A Thousand Clowns

I return from exploring the dark valleys and ridges of my memory in time to wonder why we are spending $13 million from city coffers to support a room full of performing clowns.

I am speaking, of course, of the Democratic National Convention due to open in L.A. in August.

Political conventions, as everyone knows, are for the most part a monumental waste of time, and this one will be no exception.

Al Gore will be nominated, promises will be made, America’s poor will be waved to, balloons will fill the air and all good things will be balanced on the end of Al Gore’s nose in a final center-ring performance.

Oh, yes, and a vice presidential candidate will be selected in the traditional manner of naming someone who will not detract from the main act. Sort of a guy to sweep up after the elephants.

The script was written months ago and nothing is going to change it unless we discover at the last minute that Al knew Monica too.

All of this convention nonsense, by the way, is not unique to the Democrats. Change some names, add a celebration of God and the death penalty and hoo-boy! you’ve got the Circus of the Grand Old Party. George W. and his baggy-pants buffoons.

If it weren’t for the fact that one of the clowns was going to end up as president, the whole thing would be a joke.

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Now about that $13 million. Convention advocates had initially promised that no public money would be required to bring the donkey circus into town.

Since political promises are about as sincere as a whore’s kiss, we should have known this was not going to happen. In the first place, who in the hell do they think is going to pay $9 million for the army of cops, street cleaners, clerks and bus drivers necessary to facilitate the whole dumb thing?

You and me, cookie, that’s who.

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg at least expressed some concern about the cost of the circus but then caved in and cast the deciding vote to spend another $4 million as a direct cash subsidy. Her condition was that Pershing Square be made available for the exclusive use of the thousands of protesters expected to descend on L.A.

The council said OK, but now the cops are saying that won’t work because it’ll just help organize the protesters into a single, formidable fighting unit, which is what nobody wants, except, possibly, the protesters. Well, actually, they don’t want it either. Too confining.

Meanwhile, smiling dimly through all of this, our leader, our mayor, the Wizard of Odd, is saying everything is going to be beautiful. He compares the convention to a wedding and promises that people from the flower mart will strew the city with blossoms and everyone will say how pretty we are.

You get the feeling sometimes that maybe he doesn’t understand the situation?

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Then there’s that $4-million cash subsidy. In a society that pays athletes $100 million for being able to bounce a ball and actors $20 million for the ability to smile and read, $4 million doesn’t seem like a lot of money. Lottery sales dip when there’s only $4 million in the pot.

But it continues to rankle because, like the $9 million, it’s our money, and we’re not athletes or actors. No one asked us whether it would be OK. Like that aborted effort to bring a pro football team to L.A., every greedy, dimwitted, self-aggrandizing jackass digs into our pockets with impunity unless we shake fists in their faces.

And it similarly rankles when one realizes just what $4 million in cash would buy for those not living high on the hog. I went through Vons the other day out in Calabasas and made a list of prices, deciding what $4 million would take home:

About 2,515,723 loaves of bread or 2,684,563 pounds of hamburger or 1,084,010 gallons of milk or 1,606,425 10-pound bags of potatoes or 4,301,075 cans of vegetable soup. The poor in our city need that a hell of a lot more than they need a 45-minute speech on the gross national product.

I suppose it’s too late to tell the Democratic National Committee to take its show to Omaha or Miami, so we’re stuck with the clowns, the protesters, the boredom of meaningless words and the necessity to spend $13 million, or more, for a show that only a select few want and will benefit from.

This isn’t a celebration of America. It’s a celebration of hypocrisy. The money it will cost could best be spent by the so-called party of the people on the needs of the people. If nothing else, $4 million would buy about 200,000 bottles of a good whiskey, and that might help us all get through the whole useless, cynical exercise in three-ring self-promotion.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com.