Email Author Steven Mikulan

Awards

• 2007 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club

  "Rage Against the Sex Machine"

• 2007 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club

  "Tet Offensive"

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2007 Stories by Steven Mikulan

• Phil Noir: The Left-Handed Gun

  published September 6, 2007

  AN ORNATE STARTER’S PISTOL. Unfired bullet cartridges covered with the victim’s DNA. A criminalist with a fatal flare for... More >>

• Phil Noir: Murder of an Anatomy

  published August 30, 2007

  I’ve lost track of time, as we all have.—Defense lawyer Roger RosenPHIL SPECTOR ATTORNEY Linda Kenney... More >>

• Phil Noir: Court Gesture

  published August 23, 2007

  Monday afternoon turned into This Is Your Life, Michael Baden as Phil Spector lawyer Christopher Plourd engaged in nearly 80 minutes of... More >>

• Phil Noir: If He Did It

  published August 16, 2007

  IMAGINE THIS SCENE AFTER 15 weeks of Phil Spector’s murder trial: A cross section of men and women file into an empty courtroom at... More >>

• Richie Ramone does West Side Story

  published August 16, 2007

  “I’m gonna jam this thing down your throat so that you’re not going to be able to breathe with your mouth... More >>

• No, You Shut Up!

  published August 16, 2007

  Classical and choral composer Eric Whitacre’s new musical shamelessly combines two of pop culture’s more cloying fixations, anime... More >>

• Phil Noir: Avenue of the Scars

  published August 9, 2007

  WELL, SHUT MY MOUTH. Here we were all wondering if Linda Kenney Baden would have to pack away her white shoes after Labor Day or if... More >>

• Phil Noir: Spattered

  published August 2, 2007

  During this past week’s testimony of forensic scientists, Phil Spector attorney Linda Kenney Baden made several solemn references to... More >>

• Culture Clash Unmasks El Zorro

  published August 2, 2007

  I don’t mind telling you that as a 5-year-old, I spent many afternoons pretending to be a Mexican. Or at least I dressed up as Zorro, the... More >>

• Phil Noir: In a Lonely Place

  published July 26, 2007

  “I HATE THIS TOWN and I hate the people in it and I don’t want to be in it anymore.”These words, uttered first... More >>

• Theater of Pain

  published July 19, 2007

  After a weeklong recess, the Phil Spector trial exploded with impassioned defense testimony and an emotional new Spector hair style.... More >>

• Film Chinois and Gulliver’s Travels: Now, Voyagers

  published July 19, 2007

  Writing in his travelogue of industrial misery, The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell admitted to being repulsed by the physique of the... More >>

• Phil Noir: Doc Day Afternoon

  published July 5, 2007

  Vincent DiMaio sat in the witness chair like someone’s Uncle Vinny visiting from Brooklyn. As facial tics rippled around his mouth... More >>

• Meet John Smith

  published July 5, 2007

  Solo comedy shows are all too often no laughing matter, especially when the subject is the soloist. Flat jokes and fatal misconceptions about... More >>

• Phil Noir: The Heart of the Spatter

  published June 28, 2007

  Sara Caplan, who was one of Phil Spector’s lawyers for about five minutes, finally had her morning — and afternoon — in court. In ... More >>

• Phil Noir: The Human Stain

  published June 21, 2007

  ON TUESDAY THE PROSECUTION finally got around to that dab of DNA Phil Spector left on Lana Clarkson’s left nipple the night she died... More >>

• John DiFusco Returns to His Roots

  published June 21, 2007

  On a cold January evening in 1985, John DiFusco was all dressed up with everywhere to go, yet still felt lonely and alone in the packed lobby... More >>

• Phil Noir: Like Watching Blood Dry

  published June 14, 2007

  It didn’t look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California . . . More >>

• Baca's Law

  published June 14, 2007

  {mosimage} Last Friday, when the psychedelic media circus swirling around Paris Hilton’s early jai... More >>

• Phil Noir: The Tooth of Crime

  published June 7, 2007

  Every day of the ongoing trial in L.A. County Superior Court’s Department 106, Lana Clarkson’s mother, Donna, and sister, Fawn, stoical... More >>

• Elvis’ Bad Trip

  published June 7, 2007

  {mosimage} Julian Stone’s The Elvis Test More >>

• Phil Noir: Hassle in the Castle

  published May 31, 2007

  BY NOW, THE FOYER OF PHIL SPECTOR’S home is about as familiar to jurors as the elevator corridor in The Shining. The... More >>

• Phil Noir: Doth the Doc Protest Too Much?

  published May 31, 2007

  Phil Spector's attorneys have been hoping that superstar criminalist Dr. Henry Lee will, when they call him as an expert witness, do for... More >>

• Phil Noir: Murder As a Second Language

  published May 24, 2007

  It was late in the afternoon at Department 106, the time that jurors’ eyelids droop and the courtroom’s elderly spectators check the... More >>

• Battle of the Bulb

  published May 24, 2007

  “This means the end of chandeliers!” sighs lighting designer Anne Militello, who operates Vortex Lighting in Hollywood. The cause... More >>