Ourland

Note: This piece was written before the recent allegations of sexual assault.

Fellow Mainers –

I want to thank you all for having the courage and, frankly, the balls, to elect me to take on corporate shill Susan Collins this November. Mainers from the rocky cliffs of Portland to the piney woods of Bangor have spoken, and their message is clear: they’re sick of establishment politicians, of the rising cost of living, and of billionaires who don’t pay their fair share. By electing someone like me, the people of this great state have made a declaration about what they do want: a real person, a guy who curses and routinely emerges from his boat covered in oyster goo; a guy with tattoos who may have posted some questionable things on Reddit. Let me be clear: I, like everyone, am a flawed human being, and just because my history hasn’t been scrubbed clean like those entrenched D.C. politicians doesn’t mean I’m lacking for character. I promise all Mainers, right here and now, that my past does not define who I am, that I am a new man, and that there’s absolutely nothing else you need to know about me. Vote for me this November and I will fight like hell for you on Capitol Hill.

Well, hold on, I guess there is one more thing you should know. Since my star is rising, the media will almost certainly publish a story about it and everyone will be like but Graham, you promised us there was nothing else. So let me get this off of my chest: I went to a Dropkick Murphys show in Portland this past February, and after the concert – during which I crowdsurfed, which was super bad ass – the lead vocalist, Ken Casey, and I overdid it a bit. When I say “overdid it,” I don’t mean I drank alcohol, because I’m sober now (or at least “Portland sober,” which is the Maine equivalent of “California sober”), I mean I invited Ken onto my oystering boat, which in retrospect, was not the most prudent idea, considering it was 20 degrees and the wind gusts were pushing 30 miles per hour. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and if I would’ve known how the night was going to turn out, I never would’ve sailed out into the harbor on that cold, dark night.

I had a shit ton of oysters in a Yeti below deck, so we began with a good old-fashioned oyster-eating contest: just a couple dudes slurping goo and slapping each other’s backs on a painfully cold night…a true Portland experience. We were having a great time, riding high from the adrenaline of the show, when Ken busted out a Ziploc bag full of what looked like freeze-dried gray fruit. It was, in fact, magic mushrooms, and while I don’t condone  psychedelics outside of a clinical setting, I had a lapse in judgment and decided to eat several large handfuls with Ken, who kept saying c’mon, brother, let’s get weird with it. We paired the mushrooms with the oysters in an attempt to mask the flavor, but it only made them taste worse…all that sloppy goo and dusty fungi slopping around in our mouths. We choked them down and waited for the effects to kick in while the night grew colder and darker and windier.

Ken busted out a Ziploc bag full of what looked like freeze-dried gray fruit. It was, in fact, magic mushrooms, and while I don’t condone using psychedelics outside of a clinical setting, I had a lapse in judgment and decided to eat several large handfuls with Ken, who kept saying c’mon, brother, let’s get weird with it.

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About a half-hour later, Ken was hunched over the side of the boat, barfing into the harbor. I rubbed his back in an attempt to ease his mind, because I, of all people, know how vicious a bout of shroom-and-oyster induced nausea can be. I was saying something like it’s ok, buddy, just blow it all out when we were blindsided by a huge wave, sending Ken tumbling overboard into the dangerously cold water. I thought ah hell, this isn’t good, but the shrooms clouded my normally-sound judgment, so instead of grabbing a life vest, I impulsively jumped overboard in an attempt to save him, and immediately regretted the decision. The water was cold as a knife, and Ken and I were just bobbing there, shivering and staring up at the side of the boat like it was a thousand miles away.

I’m not proud of any of this, fellow Mainers. But you deserve to know the truth. Remember: I am a changed man. I would never do something like this again. I really mean that.

It was around this time that the shrooms really started to pummel us. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but Ken and I ended up side-by-side on a large rock, cuddling for warmth like a couple of male lovers…which is totally fine, because I’m a steadfast ally of the gay community. Things did not look good for us: hypothermia would be setting in soon, and as I gazed up at the stars, so far away, I thought, through the fog of recreational psychedelics, that this might be the end for ol’ Graham, that I might never fulfill my destiny of going to the nation’s capitol to stick it to those god damn money-grubbing big wigs. I was in the deepest depths of despair, complete ego loss, my soul soaring through the great black Nothing of the universe, when a vision appeared in the forefront of my psyche like the Great God himself: it was a seal, and though he didn’t move his mouth, he somehow conveyed to me, like telepathically, that his name was Bernie.

Here’s the thing: Bernie was glowing. He was outlined in a golden, pulsating border, and suddenly I felt a great warmth, a warmth no cold could penetrate, and the seal conveyed to me, without moving his lips, that as long as there were billionaires in the world he would never allow me to die of hypothermia, because it was my destiny to stand up for the working class and to eliminate wealth inequality once and for all. After non-verbally communicating all of this, Bernie winked, I swear he winked, and the golden pulsating border collapsed in on itself and suddenly my entire field of vision was nothing but splattered gold and I felt like I was flying backwards through all of space-time, closer and closer to the Big Bang, and then there was a great golden eruption and my mind exploded into rainbow confetti. The last thing I remember before blacking out was spooning Ken on the hard rocks as he whispered So cold, buddy. So cold.

I woke up the next morning on a couch – not my couch, but somebody’s couch – warm and breathing and alive, with slippery old Bernie lying in the crook of my right arm, snoring. I whispered: my God, he’s REAL. I told myself: Graham, you’ve gotta make this right. The night came rushing back to me in fits and starts, and I felt a pang of guilt seize my gut…not unlike how the one-percent seizes all the wealth in this country. I knew I had to do the moral thing and return Bernie to his proper home in the harbor, even though part of me really wanted to keep him on account of his chubby wubby little cheeks. I wrestled him into the trunk of my sedan and gunned it toward the water, sweating profusely, because I knew if the fuzz caught me with a god damn seal I’d be doing some hard time at the Maine Correctional Center.

When we reached the shore I wrenched Bernie out of the trunk and shoved him over a cliff. He tumbled about 40 feet down the rocks, coughing and wheezing all the way, banging off the jagged edges like an overinflated tire. His blubbery body went kerplop in the water. I felt bad about treating him so roughly, especially after the wisdom he’d bestowed upon me, but I had to get him out of my possession: after all, who’d be left to fight the oligarchy if I went to prison? I looked down at the water, hoping that Bernie would re-emerge…but 30 seconds passed, then a minute, then two, and I thought well, that’s all she wrote. But just as I was about to climb back into my car, Bernie popped his smooth little head out of the water, glowing like a golden idol. He telepathed to me again, just like the night before, and this is what he said, he said: go get ‘em, buddy. Then he winked, I swear he winked, and disintegrated like mist into the bleak Maine morning. I stood there, stunned, not sure what to make of any of this, other that I had been spared, and that it was now my magical seal-given duty to obliterate the one-percent for good.

Phew, it feels good to get that off my chest. It was a wild night, a dumb thing to do, and I swear there’s nothing more you need to know about me. You can mark that down on a check, take it to the bank, and that check will cash. There’s not a chance in hell another lapse in judgment from my past will bubble inconveniently, frustratingly, to the surface. That was the only time I ever tripped psilocybin and stole a potentially imaginary seal from its natural habitat…I mean, the only time I’ve done those two things on the same night, as far as I know. I am a friend to all wild animals and I would never do something as asinine as kidnapping a seal again. I am Graham Platner. I am a flawed human being, and even though I have my demons, I am a changed man who’s fighting hard for people just like me: people who are fed up with a system that allows trillionaires to exist, people who demand an end to pointless wars, and people who occasionally have late-night psychedelic adventures on their oyster boats with legendary punk rockers.

Speaking of Ken, I haven’t talked to him since that fateful night. But he’s been performing with the Dropkick Murphys, so I guess he made it out alive, too…through the good grace of Bernie the Magic Seal, of course.

Your humble servant,
Graham Platner

P.S. My PR team has just informed me that a new revelation about my past has come to light. They’re calling an emergency meeting to address the situation. Let me tend to this and I’ll get back to you soon. Until then, remember: the oligarchy blows and every American deserves healthcare.