Enjoy, constituents!

Symphony Space, New York, New York

What a shitshow. And what a contrast from the primary debate, which was measured and mature even when de Faustio was lying through his big skull. But the official competition for the highfalutin’ job managing and legislating for the borough of five has devolved into a three way cage match.

As Gorilla Monsoon always use to say, “pandemonium’s runnin’ wild!”

It started ludicrous enough when the folks at Spectrum/NY1 decided to place the candidates left to right in height descending order. The incongruity of the set up of the reigning Mayor Big Slow, Darling Nicki, and Deitl-Dee looked akin to a block in downtown Brooklyn with the typical steel and glass behemoth looming over a brownstone and a bodega.

As this version of a Summerslam undercard three way cage match began, the crowd got very boisterous for their candidates. Actually, the crowd sort of sounded more like the canned yelling and wooing that used to be heard on Married With Children or any of the Darwin-challenged denizens that traverse the thousand bars in the Lower East Side.

The opening statements by our mayor and the legitimate challenger Malliotakis were your standard speeches of promises and policy proposals but was preceded by the madcap performance of the independent candidate Mr. Dietl, who was channeling an amalgam of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil, T.V.’s Frank Reynolds, and a disheveled derelict with bipolar disorder.

And this is how he conducted himself for the next 90 minutes. First yelling about the Blaz’s baseball team loyalty and cheering for the division champion Yankees. Mixing up the issues in the cuisinart of his mind. Introducing new words to the English vocab like “yob” and “mooses”. Somehow he did bring up some salient points, solid ideas, and nice digs at the Blaz in the middle of his holler show, particularly his criticism of his jail commish Joe Ponte, who let Rikers rot in the inside of corruption and anarchy, but they got lost in the cacaphony that came from his running non-stop pie hole.

Assemblywoman Mallitokis was the token female and voice of reason. Her platform is pretty good and well-targeted, meaning de Faustio and his appointed cult’s frivolous spending of tax dollars, his staff of 300, his whoring for developer donor money, his slovenly dependence of and deference to the wormtongue lobbyists and the 501 (c) (4) he was running inside City Hall. Her plans to fix the homeless and shelter situations are pretty much the same but with a promise to get these people training, but didn’t say where (free college or trade school training?).  The best was when she accused the Blaz of being a pussy (my words) about facing Cuomo concerning the worst fucking transit system in the universe. But she was the only one who presented herself with class, dignity and sincerity, which is something this amateur writer hasn’t seen in a very long time. Although you gotta watch out when you make these descriptions, because politicians inevitably betray and disappoint.

Which segues perfectly into Mayor de Faustio, the current mayoral sash title holder. He also engaged in the voluminous atmosphere by yelling about his plans for the future of N.Y., thinking that yelling will come off as stirring and inspiring. But it was the samo samo. More weak promises, more plans that will take more time. More bullshit as frosting. His dubious achievements about his mental health program despite more mentally ill people wandering in the streets and subways and watching videos on those LinkNYC obelisks all over the city, which is run by his arrogant wife with 2 aides of her own (that’s about 375 large wasted right there). And of course, his now generally considered fraudulent affordable housing plan loathed by the majority of citizens but loved by the people who won the lottery for the tiny smidgen of low-rent apts. He has no plan for improving the city for the rest of his tenure if elected. His main platform apparently, and obviously is that he did not vote for Donald J. Trump, and his opponents did and that’s enough to justify your vote for him.

It’s like de Faustio is taking Hillary’s alienating “basket of deplorables” reasoning. What he refuses to realize, as with the cult remaining loyal to that cult of personality, is that she was a terrible candidate herself. Bernie was the more popular candidate, but was undermined by chicanery and manipulation of the public by the Democrat Machine. His vote for an unpopular, self-delusional, equally narcissistic, Hollywood and Wall St. donor ducats dependent and repulsed by the voting public candidate is just as irresponsible as he feels about how Nicole and Bo voted. And what about the percentage of voters who are his constituents who voted for the Dotard? Are they undeserving of civic services because of how they voted or what politics they follow?

The “debate” was reprehensible. Funny how Errol Lewis didn’t seem to mind the cult of groupies cheering for de Faustio and ordered people cheering for Bo to be kicked out. And something must be done about these stupid time restraints because some answers have to be thought out besides the typical yes or no. Although the mayor also refused to answer a simple question he was allowed to stretch and avoid the question. And it certainly might have been the first time that a moderator ordered mics to be shut off, and it wasn’t to get Bo to settle down, but Errol shut down Nicole’s mic when she wanted to respond to one of de Faustio’s divergences. She looked at him simultaneously incredulous and wanting to punch him in the jaw. Turning off their mics also devalues the actual purpose of the debate. Funny how being shut down twice couldn’t stop Bo from yelling at the end.

Everyone, except for Nicole, was obnoxious, dishonest and repulsive, and that includes the minions for Spectrum, Brian Lehrer meandering questions he provided and that snotty reporter from Politico, apparently their employers wants de Faustio to get re-elected which is why every question, even the ones that seemed critical, was perfectly aligned with his agenda.

This type of formatting shouldn’t be a shock, since everything news-related on T.V. and streaming is set up for manufacturing consent. And now they got add a little raucous no holds barred lunacy to get the people to tune on, tune in and drop out. And the chosen man of the hour is the Blaz. Even the Campaign Finance Committee is part of the fix, being that they gave a cool 2 million for de Faustio to fight his primary against the puny electoral finances of his opponent Sal Albanese, who just couldn’t get the cash to be at this even though he is running on the reform party ticket. But lo and behold, there was cash available for Bo to place and show to turn the future of this city into a farce.

Because even with the seemingly lower crime, endless tourism and massive wealth, the city is still a hellhole. A more overcrowded one too, with a financial bubble about to burst, and with the homeless that won’t go away and continuing to grow, a great depression that people of all ranks are trying to avoid and remain indifferent to. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to try to manage this FUBAR situation. But somebody’s gotta do it.

And it sure as hell shouldn’t be the one who exacerbated it.

There is another debate coming in November on CBS. They better not fuck it up and leave the theatrics to Vince McMahon and his progeny Shane O Mac and Stephanie. Although it’s going to be fun to see Marcia Kramer grill the defending and defensive mayor. Billy-D-B better wear 2 pairs of depends that night.