I gave my last cash dollar to a young hooded man on the subway who asked me, while I rode to hear Mike Billionaire make his case to Black America.
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I’m common, I’m common, I’m common as muck.
I’m common as muck and much more.
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God these events are funny, they’re down to a science now, and these Bloomberg folk are certainly master scientists. I’ve come to a few of these events now, so have an idea of what to expect, but I had heard these Bloomberg folk were good, so I came in expecting greased gears and their fluid functioning, but bravo to the manner of magic!
I arrived to a line out and around.
I first approached a quite literally gated off section of the building with clear elites, I mean one cannot ever expect easy entrance if one is unwilling to try walking through the most accessible of open doors, barred only by the trial of asking.
The line is decently long, enough so to try the avoiding, but I was duly pointed back out in the direction of the rabble, but now got the opportunity to walk the line (a real struggle for me) and gaze out upon tonight’s event’s peers, and admire. How worthy they felt of the admiration.
Now this line was smart, they did very well here in both their organization and efficiency, as well as the promotion of the event generated in the very nature of animals gathering: why? What’s happening? What am I missing?
It moved quickly enough that it never felt like a burden, but with enough stagnation as to feel worthwhile. They are clearly checking us in at the front of this line, but as far as these things go, they must be pretty good to get by this quick.
Linegregants begin their petty political ice breaking that helps ease their awkward union, both extremely personal and cringingly superficial in tandem together.
An older, midwestern psychology professor looking gentleman approached an elderly couple asking if they were registered to vote, and being the polite, civically conscious couple they were attuned and gracious to the efforts required in social upkeep, they paused to conference with him on certain details of their registration, just as the line before them stepped forward. Being the opportunistic observer uninterested in mere line-waiting, I took this opportunity to join here the queue. Here is where I would hear the first of many distasteful tutterings in my direction that would follow me through the evening, but these upper-middle class liberals really are the easiest people to walk over directly, so I felt confident no consequence would befall me, and I was right.
Standing in line for political events, one can always expect to hear the same inane bullshit repeatedly, especially at liberal political gatherings in 2019, 2020. Older idiots are always the ones most comfortable sharing their beliefs, entitled to our interest, and because the other participants are polite, people engage and act as if they are not hearing a heap of shite from a stranger. Tonight’s fare from the middle-aged ladies behind me, one black and one white, proved the usual entertain twaddle: a strong affirmation of the candidate speaking, passive affirmation of the other Dem’s running, strong and vitriolic rebuke of the president, fond nostalgia towards past presidential Democrats.
“Oh, I’m just so excited that he’s finally running. I’ve just been waiting for this!”
“Yes, it is exciting”
“Oh I know, I know. It feels like we finally have someone that can really beat him, that horrible, horrible man.”
“Mhm.”
“I just can’t wait to get rid of him. He’s so bad. And I don’t know how he’s gotten to all the Jews!”
“Wait, what?”
“I know, I just can’t believe it! I’m Jewish and I run an essential oils business, so I’m on Facebook quite a lot for my work and all my friends are so pro-Trump!”
“Well that doesn’t make much sense, you would think they’d dislike the guy too.”
“They just love him, can’t even look at it anymore, I can’t even talk to some people anymore, it has gotten so cruel and mean-spirited. It’s crazy!”
“Sure is.”
“Clinton was so good too.”
“Mmm.”
It was at this point in my eavesdropping a decently stocky young white man in an “I LIKE MIKE” white t-shirt with a decently suave brown leather jacket approached me asking if I had checked in.
“Yep, I’ve got the email RSVP.”
“We’re actually having everyone check-in on their cell phone.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, so if you could text HOUSTON to 80880, then your name, your email, then your zip-code. It’ll prompt you”
Sure enough, three texts later, and I’m gifted an MMS QR code check-in. Official. Modern. Efficient. I’m near the front of the line now, and it turns 90° and goes up a flight of steps to enter the Buffalo Soldier Museum, my ascendancy to higher realms. Nice older black ladies make a welcoming committee for us coming up the steps, braving the cold Houston night (55°F) to make us feel welcome.
And now I can enter the doorway.
So far, things have been fine, but nothing unfamiliar, nothing special. Now is where I notice the real Bloomberg brilliance.
At the top of the stairs, immediately inside the doors on either side are two large tables mountainously high with a rainbow of t-shirts, free. Everyone gets one.
People want free shit, they crave it, they are dumb for it all the way up, and here now, surprised at this unexpected reward for their waiting, everyone is beaming and excited for their night.
Looking past the t-shirt tables, the building has two wings going out in either direction where staff can be seen giving out free drinks and food. Real food, hot food, food you want to eat.
The people thus horde here in the front entrance.
I slip right through the center, uncaring for the trinkets and t-shirts, and also certain there will be more in the end. There’s another flight of stairs, with Bloombergians standing usher either side. Perhaps it will be here they scan me in, but no I still get to just walk on through. That’s right, I keep forgetting, it’s all just mirage and illusion.
Now I’m in the main event.
The stage is blocked from my vision by the raised press gallery and the two dozen persons and their separate cameras upon it, so I go around it and can finally see the crowd.
The room is surprisingly small, almost intimate. The lighting is nice, warm, could almost be mistaken for the ambiance of a concert, until one looks around and feel the energies that abound. Yeah, there’s a lotta people in this crowd that ain’t getting down.
Frigid repressed politicos, they largely stand awkwardly spread out, supremely inefficiently parted. As I’m flying solo, and decently small, I weave my way through some old icebergs until I’m 15, 20 feet into the crowd, 30, 35 feet from the stage.
Quite a few more tutterings I could hear in the wake of my approach.
“Uh, didn’t he see me standing here, now I can’t see properly, I’ll have to move over.”
“Do you want to switch places honey?”
“Did that man just bump into you. Oh my god, some people.”
They say this twaddle loudly to each other to be heard by myself and those around in the hope that my shame will correct my actions and I’ll feel guilty at their misfortune.
I cannot help but laugh even now in this writing it, the self-importance. One husband keeps gently-not-so-gently bumping into me in an attempt to reassert his space, while another stared intently when he thought me not looking.
I’d found myself a nice spot though, clear vantage point of all the room around me and a direct line of sight to the stage and the podium Bloom.
Now here’s the part of the show where no matter how smoothly the gears of the operation run, a slowdown and a lull begin to settle in as the time of waiting began. We room waiters now stood with varying patience waiting for the man of the hour, our bellies filled, our physical thirst sated, and out ego-political aspects now seeking their due indulgence, but long could the expect a delay.
Before politicians speak to us in a political rally setting, they routinely open with a litany of semi-charismatic, largely self-important dullards whose purpose I have come to surmise is meant to make the main-event speaker seem more exciting by comparison, and Herr Bloomberg needed what assistance he could get/buy. Quite the lineup the man had too. The first speaker would prove the only individual actually worthy of our attention, Calandrian Kemp, the mother of a young man gunned down in petty violence with firearm accompaniment, and someone that should consider public office considering her talents and passions.
She roused our fervor and attention, only for the next grandee to so utterly squander it.
Next came that stereotype character of the self-important black man whose pride in his own achievements shines brightest in the world thanks to the extra he managed to overcome and the great heights he was able to achieve in his body that allow for the forsaking of humility, and the freedom it brings.
This particular stage actor once graced the Elysian fields of the NFL, that dependably hellish avenue to decent success for dozens of young black male bodies every year, I guess with a consideration to the grey matter as well, as long as one’s willing to smash it, and smash it, and smash it, and smash it.
In the doldrums of the days of the post bashing placement, he, like so many of his used and abused athletic ilk, found himself discarded and unneeded, their use to society now the same as the rest of us, something that must be decided for the self, and like so many with resource gained who came from naught, he chose to start a non-profit that could speak to his cause in the manner of his own choosing, a vehicle for philanthropic good deeds with the bonus of a reputation/legacy laundered. A fitting candidate, then, to introduce this candidate. He really chewed upon the attention begrudgingly lavished upon him, attention given more the the podium and whosoever deigned stepping behind it.
Calandrian stirred our fires this man quickly doused in his biographical drivel meant to impress, an attempt at cultivating an impressive ethos, failing marvelously. Cultured oafs, blasé to all, it takes talent of the tongue and exciting elocution to entice us, not mere success. We are not family.
The speakers all repeated the same curious ending to their speeches, wherein they would just walk off the stage. No “thanks again, let’s go win this” or “Y’all give it up for the next speaker”, no lead-ins, no hype, just walking off the stage seemingly mid-flow. Like when a stand-up ends their set after some random throwaway joke, we audiences got left repeatedly in lurch thinking “Oh, I guess they’re done”.
The speakers kept coming, as if our attention played defense in a great game of attrition from sans-son mother, to our NFL player, through leader of Black Bloomberg outreach, the mayors of Washington DC and Charlotte SC (both decently young, black), followed by our own local grifter, our dear mayor Sylvester Turner, Sly Syl.
These majors for Bloomberg are interesting cats, the only real elected officials I can understand Blooming for Bloom. The man philanthropes generously, floating the equivalent of small town budgets on his whims and fancies, and the executioners of the virginally tight local budgets cry at the bounds of their constraints, begging for some sweet release, the providence to carry them through without the greatest sacrifice of lost votes. Here came an angel to answer the call, can these mortals be blamed for such supplication? The supply of devils always matches the demand. The supply of mortal devils always meets the Earthly demands. It’s the fact we still view them as devils that counts. If the label exists, its definition determined by the times, some poor devil will be thus tagged.
Sly Syl has long fostered the reputation of a grifter, in large part thanks to his practices, this compounded by the classical American Artform of racism, our old darling.
He’d endorsed His Imperium earlier that day and now told of his day glad-handing with the Matter before slumming it with the likes of us. A friendly crowd, we lapped up our lies and abuse, mostly just glad for a talented speaker adept at rhythm and flow, even if to bullshitery ends. The speakers had clearly been planned in their particular order: the first speaker to grab us, the next two to kill time and expectations, the out-of-towners indicating Bloomie’s broad black appeal, and then the pre-cum drippings of our local hero before Mike’s mighty climax.
“Ladies and Gentlemen. It is with real excitement that I’m happy to introduce the next president of the United States, Michael Bloomberg!”
Now before I dive into our dear darling, I must note that they switched out the podium for a smaller one. Mike Bloombum is short, notably short, short in the manner that looks goofy on a leader. Oftentimes when we call politicians short, we mean relatively, compared to the other elected egotists. Being our dumb animal selves, we respond deeply to physicality, beyond philosophy and psychology, those illusionary arts. Beast brutalist physicalists, we repeatedly elevate tall men, ceaselessly it seems, attacking those who dare rise above their short station. Only in the greater realm of brutalism, the closest realm of tangible spirituality bequeathed to our mortal plane can any body find fortune: finance.
Between the foreign black mayors and our own fortunate son, a local “celebrity”, Yolanda Adams, sang some second rate anthems to stir up sleeping passions again, like a musical shot of espresso, and so she could perform to her fullest, they removed the podium. Song, song, song, they brought the podium out minus 3-5 inches. Turner’s a relative pipsqueak himself, so no complaints from he, I imagine. And now, ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, fools who have lasted this long, drumroll please, you can smack on your knees, the man, the myth, the monomaniacal Michael Bloomberg.
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PS – I plan on seeing him again tomorrow
1 Editor’s note: what a jerk – social rules do exist for a reason, please do not behave as our writer does
2 Editor’s Note: He will be taught manners…