Town Criers Gather for Shouting Match

The patrons at the Brite Spot in Echo Park on Saturday morning could be excused for sitting with mouths agape. For crying out loud, their startled expressions seemed to say, who on Earth were these booming-voiced people invading their eatery in long frocks, knee britches and tricorn hats, clanging those bells with such loud determination?

The oddly garbed visitors were, quite simply, crying out loud. It's what they do, after all. Each is an official town crier, in the centuries-honored yet little-practiced tradition of the messenger who belted out news and proclamations to illiterate townspeople in the days before CNN and Blackberry e-mailing. And they had traveled to Los Angeles from near and wide for the city's first town-crier competition.

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" intoned Judith Jewell of Anacortes, Wash., to the stunned diners. Translation? Yo, dudes, listen up!

The Brite Spot visit was merely an impromptu warm-up for the competition at the nearby Edendale branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. The event was the brainchild of Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry and Don Garza, a downtown booster. Garza's own gig as Los Angeles' first town crier began unofficially in 2002 when he strolled through the area promoting the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council election.

Garza, whose unpaid position became official in February 2004, is a Gulf War veteran on disability who has been living in downtown's Central City East area. But Garza said he recently received a business license and plans to launch a career as an event planner.

The downtown neighborhood council sponsored the town-crier event, which was organized by the neighborhood council's Arts, Aesthetics, Culture and Education Committee.

In addition to the competition, the six visiting criers -- from Canada, Washington state and California -- participated in a workshop for children at the library.

Only four students showed up Saturday, but they heard an earful about town crying's long and colorful history.

Dependence on criers grew throughout Europe and spread to the American Colonies in the 1600s and 1700s. Each crier developed a distinctive style of announcing to villagers or townspeople, with bell, drum or gong, the need to gather 'round to hear the latest sound bite.

"We were the first media," said Redmond O'Colonies, the crier from Martinez, Calif.