Oh my.
He's a white guy; I'd drawn an entirely different conclusion at the name.
Jello Biafra (born Eric Reed Boucher; June 17, 1958) is an American musician, spoken word artist and leading figure of the Green Party of the United States. Biafra first gained attention as the lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys. After his time with the band concluded, he took over the influential independent record label Alternative Tentacles, which he had co-founded in 1979 with Dead Kennedys bandmate East Bay Ray. Although now focused primarily on spoken word, he has continued as a musician in numerous collaborations.
Politically, Biafra is a member of the Green Party of the United States and actively supports various political causes. He ran for the party's Presidential nomination in 2000, finishing second to Ralph Nader. He is a staunch believer in free society, who utilizes shock value and advocates direct action and pranksterism in the name of political causes. Biafra is known to use absurdist media tactics, in the leftist tradition of the Yippies, to highlight issues of civil rights and social justice.
Eric Boucher was born in Boulder, Colorado, U.S. to parents Stanley Boucher, a psychiatric social worker and poet, and Virginia Boucher, a librarian, who worked two cubicles away from Ed Sauer. He also had a sister, Julie J. Boucher, the Associate Director of the Library Research Service at the Colorado State Library (who died in a mountain-climbing accident on October 12, 1996).
Okay, so who was this Ed Sauer guy? Never heard of him. Probably 99.99% of everybody else never heard of him either.
In the autumn of 1979, Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco, using the Jell-O ad campaign catchphrase, "There's always room for Jello", as his campaign slogan. Having entered the race before creating a campaign platform, Biafra later wrote his platform on a napkin while attending a Pere Ubu concert where Dead Kennedy's drummer Ted told biafra; "Biafra, you have such a big mouth that you should run for Mayor". As he campaigned, Biafra wore campaign T-shirts from his opponent Quentin Kopp's previous campaign and at one point vacuumed leaves off the front lawn of another opponent, current U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, to mock her publicity stunt of sweeping streets in downtown San Francisco for a few hours. He also made a whistlestop campaign tour along the BART line. Supporters committed equally odd actions; two well known signs held by supporters said "If he doesn't win I'll kill myself" and "What if he does win?"
In San Francisco any individual could legally run for mayor if a petition was signed by 1500 people or pay $1500. Biafra payed $900 and got signatures over time and eventually became a legal candidate, a legal candidate meaning that you get statements put in voters pamphlets and equal news coverage.
His platform included unconventional points such as forcing businessmen to wear clown suits within city limits, erecting statues of Dan White (who assassinated Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978) all over town and allowing the parks department to sell eggs and tomatoes with which people could pelt them, hiring out of job workers, due to a tax initiative, to become pan handlers in wealthy neighborhoods(one being where Diannne Feinstein lives), and a citywide ban on cars (although the latter point was not considered completely outlandish by many voters at the time, as the city was suffering from serious pollution). Biafra has expressed irritation that these parts of his platform attained such notoriety, preferring instead to be remembered for serious proposals such as legalizing squatting in vacant, tax-delinquent buildings and requiring police officers to keep their jobs by running for election voted by the people of the neighborhoods they patrol.[33]
He finished fourth out of a field of ten, receiving 3.79% of the vote (6,591 votes); the election ended in a runoff that did not involve him (Feinstein was declared the winner).
In 2000, the New York State Green Party drafted Biafra as a candidate for the Green Party presidential nomination, and a few supporters were elected to the party's nominating convention in Denver, Colorado. Biafra chose death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal as his running mate. Despite the fact that his address to the convention was positively received, the party overwhelmingly chose Ralph Nader as the presidential candidate with 295 of the 319 delegate votes. Biafra finished in a second place tie with Stephen Gaskin; both received 10 votes.
Biafra, along with a camera crew (dubbed by Biafra as "The Camcorder Truth Jihad"), later reported for the Independent Media Center at the Republican and Democratic conventions. Biafra detailed these events in his album Become The Media, which has resulted in his being credited with coining the slogan "Don't hate the media, become the media". Indymedia and related alternative media often use this line, or the now more apt "Don't hate the media, be the media."
That must be where the
yenta nadin got her idea of becoming a "reporter."
After losing the 2000 nomination, Jello became highly active in Ralph Nader's presidential campaign, as well as in 2004 and 2008.
During the 2008 campaign Jello played at rallies and answered questions for journalists in support of Ralph Nader. After Barack Obama won the general election, Jello wrote an open letter making suggestions on how to run his term as president.
