At some point, far into the future, when I give talks to classrooms full of aspiring journalists, I will tell them you miss 100% of the weird stories you don’t show up for. That’s why you go to all the neighborhood meetings, all the zoning hearings, and every candidate forum.

You go to a Ward 7 city council candidate forum at a big fancy church on Hennepin Avenue to break a once-in-a-lifetime story that a not-so-clever person might call Gumghazi.

(What you’re about to read is the biggest Wedge LIVE scoop since Deflate-gate.)

Multiple eyewitness accounts and the pictures below show that Lisa Goodman placed chewing gum from her mouth into the hand of one of her opponents. Poor guy thought when Goodman said “take my gum” that she was offering a nicely wrapped piece of unchewed gum. Live and learn. The unlucky political neophyte, Teqen Zéa-Aida, won’t fall for the old gum trick again. Experience matters. (Read Teqen’s account here.)

Photo credit: Canin Apriori

Meg Tuthill works the room

Former Ward 10 city council member, Meg Tuthill—who is a Goodman supporter—walked around the room before the candidate forum, doing some persuasion work. Tuthill interrogated a couple of sweet, innocent older ladies about who they were supporting and why. The innocent older ladies said they were supporting Goodman’s other opponent Janne Flisrand.

My close encounter with Lisa Goodman (Kingpin Wedge “El Chapo” LIVÉ escapes Mexican prison once again)

Here’s another Real-Life Story from the Ward 7 Candidate Forum. After it was all over (after all the gum had been chewed and spit out into other people’s hands), I stood up and began talking to the tall, handsome man I was seated next to during the 90-minute forum. To my great terror, Lisa Goodman approaches us and asks the tall man, “are you John?” Clearly she was confusing one tall handsome man for another.

Lucky for me, Lisa Goodman had her sights locked on my friend, convinced that this was the “John” she was looking for. But he was not John. I am John. And at that moment, John (me) was making his escape.

My thinking was, if the first thing on Lisa Goodman’s mind after a grueling 90-minute candidate forum is “John” then something has gone terribly wrong. The tall man will have my everlasting gratitude because he did not waver. He is brave. A normal person would have looked in my direction when asked, “are you John?” A coward would have given me up to the authorities. But the Tall Man looked Lisa Goodman square in the eyes and said “no.” With a convincingly perplexed expression on his face, he gave the impression he had never met anyone named “John” in his entire life. I believe the Tall Man is tall and handsome and brave enough to play Wedge LIVE in the movie version. In the movie he (I) will say, “So you must be Lisa Goodman… We meet at last.” Later I spoke with the Tall Man about the incident. He says he was scolded for taking video of the forum (because I guess taking weird videos of city council members slapping a wet wad of chewed-up gum into their political opponent’s hand seems like a thing Wedge LIVE would do). Lisa Goodman said to the Tall Man that she thought video recordings were maybe a violation of the candidate forum rules. In addition to being tall and handsome and loyal and brave, Tall Man thinks that city council candidate forum rules don’t apply to him. Tall Man is a rebel. Sorry ladies, he’s not single. [Show Lisa Goodman that WE ARE ALL WEDGE LIVE, by wearing official Wedge LIVE team apparel.]