A great idea today from Seth Godin: live music at the airport.

Now I’ve seen the odd Dixieland band at the JAR to welcome planeloads of convention attendees, but why not set up one or two “busk stops” in the terminal and audition performers in the same way The Forks does? Adding some live music, magic, or juggling could bring a little energy to a fairly dull airport, and provide another venue for emerging street artists.

Taking the idea a step further, how about staging short displays by some of our arts organizations? A surprise 30-minute concert by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, a dance recital by the RWB, or a pop-up art exhibit from the Plug In Gallery. What a great way to showcase our local cultural scene and dazzle visitors as they arrive in town.

A note from the Mayor’s office today indicates that Katz Chief of Staff Sherwood Armbruster will be leaving the M.O. at the end of the summer to join Siloam Mission as Chief Operating Officer.

An original Katz staffer and Chief of Staff since 2007, Armbruster brought some much-needed maturity and diplomacy to the position after Katz’s first few years in office were marred somewhat by behind-the-scenes shenanigans.

Interesting to note that Armbruster is joining Siloam around the same time that CJOB veteran Larry Updike will take over as the organization’s chief spokesperson. Siloam and its CEO, John Mohan, have certainly increased their profile in recent years. Now that they’re adding staff with serious political and media connections, I kind of wonder if there’s a larger plan at work here.

Katz’s comments below:

It is with personal regret but with warm wishes that I announce the resignation of Mr. Sherwood Armbruster, Chief of Staff, effective the end of summer.  Since July 2004, Sherwood has been a valued member of my staff.  I am indebted to his vision and commitment and I will sorely miss him.

Sherwood has accepted a position with Siloam Mission as the Chief Operating Officer.  He will provide leadership to all programs and day-to-day operations ensuring that they are executed with excellence in the achievement of the organization’s vision, mission and objectives.

As a connecting point between the compassionate and Winnipeg’s less fortunate, Siloam Mission is a Christian humanitarian agency offering programs and services at no charge to those experiencing homelessness. Siloam Mission alleviates the hardships of the poor and homeless, assists in transitioning them into self-sufficient and generous lifestyles and advocates nationwide on their behalf.

With Sherwood’s leadership, professionalism and expertise, he will far exceed Siloam’s expectations.  Sherwood is a true leader and holds a deep conviction in the work and mission of helping those less fortunate.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Sherwood for his outstanding service to the City of Winnipeg and its citizens during his career.  Please join me in congratulating Sherwood and wishing him all the best in his new role.

Yours sincerely,

Sam Katz

After listening to the Mike Kelly Show on CJOB last night I can now definitively answer the question I posed last March: Yes, Mike Kelly is a jerk. Huge one.

Kelly heard from several callers who were pissed off at the team’s performance in Edmonton last week, pissed off at his changes to the roster, and pissed off at his handling of the Derick Armstrong situation.

I can understand that he might get a bit defensive, but rather than playing it cool and asking fans to give the team a chance (they’ve played one game after all), Kelly lashed out at his critics. Toward the end of the show he actually challenged several callers by saying “Tell me ____, what you do for a living? Do you manage people?”

I think a better question for Kelly himself is: Do you understand people?

The folks who tune in to a CFL coach’s radio show at 7:00 pm on a Monday aren’t doing so because they’re bored, it’s because they care. And the people who actually call in to that show aren’t doing so because it gives them a kick to take a run at the coach, it’s because they’re passionate about the football team. These people are all fans, and more importantly, they’re paying customers.

And like any well run business, when these customers have a complaint or concern they deserve better than to be put down by some tool of a coach/manager/chief fry cook.

I don’t care how he handles himself in the locker room. And if players respond to his abrasive, no-nonsense, “I’m the boss and don’t you forget it” attitude, then great. But the folks who pay your salary, and (for the time being) own your team, should be treated with a little more respect. So Mike, if you’re not mature enough to take a few shots from the peanut gallery and keep a stiff upper lip, then get off the air.

During an appearance on The Great Canadian Talk Show last month, Mayor Sam Katz mistakenly referred to paramedics as “ambulance drivers.”

A sensitive bunch to begin with (they feel they’re always getting the shaft in favour of firefighters), some paramedics took offence to the term, and requested an apology from the Mayor.

That prompted an opportunistic bunch, the Manitoba Government Employees Union, to issue a letter reprimanding the Mayor, demanding an apology by a specific date, and threatening repercussions if he didn’t reply by a certain date.

Look, it was a boneheaded mistake. The man obviously is familiar with the term “paramedic”, but “ambulance driver” came out in one interview. It wasn’t a news release or a scripted formal announcement.

A suitable response would be to go back on the same radio show, declare his admiration for the work that paramedics do, and declare a “my bad” on using the wrong term (which he basically did on CJOB this week). An over-the-top response would be to issue a written apology to all paramedics as the union has demanded.

I’m normally quick to criticize politicians when they intentionally say stupid things, or deliberately offend groups with their choice of words. But simply piling on every time a politician has a minor slip of the tongue is cheap, easy and stupid.

And as for the paramedics’ response that “you wouldn’t call a firefighter a fire truck driver, or a police officer a police car driver,” you’re right. Because no one really ever uses those terms. In contrast, “ambulance driver” shows up 427,000 times in Google, including in 237 news articles in the last month. Going to demand an apology for that too guys?

As a follow-up to today’s Freep story on the missing water connection for food vendors in newly renovated Old Market Square, I have to ask: Why wasn’t a public drinking fountain also included in the new park plans?

The City likes to talk a good game about sustainability these days, hosting a recent symposium on the topic and featuring it prominently as part of the Speak Up Winnipeg process. But it continues to miss opportunities to back up that talk with concrete action, both large and small.

One water fountain in a prominent location isn’t going to save the world, but it might encourage a few people to refill their own bottles rather than going with the disposable option at the next noon-hour concert or outdoor Fringe performance. And since it’s spending eight bazillion dollars to upgrade the water treatment plant, shouldn’t the City be a bit more aggressive in promoting its own ‘free’ product?

Furthermore, are there any clean, modern, functioning public fountains in outdoor locations in this city?

From the sounds of Bart’s Twitter feed, it was a bit of a lively Council meeting today, with nearly everyone beating up on the Province. In the end, Coun. Wyatt’s motion demanding more provincial funding support for ‘highways’ that run through Winnipeg passed by a 15-1 vote.

The lone naysayer was Coun. Swandel, who said negotiating through the media is “pointless.” This is the same Councillor who threw a hissyfit after the Province announced its annual funding allocation to the City earlier this year, claiming the City would be left with a giant hole in its budget. Then he claimed the budget would be fine. Then he criticized media outlets for reporting what he actually said.

The problem with Swandel’s approach wasn’t that he went to the media in the first place, it’s that he didn’t have a plan for how he was going to win the media war. So instead of hitting the Province with a sustained attack that was backed up by actual data, he just stomped his feet a bit, sulked, backtracked and tried to pretend the whole thing never happened.

Personally, I think it’s great that Council appears to finally be growing a set. Successive provincial governments have completely screwed with the City — playing shell games with funding formulas, investing in their own pet projects and disregarding civic jurisdiction over anything. The funding of the Southdale Community Centre expansion and the Mooseplex are two recent examples that jump to mind of the Province essentially giving the finger to City Hall.

The Mayor has tried the diplomatic approach for the past five years. But polite closed door meetings are only going to get you so far with Doer and company. If you want real results then you’re going to have to hit them where it hurts the most: the media clippings file.

If 15 Councillors and the Mayor worked in concert to convince Winnipeggers they’re being screwed (whether that’s true or not is another matter), then I think the Premier is going to pay attention. Yes, it would be messy. Yes, many threatening phone calls would be made from Broadway to Main Street. But what’s your end game here folks? Do you just want a one-day story about how you said some unkind things about the Province, or do you actually want to change things?

Wage the war. Via back-channels, tell the Premier how he can come out of this looking like a hero. And then throw him a parade when he delivers. What do you have to lose? Right now you’re a plaything that gets batted about in Doer’s paws. Roar, mouse, roar!

Tomorrow is the second annual Bike to Work Day in Winnipeg, and in honour of that I’m going to provide a suggestion to the City on how it could add four kilometres of dedicated bike lanes by the end of the day for next to nothing.

There’s a two-kilometre stretch of Berry Street that runs between Silver and Saskatchewan that’s currently signed as a bike route. Presumably it’s a good alternative to Route 90 for students going up to RRC or staff at businesses in the airport (or should that be CentrePort?) area.

I’ve had the opportunity to drive this stretch several times recently, and I don’t have a clue how many lanes of traffic are supposed to be in place. The road itself is quite wide, easily fitting three cars across. But because there’s no lines painted anywhere, no one actually knows where they’re supposed to drive. So in some places you have cars driving two abreast headed south, while in other places they’re driving two abreast headed north. It’s confusing to say the least.

Traffic volumes aren’t really that high in this area (even with current construction on Route 90), and a two-lane road would probably be sufficient. So I’m thinking there’s an opportunity for the City to make use of the extra pavement and create dedicated bike lanes in either direction. There would still be plenty of room for two extra-wide traffic lanes,  drivers would actually know where they’re supposed to drive, and the City could claim a small victory on the active transportation front.

The only potential conflict I see is at the southern end of this stretch, where there’s on-street parking allowed on one side of the street for a single block. However, there’s lots of other on-street options available in the immediate vicinity.

Total cost to implement this plan? A couple of cans of paint and a few hours of someone’s time to paint the lines. So what’s that add up to, $500? On a per-kilometre basis, that’s the cheapest bike path that’s going to be created in Winnipeg this year.

Any other easy scores like this out there?

Sinc wastes ink this morning to share with us the shocking revelation that the Mayor and Premier had breakfast together.

At Salisbury House.

Seriously Gord.

WTF?

This.

Is.

Not.

News.

This is possibly worthy of a pithy one paragraph blog entry (real paragraphs, not this two-word BS), but not 415 words on page B1.

I can hardly wait for the shocking follow-up: Vic Toews and Jon Gerrard have a smokie on Broadway!

We don’t line up for concert tickets anymore, so why do we have to line up (like animals!) for compost bins and rain barrels?

After hearing a bit of griping about how the City quickly ran out of bins and barrels at its annual sale on the weekend, I wonder why they can’t do these sales online instead. Allow people to pre-order and pre-pay, give them an online receipt, and get them to show the receipt and some ID when they pick up their purchases. It’s easier for your supplier, as it knows in advance exactly how much inventory it requires. And it’s easier for customers, who don’t have to worry about lining up at 7 am or waiting while people write cheques. You could set this system up in PayPal in about 5 minutes, although I assume the City has a more sophisticated online purchasing system it could use.

As for those people who might not have internet access or a credit card, designate one central location where first-come, first-served cash and cheque sales will be made.

There you go, 45 seconds of thought and you get an improved customer experience at no additional cost. Now if only each of our 15 Councillors could come up with one idea a day/week/year to do the same, imagine how much easier it would be to deal with the City.

Morley Walker pens an apologetic ode to Winnipeg-raised actress Nia Vardalos in today’s Freep.

Nia’s latest movie, My Life In Ruins, opened in 9th spot this weekend, earning just $3.2 million. Morley offers a number of excuses (many from Vardalos herself) why the movie didn’t open strong, including the small number of screens it’s playing on, the small size of the film’s distributor, the small size of the marketing budget, and that “movies that open strongly are almost always special-effects-driven action films and vulgar comedies.”

I’ve got a better explanation. Maybe, the movie just plain sucks.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, it’s only getting 13% positive reviews. Compare that to the weekend’s box office winner, “male gross-out comedy” The Hangover, which is getting 77%, or to Nia’s own breakout hit, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which got 76% thumbs up back in 2002.

Look, I think it’s great that Vardalos had success with Greek Wedding. But she hasn’t done anything of note in the past seven years, is hardly a household name outside of Winnipeg, and (based on the reviews) she should be happy this turkey didn’t just go straight to DVD.

As noted by Morley’s Freep colleague Bart Kives in a recent column, “In small communities, there is a tendency to praise all hometown creations in fear of upsetting artistic applecarts.” Well, pardon my boot to the cart, but we shouldn’t be making excuses for Nia’s poor film selection just because she’s local.

I also find it a bit funny that the same factors Vardalos and Walker are complaining about today are what helped make Greek Wedding such a great success story. It was a small movie with an unknown star, a tiny distributor and a micro-sized marketing budget. It opened in even less theatres than My Life in Ruins; about half as many. Yet despite those challenges — or maybe because of them — it became the feel-good hit of 2002.

In a blog entry at the Huffington Post, Vardalos bemoans the current lack of good female-led movies, and asks “So, women: can we speak up with our wallets?”

Maybe they already are Nia.

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Just to blow a few more holes on Morley’s theory, I’ll point out that the ’small’ distributor of My Life In Ruins is Fox Searchlight, which is responsible for other tiny little films like Juno, Slumdog Millionaire and Sideways. Clearly they know how to sell a movie if they’ve got something decent to work with.

And despite the alleged non-existent marketing budget for this film, I’ve seen at least a dozen commercials for it already. Then again, maybe they’re hitting Winnipeg a little harder.

Finally, as for the public’s appetite for “special-effects-driven action films and vulgar comedies”, a quick look at the last 10 weekend box office champs shows that only four of them (The Hangover, Star Trek, Wolverine, Fast and Furious) would meet that description. Four were kid/family-friendly (Hannah Montana, 17 Again, Night At The Museum II, Up), while two were dramas (Obsessed, Angels & Demons).

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Walker’s column advises readers to “Google her (Vardalos) Huffington Post blog from Monday evening.” That works fine in print, but why can’t the online version of the story simply link to the Huff Post? This kind of thing drives me nuts, and both local papers are gulity of it. If you’re talking about a website, link to the damn thing online.

************

UPDATE: Just came across these gems in Roger Ebert’s review of the film:

The central question posed by “My Life in Ruins” is, what happened to the Nia Vardalos who wrote and starred in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”? She was lovable, earthy, sassy, plumper, more of a mess, and the movie grossed more than $300 million. Here she’s thinner, blonder, better dressed, looks younger and knows it. She’s like the winner of a beauty makeover at a Hollywood studio. She has that don’t touch my makeup! look. And if anyone in Hollywood has whiter, straighter, more gleaming teeth, we’ll never know it, because like most people, they’ll usually keep their lips closed.

To speculate on people’s motives is risky and can be unfair. Let me gently suggest that when Nia Vardalos made “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” she was an unlikely, saucy movie star who didn’t take herself seriously. She was also an incomparably better screenwriter than Mike Reiss, the autopilot sitcom veteran who cobbled together this lousy script.

Now she is rich, famous and perhaps taking herself seriously after being worked over for one too many magazine covers.