Michael Krikorian
Something happened one week ago, Friday, May 1, 2026, that was the single most gratifying moment of my up and down career as a journalist. If this had occurred anywhere it would have been a treasure, but it just so happened at the very place where I became a journalist and started working for the...
Michael Krikorian
NOT PRETTI GOOD It would be pretty good and actually pretty damn easy to lower the tensions, the cuss word outrage emanating from Minnesota after the shooting death of Alex Pretti. If that person in the White House simply called out the scaredy cat gutless coward Border Patrol agents who shot...
Michael Krikorian
“It was never about the destination. It was always about the journey.” - Bogard, aka George Thomas talking about Gregory “Batman” Davis On the streets of Greater Los Angeles – and most of the United States now - “OG” means Original Gangster. But those initials - and those words - are thrown about...
Michael Krikorian
This Wednesday night I was at Chi Spacca restaurant on the Mozza Korner when a diner, going from the bathroom back to his table, bumped into me and quickly apologized with a “I’m so sorry. I am really sorry.”My first thought was it wasn’t that much of a bump to warrant being that sorry. A few...
Michael Krikorian
Recently, at the bar of famed The French Laundry in Yountville, California, three solo diners were all reading a book while relishing the three Michelin star cuisine of Thomas Keller. It is not unusual to see solo diners reading at this nearly mythical restaurant. What was striking that early...
Michael Krikorian
The original newspaper The Fictional Tribune, based on the the mythical “Mozza Tribune”, is going public, Find it here at https://www.thefictionaltribune.com and check it out. To let you know a front page article about someone you care about is $75. and the name of each paper can change to...
Michael Krikorian
A little more than a week ago, on the day after the Golden Globe Awards, I was having coffee at Go Get Em Tiger on Larchmont Boulevard when I heard a story that made the word “surreal” come alive for me and exemplified the worst and best of L.A. I was at a four-top surrounded by 10 other people...
Michael Krikorian
A few weeks ago I cell phoned Big Cat, a legendary member of the Rollin’ 60s Crips, who the LAPD described in a 2003 injunction against his Crenshaw/Hyde Park-based street gang as “a shot caller…… who instills fear in the neighborhood.” I could see that, back in the day. Big Cat, who legally goes...
Michael Krikorian
A former gang leader once described by an FBI agent and several LAPD homicide detectives as one of the deadliest men in Los Angeles could be paroled in a few months after he pled “no contest” to a murder and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Thing is Cleamon Johnson, much better - and...
Michael Krikorian
(This was published in the Los Angeles Times’ Opinion page on April, 29, 2023) Can a man really change? Or more precisely, can an absolute badass change? A violent, brutal, reckless, drunk, defend-the-’hood-at-all-costs gang member? A Folsom Prison “graduate”? A 6-foot-4, 240-pound defender of...