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.”
There are several degrees of expectation, but the key ones are low expectation, high expectation, and original Metallica fans. You’re aware of the first two, I’m sure, but number three may be a mystery to you, and for good reason, as satisfaction requires nothing less than a wormhole in time, a crate of Jagermeister, and just maybe the reanimated dead. Intrigued?