ITALY MMXIII JULY 22

LITTLE WHITE DRESS (ING)

After lunch at Trattoria Cibreo, Nancy Silverton and Michael Krikorian walked 10 meters  to a piazza and into Enoteca  Sant’ Ambrogio. There, Silverton, sipping Amarone,  suddenly launched into a reverie about her next creation. A ricotta dressing. On and on she described how delicious it would be. How it would take the dressing world by thunderstorm.  Krikorian later said he knew how Mr. Reese felt when his wife  first told him her idea for a peanut butter cup.

Two days later, when he asked her about the dressing Silverton replied “What dressing?”

“The ricotta one. The one you was goin’ on and on about like it was the second coming of 1,000 Island.”

“Oh, yeah. We need to go to the Tavernelle market and gets some bufala ricotta tomorrow.”

The next day, Silverton was making the ricotta dressing when Krikorian asked “Should I test it out? See if it’s any good.”

She looked at him like Miles Davis did when Marilyn Monroe asked him if she could sit in with her ukelele.  “Leave me alone. Go downstairs and Google “Big Evil.” or something.”

An hour later, the front porch table laden with a lunch fit for an emperor, Krikorian asked “Where’s the ricotta dressing?”.

“It didn’t work out. “

“That’s it. No dressing. Just like that?”

“That’s how it happens. Just like that.”

Reuters news Agency Jul 22. 2013

EDITOR’S NOTE – The copy editor strike at Krikorianwrites, lead by legendary copy editor Saji Mathai, remains in effect.  Originally striking in solidarity with the California prison inmates on hunger strike, the Mathai-led organization has added free Butterscotch Budinos on Wednesdays to their list of demands. Expect some typos.

NOTE II The first 10 days of the trips saw a few disappointing meals.  Like I wrote last week, I am not a food writer. And like I say this week, I get that when one is truly hungry any food is good. I am fortunate beyond paragraphs that I am able to eat well.

So, with that,  here is an update on the dining adventures of Nancy Silverton and myself with and guest appearances by some friends and family.

ITALY MMXIII

Seventeen days into Italy MMXIII, our dining and eating adventures have shifted into a higher gear, thanks largely to Days 13 and 14 in Florence which began at the Cibreo Trattoria and ended aboard a southbound train headed to Umbria eating culatello di Zibello and drinking red wine.  Dinner on July 18, (Day 13) at the home of Massimo Tarli and his wife Faith Willinger in Florence’s San Spirito neighborhood, was easily the best of the trip.  

The upswing of our dining batting average, which i told Osteria Mozza backwaiter David Rosoff was hovering around a paltry .235, began at the lunch at Trattoria Cibreo', little cousin to the Ristorante, one of the acclaimed joints in Florence, which is known 'round these parts as Firenze. 

We arrived at Florence's Santa Maria Novella train station at 1 p.m., and took a cab through the city center, past a very large church smack dab in the middle of downtown,  to Cibreo where we were immediately sat. 

I had a procini soup that brought to mind that tired food phase "depth of flavor", which this soup had in spades and clubs.  The above spelling of porcini appears wrong at first, but if you tasted this soup, you'd agree these were some PROcinis. You feel me?  Nancy had a fish soup that was good, too.

From main i had a roasted pork with spinich and some sterling mashed potatos topped with browned parmesan. I ate Nancy's portion  Nancy had, damn what'd she have? Hold up. Three times I had to yell upstairs, "What main did you have at Cibreo?" She had rabbit. Was fine.

We took a two, three kilometer walk to our hotel called the  Annalena near San Spirito that Faith had suggested. $120 for a nice room and a sweet balcony overlooking a garden.

It was dinner for six, us, the hosts and Dario Cecchini. the world's most famous butcher and KIm, the world's most famous butcher's wife.  

Now this meal  was outstanding. Here is where my lack of food writer skills becomes even more evident. Plus, I didn't take no notes. There were green beans, and beats with something, The beets were good. But, I remember Faith saying these green beans, (plain and called by her "haricots verte") , she said "these beans are to die for." Me i took one bite and i'm thinking "no way I'm gonna die for these beans."

But, the main course, an oxtail stew cooked, simmered and braised for, I think, 17 hours, was extaordinary. I wouldn't die for this dish either, but I'd surely take some indigestion and even a sore throat and maybe a mild fever for half a day for it. Faith added some chocalate and almonds to the dish that had such a extremely rich beefy flavor, almost like a Stegosaurus tail stew, but without the anxiety.

 "I knew the moment that I started cooking this oxtail. that it was special.  I never cooked a piece of meat like this," Faith said. "Just the aromas. My god." The extra large bull, raised by the winmaker Fontodi,  was five years old. (Two years is normal age to slaughter an  animal around here). The steer  was a castrated bull which accounted for his size as apparently he ate extra because he was so ornery at not being able to - or maybe even not wanting to - make out with all the fine young cows that graze the Panzano en Chianti lands.

I ate three portions. More importantly, I got to sit next to Kim. Thank you Faith and Massimo for a memorable evening. 

The next day we went to the San Lorenzo covered market about a five minute walk from the striking Basillica of Santa Maria di Fiori, maybe the most stunning urban structure I have ever seen. Your walking along a street lined with shoe stores and wine shops and turn the corner and sha la la la, sha boom!, there's the Duomo. 

At the market,  I had a pork sanwich with the roll dipped in pan juice, like a Philippe "double dip." Then we went to Perini. one of our all time favoirte delis, with meats from all over italy. We got the Culatlello di Zibelo here.  We were here a year ago. and the counter man, Andrea, remembered me. Even before i ordered, he said "You got the culatello last year. I remember, for the train ride home."  Going back there, for sure.

That was a Thursday. Friday, we stayed around the house, which is really the best day of all. We hung out in the piazza with some friends we know from here and Nancy, her dad Larry and our friend Bobby Silverstein, a professori di vini, a Philly guy  who has traveled the world in search of fine food and drinks.  This year is a small L.A. crowd. No Linda or Olivia, or Enid and Richard or even Margy and Robert or even Carly Kim.  Nancy' sister Gail and her husband, Joel Hoops, had already gone.

Saturday we set out, at my suggestion. to an Umbrian hilltop village of Saragano, west of Montefalco and Foligno, if that means anything to you. The restaurant there, which i had read praise about and recevied a 14.5 rating for the guide book. L'Expresso, was Locando del Prete, a charming inn and ristorante with a sublime view.  

A quick word about numeric Italian restaurant ratings. This guide book rates restaurants from 12 to 19.75 points, that highest rating going to Osteria Francescana in Modean where we are going July 30. The thinking behind the ratings, is like the French school systyem and maybe the Italian too for al| I know, 20 is unobtainable perfection. Nancy and I have found that we prefer the restaurants rated 13.5, 14, and 14.5 to the more fancy, 16, 17s and up.. We will see next Tueday about the 19.75. Those 14ish places are more representative of the pure and good rustic cuisine of Italy that we like.  So this place, Locande Del Prete got a 14.5 and I talked Nancy Larry, Bobby into the hour and 15 minute drive there.

The problem here is the charming manager, Lucia, informs us, as we take the first bites that the chef, one Riccardo Benevenuti who had earned that 14.5,  has moved on to consult around Umbria and work on his opening own place.. The food is all right now, but not worth the drive. Maybe the lesson is to call and ask if the chef you read about is still there. 

Bobby give me a ration on the drive home, saying he'll stick with his 12.5s.  

Sunday it was another drive, this time two hours there and two and half back. and this time it is worth it: Locanda Del Glicine in Campagnatico, on the road toward Grosseto. We had been here last year and it was a highlight. It was again Sunday. 

Bobby, leery of my suggestions, didn't go, but Larry did, praise God..

I had a soup. a cream of their garden zucchini with a ricotta sorberto in the middle. |t might sound bizarre, but it worked for me big time.

I also had a excellent ravioli with spinach and a sage and butter sauce. Mo' butter!  Fernand PoInt was right 

Nancy loved her main course, a guinea fowl. The leg and thigh were boned and stuffed with roasted eggplant and wrapped in proscuitto. The breast with the wing attached was confit'd. "It was such a sensible way of treating the white and dark meat separately without using over the top modern techniques. It was delicious." said Nancy. "Respectful, sensible and thoughtful. You got that?"

Nancy had  a mixed salad of vegetables from their garden, a tangle of carrots, zucchini, cherry tomatoes and tender young lettuces. "The chef  was channelling Alice Waters," says Nancy, now demanding to be quoted. "You just don't see that kind of attention to salads around here usually."

Larry, aka in these parts as "Lorenzo", had a grilled sliced veal dish that was tasty, but not outstanding. Green beans wrapped in pancetta  accompained this.

I had a brick flattened chicken that was very good. The menu frequently changes, and had only five main courses. The other two were a one kilo Bisteca and cod.

Desserts were pretty. A plate o five sorbets, aka sobetti, aka sherberts, and i had three creme caramels. i need to figure out how to get some photos up on this report. I have the photos, but not the technical support to get them on here. Spookie, where you at?

The drive home from there was another highlight. With Lorenzo as my navigator we took the winding and long way home, skirting Montalcino and driving on, at times, gravel roads. On once such road there was a warning sign that i took a photo of prompting Larry to say, "The authorites will go though your phone and figure out that was the last mistake we made. Drive down this road."

One that road, Nancy said "I think I was on this road with Taylor," referring to Taylor Parsons who accompainied Nancy here in February to accept an award to Osteria Mozza for the best list featuring wines from around here.  

At 6:30, seven hours after we left for lunch, we were home.  Typico, 

Today we had that feast on the porch. And stayed home. One of the best days. Hitting our stride. For baseball fans, our batting average up to .314.

Michael Krikorian

Locanda Del Glicene's creme of garden zucchini soup with ricotta sorbet.   

Locanda Del Glicene's sorbetti  

ITALY 2013 July 17

“I’ll know when Nancy gets Alzheimer’s, She’ll tell Michael to snack while she’s preparing a feast,” Gail Silverton.

This quote from Gail was in response to Michael Krikorian’s disgruntled demeanor after Nancy Silverton scolded him, told him how annoying he was and threatened to ban him from Umbria for life  after he repeatedly raided  several of the plates she was preparing for a dinner for six Monday evening July 15 in Panicale, Umbria, Italy .

- From Reuters News

 2013 ITALY

It’s day 10 of our annual summer trip to Italy and so far, despite the predictable jabs, hooks and uppercuts, it’s going typically delightful.

Restaurant wise, we haven’t  got into the master groove.  There’s been several mediocre meals and one dinner in the town of Tavernelle so bad it will be the standard of which all bad meals will be judged.  I’ve had better meals at Men’s Central.

I mean I think grey is a useful color. It is excellent for warships. Most of the history’s greatest battleships were grey. Though if my memory is accurate,  I believe the USS West Hollywood was peach and lime green which worked well for it and the crew during the Battle of Sweetzer Creek.

Gregory Peck had a movie about a grey flannel suit. Grey is a leader among primer colors. But for a steak? No way, Giuseppe. For lamb?  Sorry. I don’t know how they got the beef. lamb and  the chicken the same shade of grey. Nancy’s father, Larry, saw one such colored dish come by and asked the servers. “What is that? Chicken?”  “Bisteca fiorentina”, came the answer. Dario Cecchini would have strangled the grill cook. . .

But, who wants to read about the lousy food? On to the highlights.

WARNING. - Let it be understood two things before you read on, if you do. Though the first byline I ever had at the Los Angeles Times (1992) was a small restaurant review of the Spoon House,  Japanese spaghetti restaurant in Gardena,  I am not a food writer. This will soon become quite clear.  Secondly, the website Krikorianwrites.com  is in the second day of a copy editor strike, so there might be a few copy edits missed and heading your way. The copy editors at Krikorianwrites.com have decide to strike in solidarity with the California state prisoners who are on a hunger strike.

That said... -

THE TOP TASTES  OF THE FIRST 10 DAYS

Not in any order of preference. All we would have again with pleasure.

CHOCOLATE CANDY BAR at Marconi Ristorante in the town of Sasso Marconi, about 20 minutes south of Bologna. The 15 euro raisin and brandy soaked cherry 70% bar by Claudio Corallo came in a cardboard box and was devoured by Nancy and I (mainly Nancy)  in one minute and 52 seconds, six full seconds quicker than Chris and Dahlia’s Vegas wedding.

Corallo is said, according to the Marconi menu at least, to be the only chocolate guy who grows and produces chocolate in the same site. That site being the small African island nation of St. Tome and Principe located in the Gulf of Guinea. This candy bar had a rich complex flavor and a borderline tender texture.

Claudio Corallo chocolate is available at Alegio in Berkeley. Though this particular bar is a long shot. UPDATE, I emailed Marconi to see if I could swing by and just by some bars, but they said they were ut until October.

http://www.alegio.com/corallo-chocolate/

I need to mention the seafood risotto i had here. While excellent, it was one of the only  dishes I have ever had that could one could say, as the cliche goes, looked like a painting. Som,etime abut it, the colors, reminded me of a paintin that hangs in Nancy's den here, a plate of fruit by our friend Jeff, husband of Collinette.  Check it out below. Way below. Scroll down extra. Couldn't figure it out to bring it up.  Looking at it, it don't look all that much like the Jeff painting.  Not a food critic, certainly not an art critic. 

Restaurant web site

http://www.ristorantemarconi.it/ristoranteMARCONI_home.php

NANCY'S JULY PORCH SALAD, at home for lunch today, Iceberg, anchovies, tuna, eggs, onions tomatoes. Extraordinary view of Nancy and the Panicale hillside

ROASTED PORK w/ ONION CAKE at Trattoria da Amerigo 1934 in Savigno,This was a standout of several good dishes. we had here. At Day 10, this meal, enjoyed at Day 4, is becoming more highly thought of than originally.  There is even the possibility we will return. The ultimate honor. Well, not ultimate, but high.  One factor in returning here is that this place is a 15 minute windy drive from Marconi so we could go by and get a Corrlo chocolate bar

 http://www.amerigo1934.it/content/show/section/trattoria

Via Guglielmo Marconi, 14-16, 40060 Savigno Province of Bologna  051 670 8326

SPIDER PORK PIZZA at Pellicano in Macchie. 7 minutes from Nancy’s Panicale home. Of all the restaurants in Italy, this place is my favorite. Not for the food, for the wonderful memories I have here. This is a place where we would cram Oliver, Max, Ida, a few adults and head to at one in the morning. I have been here maybe 70 times. The pizza, the only pizza I am legally allowed to eat under the terms of my contract with Pizzeria Mozza, is very good. The Tenant Super beer from England of somewhere like that comes in a size called Giraffe. ‘Nuff said.

Via Pineta 12 | Macchie, 06060 near Castiglione del Lago.

FOCCCIA  topped with coppa, split and smeared with crescenza or stracchino cow’s milk cheese, at Osteria Perilla in Tuscan hilltop village of Rocca d Orcia.

NOTE The kitchen-made KETCHUP  at Osteria Perilla came close to being listed here separately , but at the last minute, the council decided to merely add it on to the Focaccia spiel.   It came with lime zested potato chips and  was unquestionably the best ketchup I’ve ever had. I ate some of it like a soup.

With the ketchup and the focaccia, then a good pasta, (a tortelli with ricotta and peas) Osteria Perilla, which we went to on the high recommendation of Faith Willinger, was off to a very good start. Twice, Nancy raised her glass of local red and toasted to Faith for bringing us her. Bu then, a rain fell and we moved inside, the meal skidded off course and into a chicken coop. While Nancy pork was fine, my main course of a local farm raised capon the server gushed over, was bad.  It was like two pieces of package pressed Leo’s Deli Meats chicken smashed together with passion fruit sauce. Even though Nancy didn’t order it, she was more upset with the dish than me and proclaimed the meal a once promising but ultimately disappointment..

THE NANCY TAVOLA. This is the well-documented spread that lead Nancy Silverton to lay into me for AS, attempted snacking.  She prepared red pepprs, onions, flattened roasted chicken, pistachios from Adana, Turkey, barlotti beans, a pesto to rival, but ultimately lose to  Genoa’s finest, an assortment of cheeses we bought at farmer’s markets, notebale an old percorino and bufala bucconcini.  The best spread.  

SPECIAL K CEREAL.  After a 2.5 k walk and a 2.5 k run, this bowl of cereal Special K,. from the heralded the 2010 vintage, with rich milk was a delight.

DEB CAKE    Osteria Mozza cook Deb Michail, who is visiting her sister in Milan, brought this round almond cookie cake to Nancy as a show of affection. I received nothing from Deb. Well, I got a couple a hugs. But, can one really eat a hug? Still, though this buttery gift from a bakery in Milan was for Nancy, I  proceeded to eat much of it while standing up in the kitchen. 

DARIO COW’S ACL - This very tender and tasty beef dish was served Sunday July 14 at Dario Cecchini's Solociccia, the modern glass-stepped eatery of the world’s most famous butcher. .  His supreme wife Kim, said this as the platter of this was being passed,  “What is that part of the knee that the atheletes always injure?" Deb said “ACL”.  Yes, Kim said, explaining the dish was composed of the meat and tendons and ligaments around the cow’s knees. “It’s Dario\s favorite part of the cow,” Kim said

 As a placard states, Dario Cecchini is not a restaurant. It is the home of a butcher. It is also the place that Nancy and I know we will find happiness. And a greeting like none other. For many years, Dario has greeted me with a bear hug than he picks me up. Tradition has it that, in turn, I pick him up. To prepare for this on this trip, I picked up Nancy – half Dario’s weight,- in a parking lot a couple times. That was fun.  

This list will grow.   

Seafood Risotto at Marconi

Spider Pork Pizza at Pelicanos,  a favorite of the Berettos street gang. 

The Michael Hastings Crash

FROM THE WEBSITE "WHOWHATWHY'

The Michael Hastings Wreck–Video Evidence Only Deepens the Mystery

By Michael Krikorian - David J. Krajicek on Jul 14, 2013

Michael Krikorian, an essayist and former Los Angeles Times crime reporter, happened upon the scene a few hours after journalist Michael Hastings’s speeding car slammed into a palm tree and burst into a fireball.

Krikorian has seen his share of fatal car wrecks. But this one was different. As he put it, “This demands a closer examination.”

In accident-investigation parlance, it was a roadway departure–a non-intersection crash in which a vehicle leaves the traveled way for some reason.

But how and why did Hastings’s Mercedes depart the traveled way, and why was it traveling so perilously fast?

North Highland Avenue in L.A.’s Hancock Park neighborhood is not exactly Dead Man’s Curve. A fatal car accident there is rare.

Highland is a four-lane neighborhood artery as straight as a laser, with a narrow, grassy median lined with towering Washingtonia robusta palms. In the two miles between Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards, not a single traffic fatality was recorded on Highland from 2001 to 2009, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. http://map.itoworld.com/road-casualties-usa#fullscreen

In the final moments of Michael Hastings’s life, the car he was operating accelerated to a treacherous speed before swerving off the pavement, mounting the median and slamming into one of the palms. There were no skid marks—no apparent attempt to brake before the collision.

Hastings, 33, covered the Iraq War as a young correspondent for Newsweek. But he made front-page news (and won the prestigious George Polk journalism prize) for his 2010 Rolling Stone magazine profile of “The Runaway General,” Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO’s security force in Afghanistan. Hastings’s story portrayed the dismissive contempt with which McChrystal and his staff viewed President Obama and Vice President Biden. The general apologized, calling the profile “a mistake reflecting poor judgment.” But he was forced to resign.

Michael Hastings was carving out a journalism niche as a muckraker, and some see nefarious forces at work in his death.

We asked Michael Krikorian for his take on the curious accident, which happened in his hometown on a block he visits several times a week. He provides the details of new video evidence that offers a few clues about the seemingly inexplicable fatality.—David J. Krajicek

————-

By Michael Krikorian

Shortly before 9 a.m. on Tuesday, June 18, I was walking with my girlfriend, Nancy Silverton, to get my car, which I had left the night before at her restaurant, Pizzeria Mozza, at Highland and Melrose avenues. Walking west on Melrose, we noticed crime scene tape as we arrived at Highland. Just to the south, a wrecked and charred car was being pulled away from a palm tree in the median.

We lifted the yellow tape and walked down the sidewalk to get access to the alley leading to the lot where my car was parked. A Los Angeles police officer stopped us. Nancy explained she owned the restaurant and I identified myself as a reporter. The officer let us walk on and gave a quick rundown: A man had driven into the tree at 4:30 that morning. He was dead.

My first thought was that another early morning L.A. drunk had killed himself. I told the officer that a security camera located outside the front door of the pizzeria probably captured the crash.

As we talked to the police, a Mozza employee named Gary, who has been staying at a small apartment above the restaurant, approached us to say that he had heard the crash.

“I heard a ‘whoosh,’ then what sounded like a bump and then an explosion,” he said. “I thought the building had been hit.”

He said he rushed down and saw the car ablaze. Gary listened as two men who claimed to have witnessed the crash told police the car had sped through a red light at Melrose.

Later, when the pizzeria manager arrived at work, we watched the security camera footage.  There’s no wonder it was a fatality. The crash ended with a hellish explosion and fire. The officer, watching the video with us, was as stunned as we were. He said, “I have never seen a car explode like that.”

Soon, a flatbed truck with the burned Mercedes CL 250 aboard drove slowly by, going north in the southbound lanes of Highland. The front of the car, particularly on the driver’s side, was badly damaged. I snapped a couple of poor photos with my iPhone.

The Man Who Brought Down General McChrystal

Nancy and I got in my car and went home. I went on to Watts to do some reporting on another story and later to Gardena. That afternoon, I got an email from a friend to whom I had mentioned the crash. It included a link to an L.A. Times story about the wreck. My friend wrote, “The driver was a well-known journalist: Michael Hastings. What a drag. Obviously a talented guy. Wonder why he was driving so fast?”

I went online and read about Michael Hastings, the guy who brought down General McChrystal. The conspiracy theories were already being spun on the web: that a bomb had been planted in the car, or that its controls had been hacked and the crash was engineered remotely by an unseen hand.

For nearly five years, McChrystal served as chief of the Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the military’s commando units, including the Army Delta Force and the Navy Seals. This was not a paper-pushing general.  McChrystal was a soldier’s general who would go on raids with his men. A reporter brings him down—and then dies in a mysterious crash three years later. If this had happened in Russia, wouldn’t we all figure it was some dark military conspiracy?

I’m not a conspiracy guy, but my reporter’s instincts told me that this demands a closer examination. So I snooped around.

Mysteries on the Video Tape

“I’ve never seen an explosion like that,” said Terry Hopkins, 46, a former U.S. Navy military policeman who served in Afghanistan, told me. “I’ve seen military vehicles explode, but never quite like that. Look, here’s a reporter who brought down a general. He’s sending out emails saying he’s being watched. It’s four in the morning and his car explodes? Come on, you have to be naïve not to at least consider it wasn’t an accident.”

I turned to the one piece of evidence I had: the security camera footage.

The camera shows the view from near the entrance of Pizzeria Mozza.

Four seconds into the start of the tape, a minivan or SUV goes by the front of restaurant. Three seconds later, another vehicle goes by, traveling from the restaurant front door to the crash site in about seven seconds. At 35 seconds into the tape, a car is seen driving northbound and appears to slow, probably for the light at Melrose.

Then at 79 seconds, the camera catches a very brief flash of light in the reflection of the glass of the pizzeria. Traveling at least twice as fast as the other cars on the tape, Hastings’s Mercedes C250 coupe suddenly whizzes by. (This is probably the “whoosh” that Gary, the Mozza employee, heard.)

The car swerves and then explodes in a brilliant flash as it hits a palm tree in the median. Viewed at normal speed, it is a shocking scene—reminiscent of fireballs from “Shock and Awe” images from Baghdad in 2003.

I have heard and read a wide range of guessed speeds, up to as much as 130 mph. I think it’s safe to say the car was doing at least 80.

Driving 80 on Highland is flying. Over 100 is absolute recklessness.

Highland has a very slight rise and fall at its intersection with Melrose. It’s difficult to tell by the film, but based on tire marks—which were not brake skid marks, by the way—chalked by the traffic investigators, it seems that the Mercedes may have been airborne briefly as it crossed the intersection, then landed hard. Tire marks were left about 10 feet east of the restaurant’s valet stand.

(Later, I drove the intersection at just 45 mph, and my car rose up significantly.)

About 100 feet after the car zooms by on the tape, it starts to swerve. At about 195 feet from the camera, the car jumps the curb of the center median, heading toward a palm tree 56 feet away.

About halfway between the curb and the tree, the car hits a metal protrusion—perhaps 30 inches tall and 2 feet wide—that gives access to city water mains below. This is where the first small flash occurs. This pipe may have damaged the undercarriage of the car, perhaps rupturing a fuel line.

I looked at the tape frame by frame. A second flash immediately follows the first. It might be the brake lights, but it’s hard to tell. The next frame is dark. Then comes the first explosion, followed immediately by a large fireball.

I showed the video to a number of people. Everyone had the same reaction: essentially, “Wow!”

“This Was Not a Bomb”

I showed the video to Scott E. Anderson, an Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor with Digital Sandbox who has engineered explosions for many films.

He viewed the footage more than 20 times at various speeds, including frame by frame. Anderson concluded, “This was not a bomb.”

He said a bomb would have propelled the car upward, not forward.

“It’s very hard to blow up stuff well,” Anderson said. “I think too many things would have to go right. Luck would be involved. Good and bad. Does someone doing this to Hastings want to rely on luck? Too many things have to go right. It would have to be perfect. And that’s almost impossible.”

He continued, “It comes down to physics. A bomb would have lifted the car and the engine up. Based on this video, the car doesn’t go up, and the engine goes forward, which makes sense since the car apparently did not hit the tree head on.”

He said the fireball may be enhanced by the recording device.

“That type of surveillance camera has auto exposure so it can change what it sees based by the ambient exposure day or night,” Anderson explained. “This camera is set at night and anything that happens very quickly, be it a flash light or a big ball of fire, the camera won’t react fast enough, so the first flash of light is going to appear much bigger in the viewing. So the initial explosion would always look bigger than it is.”

He suggested a simple demonstration using a cellphone video app: Strike a match in a dark room and it will flare up on camera much more than in reality.

Why Was He Driving So Fast?

The pizzeria video is compelling, but it fails to answer the key question: Why was Michael Hastings traveling so fast?

As Anderson put it, “None of this happens without the speed.”

Some theorize that the car was hacked—operated remotely (like a drone, for example) by someone who wished to harm Hastings.

That may be technologically possible, but is it plausible?

Hastings ran at least two red lights, and possibly a third. Could a hacker have planned for no cross traffic, which might have derailed the mission? If the flash before the dark frame was indeed brakes, that would indicate the brake light was functional. If the car were hurtling along out of his control, wouldn’t Hastings have been plying the brake pedal all along, not merely in the last second before the crash?

And even if the brakes and accelerator were rigged, the steering must have been functional, according to a Los Angeles Police Department officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “For nearly a half a mile, that car must have been going straight,” the officer said. “That can’t be done at that speed for that long, even with the best alignment.”

“Stanley Got Him”

The day after the crash, I found myself in the homicide squad room in South Los Angeles. The Hastings topic came up, and one of the detectives said, “Stanley got him. Took his time, but got him. That wasn’t an accident.” (Meaning General Stanley McChrystal.)

On cue, a sign showed up the next day on the now-singed Hasting’s Palm: “This was not an accident.”  By nightfall, someone had replaced it with another message: “Go to sleep people. This was an accident.”

Hastings’s death was national news briefly, but it was soon pushed aside by subjects deemed more pressing to the mainstream media. The George Zimmerman homicide trial was gearing up in Florida. Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker, was playing Tom Hanks at a Moscow Airport. Istanbul had erupted in the biggest anti-government protests in its history, and political strife in Cairo was taking center stage.

Michael Hastings was put on the mainstream media’s back burner—or perhaps on an unlit hibachi behind the garage.

But on YouTube the conspiracy thrived. One video that has received over 8,500 views proclaimed that the plot was so over-the-top that the culprits had removed the bombed car, and in the process, placed another car in front of different trees. It also stated there was no damage to the front of the car.

I saw the car being towed away.  It was absolutely mangled on the front, particularly the driver’s side. I’ve lived in Los Angeles most of my life and have seen the aftermath of many car crashes. This was one of the worst. There was no way a driver could have survived.

LAPD Traffic Bureau: ‘No Foul Play’

Two days after the crash, the LAPD announced that there appeared to be no “foul play” in the single-car fatal crash. That ignited even more conspiracy talk:  The “feds” had gotten to the LAPD and were hushing it up.

A week after that statement, the lead investigator on the case, Detective Connie White from LAPD’s West Traffic Bureau, contradicted that. When I asked her if “foul play” had indeed been ruled out, she replied, “No. Nothing has been ruled out.”

White said the investigation was nearly complete, but she refused to give details. She said an official report, including toxicology results on Hastings’s remains, may be weeks away.

As far as a bomb or car-hacking, White said, “At this point there is nothing that leads us in that direction.”

When asked if any explosive materials had been discovered on the car or at the crash scene, White sounded like she chuckled.

She said, “Oh, boy. Hold on.”

I thought maybe I had asked a touchy question, and I expected a “no comment.” But she returned to the phone and said, “No.” The way she said it, I wondered if she had shared a laugh with other detectives about my question.

She added, “If this were anything other than an accident, other departments would have been brought in to investigate,” alluding to homicide, the bomb squad or a terrorism unit. (Though one might think “other departments” would have been needed in any case–simply to determine whether it was an accident or not.)

On TV, Hastings Provokes another General

I’ve seen a number of people use the word “fearless” to describe Hastings. The word has different meanings to different people. To some, it might be how well someone held up in the second battle of Fallujah.

I have no idea how Hasting was in the trenches. But I watched him in action on Piers Morgan’s CNN show last November against retired General David Kimmit, an admirer of General David Petraeus.  At one point, Kimmit told Hastings that his impressions about Iraq after Petraeus were wrong. Kimmit added that he knew this because he has been back to Iraq, working in the private sector.

Exasperated, Hasting threw up his hands, gave his unique smirk and proclaimed, “I’ve spent more time in Iraq than you have, man.”

Hastings went on to chide Kimmit for profiting off the war in the private sector. “I’m glad the general was able to make money off his services,” he said.

In that TV vignette, I could see why a guy like Hastings would piss off the military brass and would be so admired by fellow journalists.

I hope that someone will be able to explain why Hastings’s Mercedes was speeding like a silver bullet. Maybe the answer will show up in the toxicology results.  I know this much: American journalism has lost a pit bull of an investigative reporter.

Armenian Dining Memories of Fresno

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

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

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

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"

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

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/magazine/11lives-t.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/magazine/11lives-t.html?_r=0