Philip Leonetti On Killing The Myth Of Whitey Bulger

 

Philip Leonetti. the one-time underboss of the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra organized crime family, and author of Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family and the Bloody Fall of La Cosa Nostra, offers a piece in the Huffington Post on his recollections of Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger.

During one of these meetings, a guy I knew as a mob associate who was affiliated with the Genovese crime family in New York introduced me to another mob associate from Providence. The two of them wanted to buy an old hotel in Atlantic City and re-develop it into a caberet style nightclub and restaurant and wanted the blessing of our family. After several meetings and after getting the green light to proceed from my uncle who was in jail, I arranged to meet with caporegimes from both the Genovese and Patriarca crime families to ensure that everything was done in accordance with the rules of La Cosa Nostra, i.e., that everyone knew where the money was to be sent. 
 
In this case, monthly envelopes would be sent to Vincent "Chin" Gigante, boss of the Genovese, through his underboss Venero "Benny Eggs" Mangano, Raymond Patriarca, boss of the Patriarca's, through his underboss Gennaro "Jerry" Angiulo, and my uncle, Nicky Scarfo, boss of the Philadelphia/Atlantic City mob, through me. 
 
As things progressed with our proposed joint venture, I first heard the name "Jimmy Bulger" from one of the Boston guys during a dinner meeting. Bulger I would learn, was an Irish drug-dealer and low-life punk from South Boston who was paying the Patriarca's tribute money to stay in business. The problem with Bulger was that he wasn't paying enough and was balking at efforts to pay more.
What's worse I would learn, was that Bulger had reportedly murdered a woman, had once been charged with rape, and may have worked as a male prostitute when he was younger.
The kicker was, he was also suspected of being an informant.

"You gotta kill em," I told the Boston guy, "Immediately. You can't do business with someone like him. I'm disgusted just hearing you talk about him."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-leonetti/mafia-whitey-bulger_b_2945108.html



You can also read my Q&A with Philip Leonetti via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/01/crime-beat-column-mafia-prince-q-with.html

27 Mark Twain Quotes To Celebrate His Birthday

Happy birthday to Mark Twain.

To celebrate the birthday of America's great humorist and novelist the Huffington Post offers 27 of Twain's quotes.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the man behind the pseudonym that brought us such classic works of American literature as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, would be celebrating his 177th birthday if he were alive today.

Mark Twain's quotes are among the most shared and beloved, perhaps due to his wisdom acquired while working a number of jobs: He was a typesetter, steamboat pilot, miner, travel writer, and investor in technological inventions.

“There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy,” wrote Mark Twain.

 

You can read the rest of the piece and the other 26 quotes via the below link:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/mark-twain-quotes_n_2213697.html#slide=1820423 

Examining The Newspaper Column As Literature

Errol Lewis, a former columnist for the New York Daily News and one of the editors of Deadline Artist: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns, wrote an interesting piece for the Huffington Post that suggests that newspapers columns should and will one day be recognized as literature.

It's only a matter of time before the newspaper column takes its rightful place as a recognized and respected form of literature, every bit as vital as its more celebrated cousins, the short story and the novel.

The recognition should have happened a long time ago. An impressive list of literary masters honed their craft writing newspaper columns, including Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, O. Henry, Mark Twain and Damon Runyon. Generations of students have pored over Hughes's poetry, Twain's novels and O. Henry's short stories, unaware that the authors also tackled the issues of the day - death, war, sports, crime, politics - in thoughtful, delightful columns that often hold up remarkably well decades later.

Here is the start of "Chicago Gang War," that a young columnist named Ernest Hemingway penned for the Toronto Star in 1921:

"Anthony d'Andrea, pale and spectacled, defeated candidate for alderman of the 19th ward, Chicago, stepped out of the closed car in front of his residence and, holding an automatic pistol in his hand, backed gingerly up the steps. Reaching back with his left hand to press the door bell, he was blinded by two red jets of flame from the window of the next apartment, heard a terrific roar and felt himself clouted sickeningly in the body with the shock of the slugs from the sawed-off shotgun.
It was the end of the trail that had started with a white-faced boy studying for the priesthood in a little Sicilian town. It was the end of a trail that had wound from the sunlit hills of Sicily across the sea and into the homes of Chicago's nouveau riche. A trail that has led through the penitentiary and out into the deadliest political fight Chicago has ever known."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/errol-louis/post_2740_b_1148645.html

I've not yet read Deadline Artists, but I'm interested in doing so as I wrote a column for Philadelphia weekly newspapers for 13 years before I took my column online. I was influenced by the many newspaper columnists featured in the book.

You can read a previous post on the best newspaper column of all time via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2011/06/whats-best-newspaper-column-of-all-time.html