Everyone knows I want to be a cheerleader for Amity Island, right? You want to project confidence. So while I might have told some reporter from the mainland that we were facing “a  grotesque, Biblical monster of the deep,” “a bloody, churning nightmare of teeth,” or “a lean, mean tourist-eating machine,” there was no reason to tell the general public that. You don’t want to start a panic, fellas. Just think of the kids.

On the subject of kids, the media’s distorting my comment about the unfortunate Kitner boy being “a fit sacrificial offering to our mighty fish-god Dagon” completely out of context. First of all, I was brought up never to criticize someone else’s religion. I don’t know how you were raised. Second, if I have the worshipers of Dagon right – and they’ve been fine, upstanding members of our Chamber of Commerce – then Dagon brings wealth and prosperity not just to his followers, but to the whole community. Who wouldn’t like a little more prosperity, am I right? Here on Amity Island we depend upon the ocean for our very lives. So you gotta keep those obscene, scaly, aquatic monster gods happy.

Look, if it wasn’t for me, this whole island would descend into real darkness and bloodshed. I’m talking about roaming mobs of young radical leftists – some of them nearly four foot ten – destroying our picket fences with their karate. If my opponent is elected Mayor, they’ll just run wild. Then the only white, pointed pickets you’ll see will be the row upon row of pitiless shark teeth closing down on you. I think I got off the subject somehow.

When I told that reporter, “We want to play this down, so the suckers don’t avoid the beaches,” I simply meant that it was time to reopen our beaches and our economy. It’s lost business that’s the real killer: not just people, but whole communities. Do you want to kill our community?  Maybe I should quote you in a newspaper.

So it’s exactly what I was saying on twitter at the time, except a few minor details about the insatiable marine predator Carcharodon carcharias. Twitter has a character limit, as you’re well aware.

 And when I said that “We should get everyone we can to go swimming and thrash wildly in the closest possible imitation of a distressed seal,” I was simply calling upon the spirit of loyalty and public service in our nearly 346-year-old community and its citizens. “Amity,” as you know, means friendship.

When I said “Have you seen some of those off-island girls’ bikinis? I wouldn’t mind eating them myself,” that was simply boat-locker talk, and a compliment to our beautiful young guests and the fashionable swimwear for sale here in our town. Life’s too short to get upset about stuff like this, particularly with a frenzied cartilaginous fish honed to homicidal perfection by millions of years of evolution around to shorten it.

I don’t think the voters are going to hold a little banter against me any more than they did last election, when I was recorded talking about inviting Chief Brody’s wife for “a little midnight harpoon practice.” And speaking of the Chief, I don’t expect voters to mind me hoping “the shark eats that snotty New York bastard, so I can show his widow my blow hole.” People from New York can be prickly. 

No one cares what I may or may not have said to a famous investigative journalist who explicitly asked permission to record me. Who are you going to believe? All that matters is, the sun is shining, the beaches are full, and we’re going to have the best Fourth of July we’ve ever had. You’re the one who says it’s September. I prefer to be an optimist.