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In Hope Rides Again, Biden & Obama Join Forces to Save the Day Once Again

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In these trying times, satirist Andrew Shaffer is bringing us a smile with his Obama/Biden novels. And on Thursday, he’ll be signing copies of his latest novel at The Fountain Bookstore.

Grab your best tan suit and your favorite chocolate chip ice cream, folks. America’s favorite crime-fighting duo of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are back and ready to solve more mysteries — this time in Obama’s adopted home of Chicago. 

Hope Rides Again by satirist Andrew Shaffer is the sequel to last summer’s hit novel, Hope Never Dies, and is out now. This time around, Biden and Obama have a limited amount of time to find Obama’s stolen Blackberry phone, and of course it must be done even as Obama is about to introduce Biden to a wealthy benefactor who could endorse Biden’s run for the White House — if he decides to run. 

If Hope Never Dies was a cozy mystery novel, Hope Rides Again is perhaps comparatively more akin to Die Hard. Not only is it a more compact book where the events take place over the course of roughly forty-eight hours, but the Chicago setting brings a lot more things to play with into the narrative. Shaffer grew up much closer to Chicago than he did to Biden’s home of Wilmington, DE, but writing about Chicago was for him both easier and more difficult to write about. 

“There was so much I wanted to include, but you can’t, because there isn’t one experience or story that would encompass everything [I love about Chicago],” said Shaffer. “You can’t do everything, which is unfortunate. It was really difficult, actually.”

Andrew Shaffer

 The key to good comedy is the accuracy. With well-known subjects like the former president and vice president, there is naturally an endless well of knowledge out there. All the better for Shaffer, who cites doing all of the research necessary for the novels as one of his favorite parts of the process. 

“I’m getting paid to read,” laughed Shaffer. “This is kind of great, but at some point you have to put down the books and the research materials and write the book. For these books I did a lot of research on Delaware, and for this one I did a lot of research on aspects of Chicago that I wanted to include.”

Everyone from your coworkers to the current line-up on Saturday Night Live have their own rendition of each of our favorite would-be detectives. But when writing, Shaffer noted that it was definitely easier to find Biden’s voice and fall into his rhythm. 

And not just because he felt like President Obama was smarter than him. 

“When you’re writing from Barack’s point of view, you imagine him to be so much smarter than maybe he actually is, ” said Shaffer. “If you’re a writer, you can’t be smarter than your own character. That’s what I ran into, is: I’m not as smart as Barack Obama, but I can get into a Joe Biden voice, if I play him a little less bumbling than I may be.” 

Shaffer loves a good Biden meme just like the rest of us (including Biden himself), and although he did not have a new favorite to share with me when I asked, he did agree that the campaign trail has changed the former Vice President. Good ol’ goofy Joe is off the campaign trail, and is replaced by serious-bid-for-office Joe — who is probably still wondering when the next pit stop for ice cream is… but he’s hiding it much better. 

“I think sometimes on the campaign trail, he’s pretty serious,” said Shaffer. “I’m just like, ‘You know people liked you because you joked around, too, right?’ I don’t want to see a sad Joe Biden meme where he’s sitting on the bench like Keanu [Reeves]. Ice cream brings people together. Throw ice cream at your next rally, Joe.”

“Okay, maybe not,” Shaffer added. 

Part of the reason why Shaffer’s Obama and Biden mystery series is so popular is because of how believable he makes the former president and vice-president in his writing. They are so realistic, coming as close to the character that we know of them from their public lives. More importantly, they remind us of a better time than we are experiencing now. 

There is something to be said for healing through comedy in the darkest of hours, but would this series have been nearly as successful if the dynamic duo were still in office, or if their successor hadn’t been racist trash? 

“Having Barack Obama out of the spotlight gives people the jolt of remembering how good we had it,” said Shaffer. “You have to cling on to the things that give you hope. Hopefully we will be in a better place in eighteen months.” 

If the mental image of Obama and Biden walking into the sunset to the Miami Vice soundtrack isn’t enough for you, then what about the new crop of characters the Democratic debates are introducing? Shaffer mentioned that he’d toyed with the idea of possibly doing something with some of the candidates, but continuously keeping his eye on future relevancy led him to put a damper on that. 

“By the time the book comes out, people are old news by then,” said Shaffer.

That said, don’t give up hope just yet on that graphic novel series about presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg competing to be the next Food Network Star. If hope can ride again, maybe their fanfiction dreams can too. 

Andrew Shaffer will be appearing at Fountain Bookstore, located at 1312 E Cary St, this Thursday at 6:30p to talk about and sign copies of Hope Rides Again. Purchase it there, or wherever books are sold.

No, Richmond Doesn’t Have A Principal Banning Christians from School

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According to this meme, Mamasai Mamakusu is the hijab-wearing principal of a Richmond high school, and she’s here for your crosses.

It’s fake, of course, just one of the many creations of Christopher Blair, a satire writer whose pieces keeps showing up in your social media feeds thanks to your most gullible friends. Blair currently runs America’s Last Line of Defense, a site featuring an image of Hillary Clinton as Kenny from South Park, with the tagline “Information you probably shouldn’t trust.”

If the Michael Jackson “Wanna Be Startin Somethin’” reference didn’t tip you off (Mamasai Mamakusu are meaningless lyrics from that song), the watermark on the image of a hijab-wearing young woman should have made it clear.

Reached over Facebook, someone associated with the site who went by Charles Bartowski (“I just want that name in print because I don’t feel enough people watch “Chuck” anymore.”) confirmed that the story is satire, and the Richmond angle was random. “Most of what we do here is random. You know that South Park episode where they joke about the Family Guy writing process? Sometimes it feels kinda like that. Sometimes cities are real, sometimes they’re not. Everything here is nonsense though.”

“Bartowski” said the goals of the site are to encourage readers to think critically about the media they consume, and, “to expose exactly how stupid a certain segment of our society is.”

While Richmond Reddit users seemed to be in on the joke, and it was clearly marked as satire on the Facebook page, Snopes took the story seriously.

Rating the story “False,” Snopes characterized America’s Last Line of Defense as “part of a network of fake news sites dedicated to spreading political misinformation under the guise of proffering “satire”.” Of course, the page admits it’s satire, so the Snope’s claim that satire is a “guise” seems a bit fishy from a site that ranks itself the arbiter of media truth.

My contact at the Facebook page wasn’t surprised by the Snopes reaction. “One of their writers has a personal beef with Chris [Blair, site owner] and some others here so they go out of their way to misrepresent us as the root of all evil,” they said. “Everyone needs a villain, real or not.”

If anything, Blair and “Bartowski” are the heroes of my morning; I’ve spent the last 30 minutes listening to the King of Pop on YouTube after pulling up “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” Rock on, MJ.

BREAKING: Local Satirical News Site “The Peedmont” Acquired By the Russian Times

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RICHMOND, VA — The Peedmont, a Virginia- based satirical news site, announced today that it has been acquired by the Russian Times, a leading Russian media outlet, effective immediately.

The sale was made following a night of heavy drinking among The Peedmont’s editorial staff at Penny Lane Pub early last week.

“We’d been drinking for hours and we knew our tab was going to be a whopper,” said staff writer Heidi Hughes. “Suddenly this man in a trenchcoat shows up out of nowhere and says he can ‘make this all go away.’ It seemed strange, but we were pretty buzzed at that point so we just went with it.”

The stranger, who later identified himself as Yuri “The Hammer” Petrovski, had offered to cover the group’s bar tab in return for ownership of The Peedmont.

“The proposal just came at the right time,” Peedmont founder and editor-in-chief Anderson Tilley remarked. “We’ve seen a boost in web traffic recently, mostly out of Eastern Europe for some reason. We feel this is the right direction for The Peedmont. And, to be honest, there was no way we were going to be able to pay that bar tab ourselves.”

Petrovski’s sole demand was for ownership of The Peedmont, and after some brief negotiating, a deal between the two was reached. The official documentation was then recorded on one of the restaurant’s beer coasters.

The purchase, which comes at a time of  increased tension between the U.S. and Russian governments, has drawn concern from local and state officials. However, The Peedmont insists that their signature brand of local satire will not change.

“The Peedmont will keep putting out the same fun, irreverent satire our readers love,” commented staff writer Archie Boderekson. “Sure, we now fully support the Putin regime and have changed our official stance on their claims to Crimea and Syrian intervention, but that’s just a formality. We’ll still make Richmond-based Tinder jokes, too.”

According to Tilley, the acquisition will also bring technical improvements to The Peedmont’s website, which recently re-launched with a brand new layout. “The Russians have offered to let us use their servers so you might notice more cookies on your computer, but that’s totally normal and the site should load faster now.”

While Petrovski did not return our requests for an interview, officials at the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. have released the following statement: “The Russian Times has been eyeing acquisition that could create back-channel between Russia and the American peoples. We’ve been looking for reputable American news organization by searching ‘alternative facts’ in Bing and Peedmont kept showing up. This is unique opportunity to acquire trusted news organization in a mid-sized American city, just two hours drive from D.C. We know that together we can help bring truth to the American people.”

When we attempted to reach Peedmont staff writers Jenna Carley and Casey Stevnako for their comments, we were informed they were sequestered in the Russian Embassy, discussing topics for future articles. We were only allowed to pass written messages to them through official embassy channels. “This is really validating,” Carley wrote. “This just gives credence to the work we’ve been doing in the name of comedy and journalism.”

When pressed for their feelings on the deal in the context of growing U.S.-Russian tensions, we received this message: “Well, quite frankly, we feel a little really validating. We feel like we’ve been shouting into the void to make good  laugh and support Russian claims to crimea.”

 Equally excited about the acquisition is Ronald Glump, The Peedmont’s business manager. Speaking about the deal, he commented, “This deal is really tremendous. It’s so, so good. You’ve never seen a deal this good. And Richmond is … great things for us, amazing things.”

When asked whether the investigation of Russian interference in the presidential election and the role played by the false news stories from Eastern Europe was of any concern, Glump responded tersely, “This interview is over.”

VCU Police Department announces new scooter initiative, “Operation Kickflip”

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Virginia Commonwealth University Police Chief John Vanuti announced a $6 million dollar initiative and partnership with Razor USA, the manufacturer of the popular “Razor Scooter” brand, to equip 150 officers with police-grade scooters. The initiative is code named “Operation Kickflip.”

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