DISCOVERY, REINVENTION FUEL THE CITY L.A. THRIVES ON POSSIBILITIES.

Byline: Fred Shuster Staff Writer

It's really no wonder Los Angeles is home to that dream factory called Hollywood.

After all, this is where Spanish missionaries say they saw angels, and where schemers and dreamers imagined a lush playground in a semidesert plagued by earthquakes, droughts, wildfires, mudslides and floods.

L.A. is all about imagination - and image - a concept not lost on Democratic leaders who pushed Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, to move her Latino fund-raiser from the Playboy Mansion because it would've sent the wrong message.

``We think an event at the Playboy Mansion is not the right image and does not represent the values of our party. It doesn't represent the values of working Americans that Al Gore and Joe Lieberman are fighting for,'' said Joe Andrew, national chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Spoken like an Angeleno, the right image - not reality - is everything.

As the late, great L.A. crime novelist Raymond Chandler once said, ``Hollywood is wonderful. Anyone who doesn't like it is either crazy or sober.''

Few cities captivate the imagination as does L.A. This is, after all, where the American dream is manufactured - and sold.

But if you don't buy into the myth, you'll find an irritating, scary, dirty and sometimes kind of dim metropolis - without a logical center.

``The image the country has of L.A. is nonsense,'' says longtime talk-radio host Joe Crummey, who lives in Studio City and will debut a syndicated show in the fall.

``You live here, and it's a lot more normal than people realize. You begin to see that the entertainment industry moves in completely different circles than most people do,'' he said. ``I look out at the Valley, and it's really like any other suburb - maybe a little slicker - but it's a suburban bedroom community. Life here is not 'Baywatch.' ''

Indeed, despite the vastness of ostentatious wealth, most people live lives little different than they would in Keokuk or Peoria - though L.A.'sclimate that allows year-round backyard barbecues and its culture tolerant of almost anything are far different.

Really, aside from the fact the San Andreas Fault comes within 35 miles of downtown, most L.A. residents lead regular humdrum lives.

``I moved here 11 years ago from New York thinking everyone lives at the beach - and it turns out the people who live here never go to the beach,'' Crummey said.

``If they're lucky, they swim in their own pool in their back yard on the weekends. This image of movie stars and the beach and Beverly Hills exists, but in the context of everyone else out here, the reality is, most people just don't live like that.''

Ordinary folks breathe the same air as the stars and can refer to the hip chefs of the day as if they were neighbors and on the ``A'' list. And often they hold out hope that lightning will strike and they will find their star, like Lana Turner being discovered at Schwab's drugstore, the ultimate L.A. myth of overnight stardom.

L.A. is the second act in so many lives playing themselves out under the big orange sun. The possibilities of self-discovery and reinvention are endless.

Just ask sex symbol and actress Pamela Anderson, who once detailed her time-tested recipe for fame: ``Move to Los Angeles, do a couple of Playboy covers, audition, get a part in a TV series, marry a rock star.''

Yet, it's easy to forget you are visiting the home of Hollywood. As you look out the window of your car, the guy or gal next to you could just as easily be an engineer at Litton Industries or Northrup Grumman or an executive at Occidental Petroleum as a movie actor or screenwriter - or just one of a million wannabes with the right image.

Madonna's take on L.A.: ``There are so many famous people everyone cancels everyone else out.''

Clearly, the City of Angels is a place of contrasts between image and reality.

L.A. is the home of the greedy me-me-me generation, yet its remarkably diverse populace casually unifies in response to the frequent and inevitable natural disasters that befall the place.

``L.A. historically is a place where people sense they can come and start a new life, do something different, be something different and achieve the American dream,'' said Jennifer Wolch, professor of geography at USC and co-director of the USC Sustainable Cities program.

``The region comes with great opportunity and great challenges in the form of natural hazards, pollution, related health risks and a whole variety of other problems.

``In addition, depending on your social position and position in the labor market, you may or may not be able to gain the upward mobility you might have expected when you arrived. The economy has become more polarized so the gap between rich and poor has widened.''

Because of its grossly inadequate public transit system, L.A. is a bear of a city to get around. The tangle of freeways and sprawling suburbs goes on for endless miles, and anyone without a car is considered socially impaired.

``My wife and I could live anywhere in the world and we elect to live in L.A.,'' said Robert Barrett, vice president of domestic marketing at the L.A. Convention & Visitors Bureau.

``There's something magical here and often it's intangible - like the spirit of adventure about the future. I mean, look at the fact that the No. 1 product of L.A. is imagination, that people come from all over the world and mix their ethnic heritage with technology and cutting-edge concepts to make the culture and commerce of the 21st century.

``It's like everyone comes to reinvent themselves. In L.A., it's fine to fail; tomorrow you might be on top. It's wonderfully refreshing here and it's all done in a T-shirt in the sunshine.

``In New York, they hustle. In L.A., we glide.''

Whether it's the home of the electric glide or the disco hustle, the Big Orange (L.A.) is regularly lambasted in the East for having less art than other places. Still, the Getty Center in the Santa Monica Mountains is respected worldwide for its European and photography collections.

And L.A. frequently gets a bad rap for ignoring and even gleefully paving over its past to make way for the future. Yet, if you drive through the smog near the San Gabriel Mountains to the oak-lined avenues of Pasadena, you'll find turn-of-the-century homes of every persuasion, from mission-style stucco to column-laden mansions - even stately Wayne Manor from the ``Batman'' TV series.

The historic 14-block district known as Old Town Pasadena underwent a major face lift about 10 years ago but still feels historic.

But it's the movie industry that everyone thinks of when L.A. is discussed. Surprisingly, though, it didn't start here.

``The film industry moved West for several reasons - one being there's sunlight 99 percent of the year with hardly any interruptions of bad weather,'' said film and Hollywood historian Marc Wanamaker.

``That's a major consideration. In the earliest days, when movies were shot back East and much of the film output was Westerns and adventure films, bad weather always posed problems.''

Few understand the connect between reality and image, even fantasy, as well as Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, a lifelong Democrat who found himself in the middle of the morality flap over Sanchez's party plans.

``Yes, I'm disappointed by certain individuals in the party,'' said Hefner. ``These are the same people asking me for money. Unfortunately, hypocrisy and politics is the name of the game.''

In characteristic L.A. fashion, however, Hefner realizes the value of publicity, good or bad.

Asked whether the intraparty rift might somehow hurt the magazine, he smiled.

``It's going to make us a great many friends.''