`Inactive' Gang Members Become Media Celebrities

NEW YORK - Backstage at NBC's studios near Rockefeller Center last week, Li'l Monster and Bone - members of two rival Los Angeles gangs - sat in a dressing room where the stars of "Saturday Night Live" suit up, shut their eyes and let a makeup artist pat their noses with a pink powder puff.

Phil Donahue, the talk-show host, had flown the two men to New York, housed them in a luxury Park Avenue hotel and delivered them via limousine to NBC, where they were about to be interviewed in front of 13 million viewers. If they were nervous, it didn't show.

"You got cappuccino?" Bone, an "inactive" Athens Park Blood in his early 20s, asked a Donahue aide. The answer was no - just regular coffee.

"What? NBC don't have no cappuccino?" chided Li'l Monster, 26, an inactive Eight-Tray Gangster Crip. (That is how they spell it: Li'l Monster even has it tattooed on his arm that way, and called it a "major dis" - disrespectful - that a Los Angeles Times headline spelled it "8-Trey." The Los Angeles Police Department identifies them as 8-Treys, trey from playing-card slang for three.)

Since the riots, as the news media have scrambled to sum up the troubles of South Los Angeles, Li'l Monster and Bone - both convicted felons - have become instant celebrities. In addition to Donahue, they've appeared twice on ABC's Nightline and National Public Radio, and have been quoted by the country's most reputable newspapers.

BOTH HAVE RECORDS

Both were once hard-core gangbangers and have records, notably first-degree murder and attempted murder for Li'l Monster and assault with a deadly weapon for Bone. Li'l Monster served more than five years in prison as a teenager on the murder charge.

Being articulate gangbangers, even inactive articulate gangbangers, gets them air time. And once they're on, Li'l Monster says with a smirk, "we start dropping political views."

They have become America's most recognized gang members. With every sound bite, they are reshaping the nation's image of what it means to be "down for the 'hood."

Even members of rival gang sets say they have never seen gang members portrayed in such a favorable light.

THEY SUPPORT TRUCE

Mixing class-conscious ideology and tough street banter, the two have endorsed a truce between the Crips and the Bloods, calling for unity to protect against a common foe: the Los Angeles Police Department. When time allows, they go further, urging the black community to demand a role in rebuilding the city and mocking those who would rather rely on politicians.

"We don't need you right-wing conservatives and we don't need you liberals," Li'l Monster said the other day at a Los Angeles news conference near the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, where the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case prompted early violence. "What we need is empowerment in our community and one way or another that's what we're gonna get. We're tired of asking."

Though they dress in gang attire - Li'l Monster favors Georgetown T-shirts trimmed in blue, the Crip color; Bone often wears a St. Louis Cardinals cap lettered in red, the Bloods' chosen hue - they say they speak as individuals, not as gang leaders. Though still in close contact with their homeboys, both men now live outside their home turf and both say that they no longer participate in illegal activities.

Despite that, some active gang members who have seen them on television call their message of peace persuasive. And lately, there have been moments when Li'l Monster and Bone have appeared to speak for an even larger constituency: the angry, urban poor.

Li'l Monster and Bone met a few years ago through writer and former model Leon Bing, who was writing a book about Los Angeles street gangs. Each had already earned the title Original Gangster, or "O.G.," by proving their loyalty - through violence or otherwise - to their gang sets. They were established gangbangers, and they were supposed to be enemies.

THEY JOIN AUTHOR

But through Bing, Li'l Monster and Bone forged an unlikely alliance. When Bing's book, "Do or Die," was published last year, the two men accompanied her on a book tour, flying to interviews in Seattle and San Francisco. Built on common experience, their friendship has endured.

That's part of the reason K & S Speakers, a Boston-based speakers bureau, is promoting them on the college lecture circuit. Li'l Monster has already made paid appearances at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Claremont-McKenna College and the University of California, Riverside, according to Ellie Deegan, a vice-president at the company.

But this fall, Deegan expects to book both Li'l Monster and Bone, along with a Los Angeles Police Department gang expert, in a program she has titled, "To Live and Die in L.A." According to a promotional flyer, the program will address the causes of the recent riots from the vantage points of "the three most powerful gangs in L.A. (the Crips, the Bloods and the Cops)."