Gubernatorial Spice

They say variety is the spice of life. I’m not sure who “they” are, but since eating is mandatory for remaining above ground, wouldn’t spices be the spice of life?

In any case, here in the great state of California we voted in the primary election for our new governor yesterday, and boy, was the ballot spicy with variety!

We had twenty-seven candidates on our ballot. Actually, mine had twenty-eight, since, after reading the whole list, I voted for my dog, Remi, as a write-in candidate.

The ballot listed each candidate’s name and occupation, and the variety was immediate and in-your-face with its spiciness.

I was immediately drawn to CEO and business owner Hakan “Hawk” Mikado. I wasn’t knocked out by his qualifications, but how cool does he sound?

“Commissioner, we don’t know what to do! There’s trouble brewing at the capitol building!”

“Calm down. Send in the Hawk.”

On the other end of the spectrum, the person with the least cool name on the ballot, Akinyemi Agbede, listed his or her occupation as “Mathematician.” That simply won’t work. There is no way anyone trained as a mathematician would be able to stomach political math. Logic and tax spending are incompatible.

One man listed his occupation as “Father” and another was listed as “Virtual Reality Manager.” Those struck me as being basically the same job.

There was a guy named Nickolas Wildstar who was listed as a “Recording Artist.” I’ve never heard of him, but my guess is his career isn’t exactly on fire if he’s running for governor. Might I suggest, Mr. Wildstar, that you change your first name to Hawk.

Someone named Josh Jones from my hometown of Davis, California (Town motto: Davis, gateway to East Davis) is running for governor, and claims to be an author. From pictures on his campaign website, he and I look to be roughly the same age, so it’s entirely possible we went to high school together, but I don’t remember. I can’t seem to find him on any other Google searches. There’s a Josh Jones actor, drummer, and even a Green Bay Packer, but not an author, so I’m assuming he has some other form of income he’s not willing to divulge.

Christopher N. Carlson lists his occupation as “Puppeteer/Musician.” No offense, Chris, but I’m going to be a hard pass on having a Muppet operator as the leader of the fifth largest economy on the planet.

Also, Jeffry Edward Taylor, besides having a serial killer name, you have listed your occupation as “Marketplace Minister.” Either you are an evangelist at open-air fruit and vegetable seller events, or you’re some kind of Silicon Valley tech COO who came up with a jackass, trendy, self-important title for yourself. Either way, no thanks.

And, Peter Y Liu, you did not list an occupation of any kind and you don’t have a period after your middle initial, suggesting to me that you are possibly homeless and your entire middle name could simply be the letter Y. I don’t trust you.

But out of all twenty-seven “candidates,” one spicy little nugget of variety stood out above all the rest. My tenth choice from the top was none other than Zoltan Istvan, Entrepreneur/Transhumanist Lecturer.

You have intrigued me, Mr. Zoltan. Wikipedia says this about you: Zoltan Istvan Gyurko, professionally known as Zoltan Istvan, is an American transhumanist, journalist, entrepreneur, and Libertarian futurist.

Hmm… Zoltan Gyurko, “professionally” known as Zoltan Istvan. Interesting choice. Might I suggest, as a gubernatorial candidate for the Transhumanist Libertarian Futurist Party, you might want to sound a little less like a sworn enemy of Buzz Lightyear, and try being professionally known as Steve Istvan, or John Gyurko, or even Mike Zoltan. When you lead with Zoltan – even if your parents are responsible for that – you probably lose a lot of people right off the bat.

Further web investigation of just what in the hell a transhumanist is reveals to us, firstly, that you intentionally own a forty-foot-long, completely and totally poop-brown bus, with a wooden roof structure that you made yourself in an attempt to make the entire vehicle look like a coffin.

Unfortunately, the coffin look didn’t quite come across, and your bus looks more like an abandoned Waffle House on wheels. To make matters even more confusing, written on the side, in almost professional-looking script, are the words “Immortality Bus.”

Apparently, when not running for governor of the great state of California, you drive a rolling caca-brown Waffle House around the country, lecturing to people about how they won’t have to get old anymore if we can just convince the government to unleash the power of science and computerized artificial intelligence. And in your spare time you engage in entrepreneurial transhumanist journalism. 

Solid platform, Zoltan.

Unfortunately, when weighing my options between your spicy variety of gubernatorial hopefulness and that of your twenty-six worthy opponents, I went ahead and voted for my dog, instead.

And equally unfortunately, I think you and Remington Schmatjen have about the same overall chance of being our next governor.

But, who knows? Maybe more people are into Coffin Waffle House Immortality than I think.

If not, all hope is not lost. You might not end up being Governor Zoltan, leader of California, but you could definitely be Front Man Zoltan, lead singer for the new transhumanist rock band, Gubernatorial Spice.

Why not? You already have a tour bus.

Good luck, California!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen

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