A blogger steals someone else's life story and calls it her own.
How William Orr's quest for better, cheaper gas became a crime.
The family of a dead judge blames a creeping fungus in the federal courthouse.
I worked at Kmart with John McCain's director of strategy.
Yep, First Friday's gotten too wild and woolly for the soccer-mom-and-pop types who run some local galleries, including culcha vulcha Greg Esser of the Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation. Esser and the RRCDC want all them funky artists and bead-vendors to confine themselves to a block party to coincide with First Fridays, in front of the Holgas apartment complex on Garfield between Third and Fourth streets.
(To be fair, Esser's said he hopes the block party concept spreads throughout the Evans-Churchill neighborhood.)The artists would have to pay to play: $35 per month, in addition to $70 annually to the city and some undetermined fees to the state. And they'll have to kiss Esser's ring. But that'd be cheaper than the fine of anywhere between $100 to $2,500 the vendors and artistes will be slapped with if they set up anywhere they want, as they've been doing for four friggin' years.
Jennifer Delgado, president of the Roosevelt Row CDC, declared in a recent Arizona Republic "My Turn" column that "the free ride is over." She, Esser, and others kvetch that vendors, some of whom sell snow cones or wallets — as opposed to artier products — are a safety hazard and pay no taxes.
These painters, jewelry-hawkers, and tchotchke-peddlers are getting special treatment, claims Delgado, albeit for one day out of the month. On the other hand, so are the galleristas, Jenny. The city's offering art-fart burgomeisters as much as $100,000 in reimbursements for renovations to their galleries. When's the last time some barefoot boho type peddling wares on Roosevelt scored $100K from the city?
Also, the City Council will probably have approved an Arts, Culture and Small Business Overlay District by the time this issue of New Times hits the curb. That means gallery owners will be able to set up their card tables outside their storefronts to sell shwag, as long as money is exchanged inside the biz.
The reason The Bird and others gravitate to Roosevelt on First Fridays is for the very libertine, Fellini-esque atmosphere that the Esser-Delgado axis wants to kill, not to ogle the pricey baubles at Esser and partner Cindy Dach's boutique, MADE.
Stop being greedy, and let the artists and vendors set up wherever the hell they see fit. So we have an exception 12 days out of the year to some of the city's rules. Phoenix still carves out its pound of flesh every other day of the calendar, and gallerists still get their gravy in other ways.
There's a small-town mindset in this megalopolis that freaks out whenever it sees a crowd gather. Take a deep breath, gallery goons, count to 10, and leave the artists and vendors be. They ain't hurtin' your commerce, and without them, First Friday will shrink. Then the the next bitchin' you'll be doing is that no one gives a furry Fig Newton about First Fridays!