NOTE: We figure most people have a TV and know what's happening. So we're going to provide some background on the events through surveillance-camera taped conversations with Cody Barstow and Riley Collins over morning coffee. They meet at the Mo-Jo Shop (once called the More Coffee Shop, but shortened, "Bring me some Mo' Jo"). We will continue to report on the Clown invasion and other events as they warrant, however.
Somebody else's election, thank God.
MOJO CITY, Nov. 3, 2001 -
RILEY: Dude. Where've you been?
CODY: Visiting my sister over in Pocatello.
RILEY: Idaho?
CODY: You know of another? They're having an election for mayor. She showed me a tape of one of the debates between the three guys going at it.
RILEY: Anything worthwhile?
CODY: Pretty amusing, actually. This reporter from the local paper gets up and asks them all about closed meetings. I guess the current city council has gotten some sort of bad rep for calling executive sessions. Not keeping everything out in the open. Dunno. That's what my sister said.
Add water to the dirt and you get mud. You get politics ... slinging it out in the mud ... clear as mud ... your name's going to be mud ... muddy up the waters ... the best of politics.
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The Gunman
Old Glory
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Prior
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Concert
for New York
The
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The
Anthrax Killings Pt.II
It's too damned late.
The weather sucks.
CONTACT:
Scott
MacGregor
managing editor
Cody Barstow
contributing editor
RILEY: Anyway …
CODY: Anyway, two of the guys are on the current council. They each bitch and moan about the closed sessions and say it's not right and say they'll make sure they do everything they can out in the light of public scrutiny. The third guy, who I guess was once on the council but not now, says something quite the same.
RILEY: Oh, I see where this is going. This is lovely.
CODY: Yeah, but no one ever asked the question.
RILEY: But it's so obvious …
CODY: Yeah. [The surveillance tape shows Cody suddenly standing up and leaning across the small table and screaming into Riley's face.] Hey! Hey, you! If you hated the damned executive sessions so much, why the hell didn't you just refuse to go into them? Stage a protest that way.
RILEY: Lemme see … if I'm one of those guys, I guess I'd say I had to attend to protect the interests of the people I represent.
CODY: And that, of course, is a bullshit answer. The real representation that had to be made was a refusal to enter so many executive sessions. The real thing that had to be done was to force the council to meet in public.
At least if what my sister told me was right.
RILEY: Yahoos?
[The tape shows a long pause with Cody staring into his coffee while the waitress delivers his Heuvos Rancheros … and then, softly …]
CODY: You'd think.
