Ele está de volta

Chicken conseguiu levantar $25.000 dólares em doações individuais (máximo de $500 por pessoa) em 3 semanas.
Agora a batalha é com a Comissão de Ética da cidade (sim, aqui também tem isso, a diferença é que funciona) para provar que todas as doações vieram de residentes de San Francisco. E agora ele está correndo atrás para provar isso e se qualificar para o match 2:1 que a cidade dá para os candidatos. Ou seja, se ele juntou $25.000, a cidade vai dar mais $50.000 se ele provar que todas as doações são legais.

Vejo isso como um modelo para o Brasil; em vez de uma justiça que não funciona, incentivos para que a contabilidade seja feita com transparência. Consequiu aprovar as suas contas? Então toma aqui um dinheirinho extra para a sua campanha. Isso funciona para candidatos com respaldo popular que consigam um valor mínimo de doações e cria um feedback positivo para contas de campanha abertas.

Mas pensando bem, no Brasil alguém ia acabar descobrindo um jeito de avacalhar, deixa prá lá…
Abaixo, dois modelos de outdoor que estão sendo discutidos. Sem comentários… Um outro diz, simplesmente:
“Chicken John, your first choice for second place”.

Pelo jeito, o Chicken quer ser uma espécie de SBT de San Francisco…

E no meio disso tudo…

Foto: Mondo Il Magnifico Contra a Sacola de Supermercado Gigante, no Lost Vegas, evento organizado todo ano pelo Chicken. A sacola ganhou.

…a campanha continua. Chicken já arrecadou $17.000, de $2 em $2… Eis aqui o que a Lera, que é professora em Stanford, tem a dizer sobre o Chicken:

greetings friends –

i am writing with a strange but interesting request. one of my bestest long-time friends – chicken john – is running for mayor of san francisco. but don’t worry, he can’t win. we’re safe there. he’d make a terrible mayor. so you won’t get any pleas from me to vote for him. instead, i am writing to ask you to donate to his campaign.

why on earth would you donate to a political campaign of a candidate who can’t win, isn’t good for the job anyway, and whose name more importantly is “chicken john”?

well, chicken is his name – we can’t do anything about that. but here are some reasons why you may want to make a contribution. (www.voteforchicken.com)

chicken isn’t running to win. his campaign is an art project, a performance, an opportunity to communicate a message, and it’s a good message.

the idea is to open up a conversation about two topics dear to chicken and to many of us: public art and the environment. chicken wants san francisco to be a city of art and innovation. he is hoping to use his campaign to draw the mayor’s office attention to the great good that comes from art (wouldn’t it be great to have more funding for art for all to enjoy? to live in a city that supports its artists rather than driving them away?), and to push the city to be more innovative in environmental policy.

why is chicken doing this, and why does he need your money?

1. why is it chicken doing this, and not someone else? well, first, chicken had the idea to do it, so it’s his show. second, he is a great person for the job. he lives his ideal of art and innovation. and he is a born provocateur.

chicken has spent all of his life creating interesting and unusual performances, experiences, and events, and he does it all with no resources whatsoever, all made entirely out of junk, re-imagined by chicken into cultural treasure (see, art & innovation). i could spend many pages listing all chicken’s many spectacular accomplishments and terrific failures (ask me if you’re interested or go see his terrible website http://www.chickenjohn.com), but here are some recent things:

chicken converted his pick-up truck to run on used coffee-grounds, with zero emissions (his girlfriend runs ritual roasters, so the used coffee-grounds are free). the new york times wrote about it. for more info see: http://www.caferacercrew.com/

he built a biodiesel raft out of junk that floated down the missisippi, spreading culture and chaos. the new york times wrote it about it several times. as they described it: “Imagine if Don Quixote, Salvador Dalí and Che Guevara collaborated on a floating medicine show.”: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/arts/09arma.html?ei=5088&en=91dedd4ba9963741&ex=1312776000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

when chicken owned the odeon bar on mission street, every night you could go see some unlikely and sublime performance chicken had conjured up. there you might find a pancake juggler (someone chicken took in off the street), a monsters of tuba all-tuba tuba-thon (with all 40 band members staying at chicken’s house), a pirate puppet rock opera, or thai shadow performers (that chicken had met on a trip to thailand and then brought back with him to san francisco).

importantly, chicken is a borne provocateur. he has a knack for attracting attention and getting publicity. he is constantly featured in the local papers and is the cover image of the weekly or the guardian about once a year. more impressively his picture ends up in the new york times 3-4 times a year. and in different sections. sometimes it’s in the arts section. other times it’s about technology, or the environment, or politics. for a guy who dropped out of school in 7th grade and has never had a real job, it’s pretty darned impressive. he knows how do the thing that matters, that captures the imagination and gets noticed, how to say the thing that gets heard. and that’s exactly his job here. to get noticed. to start a conversation. to stir the pot.

this campaign for mayor, like all of chicken’s projects, has a guarantee of failure, but a very interesting process of arriving at that failure. like with all of chicken’s projects, i am very skeptical about it, i think it’s a bad idea and a waste of time, and at the same time i know that something wonderful will happen as a result of the experiment and i can’t wait to see what it will be.

2. why does chicken need your money?

chicken is trying to raise $25,000 for his campaign. if he manages to do so, he will qualify for 2:1 matching funds from the city of san francisco, so his campaign will have $75,000 to work with. if he makes it past this hurdle, his campaign for art and innovation can really take off.

amazingly, chicken is really close. he has raised $17,000 already. unfortunately, he only has a week left to raise the rest. so he really needs help in this final push. any small amount donated adds to the pot. this is definitely a populist effort, so any small amount is very valuable. the city will match up to $100 each sf resident donates to chicken’s campaign.

gavin newsome is running essentially unopposed this time around, so we the voters don’t get to voice any of our policy preferences at the voting booth. but this is another way to make your opinion heard. if you’d like the mayor’s office to spend more time thinking about art and innovation, then help chicken’s campaign by making a contribution. then let’s see what comes of it. i’m going to donate some money to chicken. it’s an interesting experiment.

finally, here are some words from chicken:

“There is no doubt that Gavin Newsome will be our next Mayor. But there is value in fighting the good fight even if ‘winning’ isn’t your main objective. I have engineered my entire life around the embrace of the amateur. To live life as art. Mediocrity is not an option. Samuel Beckett’s quote fills me with possibility and adventure: “Fail again. Fail better.” I honestly feel that right now San Francisco, the city of Art and Innovation, lacks whimsy. It lacks a decision making body that results in the manufacture of ‘Units of Interesting’. We need there to be more Units of Interesting. The acronym sucks, or it would be the new catch-phraze. UoI.”

you can donate at http://www.voteforchicken.com, or write a check to “vote for chicken”. if you donate using paypal, please also provide your address, occupation & place of work in the message field (this way the ethics committee knows that the money is coming from SF residents).

http://voteforchicken.com/

see you tonight….. chicken

Ele conseguiu

Aos 45 do segundo tempo, Chicken conseguiu levantar os 5000 dólares que ele precisava para colocar o nome dele na cédula eleitoral da eleição para prefeito de San Francisco. E foi entregar o “chequinho” dele em pessoa na prefeitura, onde encontrou o atual prefeito e candidato à reeleição, Gavin Newsom. Diálogo entre os dois:

Gavin: Oi Chicken, beleza? Mas o que você está fazendo aqui?

Chicken: Fala Gavin, tudo bem? Vim ver o meu futuro escritório…

Gavin (em tom professoral): Chicken, não conte o ovo no cu da galinha… (OK, tradução livre mas foi esse o espírito da coisa)

Eu também estava lá. Suando dentro de uma fantasia de gorila. Mas ninguém tirou foto. Chuif…

Comentário do meu amigo Bud Ugly sobre essa foto:

“É por coisas como essa que eu não quero ter uma TV de alta definição. Mas pelo menos agora eu tenho o número da conta dele.”

E o Chicken, sobre a experiência:

Last Friday was the deadline to file for mayor. I barely made the money. I barely figgered out (with 3 lawyers helping me) how to file the paperwork. I woke up early, washed my body, said my prayers, ate a good breakfast and rushed like a madman for the rest of the day. I filed at 4:45. The news cameras waited for me. It was odd. Pretty cool, though. I walked through city hall with an entorage of reporters that I mostly ignored. Friends were waiting at the election office and cheered. I kissed babies. I spoke in soundbites. I made eye contact. I was a screen that everyone projected their Amercia on. OK, maybe not, but I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. I walked into city hall and wanted to see Gavin’s office. I don’t know why, I just wanted to. I didn’t even know where it was, I had to ask directions. Room 200. The walls were cherry hardwood. The rug was like a casino. The confluence of colognes and perfumes in the office was surreal. It’s a stunning building. Marble everywhere. Polished. Cavernious. Vapid. It was like the ceilings were designed to maximize the sound of people screaming. I thought of a concert of bassoons playing on the steps, with old ladies tap dancing up and down the marble dias. I dressed wrong. I wore dark, should have worn light. Light is taller. I filed the papers and took everyone out for a drink. Drinks. Drunk. Fall down. Exausted. Mentally spent. Very emotional. Couldn’t sleep. Read Huck Finn. Again. How words can jump off the page like that and dance in front of your eyes. How little blips of ink on paper can create charicters so complex. Crazy people are starting to write me email. And call me. Angry people. Bizzarre people. Bring it on, city of freak flags flying high…

“I promise I won’t win”

A coisa está ficando ridícula, tudo em nome da comédia.   Chicken põe um anúncio de página inteira no Bay Guardian apelando para o prefeito pagar as contas da campanha dele. Pelo menos ele não está vendendo vacas fictícias ou usando “recursos não-contabilizados”…

Segunda Sem Lei

Fim de semana ocupado. Na Sexta-Feira, Zero Boy, diretamente de New York veio fazer um show aqui em casa com a sua comédia sonora, com Dr. Hal como mestre de cerimônias. Ele pega uma história do público e vai contando, fazendo efeitos sonoros com a boca. Dessa vez eu não tive que trabalhar, fiquei tomando a minha cervejinha com os amigos no sofá assistindo ao show. E tirando fotos fora de foco que eu estava com uma preguiiiiiça de ir pegar a lente f/1.8…

Domingo de manhã cedinho, hora de ir nadar na Baía de San Francisco. Voltei a treinar pesado para a travessia de Alcatraz em Setembro. 4000m na piscina de Segunda a Sexta, mais corrida e pesos. Este ano eu bato a minha marca de 40 minutos ou me afogo tentando. Ou vai ou racha.

E no Domingo à noite, o grande debate, Chicken vs. Wolf.
Venho de uma família super politizada e trabalhei em campanhas políticas no Brasil desde os nove anos, em algumas campanhas de que me orgulho, outras de que me arrependo. Assim é a vida. Mas nunca tinha visto um debate com trilha sonora, do KROB ainda por cima.

San Francisco tem uma tradição de outsiders que conseguem ser surpreendentemente eficazes como ativistas políticos. O Chicken e o Josh são assim. É uma maneira diferente de fazer política, mais artesanal, com pouco ou nenhum dinheiro, baseada no fazer mais com menos, no espetáculo como discurso político e numa brutal franqueza. Funciona, se não para ganhar eleições, ao menos para orientar o debate em direções que os políticos tradicionais não conseguem entender ou com que simplesmente não se importam.

Saca a gravata do Chicken…

San Francisco sempre viveu o dilema entre prosperidade e inovação. A inovação, gerada pelo underground de artistas, engenheiros de software, cientistas malucos e os proverbiais dois caras trabalhando noite a dentro numa garagem, praticamente construiu a Internet; é só ver quantos gigantes estão baseados aqui. Ao mesmo tempo, a prosperidade infla os preços e faz com que os mesmos inovadores não consigam viver nesta cidade devido ao alto custo de vida. E isso sempre criou tensão, especialmente nos anos loucos do boom das dot coms no fim dos anos 90, quando eu me mudei para cá.

Quais são as questões importantes nesta cidade? Inclusão digital através de uma rede sem fio aberta a todos os habitantes da cidade, de graça, que está sendo projetada pela Google e sendo violentamente combatida pelo monopólio das grandes empresas telefônicas. Estímulo aos pequenos negócios que são o que realmente move a economia local. E redução da criminalidade. San Francisco teve 54 assasinatos até agora neste ano (isso é o que? Um fim de semana no Jardim Ângela?).

Outra coisa legal foi ver que, quando eles não têm uma resposta para uma pergunta, tanto o Chicken quanto o Josh não têm medo de simplesmente dizer “Não sei”, sem enrolar o público. Se pudesse ser assim no Brasil…

E no meio disso tudo ainda arrumei um tempinho para ir surfar.

E assim vai a vida, aproveitando as pequenas alegrias do dia-a-dia, que é o que eu posso fazer.

Bom começo de semana.

A campanha de Brancaleone

Acima, Bill the Junkman, proprietário do ferro-velho mais gente fina de San Francisco, onde eu compro todo tipo de badulaques, dando duro na campanha do Chicken. O pessoal é, digamos, um pouco inexperiente na arte da política.

Até que a campanha tem rendido uma boa dose de comédia apesar de roubar o meu sono. E eu tenho precisado dar umas boas risadas, o Ronas que o diga. O homem tem que conseguir 10.000 assinaturas para entrar no páreo. Já tem 5.000 mas só faltam mais dez dias. Será que ele consegue? Eu já vi o Chicken fazer coisas mais difíceis. Ele incorpora o Robert De Niro em Touro Indomável, quando ele quer ele faz. Faz mal feito, totalmente nas coxas, mas faz.

Cheguei ontem em casa tarde da noite do trabalho e lá estava o Chicken, com um fone de ouvido, um sanduba numa mão e com a outra tocando o meu violão que ele roubou do lugar onde eu o tinha escondido, mastigando enquanto falava com alguém ao telefone, pedaços de pão caindo pelos cantos da boca. Daí ele desligou e falou para mim:

– Acabei de falar por três horas com o Jello Biafra.
– O Jello Biafra está te dando conselhos para a campanha?
– É.
– Ótimo. Quer dizer, Deus nos ajude.

Jello Biafra é um grandissíssimo babaca. Ele é uma espécie de Bono Vox do mundo punk. Insuportável. Acabou com os Dead Kennedys. Eu adoro os Dead Kennedys, aliás ultimamente tenho começado o meu dia de trabalho com a execução do Hino Nacional da República Popular do Fiasquistão, que é “Take This Job and Shove It”. Mas Jello Biafra é um merda.

E para culminar a semana, estou lendo a minha The Economist desta semana quieto no meu canto quando quem eu vejo?
O Chicken. Pode ir lá, no fim da página 37. Não tem como escapar do homem.

Bom, hoje à noite lá vai o Chicken com o ônibus dele assustar os transeuntes e coletar assinaturas. Deus nos ajude.

from Chicken John <chickenjohn@chickenjohn.com>
to Damn List
date Jul 17, 2007 10:51 PM
subject CHICKEN: Wedensday night, 5:00 or so… we get on the bus, we go get signatures… and have fun…

Meet at the Chez Poulet, 3359 Army Street. (Cesar Chavez) at like 5:00 or so. Matthew Harman is getting people on the campain trail. We had a meeting tonight. I never knew so many people had so many opinions about BART. Or bridge traffic. John Law overdressed trying to impress a hippy. What an idiot. In the end, we hashed out Matt Gonzalezs’ campain for him, decided that small business owning was hard and Racheal gave everyone werid Italian candy. I spent 3 hours on the phone with Jello Biafra who called me to tell me that my platform should be based on police elections, legalized squats and make bankers wear clown suits. I reccomended him to Josh Wolf’s campaign. All and all, it’s been a pretty interesting day.

Please come on the bus and collect sigs with us. It’ll be fun. I promise.

OK. This Mayor thing is getting tired and it’s only been 3 weeks. I need to liven things up. My dear friend Jermey Paul intoduced me to a website that make me spit out my milk. Check this out:

You just click on the button, and create your very own SF-centric special interest group. It’s so funny, you will pee someone elses’ pants. Do it:

http://www.sfusualsuspects.com/club_generator.shtml

“Hayes Valley Muslim plant and tree sewing circle” is my favorite…

See ya tommorrow…..

chicken

Você me conhece…

Dignidade, trabalho, saúde, segurança, moradia, blá blá blá…

Não é essa a plataforma do Chicken. Lá vai ele, no San Francisco Comical (na verdade é San Francisco Chronicle, mas o jornal é tão ruim que faz a Veja parecer a New Yorker, daí o Comical). Contra todas as minhas esperanças, o galpão onde eu moro foi transformado no QG de campanha.

Alguem aí tem um sofá onde eu possa dormir?

Chicken e o famoso liquidificador movido a motor V8, misturando drinks para a choldra e fazendo o seu primeiro milhão de dois em dois dólares. Era a época da gasolina barata, quando ainda se podia fazer essas barbaridades sem culpa. Bons tempos…

Extra, Extra!

Direto da boca da jibóia. Meu colega de moradia, agitador em tempo integral, “insultor”, ex-guitarrista da banda de GG Allin, ex-técnico de som do CBGB, ex-mecânico de carros de corrida, criador do primeiro circo punk da história, ex-dono do Odeon, o melhor boteco de terceira categoria dos Estados Unidos (título ganho no voto) e amigo de longa data, Chicken John, entrou nesta manhã na disputa para Prefeito de San Francisco. Aind não sei se isso é uma coisa boa ou ruim. Só espero que o modesto galpão na Cesar Chavez Ave. onde eu moro não se transforme no comitê de campanha. Mas se o Jello Biafra concorreu , porque não Prefeito Chicken John?

Durma-se com um barulho desses. Aqui vai o comunicado oficial do homem. Vê-se logo que os problemas de San Francisco são beeem diferentes dos de São Paulo…

	date			Jun 28, 2007 8:07 AM
	subject			CHICKEN: Chicken John throws his hat into the ring… Chaos provides…. city of Art and Innovation… it’s all up to you…

So. There is a lot of stuff to talk about. But lets get something out of the way: running for Mayor of San Francisco isn’t something you do as a prank. As a joke. It would be an insult to the people who supported you and I think that making a mockery of the political system would be tameritous. Elections and other bodies of governmental working should be sacred, taken very seriously

 

 

There are many of us who came here to San Francisco from somewhere else looking for something. Seeking, if I may. Those who find it, never leave. They then become stewards of our city, allowing tolerance and experimentation of all levels so that other people who are seeking can come here and find what it is that they are looking for. They in turn become stewards… and so on. I have been thinking of leaving San Francisco. The billionaires have all come and kicked the millionaires out. Every day I see more construction. We exist in these micro bubble economies. Which is how I got to where I am in my thinking. Drawing a parallel between the SF of the 1800’s and now is very similar. Boom towns. A boom town economy is well documented. I think it would probably be a good time to leave a boom town while it’s still booming. Don’t wait for it to all dry up. But I feel a responsibility to SF. I feel a duty. That I have to serve this town that so many people with such a broad stroke of differences can come to agree on nothing else except the SF is a great place. I can’t just leave. Not without trying my best to fix it. And why not just go right to the top. I will now ask for your help in my next endeavor. In order to be on the ballot to compete with Gavin Newsome and the 22 other candidates for Mayor of San Francisco, I need to collect 10,000 signatures from registered voters. Or pay $5,000. I have the forms here:

 

http://www.chickenjohn.com/mayor_1.pdf

http://www.chickenjohn.com/mayor_2.pdf

It needs to be one piece of paper. LIke, printed on both sides or they won’t accept it. It’s a petition. If 100 of you download 10 copies of the petition and get 100 people to sign it, that’s 10,000 signatures. But the signatures have to be of registered voters and the person collecting the sigs needs to be registered. There is a mountain of paper work that I am sifting through. There is matching funds for campaigns. There seems to be a very astute staff of the Dept. of Elections, in the *basement* of city hall. It’s all pretty neat.

My platform? What’s my platform, you ask? The bed of 1975 GMC pick ’em up truck that runs on coffee grinds. Party affiliation? I like to party. Party hardy. Issues? What about the issues? We’ll get to that later. For now, I need to get on the ballot. I need your help. Here’s how this works:

You download the pdf forms FRONT AND BACK ON THE SAME PAGE. 2 DOWNLOADS ON 1 PIECE OF PAPER OR THEY WON’T ACCPET IT. Ahem.

You get friends or whoever you can to sign it, follow the instructions.

You yourself need to be a registered voter in SF WITH A VALID VOTER THINGY WITH YOUR CORRECT ADDRESS.

You get as many people to sign as possible, 10,000 signatures is a lot. Only people who are registered voters in SF can sign. They check.

You write me email or call me and drop off the signatures before the 25th of July. They are due on the 26th.

This community that is so powerful and so *together* rises to the occasion and with little effort gets 10,000 signatures from registered voters. I get on the ballot, then we change the way politics is done by using our secret weapon: art & innovation. After we do that we stop *greenwashing this city* and I hold a raffle to see who gets to drive the truck that knocks down that fucking bow and arrow thing on Embarkadaro that insults each and every artist in SF. We shed some light on the fact that the Art Commission of SF has a $9 million dollar budget and spends 90% of it on administration costs and consultant fees. In our *green* city, Builders Resources (SF’s Urban Ore) is being squeezed out. Whatever. There is a giant land grab going on and none of it is being earmarked for temporary sculpture or anything like that. Slowly, it all gets nailed down and if you’re ‘in’ you can get a piece of the action. If you’re not ‘in’, then you get a form letter. I single handedly produce 50 times what the SF Art Commission does and I couldn’t get the director to answer a phone call for 4 months. Civil servant my entire ass. And on and on… there are things that affect us that we can defend that will be of benefit to all San Franciscans. And it’s all really easy.

My little visit with Berkeley politics with the closing of the Shipyard really rattled my cage. It was like trying to do the butterfly stroke in a swimming pool of cold maple syrup. It literally sucked life from me. There is no way things have to be that hard. It was actually disgusting. There must be comedy. There must… or all is lost…

There is no doubt that Gavin Newsome will likely be our next Mayor. But there is value in fighting the good fight even if ‘winning’ isn’t your main objective. I have engineered my entire life around the embrace of the amateur. To live life as art. Mediocrity is not an option. Samuel Beckett’s quote fills me with possibility and adventure: “Fail again. Fail better.” I honestly feel that right now San Francisco, the city of Art and Innovation, lacks whimsy. It lacks a decision making body that results in the manufacture of ‘Units of Interesting’. We need there to be a Units of Interesting factor in some of the decisions. The acronym sucks, or it would be the new catch-phraze. UoI. Whatever.

I will have forms here and there for people to pick up and I will (obviously) be using this list to promote and update. Stay tuned.

here we go….

chicken