It’s not a simple task to match up a spoken-word performance with music and make it all work, but Colin Ernst does it with ease in “If I Were President (I’d Be Shot).” This piece has a kind of King-Missile-meets-Spaulding-Gray allure, which is also not an easy thing to achieve.
As the story unfolds, we can’t help rooting for the “atheist-like-me” narrator who “has to say God bless America” when he makes the wide-eyed realization that he meets all of the Constitutional criteria to be able to run for president. What follows is a dream(y) sequence in which the narrator’s long list of lofty ideals ends up sparking a triumphant online funding campaign (complete with pinball-machine bell sounds), propelling him into frontrunner status for America’s highest office. Can you imagine a world in which common sense and compassion are the fuel for firing up the base? At any rate, the wild ride continues, the narrator wins it all, and the musical accompaniment insinuates itself into every twist and turn, making this a truly compelling listen. Wouldn’t it be nice if the audio-book industry took some cues from Colin Ernst and started producing narratives that were actually exciting to listen to?
I won’t give away the ending—though you can probably imagine, having looked at the title—but I will venture to say that listeners everywhere will be glad they stuck around to experience the story’s satisfying conclusion.
Ernst makes it seem easy—but of course it’s not—to capture the zeitgeist of the moment and channel it into a hilarious, well-crafted, finely detailed, and skillfully performed monologue. In the end, this piece is an important reminder (especially to the weary masses of post-beat, semi-optimistic, hipster-nostalgic devotees of an America that probably never was) that, despite everything, you still need to give a shit about the things that truly matter.