At Deadline, They Came, They Filed, They Posed

The art of political parody died Saturday. Cause of death: suffocation -- widely believed to have been brought on by the crush of candidates in the Oct. 7 recall election.

All day at clerks’ offices across the state, candidates for governor -- including a 23-year-old porn star and a 100-year-old hospital volunteer -- rushed to meet the 5 p.m. deadline for filing papers and paying fees to appear on the ballot to replace Gov. Gray Davis if he is recalled.

The last-day candidates were full of proposals. They called for more beer promotion, flexible building codes, tax-deductible lap dances, a ban on salaries for legislators, public nudity, marijuana legalization, longer names, slot machines, a closed border with Mexico, an ash tray exchange program for smokers, the transfer of all paper transactions to the Internet, dispute resolution modeled on TV sitcoms -- and, perhaps, a carefully thought-out combination of tax hikes and spending cuts to resolve California’s budget crisis.

TV writer Bill Prady, 43, was among some three dozen who filed his papers at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office in Norwalk. He lashed out at the state’s politicians for contributing to parody’s demise.

“As a person who makes a living off of making mockery,” he said, “I resent them intruding into my world.”

Two rows of TV cameras recorded the comings and goings at Norwalk. But most of the candidates arriving Saturday are so little-known that it became difficult to tell actual ballot contenders from the stream of self-styled artists who dropped by to exploit the confusion.

Among the candidates, many said they were running as a protest against the recall, as an expression of their worries about the state, out of fear for the two-century-old American democracy -- and to get attention.

Lorraine “Abner Zurd” Fontanes, a 41-year-old filmmaker and political satirist from Westwood, is running to document the recall.

Kelly Kimball, 45, and Scott Mednick, 47, each filed to run for governor, hoping to promote “Butt Monkey Beer,” which they are marketing to the spring break set.

“You’ve got guys like us who will run for governor simply to exploit a product,” Kimball said.

“This is a monumental moment in history,” said Sergio Myers, 34, creator of two MTV reality shows, “Sorority Life” and “Fraternity Life.” He said he was thinking of turning his run for governor into a reality show -- working title, “The Independent.” He brought his own camera crew along when he filed papers in Norwalk.

He said he hopes to air the show next year. The pitch? “It’s the ultimate campaign combined with the ultimate reality show,” he said.

Slipping in among actual candidates were the poseurs. Michael Carr, a 39-year-old Los Angeles man who goes by “Kitty,” showed up in a “naked body” suit and black wig. To jeers from the crowd, he said, “I’m here to appeal to you in the nude to expose this whole recall process for what it is: a circus and a sham.”

Cristobal Emilio Burgoa Franco, a very unemployed actor, wore a button proclaiming “I’m not a big name, just a long name.”

Asimo Sondra Lawlor, who took out papers but did not return them, said she’s an heir to a trillion-dollar fortune from the Romanov family in Russia and could single-handedly cover the state’s multibillion dollar deficit -- and still have $70 million to spare.

At least one person, Robin McNeill of Las Vegas, said he had come to Norwalk just to watch.

At other county clerks’ offices around the state, the pace was slower, but still steady, with a surge around lunchtime.

Santa Cruz County Election Manager Gail Pellerin, who was in charge of compiling the list of statewide candidates, watched the number grow from 51 at the start of the day to 70 by the middle of the day. The count topped 90 at 4 p.m. and climbed past 100 shortly before the deadline.

In San Francisco, Bill Ray Smith, 55, a police officer, came without his wife, who couldn’t bear to watch him write a check for the $3,500 filing fee. “It may inspire my grandkids and my grandkids’ kids who will say, ‘My great grandfather ran for governor of California,’ ” Smith said.

In Contra Costa County, structural engineer Bill Vaughn filed to run as a Democrat because of his unhappiness about the state’s building code. “Earthquakes and special interests threaten California every day,” he said.

In Orange County, after former major league baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth filed his papers, Jim “Poorman” Trenton, 39, a DJ-sidekick to Rick Dees at KIIS-FM, arrived at the registrar’s office wearing shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, a beach cap and flip-flops.

He was accompanied by a camera crew and two attractive women, members of his “Bikini Brigade.”

Trenton said he’d collected most of his signatures Friday night and Saturday morning, at his favorite bars. He said hadn’t decided exactly what his platform would be; he claimed to have called Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) on Friday to solicit advice on running for office, but had not been called back.

While candidates arrived at most county clerks’ offices at a rate of no more than one per hour, crowds outside the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office began gathering an hour before its 9 a.m. opening.

By 9:30 a.m., approximately 100 Schwarzenegger fans were outside the office, waving signs and magazines with pictures of the star. Larry Farnsworth, 45, of Orange County was carrying a water bottle shaped like the Terminator that he bought several years ago.

“You won’t find this anywhere,” he said. “I kept it because I knew Arnold would be a powerful man one day.”

The crowd started chanting “Arnold! Arnold!” when Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, stepped out of a black SUV around 10:45 a.m. Seconds later, Arianna Huffington arrived, prompting another group to begin screaming “Arianna for governor!”

A Times reporter was ejected from the building by county officials 40 minutes before Schwarzenegger’s arrival, and was not permitted back in for three hours after his departure.

Pressed for an explanation, county registrar spokeswoman Marcia Ventura said county officials couldn’t allow a reporter in the office without the Schwarzenegger campaign’s consent.

(County election officials also refused at first to release Schwarzenegger’s financial disclosure -- a public document -- but the county relented after legal objections were raised by The Times.)

Schwarzenegger spent about 20 minutes filing the paperwork. When he emerged, he looked for a moment as bewildered as many of his fellow candidates.

“I just filed the official papers to run for governor of California,” he said.

“When I came here in 1968 from Austria as an immigrant, the last thing I thought [was that] I would be standing here after filing papers to run for governor of this great state of California.”

Shriver then made her first public comments of the campaign. “I just want to say how proud I am for his courage to enter this race,” she said. “He is a born leader. I am here 100% in his corner, as I know so many people are.”

As the deadline approached, there was no last-minute rush -- only a trickle of filers. One candidate, a Republican T-shirt maker named William James Tsangares, handed out $20 bills to reporters as he walked in.

Inside the clerk’s office, he realized he was $140 short of the filing fee and came back outside, where reporters returned enough of the gift bills to get him on the ballot.

At 5 p.m., county officials locked the doors. Two minutes later, Jim Dimov, a 68-year-old handyman from Los Angeles, approached.

“I’m supposed to file,” he pleaded with security guards at the door.

“That’s not fair.”

Undeterred, Dimov gave a stump speech on the front steps. The recall, he declared, had lost its best candidate.