Between the Bylines

by Doug Krikorian

  Hezbollah is a Muslim militant group with strong political ties in Lebanon.

  When we arrived back at the Meridian in Damascus in the early evening, I paid Muhammad, and he whispered in my ear, “Please don’t repeat anything I’ve said today.”

  Muhammad hadn’t said anything of a controversial nature, although he did concede that there were a lot of people in Syria who weren’t strong advocates of Hafez al-Assad and that he, a devout Sunni Muslim, was one of them.

  He had told us that Hafez al-Assad was an Alawite, a minority sect of Shi’ites that made up less than 10 percent of the Syrian population.

  “Hafez al-Assad is not popular with us [Sunnis],” he said. “But please, don’t tell anyone I said that, or I’ll be thrown into prison, or even worse…”

  I assured Muhammad that we wouldn’t say anything—who were we going to tell, anyway?—but just the fact that he was so paranoid about an innocuous conversation was a reflection of the widespread fear Syrians had of Hafez al-Assad’s regime.

  And so I wasn’t that surprised in the spring of 2011 when a Sunni-led uprising commenced in Syria against Bashar al-Assad, who took control of the country after his father’s death in June 2000.

  When we departed Damascus, I’ll never forget Gillian turning to me, as our plane zoomed down the tarmac, and saying, “What an incredible experience this has been. I’ll never forget it. I’m just glad I got to experience the Middle East.”

  “We’ll be back again,” I said.

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said.

  She said it in the same tone of wistful sadness she had the previous summer when she made a similar type of remark at Lake Louise.

  I found her response strange, and I recall saying, “Honey, why do you say that?”

  She remained silent, and I let the subject drop.

  Who knew at this time that in less than four months her life would become a cruel struggle for survival?

  Chapter 33

  In March 2000, my old radio partner, Joe McDonnell, called me one afternoon and said, “We have a chance to get back on the radio together.”

  I immediately demurred.

  My last experience in the industry wasn’t exactly an uplifting one, as I got stiffed for almost a month’s pay in a brief tenure at that FM station in Sierra Madre. That had happened in the summer of 1995, and since then I had become quite content writing four days a week for the Long Beach Press-Telegram, maintaining a rigorous workout program and spending a lot of time with my young wife.

  We traveled extensively, and I still had retained enthusiasm for my job. I still was covering the big events and commenting on all the important sporting issues of the day.

  “I don’t know, Joe. I’m married now, and I’m enjoying life,” I told McDonnell. “I don’t need the extra pressure and headaches.”

  But Joe, whom I had dubbed the “Big Nasty” for his bombastic style and harsh abrasiveness, can be an intractable fellow with a persuasive side to him that can be intimidating.

  “You have to do this,” he said sternly. “It will be just once a week on KABC. It’ll be on Sunday evenings between nine o’clock and midnight. It could lead to something bigger, a lot bigger.”

  There was a part of me that missed radio—the repartee with listeners, the spontaneity of discourse, even the vitriolic arguments with McDonnell. And, of course, the extra income.

  But there was another part that didn’t miss it—the lengthy freeway commutes, the intractable daily schedule and, well, the vitriolic arguments with McDonnell.

  “I don’t know, Joe,” I said.

  And before I could continue, he replied, with his voice becoming angered, “You have to do it. We’re getting another chance. This might lead to something really big. ESPN Radio is starting a station out here next January. And we have a chance to be its afternoon drive-time show.”

  “Let me talk it over with Gillian,” I said reluctantly.

  At the time, Gillian was taking her final class—physics—at Long Beach State, and she characteristically was making sure she’d get another top grade in it. She was spending at least eight hours a day studying such thrilling stuff as matter and energy and the interaction between them.

  When I told her about the opportunity to go back to radio, she was enthusiastic about it.

  “Certainly, Douglas, do it,” she said. “You always told me you had fun in it.”

  “Yes, I did, but it also took up a lot of my time, and I had to be at work at the same time every day,” I retorted. “I’ve always pretty much had my own hours as a sportswriter, except when I have to cover an event.”

  “Definitely, I think you should do it,” she persisted. “It’s only one day a week.”

  “But it could lead to five days a week,” I said.

  So, with a strong push from Gillian, I reluctantly agreed to go back to radio.

  A lot would happen before our first show on the evening of June 4 as we went on a little over an hour after the Los Angeles Lakers had dispensed a heroic final-quarter comeback against the Portland Trail Blazers at the Staples Center, wiping out a thirteen-point fourth-quarter deficit to win the Western Conference championship to qualify for the NBA finals against the Indianapolis Pacers.

  Of course, Gillian would be diagnosed with cancer in April and would undergo major surgery and would now be spending a lot of her time receiving treatment at the UCLA Medical Center.

  As that summer wore on and the Sydney Olympics loomed in September, I became increasingly uncomfortable about leaving Gillian when I knew my presence, obviously, was important to her.

  I think it was in the middle of August when I had a candid conversation with her about it, informing her I had decided not to go to the Games.

  “Our newspaper group has two other very good journalists who also will be covering it,” I said, referring to Karen Crouse and Paul Oberjuerge. “They don’t need me. I’m going to stay here where I belong.”

  She would have none of it.

  “Douglas, you have to go to Sydney,” she said in her soft voice. “I’ll be fine. My parents are coming over to be here with me. The Olympics is the biggest sports event in the world, and you can’t miss it.”

  Reluctantly, I went, and it wasn’t exactly the happiest three weeks of my life, considering Gillian’s illness and the heavy workload.

  I stayed in a small apartment in the sprawling media village that was a converted mental hospital and seldom went to sleep before midnight in what was a punishing grind softened slightly by the hundreds of Australian Olympic volunteers who were exceptionally helpful, friendly and supportive. Never did I come across an Aussie who wasn’t incredibly nice during my stay in Sydney.

  I spoke on a daily basis to Gillian by cellphone, and she always sounded upbeat.

  “I’m just fine,” she always would say, even though I’m sure there were occasions when she wasn’t.

  She was being driven to the UCLA Medical Center either by my neighbor, Esther Fawcett, always so caring, or my stepson-in-law, Tom Kelley, an affable Irishman with a thirst for liquor who, after Gillian’s death, accompanied me on several European trips.

  I returned on October 2, and Gillian greeted me at LAX in tears, which I matched.

  “You look great,” I said excitedly, and I did think so, even though she now wore a bandana to cover her hairless head instead of the wig she had purchased before I had left for Sydney.

  “Thanks…I’m all right,” she said, without a lot of conviction.

  It still hadn’t entered my mind that Gillian might be terminally ill, that the cancer had spread from her colon to her chest and might now be spreading to other parts of her body.

  Gillian remained sternly resolute in making sure her illness wouldn’t affect my work.

  The World Series was coming up later in October, and when I told Gillian I planned to miss it, she gently shook her head in protest and implored me to attend it.

  “Douglas, you must go to the World Series,” she as
serted strongly. “I’ll be fine. I’ll feel more miserable if you stay here and not go.”

  Typical Gillian. So thoughtful, so giving, more concerned about my needs and feelings than her own.

  I did cover the World Series that year, spending a week in New York as the two hometown teams, the Yankees and Mets, played each other—the first Subway Series the great metropolis had had since 1956, when the Yankees played the old Brooklyn Dodgers.

  New York always is abuzz with passionate currents, but it reached staggering heights during that week of combat between the two local Major League Baseball teams, as the tabloids and the TV stations drooled over the proceedings, which turned out to be dominated by the lordly Yankees in a mere five games.

  December 2000 (Family Illnesses)

  Gillian’s parents had returned for Christmas, and it would be the first one we had spent at home since we got married. We got a large, healthy evergreen conifer for the front room and decorated it lavishly with lights, bulbs, garlands and other ornaments. I even took out of storage my old Lionel electric train—I bought it in 1952 on the profits from selling Christmas cards—and got it running around the tree, but only after Gillian’s father, Jim, and I located a new transformer at an electric train shop in Lakewood.

  I still was doing the Sunday night radio with Joe McDonnell, but that would end at the end of the month when, as Joe had predicted would be the case, ESPN would launch a Los Angeles radio network with Joe and me hosting the featured afternoon show.

  I still retained skeptical feelings about returning to radio full time because of the four-hour daily commitment and because of the annoying commute to Culver City and because of Gillian’s precarious health.

  But every time I would betray such thoughts to Gillian, she would say, “Douglas, you must do it. It’s good for your career. And I know one of the reasons you don’t want to do it is because of me. And that’s simply not acceptable to me.”

  A few days before Christmas, Gillian’s father felt severe pain in his chest and suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

  We took Jim Howgego to the emergency room at Los Alamitos Medical Center, and he immediately was diagnosed with having suffered a major heart attack. Within a couple days, he underwent open-heart surgery at the Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

  “Thank God I had the heart attack in America rather than England,” said Jim. “Because of my age [he was seventy-two], I probably would have had to wait awhile to have my operation in England and probably would have wound up dying.”

  It would be the second time that year that one of Gillian’s parents wound up in a California hospital. In early August, I had driven Gillian and her parents up to Fowler for a weekend visit with my recently widowed mother. I also took Gillian and her parents on a day trip to Yosemite, the spectacular Sierra Nevada Mountains enclave internationally renowned for its towering granite cliffs, picturesque waterfalls, clear streams and sheer beauty.

  We were waiting to have lunch in the lobby at the Ahwahnee Lodge when Gillian’s mother, Mary, suddenly felt dizzy and momentarily lost consciousness, necessitating the summoning of paramedics, who took her to a local medical center.

  From there, she was airlifted in a helicopter to Saint Agnes Medical Center in Fresno, where she would spend a couple days recovering with what was diagnosed as dehydration. Clearly, the native of Hartlepool, where it’s routinely cold and rainy, wasn’t accustomed to the sweltering weather—it had reached ninety-eight degrees on the afternoon she was at Yosemite.

  “This has been one awful year for all of us,” said Gillian. “I get sick, my mum gets sick and then my dad gets sick. Not a good time for the Howgego family.”

  This would turn out to be Gillian’s final Christmas, and it was not one brimming with joy.

  Her father was in the hospital in a weakened state convalescing from his heart surgery.

  And Gillian herself wasn’t feeling well.

  She was complaining of headaches that, frighteningly, were becoming more frequent.

  I remember one time we were in bed at night reading our books before sleep when she suddenly turned to me and said, “I can feel stuff changing in my body. I don’t know what it is, but things are happening to my body, Douglas. And I don’t think they’re good.”

  She said it matter of factly, but her voice had a resigned wistfulness about it, and I could feel her frustration and anxiety.

  “Let’s talk to the doctors about what you’re feeling,” I said feebly.

  “What can they do?” she said. “They’re doing all they can, Douglas. I know that. I just wish I’d wake up one day and feel better. But it seems like every day I wake up, I feel worse.”

  Chapter 34

  As I look back on those first nine months of 2001 when Gillian’s condition slowly, implacably, precipitously declined week after depressing week, it’s all now an agonized blur to me.

  I know I kept myself frantically busy, as I was now doing weekday sports talk shows on ESPN with Joe McDonnell between 3:00 and 7:00 p.m., as well as my newspaper work.

  I know I often would rise at 4:00 a.m. to write my column for the Press-Telegram, would be on the San Diego Freeway by 8:00 a.m. to drive Gillian to the UCLA Medical Center, would drive her back to Long Beach and then would get on the freeways again either to go to the KABC studio in Culver City or to the ESPN Zone in Anaheim.

  I know it was a difficult schedule, but I also know I probably was able to retain my sanity because of it. I didn’t have a lot of idle time to reflect on what was occurring, and what was occurring was that Gillian was dying.

  During the four hours that I was on the air with McDonnell, we interviewed many well-known athletes during that period, and Shaquille O’Neal, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bernard Hopkins, Hulk Hogan and others even came into our studio in Culver City. We also did the usual comical bits, like having a deft Muhammad Ali impersonator named Kevin Lamp doing such a masterful impression that the then sports editor of the Los Angeles Times, Bill Dwyre, who was in his car listening, was set to have a reporter do a story on it until he was informed the interview was fake.

  I think the only laughter I managed during those nine months came on the McDonnell-Douglas Show, and for that I’ll always have a deep fondness for Joe McDonnell, who was responsible for my presence.

  Without his resolute insistence that he wanted me to be his partner again, even though there were those at ESPN’s upper management in Bristol, Connecticut, who weren’t in favor of it, I wouldn’t have had another opportunity to be on the air.

  While Joe McDonnell might not be at the top of the rogues’ list of nonconformists and rebellious oddities who have inhabited my sphere over the decades, he certainly would pose a serious challenge to those who are.

  When I used to say that Joe was the biggest journalist in America, I wasn’t kidding. At 730 pounds, he certainly was.

  And, as a sports talk host in those days, he was also the most irascible, outspoken, well-informed, if not most entertaining one in the business. He never pulled any punches in his caustic rhetoric, especially with me, whom he routinely pummeled with such flattering words as moron, stupid, idiot, imbecile, dumb, crazy, insane, harebrained—ad nauseam.

  Joe had been a fixture on the LA sporting scene since he began his radio career in 1975. He first worked at KGIL in the San Fernando Valley and then began stringing for various national radio networks before landing a Sunday evening sports talk show on fifty-thousand-watt KFI in 1984, which gained him a cult following.

  Like me, he attended all the Lakers games during the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar–Magic Johnson Showtime years and had a lot of inside knowledge of that memorable era.

  Joe could have done standup because of his rapier-like wit, which he displayed notably one evening after a Lakers game in the team’s locker room when he was assailed by Don Rickles, the famed insult comic.

  “Did you ever meet a meal you didn’t like?” cracked Rickles to McDonnell as he went around the room spewing his venom amid muc
h laughter.

  “At least I can lose weight, but you can’t grow hair,” retorted McDonnell, as the bald-pated Rickles nodded approvingly and howled at McDonnell’s sharp retort.

  There was no journalist in LA who knew more about the Dodgers during the twenty years Tommy Lasorda managed them than McDonnell, who became friends with many of the players and regularly had biting verbal sparring matches with them.

  The loud exchanges between McDonnell and Kirk Gibson during the Dodgers’ World Series–winning 1988 season became the stuff of legend.

  Kathy Ireland joins radio partners Joe McDonnell and Doug.

  Doug with his longtime friend Don Rickles (left) after the comedian’s performance at the Sahara in Las Vegas.

  Joe’s immense size became part of his persona, and he will admit today that he got that way by gorging himself with too much food and too many soft drinks. But before he underwent the gastric bypass surgery in October 2004 that he admits saved his life, one raised the question of weight with Joe at one’s own peril.

  I committed such an indiscretion one afternoon in August 1992 in our office at the old KMPC building on Sunset a few minutes before we were to go on air in the wake of what had just happened to the forty-one-year-old UCLA play-by-play football announcer at the station, John Rebenstorf, who had suffered a fatal heart attack.

  “Joe, you have to start watching your weight,” I said in a pleading voice.

  “Don’t you ever mention my weight again!” he responded crossly.

  “Let’s go and do our show,” I said and never again brought up the sensitive subject with Joe.

  Like all radio partners who spend so many hours together on a daily basis, Joe and I had our share of passionate dustups—he once angrily bolted out of the radio booth after a particularly savage disagreement, leaving me alone to do the show for a few tense minutes—but we always quickly apologized to each other and mended our differences.