Brief thoughts about the RUN THIS CITY documentary series so far as I watch it:

He tells you to look around at pictures of the other mayors & says “they’re all fake,” talks about their fake smiles & same ties, as he stands there smiling & wearing a tie. Comes off as very image-conscious

Says you look around at other mayors & they have no legacy. “What do you remember about them? Nothing.” (I mean, actually, there’s quite a bit I could remember, but that’s because I read the paper carefully & pay attention)

But again, that’s an image thing.

This may just be my interpretation but so far he speaks with a lot more “bada-boom” in his voice than he has in debates, speeches, & in audio interviews I’ve edited & transcribed. But y’know that’s just how it goes, I guess, people‘s diction shifts in different contexts

He touts mayoral experience (or, more charitably interpreted, inspiration) from playing SimCity. A few seconds later, he says being mayor is like being a king — my nerdery insists no, that would be Civilization (both good games tho!)

Note about the Quibi app: it touts the fact that you can watch in landscape or portrait mode on your phone. It’s not shot that way— it’s shot landscape. Turning portrait just zooms in close to the center of frame and cuts off edges & looks crappy. At least this one show...

He talks about Mayor Quimby from Simpsons being an inspiration. “Being a mayor is being a character” he says. One could argue no, a mayor is a public servant who is also a figurehead but the 1st job is the most important

We interrupt this telecast bc I have to entertain my kid, I’ll add more as I watch

He says the old adage about pols kissing babies is inaccurate. “I kiss the old ladies because they vote. ... Babies don’t vote,” he says, misunderstanding completely WHY pols “kiss babies” (uhhh they have parents)

Ok I’m back & I rewatched episode 1. It‘a paced like a bullet train, as I guess it should when it’s only 8 minutes long. But it’s a good intro, I think. Gets some basic info across. They seem to portray JC as cocky & slick & tbh perhaps a little dim

I don’t know how realistic that is, I’ve never met him myself

Mr Will Flanagan kicks off Ep2: “Jasiel Correia walks around with a horseshoe in his ass” — and there’s like a half second pause where so many options went thru my head as to what that could mean. “He is one of the luckiest people you will ever meet.” What a start lol

Episode 2 goes into the whole gun & car ride on the waterfront thing. The incident that propelled him to the forefront of public consciousness, one might argue

But then ep 2 really rushes thru the Sutter administration and JC’s connection to it before ending with JC boasting about taking down mayors and people not liking him, & he didn’t do anything wrong...just weirdly edited

Episode 3: Swinging jazzy music as JC boasts about knowing “a lot about all the departments,” having a cool office, and again it’s image, image, image. Then he admits to being befuddled by how to work the copy machine

“I can never figure it out ... It’s the most bizarre piece of technology,” says the man who built his career on a smartphone app

JC slams his 2 predecessors: “Did they shake up the city in a way that made it a better place? No”

Parts of this doc seem like it might be tough to understand if you’re not from here. I’m so curious what someone who knows nothing about this case would think is happening. It jumps back & forth in time a bit

Like, Dottie Sutter says she was upset when her husband lost to JC bc people “were not looking into what we knew about him“ — but it never mentions what that is

Interview with JC’s parents. Baby pix. They brought him home from the hospital in a baby tuxedo. Mom says the doctor told her he could be president. Big Portuguese Prince Energy

Episode 3 ends, as all of them have so far, with JC insisting to the camera over & over that he didn’t do anything, that this is just a conspiracy to take him down ... again, they have not yet made it clear about what yet

Those are all the episodes available so far. It’s pretty good. Interesting & fun to see local media figures & pols. I think they’ve captured some charm from a lot of the interviewees in a very short amt of time (too short, really)

It’s not particularly flattering to JC. It gives him a platform to tell his story & he spends time boasting about his youth & his image, speaking in superlatives, insisting that he’s been targeted by fuddy-duddies, basically, bc he’s too cool & young & they don’t like him for it

It paints him as image-conscious and vain, a braggart, but who thinks of himself as a victim bc others are jealous of him. One wonders why he’s been telling people to watch this

He mainly is shown speaking about the position of mayor in terms of power & its acquisiton— who had it, he wanted it, others coveted it, he took so&so down, so “They” took him down. It comes off very transactional, not about service

Hi-ho it’s time for Episode 4

Starts off about 1Zero4, his “business incubator,” and SnoOwl. He says people told him you got something, this could be the next Google! There’s an image of an article with the headline: “SnoOwl: The next Google?” It was written by JC himself on his LinkedIn page — I’ve read it

They shot an interview with him in the library. It’s a public place but ... I dunno, seems wrong somehow

Linda Pereira election comes & goes in a matter of minutes, but she gets off a few pretty good lines & brings some big finger-wagging energy to the proceedings

Rushes right into his indictment. Remains to be seen if we ever get to it...but would love to hear from biz clients of JC’s. Where are their voices? I mean, I spoke to a client of his at 1Zero4 myself, & this person had a story or 2 to tell — where are those voices?

Dude smokes a LOT of cigars. They love to show him cutting the end, firing it up, smoke lingering

Random: there’s a closeup of a Rolex but it does not appear to be the Batman Rolex

JC near the end of the episode includes an inspirational quote about never giving up & persevering from ... Gordon Gekko from The Wolf of Wall Street?? (a) that’s the wrong movie, he was in Wall Street; (b) both of those movies are about despicable scumbags who committed fraud

He’s portrayed as both self-aware sometimes but also mainly not self-aware at all. He says his GF must have friends who are like “why are you WITH that guy?” But he doesn’t seem very sad about that idea, as one should be. And him quoting Gordon Gekko is almost like a parody

Before the episode ends he does more conspiracy theorizing about shadowy forces inside the DA’s office calling their buddies at the FBI to investigate him, & Sutter chuckles & says “I’m chuckling bc that’s not how that works”

Anyway so far 4 episodes in, almost no references to The Herald News and its award-winning reporting except for a fleeting glance of a headline, and no mention of @jgoodeHN’s stories that led up to all this, which is a damn disgrace. More tomorrow

(Side note: I have not explored any of the other quibi shows yet bc honestly they don’t look that good)

Ok I lied, a few more thoughts: there are some very nicely photographed shots of FR, not all of which I could place, bc some of them move quite quickly or are dark. But there are a few landmarks for the locals: you get to see the Vin’s Motors sign & Millennium Pizza

Run This City episode 5, here we go — I’m behind a couple of episodes so let’s binge some Jasiel shall we?

JC and a buddy smoking huge stogies and talking about the memes that go around on local Facebook pages. Yes he’s seen the memes & he’s not a fan. More cigar smoking too. If he had a watch chain he’d look like a caricature of a railroad baron in a 1910s newspaper cartoon

“Do I look ok at this desk? I feel like I look tiny, because it’s an abnormally large desk.” — JC sitting at his mayoral desk. The filmmakers saw fit to leave this in, which tells you something

Supporters are impressed that he’s able to compartmentalize his job vs the charges & keep doing mayor stuff despite the fact he’s been arrested on fraud charges. And it doesn’t affect him! That’s what they’re thinking as opposed to “he should step aside & take care of this issue”

JC’s sister interviewed. Baby pix! what was it like growing up with him? “Right from the get, everyone knew he was going to be a star. And when he wanted to be mayor, I wasn’t shocked at all.” Eh pa, I’m tellin you: grande Portuguese Prince Energias my friend

She says “As a justice major, we learn we have a very broken justice system.” Lol DO THEY THOUGH? Do they really? Ok my sister is an attorney, been a while since she was at school but I have to ask her if one of the things they teach in college is “listen: all this is bullshit”

Oh damn — episode 5 contains the shot of blood splatter from the trailer! I shouldn’t spoil how it relates to this story. I’ll just say if you wanna know, axe me about it

JC says he and Lizzie Borden share something bc she was accused of a crime and acquitted of it & therefore didn’t do anything wrong. Basically: if you’re proven innocent then you didn’t do it. I gotta pick him up on his terminology & his understanding of how justice works...

He is conflating “innocent” and “not guilty.” Acquittals in court do not determine or even address whether a person is innocent. An acquittal addresses only whether the prosecution proved its case against the defendant or not beyond a reasonable doubt

He says Lizzie was proven innocent. No! People are not proven innocent. They are found guilty or not guilty. Innocence is a separate matter not determined in courts, hence all the Lizzie detective work that has continued to this day

So much of his story, often I genuinely wonder if he’s gotten into trouble because he sincerely doesn’t know how things work, only has a bluffed-through understanding he picked up from TV that he thinks is accurate, whether that’s running a business or a city or how justice works

Episode 6 coming up. Recall time. Hearing some voices of FR citizens for & against while JC does the work of grip-and-grin with voters

Oh man — remember when JC was photographed at a sewing shop holding a baby goat? There’s footage

Knocking on doors with Pat Casey on Atlantic Blvd, they find someone who doesn’t want to come out & say hello bc she was smoking pot — lol, salud

Someone (didn’t place the voice?) talks about the difference between the North End & South End of FR, how people w money live in the NE, wondering how that’s come to be. Thought about this a lot too, always curious how accurate it is. Not saying it isn’t, just curious

Getting into some of the recall election challengers now. JC calls Paul Coogan a “nice old man,” oooof

The night of the recall election, and again we hear Gen Andrade’s scream as she finds out they won re-election. A scream best described as “bloodcurdling” if you watch this in a quiet house with earbuds in too loud. Wow

But are they not going to mention any of the other candidates in the recall election? Are they just going to skip them all??? Or is that for another episode? That’s arguably why he won again, too many competitors! Ai meu deus

Side note: the app crashed so I refreshed & had to watch the part with the Gen scream again. I took out my earbuds for it. My kid, watching tv in the other room at full blast, heard the shrieking & and came in to tell me to keep it down — lol

Hmm they don’t seem to talk to any of the other competitors in the recall race besides Coogan. No Riley, Camara, no ESP. Any attempt at analysis of that race without including the fact that 5 candidates diluted the voter pool is poor & incomplete frankly

They really love the cigar smoking imagery. I don’t know his real-life habits, wondering how often he actually smokes

Awesome — Ep 7 begins with JC introducing one of “my favorite reporters” Jo Goode. She was walking thru Govt Center & ended up finding him in the middle of an interview. “Wow, look at you,” she says to the cameraman, taking zero shit

I remember that afternoon. Jo was my desk neighbor & we chat a lot about stories she’s working on. She told me about that day when it happened. Interesting to see the event from that angle

JC admits that he started the website jogoode dot com to troll her after she tweeted that she saw him being interviewed for this doc. @jgoodeHN tweeted it was confirmed Mark Wahlberg was doing a series on JC. He said that was “fake news” ... in a series on himself, by Wahlberg

He calls her tweet the definition of fake news. The filmmakers do nothing to challenge him on the fact that her tweet was and is, actually, 100% CORRECT. Irresponsible, imo

He admits the fact he built the site to the filmmakers pretty readily, & I’m wondering what the timeline is, when he did that. Bc he seems to think it was funny but yet kept the registration anonymous & didn’t admit it to the HN for a while until pressed

He says there was “nothing wrong” about creating the website & calling it “freedom of speech” — however a sticking point in this matter, which he doesnt mention, is that on the page he included a copyright notice in Jo Goode’s name. that’s a legal no-no

Again he seems to make his public problems personal. He says people are trying to tear him down bc they “simply don’t like me” — constant deflection from facts of charges or his policies, & he attempts to turn everything into a referendum on his image, which he curates carefully

“There will not be a mayor that will make the impact I made in 20 years.” Look forward to continuation of this thread in the year 2040!