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.”

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