By the end of Monday Night Live—the yearly fundraiser for the San Jose Stage Company featuring local politicos in self-effacing skits—it seemed that a case of cold feet may have sabotaged the show. “A lot of people dropped out,” actress/writer Lisa Recker told the audience, channeling a much angrier Tina Fey and turning the once-popular “Weeknight Update” routine into an interminably long, rambling trainwreck. “It kind of messed us up.

The most notable absence was the scheduled host, District 2 Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. District 3 Supervisor Dave Cortese did a valiant cover job, pretend-arguing with Shirakawa by cell phone. The Pulp Fiction-inspired skit also starred mustachioed District 1 Supervisor candidate Forrest Williams as Jules. The two men carried the skit through a hilarious Yellow Cab Confessions video, wherein RDA executive director Harry Mavrogenes and Planning Director Joe Horwedel offered parking money and trashed county ballots in exchange for their lives.

The show’s best line, “Does George Shirakawa look like a BITCH?” was a reminder of the big man’s conspicuous absence. But the show did go on. Assembly candidate Nora Campos got her brains seriously scrambled by some gyrating pectorals during “Dancing With the Politicians;” Pete Constant swapped the ball-gag he sported a couple years back for a clerical collar in Councilmember Rose Herrera’s Molly Shannon–inspired “Stadium Superstar,” and Pierluigi Oliverio sparked up a “doobie” (which from the smell of it was tobacco) that toasted the councilmember’s vocal chords as he struggled through a couple bars of Tom Petty’s “Last Dance With Mary Jane.” And although he appeared to be pulling a Palin, reading his lines off his hand, there were some good ones, like Councilmember Nancy Pyle’s: “We could fund the arts with P-O-T instead of T-O-T!”

Councilmember Madison Nguyen was also a no-show in the skit, and Fly can only speculate—perhaps her people didn’t think being photographed with the day-glo bong Constant was packing from the wrong end would be good for her run-off campaign.