Mr. Mayor, Assume The Position
It's the Eric Era
The panoply of freaks, goobers, losers, grifters, weirdos, whackos, dunces, dorks, doofuses, numbnuts, and ignorami that composed the New York City mayoral election is officially dwindling. Over the next week or so, the passengers in the clown car will be systematically ejected onto the roadway one by one, until only one star-crossed public servant remains. At press time, it seems quite likely that person will be Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.
I mentioned Eric briefly in my character assassination of Andrew Yang. However, I did not fully articulate how utterly strange of a guy Adams is. He was brutally beaten by the police as a teenager and the experience made him join the police. He went vegan due to diabetes and now writes his own cookbooks. He claims his favorite concert was the one where a light fell on Curtis Mayfield, paralyzing him. He says he wants to buy a plot of land in Israel to retire on, ideally in the "Gonad Heights." He bragged about living in his office during Covid, although that was probably because he actually resides in New Jersey. He held a press conference in the musty, dank basement of his son's house where he claims to live, surrounded by his son's basketball shoes and a fridge full of vegan treats like smoked salmon and a raw steak.
I did not vote for Eric Adams. I found his buddy-buddy relationship with real estate developers and sketchy handling of campaign funds concerning. I also did not fall for his copaganda, tough-on-crime machismo. More importantly, I assessed that the leftist cartel that runs North Brooklyn had put Adams solidly on the wrong side of this season's Hot or Not list. If I had any hope of breaking a toilet seat in Mood Ring’s communal bathroom with someone in a knitted bucket hat and big pants this summer, I had to vote correctly.
But now that the dust is settling, do I think Eric Adams will be a good mayor? Yeah.
Will he make New York more affordable, more livable, more comfortable, more inviting, more inclusive, and generally easier to survive for the majority of its citizens? Of course not. But that's not what the mayor does.
The mayor is the city's waste receptacle for negative energy. He is the Flak-Catcher-In-Chief. He is the lead vest which absorbs our harmful psychic radiation. He is the scapegoat we dump our sins on then sacrifice. His job is to receive a paddling, say thank you, and ask for another. He is a music festival port-a-potty. He is the man in the kiddie pool at the Kink Festival with a funnel strapped to his mouth. The mayor exists to be abused.
I don’t really know what the mayor does and I don’t think you do either. I already know what you want the next mayor to do. Defund the police? Based on the results of this election, it doesn’t really seem like all that many New Yorkers want that to happen. Make the trains run on time? That’s up to the governor. Make rent cheaper? I’m not sure anyone knows how to do that. Ultimately, you just want someone fun to be mad at.
There are 8 million people New Yorkers, which means that at any given moment, there are 8 million reasons why the mayor is a moron, No good guys on Hinge anymore? That’s the mayor’s fault. Too many guys driving around with suped-up car stereos waking you up? Also the mayor’s fault. Someone leaves dog shit on your sidewalk? Mayor’s fault. Neighbors you share a wall with loudly stinking the room up night after night? Mayor’s fault. Low water pressure? Mayor’s fault. Step-sister stuck in the washing machine? Mayor’s fault. Can’t find a six-figure job in trend forecasting/creative strategy? Mayor’s fault. Nowhere to pee? Actual problem, and the mayor’s fault. Stubbed your toe? Mayor’s fault. Zipped your balls in your fly? Mayor’s fault.
Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago (a small suburb of New York, famous for its hot dog toppings) used to really sweat the small stuff in his city. Stories abound of him traveling around, griping about an overflowing garbage bin or overgrown highway berm. His theory was that seemingly minute details of urban existence added up to the quality of life in his city. By that logic, the collectedness of the garbage and the mowedness of the grass also determine the approval rating of the mayor. And, since there will always be something wrong, the mayor will always be doing a bad job.
I have a few heuristics which I use to determine my vote: I reality shift into the consciousness of a sapiosexual to discover the most fuckable opinions. I aggregate the Internet’s 5000 loudest white women into one perfect ur-take. I use a hazel dowsing stick to divine providential omens. But my favorite technique is to imagine the city is undergoing a crisis, like, say, a global pandemic or widespread racial unrest. In those tumultuous times, the mayor’s job is to start talking. Who do you want to hear on NY1?
Nobody in this race really aced that test. No candidate had the quiet grace, the steady confidence, the arm-around-your-shoulder “You can do it, champ!” gentleness of our Rock, de Blasio. So we might as well get someone funny, right? With Adams, we can expect a steady stream of gaffes, goofs, flubs, fumbles, snafus, and snarls to keep us entertained. At the very least, he seems like an easy guy to hate. What more can we ask for?
I think we’ve had enough of local politics for now. New York is back. It’s summer in the city. Get out there. Public pools open tomorrow. Get a Mr. Softee cone. Enroll in NYU. Take up queer space with your straight body. Expose yourself in the M&M store. Dump a bag of eels into the Prospect Park fishing hole. Suck. Fuck. Book me on your comedy show. However you like to do it, just go enjoy the city you’ve been so worried about.