By Billy Fried
Of the hundreds of snarky columns I’ve penned over the years to polarize and agitate my readers, nothing will inflame them more than the following statement: I liked the drone show. Yep, I said it, and I can already feel your temperatures rising. It’s the same heat wave that washed over social media when the city announced they would be abandoning fireworks for a trial drone show. Forget Confederates versus the Union, L.A. versus New York, Beatles versus Stones, The White Album versus Sign o’ the Times, nothing ginned up anger and vitriol more than taking a year off from the rockets’ red glare to try something new.
Could it have been better? Way. Should it be further out to sea if possible, so more people can view it from their homes? Certainly. Should we take better advantage of this amazing, emerging technology that – instead of killing people – can inspire, amaze, and expand our consciousness with mind-melting visuals that evoke sacred geometry, the cosmos, the cosmic, the mystic, the mycelium world, and other dimensions? I don’t know. Could be the edibles kicking in. But I have, in fact, seen better drone shows than this one.
Just the idea that these images can be programmed into hundreds of tiny flying machines and projected into the sky is way more compelling than a technology that hasn’t evolved in, well, ever, continues to blow peoples’ fingers off and still seems to involve pyrotechnic families with Italian names. Plus, come on, they scare animals, traumatize veterans, trigger car alarms, pollute the environment, and send 10,000 people to the emergency room every year. Also, do we not get that 250 years ago, we weren’t living in high-fire risk zones?
There were moments of beauty and astonishment in the Laguna show. And the sense that, like America, anything is possible in this land of innovation. Remember, it was a freshman try by a city that plays it safe so as not to annoy one side (too late for that) and, apart from the clip art look of those cliched Laguna images, there were still moments of absolute sublimity as the sky morphed three-dimensionally into different colors and objects, spinning and rotating in the process. Let’s enjoy the reverence, and a rare moment of silence to actually process what independence means. You want sound, play your own soundtrack.
Stop with the loud noise already. We have enough of that day and night on our streets and in our restaurants. And I suspect that’s what this anger is really about. It’s summer. The city is a parking lot. And our beaches are trash receptacles. Your nerves are frazzled. Your cortisol levels are spiking, and you barely want to leave home. It’s the worst ever this summer, and we still don’t do a damn thing about it. So, I get that some just want to blow some stuff up.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can use innovation and resources to slow people in their cars, frustrate them, divert them, and encourage them to use other means into town – or not come at all. I drove out the 133 last Saturday at 11 a.m., and it was frozen with cars coming into town all the way from the 405. Where do they all go? Why aren’t we hitting the Irvine Company and Five Points with an Impact Tax, which could be used for shuttles from their developments? Why aren’t we seriously considering peripheral garages at El Moro, Aliso Beach, and Act V and the Digester? Or a lot at the 405 with a free shuttle? Yes, it’s a massive infrastructure project – but that’s what America was built on. It will ensure a quality of life for generations to come.
Why aren’t we taking a serious look at gondolas to move visitors from Act V parking to downtown, like they do so successfully in many South American cities as a form of mass transit? It would be non-polluting, quiet, fun, and would come with an epic view descending into the city. As they say in the theater business, that’s an entrance. A real Village Entrance. Why not a true bike lane network, with electric bike kiosks spread all over town? Why not a congestive pricing tax on those who use Coast Highway as a commuter lane? At least until the Toll Road un-tolls theirs? Why not slow down the velocity of speeding cars from Diamond to downtown with a series of massive speed bump/crosswalks?
There are dozens of methods for curbing the curse of cars in the new urban environment, which puts humans first. So, to borrow one more fireworks cliche, let’s hold our council candidates’ feet to the fire this election season and get moving on Making Laguna Livable Again.
Billy is the Chief Experience Officer at adventure sports company La Vida Laguna, and Executive Director of KXFM 104.7, Laguna’s Community Radio. He can be reached at [email protected].
hmmm, well Billy, we saw the same show and my negative opinion still lasts, which is a LOT longer than the $74,000 drone show, which lasted, get this, SEVEN MINUTES. That is roughly $10,600 PER MINUTE to see, what, the image of a dolphin, a lifeguard station? Boy, that was really cool stuff.
I liked the drone show also, Billy. I’ve discovered that many who found it underwhelming were watching it without the synchronized audio performance on radio. That music made such a difference. Imagine how underwhelming your favorite Netflix series would be if you watched it with no audio.
Hey Mike, the first time you had sex, were you any good at it? Give it time, fella.