Mayor’s Love Song Hits Wrong Note

I (Heart) NY.

--famous Big Apple slogan

“I Love L.A.”

--locally beloved Randy Newman tune

I think the secret to heading off secession by the Valley is to tell them we love them. I love the Valley.

--Mayor Richard Riordan

Isn’t it romantic?

And isn’t he romantic?

The mayor, I mean, and the way he traveled all the way to Woodland Hills the other day to serenade the San Fernando Valley with his “State of the City” address. He spoke frankly of his ardor in a press conference afterward. Just reading about it made me feel all gooey inside.

Love is like that. Love makes people so dizzy they talk about falling “head over heels” when in fact it should be heels over head. Just thinking about love is lovely itself. Philosophers love love no less than poets. Plato described it as “a sickness of the mind.” And to think: platonic love

is named for him.

Ah, but love is such a tremulous emotion, and the term itself is so hard to define. There are, of course, all kinds of love. Who among us has embarked on a perilous exploration of the word and its meanings?

Isn’t it semantic?

Yes, it is. What if the mayor left some words unsaid? What if he really meant: “I love the Valley, but I’m not in love with the Valley.” This distinction alone has broken many a heart.

My own theory of love holds that everything worth expressing on this subject has been summed up in one pop ballad or another. This may explain why, just the other night, I dreamed of Mayor Riordan singing Sonny Bono’s “Baby, Don’t Go” to Paula Boland, who morphed into Bobbie Fiedler, who morphed into Bert Boeckmann. I woke up in a cold sweat. You might say it was just my imagination running away with me--except that the Temptations were singing of love-struck fantasy, not a nightmare.

Those of you who expect hard-bitten cynicism won’t get it here. Tina Turner may consider the mayor’s words and scoff, “What’s love got to do with it?” But love is never a second-hand emotion. Like Huey Lewis, I believe in the power of love. A pair of much higher authorities--John Lennon and Paul McCartney--would have us believe that love is all you need.

And though the mayor isn’t exactly poetic, he might be on to something.

Maybe the whole secession business is just an emotional reaction. Maybe it’s just that the Valley feels neglected and taken for granted, unappreciated and, yes, unloved. Suddenly I hear Barbra Streisand: You don’t send me flowers. . . And Neil Diamond: You don’t sing me love songs. . .

The mayor, of course, was speaking of another kind of love. Civic love--the love of a city--is a complex blend of familial, platonic and even romantic emotions. It is--or from a mayor, should be--an unconditional love for a city in its totality, warts and all. Certainly cities should expect no less from their elected leaders.

Civic amore has created a whole genre of love songs. Everybody knows where Tony Bennett left his heart. Frank Sinatra two-timed Chicago and New York. Kansas City and Houston and even the San Fernando Valley itself had signature songs long before L.A. got an anthem worthy of itself. (Note to younger readers: I refer here not to the Zappas’ “Valley Girl,” but to Bing Crosby crooning how he would “settle down and never more roam and make the San Fernando Valley my home.”)

Randy Newman’s wry ode celebrated both the vastness and oneness of L.A.--with a matter-of-fact salute to the Valley.

“Victory Boulevard?” he asks.

“WE LOVE IT!” the chorus replies.

Mayor Riordan would be advised to listen to “I Love L.A.” over and over again. It’s not that I doubt the mayor’s love. His heart, I think, is in the right place. But we all know that love is difficult to express.

The problem with his “I love the Valley” press conference wasn’t that statement, but the one that preceded it. “Tell them we love them,” Riordan said.

There he goes again, dividing the City of Angels into “us” and “them,” giving the Valleyistas just what they want. The mayor is a great one for emphasizing differences while preaching unity. This is the same mayor who, incredibly, failed to oppose an early bill that would have had the unconstitutional effect of denying most Angelenos a vote on secession. He thought “they” of the Valley should have the right to vote, not the “we” of Los Angeles.

His “State of the City” address hit the right notes, but his press conference was a bit off-key.

“I think the secret to heading off secession,” the mayor might just as well have said, “is to remember the wisdom of the Captain and Tennille: ‘Love will keep us together.’ ”

Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, but my own thought is that the mayor may be worrying too much about the movement he unthinkingly nurtured. My educated guess is that Los Angeles will never wind up in divorce court. Charter reform will help, but maybe a renewal of civic vows is in order as well.

I picture a ceremony in City Hall, with a script borrowed from the great Smokey Robinson:

If you feel like lovin’ me,

If you’ve got the notion,

I second that emotion

Hey, if you feel like givin’ me

A lifetime of devotion

I second that emotion

But until you think of Los Angeles as one, Mr. Mayor, remember also the words of Pat Benatar.

“Love,” she sang, “is a battlefield.”