For the Bootleg City before Mother’s Day, what could be more appropriate than an Air Supply concert from 1982? If you answered “God, no, anything but that,” you would be incorrect, as Robert Cass is happy to prove with some vintage Australian balladry.
CommentsWe did it! More specifically and much less modestly, I did it — I won Tuesday’s election!
My victory even got some coverage from Associated Press national political writer Liz Sidoti, who wrote, “A slew of cities selected mayors …”
A win-win all around!
Wow! People are really fired up about this Tuesday’s election in Bootleg City! As mayor, it warms my heart to see such civic pride and faith in democracy. Don’t forget to vote, everyone. Remember, we’re all in this together.
Everyone except the mayoral candidates whose asses I’m totally going to kick on November 3, that is. On that note, here’s my final attack ad of the campaign season:
Last summer Matt Wardlaw was quoted as saying, “Taco Bell and I have a relationship that dates back to an infamous church youth group trip in the late ’80s.”
So what else is Matt Wardlaw not telling us that he already did tell us but not without it being taken out of context?
For starters, just last week Mr. Wardlaw told Mayor Robert Cass, “Not if you were the last immigrant grocer on Earth!” But why does Mr. Wardlaw hate immigrant grocers? And does he plan to molest them the way he molested 14 innocent Mexican-American tacos in 20 minutes back when Republicans were still in the White House?
On November 3, don’t vote for a molester of tacos or any other foods made by hardworking, minimum wage-earning, American Dream-having immigrants. Vote for Robert Cass. Vote for him for Mayor.
Paid for by the Committee to Re-elect a Mayor Who Isn’t Addicted to Vinyl or Any Other Mind-Altering Substance.
The mayoral election is only 11 days away, and if the endless online chatter here in Bootleg City is any indication, voter turnout is sure to break all kinds of records! Keep in mind, of course, that if you break any and all kinds of vinyl records within the city limits, you’ll be shot on sight by Lindsey Buckingham. I’m sorry, but I can’t control that animal.
With four candidates vying to be this city’s next mayor — and each one of us drawing roughly 25 percent of the vote in the latest tracking polls — I had no choice but to create negative attack ads (as opposed to positive attack ads, which usually feature footage of me engaging in surprise tickle fights). They’ll begin airing next week, but because I like you so much and know you’ll vote for me simply because you need all the friends you can get (we’ll discuss your wardrobe later), I’d like to offer you a verbal preview of each ad.
First up, the most inspirational opponent of the bunch but also, oddly enough, the least lively:
Bob Marley wants to be your next mayor. If elected, he promises to “stir it up” at City Hall and restore “one love” to Bootleg City.
All he asks is that voters “get up, stand up” to elect Mayor Robert Cass out of office. But how can Mr. Marley get up or stand up when he’s been lying down … for the last 28 years?
Could you be loved by Bob Marley? Isn’t the more urgent question “Could you be dead, Bob Marley?”
The answer is yes. Because he is.
On November 3, vote for a candidate who’s still alive. Vote for Robert Cass for Mayor.
Paid for by the Committee to Re-elect a Mayor Who’s Never Shot a Sheriff.
I believe the children are our future. I also believe my future in politics would’ve been cut tragically short on November 3 if Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson hadn’t returned all the children of Bootleg City to their parents in one piece yesterday. He was angry that he’d traveled all the way here from England to receive a 35,000-year-old flute, which, due to a clerical error of some sort, turned out to be only 35,000 seconds old. Unlike the children of Bootleg City, the flute was returned in several pieces, but only after being met with strong resistance from my skull.
I’m relieved, of course, that the children are back safe and sound — as is my official hagiographer, who was still working off his hangover a couple hours ago — but I can’t help but be disappointed in Mr. Anderson’s timing. Sorry to nitpick, but if you’re going to steal a town’s entire tween-and-under population in an election year, it makes more sense to return them the day after Halloween, right?
That way there are only a few days left until the election, the whole abduction can be blamed on a combination of evil spirits and a Sweet Tarts sugar high, and the incumbent mayor can look like a hero for never giving up hope that the children would be returned, even if, technically, he gave up hope a half hour after they disappeared. Besides, with 18 days left until the election, there are countless ways my opponents or random circumstance could force me to screw up again through no fault of my own.
As election day approaches, it’s important for a political candidate like myself to line up celebrity endorsements. One of my opponents, David Byrne, has the support of famous people-slash-political activists like Jane Fonda and Danny Glover, while another opponent, Bob Marley, has lined up a bunch of dead celebrity endorsements, including Robert Palmer, Nina Simone, Mickey Rooney, and John Lennon, who would’ve turned 69 today. How am I supposed to compete with—
… My sources have just informed me that Mr. Rooney is still alive. I’m sure they’re wrong, but I don’t want to embarrass them, so I’ll check Wikipedia after I get home.
So far the only endorsement I’ve gotten is from Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, who made the trip to Bootleg City only after I convinced him that I’d gotten my hands on the world’s oldest instrument, a 35,000-year-old flute discovered by archaeologists in Germany last year. Once he arrived, I explained that my e-mail contained a few extra zeros, not to mention a gratuitous three and five.
Mr. Anderson wasn’t thrilled about traveling thousands of miles to receive a brand-new flute made in the Little Germany neighborhood of Bootleg City, but he did seem to enjoy the flute whipping he gave me, which was apparently a first. I was inspired to create a new tourism campaign with the following tag line: “Bootleg City: Experience the Unexpected (Just Be Prepared for Some Violence).”
I convinced Mr. Anderson to stay and give a talk to all the children of our city about the consequences a rock musician faces when he continues to play flute solos into his 60s. I left the City Auditorium during his speech so I could send my condolences to all the former Mrs. Mickey Rooneys of the world, but when I returned, the children were gone.
Some of these kids’ parents are still waking up from that disastrous Wizard of Oz screening. What am I going to tell them? “Sorry, folks, but a modern-day Pied Piper whose band won a Grammy in 1989 for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Vocal or Instrumental, has run off and taken every child in the city with him. It’s a mystery as to why. I mean, everybody knows that award should’ve gone to Metallica.”
It’s hard not to get paranoid when you’re an elected official.
First there was the August catnapping that turned out not to be a catnapping. (Cats who take naps don’t make me paranoid, hence the use of the compound word. Nevertheless, they’re always watching. Don’t forget that.) But then came September’s disastrous outdoor screening of The Wizard of Oz and those particularly potent poppies planted purposely in front of the screen.
You could chalk that one up to garden-variety stupidity on my part since I’m the one who ordered the poppies, but let the records and tapes and whatnot show that I’ve never tried to hide that stupidity from my constituents, nor have I ever been smart enough to know where to hide it in the first place. But what if the poppies were switched out by one of my opponents in the upcoming mayoral race to make me look bad?
The career-spanning, four-disc box set Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall & John Oates comes out October 13, and in anticipation of its release, the 1980s pop superstars recently made a special stop in Bootleg City for an interview. (Okay, so their tour bus caught a flat. They were reluctant to talk at first, but once I proposed an alternate option — community service — they perked right up.)
Me: You two have been making music together for nearly 40 years. What do you consider to be the secret to your success?
Oates: Well, Daryl and I have a healthy balance of give and—
Hall: (interrupting) Take one-fourth of John and three-fourths of me and you’ve got the winning formula. We’re the Beatles of the post-Woodstock generation, no question. It was the same with them in their day: three-fourths Lennon and McCartney, one-fourth George, and one-fourth Ringo.
Oates: I’m pretty sure that adds up to—
Hall: The most successful rock ‘n’ soul group of all time, right after the Beatles. Exactly.
Who doesn’t love The Wizard of Oz? (That was a rhetorical question. Put your hands and middle fingers down.)
Last week in Bootleg City, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the classic MGM film about a girl named Dorothy and her three bachelor uncles, I put together a special outdoor screening in MacArthur Park. To make it even more special, I trucked in a bunch of poppies and planted them right in front of the screen.
Unfortunately, almost as soon as Leo the Lion finished roaring, people started passing out left and right. It turns out those poppies were opium poppies, just like in the movie. But can you really blame me for thinking sleep-inducing flowers were a fictional device created specifically for the film? Honestly! Munchkins? Flying monkeys? A land where gay men are granted basic human rights? All that stuff is make-believe!
But opium poppies, as it turns out, are real. And now I’ve accidentally put 2,000 taxpayers in a coma. And when they wake up, most of them will be opium addicts.
Hmm … I wonder if I can keep them asleep until after November 3. I have a feeling a few of them might not vote for me if they wake up in time for the election.
Posies don’t have opium in them, do they? Good. Because this week the featured bootleg is “The Last Show,” a document of the Posies’ farewell performance on September 19, 1998, at San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill. Of course, the Seattle power-pop group then reunited in 1999, 2000, 2001, and every year after that, culminating in 2005 with the release of their first album in seven years, Every Kind of Light.
Yesterday was a special day in Bootleg City. Every September 10 — or “One After 909,” as some folks call it — we celebrate Beatle Day, which kicks off early in the morning with one of the fabled creatures emerging from beneath a stack of old records to poke his head into the sunlight. (”Good day, sunshine,” the Beatle always says. It’s so freakin’ adorable.) If he doesn’t see his shadow, his group’s music will finally be made available online. The problem is, he always sees his shadow. Bootleg City could really use some overcast days this time of the year.
The loss of that online income has to be taking its toll on the two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, especially in this economy, which is why I extended an invitation to both of them to stay on my couch until the global recession is over. Each one responded by sending me a $10,000 couch. Spending money you don’t have — it’s a real sickness. And where the hell am I going to put these gigantic couches in my one-bedroom apartment?
The following tracks come from the bootleg “Rarer Than Rare,” with information about recording dates, concert locations, and other assorted Beatlemania minutiae included in the comments section of each MP3 file. Audio quality varies from track to track, but it’s the Beatles — what have you ever done for them?
More to the point, what have you ever done for me? Oh, by the way, I’ve got a couple of couches I need to unload. Each one costs $20,000. (You heard me …) And don’t say you can’t afford it, because those credit-card companies wouldn’t send you all those offers if they didn’t want you to use their money. Think about it. I haven’t.
Hey, y’all. Matthew McConaughey here, fillin’ in for Mr. Mayor of Bootleg City this week. Cassanova gave me a jingle-jangle the other day and said, “Matty Mac, do me a solid and make a celebrity cameo in the BLC this week so I can cut out early for Labor Day. Surf, sand, sun, and sobriety — I’m all over it this weekend. Except for that last part, brother, knowwhatI’msayin’? Hahaha! Cool. Later.” (I did use the words “Labor Day.” The rest is from the mind of Matthew. —Ed.)
Hard to believe it’s been over a year since I last talked to y’all on Popdoze so Bobby C. could have another week off. I’m a big fan of Sugar Water (Stop it, you’re embarrassing me! —Ed.), so I was sad to see it move from entree to after-dinner mint on Bobby’s menu when he became mayor of Bootleg City last fall. But we all have to make sacrifices when we take on new responsibilities, don’t we?
Take me, for example — my son, Levi, is almost 14 months old. Can y’all believe that? Crazy. I can’t even remember life before he was born. Part of that’s because of the weed, but life really does change once you’re a daddy. And my wife, Camila, is expecting our second one by the end of the year.
Whoa, did I just say “wife”? Back up, y’all — that was a slip of the tongue. Camila’s my partner. My main squeeze. My colleague in baby raisin’. But not my wife. Neither of us are into that right now. Maybe one day, but we’re not like normal people — we don’t need the tax breaks, know what I mean? When you’re rich, money has no effect on love.
