Mr. Felgewater Doesn't Go to Washington
Reading some comments about Myron Felgewater’s reign of terror brought a smile to my face, even as I recalled some of the more rancid moments of my tenure under his boot. I’ve heard it said that comedy is just tragedy plus time, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Felgewater years.
There’s one other moment, though, that deserves special consideration, especially during this wacky political season.
It was when Myron Felgewater ran for mayor.
As background, you need to understand that Myron Felgewater would ask questions to which he already knew the answer, or at least he thought he knew the answer. The purpose of his requests for advice was to seek reinforcement for what he had already decided. If you gave that reinforcement, you were a genius. If you in any way disagreed, you were an imbecile. This was especially true if you were a competent professional in Felgewater’s industry, an industry Felgewater prided himself on knowing nothing about.
I spent a good deal of time cringing as Felgewater would brazenly unveil his incompetence in meetings with competent professionals. He’d do this in every setting imaginable. Favorite phrases were “It’s not rocket science,” or “It’s a no-brainer.” (With Myron, everything was, by definition, a no-brainer.) For example, he hated doctors, because, according to Myron, none of them knew anything. To him, the only thing that was rocket science was, well, rocket science, and even there, he thought he probably understood it better than those egghead science geeks did.
So at some point, Myron decides that it’s time for him to spread his wings and inflict himself on the community at large, and he files for office to run for mayor of the small, bedroom community in which he lived. So, knowing I have a political background, he, for some unfathomable reason, comes into my office to seek my advice.
Here’s how it all unfolded.
“I’m running for mayor!” he said breathlessly.
“Congratulations,” I said. “I hope you win.” I meant it, too. If he had won, we might finally have been rid of him.
“So what do I do?” he asked.
I paused for a moment before asking, “What do you mean?”
“I mean what am I supposed to do to run for mayor?”
I blinked a few times and said “Well, get out and meet the voters!”
“What?” he asked. “Like, door-to-door?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s a small enough town that you could probably shake every voter’s hand before Election Day.”
“People hate that in this town,” he insisted. He started to get very hot under the collar very quickly. “Nobody wants to be bothered in their home. In fact, they’d appreciate a candidate who was considerate enough to leave them alone.”
“Well, Solomon Burke is knocking doors,” I countered. “He’s out there running hard.”
“Yeah, and he’s turning everyone off. I’m not going to do it.”
“Uhhhh, okay,” I said. He’d made up his mind, so I didn’t press it.
“What about lawn signs?” he asked.
“What about them?” I said.
“Solomon Burke has, like, a million of them out there.”
“Yes, he does,” I said. “You’re going to have to work pretty hard to catch up.”
“But I’m not going to do lawn signs,” he said. “They’re ugly. They clutter up everything. And they cost too much money, which my wife won’t allow me to spend.”
“You’re not going to do any?” I asked incredulously.
“Nope. I’ve put up some flyers at Albertsons instead.”
And that he had. On the community billboard. Cheap, Xeroxed copies of a self-made “Myron Felgewater for Mayor” logo. Right next to the ads for one free guitar lesson and the “Have you seen this dog?” flyers.
“So,” I summarized, “you’re not going to knock doors, and you’re not doing lawn signs.”
“That’s right.”
“Well,” I said, gathering up the courage to ask a transparently obvious question, “how do you intend to let people know you’re running for mayor?”
“Public forums,” he said, looking at me like I was too dumb to see the genius of his non-campaign. “I do great at the public forums. But the ones we’ve had so far have been so podunk and stupid. They’re a real waste of time. At the last one, all the guy wanted to know was ‘why are you running for mayor?’ He kept asking that over and over.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I didn’t have an answer for him,” he said. “It’s just a stupid question.”
“It is?”
“Of course it is!” he snapped. “This is a tiny, backwater, stupid little town! Why would anyone want to be mayor?!”
“Ummm,” I said, buying time to, once again, cite the bone-chillingly obvious without mocking him overtly. Then I said, “You and I probably agree there.”
“Thank you,” he said, feeling reinforced.
“The difference, of course…” - and those of you with brains can see where I was going with this – “…is that you are, in fact, running for mayor, and I’m not.”
“So?”
Seriously. He still didn’t get it. I had to actually ask the question.
“So, if you think this is a stupid town and that the mayor’s office is worthless, why ARE you running for mayor?”
It took awhile for me to convince him, at least for the sake of argument, that it was a question worth answering. As we talked in circles, it came out that the reason he was running was he was being charitable, and that the yokels who infested this beknighted town might benefit from the majesty of a Felgewater’s wisdom. He fully expected to coast to victory on the basis of his name alone.
Eventually, he put about five or six real lawn signs, moaning about how expensive they were and belittling Solomon Burke for being foolish enough to think they mattered.
In the end, they didn’t matter. There were three candidates in the race. The top two would face each other in a primary, and Myron consoled himself with an unwavering assurance that he could at least beat the other, non-Solomon Burke guy, because “nobody knew who he was.” Turns out about 24% of the town knew he was, because that’s who voted for him. Whereas Solomon Burke won handily, with well over 70% of the vote. The number two guy opted out of a primary and backed Burke.
And Myron?
Admittedly, he did better than I thought he would. He polled 137 total votes, which, coincidentally, was about the number of Felgewaters who lived in the town. (There were probably more, but I doubt Myron even won a majority of his immediate circle of friends.)
In his post-mortems, he insisted that he’d only run so that Burke wouldn’t be “coronated,” because “everyone knew he was going to win, anyway.” This despite the fact that Burke had relentlessly annoyed the town’s citizens by knocking on their doors and putting up lawn sign clutter. He also complained about the conspiracies that kept him from learning about the “good” public forums to which he wasn’t invited. (The newspaper was in on that one.) Actually, I think he probably wasn’t invited to several events, but that was because he and I were the only two people,other than his stingy wife, who knew he was running for mayor.
I shouldn’t gloat. I ran for office about five years later and lost. But I came in third out of five, and I lost by a 6-vote margin and gathered more votes than the bottom two candidates combined. (That sounds impressive, but there were only about 200 total votes cast, as I lost in a political convention among county delegates. So I lost by about 3%.) But throughout the whole campaign, I kept thinking about Myron Felgewater. I could survive losing, but not Felgewaterian humiliation.
In the end, I shouldn’t have worried. Nobody who runs for office will ever have to be that badly embarrassed, as long as they do two things:
1) Have a reason for running, and
2) Actually campaign.
There’s one other moment, though, that deserves special consideration, especially during this wacky political season.
It was when Myron Felgewater ran for mayor.
As background, you need to understand that Myron Felgewater would ask questions to which he already knew the answer, or at least he thought he knew the answer. The purpose of his requests for advice was to seek reinforcement for what he had already decided. If you gave that reinforcement, you were a genius. If you in any way disagreed, you were an imbecile. This was especially true if you were a competent professional in Felgewater’s industry, an industry Felgewater prided himself on knowing nothing about.
I spent a good deal of time cringing as Felgewater would brazenly unveil his incompetence in meetings with competent professionals. He’d do this in every setting imaginable. Favorite phrases were “It’s not rocket science,” or “It’s a no-brainer.” (With Myron, everything was, by definition, a no-brainer.) For example, he hated doctors, because, according to Myron, none of them knew anything. To him, the only thing that was rocket science was, well, rocket science, and even there, he thought he probably understood it better than those egghead science geeks did.
So at some point, Myron decides that it’s time for him to spread his wings and inflict himself on the community at large, and he files for office to run for mayor of the small, bedroom community in which he lived. So, knowing I have a political background, he, for some unfathomable reason, comes into my office to seek my advice.
Here’s how it all unfolded.
“I’m running for mayor!” he said breathlessly.
“Congratulations,” I said. “I hope you win.” I meant it, too. If he had won, we might finally have been rid of him.
“So what do I do?” he asked.
I paused for a moment before asking, “What do you mean?”
“I mean what am I supposed to do to run for mayor?”
I blinked a few times and said “Well, get out and meet the voters!”
“What?” he asked. “Like, door-to-door?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s a small enough town that you could probably shake every voter’s hand before Election Day.”
“People hate that in this town,” he insisted. He started to get very hot under the collar very quickly. “Nobody wants to be bothered in their home. In fact, they’d appreciate a candidate who was considerate enough to leave them alone.”
“Well, Solomon Burke is knocking doors,” I countered. “He’s out there running hard.”
“Yeah, and he’s turning everyone off. I’m not going to do it.”
“Uhhhh, okay,” I said. He’d made up his mind, so I didn’t press it.
“What about lawn signs?” he asked.
“What about them?” I said.
“Solomon Burke has, like, a million of them out there.”
“Yes, he does,” I said. “You’re going to have to work pretty hard to catch up.”
“But I’m not going to do lawn signs,” he said. “They’re ugly. They clutter up everything. And they cost too much money, which my wife won’t allow me to spend.”
“You’re not going to do any?” I asked incredulously.
“Nope. I’ve put up some flyers at Albertsons instead.”
And that he had. On the community billboard. Cheap, Xeroxed copies of a self-made “Myron Felgewater for Mayor” logo. Right next to the ads for one free guitar lesson and the “Have you seen this dog?” flyers.
“So,” I summarized, “you’re not going to knock doors, and you’re not doing lawn signs.”
“That’s right.”
“Well,” I said, gathering up the courage to ask a transparently obvious question, “how do you intend to let people know you’re running for mayor?”
“Public forums,” he said, looking at me like I was too dumb to see the genius of his non-campaign. “I do great at the public forums. But the ones we’ve had so far have been so podunk and stupid. They’re a real waste of time. At the last one, all the guy wanted to know was ‘why are you running for mayor?’ He kept asking that over and over.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I didn’t have an answer for him,” he said. “It’s just a stupid question.”
“It is?”
“Of course it is!” he snapped. “This is a tiny, backwater, stupid little town! Why would anyone want to be mayor?!”
“Ummm,” I said, buying time to, once again, cite the bone-chillingly obvious without mocking him overtly. Then I said, “You and I probably agree there.”
“Thank you,” he said, feeling reinforced.
“The difference, of course…” - and those of you with brains can see where I was going with this – “…is that you are, in fact, running for mayor, and I’m not.”
“So?”
Seriously. He still didn’t get it. I had to actually ask the question.
“So, if you think this is a stupid town and that the mayor’s office is worthless, why ARE you running for mayor?”
It took awhile for me to convince him, at least for the sake of argument, that it was a question worth answering. As we talked in circles, it came out that the reason he was running was he was being charitable, and that the yokels who infested this beknighted town might benefit from the majesty of a Felgewater’s wisdom. He fully expected to coast to victory on the basis of his name alone.
Eventually, he put about five or six real lawn signs, moaning about how expensive they were and belittling Solomon Burke for being foolish enough to think they mattered.
In the end, they didn’t matter. There were three candidates in the race. The top two would face each other in a primary, and Myron consoled himself with an unwavering assurance that he could at least beat the other, non-Solomon Burke guy, because “nobody knew who he was.” Turns out about 24% of the town knew he was, because that’s who voted for him. Whereas Solomon Burke won handily, with well over 70% of the vote. The number two guy opted out of a primary and backed Burke.
And Myron?
Admittedly, he did better than I thought he would. He polled 137 total votes, which, coincidentally, was about the number of Felgewaters who lived in the town. (There were probably more, but I doubt Myron even won a majority of his immediate circle of friends.)
In his post-mortems, he insisted that he’d only run so that Burke wouldn’t be “coronated,” because “everyone knew he was going to win, anyway.” This despite the fact that Burke had relentlessly annoyed the town’s citizens by knocking on their doors and putting up lawn sign clutter. He also complained about the conspiracies that kept him from learning about the “good” public forums to which he wasn’t invited. (The newspaper was in on that one.) Actually, I think he probably wasn’t invited to several events, but that was because he and I were the only two people,other than his stingy wife, who knew he was running for mayor.
I shouldn’t gloat. I ran for office about five years later and lost. But I came in third out of five, and I lost by a 6-vote margin and gathered more votes than the bottom two candidates combined. (That sounds impressive, but there were only about 200 total votes cast, as I lost in a political convention among county delegates. So I lost by about 3%.) But throughout the whole campaign, I kept thinking about Myron Felgewater. I could survive losing, but not Felgewaterian humiliation.
In the end, I shouldn’t have worried. Nobody who runs for office will ever have to be that badly embarrassed, as long as they do two things:
1) Have a reason for running, and
2) Actually campaign.
posted by Elder Samuel Bennett | 3:08 PM
5 Comments:
One of the most obnoxious people in town was elected to the School Board recently - after multiple failed attempts and only by pandering with scare tactics to the retired population in an open attack on the school district. Yeah, great guy to have on the Board.
Anyway, he is running for State Rep now - and I voted for him. You see, if he wins, he will not be able to continue to serve on the School Board - and he won't be able to do as much damage in such a large group.
If he wins, I'm sure he will have no idea that most people voted for him to get rid of him.
Did you vote for him?
No. I would have just to get rid of him, but I didn't live in his town.
I peed my pants reading this one... we could spend a week telling these stories...
#1
"an industry Felgewater prided himself on knowing nothing about"
One particular year (I'm not sure who had the guts to do it) Myron was banned from the meetings with the competent professionals because we were afraid of permanent damage to our eyes caused by the constant rolling back in our heads every time he talked...
#2
Being that it is my calling in life to mock those who refuse to adopt new technology, in one such meeting I made a glib comment about his paper day planner, a day planner which (I had momentarily forgotten) had ultra-special familial significance to Myron.
To counteract my evil technological influence on everyone, he went on a 15 minute tirade on the effectiveness of his planner and punctuated it by promising/threatening to buy everyone these special planners and call a special training session so the guy who invented them could teach us how to use them.
...By the end of my employment there everyone was showing up to meetings with notebook computers. (I win!)
#3
He used to always brag that his office computer, which was like a Pentium 133mhz running Windows 3.1, had never been upgraded since he started working there. When I mocked his computer saying it probably couldn't even do email, he (dead serious) replied by saying 'why would I ever want email?' He was convinced that it wasn't an effective communication mechanism and why would he send an email when he could type a letter and put it on pretty letterhead...
Ah, yes! The Windows 3.1 computer! I'd bet he still uses it. I think he saw modern technology as a fad that would soon pass.
I was talking to my wife the other day about Myron's wife's little frozen yogurt stand. On one occasion, she confessed that all the cash proceeds from said stand were hidden in her mattress, far away from the prying eyes of the IRS or the LDS Church. It was her "special money," and she didn't have to pay taxes or tithing on them as long as "they were never in a bank."
Huh?
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