Vermin Supreme “Cam-Pain” Tour
Fuze Box
Albany, N.Y.
Oct. 8, 2023
During a show at Albany’s Fuze Box Sunday, performance artist/activist Vermin Supreme unveiled the platform of his 2024 presidential campaign, and that platform is ponies. (He’s a single issue candidate.) Ponies will revitalize America, he said. Ponies lower our dependence on foreign oil. Ponies are a renewable resource. And ponies are delicious.
The evening’s spectacle transformed Albany’s perennial punk rock nightclub into a political rally from a parallel Dadaist universe.
There’s room for nuance in this “everyone gets a free pony” plan. Behind a flag-draped podium, Vermin unveiled the finer points of his blueprint for America. His human-pony centaur grafting experiment will use only lab-grown ponies, he promised. Furthermore, the candidate vowed to use a fleet of robot pony drones (operated remotely by soldiers bravely putting themselves at risk of Carpal Tunnel syndrome) to bomb Narnia and other fantasy realms. “We will not stop until we have destroyed Middle Earth and the last orc is dead!” he shouted.
With a trademark boot atop his head, Vermin Supreme has been waging satirical quests for local and federal office for decades, including in the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries, in books and movies, and, as in Albany, in onstage performances. He kicked off the evening Sunday by greeting his constituents on the sidewalk outside the venue. He took selfies with everyone in a circle (because lines are elitist) and led the crowd — some who have followed him for years, others who know of him from viral internet videos of him at political protests — in a call and response chant:
“Free?”Ponies! “Time?” Travel! “Zombie?” Power! “Mandatory?” Toothbrushing!
“Are you ready to eventually see me do something?” he shouted vaguely, pumping his fists. The crowd went wild.
The show started with a screening of a film chosen by the audience: Vote Jesus, a documentary about Vermin Supreme’s time undercover as a right-wing anti-sodomy presidential candidate in 2008. Bootless, disguised as conservative alter-ego Ken Stevenson, Supreme promised that if he were president, he would stop evolution from happening. A postscript reveals that Ken Stevenson received 317 write-in votes. (Vermin Supreme had far more success when he campaigned for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination in 2020. He came in third place.)
After a series of campaign speeches, Supreme held a brief intermission, urging the audience to go get another drink or a “toke.” Accordingly, the smell of a particular type of smoke wafted from the alley beside the club where patrons usually grab a quick cigarette.
Then the candidate led his supporters in a series of singalongs, starting with a wordless muzak version of “The Girl from Ipanema” as an ironic ode to shopping malls. The songs ranged from public domain standards like “Row Row Row Your Boat” and “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes” (which Supreme dragged through every verse as the crowd tittered, anxiously wondering if he was seriously going to do the entire thing), to less well-known a capella tunes like “I’ve Got Crabs, Babe” and a song about his 1992 running mate Spudhead McGee, a grimy doll possessed by demons.
After running away screaming, Supreme returned to the stage by reading a bedtime story from his literary opus i Pony: Blueprint for a New America, surreal erotic fan fiction based on Planet of the Apes but with ponies.
After hurling glitter at the audience, the candidate closed the evening by raffling off official campaign merchandise. The swag included patches from his 2020 presidential run, a “magic dental fetish” goodie bag, a copy of i Pony (which I won, which means I now owe Vermin Supreme a detailed book review), neckties (autographed by the candidate in glitter), My Little Pony toothbrushes, a box of unicorn Kraft macaroni and cheese, a home marijuana drug test kit, and the grand prize: a strand of the candidate’s beard hair covered in glitter. The first winner chose the hair.
When the lights came up, an audience member remarked, “That was the best dissociative episode I’ve ever had.”
And it was. Because for a few hours, we lived in an America where anything was possible. We could give everyone a free pony. We could build an eco-friendly electrical grid powered by zombies on treadmills. And anyone — even a very strange man with a wizard beard and a rubber boot on his head — could be president.
Next: I plan to check out Vakili Band at Pauly’s Hotel.
