Peter Kageyama’s workshop for Palo Alto was like the Coen Brother’s movie “O Brother” the part about the candidate for governor, representing the little guy, who hires a midget with a broom only to have the bad guy incumbent get an even littler guy with a broom, which yields a search-able aphorism, something about “Well, it’s a pretty good gimmick, the midget with the broom”. He says Denver has a blue bear, but if we got a blue bear we’d be redundant or worse.
I did get a couple ideas personally out of it, maybe I will act on, and I enjoyed myself but frankly most of what was said goes on deaf ears.
I think we or someone could do something with Perry and Miner or Niner.
I had a simple t-shirt design of a green arrow in an up position. Sort of phallic, sure, but references the tree and the high tech world of charts and successful exits. I wasn’t so psyched on the staff member who wanted to put the famous garage on a shirt. That’s a corporate asset, not much in it for us.
I’ve produced a lot of $500 events, so I know the size of it. With a $150 million budget, it’s ludicrous to green light a set of $500 projects that come out of 10-minute workshops.
What was Peter’s fee? Five grand?
What did we spend to amend our Comp Plan? Two million?
I’ve seen Jim Keene throw around ten or twenty grand on studies hand over fist. Not to mention some dubious hires.
The Peter Kageyama show is like a cooking show that looks good on tv but hard to make at home. He’s kind of like The Music Man. The public sector –demorcracy, lo — is at a nadir and this is more of a parasite that sets in than a cure. It’s like promising methadone addicts that cola will cure them; it works for about a half hour.
And yeah I’ve got about a dozen dead ideas in my portfolio that City of Palo Alto let die on the vine. Most recent: I wanted to put Curtis McMurtry, the grandson of a famous novelist, to sing in the new library, Mitchell, but was told that the soft opening would not welcome bookings until a month later. Then I field for Stern Ballroom and actually got no response. So I put it in a cafe, in Menlo Park.
I like the idea of hiring Ralph Carney to serenade the mules at Bol Park, as they roam, in honor of music professor Malcolm Smith.
I did throw down $20 to get both his books, a discount. Won’t read them, likely. Skim.
and1: I found an article that cites both Blue Bear and Blue Mustang, famous Denver public art pieces.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 