By Fuzzy Stoner Boy
Event last night kicked ass! Here's this morning's lede from the Standard-Examiner:
OGDEN -- Downtown Ogden streets were packed Friday night with people ready to party like rock stars and welcome the Dew Tour to town.More from this morning's Std-Ex story:
With most of the main events of the Dew Tour on deck today and Sunday at Snowbasin, Friday's block party downtown served as a warm-up act for the winter action sports festivities.
A few thousand people gathered near Historic 25th Street and Grant Avenue, waiting patiently in the cold for the featured act, a free concert by rock band Dashboard Confessional.
More wandered in and out of downtown shops, while others got autographs from Dew Tour stars at the Salomon Center in The Junction. [...]
The celebration was scheduled to continue late into the night with an afterparty at Brewski's on Historic 25th Street.
• Crowd converges on free Dew Tour Dashboard Confessional showOgden is so baked...
Last Night's 25th Street Dew Tour Street PartyEditor's addendum: Tough luck for Boss Godfrey, who unfortunately missed out on the party, due to a late-calendered "out of town business trip." A celebration like this would be right up his alley, no? He's supposed to be the danged Godfather of Emerald City High Adventure Outdoor Recreation, right?
Who will be the first to comment?
Update 1/17/10 11:55 p.m.: Freeskier Magazine gushes favorably on this topic, and includes a delightful Thursday night anecdote:
• Snowbasin Dew Tour Kick Off Party gets wild... fro Utah:Music once again soothes the savage beast... "Don't stop believing," folks!
Ogden obviously still knows how to party, despite ten years under Boss Godfrey's Iron Fist.
20 comments:
Fuzzy:
A question from the geriatric set - i.e. me.
Baked? What does "baked" mean in this context?
Curm, I thought the same when I read one of the Dew Athletes quoted as referring to these events as "sick" -- I guess they are the equivalent of: bees knees, groovy, cool, rad, ... depending on when you're from, lol
TLJ
All work and no play definitely makes Little Matty a very dull boy.
Looks like poor old Sheldon Killpack went partying in the wrong town.
HI,
Just wondering about last nights Jibyard DewTour hoax.
There were all kinds of invitations on Facebook to RSVP to the big Jibyard Party. If you went to their website and filled out a RSVP is was supposed to be free to get in. We did as instructed on the site, waited in line and were told it would be $5.00 to get in! We asked about the RSVP and were told it was $5.00 no matter what. We asked what we would get for our $5.00...
"You get to hang out with the cool dudes"...I still don't think Geiger's are cool! Very Lame and false advertising!
Thanks!
TLJ:
The bees knees? Damn, TLJ, I'm not using a walker just yet.
Curm:
Urban Dictionary knows all, tells all.
(Above link has strong language, so you've been warned.)
HAY! I have a great idea! How about the 25th street merchants sponsor something like this during the summer? I mean, look at the picture of wall to wall people celebrating in Ogden on a sub-freezing January night.
With warm summer weather, Ogden City could make hay with a celebration like this. In the summer, it could probably stretch over three days.
Don't bother thanking me for this great idea. Just do it. Mayor Godfrey is a great visionary; and I'm sure he has plans for this.
We could call it something like "The Ogden City Summer Fun Fest'"
Hey... this is just a thought.
Remember... I'm "New Here in Ogden.", hehe.
"And the Big Guy said, Behold, I have given you every Herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth...".
Speaking of "righteously" baked:
Last week the California State Assembly voted to fully legalize marijuana, 50 dollar an ounce tax, sales tax, and only available to those over 21.
Should bring in about 2 billion a year in revenue for the state, while lowering prison costs by hundreds of millions.
They do not expect an increase in the number of daily smokers.
Just an increase in LOL, ROFL, and Win.
And a marked decrease in Fail.
Weber County smoked about 15 pounds of weed last night.
As goes California, so goes the nation.
JH:
Thanks for the link. Got it now. It's what we hobbling white hairs used to call "stoned." But never heard that term applied to a city before.
Wonder if UTA could tap into this profitably next time Ogden holds a street concert with a name band? Ads in SLC: "Get baked in Ogden and ride Frontrunner home!"
Naw. Maybe not.
This concert illustrates Ogden's potential. They could have a street party like this twice a month - bands, dancing, hot cars, revelry.
It would be great for the city, for the hotels, for the restaurants, and for property values too.
And it would be great fun.
But rather than encourage it, the city makes it illegal.
Why? Because the same incompetents who sit on vacant, downtown property will call the mayor and tell him not to let it happen, because they are afraid of the type of people who would come.
In a sense, I don't mind Godfrey eminent domain-ing these people. They have sat on their property long enough. They have held the city back long enough.
Godfrey may be incompetent, but even he is not so incompetent as downtown property owners who let their property sit vacant for years and decades and do nothing.
Danny:
That block has been in trouble since the Ogden Mall tanked. Street traffic evaporated when the Mall closed. For years, the buildings faced a hole in the ground across the street. Now they face a scraped bare lot, and in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. I notice most of the properties in which businesses closed [like Cross Western Store] have been available for lease pretty consistently. I suspect it may be the owners can't do anything profitable with the properties just now, rather than won't. [Look at all the unleased retail space at the Junction, which Boyer has been flogging every chance it gets.]
I'm not real comfortable with the notion that, if business conditions are such that you cannot profitably lease out your building, that alone constitutes grounds for the city using eminent domain to take it from you.
Now, if you're not maintaining it, that might be another matter. I don't know which of the owners of the storefronts on that block have been maintaining their properties, and which [if any] haven't.
Well what about the Windsor and the Star Noodle, more empty spaces no sign of activity. They are more blighted than those on Washington.
We need real plans not more promises.
Curm,
You said,
" . . . if business conditions are such that you cannot profitably lease out your building . . ."
Huh?
How is it that they "cannot profitably lease", but they CAN "profitably let it sit"?
Enlighten me.
If you ask me, these morons should cut prices until somebody takes the lease.
Anything is more than zero.
But they won't do it. Better to live in fantasy land and show a building "worth such and such" on you books, than cut the price to the true value.
So they carry the property, year after year, at a false value, rather than rent it at its true value and show a bookeeping loss on the property value.
Like I said, these nincompoops deserve nothing. They are doing nothing with their property.
If it were bare land, I would say leave it alone. But having the the government move these nitwits off their vacant, rotting downtown property does not offend this libertarian one bit.
Dittos for Star Noodle, Windsor, etc.
Liquidate them, even if the government has to force them to do it. Let somebody buy them for their true value. Only then can Ogden truly thrive.
(But that won't be Godfrey's way. Godfrey will overpay, then over promise, then subsidize - the exact opposite of what he should do.)
But my main point was this: Make downtown a party twice a month. Let people have fun.
Danny:
I note, Danny, that you refer to them as "rotting properties." As I said, if the owners are not maintaining them, that's another matter. But if they are, and they've decided to keep trying to lease the properties, and to hold them until economic conditions turn around, that seems to me to be their business decision to make. Not the city's. If they've made a poor decision, they're the ones who will lose by it.
The same argument you make might be applied to all the vacant store fronts at the Junction: why doesn't Boyer cut prices, cut again, and keep on cutting until somebody, anybody is willing to pay something, anything? [I doubt that wold be a wise strategy, but in any case, it's Boyer's decision to make.]
Provided the properties are being maintained, these kinds of decisions are business decisions, properly made by the owners, who will gain if they make good ones, and lose if they don't.
Senator Killpack has resigned from his role as Majority Leader and as a Utah State Senator. In a few minutes he will post the following statement on our website:
"I spent the evening considering my options and discussing them with my wife, family and trusted friends. My heart weighs heavy. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the legislative process, my legislative colleagues and for my constituents. At this time the Legislature would be a distraction from what is most important and, frankly, I find that I have become a distraction to the Legislature. In light of that I have decided to tender my resignation as Majority Leader and as a Utah State Senator, effective immediately.
"I am sincerely grateful and touched for the outpouring of support and love expressed to my family by so many of my constituents and friends. Thank you. - Sheldon Killpack"
Clearly there are some questions that need to be answered and essential tasks that need to be accomplished over the next week. Today, however, I'm just sad about the mistakes and loss of a good man and good colleague, whose leadership we will miss.
Michael Waddoups
Wow.
If the post directly above is legitimate, this blog has really come of age.
Now, if only the revenue stream to Rudi reflected that . . .
Curm,
You are still missing my point, meaning I have not made it well enough.
City policy for years has been to prop up downtown property values, and leases.
As a result, people wait for things "to turn around", instead of facing reality.
An incompetent clique is entrenched for decades.
If the gummint would git out of the way, prices could fall, properties would clear, and things would reset.
Note that most of the new arrivals have cited Ogden's low lease rates as a prime driver. If those rates could fall further, as they should were nature to be allowed to take its course, more vibrant people would move in, and more economic activity would occur.
We agree that less gummint is the solution - perhaps the first time you have accepted that.
Danny:
In re: this --- "We agree that less gummint is the solution - perhaps the first time you have accepted that."
Wrong again, Danny. Wrong again.
Years ago I was very bullish on the US. Now, very bearish.
News like this seems shocking.
AZ closing most state parks
Arizona is also selling state buildings and will then rent them back.
But hey, they have a football stadium, a baseball stadium, a hockey stadium, a few other stadiums I can't remember, and a phony lake in Phoenix, all taxpayer funded.
How'd all that work economically? They are in such dire straits they can't keep their state parks open.
Yeah, gummint is a real bunch of geniuses.
Sooner or later people will realize that we are in the eye of the storm. The worst is still to come. Winds to pick up again soon. The heaviest seas still lie ahead. Be ready.
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