Playing ‘Dirty Politics’ Doesn’t Have to End With the Election
Admit it, you’re going to miss all the mud.
The election ends on Tuesday and all the so’s-your-mother allegations will be put away like broken Christmas toys. So sad.
But now comes “Dirty Politics: A Game So Rotten, Vile and Corrupt That Until Now, Only Politicians Would Play It.” Indulge all year-round.
It’s a board game invented by local jokers named Lloyd Paine, John Douglas and Sam Boyd, and being marketed by Dirty Politics Inc. of Jamul.
Available in a plain brown wrapper (“Bag of Dirty Tricks”) at Game Towne stores, a throw of $20 or so. It’s dice, chance cards and moving around all 50 states.
Money talks, the media smear, special interests finagle and politicians abuse the truth. Just like real life.
“The premise of the game is that you get rewarded for doing rotten things and you get penalized for trying to do something for the American public,” says Douglas, 42, a video game writer from Chula Vista.
There are triads of power. Get the Assassination, Riot and Patsy cards, and you’re home free. Collect the FBI, CIA and IRS cards, and your opponents had better lock their bedroom doors and burn their psychiatric files.
Boyd, 40, a gas retailer from El Cajon, sees “Dirty Politics” as a vent to burn off some political frustration.
Here’s a Power card:
“You vow to create ‘new jobs’ once you’re elected. Receive $1 million from Organized Labor. There will be plenty of ‘new jobs’ for people willing to work like oxen for three bucks an hour.”
Is there a practical application to all this? You bet your congressional perks there is.
“We’re going down to Election Central on Election Night to give away games to the losers so they can hone their skills for next election,” says Paine, 46, a labor contractor from Jamul.
If there is a rub here, it’s staying current. Gutter politics is a movable fiasco. As they say (don’t they?): Constant vigilance is the price of keeping a novelty game current.
“The politicians are doing so much new dirty stuff,” Douglas says, “I’m already working on Dirty Politics II.”
Smash a Window, Hug a Teddy
The (bear) facts, and more.
* It’s not the Barbie theft or anything, but the heist of a $60 teddy bear from the display window of Point Loma Flowers has the shop manager boiling.
In June, three trolls were stolen. Now the bear. Both times, the same modus operandi : wait until the shop is closed, then smash the window.
Does manager Florence Burkett have any suspects?
“No,” she says. “If I did, I’d wait until they tried it and then beat the (stuffing) out of them.”
* Adrian Cronauer, real-life model for the Robin Williams character in “Good Morning, Vietnam,” is doing radio spots for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon).
He opens: “Good Morning, San Diego!”
* Keeping the issue (or your grandmother) alive.
The local chapter of the Hemlock Society is complaining that opponents to Proposition 161, the Physician Assisted Death Act, are doing dirty tricks to Yes on 161 signs.
* At least one fundamentalist Christian church in North County is handing out pamphlets: “Christian, beware! To vote for Bill Clinton is to sin against God.”
* Yes, there was a fellow outside Ralphs in La Jolla with a “Will Work for Food” sign.
And yes the message was on the flip side of a “Bush-Quayle ‘92” sign.
School of Smarts
To prevent counterfeiting, paychecks for county government employees have a warning: “The face of this document has a colored background--not a white background.”
But sometimes if you’re out to make a fast (and illegal) buck, you might misread the warning.
Like the Anglo guy who found himself in possession of a stolen check. He read the warning and figured somehow it meant it would be easier for a person of color to cash the check.
So he found a black accomplice, who promptly got arrested in Vista for trying to cash the check and almost as promptly informed on his buddy.
Now both are up on charges before the bar of justice, which, as you know, is colorblind.
