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Stung by Criticism, Oxnard Is Now Place to Bee

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Killer bees in Oxnard!

There, I’ve said it. I promised Carol Lavender, head of the Oxnard Convention and Visitors Bureau, that I wouldn’t overplay the killers’ decision to light in Oxnard, so I won’t. Personally, I have no interest in scaring off prospective tourists, and besides, I’m a man of my . . . BUZZBUZZBZZBZZYOWAAAAAARGH!!!

Sorry, Carol. That was a sort of literary tic, and I couldn’t help myself. Besides there’s nothing to fear any more. The killer bees found last week at a defunct Oxnard landfill are dead, done in by exterminators who take no prisoners.

At this point, it is customary to note that “killer bee” is a designation created by British tabloids only to incite hysteria and sell newspapers. Scientists know the insects not as “killer bees,” but as “Africanized psycho-sadistico honeybees.”

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Whatever you call them, an invasion of killer bees is the last thing any tourist official needs. With Oxnard yearning to try on a spiffy new image, the grisly find is particularly unwelcome there now. (Note to editor: In the interest of promoting tourism, should we change “grisly” to “fabulous”? Just a thought.)

Image is a sensitive issue everywhere, but especially in Oxnard. Over the years, the city has taken countless unfair knocks because of its ungainly name. When Johnny Carson was in his prime, he cracked more than one Oxnard joke. Twenty years ago, a radio DJ named Dr. Demento gave lots of air time to a spoof of “April in Paris” called “October in Oxnard”: “Sea gulls up in the sky . . . were dropping little bits of joy . . . on you and me . . . in our Oxnard-by-the-Sea.”

Do the comedians realize that the Oxnards were two brothers who founded the town’s centerpiece sugar-beet refinery in 1898. Do they care?

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Why do they insist on cheap jokes based only on the indefinable, ethereal, implausible sound of . . . Oxnard?

“Just because we’re not Santa-something,” says Lavender. “But we’re the only Oxnard in the world!”

Even so, suggestions occasionally surface to call the city something less Oxnard-like, like Channel Islands. This has gone nowhere, mercifully; it would be geographically perverse and semantically unjustifiable to give a mainland city a name that ends with “islands.” Why not just go whole hog and call it Hawaii?

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In the 1980s, tourist officials came up with the city’s best-ever bumper sticker: “Oxnard--More Than Just a Pretty Name.”

But, like so many other image-enhancing efforts, it didn’t take.

There was the contest that produced: “Oxnard--Kissed by the Sun, Hugged by the Sea.”

That one also went nowhere, Lavender said. It was poetic, but too long and hard to remember.

For a few years now, the city’s advertising theme has been: “Oxnard--Upcoast.” Consultants are at work “freshening” this approach, Lavender said; a slogan to be unveiled next month will be as pristine as Oxnard’s beaches, as brisk as its ocean waters, as evocative as its harbor at twilight.

It might sound simple to nonprofessionals, but I know how difficult this image business can be.

Before I had my image make-over, the only invitations I received were from linoleum stores with “preferred-customer” sales.

That was when I was just “Steve: A Pretty Good Person.”

Since then, my consultants have worked hard on image-enhancement, although their efforts have yet to net me an invite to the Oscars, or, for that matter, to Oxnard.

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Their first try--”Steve: Where Fun Begins With an S”--was too confusing. And “Steve-tastico!” was simply unbelievable, for anyone who knows me. Right now, it’s “The Steve Experience,” and I’m afraid that’s a nonstarter too.

In any event, Oxnard deserves a fresher image, and a swarm of tourists who don’t sting.

Maybe the visit of the killer bee can be turned to the city’s advantage. It can now brag about something totally lacking in Santa (“Pretty Is as Pretty Does”) Barbara. And there’s a killer slogan waiting for the right brochure:

“Oxnard: Follow the Honey.”

Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.

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