FAREWELL TO GREGORY "BATMAN" DAVIS, AN OG BEFORE THERE WERE OGs

“It was never about the destination. It was always about the journey.” - Bogard, aka George Thomas talking about Gregory “Batman” Davis

On the streets of Greater Los Angeles – and most of the United States now -  “OG” means Original Gangster. But those initials - and those words - are thrown about without the proper respect the term really  implies and deserves. There are 19-year-olds who are labeled OGs who, tough as they may, are not OGs.

There are even what is known as Triple OGs. Many of them are old friends. These are gang members who have been around 20, 30, even 40 years.

 However, truth be told, the truly Original Gangsters from Watts, South Central, Compton, Gardena and Inglewood were around long before the term OG was even invented.

 I say all this to get to Gregory “Batman” Davis. There would have to be a new term invented to properly classify him.

 No one disputes that the Crips were founded by Raymond Washington, a 16-year-old who grew up on 76th street and Wadsworth Avenue, which is a block west of Central Avenue,  around 1969. Check this 2005 LA Weekly article https://www.laweekly.com/tookies-mistaken-identity/. 

 One of the founding members with Raymond of the gang that was originally titled Baby Cribs, (too long a story to explain here, but read that above article I wrote) was on Gregory Davis. Make that Gregory “Batman” Davis.

Davis passed away a month ago at age 69 and this Saturday, May 3, is his funeral. However, the cemetery he is to be buried in, Corona Sunnyslope, needs more money than the family currently has to dig the dirt and put it back, his sister told me

 “We have the plot, but it’s more money than we have to do the actually digging and putting his casket in the ground,” said Deborah Davis-Sampson.   “Anyone who can help out will be truly appreciated.”

 Anything will help, she said.

Briefly on Batman, who was born in 1955 and got his name from his love of the television show “Batman” which was on ABC Channel 7 from 1966 to 1968 and starred Adam West as Batman, aka Bruce Wayne.  Gregory loved that show.

 And when Raymond formed the Crips, Gregory was an original member and, after a brief run with another nickname, became Batman. He envisioned himself like the fictional Batman, someone coming to the rescue.

 Batman fought and shot for his hood. He did time for his crimes. But Gregory batman Davis was one of those classic cases who turned his life around and became devoted to, classically, not wanting the younger ones to go through what he and Raymond and everyone in the “Crips” and “Bloods” went through.

“Batman dispised the gang culture of today and things done in the past glorifying death,” said Melvin Farmer, aka Skull, an original Westside Crip and co-founder of Gangster Crips. “He didn’t want today’s youth going through what we went through.”

 He fervently taught kids that education was the way to go.

 So much so that he was honored in 2000 by President Bill Clinton for his work in trying to keep kids out of gangs. Along with Chiquita Tolton, Gregory was honored at “Let’s Save the Babies” as Man of the Year. “With your additive involvement, you have brought hope and help to many families in need.”

 OG?  Yeah, Gregory “Batman” Davis was an OG, but way before there were OGs.  

 To help, call Yvonne Vargas at the Corona Cemetery at (951) 736-0460.

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.”

THE MAGNIFICENT FAREWELL OF BETTY DAY, GODMOTHER OF JORDAN DOWNS, QUEEN OF WATTS

There was the city equivalent of a state funeral here in town over the past weekend as Royalty was memorialized and laid to rest. The local television news didn’t cover it, nor did the Los Angeles Times. To their credit, PBS did try to film the memorial service, but were turned away.

Still, none of the over 1,000 people in attendance – other perhaps than myself - cared the media wasn’t out in force. These folks - from the proudest neighborhood in Los Angeles - are accustomed to being left alone and all they wanted to do was honor their Queen.

That queen was Betty Day, 82, long known as the “Godmother of Jordan Downs”, and more recently promoted by her peers Queen of Watts. The person that announced her Queen title at the memorial says much about the woman who was referred to by men who have spent 12 years at Folsom as “Ms. Day”.  It was announced by no more appropriate authority than activist Big Donny Joubert, from Nickerson Gardens, the once frequent deadly enemy of Jordan Downs. Joubert, like many, talked about Betty’s toughness, compassion and desperate pursuit to bring peace and end to the maddening gang violence in Watts.

I will say here this is an op-ed piece even if much of what follows might be more like an obituary or a news story about a dead person and not an op-ed. But my opinion - and why I am writing this - is everyone in this city and even the entire country should know about Betty Day and honor the Betty Days of the communities still out there.

Betty was born 1940 in Kilgore, Texas but came to Watts not long after. At 15 she met and married Arthur Day and they were together 65 years until his death in 2020. I met Betty, all five feet, 100 pounds of her, in 2005 when she was 65.  After more than a decade of relative peace in the Watts community between the Grape Street Crips of Jordan Downs, the Bounty Hunter Bloods from Nickerson Gardens and the PJ Crips form Imperial Courts, the killings were back.

Betty was instrumental in founding the Watts Gang Task Force, an organization consisting of gang members, community activists and police officers that met at then-15th District Council member Janice Hahn’s office. At the first 2005 meeting, when she became the first and still-only president of the task force, Betty famously yelled “Enough!”

LAPD Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides was at sergeant back then and spoke to the masses of that first Watt Gang Task Force meeting. “I saw her and thought ‘Whose is you?’ and she saw me and thought ‘Whose is you?’  Later, she took me aside and said ‘Oh, girl, you are going to learn from me.’ I did.”

Tingirides spoke fondly of being at a dining function and, at the end of it, Betty scooping up all the packets of ketchup. honey, mustard on the table and putting them into her purse.

Janice Hahn, now a L.A. County Supervisor, spoke next. Hahn didn’t have a prepared speech and spoke from her heart. I’ve seen Hahn speak for close to 20 years, but I have never seen her so relaxed, so smiling as she talked and laughed at the memories. In Hahn’s talk – an Tingirides’ - the wonder of Betty Day came shining through. She was a human whose personality was such that you realized she was special. She was on a mission of great importance, and she wanted you along for the ride, Betty had that lovely quality to make you feel important.  If I didn’t go to the gang task force meeting for a few weeks, when she saw me, she’d call out in her borderline raspy voice, “Krikorian! Where you been?”  By the way, Hahn ended by raving about Betty’s brisket and how it was the best she ever ate, and how Betty would not give up some secret ingredients. “Now I know,” Hahn said smiling. “It was those packets of honey and ketchup she took.”

Other spoke, but it all seemed opening acts for Betty Day’s son Wayne to get up and address the crowd. He did. Anyone familiar with Watts might not know him as Wayne, but everyone knows who “Honcho” is. Honcho was the leader of the Grape Street Crips, the notorious gang that ran Jordan Downs. The federal authorities referred to him as the “Godfather of Watts” and he ended up doing 11 years in federal prison for drug-related offenses. He got out in 2007, went straight and eventually worked for a law firm as a para legal.

“I want to thank everyone who came,” he said. Then he singled out a group. “I especially want to thank the LAPD for showing up.”

In the way back seats where I was, a man next to me mumbled, “Damn, Honch thanked the LAPD.”  If someone had told me 15, 20 years ago Honcho would one day thank the LAPD for showing up anywhere, I woulda laughed. That’s like Al Capone thanking Elliot Ness and the FBI for showing up. But he did. And all because of his mother.

Wayne spoke of his mother’s passing. “I have no regrets about her life and that she’s gone. It wasn’t like she caught a stray. She went in the proper order.”

After the service, I didn’t go to the burial, but instead drove through Jordan Downs. It was empty. I drove by Betty’s home on Grape Street near 107th. Across the street from her house is tiny Grape Street Park. The state legislature announced at her service it would be changed to Betty Day Park.

I wrote an article about Betty in the LA Weekly 2009 “People” issue. I can’t use all the colorful language the Weekly did back then. But the lede was basically this. “Betty Day doesn’t take shit from anyone. She’d tell off Obama if he upset her. Hell, she’d cuss out Putin in a heartbeat while walking the streets of Moscow at midnight. That’s Betty Day, the godmother of the Jordan Downs.”  

That was 13 years ago. Today I say, “Thank you, Queen Betty.”

WASHINGTON POST POLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS EDITOR MATEA GOLD HAD A COOLER JOB TITLE AT THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Among the books I never thought I’d be reading during my recent two-week winter trip to Italy would have been the so-called Mueller Report, the exhaustive 448-page hunt for collusion and other shit with Russia by then-candidate Donald  Trump in the 2016 election  If I was locked up in the SHU at Pelican Bay and it was the only book in the cell, I’d probably read it.  

But, here I am, seven days into a getaway with my girlfriend Nancy in a 14th century hilltop town in Umbria overlooking Lake Trasimeno where Hannibal Barca wiped out 15,000 Roman soldiers in 217 B.C., and where I go to escape America and, having wrapped Michael Connelly’s latest on the airplane ride here and rushed through Lee Child’s Blue Moon in a personal best six days, I looked at what else I brought, cased the ripe bookcases here and, lo and behold,  decided to give the Washington Post’s illustrated version a shot.

Before I get to the book, let me explain, at some length, why I was even considering reading the Post’s 234 page paperback version. The reason  boils down to two words. One of them is Gold and the other is Matea.

Matea Gold, my friend of about 25 years (damn, Matea, quarter centuries fly by) had sent me the Mueller Report to me from her base at the Washington Post  where she is the National Political Enterprise and Investigations Editor. These times? That’s a cool job.

I met Matea when she had another cool job. Maybe even cooler.

This was back in the mid-1990s at the Los Angeles Times when Matea was the East L. A, Bureau Chief and I, who shared a two-top pod with her, was the Watts Bureau Chief.  We were both stringers back then and anointed ourselves those tough titles, though several staffers at the paper including our editors Bob Baker and Ed Boyer and some reporters often went along for the ride and called us that.  

To us, these two beats, East L.A., along with Boyle Heights, and Watts, along with South Central, were the thriving, rough and lonely, too-often forgotten, essential hearts of our city. We cruised those streets in search of stories not found on the City News Service wire or from cop calls. For example, in 1997, I wrote a story about a rose garden in Watts, (“Blooming of a Dream”) https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-01-me-14548-story.html and Matea wrote about crime going down in Boyle Heights (“In Hollenbeck, Crime Statistics Aren’t Needed”) https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-06-03-me-65061-story.html.

Our pods were not powerfully located in the City Room. They were off to a distant side, like our beats, hidden even from view of City Editor Bill Boyarsky’s desk – which he once famously stood atop to rally the troops in face of cooperate motherfuckers trying to slime into the newsroom  – by a large pillar on which health and benefits flyers were posted and ignored by the staff. To bottom it off, we sat about six feet from the entrance to the bathrooms.

But, like our beats, we turned that undesirable location completely around.  It went from a barrio and a ghetto pod to a desirable location.

Hold on. I’ll get to that Mueller book.

One of our first moves to upgrade our banished pod was that pillar. We tore down the ignored flyers about useless things like health and benefits and replaced them with photographs from the staff that didn’t make the paper. We had a closer relationship with photography department than anyone at the paper. I spent more time in the photo lab, mainly flirting with the great conflict photojournalist Carolyn Cole, than any journalist in the newsroom, even Calvin Hom and he was the assignment editor. So we, well, mainly Matea, came up with that idea get the photographers to post their unpublished photos of assignments on our pillar. The Wall, we called it.

The first one exhibit on The Wall was five or six shots from a series staff photographer Kirk McCoy did on black cowboys. Once that was up and popular, it became something of an honor to be on our Wall. We got stuff from Carolyn, Genaro Molina, Gary Friedman, Larry Ho, Anacleto Rapping, Luis Sinco, Clarence Williams, Perry Riddle, Robert Gauthier.

The staffers’ stop to the bathroom soon included a layover at our photograph Wall and a conversation with Matea and me. One memorable time, Rick Meyer, aka “The Great One”, aka Richard E. Meyer, stopped by, looked at our photo Wall and then complemented me on a story about Hells Angel leader Sonny Barger, “Good story about the Angels, Mike. How does Barger do it?” https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-jul-07-mn-10485-story.html   I’ll never forget that. I didn’t even know he knew my name.

And the coup de grace of Matea and my pod was food. In particular, barbecue. I would go once a month to the two best rib joints in the city, Phillips’ BBQ in Leimert Park and Woody’s on Slauson and stash the cardboard box of beef or pork ribs - mixed sauce – in my top desk drawer. (Yeah, I had traded the classic journalists’ stash of a bourbon in the desk drawer for ribs.  But, don’t discount me. I’d return to the old school bottle soon enough.) People would come by, enticed by the waft, and inquire. I’d simply pull out my drawer and offer them a rib.  One time I was talking to legendary 89 Family Swan Bloods leader Big Evil who called collect from Men’s Central, when Bob Sipchen, who would go on to win a Pulitzer for writing about mentally ill homeless people in 2002,  walked up, pulled out my drawer, took a few chomps off a rib, closed the drawer and walked off. Never said a word. Another time or two, my editor Ed Boyer enjoyed the ribs He posted so recently on Facebook after pit master Woody Phillips died.

Anyway, Matea and I had made the best of it. She became a staff writer before I did and went on to Washington, I went to Fresno and then came home to Los Angeles. We kept in touch throughout the years. I went to her wedding in Sonoma and admired the rise of her career. I never been to the Post, but I’m sure she has a powerful desk, or even office, but no way could it be as cool as our pod.  Long live East L.A. and Watts.

Now this book. Get it. Read it. It’s fascinating, enlightening and even entertaining. It’s as fast a read as Connelly or Child. I say it again. The Mueller Report, at least the one illustrated and edited by Matea Gold, is entertaining.

If it came out back in the day, Matea and I would’ve put it up on The Wall.

WATTS WOMAN, 79, HIT BY A BUS TWO DAYS AFTER RECEIVING ROSA PARKS AWARD

Incredibly, that is not a headline from “The Onion.”

On the evening of Nov. 7, Wajeha Bilal of Watts was honored at a downtown L. A,  hotel by the Women’s Transportation Seminar, (WTS) , Los Angeles Chapter, with the Rosa Parks Diversity Leadership Award for her community advocacy and action.

Two days later, while delivering food in the morning to the homeless and hungry on East 103rd Street, Wajeha, 79 years-old, was hit by a bus and suffered a fractured pelvis.  

Let that sink in a couple seconds. She gets the Rosa Parks Award then 36 hours later she is struck down by a bus.  I’m not making this up.

Friday, I visited her at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood and, though still in pain and facing a long rehabilitation, was better than I thought she’d be. We even laughed when I told her “Your face is still beautiful” and she replied “Oh, get out of here, Krikorian.”

Let me go back 22 years to a day in Watts when Wajeha calmed my nerves as I was led to what I thought would be, if not my doom, at least a good ass kickin’. (Warning; its’s a kinda long tale. )

On November 15, 1997, a beloved resident of the Jordan Downs housing project, domaine of the notorious Grape Street Crips, was shot to death by police officers from the LAPD’s almost-as-notorious Southeast Division. Darryl “Cubby” Hood, 40,  trippin’ dangerously on a cigarette laced with crack and PCP, was slashing himself with two steak knives when he was shot to death by the cops. As one Jordan Downs resident told me  “The po-lice didn’t want him to hurt himself, so they killed him.”  The story appeared in the Times Metro section.  

A week later, I wrote a another story, this one about a march on that Southeast station protesting Chubby’s shooting in which the following appeared; “Four members of the Grape Street Crips, the street gang that rules Jordan Downs, said as the march passed through the project that they plan to ambush officers.

“We are taking their threats very seriously,” said Deputy Chief J.I. Davis, commander of the LAPD’s South Bureau. “Jordan Downs has been the most active project this year.”  

Here is that story https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-nov-23-me-56918-story.html

The morning the story ran, Nov. 23, 1997, I got a call from Daude Sherrills, son of Wajeha and himself a prominent figure in Jordan Downs, instrumental in the 1992 Watts Gang Peace Treaty between Grape Street Crips, PJ Crips from Imperial Courts and Bounty Hunter Bloods from Nickerson Gardens.

I still vividly recall what he said on the phone. “Your ghetto pass has been revoked.”

Fuck. That was what set me apart from other reporters at the paper, I had access to Grape Street, the PJs and Bounty Hunters day and night ( not that the big shot editors gave a shit and half about that part of town ). But, to me, that was vital.

I couldn’t still. Armed with that very Metro section, I drove to Grape Street, revoked ghetto pass be damn.  There, with Daude Sherrills and four or five guys from Grape, I argued my point that for them to tell their side of stories, I needed to be here. They angrily complained that the quote about the ambush had instantly put extreme police pressure on them with constant patrols and harassment. As if to prove their point, an LAPD plain wrap cruised by.

I countered with one of the dumbest statements I have ever made, and something that - to this day - makes me realize I am capable of true stupidity.  I said “I have the paper right in the car. Let’s go read it.”

Forrest Gump got nothing on me.   

So there, in the bowels of Jordan Downs on 99th Place, we walked – or forced marched - to my car parked on 102nd. With each step,  I cursed myself for saying what I said. The paper in my car would prove exactly what they were complaining about. In black and white print I was proving their point.

One of the youngins’, to make a name for themselves, was likely to attack me. Maybe two or three of them. As I was within about 60, 70 feet from my car, I saw Wajeha on the four-by-four-foot slab of concrete that passed as her porch for 61 years in these projects, her head wrapped, as always,  in a pretty scarf.  She didn’t smile at me.  She didn’t sneer. But, she had this serene look, a look I have long thought best describes her; Serenity amid the chaos. That looked calmed me. Her serenity came my way. I felt no fear.

At the car, I showed them the paper, and rallied, saying that damning line was said “on the record”, even after I warned them. I argued “I’m a reporter, not a spokesperson for anyone.”  I think, I like to think, I increased my cred that day. My ghetto pass was reinstated.

##

At St. Francis, after our greeting Wajeha told me about her encounter with a wayward bus.

“That bus rolled me up like a tortilla” she said without a smidgen of humor.

The following is from the WTS website.

“The WTS-LA Rosa Parks Diversity Leadership Award is bestowed on who stands up for what’s right, no matter what the consequences may be, one who shows absolute determination and ability to do what is right. This year WTS recognizes community activist Wajeha Bilal for being that person.

Dedicated passionately to her community, Bilal lives, works, and volunteers in her community. A member of Metro’s NextGen Bus Study Working Group—an entity focused on providing guidance on the redesign of Metro’s entire bus network—Bilal ensures that the concerns of her community have voice in the proceedings. A tireless advocate, she’s a community leader who has contributed mightily and selflessly to promote public transportation for Hispanic and African-American families. She’s also a “travel buddy” in Metro’s On the Move Riders Program, reaching out to older adults to ease use and safety of mass transit. Additionally, she actively supports Metro’s Rail Safety Ambassadors, who are assigned to observe and report issues along the rail system. For many, that would be enough. Not for Bilal.

In addition to her vital work in transportation, Bilal also facilitates outreach for the Watts Gang Task Force, advising residents on how to contact and interact with the LAPD and Transit Security to seek assistance. Bilal uses her training to cultivate diverse, collaborative, cross-section outreach in her community. That includes mentoring Hispanic and African-American women on how to save and secure funding, dress for success, and obtain licenses and permits for small business.

Finally, Bilal founded the Build Plus Community Market Place. Located at the Metro Blue Line 103rd Street Station, the Build Plus Community Market Place is a non-profit that promotes the general welfare and economic development of low-income people in Watts. It has been internationally recognized as a model for this type of vital outreach. In addition, she also helped establish both state and national recognition for the Watts Towers.

###

For the past two years, Bilal, aka “The Queen”, has been feeding the homeless and the hungry once a month near the  Blue Line Subway stop at 103rd Street in Watts, a short walk from the Watts Towers. One Nov. 9th she took some greens and sweet potatoes fired tilapia, fried potatoes with onions. rolled turkey smothered with gravy. There were roughly 70 to 80 people there waiting to feast.

After she dropped the food off, she went to move her van when she saw a double MTA bus – that bus with the accordion in the middle  - heading east on 103rd right near the railroad tracks. Before she stepped off the curb to get to her driver’s door, she made sure to make eye contact with the bus driver. Their eyes met and Wajeha put her right hand up to signal she was stepping out.

But the bus driver did not slow, and Wajeha says he even accelerated as he came toward her.

“Oh, no.” Oh, my God”, she thought.  Too late, Then it was splatter city, as the bus’ front side rammed into her side, fracturing her pelvis, two ribs and more bruises and sent her rolling. “Yeah he rolled me like a tortilla. I could hear my bones crackin’.”

Bystanders dashed to her. The bus stopped. The rear bus door, the door that a Rosa Parks would have been closest to, opened up and pinned her even more against the car. People working frantically, freed her. Fortunately, a  fire department truck was going by and stopped and rushed her to St. Francis.

Wajeha, mother of 10 – plus a whole lot more folks in and around Jordan Downs who call her Queen – faces a long rehabilitation. She has plenty of visitors and is getting plenty more calls from lawyers.

“Ok, Krikorian, thanks for coming by,” she said as I was leaving her hospital room. “Try ‘n stay outta trouble.”

Osteria Mozza Staff Lunch Of Russian Vodka Fried Chicken By New Cook Sets Off Controversy

BY JIMMY DOLAN

For veterans of Mozza, the daily staff lunch at Osteria is lovingly referred to as “Chicken Time”, a usually refreshing midday break that that marks an unofficial “half time” for the day crew.

But, Monday, that lunch turned into an political firestorm  when the meal - fried chicken prepared by newly hired pasta room employee  Jennifer Velasquez -  was lauded by Nancy Silverton as “maybe the best fried chicken ever served at the Corner”.

That statement was issued to the Mozza Tribune – and the Washington Post - in a press release before  it was leaked by a whistleblower that the fried chicken contained Russian Vodka.

Almost immediately the “Chicken time” became national political news.

 Seeking to diffuse his involvement in the “Ukraine” controversy, former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden went on the offensive, calling the chicken not only a threat to national security but “a slap to the kisser” to American vodka makers.

 But, it wasn’t just politicians slamming Jennifer’s fried chicken. Just as shocking - perhaps even more so - was the reaction of several Mozza employees, some of who were clearly upset that Velasquez, who has only worked on the Corner since Sept. 5, 2019 - a mere 34 days - was getting so much publicity.

 “When I made my fried chicken, I did it for the love of serving my co-workers a delicious meal,” said Chi Spacca sous chef Hayley Porter. “I didn’t do it for the publicity. For the fuckin’ headlines. Who the hell is Jennifer What’s Her Name anyway?”

Lost in the controversy was the later staff meal of fried chicken prepared by Kirby “Dr. K” Shaw.  Many thought it was just as good as the Russian Vodka version, but lacked the obvious ingredient of controversy.   

 Senate hearings will begin Friday.

Kirby "Dr. K" Shaw Named Best Guest of the Mozza Staff Party, Normally Drunk, He May Have Saved Lives, LAPD Says

BY JIMMY DOLAN

When oddsmakers in Las Vegas were laying bets on who would be drunkest at the annual Mozza Worker’s Party held on Labor Day, there were two favorites; Michael Krikorian and Kirby Shaw, the Corner’s version of Seabiscuit and Secretariat when it comes to drinking.

But, come Labor Day at Nancy Silverton’s home in Windsor Square, Osteria Mozza sous chef Kirby Shaw stepped up and - instead of being drunk - was the one taking care of the several drunks in attendance. He took away car keys, stopped a DJ from electrocuting himself, checked the pulse of at least four inebriated party goers, talked and guided three people  - who were about to drown - out of the pool.

 For these actions,  Kirby Shaw has been named Guest of the Labor Party aka GOLP.

 “Kirby saved several lives that day,” said LAPD Commander Cory Palka who heads the West Bureau. “If Shaw wasn’t there, our officers would have been all over that party.”

While this may not be stunning to those who know Shaw well, it comes as a shock to the scores whose knowledge of him is simply from parties and after-shift gatherings.

That’s understandable. Let’s examine the facts. He’s Irish. He’s 25. He talks almost as much about drinking as he does his beloved Dodgers. He’s Irish. He often takes the subway. In Los Angeles. Who takes the subway in Los Angeles if they are sober? Plus, he’s Irish.

Lia Shaw, Kirby’s mother, perhaps best known in the Osteria Mozza kitchen for her chocolate chip cookies, was thrilled to hear her son had been honored as GOLP. “For a quarter of a century I have dreamed of Kirby winning something, anything. And for him to be honored at Nancy’s house, well, it means it was all worth it. I mean he’s been known to gulp, so it’s nice to have him win the GOLP.”

Kirby’s father, reached in London via cell phone, did not believe the news at first, “What?”, Kevin Shaw yelled. “We must have a bad connection. Can you hear me?  It sounds like you said Kirby was the sober one and helped the drunks? You’re breaking up. Can you hear me? “

 As for Krikorian, well, something was clearly off with him. He was nice to a Turk

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L.A . City Council Approves Measure To Name Stretch Of Melrose Avenue "Michelin Mile" After Restaurants Honored

Several Los Angeles streets have long been anointed with famous nicknames. There is  “The Sunset Strip”. A stretch of Wilshire Boulevard is known as “The Miracle Mile”. On the glum side, two miles of Vermont Avenue in South Central are known as Death Alley.

Now a new one will join the ranks; Welcome to the Michelin Mile.

Friday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to name a not-quite-a mile stretch of Melrose Avenue as “The Michelin Mile” due to the high concentration of restaurants that recently were honored by the esteemed Michelin Guide.

 “I think it’s high time we brought recognition to the deliciousness of our own city,” City Council president Herb Wesson said after the unanimous vote. “For two long New York and San Francisco have sought to be known as the dining capital of America. Those days are over.”

 Starting on the west end of the Michelin Mile is Osteria Mozza at Highland and Melrose which was awarded a Michelin star at the June 3rd ceremony. Next door, the beloved Pizzeria Mozza was listed in Michelin’s Bibb Gourmand guide which pays tribute to more casual, yet delicious restaurants.

 Cattycorner to Mozza, Petit Trois made it to the Bibb and Trois Mec earned a star.   A few blocks east, Providence received two Michelin stars and at the east end of the Michelin Mile – which is actually only eight-tenths of a mile long – was unexpected one star winner Kali, whose co- owners - chef Kevin Meehan and somm Drew Langley - are really good friends with Kate Green.

But, like almost all City Council actions, this one was not without protest.

Manik, owner of the Circle K on the northwest corner of Highland and Melrose, was livid about not being included in the Michelin Mile.

“You know damn well the Round K deserves a Bib,” said Manik from Dhaka, Bangladesh. “You need a bag of Fritos. Original, Scoups? We have it for you. You gonna get that at Little Mec? I don’t think so.”

On the southeast corner, the Valvoline, general manager Lewis Hamilton was thrilled about the designation. “To be part of the Michelin Mile is a true honor,” said Hamilton, who works part time for Mercedes Formula One. “We will strive to be worthy.”

The Mile could be even longer next year. Perhaps too new to be honored was Auburn, the bright new spot at the old Citrus space, which got a excellent review from the Times’ Phil Addersen.

As for Chi Spacca, please see the accompanying article.