That Moment Before the Roller-Coaster Rockets Down the First Chute

 You Bought Your Ticket… 

Now Here’s Your Ride!


Over at Facebook, I posted a glib and unserious reel about the Swearing In of Zoltan Mandamme in an abandoned subway station. 

Talk about your hopeful venues…!

I really should take it seriously, but I find it almost impossible because I know some well-to-do Manhattanites who have been on board with all the TDS seizures in NYC over the last 10 years. I think of them and immediately wonder just how many cartoon graphics Google has for the search phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Answer? A lot.


Best of all I imagine that Big Moment, you know the one, when the roller-coaster reaches the tippy-top of the first hill and pauses… just before it plunges in into clackety-clack abyss. That pause moment is the pinnacle of the roller-coaster ride. You, yourself, and thou alone with your excitement and trepidation. Everything after that is just hanging on and screaming until the ride just seems too long and you want out already.

The Swearing In was that Big Moment. I can’t cut this video, but I would. It’s got the long ascent to perfection but not quite enough of a pause before a so-so descent that’s nothing compared to what the Big Apple is in for.


Not good enough. Ironically, we need a more objective view of that first big drop. How about this?


Really good buildup, but disappointing. Very much a sense of the coaster putting its brakes on in the first big dive. Maybe this one’s more like the truth of a Mandamme term as Mayor…


Yeah. I think that about nails it. So to speak. And, yes, I know it won’t be fun. But sometimes it’s the nose-in-the-air types who have to take one for the team so that a big Mistake Win’t be made again.

Here’s hoping the ride won’t be costly in human lives…


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