Not Burgie! : Hermosa Beach’s New Councilman Tames Wild Man Image

There is a fear wafting through the power structure in tiny Hermosa Beach. A fear of crackling cockroaches. Lewd jokes. And bacchanalian beer drinking.

The anxiety centers around a zany, boyish 34-year-old who used to be known as “Burgie” but since Nov. 5 has become Councilman-elect Robert Benz.

Benz, who has hosted an off-the-wall, call-in show on local cable television since 1984, is arguably better known among the 18,000 residents of Hermosa Beach than the city’s mayor.

But what concerns some members of the city’s Establishment is that Benz--the man who exploded a cockroach and goldfish in a microwave on the air, who once suggested that residents be taxed for each sexual position they use in a night, who sponsors a community beer drinking and vomiting fest every Fourth of July--may eventually become the city’s mayor.

“Is he going to consider the council meeting a big stage?” asked former Mayor June Williams, who was voted out of office in 1989 largely because of her crackdown on the city’s party town image.

Benz says such worries are misplaced. “What people should be concerned about is that the city has a ballooning budget and that we’re imposing unfair restrictions on businesses--not whether I have a show and act a little goofy.”

During the campaign, which drew 10 candidates for two seats, Benz played down his wild man image and called a temporary halt to his Friday night television show styled after “Saturday Night Live,” which he calls “Burgie Live.”

His campaign literature was staid, always using his full name and raising serious issues such as the city’s business climate and the need to reduce taxes. At his campaign appearances, he would remove his ever-present dark glasses. During a cable television interview, he appeared to search for words, never a problem for bantering Burgie.

When it became clear on election night that a satirical television host had become a councilman, the questions began.

Would Benz pop open a cold one and sing his “Burgie rap” during council meetings? Would his show’s closing song--”Partytime is Anytime”--become the city’s anthem? Would Hermosa Beach soon resemble the “Burgie pad,” Benz’s ramshackle apartment?

“What everybody is questioning is how scary it will be when he gets to be mayor (a rotating position) and how he will take prestige from the position,” said Doug Neilson, a friend of Benz’s and former manager of the cable station.

Manhattan Beach Mayor Bob Holmes, who has appeared as a guest on Benz’s show, is not alarmed. “I don’t think this is the end of civilization as we know it in Hermosa Beach,” he said. “Yeah, he’s a wild man but people who are holding their heads saying, ‘Oh, my God,’ don’t have to do that.”

There is a serious side to Robert Benz.

After graduating from Oregon State University in 1980 with a degree in mechanical engineering, Benz settled in Hermosa Beach. Since then, he has earned a patent for an air-conditioning system and is working as a consultant at the Palm Desert Marriott Hotel developing a technology that reduces boiler pollutants.

“When the work has to get done he puts on the serious side, but there’s always a sense of humor there, too,” said Terry Smith, director of mechanical and energy engineering for Marriott Hotels and Resorts in Washington, D.C.

Even some of Benz’s wackiness has a serious side.

He says he microwaved small animals during his science-on-the-air segment to make a point. Not a soul complained when he exploded a cockroach in a microwave, when he electrocuted another or even when he dropped a third in liquid nitrogen and then shattered it on the floor. But when Benz popped a goldfish bowl in a microwave and zapped the goldfish--later feeding it to his cat--the studio received dozens of irate phone calls.

“We thought it was ironic that the cockroach was the higher form of evolutionary life but everybody cared about the fish,” Neilson said. “It was a test of the absurdity of people’s reactions to stimuli.”

When Benz suggested that the city impose a sex tax, he said he was really satirizing the ever-growing reach of government into private lives.

His annual Fourth of July Iron Man competition, however, is pure hoopla. Burgie, whose nickname comes from a beer made in Oregon, does not even try to intellectualize that away.

Competitors run a mile on the beach, paddle a mile on a surf board and then drink a six-pack of beer.

“The business that I’m in requires a lot of analytical thought,” Benz said. “Unless you have some diversion, it becomes very consuming--so much so that it harms you mentally.”

Benz says he is a Jeffersonian Constitutionalist, likens himself to William F. Buckley Jr., enjoys Ernest Hemingway and listens to Henry Mancini and James Brown.

Now that he is a councilman, Benz may don a tie for his first meeting Nov. 26 and his sunglasses will stay at home during meetings. But at the same time, much to the delight of his fans, the Burgie show will continue later this month and Benz vows never to sell out, never to become politically correct.

“I think the fact that I get loose on the Fourth of July or that I like beautiful women is a testament to the fact that I’m a romantic at heart,” Benz said. “That’s where our politicians have lost it. They can’t unwind.”