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David Rodeback's Blog

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Breaking News: Not One, but Two Local Candidates Lead Double Lives

It's Election Day, or in other words, the eye of the storm. We're in the relative calm between the insanity of the election campaign and the insanity of the pundits' endless post mortems. This is the day when we real American bloggers exercise our God-given and constitutionally-guaranteed right to make fun of the candidates by pretending we write for The Onion -- but, conspicuously, with fewer expletives. (That's a disclaimer. Think about it.)

This exclusive LocalCommentary.com investigative report begins with a blockbuster revelation about incumbent Alpine School Board candidate Tim Osborn leading a double life. But I would not want to give you the idea that he's the only on the ballot who's doing so.

In an unusually vigorous campaign season nationwide, which includes a Delaware Tea Party candidate for the US Senate insisting she's not a witch, and a third-party New York gubernatorial candidate cavorting about dressed as the Green Hornet of Justice, a local school board candidate who leads a double life might not even seem newsworthy. But in tranquil, conscientiously moral American Fork, Utah, one savors such news as one can find.

Research conducted over the last several days, in response to an anonymous tip suspected to have come from a patrolling unmanned Google Earth camera car, indicates that Mr. Osborn is actively coaching a high school football team in New Jersey, even as he campaigns for school board in Utah County and claims to be employed as a manufacturing engineer at a small aerospace firm in the Salt Lake Valley.

LocalCommentary.com surprised Mr. Osborn just after his Liberty High School football team fell to Manasquan High School, 34-13, effectively ending its bid for a division title and a slot in the New Jersey state high school football playoffs. He agreed to an impromptu interview on the condition that there be no photography and that we not actually name the town in New Jersey where he coaches.

"Well, [expletive deleted], you caught me," Osborn said. "Good job. I wish my [expletive deleted] receivers could have caught a few [expletive deleted] passes tonight. I never thought anyone from [expletive deleted] Utah would find me in [expletive deleted] New Jersey. Since you're here, please notice that the name of the [expletive deleted] school where I coach is Liberty. That's pretty [expletive deleted] important, if you think about it."

"[Expletive deleted]," he said as an afterthought. "I probably should have made you interview me in Utah instead, where we [expletive deleted] believe that the [expletive deleted] people's [expletive deleted] representatives should [expletive deleted] run things, instead of some [expletive deleted] establishment [expletive deleted] bureaucrats. I also talk a lot differently there, no [expletive deleted] or [expletive deleted] or any other [expletive deleted] like that. Here I sort of naturally talk Jersey."

Asked whether his published claim to work in the aerospace industry was a fabrication, Osborn said, "A fabrication? That's very [expletive delete] punny of you. And no, it's not. Here, as you see, I work with [expletive deleted] offensive and defensive weapons, and we're trying to develop an [expletive deleted] air attack. Obviously, we have a long [expletive deleted] way to go, but we're trying almost [expletive deleted] hard enough, and that's what [expletive deleted] counts, at least where [expletive deleted] campaign fliers are concerned."

Mr. Osborn's wife, a school teacher who declined to be named, refused to confirm or deny that her husband is leading a double life, saying she's "usually at school." Delta Airlines refused multiple requests to release Osborn's frequent flier records. But a fellow American Fork High School "band dad," who spoke on condition of anonymity, did confirm that, while Osborn really has been a band dad for several years, as he claims, "Sometimes he's not here. That's probably because he's in Jersey coaching football, now that you mention it. And lately, when he is here, sometimes he, like, dresses funny, like they do in New Jersey, y'know? And now that I think about it, once I heard him come down with a heck of a dang bad case of potty mouth. I said to him, 'Tim, isn't that, like, the same flippin' mouth you're going to use tomorrow at church to, like, teach Sunday school or something?"

In a remarkable coincidence, simultaneous investigation of Osborn's challenger, long-time Alpine School District administrator John Burton, has revealed that he, too, leads a colorful double life. He plays the saxophone for a third-wave ska band based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called "The Mighty Mighty Bosstones."

"Our albums are a matter of public record," Burton insisted, when cornered by this reporter. "We even have our own Wikipedia page, with our discography and and our names and everything. And we're always careful to resolve our differences behind closed doors and present a united front to the voters. I mean the audience."

Asked to comment on the name of his band, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, specifically whether it has any connection to his political aspirations, Burton declined to respond. He was willing to say, however, that he has never run into Osborn on a flight to or from the East, because, he says, "I always fly nonstop. And he probably flies coach."

Interviews with Burton's neighbors in American Fork confirmed his continual absence during the summer of 2009, during the time when the band was touring the United States and Canada.

Neither candidate was willing to discuss the possibility that he should have told the voters about his double life from the beginning.

Burton cast these latest revelations about both candidates in political terms. "American Fork and Pleasant Grove have an easy and obvious decision to make, between a crude football coach from New Jersey, if you'll pardon the triple redundancy, and a sophisticated saxophonist from Cambridge. I'm confident that they'll make the classier and more melodious choice."

Osborn responded, "I'm pretty [expletive deleted] sure the [expletive deleted] voters don't give a rat's [expletive deleted] about some [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] sissy [expletive deleted] who plays a [expletive deleted] saxophone in some [expletive deleted] Massa[expletive deleted]chusetts band. I'll kick his [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] on Election Day."

Copyright 2010 by David Rodeback.
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