

Mark sighed and popped open a can of Moxie. He shook his head. "Y'know, ever since the State of Disunion address, and Dean losing the nomination over his Incredible Hulk routine, I've been losing a lot of faith in this whole thing."

"Really?" I asked. "I would think that after Bush showed himself for the right wing whacko that he is during that speech and the Democrats showed how shallow they are, that you'd be all over this!"

Mark chuckled. "How'd you like that bit from the State of Disunion when he gripped the pulpit...I mean podium...and went on about gay marriages? What they hell does that have to do with the price of ammunition in Baghdad? He stood up there for an hour talking about how great the economy is, and then he lays it on us about how his priority is to prevent people from getting laid in the eyes of god and the law. What a loser..."

"Sadly," I said, "He's not looking like much of a loser right now. Despite the fervor about Kerry since the primaries began, it's looking more and more like we've got four more years of this crap."

"Kerry's got it in the bag," Mark said, dismissively.

"Nah. Not after that sex scandal stuff that Drudge reported."

"You mean manufactured."

"Either way, this is looking to be ugly. They'll have crap on each other weekly before this thing is through. That's why it's our job to pounce while we can. We can't let Nader take all the Undecideds. I've just got to try to clear the air on a few points before we go further."

"Huh?" Mark asked. He drained his can of Moxie. His breath smelled like Pepto Bismol, now.

"We need to just be prepared on a number of things. Y'know, Damage Control."

"Huh?" Mark asked. He burped a bismuth scented burp in my face.

"I need to ask you some embarrassing questions, so that I know how to handle any scandals that the Republocrats may wish to drudge up. Is that alright?"

Mark looked at the TV and then back at me. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Can't I just commit the sin of omission, here?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, Mark...I gotta ask..."

He nodded. "Okay, Shoot."

"Did you ever do anything improper with an intern?"

Mark giggled. "What? Like ask one out on a date?"

"I'm serious here, Mark. Did you ever do anything inappropriate with an intern?"

"I may have lusted after one in my heart, but..."

"Mark! Yes or No. Did you have sex with an intern?"

"You can do that? Damn! Let's get me an intern."

I shook my head some more. "Next. Have you ever publicly excessively consumed alcohol?"

Mark grinned his presidential grin. "Define 'excessively'..."

"Drugs?"

"Tyler, you can get a ticket for using drugs, now. Come on. Be real. I wouldn't break the law. Besides, didn't you hear the President during the State of Disunion speech thingy? 400,000 less young people are using drugs today than in 2001."

I pursed my lips and nodded. "I've got to admit, you're doing a good job of studying the opposition. Do you have any thoughts on why that is?"

"Sure. The economy's in the crapper. Nobody's got any cash for drug use," Mark explained.

"Good. Have you ever been arrested?"

"Does copping a plea and turning in fellow members of your mafia family count?" Mark asked.

"Aren't you Norwegian?" I asked.

"Sure, after the Witness Protection program changed my hair color and life history. Look at me in profile. Al Pacino. I'm tellin' ya..."

"So, you've got a clean record, you're saying?" I asked.

"I dare anybody to come up with serious dirt on me," Mark said.

I winced. Don't you remember what's happened to every fucker running for office who said that? McGovern's sidekick was rumored to be crackers, Duke suddenly was revealed as a klansmen, Clinton was accused of being a stoner, and Dubya was charged with D-Dubya-I… I'd watch it with that little challenge."

"True enough."

"Okay. Well, let's play twenty questions. Let's just drill you on the bullet points."

"Shoot," Mark said. He opened another can of Moxie, and fished around in an open pickle jar for a snack.

"Abortion," I said.

"A woman's issue - not the place of the white male aristocracy to debate," Mark said.

"Gay marriage."

"Who cares what anyone does with their thing behind closed doors, or even in public for that matter? This puritanical bullshit has got to stop."

"The Passion of Christ."

"Huh?" Mark asked.

"It's a movie. Mel Gibson directed it. It's two hours of crucifixion scenes. Reportedly, it pins the blame for the crucifixion on the Jews."

"The Jews?" Mark asked. "Wasn't it the Italians who killed Christ?"

I sighed. "Oh, boy. Go around saying that kind of stuff and we'll be lynched by the mafia."

Mark nodded. "After that crap with the Witness Protection program, I hear you loud and clear…" That's what I love about Mark - that line between fact, satire, truth, and drama is always nebulous…

"Nader?"

"Love him. If I could have his baby, I would. It'd be an ugly baby, but it would be ours."

I nodded and looked at my notes. Abortion, dismissal. Gay marriage, flip remark. Religious strife, flip remark. Nader, flip remark. Same shit, different day. I picked issues and Mark had some flip remark. Sure, it was catchy, but we were running for office, not making bumper stickers. This seemed to be the way that every strategy meeting we had was going.

"Mark?" I asked. "Have you noticed a pattern to our strategy pow-wows?"

"You mean, how there's always lots of talk but nothing gets done? Yeah, seriously. When are you going to print some fucking leaflets or something?"

I shook my head. "Right now, we just seem like any other goofball third party candidate - all rebellion but no substance. Heck, you're charming enough - I could see us getting a few percentage points of the votes in our home states, but…"

"I've been thinking about that," he said. "You're up on your Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, right?"

I laughed. "Don't you remember how I thought that I was him in college?"

"Oh, yeahhh," Mark said. "Your Hawaiian shirt, cigarette filter, and Wild Turkey phase. How long did that last?"

"All seven glorious years of college," I said wistfully. Ah, they'd been great years, too. I even remember some of them. "What made you think of The Good Doctor, anyway?"

"Remember his campaign for Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado?"

I stroked my chin. "Vaaaguely…He ran for Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, right?"

Mark nodded. "Yeah…anyway, he didn't just have a liberal or even libertarian platform, he had a completely radical platform. Renaming the town 'Fat City', turfing all of the highways into town, and so on. He didn't just want office and a change for the better, he wanted to turn the world on its head. It worked out pretty well. He only lost be about a thousand votes, as I recall."

"So, you want to suddenly become a radical candidate?" I asked. I was skeptical. Mark'd had some hare-brained schemes before. You know the kind - like running for President with a war chest of $263.

"I've decided that there's no way to effect change within the system. Sure, we'll run in the election - I'm not talking about a revolution, here…at least not a conventional one, but… This is going to be big, Tyler. We need a radical platform, one that we believe in."

"This will be a tough line to walk, Mark. Using the word 'radical' with Mom and Pop America conjures up images of someone who wants to put LSD in the tap water."

"LSD in the tap water? Tyler, let's start small. I don't want to lobotomize America, I just want them to give up the fat cat bullshit. Firstly, I want a platform that nobody in Congress can make more than $80,000 a year…"

"That's about what their salary is, Mark."

"But, the graft is where the gravy is. Yeah, I get it. We'd make it so that they have to report graft. If they get caught taking graft, we'd put them in stocks in front of the Lincoln memorial and sell rotten tomatoes…"

"I'm liking where this is going," I said. I was furiously taking notes.

"Yeah, I stole that from Thompson, too…"

"He's a wise, wise man," I said. "Y'know, you are, too, Mark Hugo. You are, too."

"I'm working on it," he said. He stood up and walked to the slit windows of The Bunker. "We're going to need lots of fireworks for my next public appearance… I want to be the P.T. Barnum candidate."

"P.T. Barnum," I said, while scribbling notes. "Check."

"Do you know where I can get an elephant?"

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.

An All Time Low.

A Tape Transcript.

Mark's Gubernatorial Concession Speech.

The Beginnings of Mark's Presidential Campaign.

Angry Sports, Elmer Gantry, and Freedom Fries.

Orange Alert, Again.

Mermaid Parade Invitational.