PREVIEW: Francis Suarez

Hello, welcome to No Gods, No Mayors, the podcast where we allow the celestial movements of the Mayor Taculus to whisper to us a new story every week to tell you.

Sometimes the Mayor Taculus whispers to us a little story to tell before the big story.

Now, I am Riley.

I'm your mayor for this episode.

I'm joined by my co-mayors, my deputy mayors, Maddie in November.

Hi, Maddie in November.

Hi.

You'll know how I didn't have to add IE to my name in order to make it a woman's name.

I'm actually, oh,

I was adding IE to the word I.

I to pronounce it femininely.

Hi-E.

Hi-E.

Alaska Thunderfoot?

Yeah.

So.

Today.

It's just Alaska now for legal reasons.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Yeah.

The Mayertaculus has

spun its celestial tune,

and I have listened.

You know, spinning a tune?

What do you spin a tune?

The spiders at the Meron, the Mayer Taculus

have wiven their web.

Wiven.

I would hate to have my web wiven.

Was the ski dude there?

Yeah.

Well, I said web, so it's

we're all idiots, right?

Literally, his web was wiven.

I think we should be clear that we're all people of oaf experience.

Look,

we're going to do John Fetterman

on a...

The Mayor Taculus has previewed us that we're going to do John Fetterman in an upcoming episode.

And safe to say that we've been having an oaf contest, and we're not going to tell you what that means between the three of us.

It's who can look at the most oaves without jacking off.

The jacking oaf.

Yeah, without being the jacking oaf.

You'd hate to be the jacking oaf who then is sent to the town square to lumber around.

No, no, no, no.

The jacking oaf is sent to the town square.

I just literally spit out my seltzer all over myself.

No, the jacking oaf is sent to the town square to dance to 1980s house music.

A little house music joke for those of you who can't stomach techno.

No, we're talking today.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

I didn't realize you guys had like a hierarchy amongst yourselves, but that's cool, I guess.

You know, there's

a little, it's like how when Nate talks about like paratrooper shit, and it's like, no, you're all insane to me.

Yeah, it's like when someone's like, you know, a Methodist is a Baptist that went to college.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

This is all the same.

Okay, now this is hitting a little close to home.

I'll fully make Methodist jokes.

Okay.

I don't even know if I got that one right.

I was just...

Yeah, you did.

Okay, it was just like the shape of a joke that's been told to me.

I couldn't remember the details.

It's the kind of shit that like most of the humor in Catch-22 is, and then nobody remembers that part.

They remember the good parts.

They remember

all the great jokes about the egg syndicate that really inspired a young Riley.

It's time for a critical reappraisal of

Catch 22, I think.

I think that's a good thing.

If only there was some kind of a podcast within a podcast that two of us did that sort of read and talked about books.

Yeah, you need to finish the fucking.

It's so close to being done, Empower of the Century.

But, but we're talking about mayors today.

Talking about mayors.

We're talking about Francis Suarez, famously famously known as the Bitcoin mayor of Miami.

Mayor Bitcoin.

However, before we do that, I sometimes will check on a little,

I'll check a few Googles before we start.

Stuff like Mayor DUI, Mayor Fistfight.

I like to do Embattled Mayor.

That's one of my favorites.

Today I said, hey, what about Mayor Karate?

And

because, of course, of Gabe announcements.

Well, yeah, that's exactly why.

So this is...

The inventor of Mayor Kata.

He imagines all the different positions that a mayor could take in his head before a fight.

So the way of the mayor?

He doesn't even need to go to city council meetings because he's planned it all out before.

I've studied the way of the mayor hand.

Holding a big pair of scissors.

Very deadly.

It's properly used.

It's almost invincible.

In that version of equilibrium, like the evil Gramaton cleric has his sash and his sword, but instead of a sword, it's just another sash.

Two sashes.

No, so this is from 2011.

So apologies.

We're coming to it a bit late.

Listen.

All of the little side stories, the Metaculous also works on them.

They're in just the order they're supposed to be.

Is this a municipal roundup or no?

Is that what's happening?

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Really perfunctory here that time.

I feel like your heart wasn't in the here.

Because it's a little roundup.

My heart wasn't in it.

A tiny hya.

Yeah.

So this is Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetian continues staff changes at Yerevan City Hall.

According to a decision, famous Armenian actor and karate advisor Gor Vardanian was also relieved of his post a year ago.

However, then I found another article from more recently.

on another Armenian news site

where Gor Vardanian continues to play a major role as a karate expert in Yerevan City Hall.

I'm not, okay, I don't know what they've got going on in Armenia besides surprisingly cheap facial feminization surgery, but you have to pay for it by bringing an iPad through customs or whatever.

But, like, I listen,

I don't know.

I don't know whether they need that in Armenia.

I guess with the Azeris, they might do.

I also don't know whether this guy's like the Steven Seagal of like Armenia, which I think is a possibility.

Unclear.

Also, the Stephen Seagal of Armenia may be Stephen Seagal.

That is true.

Yeah.

Given geopolitical trends.

Yeah.

So this is an article from A1plus.am.

I wonder how producer Sam is reacting to this.

Maybe we'll say, oh, it's bullshit.

Absolutely pumping.

I hate Gore Vardanian, he might say, or yes, Gore Vardanian, who I like.

You thought, ye of little faith, you thought that there was no Armenian representation on this podcast, but our editor is.

So I bet you feel stupid now.

Yeah, I bet you feel like an idiot.

So the drainage system does not work at the crossroads.

Teach all the people in our comment sections who are like sick of this, this Armenian erasure.

Yeah, we're sick of this podcast not containing

some kind of sort of Armenian influence.

Well, guess what?

There's been one the whole time.

So, you know, check your privilege.

So the drainage system does not work at the crossroads of Ardashayed and Shirok streets in front of the Shirok 18 building.

According to one of the villagers, the collected water is becoming swamp and mud.

In recent years, some private companies have opened shops and offices in the first floor of their building and have slightly repaired only a bit of it.

But there's a need for drainage wells to resolve the problem.

Last year, this citizen wrote a letter to Mayor Taran Margarian.

During a meeting with people for elections, I gave that letter to Gore Vardanian in the park and he told me he would give it to Taran Margarian.

And he slapped my hand away effortlessly.

Yeah, block.

This is why.

This is why you want a karate expert in City Hall.

Yeah.

You know, you redirect the political energies of your opponents and use them against them.

I wrote this letter on a wood block and then you broke it right in half.

Yeah.

Because the thing is, right, Gore Vardanian seems to be in and out of Yerevan City Hall as karate advisor because Karen Karapetian fired him in 2011.

only for Taran Margarian to bring him back in in 2017.

I'm raising my hand.

This is back and forth with these people.

I'm raising my hand, which is to ask, why does City Hall need a karate expert?

Well, why wouldn't you?

Yeah.

Great answer.

Moving on.

Morale.

Self-defense in emergencies.

Fitness.

All right.

You know what?

I'm satisfied.

Like, I guarantee you, I guarantee you, there is like a kind of European City Hall that currently employs like a boxer size trainer, right?

This is no different.

Yeah, I'm the official jazzer size expert for Lodi City Hall in Italy.

So, this is for this.

This is the third of the three articles I'm going to read about Gore Vardanian.

Gore Vardanian can advise our alliance, maybe not forever.

I'm going to Google this guy immediately.

I need to get a fixer Gore Vardanian in my mind.

You need to rotate Gore Vardanian in your mind.

And then he's a white man.

And then he spinkicks you.

Let's all look at Gore Vardanian.

He looks like he could fight me and Karasi admirably.

Very, very intense stare, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is, sorry, this is the final piece.

Gorvardanian can advise our alliance neither by office nor in practice, said Alan Simonian.

Our relationship with Gorvardanian will be on the minimum.

How can I work with Gorvardanian?

Asked whether the cooperation with newly appointed Yerevan city advisor Gorvardanian will be

productive, answered Yerevan City Council block member Alan Simonian.

So they're like, we fucking hate this guy we don't want to work with god vardadian at all he looks like they put vladimir zelensky on human growth hormone

i'm dropping a photo in the chat that i found of him which is him drop tick drop kicking a punching bag incredible so cool which is just this is maybe the hardest photo i've ever seen of a person in my life jesus christ i'll put this in the show notes like they're trying to force a one poster

like i don't know a person could actually do that it turns out they let you do that yeah So, well, despite that ability, asked whether one can say that Mr.

Vardadian knows the issues of Yerevan well, judging from his activity and that he'll be able to help the mayor with his office, Mr.

Simonian, who is the leader of a party called Yelk, which

Y-E-L-Q, which is, you know, in coalition.

I drink plenty of Yelk.

Which was at that time in coalition with Taran Margarian, says, I do not know him and I do not think we have anything in common.

I do not want to give estimations about him, however.

I never met this man and I do not wish to speak about him.

Who is this mysterious karate master who appears to have deep roots in every Yerevanian city government sequentially?

Well, you know what?

Maybe this could look let's let's speak with Sam about it.

Maybe we could elevate Gore Vardanian, or rather, the mayors who love or hate or have no opinion about Gore Vardanian into a full episode or at least a medium arcana.

I would be thrilled to hear more about Gore Vardanian.

More on Gore?

Question mark?

Stay tuned.

So,

more on Gore or the son of a drug lord, none of the above.

Fuck it.

Talk about Francis Suarez.