Palo Alto City Council candidate Mark Weiss, the minimalist who mixes Ralph Nader with Donald Judd*, will appear at the Elks Club on Monday, September 22, 2014 for exactly one minute, at 1:11 p.m.

Twelve candidates will appear at a forum sponsored by Rotary Club, which overall will last 90 ridiculously long and boring minutes, or an hour and a half.

Weiss plans to bike from his North Palo Alto abode — a one-bedroom apartment at Oak Creek — to the south Palo Alto venue, as he did for a “scoping meeting” (?, #@&^) recently. He is considering learning to unicycle in keeping with the digital them of the event, zeroes and one.

Weiss announced today that he is also seeking the endorsement of musician Mac MacCaughan, whose 1995 song “The 1st Part” oddly enough contains, when you play a 180-gram vinyl version backwards on a Crosley turntable bought from Urban Outfitters, the entirety of his 150-word platform, albeit in pig-Latin. (Ok, pig-latin with a southern or north florida drawl, as distinct from a Clyde Jones on the roof of Crooks Corner number).

Did we mention that Superchunk played Weiss’ Earthwise Productions five-year show, in 1999? Weiss said that in payback for Mac rocking the Cubby the Cub Bear t-shirt the next night at GAMH, Weiss will wear the blue shirt and flannel depicted above, although to fit it, Weiss will have to lose 20 pounds, mostly by increasing his lap swim at Oak Creek’s 25-m pool. (Isn’t there a Superchunk song about 25-m lap swim pools? No, that’s driveway-to-driveway-to-driveway-to-driveway-dunk)

The precision of Judd’s sculpture has led people to see an idealizing impulse behind it. But Judd saw himself as empiricist and his work as sharpening the perceptions of a public addled by encountering falseness daily on every front, from advertising to architecture. (that’ actually Kenneth Baker, on Judd)

edit to add: at the Rotary Club candidates forum, coming up Sept. 22, they want us to have 40 copies of a 150-word platform. Wonder if I can get Merge to donate in kind lyrics to “The First Part” as a way around spending the $6 or so on xeroxing — in 2009 and 2012 I amassed 7,000 votes combined without spending a dime.

So this is the first part
We’re drunk and the selfless relentless caresses
How long must the first part last
Before we make our respective messes?

We draw it in white
So take your time with it
Yeah take your time

I guess I’m Ralph Nader meets Donald Judd meets Chance the Gardener meets Wesley Willis or something, if I claim this is my platform. Actually, the clock metaphor fits with George Packer “The Unwinding”