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Photos: Mayor Bloomberg Shows His, Uh, Spidey Sense At The Inner Circle Show
By
Garth Johnston
Published Mar 27, 2011
Modified Mar 27, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Mar 27, 2011
Modified Mar 27, 2011
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Mayor Mike Bloomberg went disco last night at the annual Inner Circle dinner. After a James Earl Jones voiceover introduced the audience to "Spider-Mike"—and Bloomberg made a flying entrance on wires—fake technical troubles "forced" hizzoner to instead do his rebuttal—a short musical biography packed with blizzard and Bermuda jokes they called "Mayor Mia."— to the City Hall press corps with the cast of Mamma Mia!
Bloomberg's third of the four-and-a-half hour show came after two acts in which the press ripped on Bloomberg and his team (the first act revolved around Bloomberg-as-Napoleon trying to build a giant glass dome over New York to stop snow problems once and for all) and state politics (the second act focused on Andrew Cuomo's hunt for more money in Albany-as-Ancient Egypt) for a black-tie clad audience of movers-and-shakers willing to pay up for the pricey tix. The Inner Circle prides itself on having a "no professional talent" rule, outside of the mayor's sketch of course, and it shows.
The highlight of the evening was certainly the spectacle of Bloomberg in the air (also in sparkling platform shoes) but the show did fit in some solid humor as well. If its been in the news in the past year, the Inner Circle reporters up on stage probably covered it. Carl Kruger? Check ("Now that he's arrested, maybe he'll go straight?"). David Paterson? Check (referring to his transition team: "The blind leading the bland."). Cathie Black? Check ("she" sang "Please Stop Conceiving" to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing"). Janette Sadik-Kahn? Check ("she" and "Ray Kelly" duet to a "You're The One That I Want" spoof, "You're The One That They Hate"). Inebriated Irish? Check (with a sing-along song, no less!). Even Rex Ryan's famous foot fetish made the cut, in a strange bit in which stand-ins for Peter King, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck tried to get the Jets coach to help bring down the "Ground Zero" mosque in a song called "Shoeless Rex Likes Kinky Sex" set to the tune of "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal Mo." Not to mention the rousing act one break, "Two Years More" set to "One Day More" from Les Miz.
But back to Bloomberg's bit. In "Mayor Mia" the billionaire from Bloomberg enlisted the folks from Mamma Mia to help him tell the story of his New York life. Starting with Bloomie in a boy scouts uniform arriving in New York fresh from Harvard Business School, it then followed him as he moveed into business, invented his Bloomberg Box (here a boombox that sings stock reports), persuades New York that he's "a leader, not a politician," and finally comes to discover that he's the man New York needs leading him to don his Spider-Mike suit before getting stuck in the air again (or something? These things aren't tightly plotted, ok?).
Over his adventures Bloomberg picked up new friends, played by actors, like Cathie Black and Janette Sadik-Kahn (a rollerskate waitress, natch) and has moments with some real pols, like press secretary Stu Loeser and deputy mayor Stephen Goldsmith. Mixed in with all that plot were joke after joke about not mentioning words like "City Time," "plow," "last in, first out," and how the where the mayor goes isn't the press pool's business, and so on. Bloomie even managed to give his 97-year-old mom a shout-out as "the original Tiger mom."
There wasn't exactly a Rudy Giuliani dressed in drag OMG moment, but it was a fun (if very long) evening.
Tagged
City hall
inner circle
mayor bloomberg
Garth Johnston
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