Tag Archives: Pikes Peak Center

Colorado Springs councilwoman pulls her Lisa Czelatdko card, thinks being a dumb blonde joke deflects accusations

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Which is worse on a city council? A council member who’s disabled mentally or morally? At least in combination, stupidity gives away dishonesty. Colorado Springs city council real estate proxy Lisa Czelatdko tried to use her position to get preferential treatment at the Pikes Peak Center box office, then wrote about it on Facebook: “I pulled the city Councilmember card.” When criticized, Czelatdko fabricated an alternate tale contradicting her own words, then belittled accusations of wrongdoing, based on the logic that her ploy had been unsuccessful. When she finally apologized, she was sorry that… everyone had gotten the wrong impression! So let’s see: influence peddling, stupidly describing it, lying, being too stupid to recognize the transgression, stupidly thinking no harm done, & making a dishonest apology. In sum: Czelatdko’s integrity ties 3/3 with her intellect. Getting her off the city council might be as easy as removing her chair before the next meeting, unless she steals someone else’s.

Lying may be par for political office, acknowledging right from wrong too much to ask as well, but failing to understand why her constituents take offense is a disaster. I know some find this quality disarming in a politician, for example George Bush the Last. Like Dubya, Czelatdko’s mental shortcomings appear to concentrate in the moral.

In her own words, here’s what happened: LCz on FB:

“Boo hoo. Tried to get (tickets) … with no luck. Finally getting desperate I pulled the city Councilmember card and that (Pikes Peak Center) is in my district, nope, nada, nothing! I guess I just have to listen to them on my iPod,”

When the fans hit the shit, Czelatdko pretended that the story had been misinterpreted, that she was name dropping in effort for the clerk to get the spelling of her name correctly. Except, she’d already explained she’d tried to use the influence card. Not just being a council member, but the member responsible for their area.

Do we know if Czelatdko got to see the show? Maybe her Facebook plea reached somebody who wanted the opportunity to do her a favor. A box office clerk would be an unlikely person to need to bribe a councilwoman, even one responsible for their employer’s district, but no doubt there were businesses out there who could scramble something for the pandering politico.

It’s not that a city council person boohooing is unbecoming, the fundamental expectation of privilege is unseemly, and then especially to pretend it means nothing.

Eisenstein at the Colo Springs symphony

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Battleship Potemkin -Sergei EisensteinI’m really impressed that
the Colorado Springs Philharmonic was able to attract a nearly full house for a screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, the 1925 Soviet revolutionary call to arms that became even too subversive for Stalin’s taste.
 
The newly restored version adds more graphic pieces to the Odessa steps sequence, but my favorite scene remains aboard the battleship deck, when the rebellious sailors cower under a tarpaulin, awaiting the bullets of the firing squad.

It reminds me of my favorite story about the few proud Marines. The Marine Corps, now its own branch of the Defense Department, evolved from a very particular function in every nation’s navy. (Like MARINE biologists, their function has obviously to do with the sea.) On warships since the Napoleonic Wars, marines were the only enlisted men entrusted with guns. Their role, beside serving as landing parties, was to protect the officers from mutiny by the sailors; a function they were prepared to serve on the Potemkin until thankfully the revolutionary rhetoric held sway.

Battleship Potemkin Soviet propaganda poster

I wonder if our few proud US Marines will have brains enough to side with their families and comrades when Bush orders them to fire on his insurgents.

Panzercruizer Potemkin -German film posterIn promoting the Toons film collection, I’ve made a preoccupation with data mining for every poster incarnation of our diverse films. Since the Toons website has been down for a bit, I thought I’d represent here our gathering of Potemkin posters.

Kudos to the Pikes Peak Center team for delivering Eisenstein to the Rocky Mountain art Bourgeois. We showed up three generations deep, each age this evening running into others they knew. And everyone loved it.

La Corazata Potemkin -Italian film poster
A highlight of the event for me occurred when the battleship fired its salvo into the city. After the sailors had rebelled, the city populace had risen in support. To subdue the masses, Tsarist Cossacks marched down the Odessa steps, shooting into the crowd. In angry response, the crew of the Potemkin aimed its big guns at the headquarters of their Tsarist oppressors, or so explained the inter-title cards, further specified in the text as the Opera House! We were Colorado Springs symphony-goers, at the town’s premiere performing arts center, rooting for the Russian workers as they united against their ruling class.

Battleship Potemkin call to arms

Battleship Potemkin -contemporary Soviet poster

Battleship Potemkin uprising leader

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin -Modern Russian print

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin -stamp

?????????? ???????? - Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein

In defense of Ralph Routon

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Ralf RoutonRalph Routon’s recent diatribe in the Indy about the impending departure of Michael DeMarsche was lame. But you have to understand. Having Ralph write about the arts is akin to having John Waters write about the Superbowl. You can only imagine how funny that would be. To us. But not to sports fans. You might as well call Jesus a homo or spit on an Indian before you sully such sacred land.

People. Look at the picture of Ralph. Then consider that no one chooses their worst picture to present to the world.  This is likely as good as it gets.  Which means that he is a beer-swilling bratwurst-gobbling sports-worshiping manly man.  He spits.  He scratches.  He has issues with dingleberries.  But he LOVES sports.  And by sports, I don’t mean fencing or horse racing or curling.  Sport involves a BALL of some sort.  And a distinctively American connection (which rules out rugby and soccer, although rugby is the ultimate masculine sport…even basketball doesn’t totally qualify for reasons I can’t quite figure out, but I think it’s because there are so few good white players).

One of the most memorable arguments that Dave and I ever had involved music.  We were in our late twenties; we lived in downtown Denver and we were cool.  He was a surgical resident at the U and I was a financial guru for a hip software company.  As such, we were invited to many events. When these invitations came in through medical channels everything was great.  Orthopedic surgeons are always jocks who were inspired to become surgeons while recovering from their own sports-related injuries.  But when the invitations came from my side of the channel, things were unpredictable.

We were invited to Josephina’s on Larimer, to drink wine and listen to some groovy jazz with fellow yuppies, a term Dave hated.  We got there.  We drank Coors Light while they drank "whine."  They listened to the "music."  In a very unfortunate turn of events, the girl that Dave took to junior prom, Alison, the fantastic skier, the one that paid only friendly attention to him due to family connections, walked in with her new husband, Clark.  Clark was an attorney who was, tragically, wearing a knee-length fur coat.  Dave was wearing Levis, tennis shoes and a yellow t-shirt (with red letters, like a hot dog) that said "NO LIGHTS AT WRIGLEY FIELD!" (which is now framed in the basement, I kid you not).  Things went rapidly downhill from there.  ‘When’s the music gonna start?  I could probably fix that pinkie for a fee.  Let’s go to the sym-PHONY next week."

Dave is the guy who slept through the birth of most of his children.  Our 10-year-old had the lead role in Oliver! at the FAC and I had to beg Dave to watch a single performance.  Brendan was in Colorado Christmas at the Broadmoor, performing for 1,000 people every night and Dave came to watch only once and rolled his eyes at all the "religious" bullshit (he doesn’t know any Christmas carols).  Brendan was hand-picked by Debbie Allen to be in Pepito’s Story at the Pikes Peak Center and Dave was sort of embarrassed and wondered if Brendan might be gay.

This same guy sobbed like an 8-year-old girl when Brent Musburger retired from sportscasting.  I’ve been to two Broncos Superbowls, Northwestern’s first Rose Bowl in 80 years, several Olympic games, the Citrus Bowl when Peyton Manning was senior quarterback and headed for greatness.  Weeping and gnashing of teeth all around.  My children paint, and play music, and sing, and dance.  None of it matters.  But Dave is elated for days if 6-year-old Devon, the only girl on the team, makes a double play to win the game.  Booyah!  Fuck yeah!

My point in all this is that Ralph Routon DOES NOT and CAN NOT care about the arts.  We will have to leave it to the psychiatrists to figure out why. Ralph Routon does not care who or what is playing at the Black Sheep, Theaterworks, the BAC.  He won’t attend Pridefest, nor the Diversity Fair.  Not even Springspree.  But he will agonize over the legal troubles of Michael Vick and any injury sustained by LaDanian Tomlinson.  He did, after all, draft them to his fantasy football team and he’s got 50 bucks hanging in the balance.

John Weiss, not exactly a manly man and therefore less than qualified to diagnose the problem, better figure it out soon and bring in some new blood.  Or the Indy will become the Indy 500 and he’ll have to find a whole new group of advertisers and readers.  Of course I’m kidding.  Car racing is most definitely not a SPORT.  Duh.