The Los Angeles Examiner, vanguard of "Fictional Journalism", is Going Public

I want to introduce you to “The Los Angeles Examiner", the vanguard of what I’ve trademarked as "Fictional Journalism".

The Examiner, aka the Mozza Tribune, will feature a "front page article" about someone you care about, complete with a banner headline and photographs.  This article will be written by me, Michael Krikorian, an award winning journalist, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, Fresno Bee and freelancer for L.A. Weekly, the Armenian news CivilNet and some others. 

As you have figured out by my "fictional journalism", the story will be made up, but with your essential help.  I will interview you and whoever else you might suggest and incorporate this into the story.  Among my questions would be “What are a few of our subject's favorite things in life?   By "things" I may mean hobbies, activities, songs, singers movies, actors, historical eras and people. Anything they love.  Then I will write the FJ, fictional journalism about them.  

As an example, recently. my girlfriend's 5-year-old grandson Ike won a trophy at a soccer camp.  I wrote about that with FJ added to include he beat out soccer great Lionel Messi, who was "quoted" in the article.  I like to think that 20, 30 years from now when Ike stumbles on the Tribune article in a desk drawer, he will have a fond memory.

That is part of what I am offering you; A fond memory years from now and a good smile and warmth in your heart the day the Tribune on your loved one comes out.

But more than that, the Examiner is for someone who might be down and out, might even be quite sick.  I am here with my Fictional Journalism to lift them up. Maybe the story I am proudest of was one about Paul Schrade, a friend of Nancy and mine and the former head of the United Auto Workers. Paul was shot in the head in 1968 along with Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel. Paul lived 54 years before he showed up for his “Reservation” for dinner with Bobby at heaven’s greatest restaurant. Read it below and hopefully you’ll understand what FJ is about.

A full front-page article with photos is $75. However, a story can go on for pages, if so desired.

HISTORY - The beginning of Fictional Journalism, at least when I first got paid for it, goes back to 1974 when Cycle News published a piece I wrote about motocross. What made me most proud, well, after seeing my byline, was that Cycle News never published fiction. Yet here was my story about the Motocross Mafia conspiring against Belgian champion Joel Robert. That was 50 years ago. Crazy.

Since then I have dabbled at FJ, including a series of stories about Nancy and our friends entitled “Our Dysfunctional Family” which provided an often needed laugh to our, well, our dysfunctional families.

PRESENT - What really kicked my fictional journalism into high gear was writing The Mozza Tribune, an in-house newspaper for Nancy Silverton’s restaurants Pizzeria Mozza, Osteria Mozza, Chi Spacca and Mozza2Go. I would and still do, write about the staff and what’s going on. It’s a lotta fun for me and the staff loves it.

I think you’ll get a kick out of it as well.

A KILLING ON BEVERLY BLVD. & A REVIEW OF THE GOLDEN GLOBES, ANOTHER ONLY IN L.A. STORY

A little more than a week ago, on  the day after the Golden Globe Awards, I was having coffee at Go Get Em Tiger on Larchmont Boulevard when I heard a story that made the word “surreal” come alive for me and exemplified the worst and best of L.A. 

I was  at a four-top surrounded by  10 other people on the sidewalk patio, most of us semi-regulars who frequent the coffeeshop  for our morning world news report.

Off to my left, some folks were reviewing the awards show.  “The Bear” did well. Jo Koy soldiered on despite several duds.  DeNiro, Meryl were there. That Ali Wong, from “Beef” showed up It was a mediocre review.  

As they compared notes,  the guy to my right,  David Strah, said, ‘Man, I had an experience last night I gotta tell you about.”

Strah, a psychotherapist and author of “Gay Dads”, was returning home Sunday night around 6:30 p.m. with his partner Brad and a friend from “a wonderful, uplifting, fantastical experience” at Luna Luna, on exhibit on 6th Street. It’s an amusement park/art installation by David Hockney, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others, including the artist I think of whenever I hear the word “surrealism”, Salvador Dali. First assembled in the 1980s, then mothballed, it has been brought back into existence in L.A. by Drake, the Canadian rapper. 

As Strah and his companions  drove home west-bound on Beverly Boulevard  near Hoover Street, the car in front of them swerved to go around something in the road. Strah’s group realized it was a man in the street. Their first thought was that a drunk had passed out. They  pulled over and called 911. 

“Is he moving?” the operator asked. No, they said, but it was dark. “Can you get out of the car and see what’s going on?” They did and reported back. He was  barely conscious, in a bad way.   “Can you start doing chest compressions?”

Strah went into action. “I straddled him and started pumping away. It was pretty gruesome. His mouth was moving and his eyes were open but not looking at me.”

Then they saw how much blood there was.  On the sidewalk 10 feet away. On the man’s shoulder and all the way down to his waist, and now all over  Strah’s hands. Dark, nearly black blood.

The coffee drinkers across from Strah and me were still talking about the TV show.  Taylor Swift apparently was not very pleased with a dig Koy delivered  about her. Only in L.A. does a man found bleeding in the street compete with an awards show review for attention around a coffee shop table. 

After about six minutes, Strah continued,  paramedics and LAPD showed up and took over. Strah and friends left. One , circled back after he dropped of the other two. He learned that the man had died. This was not text news, so he drove back to tell his friends. 

Damn,” I said to Dave. “After Luna Luna, and Salvador Dali,  you come across surreal for real. Turbocharged surreal.” 

The next day, I went to the northeast corner of Beverly and Hoover and tried to find out something more about the man who died. To humanize him. 

Calls to the homicide detective from Central Bureau who is handling the case  and the L.A. County Coroner’s press office confirmed the incident, but not much more. Same with LAPD press relations. The victim was white, about 45- 50 and had been shot multiple times. 

Where he died, there is an abandoned minimall scrawled with graffiti. I found a homeless man in a tent who said he  knew the victim. “Yeah, he was homeless, and he was always nice to me. But I know he was aggressive with a lot of people down the block. It’s sad.”

All homicides tell a sad story. But for me, this story was more about David, Brad and Kirby, the guys who stopped. Out of dozens of cars that sped by the corner, some surely close enough to see the altercation or the result, these three tried to help a stranger. 

They inspired me.  Not that what I did next  remotely compares. 

On my way to an ATM at the corner of 1st Street and Larchmont on Friday, I saw  a car with its hood up and a guy looking at the engine.  After I did my banking  the man  was still there. I  asked what was wrong. 

The engine had overheated  and he couldn’t open the radiator cap to put in some coolant.   I am something  of an expert on overheated cars. I  got the radiator cap off, the coolant got administered.  The man asked my name as I was walking away and said, “Thank you, Mister Mike.”

I thought, “No, thank David Strah and his friends.  

Yesterday, Tuesday, I heard agaon from the coroner’s office. They still hadn’t found any of the victim’s family.

Anyway, did you happen to see the Emmys on Monday?      







MADD RONNIE'S FINAL STEPS TO SIXTIES IN PEACE

 A few weeks ago I cell phoned Big Cat, a legendary member of the Rollin’ 60s Crips, who the LAPD described in a 2003 injunction against his Crenshaw/Hyde Park-based street gang as “a shot caller…… who instills fear in the neighborhood.”  I could see that, back in the day. Big Cat, who legally goes by Kevin Doucette, happens to be an old friend of mine who I met about 28 years ago while covering Watts and South Central for the Times and who has helped me out in dark times. In 1998, I wrote an article about him at a meeting led by his brother Mustafa, aka Li’l Cat, and Malik Spellman trying to quell gang violence in Inglewood.

Anyway, he answered my phone call, I asked how he was doing and he said, “I’m heartbroken.”

Heartbroken? Big bad Big Cat heartbroken? Heartbroken is for some 13-year-old Emma whose crush went to see “Barbie” with a 14-year-old. 

But Big Cat heartbroken?  What the hell happened?  He told me.

“They killed Madd Ronnie,” Kevin Doucette said in his trademark gravelly voice. Wow, I thought, Madd Ronnie got killed. Big Cat continued.  “They shot Madd. Some 16, 17-year-old kid jumped out the car and started blasting. I got shot in the thigh. Again. But Madd is dead.  Believe that? Madd Ronnie is dead.”

Madd Ronnie, aka Grant Lyons, born 11/27/63 was killed 8/19/23, exactly 100 days shy of his 60th birthday, something he was – in his “theatrical fashion” – making a big deal about. “60 for 60!” he would say. “A 60 turning 60!”    I guess being in the Rollin 60s and making it to 60 years of age is quite an accomplishment.

Madd and Big Cat and several others were hanging out that summer evening around 6:30 p.m. in front of a house on Keniston Avenue and 58th Place, a few blocks west of West Blvd, a couple south of Slauson, a block from Momma Kris Child Care Center. Nearby liquor surveillance video captures a car driving by and, shortly after driving by again, and parking. The young shooter exits the car and almost immediately begins firing. The first four bullets hit two parked white cars.

 “I thought it was firecrackers.” said Big Cat who was with others sitting on milk crates and shooting the breeze.  Madd Ronnie was standing, his back to the shots. Suddenly, he lurches forward, his back arches. Grant Lyles takes three or four stutter-steps, his last, and he starts to fall.

“I got up to break his fall, but I got shot in the leg,” Big Cat said. “I‘m trying to pull him closer to a car so it can shield us and I held him. Madd Ronnie took his last breath. I had held another homie long time ago and I know the last breath. His lungs make this gargled fast whoosh sound. There’s the whoosh and air and blood come out of his mouth. His last breath. I laid him down.”

Personally. I had never met Madd Ronnie aka Grant Lyons, but I’d heard of him for ages. I guess it was something about his street name that intrigued me. What was he so mad about that it became key to his streetname? 

Even in the 2003 gang injunction prepared largely in part by an officer Jeffrey Martin #32877, a major portion of the two-page report on Grant Lyons talks about his anger and mentions him often yelling at officers and calling them “bitches”, giving them the middle finger. The report says Lyons would yell at them “I’m Madd Ronnie!” and “This is my hood!” as his middle finger reverse-saluted them.

Some of his fellow 60s told me he would cuss out police more than anyone they knew. If calling an LAPD officer a “bitch” was the equivalent of a Major League Baseball home run then Grant “Mad Ronnie” Lyons would have been Barry Bonds.

But the “mad” face, the scowl, was often just an act, his homies said. “Most the time, he was putting on that face and he wasn’t mad about anything,” said a friend.

I’ve covered more than my share of killings, but even I got to wondering why a large swath of our city was in deep mourning over the death of Madd Ronnie. At his funeral last Monday, the several hundred gathered were silent as two white horses pulled a white carriage carrying Madd Ronnie’s casket.  The outpouring of love and ache on Facebook was impressive, too.

After talking a several people who knew him, I figured it out. Madd Ronnie simply loved where he lived. He loved his neighborhood.

“Ronnie promoted the neighborhood,” said his friend of 47 years Tim Chaney, a information system analyst. “Ronnie had been living in Hyde Park/Crenshaw area for 55 years and he truly loved the neighborhood.”

He made this part of Los Angeles seem like a small town where everyone knows each other and looks after each other. It was not unusal for Madd Ronnie to pull up to a friend’s house and the two of them take a walk. And others would join in and, before you knew it, 15, 20 people were in on that walk, stopping in neighborhood clothing shop or a liquor store or a mom-and-pop market. It was not some dangerous ‘hood. It was his ‘hood. He knew and greeted people’s kids, parents and grandparents.

When I suggested that he was loved because he protected the weak from rival gangs, Tim Chaney said “On a pie chart. I would say that was maybe 20% of why he was loved. The main thing was that he promoted the ‘hood. Madd Ronnie loved the ‘hood. This was his home. And he loved it and the people here. That was the biggest difference between Madd and many other people from here. To so many others, it was like a purgatory. A place to make some money and move on. To Ronnie, all of it was a place he loved.”

At the court hearing for the 2003 injunction against the Rollin’ 60s by then city attorney Rockard J. Delgadillo – which made it illegal for two or more to congregate – Madd Ronnie was one of the few who showed up in court to protested to the judge. “Where are my rights to be in my own neighborhood? Why can’t I talk to people in my own neighborhood?”

Chaney tells of one time when the two of them were at a fruit stand near Magic Mountain and Ronnie bought a bag of grapefruits. They came back to the ‘hood. “Ronnie saw an old man sitting alone on a porch and just gave him the bag and they started talking. It was Small Town, USA right there.”

The first thing Big Cat told me about him, after talking about his scowl, was how he was a fist fighter.  “He was devastating. He was fearless. What he detested more than anything was the guys who would go to the gun. Who would not fight and just start shooting. He detested those guys.” 

And that’s who killed him.

That his life was ended in a manner he had long detested, well, maybe it was meant to be. It could prolong his legacy in the Hyde Park neighborhood and maybe beyond if that word is spread and it just becomes common knowledge that shooting someone is simply not cool. It is cowardly,

In the April, 5, 1998 Times article I mentioned up top, part of it included this from Big Cat.

“The killing’s been going on since before you were born. We’ve got to try and show homies how to live, not die.”

Doucette said older gang members need to be at the next meeting.

“A lot of the older guys are no longer actually banging, but they’re like politicians now ordering the young foot soldiers to do the killing,” Doucette said. “We need to get them to the table.”

A quarter century later, even with the tremendous efforts of many, the city of Los Angeles still has many open seats at that table.

 

CLEAMON "BIG EVIL" JOHNSON COULD PAROLE IN “A FEW MONTHS” AFTER TAKING A DEAL

A former gang leader once described by an FBI agent and several LAPD homicide detectives as one of the deadliest men in Los Angeles could be paroled in a few months after he pled “no contest” to a murder and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Thing is Cleamon Johnson, much better - and fearfully - known on the streets as “Big Evil” has already done more than 28 years behind bars for this killing so he could be eligible for parole soon. All added up, including “good time”, Johnson was credited with 13,388 days in custody, more than 36 and a half years. As part of the deal with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, four other murder charges and one attempted murder charge were dropped.

Cleamon has for years said “Cleamon Johnson can get parole. Big Evil can’t.” He told me about four or five years ago that “I’m Cleamon Johnson. I am not Big Evil anymore.”

His lead attorney, Robert M. Sanger, who took on Johnson’s case while he was on Death Row in San Quentin more than 18 years ago, said his client was a changed man. “He was a very nice child with two loving parents and he’s a very nice man now. It was those years in in that neighborhood that made him who he was.”

“That neighborhood” was just north of Watts in Green Meadows, and was the domain of the 89 Family Bloods, a gang of about 50 members who were surrounded on three sides by three large Crip gangs - Kitchen Crips, East Coast Crips and Avalon Gardens Crips - who had more than a thousand members, During “those years’, the 1980s and 90s, it was among the most dangerous neighborhoods in America.

Johnson was sentenced to death on Sept. 30, 1997 for ordering the killings of Peyton Beroit - the murder he pled to Wednesday - and Donald Ray Loggins who were at a car wash on Aug. 5, 1991 near his home on 88th Street west of Central Avenue. Johnson, and the man who allegedly did the killing, Michael “Fat Rat” Allen, were sent to Death Row at San Quentin.

About 13 years later, the California Superme Court overturned the decision because they ruled the judge in the case, Charles Horan, had wrongly dimissed a juror who was leaning toward acquittal.

Johnson was let out of San Quentin, but not freed, He was sent to Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail in January 2012 to face a retrial. While he was there, he was charged with three more murder cases and one attempted murder, all from the early 1990s. His co-defendant Allen died in custody last year of a heart disease, He was 49.

In court Wednesday, several times Judge Curtis B. Rappe and Deputy District Attorney Amy Murphy asked Johnson if he understood what was going on. He answered the same every time, “Yes, I do.”

There’s a whole, whole, whole lot more to this man’s story and I’ll get to it.

RONALD "KARTOON" ANTWINE CLEANING OUT HIS BAD BOY BOX

(This was published in the Los Angeles Times’ Opinion page on April, 29, 2023)

Can a man really change? Or more precisely, can an absolute badass change? A violent, brutal, reckless, drunk, defend-the-’hood-at-all-costs gang member? A Folsom Prison “graduate”? A 6-foot-4, 240-pound defender of Nickerson Gardens, menace to Imperial Courts and Jordan Downs? Can that guy become just about the kindest guy you ever met?

Yes, he can. Last week, I went to the funeral of Ronald “Kartoon” Antwine, a man who did just that.

Kartoon would have turned 64 just days after his “celebration of life” at Macedonia Baptist Church in Watts, two blocks from where he’d grown up and still lived on Monitor Avenue near 113th, across the street from Watts Serenity Park.

Forty years ago, the acre-sized, triangle-shaped park was the last place you would have called serene. It was a dump, a trash-filled no man’s land where high weeds hid gang snipers, an emblem of the abandonment of Watts.

Back then, you would have found Antwine — fearsome — patrolling Monitor Avenue in a long, black leather jacket and carrying a sawed-off shotgun. His street was the eastern front in the war between the Bounty Hunter Bloods, headquartered in Nickerson Gardens, and their deadly rivals, the PJ Crips of Imperial Courts and the Grape Street Crips of Jordan Downs.

Antwine’s address destined him for the Bounty Hunters. Early on, when boys from Nickerson Gardens banged on his door to get him to come outside to play, he begged off in favor of watching cartoons; he was too embarrassed to admit he was doing his homework. But soon enough, “Kartoon” was all in. (Bloods loathe the letter “C” because it symbolizes the Crips, which explains Antwine’s street name.)

Assault and robbery convictions sent him to prison in the early 1980s. When he got out in 1992, the Watts gang peace treaty was in force, and Antwine, sober, embraced his second chance passionately. At his funeral, the overflow crowd — about 700 people — was packed with mourners who told me he inspired them to change for the better.

Via video, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) spoke lovingly of Kartoon’s efforts to help Watts itself change for the better too. In 2014, Antwine was the star of the groundbreaking for Serenity Park. It was a hard-fought victory, the opening move in transforming that derelict and dangerous and unserene battleground into an oasis.

Kartoon had tirelessly rallied Monitor Avenue, with help from the Trust for Public Lands, to fend off a developer — and City Hall — so the neighborhood could lay claim to some open space for kids, grown-ups and greenery in park-poor Watts.

“Today I make amends to you,” said Kartoon, as he spoke before a cheering crowd of 150 at the ceremony. “I helped destroy this neighborhood. I was a gang member. I was a drug seller. But, this is my amends. This is not my park. This is our park.”

I met Kartoon almost 30 years ago, when he was not long out of Folsom. We became friends and stayed that way.

His circle encompassed a big swath of Los Angeles. He had the neighborhood, he had politicians, he had Hollywood friends from his years working as a location scout for TV shows and movies. As a member of International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 399, he shepherded shows such as “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” into neighborhoods that wouldn’t have welcomed the crew without his efforts.

Several years ago, Antwine suffered a stroke that slowed him down but left his will and mind in strong shape. He seemed to have even more energy and drive on behalf of Watts, on returning it to “when Watts was Watts,” when neighbors looked after neighbors.

I saw Kartoon at his home on Monitor three days before he landed in the hospital, where he died of heart failure.

I had been helping him with some writing, but I’d missed a few sessions. He called me lazy, with an added unprintable noun. Now whenever there’s something I need to do that I’m inclined to put off, I hear Kartoon’s voice, magically, calling me a lazy so-and-so, and I get on with the task.

That goes for this: Let’s organize and lobby City Hall — the way Kartoon would — to persuade L.A. to change the name of Watts Serenity Park to Ronald “Kartoon” Antwine Park. Or just Kartoon Park.

It’s not just my idea. His best friend, Greg Brown, put it out at the funeral. Now it needs amplification.

On Monitor Avenue, kids slide down slides and swing on swings that are there only because Antwine put them there. Families who once traveled miles to find a place for a birthday party gather at the picnic tables. There’s a skate park, workout stations, a lawn and trees.

Watts Serenity Park isn’t a bad name, but Kartoon Park is better. Ronald “Kartoon” Antwine Park would stand for children’s swings and grass and a lot more. It would stand for transformation itself, for growing up rough and feared and turning out smooth and loved.

Kartoon never forgot the bad things he did in his life. He extols on his transformation in Espisode 3 of the 2023 PBS documentary “10 Days In Watts”. “I truly believe every time I do something good God erases one of those X’s out of my bad boy boxes.”

HOW MUCH YOU WEIGH, SLUGGER? WHEN YOU WEIGHED ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EIGHT POUNDS, YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL

How much you weigh, slugger? When you weighed 168 pounds, you were beautiful. You coulda been another Billy Conn. That skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.”

Those are the lead-in lines of Charlie Malloy (played by Rod Steiger) that prompts his younger brother Terry (Marlon Brando) to unleash one of the film world’s most revered soliloquies: the back of the taxi “I coulda been a contender” speech in “On the Waterfront”.

When I went to Kaiser last week to get a blood pressure checkup - after testing kinda high the month before, holding off on a prescription to lower it by vowing to cut down on certain foods - the nurse had me weigh-in by sitting on the examination chair.

“168 pounds”, she said.

I felt elated. My dream weight, my own fighting weight! Finally, after many years I was back in shape. Cutting down on butterscotch Budino, Nancy’s Fancy gelato, lamb shoulder chops and double orders of cacio y pepe had paid off.

Then, my absolute worst nemesis, me, went into sixth gear down the Mulsanne straight at Le Mans. That month before, when I had that highish blood pressure check, I had weighed 179 pounds. Sure, that was pretty good for me, who peaked over 200 a few years back. But to lose 11 pounds in a month?  Jeez, I thought with dread oozing, something’s very wrong with me.  I hated to think it, but to lose that much weight that fast, I might, I could, I, I, I thought of one thing. Cancer. The scourge that killed both of my parents.

How cruel a disease to come at me with “168”. It was almost admirable in its wickedness to use the number that leads to the most famous scene of my all-time favorite movie.

I needed to weigh again.  I told the nurse. She did and it was 167 pounds. Oh no, I’m going fast.

“Let’s put on you the regular scale,” she suggested, sensing my anxiety. I got up – wobbly - and walked at least 13, 14 feet to a stand-on scale. It came out in kilos. 81 of them. I quickly did that math, the 2.2 pounds per kilo.  Hmm? That’s, ugh, 162 plus 16.2. Wait, that’s 178 pounds.

Yes, 178, not 168! Immediate relief. I’m fine. That feeling was quickly followed by me thinking, “Damn. A month of cutting down at Mozza and I only lost one measly pound?”

I keep going over and over in my mind, telling myself how fortunate I am on so many fronts. My health, my family especially my sister, no bombs are falling on me, that I’m still kicking, all the funerals I’ve been to, my incredible girlfriend of 19 years, but that ‘ol nemesis of mine, me, keeps trying to throw big ugly monkey crescent wrenches onto my wonderful life.

I told my friend Caroline Blundell I was my own worst enemy and she just said “Join the club.”

You have next to no idea how many times I’ve almost had a stroke, often when I’m having an outwardly pleasant conversation with a friend or acquaintance.  Or one of those sudden heart attacks that kill you nearly as fast as a bullet to the brain. Oh, I just had a, just right now, a sudden twitch in my right neck, It went away quick, but isn’t that one of those early warning signs that the big one is coming. Or is that a shoulder pain? A neck pain seems a lot worse than a shoulder pain. 

If you don’t feel well, never go and Google a symptom. You probably know that, but it needs to be repeated. (Especially to myself.) Any possible twitch is a symptom of deadly disease.

My own twitch just now has passed, and I feel pretty good.  But, for the heck of it, I’m gonna Google “twitch in the neck”  Hold on. I just did. I shouldn’t have. That’s all I put in “Twitch in the neck” and it looks like I have an underlying spinal problem.

Of all my worries - my heart, my brain, my liver - I always figured my spinal situation was good. Something I didn’t have to be concerned with. Now look. I might have an underlying spinal problem.

But I don’t know. I feel pretty good. Even with this possible spinal issue. In fact, I feel so good that I wonder if something is wrong with me.

Yeah, I worry. I mostly keep it to myself, though.  I mean there are many people out there who know me and actually think I’m cool. They see me as a journalist who covers the street gangs in the projects in Watts.  Who covered the war in 2020 in Artsakh, ,Armenia.  Who has a wonderful famous chef as a girlfriend. Who drives around in (her) 450 horsepower Porsche like he’s Steve McQueen. Who women on the Mozza Corner turn to when they have a flat tire. Zeus forbid they should read this. In a way, I’m hoping my editors Susan or Karen rejects this piece.

I told my sister the opening to this story, the italics of “How much you weigh, slugger?” and her only question was “Who’s Billy Conn?”.  I told her he was a light heavyweight (up to 175 pounds) boxing champion in 1939-1941 who moved up and was beating heavyweight champ Joe Louis until the 13th round when he was knocked out after he got cocky and went toe to toe with the Brown Bomber

Actually, ya know, back in the day, way back, my cousin Alec told me I coulda been a good boxer. Yeah, I thought, I coulda been another Billy Conn.

Charlie - How much do you weigh, slugger When you weighed 168 pounds.....you were beautiful. You could have been another Billy Conn. That skunk we got you for a manager. he brought you along too fast.

Terry - It wasn't him, Charley. It was you. Remember that night in the Garden? You came down to my dressing room and said, "Kid, this ain't your night. We're going for the price on Wilson. You remember that? "This ain't your night." My night! I could have taken Wilson apart! So what happens, he gets the title shot outdoors in the ball park and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palookaville! You was my brother, Charley. You should have looked out for me a little bit. You should've taken care of me a little so I wouldn't have to take dives for short-end money.

Charlie - I had some bets down for you. You saw some money.

Terry - You don't understand, I could have had class! I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum...which is what I am. Let's face it. It was you, Charley!



HOWARD WEITZMAN HIRED TO DEFEND BRUTUS IN RETRIAL OF JULIUS CAESAR STABBING

Famed Los Angeles attorney Howard Weitzman will defend Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus in the highly anticipated retrial of the infamous Julius Caesar stabbing assassination on March 15, 44 B.C. in Rome.

Brutus Albinus, much better known as simply Brutus, was convicted of murder in the first degree in a highly publicized trial in 45 B.C. and sentenced to LWOP, life without the possibility of parole. Since the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D., , Brutus has sought a retrial  

Weitzman, who left Los Angeles on April 7th to join the prestigious firm of Hammurabi, Cicero, Darrow and Kardashian located on the westside of Mount Olympus, held a press conference Monday on the steps of the Really High Court to make the announcement he had taken the case. The unusual maneuver was more like an opening statement than a presser.

“The evidence will show that my client did not kill Julius Caesar and was, in fact, rushing to protect him from an unruly mob,” Weitzman said with a slight smirk. “Mr. Caesar was Folsom shanked 23 times. Look at my client. He couldn’t shank a spencer prime roast from Vincente Foods let alone fully grown adult with more attitude than anyone since Alexander.”

Weitzman laid much of the blame for Brutus’s centuries-long assumption of guilt conviction on William Shakespeare who famously wrote about Caesar’s killing, undoubtedly the most famous assassination in history.

“Shakes did more damage to my client’s reputation than all the forensic evidence in Rome, “ said Weitzman, who, as is his style, was juggling doing the press conference with making lunch reservations, this time at Escoffier’s new bistro. “When Shakespeare wrote that Caesar said ‘Et tu, Brutus’, that’s all the public heard. Hold on. Do you have the roast Bresse chicken stuffed with Perigord truffles today? Yes, where was I? Oh, yeah.  Brutus loved big Julie.  The trial will show that.”

Weitzman contended that since security footage of the Caesar assassination is “spotty at best” and several eyewitnesses to the brutal attack who were not allowed to testify in the original trial, will testify in the retrial and “put enough reasonable doubt to free my client.”

“Look, Brutus has been held without bail in a holding cell since 44 B.C, that’s, what, 2,065 years. I would normally argue for ‘time served’, but he is adamant about clearing his name.”

Weitzman even leaned further into what will likely be a key element of his defense when he spoke of incriminating evidence against Brutus in the first trial.

“They claimed a bloody toga was my client’s,” Weitzman said. “I will prove in court it was not. Brutus was way too fat to wear that toga. If the toga doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

Sources close to the investigations told this reporter that Weitzman was being paid in rare bottles of wine including a 47 B.C. Chateau Cheval Blanc, a 217 B.C. Panicale rosso H, Barca Cuvee and a 2009 A.D. L’Evangile.

 A reporter in the crowd asked Weitzman how he was getting along in his new home.

“They call this place heaven, but I was already in Heaven on Earth with my Margaret by side,” said Howard, his voice uncharacteristically cracking. “I saw some footage yesterday of Margaret with tears in her eyes. I want you to get word to her.  Relish those tears. Those tears are from me. I have them for you. There are two tears. The ones that tear your heart and the one that fall from your eyes.  Some people never have tears of any kind. Those poor souls. We are blessed and we have tears.”

Then Weitzman appeared to have a revelation of sorts. “Tears and tears,” he said softly, seemingly to himself.  “Hmm. Tears and tears. ‘Tears and tears. At Hammurabi, Cicero, Darrow, Kardashian and Weitzman we get rid of them both.’ That could be our logo. I’m gonna run this by Hammurabi. Can you text up here?”

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OSTERIA ENTRANCE, PART 2; CAR CRASHES INTO MOZZA FRONT DOORS... AGAIN, DULL MOMENTS ARE RARE ON “THE CORNER”

Less than a week after it reopened Osteria Mozza took another powerful punch to the gut, but got right back up.  Well, everything but the doors.

Shortly after noon Monday, a car slammed into the front entrance of Osteria Mozza, ruining the front doors and bruising the big cabinet inside but injuring no humans.

“We’ve taken many blows before and we always get back up and start swinging and we will do the same with this,” said chef/owner Nancy Silverton “We will be open as scheduled on Wednesday.” 

Kate “KGB” Greenberg, Mozza Director of Operations, was on the phone with the insurance company about damages from the May, 2020 riot on The Corner when she heard the what sounded like an explosion.  “I had just hung up on a call about the riot here and then I hear this giant crash sound,” Kate said. “Dull moments are rare on The Corner.” 

Nancy said she was working on a coconut cupcake when Kate walked up to her. “In cool and calm Kate Greenberg fashion she said ‘Someone just crashed into the Osteria front doors.”.

Like most sequels, this one was not as good as the original.

On April 18, 2015 a Toyota Tundra erupted into the Osteria during staff lunch, lovingly known as “Chicken Time”. Legendary pasta man Alex Vasquez was injured by a falling pillar, something he gets to brag about. I mean how many of us can say we were injured by a falling pillar?.

The damage then was se extensive Osteria closed for nine days.

The crash was likely caused by a left turn from northbound Highland to westbound Melrose, something that President Biden has vowed to outlaw.

On another Mozza front, that coconut cupcake Nancy was working on will be the best of its kind ever. But you probably figured that out already.

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ARPINE, THE YOUNG WOMAN FROM ARTSAKH WHO WON'T BE GOING HOME

For 26-year-old Arpine Harutyunyan the start of the war was not as earthshaking as the end of it.   

On that terrifying morning of September 27 Arpine was awakened – like most Artsakh (Karabakh) residents - by the sound of explosions. At her family’s home in the village of Kolkhozashen about 18 miles from Martuni, she gathered with her mother, sister and two brothers and sought shelter.

Within 48 hours, she was a refugee, living at a hotel in Goris. Her brothers were on the frontline. For six weeks she languished and anguished, mostly at the Mirhav boutique hotel which Trip Advisor says is the best place to stay in Southern Armenia. Not for Arpine ( pronounced AR-P- Neh) who was born in 1994, the year the first Karabakh war ended.

Then in the early morning hours of the 45th day of the war, it was suddenly and shockingly over. “I was heartbroken. I knew I could not go home.”

##

On October 28, the 32nd day of the fighting, I saw her sitting alone and thought immediately of my young friend Ida. They looked so alike. i told her that and she smiled warmly. Then she had a sad and beautiful look as she echoed Angelika Zakaryan, the CivilNET reporter, when Arpine said she hated being at this hotel and she couldn’t wait for the war to be over so she could go home.

The day we met, she was sitting alone at a wooden table in a pleasant garden, a pomegranate the lone food on her plate, a Lenovo ThinkPad on her lap. She didn’t look like a war refugee, rather a young woman on a weekend getaway.

She talks of her life, a life born weeks after the magnificent victory in 1994, a war she would learn that nearly killed her father.

“My mother was pregnant with me when my father was seriously injured in May 1994, but he struggled and miraculously survived.  I was born after the victory in September 1994 and lived for 26 years in unrecognized Artsakh, but with the psychology of a winner.”

That “psychology of a winner” was embellished knowing the great Monte Melkonian fought heroically near her village.

“I would not be wrong to say that every conscious Artsakh citizen knows about Monte. To me, Monte is a patriot, a man who knows how to love and dedicate himself completely.”

The so-called “4-Day War” of 2016 brought fear briefly, but that winner’s psychology prevailed, and by 2017 Arpine was working as a statistician at the Caroline Cox Rehabilitation Center in Stepanakert. The next year, Instigate Mobile, a Yerevan-based software engineering company, announced it was offering programming courses. This was Arpine’s field of expertise and soon she was working for them. She still does.

Then, on the morning of November 10 the war was over. Just like that. Over.

She was in bed at the Mirhav Hotel when she woke up.

“Usually, I don’t get up in the middle of the night, but today I had a strange feeling,” she said. “I woke up at 1:00 AM and opened Facebook for some news. First, I saw Nikol Pashinyan’s post regarding my homeland. I can’t explain what I felt that moment. I didn’t want to believe it. I was trembling all over my body. I thought about my brothers who are on the frontline in Artsakh. I thought about my village Kolkhozashen where my father is buried.”

Hours later she heard about her brothers, Mihran, 24, and Tigran, 19. They were both alive. The surrender agreement gave to the Azerbaijanis the areas they had taken control of. Arpine’s village had not been “taken”, but much of the area around it was under the enemy’s control.

“Yes, it’s good to stop fighting. It can save my brothers’ and other people’s lives. But nobody has the right to give Artsakh to the enemy. It is an insult to our living soldiers and our fallen soldiers. I can only say that they died for the sake of the homeland and now we are alive and homeless.”

Four days after the Russian brokered ceasefire, she’s still at the Mirhav and reflects on the war and what she calls “one signature”.

“I want to be honest. From the first day of the war, I realized that it was serious, that victory would be a miracle. But I did not expect such a result. I did not expect that we would lose Artsakh with one signature and the rest would hang in the air. 

“My village is still ours. I want to thank God. There were 250 residents. At the moment, the women have left with their children, but all the men are still in the village and they will stay there, including many of my relatives, but I personally cannot do that now. I want to repeat that I have lived in unrecognized Artsakh for 26 years, but I will never live in a defeated Artsakh.” 

Arpine Harutyunyan takes back her use of the word “defeated”.

“Or rather not defeated Artsakh, but betrayed. Monte's mission was not continued, and the Armenians closed the last page of history for this land with their own hands.”

READ More on CIVILNET, the Armenian News Agency here; . -
https://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/11/14/In-Goris-Artsakh-refugees-reflect-on-a-land-lost-with-one-signature/408058