For years, we’ve used scary charts, funny pictures and cleverly named Tumblrs to try and make San Diego’s broken streets, pipes and storm drain infrastructure entertaining. It turns out all we needed was John Oliver.
The HBO comedian found a way to incorporate Godzilla, floating coffee cups, Steve Buscemi and a liberal use of the word “dam” in slamming the country’s infrastructure spending for 20 minutes on his show “Last Week Tonight.”
Oliver’s point is that everyone agrees infrastructure is falling apart, but no one does anything to actually fix it. This has played out in San Diego for years.
Indeed, the city makes a cameo in Oliver’s segment when he says that politicians like to build new things instead of fixing old ones. City Councilman Mark Kersey and Assemblyman Brian Maienschein are shown in front of a ribbon, a cheering crowd and a giant novelty scissors. (The scene came from the opening of a pedestrian bridge over Ted Williams Parkway last September.)
Kersey’s appearance as a ribbon-cutter is a bit of a punch in the gut. He’s the head of the City Council’s infrastructure committee and said recently that he’s putting together a 2016 ballot measure to pay for repairs. I left a message for his spokeswoman to see if he’s finished weeping at Oliver’s portrayal of him yet.
Here’s the full video. Kersey and Maienschein show up around the 10-minute, 40-second mark.
Update: Kersey tweeted in response:
Hey @IamJohnOliver, thx for the cameo. Happy to come on your show & talk about how we’re making infrastructure sexy http://t.co/7nRt0Lrqjk
— Mark Kersey (@markkersey) March 2, 2015