A soggy political lackey arrived at the door, his arms covered in flyers on rubber bands. “Have you voted?” “No.” “Can I ask who you’re leaning toward?” “No.” He shrugged, fair enough, and trudged on.
The politicians have been doing an amazing job at avoiding campaign promises, newspaper articles, and any useful information at all. They are lined up along the road in the morning, waving to commuters like pageant contestants, with every color of sign except the ones that would indicate which party they might represent.
“I read the paper at work every morning, and the only candidate I know anything about is that surfer who got pulled over for driving without a license and got tasered because he was an asshole. Now he’s running for mayor on an anti-police-taser campaign. How do we get these guys?”
“Oh,” my mother said while writing in her journal, “Leon told me about that while we were dying Easter eggs in People’s Park [in 1976 or 1977]. He said that if you raise a certain amount, the state matches you. So he would borrow money, get the money from the state, return what he borrowed, and make his living on the campaign money, giving mayoral speeches. [Do they match you plus some? Unclear on this.]He was a wonderful public speaker. He promised to exchange all the money in the city for parking tokens. He won the election for student body president in Ann Arbor later on. They built a life-sized replica of the Statue of Liberty’s head and arm, and put it on the lake as if it had sunk. And covered the lawn in pink flamingoes. We read about it all the way up in Canada, it was international news. And he had a great memory. The next day, after we had been dying eggs and talking, someone asked if I was Mary Braffet, and said they had found my egg. How do you know? I asked. Leon told me.” She beamed. “He had a point to make about politics, and he made it.”
I took to the internet, and found a newspaper article from 1975 about Leon Varjian’s campaign in Bloomington.
And a few pictures from 1979, when he was student body vice president with his Pail & Shovel Party partner, Jim Mallon.
“With a substantial budget acquired from student fees they made good on many of their promises, including bringing the Statue of Liberty to Madison. Placing a chicken wire, papier-mâché, and plywood mock-up with 22’ head and 40’ arm on Lake Mendota. When they were told that students were offended that money was spent on the prank, they offered anyone who didn’t like the statue a rebate of a dime, which is what they calculated was the cost to each student. When about 60 students gathered outside WSA offices to collect their money, Varjian wrote each a check for ten cents. The mockup was mysteriously burned down the early hours of March 2nd.”
“They had a toga party for about 10,000 people, John Belushi called the party to give his blessings.
It was about this time Varjian ran unsuccessfully for Madison’s City Council. He wanted to change the city name to ‘Cheesetopia’.
For the next year’s run at Student Council the Pail & Shovel party taunted students with campaign ads “Are you stupid enough to vote us in again?” They were. This time Pail & Shovel promised all the major monuments of the world. They did bring the Washington Monument, hiring a construction crane to suspend a five-inch bronze copper replica. In the fall, on the first day of classes, students were welcomed by over 1,000 pink plastic flamingos on Bascom Hill.
A toga party was thrown for the second straight year. The university relocated an appearance of the Dalai Lama for fear he would get caught in the festivities (which included a Dalai Lama look-alike contest). At the evening’s end, Mallon and Varjian discovered they had about $20,000 in one dollar bills. They stuffed all the money into grocery bags and jammed it into the night depository of their bank. They also brought the Statue of Liberty back for a second year. ” (source)
Varjian and Mallon
This is all so beautiful. And now, when the political trolls come to our door, we have our answer ready. “Who are we voting for? NOT LEON.” And then high-five.
A 16 year-old girl you dyed eggs with in the park in 1976 still remembers a lesson in politics, Leon. Add it to your legacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment