VILLARAIGOSA COMES "OUT OF DENIAL" FOR THE FIRST TIME PUBLICLY TO ACTUALLY TELL US "THE STATE OF THE CITY" (But it's the same problem as radio biz's)

First of all, thanks to Doug McIntyre and Rob Marenko, of 790 KABC (5a-8:45a) for their FANTASTIC and INSIGHTFUL coverage of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's "State of the City Speech", this morning, that the construction money-muppet delivered yesterday evening; that wasn't carried LIVE on the local channels.

(So, in case you missed Channel 7's 2:08am replay, here's how it went down along with my analogy as to how a politician has the same problems I have seen in the radio and record industry.)

Based on Rick Orlov's columns in LA DAILY NEWS (dailynews.com) [ZD's comments in brackets]

Villaraigosa said priorities include (gang reduction), economic development, expanding services with more police, filling more potholes, and offering more summer jobs for youths and more affordable housing for the poor. "Increasingly, like America from coast to coast, we are becoming a city of marble and cardboard, a city of prodigious wealth and withering poverty," Villaraigosa said. "As a result, we waste more time stuck in traffic. We get less time with our kids. And we spend more days of the year choked by smog." He called on city, business and community leaders to become involved, and touted the city's environmental initiatives and get state funding for traffic and infrastructure improvements.

[Not saying the mayor's speechwriters have been reading my blogs or watching my public comments and hearing my radio calls, but ZD has been screaming that all year. So if nothing else...yeah, yeah!!! If you like what the mayor had to say, then you gotta love what Zuma Dogg has to say y'all. So that means the mayor is helping to heal all the deviciveness he has caused over the past two years with his "denial" talk. Now, ZD ain't spun THAT easily, so I know this is stuff out of Sun Zu/Marketing Warfare, whether they know it or, not.

See, the mayor's people know ZD, Doug McIntyre, John & Ken, Kevin James, David Zahnister/LA Weekly and many of the journalistic leaders at the Daily News have finally not only gotten their message out to the public, but into the minds of the public as well. So how does the mayor neutralize/embrace/spin the bad PR?

"Marketing Warfare" authors Ries and Trout say, "You can't change someone's mind once it is made up." So that's where using their concepts (based on Sun Zu "Art of War") can help you figure out how to spin, based on where you currently stand/your position in the marketplace/minds of the pueblos.)

Had the mayor tried to put a photo-op smile, "It's a big happy day at Disneyland" (mayor gave your homies a free plug), the people would have rejected the message and the messenger."

AND IF NOTHING ELSE, in the "8 stages of forgiveness" (the healing process), coming out of denial is the phase that leads to responsibility and that leads to action. So maybe the mayor is going through his own process because he has hit rock bottom with AB 1381 getting bounced out like ZD at a Viagraossa Town Hall Meeting, and sees he cannot carry on with the deep, dark phsycological burden he has been carrying with him. I know some of his own staffers and advisors have been trying for an intervention, and have been trying to start becoming the charismatic leader he can be.

So maybe it finally worked, and like many people who have to hit rock bottom to cause them to have the breakthrough to bring then out of denial and into accepting personal power and responsibility/becoming a leader and rising to the challenges and growth opportunities to leave the legacy behind that will cause the pueblos to rally behind you and propel you into the Governor's seat!

ONLY PROBLEM, Y'ALL...CONSTRUCTIONISTS ARE THE TRUE "GODS' OF THIS REGIONAL UNIVERSE -- AND NO MATTER HOW ETHICAL AND UPSTANDING TO THE CONSTITUENTS YOU WANT TO BE AS YOU WALK INTO YOU OFFICE FOR THE FIRST DAY OF YOUR ELECTED POSITION...YOU ARE DEALING WITH A LONGSTANDING INHERENT "INSTITUTIONAL" BEAURACRACY -- AND EVEN THE MAYOR IS SOMEWHAT POWERLESS TO STOP IT. YOU KINDA HAVE TO GO WITH THE FLOW. CAUSE LONGER-TERM, BIGGER PICTURE PLAYERS REALLY RUN THE CITY FROM BEHIND THE SCENES.

You know, people like Eli Broad and Richard Riordan, who took young Antonio Skywalker (the everyday "pueblo" who was totally accessable to the people) and gave him that "Darth Vader helment operation" like at the end of that last "Star Wars" movie. That's why I call it the political steamroll "machine". (Walk in pueblo champ, walk out political chump.)

SAME THING HAPPENS IN THE RADIO BIZ: You get hired as a Program Director at a great radio station. You're all excited, because you know EXACTLY what music direction you think the station needs to take to boost the ratings.

So you walk into to your office on the first day, and see a stack of CDs on your desk that the General Manager tells you that you have to start playing. And you look at the songs, and they are all completely wrong. That's not the direction you said you wanted to take the station in the job interview. Problem is this thing called, "Independants" (Indy record promoters.)

See, a mayor is like a Program Director (PD). You're just a railroad train through town, before the next one blows through.
Mayors only serve for four or eight years (like many PDs), so you can't always be wiping the slate of all historic knowlege and previous direction the station was moving in. So these are some of the older, long-term gatekeeps the owners/GMs hire to keep the ship afloat in a long-term, bigger picture. AND, let's get down to the brass tacks: These Indies also bring HUGE money to the stating in the form of "promotional dollars."

AND HERE HOW THEY JUSTIFY playing all those bad records that are gonna kill your ratings and cause your station to lose ratings -- and revenue, in the long run, once the word on the street gets out about your bad ratings and your sales department can't sell on "heritige" anymore. Every time you add one of those "stiffs" you get a trip to Vegas to see Def Leppard at the Hard Rock for 10 listeners, or they put in for a "time buy" (commercials advertising the record), or someother way to "add value" to the station. (It's the industry's version of "campaign contributions".)

So here's how all this rampant construction has been steamrolling the City in violation of City Charter and has created the marble/carboard box city he now admits we live in. (Noel Weiss calls it, "The middle class are getting reamed." And Zuma Dogg says every class is getting kicked down a notch, so you're gonna see a new wave of middle-class getting bumped into "lower-income lifestyles" and lower-income hanger-oners into first time homelessness. And of course everyone else is moving out of the city, except the low-income people.)

FLOW CHART:

CONSTRUCTION INTERESTS: (Cause there is no money to made by NOT launching high-density projects to build. So ignore vacancy rates, affordable housing requirements, zoning laws and common sense to make the money before the City tanks. You're not an elected official, anyway. So this is the equivalent of the RECORD COMPANIES who have the money to fund the independant record promoters who have the relationships with station GM/PDs. Cause they got records to promote and sell.]

PEOPLE LIKE ELI BROAD AND RICHARD RIORDAN AND ALL THE LOBBIESTS: These are like the independant record promoters who are backed with record company promotional dollars to spread around the city to grease the wheels of the station to help get airplay/consruction project approval. Cause with that (airplay/project approval), you get to put the group on tour/build the project -- and that's how you make the money. Since these indies are not only there before you, and will be there long after you are gone -- and more importantly, are the one's putting the big money on the table, they are allowed to become the "official backseat driver that you have to listen to;

and before you know it...you're just a chauffer.

So at least Antonio actually delivered the "State of the City" to the people, but even if he WANTS to do the right thing, it ain't that easy. He didn't inherit all of these problems. (The City didn't tank in two years, alone.) But we just wasted two critical years waiting for him to come out of denial. And now that he has, even if he WANTED to stop all the high density gentrification that is causing this City to be marble buildings and people living in cardboard boxes next to City Hall, it ain't that easy cause you got this thing called "Inherent Institutionalism" (just like in the radio business) and that's a tough habit to kick. And once you do, everyone around you is still an addict.

So good luck, kiddies. And remember to give ZD a shout-out from you in a skyscraper or cardboard box.]

Zuma Dogg
Participant, ZAP (Zuma's Activist Program)