Dervid Hamson nominated 'Vice-Chaff' - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson

Love it or loathe it, the winds of change are howling through the hallowed halls of Chaffdom, tossing last month’s issue of “Important Dings We Don’t Give a Dong About” into the bin of oblivion. Yes, Chaff hounds, gather your crinkled copies and your finest fancies, because a Vice-Chaff candidate has emerged from the misty fog of indifference, and he goes by the name Dervid Hamson. Yes, that Dervid.

 

Now, you might be asking yourself: what in the world is a Vice-Chaff? And to that we say: shame on you for never asking this question before! Vice-Chaff is not just a title. It is a role, a state of being, a spiritual calling, nay, a vocation for those intrepid enough to bask in the secondary limelight. For every Chaff, there must be a Vice, because in the great tradition of doing things by halves, why not have a backup Chaff who is equal parts responsibility and irrelevance?

 

Enter Hamson, familiar to the Chaffverse like a squirrel is familiar to trees - ever darting between concepts, burying ideas no one asked for, and occasionally causing an inexplicable stir at the most inopportune moments. His career trajectory has been nothing short of inspiring in the way that a particularly well-constructed paper plane is inspiring; destined to soar briefly, cause a minor scandal involving office supplies, and land gracefully in someone’s cup of cold coffee. He’s what happens when you mix raw charisma with a smattering of sausage grease and just the right hint of befuddled charm.

 

In a world where logic often reigns supreme - where spreadsheets march with militaristic precision, and people understand things - Hamson is the antithesis. He is a beautiful, chaotic question mark in a sea of boring full stops. And if the Chaffdom doesn’t deserve that, we ask you: who does?

 

Of course, there are detractors. There always are. “But why Hamson?” they whine, clutching their over-washed, once-trendy scarves. “Surely there are better choices for Vice-Chaff - my aunt’s cat has a more authoritative stance on municipal taxation!” To that we say: we are all well aware of that particular cat’s ties to far-right feral groups and suggest it hisses elsewhere. 

 

Hamson’s candidacy, some might claim, is a desperate ploy - a final gasp in the slow-burn opera of bureaucratic pageantry. We recognize genius where others see only a man who requires near-constant supervision from a dedicated caregiver. We see in Hamson the perfect storm of absurdity and potential - a man-boy poised on the precipice of weird greatness, teetering just enough to remind us that sometimes success is really just an excellent balance of near-failures.

 

Hamson is a man who, at least once, wore a cape (unironically) to a budget proposal, declaring that he was “The Auditor of Tomorrow” before vanishing for six months to “study the impact of turbo-urbanization-psycho policies.” To say that Hamson brings flair to the Vice-Chaff role is like saying Michelangelo “dabbled” in painting; an understatement of such criminal proportions that the gods of bureaucracy themselves tremble at the thought of it.

 

And yet, for all his quirks and ambiguities, we must ask: isn’t Hamson precisely what we need in these tumultuous times? In an age when data reigns supreme, when algorithms can predict what socks you’ll buy three Thursdays from now, don’t we long for a leader who is unpredictable and unknowable? A leader who could, at any moment, flip the entire Chaffdom upside down and call it a “bold reimagining of governance”? 

 

Yes, we do. We long for the mystery, the intrigue, the unrelenting absurdity of it all. And Hamson delivers that in droves, usually in a way that involves a complex flowchart and the unsolicited mention of sea otter latrines.

 

For you see, dear readers, the Vice-Chaff isn’t just a position - it’s an attitude. And Hamson? He’s got attitude in spades, even if he occasionally misplaces it. But if there’s one thing Hamson understands - better than any mere mortal - it’s that Chaffdom is not about success. No, it’s about surviving just long enough to become history’s problem. Or, at the very least, a source of questionable and awfully unsettling footnotes.

 

Hamson is the kind of guy who manages to turn even the simplest task into a saga. He’ll set out to fix a leaky faucet and somehow end up knee-deep in a full bathroom renovation - no plan, no idea what he’s doing, but absolutely sure it’ll work out. And strangely enough, it usually does, just not in the way anyone expects. At the end of the day, he’s not the most efficient, but he’s always in the thick of it, figuring it out as he goes.

 

So here we stand, on the cusp of a Vice-Chaff epoch, ready to force Hamson into the glorious unknown, where the important decisions are made by people who might, at any moment, accidentally e-mail the wrong department. Are we ready for it? No. But when has readiness ever been a requirement for triumph in the annals of Chaffdom?