Sparky will not go gentle into the night. He will be Sparky until the end, kicking and screaming as they drag him out of the City & County Building when his term is up. He couldn’t help himself in the mayoral primaries, giving poor Keith Christensen the kiss of death and then thrusting himself into the race in the final days, making churlish comments about Ted Wilson’s daughter.
All of us who love Sparky know that he will not be sitting quietly on the sidelines as Dave Buhler and Ralph Becker duke it out. In this peaceful calm before the coming campaign storm, we thought it would be instructive and edifying to pick the brain of our pugnacious and pontificating Mayor Sparky. We caught up with Sparky as he was chasing Becker up 4th South.
City Weekly: Do you mind if we inquire as to why you are chasing Ralph Becker up 4th South?
Sparky: Isn’t it obvious? It’s so typical of the media, if you can call your rag the media, to be completely oblivious to what is glaringly obvious, to wit, that I am running after Ralph to give him my endorsement for mayor, and he is running away from me as fast as he can. I ruined Keith’s chances of becoming mayor by giving him my endorsement, and I will do everything in my power to ruin Ralph’s chances of becoming mayor by giving him my endorsement.
City Weekly (getting increasingly winded as we approach 7th East): But, Mayor Sparky, if you ruin Ralph’s chances of becoming mayor, your old archenemy Dave Buhler will succeed you in City Hall. We understood that you don’t like Dave.
Sparky (closing the gap on Becker, who keeps turning his head to see if Sparky is within shouting distance): Not only don’t I like Dave, I can’t stand Dave; I have nothing but the most absolute contempt for Dave; I despise Dave; I spit on Dave; I hawk phlegm at Dave; I blow my nose on Dave; I expel boluses of snot at Dave’s dour countenance.
D.P. Sorensen writes satire for City Weekly.
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City Weekly: So with all due respect, Mayor Sparky, why would you act in such a manner as to ensure the victory of a man at whose dour countenance you expel boluses of snot?
Sparky: Boy, you really are thick. If you were on my staff, you would have been pecked to death by my parrot Cardozo. Listen closely, tabloid-breath: I’ll say this just once. Once I catch up with Ralph—and he’s in pretty good shape from walking all over the city—once I chase down Ralph, and they get photographs of me with my arm around him, well, Ralph will be toast, mayor-wise. His numbers will drop faster than my trousers and the Democrats will have no choice but to urge me to run as a write-in candidate.
City Weekly (gasping for breath as we approach the Hoberman Arch): Why were you so mean to Jenny?
Sparky: I was just trying to give her a little boost, get her numbers up. I thought to myself: What’s the best way to do Jenny a favor? Obviously, anyone with half a brain would see that if I dumped on her she would rise in estimation of the voters. If I hadn’t said she should stay home and be a good mommy, she would have finished behind Keith. At least she made a respectable showing, and it’s all my doing.
City Weekly: We read with interest that Buhler contends that he is not running away from the Republican Party or its philosophy. In other words, he denies that the elephant in the room is a problem for him. How do you assess his assertion, Mayor Sparky?
Sparky: You’ve got to be grunting me! Buhler is running away from the elephant faster than Becker is running away from me. But Buhler is faced with a dilemma. He doesn’t want the elephant, but he certainly wants the Mormon guy sitting in the howdah on the elephant’s back. Dave will play the Mormon card for all it’s worth. The church wants to take the city back. Of course that’s ridiculous, since the church already owns the city lock, stock and barrel. You must have noticed that I was just a minor irritant for the church, nothing more than a turd in the punchbowl at the ward picnic.
City Weekly: Thank you for your time, Mayor Sparky. Best of luck with punchbowls in the future.
