How would you like a well-paying job where you could come and go as you please, hang out at the gym, take foreign trips and even audition for other work, all on the company tab?
You’re in luck!
Two such plum positions are opening up, and you can apply in November: Mayor of New York and Governor of New Jersey.
Up for re-election this year, Mayor Bill de Blasio recently noted on his weekly WNYC “Ask the Mayor” segment how awful it is that the United States decided to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, and how each of us now “has to change their own habits to start protecting the Earth.”
Except him?
When a caller wondered whether de Blasio might set a good example by not taking an SUV motorcade to the Y in Park Slope, his favorite gym, every day, and instead work out at the Asphalt Green gym two blocks from Gracie Mansion, the mayor was not amused. Such an environment and time saving move would be “cheap symbolism,” de Blasio huffed, before going back to lecturing listeners on changing our wasteful habits.
Thank you, Mayor Do As I Say, Not As I Do.
Speaking of “the rules don’t apply to me” mindset of local politicians, can anyone beat New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in pure chutzpah?
With term limits barring him from running for a third term in November, Christie recently pulled himself off the beach for auditions as a WFAN radio sports talk host. What fun! But who’s minding the state while he’s screaming at Sal from Brooklyn about the Mets?
Meanwhile, as you and millions of other locals swelter on the trains during our transit “summer of hell,” remember part of the money originally designated for a badly needed new train tunnel under the Hudson River and squelched by Christie, is now being used to ferry a tiny handful of Monmouth County commuters to Jersey City and Hoboken.
But Christie need not be concerned about such trifling matters as he is chauffeured to his sports radio auditions. Perhaps he can wave to de Blasio as the mayor heads back from his Brooklyn gym.
Nice work if you can get it. For them. Not us.
Playwright Mike Vogel blogs at newyorkgritty.net.
