oh man I remember this guy. I lived in Colombia when he was doing his stint as mayor of Bogota.
His campaign for mayor was the craziest there had ever been. In fact, his biggest vote-gaining act was when he was giving a lecture at university and students were not paying attention to him.
So he stopped. Turned around, pulled his pants down and mooned the audience. His comment I believe was that 'if you dont give an ass about what im talking about then I'll give you an ass to talk about' XD
The guy lives in his own reality and somehow mocks the establishment in such a way that his crazy stuff seem to make a lot more sense than what the establishment has set up.
As mayor he did a lot of really weird things but it worked in ways that are simply hard to comprehend.
Before he was elected the city had no pride in itself. The place was dirty, poorly serviced (garbage pickup, street cleanliness,etc) and generally people just didnt care about the state of their city because it had always been that way and it would always be.
So here comes this loon that moons university audiences, that takes money from his own campaign and, defying city regulations and laws governing the campaigning efforts, uses it to pave pot-hole ridden streets in the city center. By his actions he was showing that he was something completely different from the run-of-the-mill rich-born, privilege stuffed politicians that had come before him and who he was running against.
He wins.
In 4 years time he accomplished what 20 years of previous mayors had not. The city was clean not because money was spent to clean it but because by all this guy's effort to integrate and revive the community's spirit and sense of pride the people cleaned the streets themselves and ceased the rampant littering. The article mentions mimes ... that one was his best known stint but he had an earlier one that was even weirder but it started off the whole process:
he had young men and women dress up as angels (or fairies... anyways robes with fake wings) to go around the city streets making themselves be seen and to talk to people about what they liked and didnt like about the city... and to gently remind people not to litter or be rude to each other. angels of peace or something like that they were called.
It was ridiculous. It was crazy. But it got the people's attention immediately.
Before I left I remember the people of Bogota, Medellin and Cali (the 3 biggest cities) had sent him several thousand signatures asking him to run for president.
05 May 2011, 4:55 pm
that's brilliant!! !! ! very interesting article!
