Off-Third is WSN’s satire column.
New York City has seen some strange competitions over the years — hot dog eating, subway rat vs. pizza slice and a Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest — but this latest one is taking things to a new high. Former mayor and disbarred NYU alum Rudy Giuliani and everyone’s favorite freshly indicted mayor Eric Adams sparred over email messages which have since been uncovered by WSN. Now, what looks like a downward spiral for the city’s future has turned into a vicious back-and-forth to see who can win the coveted title of New York City’s most embarrassing mayor.
“I’ve wanted nothing more than to crush you by means of sheer mayoral incompetence since the day I saw you leaking hair dye down the side of your face,” Adams wrote to Giuliani last month in emails obtained by WSN. “If anyone’s going to destroy this city, it’ll be me.”
Giuliani responded in kind with a vitriolic rebuttal against the sitting mayor: “It’s like ‘Mean Girls.’ I got an indictment, so he gets his own indictment. Next time just stage your own coup, why don’t you?”
Giuliani reportedly told Adams that city residents would be the judge of the more malevolent mayor. He claimed he would keep residents on their toes by “breaking the bounds of stupidity” every month, harkening back to his iconic Four Seasons Total Landscaping mix-up that landed the Ghost of Mayors Past next to an adult bookshop instead of the luxury hotel.
“It’s really about letting the public think you’ve hit rock bottom, and then grabbing a shovel and digging even further,” Giuliani told WSN reporters within earshot who were covering another story while typing a tweet about how Taylor Swift actually stole the 2022 election. “Adams has got to raise the bar. Or, I guess, lower it in new ways.”
His future plans as mayor reportedly include erecting a Sean “Diddy” Combs statue in Central Park in commemoration of “Diddy Day,” officially endorsing the Eric Adams NFT as the sole form of currency in the city and tackling the city’s pigeon problem by hiring a designated “Birds Aren’t Real” coordinator.
Giuliani, not to be outdone in his quest to be the country’s punchline, responded with a list of other completely reputable locations where he was going to host press conferences. They include a Chuck E. Cheese in Staten Island, an abandoned Q train subway car and the Bobst Library LL2 urinals during peak study season — a nod to his NYU origins.
When city residents found out about the plans, they were disappointed but not surprised.
“At this point, maybe I should just run for office,” said one Brooklyn resident. “I have no political experience, but if the criteria include being embarrassing, let’s just say I have enough old Y/A fanfiction Tumblr posts to warrant the position.”
Other citizens are annoyed by the competition, suggesting other options to put this competition of incompetence to bed once and for all.
A general proposition signed by the grand majority of New Yorkers proposed to end this once and for all with a duel at dawn in Times Square. After a precautionary stop and frisk of every New York resident in attendance of the climactic battle, they should send in their seconds, each a costumed mascot handpicked from the mass of children’s characters in Times Square to duke it out. This is the only way to protect the integrity of the title that is “New York’s Biggest Embarrassment.”
While the race to the bottom remains neck-and-neck, it’s impossible to tell who will win the battle. One thing’s for sure: the true loser, ultimately, is New York City.
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Naisha Roy at [email protected].
