Dad’s Shoes Too Big for Slim Jim
We didn’t go clubbing, get thrown out of any bars or go home with women on our arms and lampshades on our heads.
S. Lo and Slim Jim finally hooked up Friday at lunch, but my get-together with the Los Angeles mayor wasn’t exactly the one-on-one encounter I had in mind. His people told me to meet him at the Dalmatian-American Club of San Pedro, a hangout for Croatian club members and their friends.
I hadn’t heard of the place, and assumed Hahn, a San Pedro resident, was having me killed. Three days after I showed up, they’d find my body floating in the harbor.
Not only does the Dalmatian-American Club exist, but everyone in blue-collar San Pedro was there despite the rain. So was a truckload of politicians who eagerly bellied up to long tables in the cavernous social hall on the harbor’s edge. Hahn delivered the Pledge of Allegiance, and then family-style platters were passed neighbor to neighbor. It was a cozy small-town scene at the southern tip of the nation’s second-largest city.
Antonio Villaraigosa, gunning for Hahn’s job, shook hands with everyone in the joint. I think he was trying to pass himself off as Croat. When he and I go to La Serenata in Boyle Heights in the next couple of weeks, Villaraigosa told me, there won’t be a crowd. It’ll just be the two of us, the wine list, and my expense account.
I’m getting off a little cheaper on Tuesday morning with Bob Hertzberg. We’re walking from his house in Sherman Oaks to a Korean doughnut shop, and then driving to Art’s Deli on Ventura Boulevard. Bob likes the salami and eggs, and at lunch, he has a special stash of pickles brought out from behind the counter.
I still say you can learn more about a candidate watching him eat than watching him make a speech, but like I said, I didn’t have the mayor to myself Friday. It was me, Jim and 101 Dalmatians.
Slim Jim said he quickly dismissed the idea of meeting me alone in a quiet hideaway or letting loose in a night on the town. He said he preferred “a safe place with lots of witnesses.”
His sister, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, was one of them. She sat across from us, asking if I could please start calling her Slim Janice, and wondering why a guy who seems fairly nice could be so mean to her brother.
Mean? Hey, I just call them as I see them.
The two of them seemed baffled, though, that I haven’t been bowled over by the mayor. How could I not see Jim as a loyal public servant, following in the footsteps of their legendary father, the late L.A. County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, whom they both refer to as Kenny instead of Dad?
Mayor Hahn got up his nerve -- somewhere between the salad course and the minestrone soup -- and scolded me for missing the biggest L.A. story of the last 3 1/2 years.
“And it was right under your nose,” he said as we sat at a table with a dozen others, most of them pretending not to eavesdrop.
And what story was that?
The terrific job Hahn has done.
Yeah. Missed it entirely.
Speaking of missing something right under your nose, the mayor claims to know nothing about any irregularities at City Hall. A corruption probe is underway amid reports of alleged laundering of campaign contributions, a possible pay-to-play scandal, and an alleged overbilling scam by a PR firm with ties to Hahn.
I had half a mind to bring an attorney to lunch with me, in case my notes get subpoenaed, just like the e-mails of the mayor and several of his top staffers.
More on all that another day. My mission this day was to learn something, anything, about a politician who seems curiously predisposed to hold back more of himself than he reveals, unlike, say, Kenny’s daughter.
Crime is down, Hahn said, as he began highlighting his hit parade: He turned back secession, backed an after-school program, fought for more low-income housing and has a plan to remake LAX. He also patted himself on the back for leading the charge to squeeze more money out of Sacramento.
“Los Angeles already has enough stars,” the mayor said, even though he claims he’s perfectly comfortable in front of a camera.
Charisma is overrated, according to him. You get results with “hard work and persistence.”
Kenny, he tells me, had a simple slogan:
“Hahn gets things done.”
And that’s what he does, by his own measure. So when I write that he’s a laid-back guy who inherited a family business he wasn’t cut out for, Hahn said he thinks about his “unbelievable set of accomplishments, and I see this characterization of myself that I don’t recognize.”
I pointed out that I was not alone in this characterization, and wondered if it’s possible he’s just got too much on his plate. Hahn, who’s separated from his wife, has a bumper-to-bumper commute to and from San Pedro, a huge job and primary custody of his 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, whose photos he carries in his wallet.
No, he said. It’s not too much. But he resents when someone complains about never seeing him at the Geffen Playhouse, for instance, or other spots around town. He does his job and he goes home to his kids. The family likes catching a movie, but his daughter is at an age where she doesn’t want to be seen with Dad. So if she goes along, she might sit on the other side of the theater.
I asked Hahn if his children have accepted the divorce and stopped expecting their parents to reunite. Hahn said he thought so, but he wasn’t sure he was there yet.
Dating is out of the question, he claimed. He wouldn’t subject a woman to public scrutiny, and he doesn’t have the time, anyway.
Janice piped in, saying her brother is wasting lots of opportunities.
“I have so many women telling me, ‘Your brother is so good-looking,’ ” she said.
They brought out the macaroni and then the fish, all of it good, and neighbors came up to Hahn and patted him on the back, wished him well, or chatted about his children and their own. The whole scene was small-town, and it was as comfortable as I’ve ever seen Hahn.
This area of Los Angeles considered seceding four years ago, and in a way, it’s a shame it didn’t happen. Kenny’s boy might have made a pretty good mayor of San Pedro.
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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com.
