In a “Distinguished Speaker Series” lecture at the exclusive Pacific Club Wednesday evening, Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle took shots at everybody from Gov. Neil Abercrombie to the City Council — and himself.

Before launching into his critique of the new Democratic governor, Carlisle told the audience that the likelihood of the state’s economic woes trickling down to the city level was “a real issue.”

“Do I have an answer to that? No, because I don’t control the state,” Carlisle said. “I certainly don’t control Neil. I don’t know who does. I think he’s very proud of that fact.”

The audience laughed at this point. But as he went on it went silent.

“It’s guaranteed that what’s on his mind, he’ll tell you — again and again and again. And I don’t plan to cooperate with him. I have just one goal. That one goal is, in a 30-minute time period, if I can get five minutes of actual talking without interruption, that would be the goal. I don’t think that’s happened for the last 25 years but I’m going to try really damn hard.”

Then he was interrupted.

“OK,” one woman called out. “We like him, too.”

At that point, a man brought up the topic of rail and the focus shifted.

Carlisle treated that topic seriously, without breaking any new ground, but made light of many others. He joked about the Honolulu City Council before making fun of former City Council member Rod Tam.

“The City Council is apparently eight or nine people who sit in a room,” Carlisle said. “I don’t know what they do. That’s the other question I’m asked: ‘What do you think about the new City Council?’ I’m encouraged. … We’ve lost some of the luminaries like my good friend Rod Tam. A tragedy, I know, but I think we’ll survive.”

Tam pleaded guilty to 26 counts of theft in November, and may face additional charges from a separate complaint. Last year, the city found Tam used more than $10,000 in taxpayer monies to pay for personal meals. His council term expired at the end of last year.

The mayor said that several people had asked him why he didn’t ask his opponents in the campaign — engineering professor Panos Prevedouros and former city Managing Director Kirk Caldwell — to be in his Cabinet.

“I say, because I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Carlisle said.

The mayor did have some nice things to say about other people. He spoke highly of his appointee as managing director, Doug Chin, and called the city’s rail team “absolutely and unequivocally stunningly capable.”

As usual, Carlisle also mocked himself. He referred to himself as a “drooling idiot,” and an “ugly duckling,” before mock-dissing the job he was elected to fill.

“You could put a useless monkey in as mayor, and things would go up,” Carlisle said of the city’s dire economic straits. “Which means this is a golden opportunity for me.”