Dennis Griffin

I could see my old roommate watching mobster TV docs sometimes, and I have to admit in my brain of brains, (where judgment comes from lol), it struck me as rather chauvie, you know. “In a world where powerful white men don’t have to play by the rules—being a Man means…. you know, not playing nice; okay.”

But understanding the relative world, the world as it appears, involves all sorts of apparent evil and frankly pretty terrible things, right. If you don’t know the children of this age, you don’t really have a full deck of cards to deal when you try to understand life, you know. And this book seems like a pretty okay description of negative/fault-conscious things that aren’t: (a) Hitler—always Hitler! Yo Hitler is dead! Evil has moved on from WW2 doc days!, and (b) just negative out of sheer lack of skill; you know, the romance where you get read the riot act for not having a Limerick Name, you know; and it’s like, Wow…. Negative!

It seems like a relatively reasonable attempt to intentionally discuss an example of evil in the world, a person living frankly not their best life, while not being as gratuitously evil-nomming as some of the true crime books—which are occasionally even stigmatizing of people, you know: the ‘zodiac killer’; wow, was that like what the village people talked about around the well, you know—or was that the Jews? Well, they weren’t from this village…. It seems like a good balance between non-stigmatizing (everybody knows pizza people are 99.99% not mafiosi; it’s not 1896 anymore, at least for Italians), and not like…. You know, just bad. Blood Killer: The Saga of Bloody Bam-a-lot!~ you know, as though they were heroes, ‘men’, right.

…. But I like how understated the chapter titles are: ‘1985’, not, ‘Crappy “Crap Face” Gambino Roasts the Competition (Part 1/4)’, you know, like some of the books. It does seem like he wants to be a good person at the end of the day, despite his ‘negative’ experiences, like some old IRA soldier who negotiated with the Brits after bombing them back for a few decades, you know.

…. Criminals are obvs neurotic at best, but it is funny how talking about crime bumps you up against the illnesses of society. Some people on the left will be like, Get a load of these criminals—they kill people for dirty money, instead of just to be real men! That’s why you shouldn’t have to work for money: we should just get it by taxing these billionaire mafiosi who won’t take the hit and live on welfare, and kill people just so that they can be real men! Ah, and don’t even get me started about the career politicians on our own side! I say we let MAGA win, rather than support career politicians who actually negotiate like a bunch of little pussy women! People should stay in college! Let MAGA win the election—we’ll have a death squad revolution to retaliate! Ok, time to go play Dance Dance Revolution! Peace!

And don’t let’s talk about Fox News and crime—like they didn’t have a mother, right.

Even normal businesspeople can be bad about crime, because it’s like, You went to jail a long time ago and now you want to play it straight? (turns, opens door) Mommy, I’m afraid! The bad people are here! The bad people are going to represent our brand and embarrass us! They’ll get into a fist fight with the Dance Dance Revolution customers! I’m afraid, mommy! It’s time to feel sad! ~ I mean, they should be willing to do it, at least sometimes, because they should get a tax credit for doing the right thing, and they should have a company culture that trains people to be kind and functional (non-dysfunctional)—but of course they don’t. They can’t even train non-criminals to be friendly, so gun people naturally make them afraid. It’s not just the businessmen—after literally centuries of dysfunctional religion and then society’s answer is just to stop going to church and binge-watch TV, there’s no consensus for them to tap into, you know. Not everyone is an original thinker.

And of course, gang bangers are problematic as well. What a crazy relationship you’d have to have with money, to think that that was the right way to become rich, you know.

…. He was tough enough to shoot somebody in the head, but when he then got in legal trouble and had to stop doing mob “work”, he wasn’t tough enough to keep a legit job for more than a couple of hours….

…. Really bad at relationships.

…. Fox News people love to talk about crime, and usually it’s just fuel for their delusions; however, I wonder if crime isn’t a better metaphor for the bad side of life than the “war between good and evil” that theologians seem to favor. (Many theologians, realistically, are also loath to say that there’s a good side to life, let alone good people.) With extremely rare exceptions, life isn’t shoot on sight; it’s a crime scene—a mystery. And, of course, there’s the experience of going from working for the “devils”—crime bosses—to the “angels”—which I guess is what the g-men are supposed to be, if anyone on any side actually thinks that they are is more of a lol. Even “law and order” voters are afraid of the gubbermint. When the gubbermint punishes people I don’t like, that’s good. When I get punished, or people I don’t like don’t get punished, that’s bad. When I don’t get punished, I take that for granted, lol.

…. Gangsters are ‘real men’, you know. A dubious choice.

I know this will either come across as very obvious shit, or condemnation indeed, but they’re worse than the cops.

…. The mob seems so un-Italian to me, although they all have such Italian names. (Almost comically so: they’re Always Italian, always Joe DiItalia, you know.) When you think of Italians, you think of opera or high class eating (and/or pizza), but I guess that’s the northern-Italian tradition, really. In “Eat Pray Love” (I know, I know—a little girl), she says that the key word in (secular) Rome is “sex”; she doesn’t say but in Milan it’s probably “style”; somebody says that in Naples it’s “fight”.

…. It’s a negative book, but it isn’t bad.… (meer)

From approximately 1970 to the mid 1980's the Chicago Mob dominated organized crime on the :as Vegas strip. Tony Spilotro, while not the real head of the organization in Vegas, he acted like it and became known as the "King of the Strip." Federal & local law enforcement wanted to clean up the the city and remove the Mob from having anything to do with casinos and gambling. Eventually, while they could never put Spilotro away, his high profile and notoriety made the Chicago bosses nervous and they had him killed

The author tells the story from the viewpoint of the FBI agents and local detectives most of whom he interviewed. He also relied on Las Vegas newspaper files and the memories of TV and newspaper reporters who lived through the period. He even interviewed some of the mobsters plus the son of Tony Spilotro who gave a completely different picture of his father from the one everyone else felt to be true.

A very entertaining volume especially when one reads it while visiting Vegas as I did.… (meer)