Fire Marshall Elections

Buck Schwartzmore is back in the saddle this week, doing the only thing he knows how to do: wage relentless, sleazy campaigns. Last week’s introductory sketch of the sociopathic congressman received great feedback, particularly from my Washington, DC friends. (I even got a nice write up in Roll Call.) This week the disgraced and defeated politician turns his energies towards a new election: 7th Floor Fire Marshall at the building where he works.

This sketch is a favorite of mine because it’s tenuously based on real life. As a writer for The Independents I shared a floor with John Stossel, who happened to be the resident fire marshal. I’m pretty sure the job is entirely voluntary, if not ceremonial. In fact I still don’t know what, if anything, its responsibilities entail. Nonetheless, I thought it would be fun to hold elections for it, and also thought maybe I could get some sweet, sweet Koch brothers campaign money. John Stossel was cool, if baffled, by my insistence on holding an election, but after I put up my first propaganda poster the management told me to knock it off and “focus on doing my actual job.”

Little did they know I would store my brilliant campaign away, to be reborn as sketch comedy. I think you’ll enjoy it.