Armenian Dining Memories of Fresno

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An Armenian son drives north into the past and finds food like Grandma made

Taste of Travel: Fresno

September 10, 1995|MICHAEL KRIKORIAN | Krikorian is a Los Angeles free-lance writer

FRESNO — In the 1960s, my grandparents had a small grape farm in Fresno, so a few times a year my family would board the station wagon in Gardena and head 200 miles north up into the San Joaquin Valley. Against the blazing sun on California 99, the Fairlane's bolt-on air conditioner was small comfort. But that ride was a tropical paradise compared to the sweltering days and nights in Fresno, for my grandparents' house had no air-conditioning. (As they came from rough times in Armenia, discomfort wasn't all that uncomfortable to them.) For my sister Jeanine and I, it was almost nonstop soda pop time.

Still, there were two things I looked forward to with relish on those trips: One was my grandfather Moses' vivid tales of immigrant life in New York City and Baltimore just after World War I; the other was going to eat at Darby's.

Darby's was a small Armenian restaurant owned by George Darby, a character straight out of a Damon Runyon story. I never saw him work. He would warmly greet my family, then return to intently watching televised sporting events. But the food at his restaurant was memorable, especially the shish kebab served over rice pilaf rich with vermicelli noodles sauteed in butter, and the kima made of raw ground beef mixed with spices and served on thick pita bread from the nearby Valley Bakery. Darby died in 1978 and so did his restaurant, but the long tradition of Armenian cooking in Fresno is still going strong.

And so are the traditions of the Armenian people, who began settling here more than 100 years ago.

The tradition dates back at least to 1881, when two brothers, Hagop and Garabed Seropian, settled here because they were impressed by the climatic similarities to their Armenian home, as well as the agricultural opportunities. Through their letters, they lured other immigrants to the San Joaquin Valley with visions of fertile soil and lush crops. By 1894, the Armenian population of Fresno County was 360, but events in Armenia and Turkey soon prompted an immigration swell. From 1893-1894, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were massacred by Turkish forces. This led to a large scale migration of Armenians to Western Europe and America. Many headed for Fresno and by 1930, Armenians owned more than 40% of the raisin acreage in Fresno County and their numbers had topped 25,000, which is about the size of Fresno's Armenian population today.

Recently my father, Tony, and I took the drive from Los Angeles up to California's sixth most populous city and checked out several Armenian establishments.

We found that when it comes to Armenian restaurants in Fresno, the big name today is George. George Koroyan, owner of George's Shish Kebab, George's Bar and Grill and Chicken George. Only breakfast and lunch are served at the downtown George's Shish Kebab, a rather plain room dominated by a huge picture of Fresno's favorite son, writer William Saroyan. Despite the restaurant's name, the real highlight is the lamb shank, a meltingly tender mass of meat cooked for hours with bell peppers, onions, celery, carrots, parsley and tomato sauce.

Seven miles north of downtown, on Blackstone Avenue, Fresno's main north-south thoroughfare, is George's Bar and Grill: a sleek, modern room, done in black and gray, with a long marble-top counter and a shiny open kitchen. The menu is more extensive than its downtown cousin (it includes shrimp, halibut and pasta offerings) and the setting and presentation are much nicer. Still, the lamb shank reigns supreme here. On weekends, a patio is a fine place to enjoy the food along with soft live jazz played past midnight.

Patterned after Los Angeles' Zankou Chicken is Chicken George. Originally, only chicken was offered, but recently the menu has expanded to include kebabs of lamb, beef and chicken. Still, the rotisserie chicken, served with a potent garlic paste, is the best order.

The newest addition to Fresno's Armenian dining scene is the restaurant Armenia, located in northwest Fresno, one of the city's nicest residential neighborhoods. Opened last December by Sam Krikorian (no relation), Armenia's pleasant dining room features a diverse and interesting menu, highlighted by several dishes not easily found outside Armenian villages or, in the United States, home kitchens. Among the dishes, some of which must be ordered 24 hours in advance, is Kavara kuefta, named for the village where the dish is traditionally served at weddings. It is a large meatball of baked ground steak mixed with milk, cognac, onions and paprika. Armenia also serves Russian and Georgian dishes, such as beef Stroganoff, chicken Kiev and borscht.

Armenian Cuisine, in a nearby shopping center, is another place where the menu reflects Russian influence. This family-owned operation features the cooking of Harry Petroysan, a former cook for the Soviet army. His tasty beef Stroganoff, the Russian blend of beef tenderloin, mushrooms and onions sauteed in butter and mixed with sour cream, is not exactly Armenian, but it is delicious. The Armenian standbys are all well executed, including shish kebab, lamb shank and sarma (grape leaves stuffed with ground lamb and rice and served with a yogurt dipping sauce).

One afternoon, my dad and I visited the old Armenian quarter downtown, near Fresno's Civic Center. The spiritual and architectural center of Fresno's Armenian community is Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church. Built in 1914, the church is still the hub of Little Armenia, an enclave of Armenian bakeries, restaurants, barbers and other small businesses. An excellent way to experience it is through Holy Trinity's annual Armenian Bazaar Food Festival, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Oct. 27. For it, church members create an amazing array of Armenian delicacies, including kebabs, pilaf and assorted pastries.

Though no longer the dynamic ethnic neighborhood it once was, the area still boasts two famous Armenian bread bakeries: Valley Lavosh Baking Co. (formerly Valley Bakery) and Hye Quality Bakery, both a short walk from the church.

Opened in 1922 by Ghazair Saghatelian, Valley Lavosh Baking Co. is now run by his daughter Janet and granddaughter Agnes. Although the bakery's biggest seller is Valley Hearts, small heart-shaped crackers, my family has always patronized the old bakery for its pita bread, a two-inch-thick round loaf topped with an egg wash and sesame seeds.

A hundred yards away is Hye Quality Bakery (source of the bread pictured on L1), which opened in 1957. Once a tiny store abutting the fire station, the bakery has gone high tech and now produces thousands of rounds a week of the Armenian cracker bread called lavosh.When the bakery's friendly owner, Sammy Ganimian, found out we were looking for good Armenian restaurants he quickly recommended Uncle Harry's in Reedley. "He has the best shish kebab around."

Dad and I went back to our hotel and after a rest and a feeble attempt to burn a few calories in the exercise room, we set out for Uncle Harry's.

On the half-hour cruise south to Reedley, we reminisced about great shish kebabs we have known. We agreed, of course, that no restaurant could prepare shish kebab like we had at home. My mom and grandmother were excellent cooks, and my Aunt Mary still is. But when it came to kebab cooking, no one could beat my grandfathers: Moses in Fresno and Nahabed in Los Angeles. The mention of charcoal to either would prompt them to instantly spring to their rickety barbecues, which were fired by dried walnut and apricot branches that produced an intensely hot fire, and rendered a juicy and aromatic lamb kebab.

Twenty miles south of Fresno, Reedley is a quaint town of 18,000, with a main street that looks Midwestern. Uncle Harry's is set in a 103-year-old building and the business is owned by Harry Horasanian, who grew up just a few miles away. A carpenter by trade, Horasanian became involved with catering and was eventually coaxed by friends to open Uncle Harry's in 1990. Shish kebab is indeed the way to go here, and like Harry at Hye Quality Bakery said, it may be the best in the Fresno area. The high-quality meat is briefly marinated in white wine, garlic powder and chopped olives then grilled to juicy tenderness. No, it doesn't compare to my grandparents', but I wasn't expecting a miracle. Inside is a picture of the old building during its glory days. It's a three-story brick and wrought-iron beauty that would not have been out of place on Bourbon Street.

When we got back to our hotel, my cousin Dave, who is a musician, had left me an urgent message: "For a musician that really cooks, stop in Visalia, 40 miles south of Fresno, and try the shish kebab." So the next day, after checking out, we took his advice and had a shish kebab lunch at Hagopian's International Delicatessen, a small Armenian food store that also serves lunch Monday through Saturday until 2 p.m. We dined on tender leg of lamb chunks that we rated second only to Uncle Harry's.

Richard Hagopian, who runs the place with his wife, Geraldine, can cook two ways: over charcoal and on the oud--the ancient Mideastern instrument that is the predecessor of the lute. In 1989 he was honored by the National Endowment of the Folk Arts for his oud playing, and the store is decorated with his albums, as well as Armenian art.

As we headed back to Los Angeles, it was comforting to know that Armenian dining in Fresno is alive and well. Fresno isn't a glamorous tourist destination. But if you're speeding up to Northern California, heading to Yosemite or just need some of the best ethnic food in the state, Fresno is an outstanding stop along the way.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

Kebabs in Fresno

Where to eat: Armenia, 4029 N. Marks Ave., Fresno. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Dinner for two, $15-$35; tel. (209) 225-5545.

Armenian Cuisine, 742 W. Bullard Ave., Fresno. Open Monday through Saturday for lunch and dinner. Dinner for two, $20-$30; tel. (209) 435-4892.

George's Bar and Grill, 6680 N. Blackstone Ave., Fresno. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Dinner for two, $20-$35; tel. (209) 436-1654.

George's Shish Kebab, 2405 N. Capital St., Fresno. Open Monday through Saturday for breakfast and lunch only; lunch for two, $10-$18; tel. (209) 264-9433.

Hagopian's International Delicatessen, 409 N. Willis St., Visalia. Open Monday through Saturday for lunch; deli open until 5:30 p.m. weekdays and 3 p.m. on Saturday). Lunch for two about $18; tel. (209) 732-6344.

Hye Quality Bakery, 2222 N.Santa Clara St., Fresno. Closed Sunday and Monday; tel. (209) 445-1511.

Uncle Harry's, 1201 G St., Reedley. Open Monday through Saturday for lunch and dinner. Dinner for two $14-$27; tel. (209) 638-5170.

Valley Lavosh Baking Co., 502 M St., Fresno. Closed Saturday and Sunday; tel. (209) 485-2700.

 

LA TIMES OP-ED - Another Killing in Watts

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A frustrated detective tweets a photo of a dead body. For good reason.

October 21, 2011

"Dead in a Zip Code that doesn't matter." — A homicide detective in "The Wire."

Knuckles' wife said it was wrong.

"The detective didn't show respect when he put that picture on Twitter," Maria Rios told me. A cellphone photograph of her just-slain husband covered with a blanket on a Watts street was posted last week on the social media site by a veteran Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective.

It wasn't just Rios who was upset. The photo drew the ire of a local blogger who called it callous, and a story on the LA Weekly blog "The Informer" kept the controversy going, launching follow-ups in newspapers and their blogs as far away as London (the Daily Mail), New York (the Daily News) and Washington (the Post).

Oscar "Knuckles" Arevalo, 32, was killed Oct. 11 as he was standing next to a woman known as the "Tamale Lady" on the southwest corner of 106th Street and Wilmington Avenue in the unruly heart of Watts.

When Sal LaBarbera, supervisor of the criminal gang homicide unit in the LAPD's South Bureau, which covers Watts, arrived on the scene, he took a picture of Arevalo's body covered with a white and red blanket and later posted it on his Twitter account (@LA Murder Cop) with the tag "Guess where I'm at??? It never ends." And the hoopla began.

LaBarbera isn't apologizing. On Sunday, one of his Twitter followers asked: "Did you ever think 1 pic would get such attention?" He replied: "I would have done [it] sooner. Stop the violence." He told me he regretted that posting the photo had become the issue: "The real issue is what is happening in Watts, in our city."

And that's the point. Frustration played a major role in LaBarbera's decision. With all due respect to Rios — who has five children with Arevalo and is brokenhearted — sometimes we need to see what's hard to look at.

Within several blocks of where Knuckles (he got his nickname from his boyhood love of fist-fighting, his wife said with a laugh) died, there have been 19 other homicides this year. How much TV airtime and how many newspaper column inches have been written about those killings? Other than a full-page LA Weekly piece in June about a double on Grape Street, the only coverage has been the posts on The Times' homicide blog.

Can you imagine the response to nearly 20 homicides this year in Hancock Park or Beverly Hills? Delta Force maybe?

It's always been this way. I first met LaBarbera in the mid-1990s, when I covered a triple homicide off Hoover Street in South-Central. I wrote about 25 inches; it was published as a brief, 2 inches tops. I called LaBarbera and told him. I don't remember his exact words, but he was disappointed then, so how would he feel now, after another decade and a half of largely unheralded murders.

Some Angelenos seem to be under the twisted impression that a killing in Watts does not matter as much as one in a more tranquil area. South L.A. communities are used to violence, right? It's not news. But that familiarity with tragedy only makes it all the more tragic.

"People, white people, think that this is normal, that murders are supposed to happen here in Watts," said Elvonzo "Red Mann" Cromwell at Monday's Watts Gang Task Force meeting. Cromwell, who knew Arevalo, grew up in Jordan Downs. "But it's not supposed to happen here the same as it's not supposed to happen anywhere."

But, it does happen here with alarming frequency, which is the prime reason LaBarbera posted the photo. Watts, just one 2.1-square-mile community in the LAPD's Southeast Division, accounted for four times the homicides in the entire 17.2-square-mile Hollywood Division and nine times the number in the even larger West Los Angeles Division as of Oct. 1. And that was before Arevalo was killed.

The families of the multiple homicide victims in Arevalo's neighborhood aren't grieving any less than families in Hollywood and West L.A. Heartbroken is heartbroken on Grape Street in Watts, same as it is on Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills.

As a fictional LAPD homicide detective, Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, says, "Everybody counts or nobody counts."

Was it in good taste to post the photo of Knuckles? Certainly not to Maria Rios. But it needed to be done, and it would be a crying shame not to know why it was done. The fuss should not be about LaBarbera's posting the picture; it should be about what's been lost in the ruckus — the killing of Knuckles.

Michael Krikorian, a former Times reporter, does research for the Watts Labor Community Action Committee.

 

LA TIMES OP-ED - Know Your Capitals

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A lost wallet, a New York cabbie — and the benefits of knowing your world geography.

October 02, 2011|By Michael Krikorian

When I get into a taxi, I almost always ask the cabbie, "Where you from?" In Los Angeles that can be a dangerous gang challenge, but because in my experience cabbies are never from Los Angeles, it hasn't been a problem. What I hear back is Liberia, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus and so on. And then I say, depending on whatever home country they named, "Are you from Monrovia?" or Yerevan or Dhaka or Minsk? Invariably, the cab drivers are delighted, even proud, that a stranger, an American, knows their capital.

I bring this up because knowing your capitals is a good thing. It brings people together, and it can help you out in ways unexpected, which is what happened to me on a recent trip to New York.

My girlfriend, Nancy, and I were in New York, partly because a friend was up for a cooking award there. She didn't win, but that didn't stop us from celebrating — 20 people at the Breslin in the Ace Hotel on 29th Street. It was a bacchanal: two whole pigs, cocktails, red wine and, umm, let's see, more red wine. The last thing I remember clearly was cautiously going down the stairs. There was a vague cab ride to our hotel 12 blocks downtown.

In the morning, Nancy went to get something out of her purse and realized her wallet was missing. It contained all her cash and credits cards and, most important, her California driver's license, which she needed to get on her flight home the next morning.

We began a painstaking hunt for the missing wallet that would have made the vaunted Yosemite search-and-rescue team proud. I must've set an American record for looking under a bed.

So we started making calls: The hotel lost and found, the restaurant, friends who were with us, 311, the taxi commission. We didn't have a receipt from the cab ride, so the taxi commission guy wasn't much help. We tried the NYPD. These calls took hours, and were without reward.

Finally, I patrolled the streets, playing an absurd long shot that the wallet, perhaps dropped outside the restaurant or our hotel, would still be there hours later.

We gave up. Nancy called the credit card companies and canceled. We began the process of trying to get an ID so she could get home. We were told a passport, scanned, emailed and color printed, might get you on a plane. A friend went to our house in L.A. and found her passport, but when the scan arrived, the passport expiration date was cut off. Again, again, again: Same thing.

Facing defeat, Nancy and I went for a walk. Heading east on 14th Street, Nancy got a call. She stopped. I turned around to look at her. She beamed. "Muhammad found the wallet!"

It had been dropped in this guy Muhammad's taxicab. He went through it, found Nancy's auto insurance card and called the company, which called her. I called him.

Muhammad was a little difficult for me to understand with his accent and my lousy cell, but I made out that he was working and would meet me in an hour or so at Union Square.

When I got there, out of a pack of cabs, one pulled to a stop and double-parked close by.

"Mister Michael. It's Muhammad from last night. You remember me. From Bangladesh. You knew where I was from. My capital."

"Yeah, of course," I said "Dhaka."

Muhammad smiled big. He handed me the wallet and told me to look at it to make sure everything was there. I handed him five 20s. He said no. I insisted.

Back in L. A., I told a friend this story. He told me, "It restores my faith in humanity."

But faith in humanity does not need to be restored. Humanity is all over the place, shining everyday.

But, just as a backup, know your capitals.

Michael Krikorian, a former Los Angeles Times staff writer, reports for the Watts Labor Community Action Committee.

 

THE ORIGINAL WILD ONE

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This May 2, 1996 L.A. Times front page article was about the 1947 incident that inspired the 1954 Marlon Brando movie "The Wild One". "Wino Willie" Forkner was one of my favorite interviews.  

The Day That Kicked Bikers' Wild Image Into High Gear

Memories: Founders of Boozefighters recall weekend they descended on a small town and ascended into legend.

May 02, 1996 

"What's wrong with society today is there are no more fistfights."

--Sonny Barger, leader of the Hells Angels

Before there was Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels, before there was Marlon Brando and "The Wild One," there was Wino Willie and J.D. and a South-Central Los Angeles motorcycle club called the Boozefighters.

On the Fourth of July, 1947, the Boozefighters invaded the Central California hamlet of Hollister and, as Life magazine memorialized it, took over the town.

The incident set off a growing fascination with outlaw bikers, culminating in Brando's legendary "The Wild One" in 1954, with one exchange that still reverberates: "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?" Brando's character was asked. "Whatdaya got?" he snapped.

Today, 75-year-old Wino Willie Forkner and 80-year-old J.D. Cameron--the last surviving founders of the Boozefighters--look back on their legacy with amusement. To visit with them in Cameron's La Mirada home is to recall a distant time when postwar America was bursting with unfocused energy.

"It was a time when you could have a fistfight with someone and when it was over, you'd have a beer together," says Cameron, who made his living in the freight-unloading and trucking businesses, where he employed Willie. "This was way before all this guns and dope crap."

"Yeah, we just had a little fun," says Forkner, a barrel-chested World War II vet with pinkies as thick as thumbs who lives in Fort Bragg, Calif., and still rides his motorcycle. "We didn't do anything wrong."

What happened in Hollister, they remember, started with city-approved street racing on the main drag, San Benito Street.

Well, maybe a little more. J.D. allows that he may have had a few fistfights.

And then Wino Willie begins talking about a town drunk who came into one of the bars.

"Me, Kokomo and Gas House Wilson started buying him wine," Willie says. "After his third glass, he fell over. So we tied him to this wheelchair, tied the chair to some car and dragged him around town. I looked back and he had fallen out of the chair.

"So we put him on the hood and started driving again. Slowly. But he looked like he wasn't breathing, so we thought he was dead. We dropped him in an alley, covered him up with papers and took off.

*

"Man, later that day, when I was in jail, I looked over, and there he was, making a ruckus. It's damn hard to kill a drunk."

Wino Willie, who got his nickname as a 7-year-old boy in Fresno when he would visit local wineries and indulge in the latest vintage, had landed in Hollister's jail on the charges of inciting a riot. Of course, he tells a different story.

"They had arrested Red [another of the Boozefighters] for drunk and disorderly, and a bunch of the guys had gone over to the jail to break him out. Man, I went over there and told the fellas, 'Let's forget this Wild West stuff. Red needs a rest.' But, of course, the cops figured I was the leader, and they grabbed me. Later that day, the judge says he'll let me out if I listen to my wife. I told him, 'Hell no. I haven't listened to her yet and I'm not gonna start,' " he said, laughing.

What caused a national stir was not the incident itself, or a San Francisco Chronicle article that described the events as "the worst 40 hours in the history of Hollister," but a single photograph in Life magazine. It showed a large, leather-jacketed man guzzling beer on a Harley with a pile of broken beer bottles lying near his front tire. J.D. and Wino to this day are infuriated by the photograph, saying it was staged.

Life's one-page layout led to a Harper's Weekly article by Frank Rooney, "The Cyclist's Raid," which led to the Brando movie, which sent the image of bikers downhill faster then a wheelie on a steep hill climb.

"I hated that movie," says Cameron.

The most glaring discrepancy between the actual event and the movie was that, unlike the film, in which a sleepy town is stunned by an unexpected invasion of a motorcycle gang, Hollister was waiting with open arms for thousands of bikers to converge there.

For more than a decade the American Motorcycle Assn. had sanctioned an event in Hollister. So on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947, an estimated 4,000 motorcyclists descended on the city of 5,000.

What set that year's event apart from the others was that this time 15 members of the Boozefighters rode north from Los Angeles.

Although the Boozefighters were never mentioned in the Life spread or the Brando movie, word of mouth spread. Their name was a perfect fit, and soon all the biking world knew.

The Boozefighters had been formed in 1946 at the All American Cafe, a small beer joint on Firestone Boulevard near Hooper Avenue, just north of Watts. Many of the members, including Cameron and Forkner, were married. They were, by and large, a bunch of guys who loved to race motorcycles and drink beer.

John Cameron was born in 1915 in Oregon and began racing motorcycles when he was 15. He was rejected for the war because of injuries from a series of crashes. He came down to Los Angeles and bought a small freight train unloading business, where he met William Forkner in 1942.

Forkner, five years younger, had grown up in Fresno, where he expanded his early appreciation of fermented grape juice. Survival in the Pacific during World War II developed his zest for kicks. One day, the Army Air Corps took him off his B-24 bomber because it needed him on another. While on a mission over Iwo Jima, he watched in horror as his regular B-24 exploded and crashed.

"When I came back, we were hanging out at the club and we figured, 'Let's have fun. This is what we fought to protect,' " Forkner said.

The days after the vets came back were "a special time," added Cameron. "People were happy the war was over and we just wanted to enjoy life."

Goldie Miller, a Fremont High graduate, met Cameron and Forkner at the All American Club.

"They were some real characters," says Miller, 74, herself "a free spirit back then. They just loved to party. They wanted to be big-time professional racers, but that never happened. Sometimes they'd go out to the parking lot and duke it out, then come back in for another beer."

Miller was at the Hollister event, but her recollection is fuzzy at best.

"I don't remember a whole lot. I was into having fun too. If I was making book, I wouldn't have given any of them a chance to make it to 40. But, really, they were very nice people. And you knew nobody was gonna mess with you if you were with them."

*

The next year in Riverside, another ruckus promoted the Boozefighters' reputation for wildness. The club continued to be active through the 1950s, then simmered down. By 1970 the aging members had scattered throughout the country. Cameron bought a trucking business and kept in touch with Forkner, who was working as a trucker.

Forkner--and Cameron, if heart problems don't hold him back--may be heading back to Hollister.

Now a city of 24,000 that bills itself as the earthquake capital of the world, Hollister is already vibrating about the 50th anniversary of the "invasion" next year. Police and merchants believe that as many as 100,000 motorcycle enthusiasts from around the world may converge there on the Fourth of July weekend in 1997. Several groups are vying to put on a trial run celebration this summer.

At Johnny's, one of the bars the Boozefighters patronized in 1947, owner Charise Tyson is looking forward to the day when the bikers return to Hollister.

"I can't wait. We're gonna do big business," Tyson said. "I'm not really concerned about violence. Heck, even the Garlic Festival (in nearby Gilroy) has its problems."

Across the street at Bob's Video, owner Bob Valenzuela is also in favor of the event. "People will be coming here from all over the world because they know about Hollister from the movie," he said. "This is truly holy ground for motorcyclists. It is Mecca."

Today, the Boozefighters motorcycle club still exists, but it is centered in Fort Worth. Comparisons to the original club are like comparing the cushy, soft-tailed, muffled rides of today's bikes with the rigid framed, roaring Harleys of old. The club, with chapters in Virginia, New York and California, has strict rules of conduct and members include doctors, lawyers and law enforcement officers.

Wino Willie and J.D. sneer at the new leadership. "When I met them they came dressed like business people," Wino Willie says. "Today, it's all about greed. We never made a dime off of this whole thing, and we don't care either."

Wino Willie visited J.D. again last week.

"He told me, 'Well, Wino, I'm dying,' " Willie said. "And unless he gets this pig valve operation, he will. But he's not a complainer."

Cameron, a tall, well-built man, says merely that he's going in for an operation Tuesday. Then he says, "We just wanted to have some fun. And we sure did."

One more question lingers. What were the real Wild Ones rebelling against?

J.D. pauses for a few seconds.

"Well, I guess I'm rebelling against discrimination. Ya know, all kinds, but for me, just because someone's a biker, they got rules against you."

And Wino Willie?

"I guess it's the establishment that I spent three years fighting for," he says. "You take off the khakis and the blue and put on some jeans and a leather jacket and immediately you become an asshole."

 

LA Times Magazine - "War of the Roses"

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Technically, He Shouldn't Have Been Harvesting the Blossoms in His Ex-Girlfriend's Garden. But Their Nurturing Had Been a Labor of Love.

June 14, 1998|MICHAEL KRIKORIAN | Michael Krikorian, who covered South-Central Los Angeles and Watts for The Times, is now a writer based in Fresno

I committed a burglary recently.

On a spring midnight, I parked my Ford pickup truck on a quiet street in Garden Grove and surveyed the neighborhood. Heart pounding, I grabbed my burglary tool and walked toward the front door of the house on Richmond Avenue.

I'll admit I wasn't the coolest thief in town--certainly not a Cary Grant. After all, I hadn't burgled in the nearly 30 years since my cousins Dave, Jeff and Richard and I broke into Uncle Popkin's house in Eagle Rock to steal shish kebab. Neighbors called the police and soon a cop chopper whirled above the hilly neighborhood searching for us--successfully. The cops let us go. Our parents weren't so kind.

But failure be damned; at age 43 I was compelled to strike again.

Just as I neared the treasures, the security lights of the beige-and-blue four-bedroom house blew my cover. No greater spotlight ever shone on any performer on Broadway or any convict scaling the wall at Folsom. I felt the eyes of the world--or at least Orange County--upon me. How could I have been so careless to forget the security lights? I had installed them myself five years ago for my former girlfriend, Carol.

But I had crossed the Rubicon. I took the tool of choice, a Swiss-made Felco hand pruner, and went to work.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Better go. Don't push it. The cops could be on their way--and how would I explain this midnight foray on a home that Carol has rented to strangers for the past two years? I quicklyran/walked back to the truck and escaped into the night.

Two blocks away, I turned on the interior light and admired my loot. Tiffany. Paradise. Double Delight. Three breathtakingly beautiful roses.

I don't know what the courts would have ruled had I been caught. But perhaps they might have been sympathetic; I had planted these roses.

From 1989 to 1994, roses, along with dining at the world's best French restaurants, were Carol's and my No. 1 hobby. And while dinner at the Girardet restaurant in Crissier, Switzerland, and Joel Robuchon in Paris set me back a sumptuous grand, one good rosebush cost a sawbuck and, with proper care, will outlive me.

I planted 33 roses at Carol's house. At my Dad's home in Gardena, where I usually was when I wasn't at Carol's, I planted 28.

We joined the American Rose Society. We entered the Pasadena Rose Show in 1993, winning three second-place red ribbons (for Paradise, Brandy and Color Magic).

Then, after nearly six years together, Carol and I broke up. There was no court settlement. She would get custody of the roses. I would get nothing. Not even visitation rights.

Until recently, I lived in Los Feliz Village, where I had rented a small bungalow with a yard--actually a flower bed. Well, it was more like a flower cot. I had one rose in the ground, First Prize, a two-toned pink rose with little fragrance but blooms as big as dinner plates.

In a round wooden container, I raised a vermilion hybrid tea called Granada. I positioned the pot near the entrance to my place. When someone asked me about my dwelling, I sometimes said, "I can look out my front door and see Granada."

Most people are surprised when I tell them I'm into roses in such a big way. They think I'm kidding when I say I'm a member of the American Rose Society. I have to pull out my tattered card to prove it. (It's the only society I've ever belonged to.)

But I guess I can see their point. I don't come off as the typical rosarian.

I've been a street reporter covering South-Central and Watts. I've gone to housing projects late at night and sipped Olde English 800 with the homeboys. I know guys named Big Evil, Mad Dog and Snipe. I wear a lot of dark clothing. I have a couple of scars on my forehead from disastrous street battles in the '70s.

I may act like a tough guy sometimes, but if someone showed me a Double Delight in the middle of a street fight, I might stop and stare for a few seconds. God forbid any of the fellas should read this.

My mother was named Rose, and two years after she died, I started buying them. Her name helped, but I just happen to like the look of a good garden rose. I like the variety, the different names. I like working in the garden and feeding them, and I like putting the cut flowers in an old Chateau Cheval Blanc bottle, knowing I drank the wine and grew the roses.

I keep my pruners in the car, but not for purposes of theft. I have been known, while waiting for someone--anyone--to wander into a stranger's yard and prune a rosebush that hasn't been cared for since D-day. I've knocked on doors and explained the situation: "Excuse me, I'm just waiting for a friend, and I saw your rosebush could use a little pruning. Would you mind if I clipped it a bit? No charge."

Some people look at me as if I'm a serial killer. Others emerge to discuss their garden; some are ashamed and promise to take better care of their Mister Lincoln (a classic red with fragrance) or Pristine (a delicate off-white tinged with pink, sporting a high center).

The single most stunning rose I've ever grown was a Chicago Peace. I cut the flower, a more deeply colored relative of the world-famous Peace, and gave it to my sister, Jeanine. I must have looked at that rose 70 times and every time I did it made me feel almost spiritual.

I felt the same way as I drove away from Carol's house, gazing at Double Delight, a creamy white flower whose petals are thickly bordered in a brilliant red and whose fragrance is as dreamy as a bouquet of sweet peas. I don't understand guys who try to impress dolls with a dozen red roses from a florist. One Double Delight will do the trick--if the trick can be done.

Technically, I suppose, my raid at Carol's house was a burglary. But, now that I think about it, I'd have to say it was a different kind of crime. In a burglary, you take objects, not living things. No, this was more like a kidnapping.

 

NY Times Magazine "Lives" - Night of 130 Teenagers

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LIVES
By MICHAEL KRIKORIAN

Published: July 9, 2010

My girlfriend Nancy’s 16 year-old son wanted to give a party at her home in Hancock Park, an old, upscale neighborhood in Los Angeles. He said there were going to be about 70 kids attending, almost all of them from his private high school, where the tuition runs more than $20,000 a year. Not exactly my alma mater, Gardena High, if you read me.

After going back and forth, my girlfriend somewhat reluctantly agreed. Her son, Oliver, had been to so many parties at other classmates’ houses, and he’d never asked to have a party at his mother’s house before. Nancy was worried that there would be drinking. Oliver said that some people would try to sneak in alcohol, or might drink before coming in, but that there would be designated drivers and also taxicabs if needed. He also said it wouldn’t get going until about 9:30.

Come party day, a few weeks ago, Nancy went to work at the restaurant she owns. I think she also didn’t want to be at the house during the party. This move left me — someone who was twice convicted of assault for fighting when I was younger — as the only adult at the party.

That afternoon, after loading in a gross of big submarine sandwiches and chips for the kids, I came home and turned on the TV. I watched a World Cup preview piece onDiego Maradona, the great Argentine soccer player. I saw a clip of Frank Sinatra’s return concert in which he sings “Nice ’n’ Easy” while Gene Kelly dances so gracefully around him. And I watched “The Rock,” in which Sean Connery plays a retired British SAS Commando. I didn’t imagine that I might have to be a combination of all these guys to keep everything in order that night.

By 9:30 p.m. there were seven people at the party. By 10 p.m., there were 60. By 11, largely thanks to Facebook, the crowd had swelled to at least 130 teenagers. All in the backyard. One rule Nancy laid down: no one was allowed anywhere in the house except the bathroom at a rear side entrance near the backyard.

I didn’t want to play the warden, so I stayed inside most of the time, making occasional walks through the party. I greeted newcomers by saying: “Welcome to the house. Have a good time. Respect the house. Respect me.” I know how to act tough, and for the most part everyone was well behaved.

On two of my walk-throughs, I saw boys bringing in 12-packs of beer. I told them nicely that they would have to take the beer back to their car. And they did, without hesitation. I smelled pot, but with so many kids I just didn’t think there was much I could do about it.

I went back inside. A friend’s daughter, Ida, who is 16 but doesn’t go to Oliver’s school, came inside with me. A bit later my friend Chris came over, and we all watched TV. “Dirty Harry” was on.

A little after midnight, I made another walk-through. Near the outdoor fireplace I saw a young girl who seemed very woozy. Right as I got to her, she started slumping over, her head dangling toward the concrete floor. Maradona! I thought as I stuck my foot out to guide her head softly to the ground. The Argentine had just saved a girl from a bloody head, or worse.

I helped the girl, who was 15, into the house and laid her out on the front-room couch. Her boyfriend was very apologetic, but I ignored him. I was busy checking the girl’s pulse. I considered calling 911, but her pulse was there. I asked her what two plus two was, and with her head in a closely positioned kitchen trash can, she slowly showed me four fingers. Apparently she came to the party with a Fiji water bottle filled with vodka. The boyfriend called his mother, who got on the phone with me. She arrived 15 minutes later, and the two of them had trouble getting the girl off the couch. That’s when I went into Sean Connery mode: I slung her over my shoulder and began walking her out.

As I reached the door, my friend Chris yelled out, “Be careful on the stairs.” The last thing I needed was to trip down the front steps. Gene Kelly: I thought of his moves in that clip with Frank as I stepped, almost danced, down those eight stairs, and put her in the car. (I checked on her the next day. After sleeping it off until late in the afternoon, the girl was O.K.)

Meanwhile, the party in the back didn’t skip a beat. No one even noticed what happened with the girl. But it wasn’t long before I started telling people it was time to go, polite-Dirty-Harry style. And they did.

 

NY Times Magazine "Lives" The Namesake

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 Back in 1985, while working at Hughes Aircraft in Long Beach, Calif., I met a fine young woman named Addie. She worked in a different department, but whenever I saw her, I’d flirt with her. Eventually she became my girlfriend. I was a fixture at her mother’s house in the Fruit Town ’hood where Addie lived with her two sons. It was known as Fruit Town because of the names of the streets — Cherry, Peach, Pear — and it was one of the roughest neighborhoods in Compton, home of the Fruit Town Piru gang, one of the original gangs in the confederation known as the Bloods.

It was during this time that the crack epidemic was at its inglorious height. There were dealers up and down Cherry Street, a narrow lane of tattered two-bedroom homes. My girlfriend became hooked on crack. Some nights she wouldn’t come home. But I stayed with her and tried in vain to get her to stop. When you love someone who is on crack, you can’t help trying to get them to quit.

Like the fool I was, I continued to have unprotected sex with her. She became pregnant. I wondered if I was the father. Addie swore tearfully I was. When the baby was born, he didn’t really look like me, but he did have a bit of a hooked nose like mine. I put my trust in that nose.

Addie named the boy Michael Krikorian Jr. For the first two years of his life, I bought almost every sip of Similac, slurp of food and batch of diapers. Finally one day, Addie’s sister Kathy called me an idiot and told me he wasn’t my kid. Something I knew deep down. Eventually Addie admitted it to me. Still, the kid didn’t have a real father, so I continued to help out. (The biological father was a dealer up the street. He died eight years ago from a heart attack.)

Even after Addie and I split, I would still drop in on Li’l Mike. When he saw me walk in the door, he’d get this really big smile on his face, rush over and punch me in the leg. But eventually the visits faded, and the last time I saw Mike he was maybe 6 or 7 years old. Then last summer, Addie called. I hadn’t spoken to her in years. Michael, now 19, had been arrested and charged with a gang-related murder.

One morning a few weeks later, I went over to the notorious Men’s Central Jail, where half a dozen inmates have been killed in the last few years. I got in the dreaded line of visitors who wait outside to see loved ones. You really do have to love the person who’s incarcerated to get in that damn line. It felt as long as a football field.

Michael Jr., I learned from Addie, had joined the Neighborhood Compton Crips. As I waited in line, I wondered where Li’l Mike would be today if I really were his father and had raised him. And I wondered where I would be if it hadn’t been for my own father. Maybe I’d be there, too. I got into trouble twice as an adult, and both times my dad came to my rescue.

After about 90 minutes outside, I was let into the jail’s waiting room — a depressing place with flies and swarms of little kids running around. Finally, after another hour and a half, a deputy called out Michael’s name.

I went to Row F, Seat 14, and there he was, waiting on the other side of a pitted glass partition. He looked good — lean and muscular, like a cornerback or a wide receiver. Li’l Mike is now 6-foot-2, 205 pounds.

He looked at me as if to say: “Why you sitting here? You must have the wrong seat.” I just sat there looking at him. Slowly, the past came back: a lopsided grin, then a smile, then the big smile I remember. That recognition was sweet. It took a minute for the phones to work, so we just kept staring at each other. Then the phones came on.

“Do you know my name?” I asked him.

He just started laughing. “Yeah,” he said. “You got a cool name.”

We talked about his life — his brothers, his schooling, his plans if the case goes his way. He asked me to send him a certain book, but it had to be a paperback. I said I would. I told him I was sorry I didn’t have any cash that day to leave for him. “That’s all right,” he said with a warm, sincere smile. “The visit is greatly appreciated.” I said something stupid like, “Hang in there,” and then put my left fist up to the glass. His fist met mine.

As I walked outside into the fresh air, I thought about him sleeping in that jail. I prayed he wouldn’t be found guilty, though the trial wouldn’t be for months. I figured I’d go back and visit him again. Damn that damn line.

It's rough being gay in the projects

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A Gay Leader Emerges in the 'Hood

Deshawn Cole came out at Watts' Imperial Courts project, blazing an inner-city trail

Apr 4 2013

Asked if being poor, black and gay hurt him at the start of his career, author James Baldwinfamously replied that his situation "was so outrageous ... you had to find a way to use it." Deshawn Cole knows outrageous and he, too, is trying to make the most of being a young, gay, black man — at Imperial Courts public housing project in Watts, where coming out has long been scorned as a manhood wasted.

 

"Early on I knew I was different," says Cole, 23, who lives at the project and works in its on-site recreation center for the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. "I was always a leader. ... When I saw someone who was outspoken or different, they had to be in my circle."  

As a teen, Cole says, "I know I confused people — it was fun. It was, like, 'This guy is doing cheerleading — gay. But he's playing football and fighting — can't be gay.' "

Gallup poll data show that 3.6 percent of blacks identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, as do 3.5 percent of all Americans. But against the backdrop of the recent U.S. Supreme Court hearings on same-sex marriage, there's still a strong anti-gay taboo in many inner-city communities. Pew Research Centerfound that while Latino support for gay marriage has surged to 59 percent, the longtime low support by blacks for gay marriage has edged up to just 38 percent. In 2008, many Latinos and blacks voted in favor of Proposition 8 to ban same-sex marriage.

At Imperial Courts, which gained infamy as a violent bastion of the Project Watts Crips (PJs) gang, Cole, who supports gay marriage, is said by many to be the first boy to live openly as a homosexual. His mother, Cynthia Mendenhall, says, "De­shawn wasn't the first gay person in the Courts, but he was the first one to really be proud of it and come out" about a decade ago.

Cole sees attitudes — even among many PJs — finally changing. Subjected as a youth to countless sexual slurs — Cole estimates that "back in the day" he was called "faggot" several thousand times — he pushed back as a student at Ritter Elementary School and Markham Middle School, jumping into fistfights and finally revealing his sexuality to his disapproving father.

Cole has become a respected community figure whose principles have earned him an unusual form of street cred: tough, kind-hearted — and out.

Imperial Courts resident Ruben Quintana, 25, calls Cole "part of the reason things are changing around here." Quintana, who is straight, says, "In a way, he's like a leader in the gay rights movement the way people were leaders in the civil rights movement."

Mendenhall, known as "Sista," a former PJ Crip–turned–gang interventionist and member of the Watts Gang Task Force, explains, "He's been a mentor to a lot of young people, both straight and gay." When her son was small, "Lots of people told me he's just confused," she recalls. "They said it was a devil. They told me to pray our way out of this. They thought they meant well."

In 2007 Cole graduated from Compton's Dominguez High School and completed a certified course at Marinello Schools of Beauty in Paramount. He still loves to "do hair" — his own, when straightened, flows in a ponytail to his midback. But last year, he found a rewarding calling as a recreational aide at Imperial Courts Recreation Center, where he had long volunteered.

"He's a major asset to Imperial Courts," says Alea Douglas, a Rec & Parks coordinator. "He's talented, he's creative, he's dedicated and he's a team player. The kids here are lucky to have him."

Many who live in the 490-unit housing project, which is calmer than it once was, admire Cole. One day, as he discusses plans for the Dynasty Imperial High Kickers Drill Team and Drum Squadthat he coaches at the recreation center, a little Latino girl arcing on a nearby swing calls out: "Deshawn! Deshawn! You know my eighth birthday is coming up, right?"

"Happy birthday, girl. When is it?" She gives him the date — it's more than five weeks away. "OK. We'll have a party."

When Cole was a student at troubled Markham Middle School, which sits almost in the bull's-eye of Imperial Courts and its rival projects, Jordan Downs and Nickerson Gardens, he remembers "fighting on two fronts," one over gang turf, the other over his sexual orientation. (Cole's brothers Tony and Darrian, both PJs, died violently.)

His mother recalls, "Security guards, some teachers, they would say in a low-key way it was his fault" that other students harassed him. "Like, 'Why does he have to dress that way?' or 'He's asking for it being like that.' But I never gave up on supporting his dreams."

Cole lived in particular anguish over what his strict, military-bearing father thought. "What father wants a gay boy?" Cole asks. "Do you think when a wife is pregnant, the husband says, 'I hope he turns out gay?' "

His father, Dwight Cole, 54, is stout and muscular, a no-nonsense, retired National Guard veteran. "Look, I felt he was gay, but I wanted him to tell me," his father says. "Everybody kept telling me, but I wanted him to tell me."

Once Deshawn did tell his father, Dwight Cole informed him that he could not join drill team or engage in other nontraditional activities. "I ain't gonna lie. It hurt," he says. "You want your boys to have kids. Carry on the name. Any father wants that. Even if your daughter is gay, you want her to have kids. That's just the way it is. But I love Deshawn."

In Watts, respect is vital. In Imperial Courts, a lot of that respect must come from the PJs. Cole is not an active gang member, but he acknowledges, "Just by living in the projects, you're already from the gang. So you might as well say, 'I'm from PJs.' "

It was Deshawn's fistfight in 2004 or 2005 with his brother Darrian that convinced many local toughs to grudgingly accept a gay youth in the hood.

As Dwight Cole explains, he'd told Darrian, " 'This is not your life. If your brother is gay, he's gay.' ... But Darrian wouldn't accept him." Darrian often belittled Deshawn, saying he was going to "beat the gayness" out of him. His dad finally told Deshawn "he was going to have to fight Darrian to get his respect." Cole decided his father was right. "I stepped up for myself. A 'faggot' is a sissy boy. I'm a gay boy — I'd step up to them."

Their wild fistfight "tore up the house," says his father. "But in the end, Deshawn had whipped him out of the house."

That violent episode is partly how Cole won respect at Imperial Courts. But, just as importantly, he freely embraced others. Close friend Paul Cook says that without Cole, he wouldn't be out of the closet. "He helped pave the way for me in terms of being gay," says Cook, whom Cole teases with the nickname "Paulette, my daughter."

There are still misconceptions and anti-gay sentiment in Watts. One area resident, admired by some for his knockout punch, explained to L.A. Weekly: "In the body there are male hormones and female hormones. In Deshawn's body it was like they had a war, the male hormones against the females hormones, and the bitches won."

Told of this theory, Cole starts laughing.

Another prominent Watts figure wondered: "Was he born this way or did he get 'turned out?' " — implying Cole was changed by a sexual attack. That gets a "Stupid" response from Cole.

Imperial Courts is seen by many as a gang-infested hellhole, a vast concrete corral one step up from homelessness for single mothers and unemployed men who hang out on corners to drink and sell drugs.

Some of that can be found at Imperial Courts. But what also is found there is a keen sense of community that's stronger than in the vast majority of L.A. neighborhoods.

One March evening, Deshawn Cole and Cynthia Mendenhall linger for more than an hour on a sidewalk in the heart of the project, saying, "Hi, baby" and "What up, boo" to about 60 neighbors who pass by.

Cole's mother explains, "It wasn't at all acceptable until Deshawn came out." But even as she speaks, several young people near the recreation center start yelling at an effeminate young man, shouting "Bitch!" and "You look like a girl!"

"Hear that?" Mendenhall asks. "That boy is gay, and he dresses and acts just like a woman. ... So they giving him a hard time. Deshawn tries to mentor him. Let him know he can't be too, what's the word —  flamboyant — around here."

For all that's changing, she says, "What we need is a gay and lesbian center right here in Watts. ... People in Watts, South Central and Compton, they need somewhere to go if they need counseling. They shouldn't have to go all the way to Hollywood. Hollywood needs to come here."

LA Times Op-Ed - My Improbable Redemption

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This was published in December 9, 2012 in the LA Times Op-Ed Section. 

When Big Cat heard of my latest Smirnoff defeat, he sent a letter that inspired me to stay sober.

December 09, 2012 | By Michael Krikorian

In 1985, I shot someone.

It happened outside the Rustic Inn, a bar in an unincorporated section of Los Angeles near Compton, which was where I spent most of my free time back then.

Moments before the shooting, I had been in a barroom brawl. My friend George and I were drinking Heinekens and taking sips off a half-pint of Seagram's VO we'd stashed atop a rickety wooden beam at the beer-only bar's side-porch entrance.

Three guys walked in and began staring at us. George, a big guy quick to unleash his fists, asked them — in Comptonese — what they were looking at. It was on.

I'm not a great brawler, but I'm a good friend, and I couldn't let George go one-on-three. The fight moved two steps down from the bar where two pool tables sat — five men punching, kicking, gouging, ducking, yelling, swinging pool sticks, hurling pool balls. My most vivid memory of the fight is an orange-and-white pool ball whizzing by my face and — amid all that chaos — thinking to myself, "That's the 13."

George and I got the upper hand and the three guys ran outside, one of them yelling, "Get the gun." That was chilling, even to a drunk.

It just so happened I had an AK-47 in my trunk that night.

Come on now? Really? It "just so happened"?

It did. Two days earlier, my cousin Lynn told me her husband did not want me to stash "that machine gun" at their Torrance house anymore. I picked it up and put it in my trunk.

As the three guys got to their car, I popped that trunk. I fired 17 rounds, I later discovered. I tell myself I fired to scare them off, not to hit or kill. But one 7.62-mm bullet hit a leg. Another busted a window and went into the wall of a room where two people were lying. I could have killed them both.

Witnesses led detectives to me. I was arrested for several crimes, including attempted murder. I faced 15 to life. I remember hoping, wishing, even praying I would only get six years in prison and do three.

But because my father paid $5,000 for a lawyer, because of a "them or me" argument, a plea deal, and because I'm Caucasian, I got 30 days in the county jail. Thirty days! If I was black and had a public defender, no doubt I'd have been Folsom-bound.

I quit drinking after that. In the 1990s, I was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times covering Watts and South Central. I've often said a political reporter should know something about politics, a medical writer should know about medicine, and a crime reporter — well, you get the idea. I became friends with gang members. When they went to prison, I'd write to them, and sometimes enclose a $20 money order or a book.

They wrote back. They were not forgotten. They appreciated it. Some shouldn't have been in prison. Others, like me, should have.

Never one to analyze my actions too closely, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that it struck me that one reason I wrote those letters was because it could've been me in there. It wasn't that I felt guilty. I was guilty.

It could have been me thinking, "I'm gone and forgotten." How good it would have been to get a letter, to get 20 bucks, to get a book that would take me outside the prison walls for 300 pages.

My sobriety lasted years. Then I decided I could handle a beer, a glass or two of red wine, and still stop. Surprise! I couldn't. So, after a few months of drinking, I'd quit again for month or two. This went on for years. I never intended to quit for good. I was just "on the wagon" and looking forward to tumbling off.

But earlier this year, I went on a wretched binge. Two 750s of Smirnoff ruined my balance. I tripped and cracked open the back of my head on the bedroom dresser. Blood spurted onto three walls. My girlfriend was out of town, but my sister, warned by worried friends, came to the house that day. She walked into that horrific scene. She got me to an emergency room. Twelve staples in my head.

That was eight months ago. I quit drinking. Again. But now I no longer say I'm on the wagon. I say, "After a long and storied career, I have retired."

Early on, I went to a few AA meetings. I don't like them. Maybe I hit the wrong meetings, but they seem to focus on backsliding, and how you can come back from it. I don't want to hear that.

I know I can't drink anymore. I also know that maybe I will. I can't even say with certainty that I won't be drunk when I read this in the paper. But don't bet on it.

I bring all this up because those letters I sent to prisons paid off recently. I heard from an inmate, Kevin "Big Cat" Doucette, a legendary shot caller for one of L.A.'s most notorious street gangs, the Rolling 60s Crips. Many years ago, police described him as one who "instills fear in the neighborhood."

He's also my friend. I've known him for 17 years. Somehow, Cat heard of my latest, inglorious Smirnoff defeat and sent a letter that inspired me to stay sober more than any AA testimony group session.

After two paragraphs describing life in federal prison, he switched his tone. Here's what he wrote, as he wrote it:

"My dude, you and drinking, yall dont go together at all.... Anything that you cant control that controls you; that aint tha set, Mike! I've got love for you, so when I speak as I do, know that I mean nothing but good: find you another high in life. A positive one ... try life itself. My Man, we both know that life is to short as it is for us to be twisted on anything, fo real it is."

I keep that letter in my wallet. It reminds me of drinking. It reminds me of prison. It reminds me of two people lying in a room my bullets invaded.

http://articles.latimes.com/print/2012/dec/09/opinion/la-oe-1209-krikorian-arrest-prison-shooting-20121209