The fine art of making a point

Forte, who sports square cubic zirconium earrings and a yellow MJAD cap and T-shirt, composes hip-hop lyrics in his head while he stands on the corner.

He says he recorded 136 songs last year under the stage name Razzaq.

Forte hopes this job down the street from movie studios and record labels leads to stardom. "You never know who's in the car driving by," he said, keeping his eye peeled for any erratic drivers. "Anything could happen."

He boasts that Jay Leno once stopped to compliment him on his spinning.

"If I ever make it big in the music industry, just remember where I met you," Forte recalled telling the late-night host.

Many companies say spinners make a difference in attracting customers.

Jody Piccinino, community manager for Lofts at NoHo Commons in North Hollywood, said that the day after she switched from a sign holding company to Aarrow's spinners, the number of prospective buyers doubled to 18.

"We wanted something that was eye catching," she said. "And we've seen direct results."

DEMAND from people like Piccinino is forcing sign companies to recruit aggressively or steal workers from competitors to bolster their labor supply -- often by just driving up and offering the spinners $5 or $10 more an hour.

"We've had workers that have dropped their arrows on site to go and work for another company," said Mike McCullough, vice president of sales and marketing at Eventz Extraordinaire. The Lake Forest company says it invented sign spinning two decades ago, after noticing that cardboard arrows were effective in getting people to check out businesses.

L.A.-based Sign Sale Promotion Inc., which bills itself as the largest sign promotion company in the United States, says its subcontractors hire day laborers, high school cheerleader teams, inmates from women's prisons and homeless people at shelters.

Pastor Jeff Mahle, of the Yucaipa-based Set Free ministry, said the sign company had hired countless people in his rehab program, from battered women to homeless people.

"It has given people an opportunity to support themselves as they go through rehab," he said. "People see that they're hard workers."

Others are more cautious about who represents their clients.

Derek Masar, MJAD's co-founder, said he started hiring his own spinners after he became frustrated with spinners who showed up late, smoked cigarettes and didn't take the job seriously.

"They would send us someone who literally looked like they woke up from behind the building they were spinning in front of," he said. "We need people that are image conscious, clean cut."

At the Aarrow Advertising boot camp, young spinners dress in uniform, with red Aarrow shirts, and do push-ups and running exercises without complaint.

A pudgy boy in plastic glasses crab-walks backward in one drill while a thin teen wearing batting gloves grunts as he throws a sign into the air.

To the crowd that has gathered to watch, the practice seems thankless and grueling. But Bryan Penate, a 21-year-old rookie, said it beats his previous job as a fry cook at McDonald's.

"There's less pressure," he said.

alana.semuels@latimes.com