"Chicken" John Joseph James Rinaldi is a musician, showman, activist, and author living in San Francisco, California. He is involved with the San Francisco arts community as well as the Burning Man community. In what he referred to as "an experiment", he was a candidate in the 2007 San Francisco mayoral election, during which he wore fake mustaches, debated a puppet, and arranged costumed flash mobs to occur at campaign events, in an effort to be as flippant a candidate as possible.

The 2007 San Francisco mayoral election occurred on November 6, 2007. Voters elected a Mayor of San Francisco and several local officials. Incumbent Mayor Gavin Newsom was re-elected by an overwhelming margin. There were 12 candidates on the ballot as well as 6 write-ins.