When I covered the Alabama legislature way back when in the late ’60s, they would filibuster for weeks on end and sessions would go on all night long.
The booze flowed freely and so did the broads and the bags of cash and sometimes during the wee small hours of the morning, the rap sessions that developed in the back rooms provided an enlightening education to a young reporter.
One of my favorite stories that the good old boys told involved a particularly corrupt time not that long before when the civil rights struggle already was under way and the Montgomery bus boycott had brought Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King to national attention.
The story was about how nearly half the legislature got thrown out over a small mistake that happened in one of those all-night sessions when everyone was pie-eyed and thought they could get away with anything.
It was known as the 24-hook bill that killed them. Because they were careless and drunk on their power, they thought nothing they did had consequences and carelessly passed a law that banned fishing hooks with 24-hooks on them, the kind of tool used in the back country commonly in back country to bring home dinner without actually having to fish for it. Throw it into the pond and spear some fish.
I bring this up because the mayor and City Council are showing the same kind of carelessness and arrogance. They are drunk on power, if not alcohol, and they certainly don’t work all night. But they do think they are invincible.
Crooked or incompetent politicians can get away with a lot but when they trip up. It’s almost always a small thing, not their neglect of duty, their sellout to special interests, their corruption that gets them.
The mayor’s pre-Oscar party Thursday night at the Getty House mansion he said he would never live in is one of those small mistakes that is costing him a lot more than all his other broken promises and personal betrayals, his global travel and self-promotion, his luxurious lifestyle, his failure to attend to his duties, his giveaways to big shots and unions, his failure to manage the city’s financial affairs, his destructive solutions.
A day after he sent pink slips to 562 city workers, 50 times more than have been laid off in generations, he’s dancing with the stars, the Oscar nominees, the celebrities whose own self-indulgence mocks the mundane struggles of the hundreds of thousands of jobless, the millions hanging to their small pieces of the good life in this paradise lost.
I can’t tell you how many of the hundreds of email a day that I get contain bitter words of resentment about this wretched excess.
They see Antonio Villaraigosa as the Bernie Madoff of LA, a swindler who has stolen their city, their hopes, their dreams, their futures.
Maybe it’s just the people who connect to me but I don’t think so. I think it’s Antonio’s 24-hook bill, his let-them-eat-cake symbol of his true indifference to the hurt ordinary people are suffering all over this town.
We’re scared to death.
All we hear is it’s going to bad for a long, long time. The parks and libraries and schools, the tree-trimming and street-paving, the basic services we count on as part of our daily lives, our sense of place — they’re all going to be worse, a lot worse, or gone forever
.
All we hear is those that’s got are getting more. And those don’t are getting nothing.
Nobody hears his spin that global corporations are paying the bills for his party because we know in our hearts we’re getting the bills for all their parties.
Life is funny that way, little things do mean a lot.
Antonio in campaign mode: “Oh, you know, I would never move into the Getty House if I’m elected Mayor. We are happy where we live now — our humble home in the hills.”
Antonio after election: “Call the moving van. We’re movin’ on up to Windsor Square!”
Antonio on re-election: “Honey, you like my hot little mansion here in Windsor Square? It’s OK to turn the lights down low — I’m divorcing my wife just as soon as I find a good lawyer. Let me get the wine glasses and turn off my cellphone.”
BTW Ron, did Bruno get an invitation to the party? I know you did not. Too bad. You missed a lot of booze, $400/bottle wines and models. Antonio`s specialty.
The man is a shameless low-life thug. The least we can do is recall our mistake.
What a disgrace. He has even lost what he had in his earlier years. Political acumen. We know he is not smart. But, now he is an emperor with no clothes. It is going to be 3 looooooooong years, unless Ron is right and he trips. Let`s hope so.
Let’s face it! Political powers make a man arrogant and lowly. I can say that politics is one of the dirtiest businesses in the world, but it made you richer once you assume the position you want. It’s a simple as CORRUPTION… Anyway, you might heard that the same sex marriage is now legal in Washington DC. Well, after the controversial issues and protests, it finally reenact just like in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. It made me wonder that if marriage is so sacred, why are so many people trying to stand in the way of it?
‘Brings back memories of Cody Cluff and his gang.
Kudos to SEIU who were so angry they showed up to protest. I loved their signs that said it all: LA is BLIND SIDED referring to the Sandra Bullock popular film. Another was LA’s Budget is “Up In The Air” another oscar nominated film starring George Clooney. I agree with you Ron that there has never been so many angry people in this city. What is scary is the very kiss butt people who supported these clowns as late as Jan of this year now see them for who they are. A bunch of lazy ass, corrupt, clueless, unethical, uneducated morons who don’t care about the people they serve. They all need to be removed from public office. As a community member said last night when ever you see one of them at a meeting walk in, Boo them to send the message they have failed us.
You’re damn right we’re scared to death.
The thing that frightens me the most — even more than fewer cops and $1,500 paramedic fees –is the DWP rate/fee/tax hikes.
Summer bills in the winter are bad enough, and it will only get worse if they get away with a 33.2% electric rate hike.
Many of us have been saying for years that L.A. looks like a third world city with glitzy signs, chickens and goats running in the streets, but we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet when we have to go to the crick and bash our clothes on rocks to get the city’s grime off of them and all our houses go dark, lit only by kerosene lamps and candles.
Then we’ll be living in tents because the lanterns and candles will have burned down our house and there won’t be any firemen to put out the flames.
When we get burned trying to douse the flames ourselves, we won’t be able to go to the Sherman Oaks Burn Center because there won’t be any ambulances to take us there, and if there are ambulances, we won’t be able to afford the fare.
Does anyone else find it odd that no newspaper or tv coverage is on the web this morning of the protest of the Mayor’s party by SEIU. Fox 11 showed a short story last night. I want to know which celebrities crossed those union picket lines so we can out them. How many city workers including police officers worked this event, the cost of closing the street in Hancock Park, the cost of SEIU clean up at the Getty afterward. Can our Los Angeles media be this controlled and corrupt to?
As the previous writer suggested, BOOing these folks in public is a great tool. I did it for years with Tom LaBonge and Mayor V. Especially any time I saw them out in public in front of news cameras.
Why people are surprised that it has come to this, I’m not sure. The writing was on the wall for a long time.
The Getty House is maintained by the taxpayers.
Can we file a public document and find out how much the city taxpayers footed for this extravagance we weren’t invited to last night?
How pathetic and no wonder why no media coverage hardly today on the big Mayor’s party!!! Channel 4′s website is only showing 4 actors who actually attended. The drunk Mel Gibson showed up but then again he’ll show up where there’s free booze anywhere. Eva Langoria who is the flake of the industry and another embarrassement for Latinos. Morgan Freeman who is so out of it didn’t know better not to cross the picket lines. The new guy Jeremy Remmer who is too naive to know better but his publicist should have. And that’s it. None of the A list actors the Mayor thought would show up did. Guess they didn’t want to be caught near the midget, you know guilt by association.
How pathetic and no wonder why no media coverage hardly today on the big Mayor’s party!!! Channel 4′s website is only showing 4 actors who actually attended. The drunk Mel Gibson showed up but then again he’ll show up where there’s free booze anywhere. Eva Langoria who is the flake of the industry and another embarrassement for Latinos. Morgan Freeman who is so out of it didn’t know better not to cross the picket lines. The new guy Jeremy Remmer who is too naive to know better but his publicist should have. And that’s it. None of the A list actors the Mayor thought would show up did. Guess they didn’t want to be caught near the midget, you know guilt by association.
Four celebs>? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA. Antonio, I think a recall would pass today. If you cannot get more than 4 lousy celebs to come to your party, I doubt you can get much more than a handful of supportive voters.
Last night, on ABC local news, a celeb (‘don’t recall his name) commented that the protesters should put their issues into perspective since there are soldiers dying overseas.
I suppose he’s got a point. But, for some reason, I just wanted to punch the daylights out of him.