L.A.’s Conventional Moment in the Sun

The great thing about the Democratic National Convention coming to Staples Center, the man on the street was saying, is that the city finally has cleaned up around the taxi-dance bar across the street. “People were dumping condoms, trash, old couches, you name it, in that alley.” The man shuddered. There would have been a moment of silence, but a road crew on Figueroa had fired up the jackhammers, so there was just a moment of staring at the sidewalk. Rain-soaked porn newspapers were strewn all over it.

A fat man with no socks sauntered out of Danceland and into Sunny’s Chinese takeout. He had red sores on his ankles. The store on the corner featured naked, bald mannequins. So, OK, the great thing about the Democratic National Convention coming to Staples Center would probably not involve the neighborhood aesthetics. Still, there was a certain inside amusement in the thought of 15,000 out-of-town journalists swarming this block come August, trawling for swimmin’ pools and movie stars and metaphors for a nation on the cusp of the future. America--land of free porn and cheap chop suey. Bring us your bald, your naked. Your sockless lechers and platform-shoed, miniskirted immigrants.

Of course, not all Angelenos are amused here. This image is part of what people mean lately when they say they’re “concerned” about the way the upcoming convention is being--or not being--planned. For “concerned” read “panicked.” The thought of Peter Jennings going live from Danceland is the least of it.

What, they posit, if those turtle-suit people from the World Trade Organization conference show up and riot? What if the LAPD deploys the guys from Rampart? (This scenario was mentioned to me twice in two days. One person compared it, only half-joking, to Hells Angels at Altamont.) Then there’s the image of 15,000 out-of-town journalists deciding, for whatever reason, to go exploring. What if they set out--Lord help them--via the MTA?

What if they end up at bus stops interviewing tourist couples who’ve waited so long that taggers have come by and graffiti-ed them along with the bus bench? What if this turns out to be like L.A.’s millennium celebration--a running gag on the “Tonight Show?” What if the billionaires bankrolling this party run out of money? The horrors abound, underscoring the other great thing about this coming convention: the reminder of this town’s capacity for scaring itself.

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Remember 16 years ago, just for example, when terrorists, traffic, money, etc., were to have made the 1984 Olympics a horrific mess? Remember the cheering crowds, the pastel banners, the boulevards devoid of gridlock? What was the profit--$200 million-plus?

Or: Remember how, five years after the riots, there were people who swore it felt as if the unrest happened in another lifetime? Remember the recession that was going to be the death of us? You’d think a city with so much experience surviving real disasters wouldn’t go around imagining fake ones, but this place won’t even listen to its own worry-queen, Joan Didion, who once noted that “what is striking about Los Angeles after a period away is how well it works.”

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In this DNC case, what is striking is how many people insist that it’s something other than a televised ritual that lesser cities bring off every four years. As with New Year’s Eve and the NFL drama, there is the cry that, somehow, the city’s worth hangs in the balance if L.A. doesn’t carry this off with sufficient panache. Really? One lackluster convention and, what? People will stop coming to sunny, star-studded California? In what universe?

It might just as easily be argued that other cities make too much of this panache thing. (A personal theory is that L.A. should have marked the New Year with a test pattern reading “Happy 2000 From Los Angeles, the Big City For People Who Prefer To Stay Home.”) Sure, it’s fine for Mayor Riordan to plan for rioters in turtle suits, and, yes, it would have been nice if the planning staff didn’t seem like such a revolving door lately. But isn’t it most likely that, come August, serious people will rise to the seriousness of the occasion here?

As for the aesthetics, well, not that some cheesy strip should be a metaphor for this great city, but isn’t it time America got to see a different image of L.A.? What if the great thing about having this convention turned out to be an end to the tired hype of paradise versus disaster? L.A., uncut and working, from thousand-dollar-a-plate campaign dinners to chop suey takeout. Or would that be too frightening?

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Shawn Hubler’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com.