The Year in Ice Cream; 339,150 Calories in 1 Flavor

If not for being in Italy six weeks this summer, I would have consumed 300 pints of Haagen Daz Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream in 2013. Even with the trip, the storied 300 figure was attainable, but in early December I bought a pint of Steve's Salty Caramel and the Chocolate Peanut Better (CPB) consumption dropped dramatically. I'll end 2013 with about 285 CPB pints total or .780 ppd*. At 1,190 calories per pint, that's over 1/3 million calories for the year. These stats are certainly good enough to make a local ice cream team, but hardly Hall of Fame numbers.

Before I get into the Steve's Salty Caramel, here's a recap of my recent  ice cream career. 

It was Fall of  2012 when Haagen Daz Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream became, in a newly booze-banned life, my new drink. And like Jack Daniels and Smirnoff Red before it, it became a problem. 

It seemed no different than my addiction to alcohol. I had to have it. I began to make excuses to the woman I lived with, Nancy Silverton, why I had to go back in the house as we were pulling out the driveway. I forgot my wallet, my cell phone. Before, I'd rush back for a gulp of wine from the bottle. Now, it was a forkful of ice cream from the carton.

And I had fallen for a very popular flavor. Too many times CPB would be sold out. There'd be 14 goddamn flavors of Haagen Daz and no chocolate peanut butter. Still, when it was available, I would buy only one at a time. That was my so-called discipline, even knowing I'd be back at the store the next day. To ward off the frequent dreaded "none-available" situation. I rift off a classic tactic of the drunk: Stashing.

I used to stash bottles of vodka, or cheap syrah in the garage or guest bedroom closet. Now I was stashing CPB. Not in the house, in the supermarket. I soon became aware that the Haagen Daz Green Tea was always available. So I would place a CPB about four or five pints back in the green tea line up. Maybe you saw me. I was that guy with his arm all up in the cold cases.

That brilliant tactic came through four, five times at the Ralph's at 3rd and La Brea and the Pavilion ( a Vons with less black people)  at Vine and Melrose. 

I'd watch "The Wire", (my favorite work of art)  or "Breaking Bad" (my second favorite TV show) with the ice cream and I was content. 

So one November day, I'm at the Gelson's on Hyperion and I randomly get a Steve's Salty Caramel. What the hell, try something different. Caramel and salt.  Good combo, right? Plus the price tag was intriguing, too. $6.75 a pint.. Not like this brand called Jeni's Splendid which is $10.95 a pop, but still about three bucks more than Haagen Daz.

Back at the house. I put on some Breaking Bad (the one where Hank gets shot) and took a forkful on this Steve's Salty Caramel. Sensations sped to Taste Buds Mission Control Center. Yeah. That first mouthful and I knew  this was some special. The white caramel ice cream. swirled with salty caramel veins was so luxurious, so creamy. And what a good mouthfeel. I rolled it around my mouth like it was '82 Pichon Lalande.   

I didn't admit it to myself at first, - it took nearly a week - but, I started to crave the Salty Caramel more than the CPB. Perhaps damaged by too much frozen cream traveling near my brain, I felt my loyalty was being tested and that loyalty was losing. It was like I had dropped a dear old comrade for a flashy newcomer.

I went to San Francisco for a week in early December and did without Steve's. but not willingly. I called two Whole Foods (who, along with Gelson's, stocks Steve's), but they didn't have Salty Caramel. Looking to others for relief, my nephew and I packed his Twin Peaks freezer with more pints than I have ever seen in a home kitchen. Bi-Rite Creamery's Salted Caramel, Three Twins' Sea Salted Caramel, Mission Hill Creamery' Salted Caramel Strauss' Egg Nog, Three Twins' Dad's Cardamom, Haagen Daz's Pralines & Cream and some others. They were all good. though none matched Steve's Salty Caramel's lusciousness.

My nephew's freezer 

Then, back home, just a few weeks in as the new Sir Scoop, Steve's faced a new challenge. On December 23, I stopped by that  Gelson's and saw that pricey Jeni's. Jeni Britton Bauer is a ice cream maker out of Columbus, Ohio, who won a James Beard Award for her cookbook, Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream At Home  http://www.jenis.com/jenis-splendid-ice-creams-at-home-signed-copy/ and who is perhaps better known for the high price of her ice cream. I mean $11 a pint? It had to be good. But, how good? I'd been seeing it all year, but never went for the splurge.

So on this winter day, wallet plump. I bought a Jeni's Salty Caramel and a Jeni's Brown Butter with Almond Brittle. And two Steve's Salty Caramels. But, no Haagen Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter. In my cold, ice cream world, it was kinda like "Taps" had played for CPB. 

At home, I put on Breaking Bad (By now Hank was on to Walter) and started with the Jeni's Brown Butter, mainly to test the ice cream itself. Would it be ultra creamy as Steve's. It wasn't. It was very tasty.  Very good and very sweet. With large pieces of Almond brittle, what, it should be sour? But it, wasn't as good to me as Steve's. Yeah, I know it's a different flavor.

Then, now batting, Jeni's Salty Caramel. I even took a photo of the two salty caramels. You'd a thunk it was Ali Frazier.  So I dig in, a heaping forkful. It hits the mouth and you know what? It's really, really  good, but I'm not running for cover. It's not like a knockout. And after several back and forth bites. I decide Steve's is better for me.  It's flavor, it's saltiness that hits at the right time and place, and, for sure, it's creaminess. 

Then, get this, Nancy comes home. She has to go and put doubt in my mouth about the reason for the creaminess of Steve's. There';s something called gum gauer, or some such shit, listed in the ingredients. I hold up a forkful and part of the ice cream hangs over the side, like a cat hanging off a fire escape in a poster, and stays suspended.

"That's the guar gum," said Nancy using the correct term for this questionable ingredient. That why its doesn't fall. I guess a thickening agent. (Are all agents devious?) . I start to not only doubt Steve's. but my own taste buds. Was I fooled by this gaur gum shit?

Did this fuckin' gaur gum account for the rich mouth feel that earned a 9. 7. at the Taste Olympics. I start to give Jeni's more credit for not using gum guaer of whatever that junk is called. Guar gum.  It's definitely not something that grows on a tree in Madagascar. What is it? A stabilizer? What would happen without it? Jeni's doesn't have it and while it might not have the luxuriant mouth feel of Steve's, it's not falling apart. It's not unstable.  I don't even want look at my dear CPB's ingredient list for fear gaur gum is there.. 

Regardless, Steve's won a very controversial decision over Jenis. Though some say, like the Aaron Pryor-Alexis Arguello fight, it wasn't fair with the involvement of gaur gum, the steroids of the ice cream world apparently.

It doesn't matter. Without a doubt the ice cream of 2013, probably of all time, is and will be Haagen Daz CPB. I'll never have an ice cream season like 2013. Almost 300! I can boast about my 2013 ice cream season for the rest of my life. So many satisfying moments CPB and I had together with Stringer Bell and Omar Little, with Walter White and Tuco Salamanca.  

But, then, as the 2013 season winded down, an ice cream shocker! I get solid word  a new super ice cream is in the works. A zultra premium brand. Yes, zultra. Make that Zultra.

It's top secret, but Krikorian Writes has been able to intercept highly classified documents 

Classified Communique #1 :  It will be made in California and a pint is going to be 10 dollars or more.

Classified Communique .#2 :  The people behind this proposal make a premium brand of ice cream, but are looking to go McLaren P1 with this Zultra project. 

Classified Communique# 3 They want Nancy to develop the Zultra premium ice cream. She's got a lot in her cone right now, but she is seriously considering it. 

Unclassified Conclusion (Not, repeat, not prediction)  : If Nancy S starts making ice cream in pints, it will be the best ice cream brand in America. 

And it won't have that gaur gum That's for sure. If I can just get her to make Salty Caramel or maybe even Chocolate Peanut Butter.

Nah, just the Salty Caramel.  I want CPB, I'll get my boy.

#####

*ppd = pints per day

The Last Scoop - If you want to read about ice cream from a real fanatic, check out this guy Steve ( no relations to Steve's), The Ice Cream Informant at http://www.theicecreaminformant.com/    This guy appears to be heading for the Ice Cream Hall of Fame.

Last Drip of this story. : Those 339,150 Chocolate Peanut Butter calories in 2013 were almost all savored, but they put me over 200 pounds. As I "save & publish", Dec. 30, 2013 , 7:59 a.m., I haven't had any ice cream for 34 hours.  I might be on another wagon.

Dexter Gordon Inspires Revolutionary Exercise

A swirling infusion of emotions and energies I haven't felt since smoking PCP 27 years ago in Watts coursed through my fibers Thursday morning upon hearing my new favorite Christmas song, Dexter Gordon's version of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas". This 9-minute, 40-second track so struck me that I invented a new exercise that Special Forces around the globe are already incorporating into their training regimens.

First the song.  I was in the garage doing some lackadaisical exercise when the Christmas classic came on 88.1 FM KJAZZ from the retro Crosley radio . It begins with a short piano by Kirk Lightsey, then, 10 seconds in, Dexter's sax starts blowing medium to up-tempo the familiar melody of "Have Yourself..."  It is so uplifting, so lovely, so damn beautiful that, my work out routine shifted gears like a McLaren down the beginning of the Mulsanne straight in Le Mans and I felt like Ali training for Floyd Patterson, shuffle and all. I felt wonder.  I think if Atlas had heard Dexter playing this he would have dropped the earth and started grooving, too.  

Once before I wrote about a song,  Sarah Vaughan's version of "Just a LIttle Lovin' ( Early in the Mornng)  in the New York Times Sunday Magazine's LIve page. http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2013/9/18/just-a-little-lovin-early-in-the-morning.  But, Dexter Gordan has compelled me to babble again. You might want to lIsten and play this on Christmas Evening 

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV_jgQoYoTE

Now, the exercise invention.

Like many of the great inventions of all time - the wheel, the pre, semi-sliced English Muffin, the Porsche turbocharger, - the J. Jack 15 is something that brings to mind the oft-heard saying "Why didnt i think of that?"

The J Jack 15 recipe is as follows. Grab on 8-pound dumbbell in your strong hand and a 7-pound dumbbell in the other one.  Start doing jumping jacks. That's it. 

Proceed to do jumping jacks until you start thinking about where is the nearest phone to call 911. As determination shows up and thoughts of an imminent heart attack start to fade, continue on doing the jumping jacks until the bass of David Eubanks takes over.  Stop the J Jack 15 system, but continue moving. maybe punching a heavy bag. or jogging in place. Something. When Dexter starts blowing again. resume with the J Jack 15.

(Four  Notes. 1. At first, one might not be able to do this for 9 minutes and 40 seconds. But, even if you only do the 40 seconds, it's a start.

2. Get the dumbbells that are that urethane coated, rather than grey steel. If you drop a urethane one on your toe, it will still break,  but no one will say "Why were you using steel dumbbells?" Also, the chances of being called a dumbbell increase by over 40%.

3. When doing the jumping jack itself, try jumping a little higher than a normal jumping jack. This will make you think more about that 911 call, then back off the height of the jump.

4. It is vital to have different weights for the dumbbells as it increases cordination and balance. I use a 8,/7 combo, because that's what i saw in the garage when the song came on. But, any combo will work. Up to a point. A guy I know tried a 60/3 combination, but ended up walking for hours afterwards with a slight tilt.  

The J Jack 15 is  already getting the best exercise reviews since RAFAP, (running away from a police dog).

"We've terminated roughly 60% of our physical training exercises because the Jack 15 is nearly all encompassing," said Col. NIgel Melwick of the British Special Air Service (SAS).  "We will still run and do [push, sit and pull} ups, but that's it. The Jack 15 is taking over exercising the way Hannibal took over Lake Trasimeno in Umbria on June 21, 217 BC.  No prisoners. Well, maybe a thousand of so."

The Crosely that came through and the 8/7.

San Francisco, Tastes of the City - December, 2013

I dined at seven San Francisco restaurants recently and ordered only one dish - onion soup with bone marrow dumplings at Cotogna - and requested extra of one dessert - chocolate peanut butter fudge at Boulevard. Why? Because my dining companions ordered like just-released convicts gobbling on a stolen black Amex.

Bouli Bar, Zuni, Boulevard, Cotogna, Coqueta, Quince, Tosca Cafe is where I went with Nancy Silverton and friends: Nancy Oaks, Dahlia Narvaez, Lindsay Tusk, Michael Tusk, Jen Davidson,  Jonathan Waxman, Chad Colby, Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani, who alone could order for the 6th Fleet. 

I spent six days total in San Francisco. The first four were with my nephew Mesrop, the priest of the St. John Armenian Church in Twin Peaks. Mesop, his wife Annie and I ate very well, too, though not lavishly. Still, of all the foods I ate in Herb Caen's Baghdad by the Bay, the best of the best was some bread and butter in Annie's kitchen. Details down this column. 

But, first, here are the dining highlights of our December trip to San Francisco.

KABOCHA & BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP at Boulevard. I was walking back from the bathroom here, which was a trek from our table near the front of the restaurant, when I spotted this closed-eyed lady relishing some soup.  Me, I'm into a good soup, unlike Nancy S who sometimes quotes - or misquotes - Mario B with a "soup sucks" quip. This soup didn't suck, I sucked it. It had this cave-aged 17-month-old Gruyere custard in the middle.  Damn. And there was some Burgundian truffles and Armangac up in this soup as well.  (Note - The Boulevard menu says the Gruyere is "cave"-aged, but it might have just been stored in a garage, for all I know.) 

CRISP HAMA HAMA OYSTERS & BEEF CARPACCIO at Boulevard.  Nancy Oaks "double plopped" ( the formal restaurant term for dropping two unexpected plates on diners) these scrumptious oysters with a batter did not mask their bright flavor. They came with spinach hollandaise, spinach oil and grated horseradish. Problem with these oysters was I had to share them with other people who so busy talking about restaurants I don't think appreciated the Hama Hamas like I did.

A Boulevard dinner menu - https://www.boulevardrestaurant.com/#menu-dinner

FAGOTELLI di FONDUTA  at Cotogna.  Cotogna is Michael and Lindsay Tusk's casual cousin to Quince and it is a place I always recommend to travelers to San Francisco, even to people I don't know and want nothing to do with me. This is basically a square, folded pasta stuffed with some cheese.  Right?   And that onion soup I ordered? I order it again. 

This here is the dinner menu http://www.cotognasf.com/pdf/cotogna-dinner.pdf

EGG WITH CRISPY POTATO at Coqueta. This Spain inspired jazzy spot by Michael Chiarello and his team,  at Pier 5 on The Embarcadero, was one of the delightful surprises of the trip. I never even heard of this place. But, I think Lissa and Hiro said "go" here. Everything was good, but this dish, a sunny-side egg topped with strands of potato and tender, medium shrimp was excellent.  We also had a sliced bone-in ribeye that tasted right. Michael Chiarello is the big name, but the chef de cuisine at Coqueta is Ryan Mcilwraith. 

Last night I was at the bar at Osteria Mozza and  Rod Dyer, the charming designer and long-time owner of the gone Pane e Vino, was raving about this Ryan. I had to agree.

Famed Mozza pastry chef Dahlia Narvaez said she wanted to bring her husband Chris Feldmeier to San Francisco just to eat at Coqueta  as soon as he goes on "hiatus". So that could be any moment. (That dude is on hiatus more than congress. I never heard anyone use that word so much as Feldmeier. He's like a kid who just learned how to say "motherfucker").  

But, Coqueta? Go. On top of it, the "barman', his name is Joe Cleveland. That's Damon Runyon for you right there.  

The lunch menu of Coqueta: http://coquetasf.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/11/Coqueta_Lunch-Menu_110713.pdf

TRIBUTE TO JUDY RODGERS DINNER at Quince.  -  The second day I was in town at my nephew's i got a text from my friend, writer Kirk Russell, that "Judy was gone". The love of Kirk's life, his wife Judy Rodgers, famed chef of Zuni Cafe, author of Nancy Silverton's favorite cookbook, and valiant battler, had died at age 57. 

The reason Nancy S had come up here, with Dahlia and Chad Colby was to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Quince, which recently won a second star from the Michelin Guide. Her and Jonathan Waxman were staring. But, Lindsay and Michael Tusk, upon hearing about Judy, made it a tribute dinner with the proceeds gong to cancer research at UC San Diego that Kirk praised.  Out of respect to Judy, we all went by Zuni Cafe earlier for a five o'clock drink. 

The dinner that night was an eight course, six wine flingr that started with Chad Colby's masterful salumi and then moved on to Burrata with royal Osetra, that familiar old cheese and caviar routine we all grew up with.  Waxman's potato gnocchi with celery root and black truffle could - in a proper world - put popcorn outta business.  A tub of that and "Paper Moon". You feel me?

Michael Tusk didn't back off with a goose tortelllini. Waxman came on again with a homage to Judy's Zuni chicken. and then Chad swooped for the coup de grace with a rack of veal, or as we call it at chi Spacca, butter with veal meat and bones. Dahlia Navraez ended the show with an intense chocolate cake that your neighbor didn't make.

After that, we went out to eat at Tosca Café. Hey, I told you we were with Lissa Doumani. You may have heard of food sherpa's, folks from different cities who take travelers out to eat in their town. Well, Lissa is like my boy Tenzing Norgay, the Nepalese Sherpa  who guided  Ed Hillary up Mount Everest in 1953, 

Here's a Dec. 17th menu at Quince. You'll see the Tusks don't play.  http://quincerestaurant.com/brickandtimber/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Quince-menu52.pdf

MIDNIGHT SNACKS at Tosca Cafe.  I had never been to the North Beach landmark called Tosca, but after hearing several stories about this "dive saloon" with a juke box full of Puccini and Sinatra and a vivacious lady owner, I thought it was a borderline shame every city didn't have a Tosca.  Our Friend Michael Cooper told me about how he hadn't been to Tosca  for several years, went in recently and they knew his name, his drink and refused his money. Everyone likes that trio.

I understand it would be wrong to write about Tosca and not mention the heart of Tosca, Jeannette Etheredge. She's around, though not the owner anymore. Her likeness is on the coasters. That's tribute. 

So the Ken Friedman, savvy New York City restauranteur, gets the place, along with one of our favorite chefs, April Bloomfield, and Tosca's running strong on all eight cylinders. And one can still hear "Musseta's Waltz" or "I Get a Kick Out Of You" for a quarter.

We ordered about 15% of the menu and it was all tasty, though my taste was growing weary. Still, if you're looking for a place to fall off the wagon. go here. 

The ideal person to go with would be Jersey girl Jen Davidson, who is Jonathan Waxman's personal Kate Green. Jen is like, well, like she's has been injected with a new fun drug created by Walter White. I'd wager her and Kate together at nightfall would leave a swath of delirious destruction and lead a village to total moral decay. That's a compliment I don't give up often.   

Here's Tosca's menu and a photo of the Jennette coasters:  http://toscacafesf.com/food

PORK SHOULDER SANDWICH at Elmira Rosticceria.   On LIssa Doumani's tip, I went here with my nephew and wife.  Opened in May this year, it's is a small kinda modern place with open kitchen and a tempting chalkboard menu from Marc Passetti, former chef at the Fairmont hotel.  He's been dreaming up this place since Jerry Rice was catching touchdown passes from Joe Montana. The pork shoulder sandwich, with fennel and salsa verde on Acme roll, was devoured. We also shared a "lampredotto", a tripe sandwich like you get at a good food truck Florence. The flavor was spot on. I'd go back here for sure, especially if was near the Civic Center. I was going to go again with the whole  crew, but the passing of Judy gyrated plans. Here's Elmira Rosticerria's facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/ElmiraSanFrancisco

PITA BREAD WITH MEZZE  at Bouli Bar..  This is the new place of the ladies of Boulette's Larder, a long time Ferry Building favorite. The pita bread, damn, I think it was the best pita bread I ever had, not that I'm a pita scholar. The six, seven mezze I dipped the pita into  were all good, the standout being a hummus made of winter squash.  

Here's a Bouli Bar menu:  http://www.bouletteslarder.com/dl_menu_pdf/bouli_bar_lunch.pdf?1387483405523

BREAD AND BUTTER at Annie's Kitchen. - This was it. Way back at the top of this I wrote the top taste I had  in San Francisco was in the kitchen of my nephew and his wife, Annie.  i wrote that a long time ago, but I stand by it. The sesame bread was purchased hot from the oven of Tartine Bakery around 4 p.m., ( thee time to get bread there)_ and the salted butter was Pamplie from the Poitou Charentes region of France. I got it at Molly Stone, a very good grocery store in Twin Peaks.

Resisting on the Muni to tear into the bread and smear it, I went lion on zebra in the kitchen. Umm.  When I took those first blessed bites, I was thinking "Yeah. Bread and butter. Still my favorite."

Respect

PIta at Bouli Bar in Ferry Building

Elmira Rosticceria

Jen Davidson and a guy who I have 94 "mutual friends" with.

Father Mesrop and Annie at Cotogna

Hiro Sone tries in vain to swipe Michael Tusk's white truffle

A Christmas Tree For Murder Victims

The police were putting a sheet over a dead body when Ramona McClinton showed up. She scanned the growing, curious crowd for her boyfriend. She cell phoned him. A light came on under the sheet.

Ramona's story was one of the many heard Wednesday night in a meeting room with probably the highest concentration of heartache in this city. It was LAPD's 77th Street Division's "Tree Trimming", an annual event where family and friends of homicide victims gather to talk about their tragedies and how they are coping, receive toys from Santa and thank detectives.

The actual tree trimming occurs when photos of the homicide victims are secured to a Christmas tree in the lobby of LAPD's South Bureau on Broadway and 77th Street. Angie Moreno of the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office Victim Services is driving force of this somber event which  started in 2002. Some of those remembered died years ago, Many others were killed this year.

"How robbed I feel. How violated I feel," said Jackie Walker, whose 24-year-old grandson Marcus Quinten Rogers was killed in March, 5 this year on 110th and Main streets. Moments later, Jackie rushed to the podium to support her daughter, Marcus' mother. 

Patrice Morgan said she was so depressed over the death of her brother Keyonta Muhammad Ansari that she contemplated suicide. Ansari, 22, was shot in the back of the head on Van Ness Avenue near 53rd Street on his way to play basketball. Now she is forming her own victim's assistance program in his honor.

On and on the aching stories went. They talked about how the news of sudden death came to them and how it "seems like yesterday". How Christmas is so  hard. How "you can lose a mom, you can lose a dad, but when you lose a child..."

Still, there was a common thread in everyone's talk, praise for the homicide detectives handling their loved one's case, even if it had yet to be solved. 

Commander Bill Scott also lauded the murder cops.  "There is not a more determined and dedicated group of detectives in the country, probably in the world, than the men and women of South Bureau's Criminal Gang Homicide Division.  We can never say we know your pain. But, we understand it. It does matter to us."

Family and friends of murder victims at LAPD's 77th Street Division of SouthBureau

My Improbable Redemption

December 09, 2012

In 1985, I shot someone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You Hear About Sarkisian? Zocola Public Square

DEC. 9, 2013

“Sarkisian” is one of the most common Armenian last names. But when my cousin Greg called this week and opened with “You hear about Sarkisian?” I knew he wasn’t talking about Serge Sarkisian, president of the Republic of Armenia.

He was calling to tell me about Steve Sarkisian, who had been named the head football coach of the USC Trojans. Sarkisian’s hiring may be the single most brilliant move in the history of the 133-year-old South Los Angeles institution—at least, to Armenians living in Southern California.

Henry Sahakian, a salesman from Glendale, told me, “I hope this inspires the Armenian community to follow and play more football.” His wife, Margaret, chimed in, “We are all so proud.”

Growing up in Los Angeles, an Armenian-American and member of the second generation of my family to be born here (in 1954, in my case), I often heard the words “Armenian” and “proud.” I learned to be proud that Alexander the Great only “partially” conquered my ancestral land. Proud that Armenia was the first country on earth to proclaim Christianity its national religion (in 301 A.D.). Proud that TV detective “Mannix”—Mike Connors, né Krikor Ohanian—was Armenian. Proud that four-time Formula One champion Alain Prost, the main rival of Ayrton Senna, was half-Armenian.

I was also proud of singer Charles Aznavour, artist Arshile Gorky, astrophysicist Viktor Hambartsumian, chess champion Garry Kasparov, financier Kirk Kerkorian, singer Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian), composer Aram Khachaturian, Russian MiG fighter plane designer Artem Mikoyan, writer William Saroyan, and World War II pilot Anthony Krikorian, my dad. Heck, I was even proud of the creator of The Chipmunks, Ross Bagdasarian.

And, decades before Steve Sarkisian walked a college football sideline, my Uncle Aram revered Notre Dame football coach Ara Parseghian, who led the Fighting Irish to national championships in 1966 and 1973.

Sadly, over the past decade, the image of Los Angeles Armenians has been marred by an increase in criminal activity. In the 1940s, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy told my Uncle Harry that no Armenian was ever in the county jail. Today, there are scores in Men’s Central. (For the record, I was there myself three times.) The Armenian Power street gang is known for credit card fraud and auto thefts.

But it is that hit to our reputation that makes this USC news so welcome.

I’m one of those Armenians who remember Sarkisian from a golden period of Trojan football. In the early 2000s, when USC was dominating college football and its head coach Pete Carroll was showered with praise, my cousin Dave and I knew the real reason. The offensive coach was Armenian. To us, Carroll was a figurehead. The real star of the sidelines was his assistant, Sarkisian.

Of course, not all Armenians see this the same way. Shant Ohanian, a lawyer and UCLA alumnus, points out some chinks in Sarkisian’s Armenian armor. “It’s funny, as soon as Sarkisian’s hire was announced, you saw all over Facebook Armenians, especially USC students and fans, celebrating the hire—not necessarily as a USC fan, but more as a ‘fellow’ Armenian,” said the self-described “die-hard UCLA fan” as he started slinging Bruin-tipped arrows. “Many, however, don’t know Sarkisian’s Armenian background; it’s mostly his Armenian last name that matters. I don’t think Steve Sarkisian himself speaks a word of Armenian; his father is an Iranian-Armenian who immigrated to the USA when he was 18. He married his wife, Steve’s mother, who is Irish-American. Steve was born in Torrance.”

Ohanian went on, “Nevertheless, as soon as he has some success with USC, you will see more and more Armenians claiming him as one of their own.”

Ohanian was married just five weeks ago to Silva Sevlian. I went to their wedding at the St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in Burbank. For their honeymoon, I gave them my list of places they should see in Paris. They had a lovely time. A fairytale wedding followed by a dream of a honeymoon. But this week, with the announcement of Sarkisian as the new Trojan head coach, that honeymoon seemed over.

Silva went to USC and didn’t like Shant’s even slight criticisms of the new coach.

“My husband’s opinion doesn’t matter. He is nothing but a Bruin,” said Silva. “Sarkisian becoming coach is second only to an Armenian becoming the mayor of Los Angeles.”

Michael Krikorian is a writer in Los Angeles. His first novel is Southside, and he’s on Twitter@makmak47.

http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2013/12/09/you-hear-about-sarkisian/ideas/nexus/

Winston Agrees With BookLoons, Reads Into the Night

Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth    Michael Lyons is a Los Angeles gang reporter. He can walk freely in the gang controlled parts of LA. He is welcomed to conduct interviews with gang members. Why then is he shot and wounded, dropped to the sidewalk just two blocks from City Hall?

After the first shock sets in, his fellow reporters start a betting pool and wonder why it hadn't happened before. Who shot him? Lyons does live on the edge. Then Lyons is accused of organizing the shooting for the publicity it would bring him. Because of this, he is fired as an embarrassment to the paper.

Can he leave it there? Of course not. When three murders occur in LA, Lyons realizes all are tied into his shooting. He suspects a notorious, imprisoned gang leader, Big Evil, as the instigator of the shootings, his own included. Big Evil's younger brother is one of those murdered.

Southside by Michael Krikorian sports a tightly written plot that will keep you reading long into the night. Michael Lyons is invincible. Much like his author. Krikorian has reported extensively on Los Angeles' notorious street gangs 'and receives more letters from inmates in California state prisons than he does bills and junk mail combined!' He must pull extensively from his career to write such convincing dialogue. This is a book worth your time.

http://www.bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Review.asp?bookid=16599

Winston does NOT like to be interrupted when reading "Southside"

Richard Fausset on the Morning after Robert Blake's Wife Was Killed

Richard Fausset near Mexico City, Mexico   

An old but telling anecdote about the novelist Michael Krikorian: On the morning of May 5, 2001, I was cold-calling police stations from the old LAT Valley newsroom when some random desk jockey at LAPD North Hollywood--trying for cop-cool but coming off half-hysterical--mentions that Robert Blake's wife had been shot to death in her car around the corner from Vitello's Restaurant in Studio City. I had to let Google remind me who Robert Blake was: "Baretta" had been off the air for nearly a quarter century. Oh shit: *that* Robert Blake. 

I flew to the crime scene, all cub reporter elbows and knees, tongue hanging from mouth, and soon joined in the LA sunshine by a thousand vultures and buzzards and hacks and hyenas in Clarks comfort shoes who smelled a classic hunk of bloody LA noir: the scrupulous and unscrupulous were there, the NY Times and the National Enquirer, local cop-shop dorks with coffee stains on Arrow shirts, nearsighted police-scanner junkies, and, this time, hordes of well-moussed national TV hacks, salivating as they imagined the animated graphic and the whoosh and the theme music that would soon accompany this particular loss of human life, the weeks of whodunnit Hollywood scandal coverage that would allow their viewers a break from the complicated and depressing reality of places like Afghanistan, and characters like Mullah Mohammad Omar, whose followers had just dynamited the Bamiyan Buddhas: in retrospect, our generation's Bad Moon Rising. 

So anyway, anyway... eventually Krikorian gets there, fire-red eyeballs hanging out of his head and looking like he'd gone to sleep in his blazer. I worked, and as I worked, I watched Krikorian work, dancing from place to place, recreating the scene, imagining motive, footsteps, angles, collecting scraps of dialog from witnesses and neighbors. And I distinctly recall--as the scrum of reporters reached peak mayhem, as the deadline clock ticked, as assistant city editors, following orders from editors from other tax brackets, jangled our cell phones every 25 seconds for scraps of updates-- I remember how Krikorian randomly picks out this floral-print dress from a rack outside of a curio shop on Tujunga Blvd. and holds it in front of a pretty blonde. "You know, you'd look fantastic in this," he says, with that charming, napalm-strafed wreck of a voice. The blonde looks back, pauses for a second, and decides, after brief internal deliberation, to smile generously. Because he was right: The dress would have looked great on her. He noticed that it matched her eyes.

So that, for me, is the genius of Michael Krikorian: elegance amid the ugliness, an eye for beauty and detail, love and blood, sunshine and death. And now he has a crime novel out that's been well-reviewed and blurbed by the likes of Michael Connelly. I'm looking forward to reading it. You can order it on Amazon:

Suspense Magazine Calls Southside "A Good Story"

"Southside is a solid debut novel from Los Angeles Times crime reporter Michael Krikorian. Krikorian writes what he knows, spinning a tale about a Los Angeles Times crime reporter, Michael Lyons, who covers the many gangs of the City of Angels. As an editor, I would have counseled Krikorian to not give the character-clearly a fictionalized version of himself-his own first name, which gets a bit too on the nose, but that's a minor nitpick.

The novel gets off to a somewhat disjointed start, with frequent shifting of narrative viewpoint from third person to first person, but the reader settles into the format and eventually the loose ends come together. The story really gets rolling when Lyons is gunned down in the street but survives. He has made many enemies through his reporting, but none of the possible suspects really seems to make sense. As the police investigation stalls, Lyons himself digs deeper into the case.

This classic set-up takes a nice twist about a third of the way in, setting the police department against Lyons and the paper, and the paper against Lyons, ratcheting up tensions and complicating the investigation. Other victims, who don't survive, may be connected, but the evidence is slim. Overall, these plot threads are handled well. "Southside" is a thriller rather than a whodunit, since the reader is introduced to the killer fairly early, and Krikorian builds the tension effectively as you wonder if the police or Lyons are going to catch up with the murderer before there's another victim.

The good guys occasionally make some rather large intuitive leaps from thin evidence, and sometimes the narrative tries a little too hard for its gritty street atmosphere, but despite being a little rough around the edges, "Southside" is a good story populated with colorful characters. Most of those characters, on either side of the law, are not simple stereotypes, but are complex, real people, which makes for engaging reading. It's definitely worth a try and provides firm footing for additional adventures for Michael Lyons."

Reviewed by Scott Pearson, author of "Star Trek: Honor in the Night" and cohost of the Generations Geek podcast, for Suspense Magazine

Nathan ignoring the grizzly bear at the San Diego Zoo