How to Get Attention

There are two ways of getting attention in L.A. One is to kill, shoot and maim, and the other is to produce a video about killing, shooting and maiming in L.A. and ship it out across the United States.

You might recall that the first method was tried with some success two months ago. I say with success because since then the city has discovered poverty, unemployment, racism and injustice.

We have vowed to end them, and toward that goal have named Peter Ueberroth, often referred to as “the white god from Orange County,” to rebuild the riot areas and make things right, as he did for baseball and the ’84 Olympics.

Some argue that the manner of getting attention seemed a little, well, excessive, but it worked. A polite ahem just wasn’t doing it.

The second method of gaining attention has also been tried, and I’ve got to tell you, folks, it has the leaders of our tourist industry in tears of rage.

But it also is getting attention.

The method in question is a video produced by Local 11 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, called “City on the Edge.”

It contrasts the good life in L.A. with the bad life and has a bunch of tourist experts and urban planners saying Los Angeles isn’t the sweetest place in the world to visit at the moment.

We aren’t exactly Sarajevo, but we aren’t Paradise, either.

The video was produced before the riots, but there is still enough mention of killings and shootings to satisfy the most dedicated violence buff.

The message is simple: Come to L.A. and be robbed, shot and buried in a shallow grave off the 405. Hell, bring the whole family.

I saw the video the other day and afterward spoke with Local 11’s president, Maria Elena Durazo.

I should mention that the union is negotiating contracts with hotels in the city, and the video ought to be viewed in that light, if viewed at all.

It suggests at one point that if the hotel owners would only pay its 11,000 employees a decent wage we wouldn’t be having all the trouble we’re having.

I’m not sure that’s going to convince the guy holding up a liquor store, but at least it’s a point of view.

In the tape, we hear one expert saying L.A. is “safe, fun and clean” and another saying “the city literally bristles with malice.”

We hear a gun club owner and a cop saying there’s death and danger everywhere, and a leader in tourism saying the problem lies “in the way the media chooses to view the area.”

There are other dour references to us media guys. For example, a portion of the Rodney G. King beating is shown, followed by an expert’s comment that “the press tends to jump on those things.”

True, there is that tendency. We call it news.

Aside from a lot of negative comments, there’s also a let’s-get-together-boys-and-save-L.A. kind of attitude to the presentation.

As one expert points out, violence is a “disruption to the tourist industry.” It makes people say, “Let’s skip L.A. Let’s go to Orlando.”

Durazo admits they produced the video to get a little attention to what they consider the impoverished plight of hotel workers.

At first they sent out 400 copies to city leaders, but when it didn’t get the response they’d hoped for, they sent out 2,000 more.

This time, copies of the tape went to meeting planners and tour leaders across the country. And Local 11 got the attention it wanted.

The city’s tourism leaders, their cages thus rattled, accuse the union of everything from image-bashing to possibly fomenting the next riot.

Any day now I expect Tom Bradley to call for calm and Daryl Gates to assure us he has plenty of troops to handle any uprisings or suicide attempts within City Hall or at the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Durazo shrugs off the accusations and says the union isn’t responsible for the violence that has come to characterize L.A. All they wanted to do was stir public debate on our problems. They sure as hell have done that.

So, all right, “City on the Edge” may be only a clever union ploy to jostle hotel management into a bargaining position. It doesn’t rank as a compelling documentary or even a very complete one.

It still makes the point that running around town hugging minorities and singing hopeful songs about a better tomorrow isn’t going to change things.

Riots explode, it tells us, where poverty festers. There are no uprisings in Beverly Hills. The kids don’t loot in Pacific Palisades.

Local 11’s video, like that South L.A. attention-getter, may be excessive. But heeding its truths isn’t a bad idea. Let’s face it, guys. We just aren’t a city of angels anymore.