Lev here with an important Chicken for Mayor campaign announcement.

Our official campaign site, www.chickenjohn.com, is alive and kicking. Come by and check it… admire the lovely look and easy-to-read layout by Steve Hubbard… gaze at the glamorous photographs by Lane Hartwell…. listen to the inspiring anthem “The Year of the Chicken” by our court composer, Jascha Ephraim…. read Will Franken’s whimsical biography of our brave leader…. learn about Chicken John’s revolutionary views about art, innovation and the future of our fair city. And, when you’re done, leave your endorsement!

FYI, VoteForChicken.com will continue to be the campaign blog, and its contents will appear on the main page of ChickenJohn.com for the duration of the campaign.

Hi, it’s Lane here, just wanted to update everyone that contributed to the campaign and requested one of the lovely prints that were donated.

I haven’t forgotten about this, and am currently contacting the artists and arranging for the prints to be made and shipped. People (including myself) have been out of town, on vacation, at Burning Man etc. It’s happening, just a little slower than I had anticipated.

Your patience is appreciated!

-Lane

First of all: Article today in the Bay Gardian

Finally a piece of good press. The sheep will likely follow, reporters are dumb farm animals.

I did my first public speaking to the sunset Democrat club last night, asking for an endorsement. Quinten Meckie was also there, and did the dog and pony show with the gloom and doom progressive thing like nobodys business. Of course, the old ladys can’t hear anyone…. but that’s the comdey part. I enjoyed it. It was very wholesome…

We have our slogans down to a few runners up:

Campaign artist
First choice for second place
Pretend your vote counts
IRV means never having to say your sorry
Fail to win
Am I elected yet?

Today I find out if we qualify for matching funds. If our inital filing is rejected, we will have 5 days to re-file. We know that we will get shot down this first time, but think that we will only be off by some small amount and it won’t be because we don’t have the money part, it’s the paperwork part. They must have proof that the people live in SF. So I’m not totally sure how they determine that, but we’re gonna find out in 2 hours.

windowsign_1stchoice_tab_web.pdf

A Season In Hell, with John Hell,
Monday, September 10th at 9pm

Pirate Cat Radio, 87.9fm SF

http://www.piratecatradio.com

I will do a radio interview with my dear friend John Hell this evening. You can call in to the show, you can listen on the interweb, you can drive around SF and listen while eating cheeseburgers. Radio is a great thing. It defeats television by making you imagine what we are doing with our hands. Please imagine us in our underwear with our hair in curlers while you listen tonight. And don’t be shy to call in. We’ll be announcing the number on the air.

random musings::::::::::::::::::

As I unpack my suitcase from my trip to Burning Man, I think about brutal truth. I am literally digging my clothes out of the suitcase. I could use a shovel. The dust this year at Burning Man was like advertising. It just got in everywhere. It was a challenge this year to not be miserable. But there was stunning art, naked maniacs, fancy clothes and a deep level of understanding and tolerence that draws me back even though the guy who runs it sounds more like Teddy Rosevelt every day. That’s a brutal truth. BM isn’t the utopia I thought we were building. While I was building a vessel for unrestricted generosity some other people were building job security. We all met in the middle and now that the arguement of weather it’s an art festival or a community festival is irrelevant because it’s a right of passage that all Canadians must do before they die.

Anyway.

We begin now our mayoral candidacy. I was hoping to tell you that we qualified for matching funds by now, but the paperwork is still being checked. We will know soon. Monday maybe. I’m assebling staff. Photographer. Manager. Gal Friday. I’ve assembled a Tuesday night strategy team. Dream team. The mural of my face on the side of my building starts tomorrow. I’m moving my office out of my bedroom. I have to buy a fax machine. It’s all so…. adult.

I know it’s starting now. Because someone called me today to move a couch for them. I asked them if they would like me to move it Nov. 8th or Nov. 9th? I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I guess anyone would in this situation. I mean, ya know what you know and what ya don’t you go find out. Doesn’t sound that hard. But in politics, you can’t know it all. So in that way, we’re all equal. And I’ve got Dr. Hal. So nay.

~~~~~~~~COUNTDOWN TO FAILURE~~~~~

Ya gotta admit, it’s got a ring to it… I think we win if the newpaper headline Wedensday Nov 7th reads:

CHICKEN JOHN WINS SECOND PLACE IN MAYORAL UPSET

A guy can dream can’t he….

Comfortable in brutal truth. That’s a great lesson. Someone should write a self-help book with that title. I’d read it. I read Sugar Blues and the Power of Now. Damn. Maybe a book about running for mayor as therepy. Running for mayor as a sure-fire way to quit smoking. Run for mayor of LA to get discovered? The possiblitlys are endless. Maybe a reality show where all the candidate are locked in City Hall and interns vote them off the island. Combine the Olympics and politics? It rymes…

OK, no more random exausted burnt out after Burning Man musings. Tomorrow morning I will rise, dress and start my new job: I’m a candidate for the postion of Mayor for the city of San Francisco for the next 60 days. In the next 2 months, I will consider our founding fathers vision. I will champion the ideas of Democracy and will get an education on how to make a difference in our system of governance in a way I have eluded my whole life. I’m going to take this opportunity to change my thinking and re-tool my machine. With positive resolve, I will march forward beleiveing that the system can work and that it’s design although not flawless is mostly valid and calculated. My intention will be to simply leave it better than I found it. Somehow. My intention will be to document my learning process. I’m so green I’m St. Patrick’s Day. I may be a doormat for Mr. Newsom now… but I’ve got a secret weapon. And 500 people just donated to this campaign. I’ve got a posse! In the world of polling, 500 people doing something is a constituency of 50,000. 10% of the voting population of SF has been to Burning Man. I think I’ll get the 40 Italians in SF to vote for me as well… Win, place, show…. the only difference is where ya put your money, right?

Bet your sweet bippy on the Showman to place on the 6th…

Hey folks, Lane Hartwell here… I just returned from Burning Man, where I stayed with Chicken and his lovely friends at Camp Pain. Chicken is still on the Playa, but should be returning in a day or two. While there, we took out the Cafe Racer a few times for demonstrations of the gasifier and the truck in action. Here’s a few shots I took:

Chicken working on the gasifier in a dust storm

Also, I will be dealing with the donations for prints this week, so if you did that I will be getting in touch with you soon. Thanks to all of you who donated!

Lev here again with late-breaking news from San Francisco. Tony Hall, the only other serious contender for the number 2 spot in the mayor’s race, has dropped out! Read about it here in the Chronicle. Here’s some choice quotes:

With Hall out, “Who does that leave? The Chicken Johns of the world?” said Richard DeLeon, a San Francisco State University political science professor emeritus.

Newsom’s campaign manager, Eric Jaye, said Hall’s exit will affect the campaign, though probably not the outcome of the election. “He was one of the last candidates left that wasn’t named after a barnyard animal,” Jaye said.

Truly, this race is ours to lose! Meanwhile, our hard-working candidate Chicken John is pressing the flesh (in multiple ways, all quite wholesome) on the Playa at Burning Man, taking grass roots politics to where the grass doesn’t grow.

Keep checking this page for Chicken updates, or subscribe to the Chicken Feed (RSS).

Hello world, this is Lev (Chicken’s co-conspirator and, suddenly, campaign manager). I have some incredible news to share.

You, the great collective you of the Chickensphere, heeded our plea for help. We’ve spent the last 24 hours hitting up everybody we know, watching the total inch toward the magic number and wracking our brains about who to call next and how to make it happen. Alita, Goddess of the Spreadsheet, worked like a Hero of Soviet Socialist Labor to get all the scraps of paper, checks, Paypal contributions and loose change together. And in the 59th minute of the 11th hour, you came through and brought us over the top, to a grand total of $26,371.21 in eligible San Francisco contributions for Chicken’s race for mayor. That’s the documented sum of money that we brought to the Campaign Office at 4:45 this afternoon…. you should have seen us, racing down Van Ness in the limo VW bus, folders crammed with arcane documents and forms, sweating, exhausted, Rob Levy driving like a maniacal cabby to get us there on time. We scrambled up the steps into the warren of offices… and met the press! Reporters from the San Francisco dailies were there, waiting for us like it’s the Bay to Breakers finish line. Read it in the news tomorrow, baby. As far as we know, only Tony Hall also made the cut, but he’s Republican or Republican-like… so in reality, it’s Chicken vs. Gavin on November 6 !

So we’re in, and all of a sudden its for reals. The papers are filed, Chicken is on an airplane to the Playa and we’ve got ourselves a mayors race.

Thank you so so so much to everyone who came out of the woodwork in the last few days, as well as all the supporters who carried us up along the way. We are deeply awed by the trust that you’ve given us to run this race. This has gone from whim to performance to drama to triumph, and it literally is all because of you. You’ve put your hard-earned ducats into the hands of Chicken John, and I hereby vow that I’m not gonna let him squander it on top shelf figs and imported liquor or whatever it was he promised to do with it. In the coming weeks, we’ll be putting our secret plan into action. As they say, watch this space.

Signing off,

Lev

One Happy Chicken

15 Minutes Left and the Elevator is Soooooo Slow

Alita, Goddess of the Spreadsheet

Hey folks, Lane Hartwell here. Tuesday is the big deadline for the matching funds, so I’ve asked some of my photographer friends to lend a hand and donate some images.

So from now until Tuesday, August 28, 2007 at noon, San Francisco residents who haven’t already contributed to vote for chicken and would like a photo, will receive a beautiful 11 X 14 print from the choices below. Here’s how it works:

1. If you want a print, donate $100. or more to Vote For Chicken by TUESDAY, AUGUST 28 at NOON. Remember, you must be a SF resident and have not previously donated to Vote for Chicken.

2. The prints are first come, first served. Everyone has agreed to donate one print each. So if you like one, don’t wait!

3. Send your contribution to Vote For Chicken via check or Paypal.

4. Send an e-mail to Chicken at chickenjohn@chickenjohn.com and CC to me at lane@fetching.net letting us know what print you would like.

5. You may also feel free to visit my photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fetching and choose an image you like. I will be personally donating more than one print.

Now here are the beautiful photos. A big thank you! on behalf of Chicken John to all the talented photographers who gave so generously.

1. Photographer: Luis Montemayor, Mexico City.

see his other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/luismontemayor/

2. Photographer Craig Morse, San Francisco/NOLA

see his other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/culturesubculture/

3. Photographer Eddy Joaquim, San Francisco

See his other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aqui-ali/

4. Photographer Sharon West, Pittsburg.

See her other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharon-west/

5. Photographer Cynthia Wood, San Francisco

See her other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cynnersf/

6. Photographer Roger Kisby, New York

See his other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roccokasby/

7. Photographer Bernie De Chant, San Francisco

THIS PHOTO HAS BEEN TAKEN.

See his other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/razorbern/

8. Photographer Navid Baraty, San Francisco

See his other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vwmang/

9. Photographer John Curley, San Francisco

See his other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jay_que/

10. Photographer Kari Hartmann, Ukiah

See her other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/harpy/

11. Photographer Pilar, San Francisco

See her other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pstar/

12. Photographer Lane Hartwell, Alameda

THIS PHOTO HAS BEEN TAKEN

See my other work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fetching