Reading the news is a fun job, considering that's what I do on my day's off, its fun to get paid for my hobby. So I bet you can imagine how fun it was to see this story come across “the wire.”
$820,000 Rio Nuevo video to premiere Aug. 21
The $820,000 video that Rio Nuevo paid for to serve as the opening movie for a now-defunct museum planned on the west side will be premiered as part of Tucson 235th birthday bash at the Fox Theatre on West Congress Street downtown on Aug. 21.
The video is now 27 minutes long, up from the 12 to 15 minute originally. This drops the per minute cost of the movie by more than half, from $68,000 a minute to $30,400 a minute.
There will be a reception for Rio Nuevo Board Members, their guests and the media, starting at 4:30 p.m. that Saturday, with the video premiering at 5 p.m.
The whole event is part of the “Big Kahuna” downtown and Fourth Avenue birthday part for Tucson, which is being billed as an “All Sand, No Water” tropical bash to celebrate the Old Pueblo’s birthday.
Some of you might not be acquainted with Tucson's excuse for Downtown redevelopment. Basically, a Ten year record of anti-business nothingness, aside from a facelift to one street and facade work on some Downtown buildings. Okay, maybe they've done a bit more than just that, but not much. I suppose we could say its now a slightly better place for the homeless people to sleep, but that's just about it. And while they've been doing this heaping helping of hardly anything, they've spent a lot of money! Some of it wasted on stuff like this video.
I remember when I was a child, my neighborhood buddy and I would get together and draw up plans to build some extravagant building or object. We tried to construct a submarine, a hang-glider, a house and a whole bunch of stuff. There was only one problem with our little projects, aside from the fact that we were 8-years-old and didn't know a lick about physics or engineering, we would always run out of materials. It’s not like I could just go to the local lumber store and grab some more 2x4's to add to our hang-glider, we didn't have any money. But when you're a kid you're a dreamer. That's why it makes me sad to say that the people running our city are children.
A great man once said, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” The Apostle Paul was right, we all need to grow up, and part of growing up is realizing your limits.
The $820,000 video was seen as one of the final examples of Rio Nuevo’s excesses before it was taken over by the state. The film is called “Finding Tucson Origins” and is part in English, part in Spanish and part in O'odham, language of the Tohono O’odham.
Architect Burns Wald-Hopkins Shambach picked a Washington, D.C.-based firm named Hillmann and Carr to make the video. At the time, the firm held an $8.6 million design contract for Tucson Origins Heritage Park. The architects contracted with Hillmann and Carr to make the video for $750,000, and added a $70,000 fee for themselves for overseeing the subcontractor.
Tucson Historic Preservation Officer Jonathan Mabry said the video was comparable to videos of similar length done for the National Civil War Museum and the Brown versus the Board of Education museum which both cost over a million dollars. He said an eight-minute video for the Smithsonian Natural History Museum cost $750,000.
When it was pointed out that Tucson doesn’t have a museum to put the film in, and has no funding to ever build one, Mabry countered that when the film was made there was a museum planned to house the film.
Here's another tale from my childhood. When I was in high school my friends and I would start garage bands. We would mess around after school, but mostly just annoy my parents for the afternoon, composing some awesome Punk songs. So we'd get home after school and practice, and write some stuff, but for the most part we were set on making an album. Never had we played a show. Never had anyone except the people in the room and my parents, heard any of our music. But we didn't have the patience. So we would set up recording equipment and start recording albums. Well, any band that is successful knows that it takes a lot of practice and a fairly good number of shows before you should even think about recording an album. Its just not how the business works.
So let me get this straight. The Rio Nuevo Board wastes money, the state takes over the Downtown redevelopment package, and now we're kinda sorta gonna allow them to be quasi guests of honor at this tropical desert birthday bash. “There will be a reception for Rio Nuevo Board Members, their guests and the media, starting at 4:30 p.m. that Saturday, with the video premiering at 5 p.m.” Sounds a bit strange if you ask me.
Every idea we hear when it comes to Tucson's Downtown redevelopment is so extravagant and so expensive that its impossible to accomplish. They remind me of myself at 8 years old, trying to build a hang-glider with Three 2x4's and a couple of nails. They have all the plans, they have all of the great ideas, but the don't have the money. And if you don't have the money, you don't have anything. It also reminds me my garage bands. All we wanted to do was make an album, the only problem in our way, we stunk! We never played any shows! I can think of so many business deals, when it comes to Downtown Tucson, that fell through or were thrown out because it didn't fit the perfect vision of The City Council or The Rio Nuevo Board. Get out there and prove yourself before you start going after the big stuff. Give me a reason to go Downtown.
