The Mayor Doesn’t Have a Magic Wand…

Here is a transcript from today’s press conference by local Mayoral Press Secretary, Carla Hobbes, concerning air-pollution from the Canadian wildfires:

 

PRESS SECRETARY HOBBES: “Good afternoon. With air quality improving, our recommendation to stay indoors should be lifted by early next week. Let’s take some questions…”

 

REPORTER #1: “Could the Mayor have done more to prepare the city for this scenario?”

 

PRESS SECRETARY: “This is ultimately a Climate-Change issue. We can’t control which way the wind blows. The Mayor doesn’t have a magic wand.”  

 

REPORTER #2: “Since you brought it up: Where is the Mayor’s magic wand? Many residents say the wand was the main, or even the only reason they voted for him. Wouldn’t it have helped here?”

 

PRESS SECRETARY: (big sigh) “Look, the voters elected the Mayor for his ideas. Not just the wand. Since he only used the wand to serve those ideas, nothing’s really changed here, guys.”

 

REPORTER #2 (follow-up): “How can you say that? For years, the Mayor has wielded the wand’s powers daily—some would say quite floridly—for crowd-pleasing stunts that boost his approval ratings. Ever since the wand went missing, the Mayor hasn’t even been seen in public.”

 

PRESS SECRETARY: “The Mayor has always had the deepest reverence for the wand’s mysterious powers, ever since the stormy night its cricket-hum song beckoned him, and him alone, to discover it at the bottom of Fairview Lake, glowing and pulsating with benevolent magics. Which the Mayor went on to use, without exception, for the greater good. Period.” 

 

REPORTER #3: “Well, our analysis shows the wand was used almost exclusively on popular local issues, like traffic. Sure, our local sports teams didn’t lose a single home-game for a year. And sure, Taylor Swift played our local arena every night for six months, some say against her will—”

 

PRESS SECRETARY: “Wow, Debbie. I saw you singing a very different tune in the front row last week. Namely, ‘Willow.’”

 

REPORTER #3: (ignoring this) “—but critics ask: Why didn’t the Mayor use the wand to address bigger issues facing our city—our country—like poverty, racism, and yes, Climate Change?”

 

PRESS SECRETARY: (big sigh) “OK, let’s explain this again. Early on, the Mayor discovered that if he tried to use the wand’s magic on anything outside of our city’s borders, not only did the magic fail, but the Mayor would spit up blood, lose control of his bowels, and a bunch of his hair would turn white. Plus, every bird in a 250-yard radius would drop dead. For the Mayor, an avid birder, watching his feathered friends plummet from the sky like fallen angels was…devastating. The magic had to be limited and local.”

 

REPORTER #4: “Shouldn’t the Mayor have at least demonstrated this ‘limit’ to the public?”

 

PRESS SECRETARY: “And soiled himself in front of 50 reporters? Would I be good at my job if I let him do that, Bruce? I had hoped a basket of dead birds would be proof enough. But that only led to accusations we killed the birds ourselves. Which is abhorrent.”  

 

REPORTER #5: “On that note, surely you’ve heard the public’s nicknames for the wand: ‘The Devil’s Toothpick,’ ‘Samhain’s Pinkie,’ ‘The Dementor’s Dildo.’ With many fearing its power derives from dark magic, couldn’t it fall into the wrong hands now that The Mayor’s lost it?”

 

PRESS SECRETARY: “Let me be clear. The Mayor did not ‘lose’ the wand. It is blatantly obvious  that City Councilman Teddy Bilson—who plans to run against the Mayor next year—stole it.”

 

REPORTER #4 (follow-up): “Do you have proof of this?”

 

PRESS SECRETARY: “Um, have you visited Councilman Bilson’s District lately? He’s been trying, and failing, to renovate Woodlawn Bridge to ease traffic for a decade. Last Tuesday, the bridge was completed literally overnight. Boom! 8 A.M. Shiny new 8-lane bridge. How? Magic. From a stolen wand Councilman Bilson was never meant to have.” 

 

REPORTER #5: “Well, to be fair, can you really claim the Mayor was ‘meant’ to have the wand? I mean, all he did was find it at the bottom of a lake and—”

 

PRESS SECRETARY: (raising voice) “The Mayor did not ‘find’ the wand! It chose him! Councilman Bilson—who suddenly lives in a heavily-fortified mountain compound that didn’t even exist last week—must return it immediately…or meet his doom!”

 

(Long, awkward silence.)

 

REPORTER #6: “Miss Hobbes, what do you say to rumors that for years the Mayor has been using the wand to transfigure himself into his own ‘Press Secretary,’ got trapped in that form when the wand went missing, and that you—‘Carla Hobbes’—are, in fact…The Mayor?”

 

(Gasps from press corps.) 

 

PRESS SECRETARY HOBBES: “I’m not even going to dignify th—” (forced chuckle) “I’m a real person, so…” (suddenly screaming) “GIVE ME MY FUCKING WAND BACK, BILSON! YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME—MY BODY, MY LIFE! THE WAND KNOWS ITS TRUE MASTER! BEWARE! IT WILL SMITE THE UNWORTHY INTO DUST! MARK MY WORDS!”

 

(Press Secretary Hobbes—or I guess The Mayor?—flees press room in tears. Stunned silence.)

 

(City Councilman Teddy Bilson suddenly appears in puff of smoke, steps up to podium.)

 

COUNCILMAN BILSON: “Good afternoon. Today, I’d like to formally announce my 2024 Mayoral Campaign, which will kick off tonight at my District’s ‘Songs In The Park’ Summer Concert Series with a 60-night residency…..by Harry Styles!”

 

(Cheers from press corps.)