There's Always Room For Jello

Jello has always been into performing outrageous pranks, and he loves to foil the lives of greedy rich politicians. So one night on the way to a concert, the Dead Kennedys' first drummer Ted commented that since Jello has such a big mouth, he should run for mayor of San Francisco. Jello took him seriously. The mayoral elections were coming up anyway, and it would be the perfect opportunity to screw w/the other candidates. When they had reached their destination, Jello began telling everyone that he was running for mayor and began writing his platform on napkin right there at the concert. While contemplating some of the things that he would like to accomplish as mayor of San Francisco, he recalled the campaigns that had taken place in his hometown of Boulder, Colorado. It was traditional in almost every race to have at least one prank candidate. One of these guys was especially inspiring to Jello in his own campaign -- John Davenport ran for office wearing a pirate costume, eye patch, and blacked-out teeth. One of his goals was to ban automobiles from Boulder. Jello decided that this wasn't such a shabby idea and included it into his own platform. There were many more issues that would have been tackled had Jello obtained the position of mayor.

Dianne Feinstein became mayor of San Francisco after Mayor Moscone was assassinated. She was a top contender in the 1979 race for mayor.


Throughout the race, Jello continued to get publicity for many stunts that he performed. The most legendary joke he performed was on Dianne Feinstein, the top candidate for election. When she stated that she wanted to clean up San Francisco, Jello agreed, and vaccuumed leaves off of Feinstein's lawn. He also did a whistle-stop tour on the local subway system. He even went on an all-candidate radio show wearing a T-shirt from another leading candidate's former Supervisor campaign. The shirt read "Quentin Cop, the Kosher Cowboy". Suprisingly enough, many people supported Jello in the election. Some signs that people brought to rallies said "If he doesn't win, i'll kill myself".



JELLO'S PLATFORM

1. will legalize squatting in all building left vacant for tax write-off reasons
2. will auction off all high city positions (i.e.- police chief) in the civic square instead of behind closed doors
3. will create a legal board of bribery to set fair and standard rates for liquor licenses, building code exemptions, police protection, and protection from the police
4. will require all businessmen downtown to wear clown suits between to hours of 9 and 5
5. police officers will be required to run for position every 4 years, voted on by the people they patrol
6. will erect statues of Dan White all over town and allow the parks department to sell eggs, rocks, and tomatoes to throw at the statues
7. offered to hire back all 7,000 laid-off city employees to panhandle for San Francisco on a 50% commission in front of department stores and in rich neighborhoods

Although some of these ideas were a bit ridiculous, he did mention a few serious concepts that might have improved San Francisco. W/his platform completed, he went to find out how he could get in on the race for mayor. First, he had to file a declaration of candidacy. Then he was obliged to get a petition signed by so many registered voters who beleived that Jello would be a capable candidate. To gather enough signatures, he convinced all of his friends to register to vote so that they would be viable signers. Finally, there was a filing fee required, so Jello and his friends threw a benefit to raise the money needed. After accomplishing all of these mandatory tasks, Jello was in! Because he went through the whole process, he was a 100% legal candidate, which guaranteed him an adequate amount of publicity -- if any of the big candidates got on a television or radio program, are interviewed by a newspaper, even if one of them throws a political social, they must invite all of the legal candidates.

Jello was also included in the San Francisco voter information pamphlet, which is sent to all of the registered voters. It gives a brief description of each candidate, their qualifications, as well as their platform.

Find the whole scoop, as well as some more of the great communicator's babblings on his spoken word album #3--I BLOW MINDS FOR A LIVING


Although Jello did not win the seat of mayor, he did screw up Feinstein's expected landslide win. Jello came in fourth out of ten hopefuls, and Feinstein and Cop had to go on battling for the position. Jello doesn't think he'll run again, because he feels that his music is a more powerful medium through which he can share his feelings and ideas. Even if he did want to run again, he couldn't--nobody is permitted to run for office, unless they use their Christian name.


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