City Club Suckers

I wish Rebecca Ryan would gag on it, and I wish cities would stop paying money to get lame ideas out of her and her "focus groups". I guess there really is a sucker born every minute. Miss Ryan will be speaking at the City Club here in Cleveburgh, but I didn't really feel like paying $20 to witness it.
$250,000.00 was her fee if I'm not mistaken. And kids we've ALL seen the ideas she came up with for that amount for Akron. Let me just say that the CLEVELAND POLICY WATCHDOG 41 IDEAS TO DRIVE GROWTH FOR CLEVELAND REGION was way better -- and free I may add.

For $250,000.00 yes indeed, we could have just thrown that money at some entrepreneurs and had them do something with it. Or better yet how about a real music festival since this is supposed to be a city about Rock n' Roll. SXSW, Siren Festival, CMJ, Motor City Music Conference, Cochella, Midwestern Music Summit, NXNE, GramFest and even now the city of South Park Colorado has beaten Cleveland to hosting a real music conference and/or festival! I mean come on people, Cochella is in the middle of the fucking desert! Is it really that hard?

I don't know why Cleveburgh thinks this is an arts heavy town anyways though (not yet people!), it helps to have people who buy or collect art on a regular basis who spend X amount on art a year or to have out-of-town collectors who make this a destination due to reviews or features in art magazines. Not just have a bunch of gallery spaces that are treated as a hobby by the owners where they tack a bunch of crap on the wall in any fashion they see fit with works and blown glass pieces that do not have any relation. I've seen the prices most artists command in this town and I'm shocked. I really don't know how they survive if you factor in a gallery %, not to mention that galleries around here all ask for donations and charge for booze in the, "aw shucks we're just trying to keep the business going, won't you help?" song and dance I see all too often. If you run a gallery/venue or any enterprise it is considered by most of the world to be incredibly TACKY to not only talk about how you aren't doing so great, but to ask for donations on top of it. There were over 60 art openings in Los Angeles this past week, until you can get even close to matching that number I wouldn't be calling this an Arts town just yet.

I know everyone talks about what a great public speaker Miss Ryan is, and it gets everyone all excited and all. But this is way too much like a similar situation that happened years ago in a little known episode of The Simpsons:

Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Monorail!
What'd I say? Monorail, Monorail, Monorail........

Morons.