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How the Mafia Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com and welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Minnesota, Fats Clark, There's Chuck, Butterface Bryant. Where's
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Speaker 1: a couple of goons ready to break your thumbs on Butterface.
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Speaker 1: I'm actually the opposite of butter Face. I'm a butter body.
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Speaker 1: Those are what I came up with. That's good, Okay,
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Speaker 1: you get the papers. Get the papers. This one is
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Speaker 1: going to be lousy. With Chuck's Italian impressive. I want
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Speaker 1: to go ahead and um apologize to the Italian American
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Speaker 1: Anti Defamation League. Actually that is a serious c o A.
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Speaker 1: I wanted to say because a lot of Italian Americans
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Speaker 1: get upset about things like the Sopranos being portrayed as
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Speaker 1: game bixters. We're not saying all Italian Americans and gangsters,
1:03
Speaker 1: but we're gonna talk about the mafia. It's a real thing,
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Speaker 1: and specifically we're gonna when you say the mafia, even
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Speaker 1: though it's used in all these different ways, right, it's
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Speaker 1: it's specific to Italian organized crime groups or Sicilian. Yeah, well,
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Speaker 1: Sicily is a part of Italy. Yeah, sort of, that's Sicilians,
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Speaker 1: and they probably would say not so much. Well, under
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Speaker 1: modern geopolitics, it's a part of Italy, right, I just
1:30
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that in Sicily. Well, if you want to
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Speaker 1: talk about the mafia, even even broadly, the Sicilian mafia
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Speaker 1: is part of five total right. Yes, Oh we got
1:42
Speaker 1: going already, did you know? Yeah? I was like, wow,
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Speaker 1: that's set up here. We are you? I mean, should
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Speaker 1: we name those or you just want to get to
1:50
Speaker 1: those at the appropriate time? Did I throw you off? No?
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Speaker 1: I'll name him right now. Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra Mafia
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Speaker 1: from nap the Calabrian mafia from Calabria, right, Uh, the
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Speaker 1: Sacra Corona, Yunita or Unita, they're recent, they are based
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Speaker 1: in the Puglia region region. He's getting out of hand already.
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Speaker 1: And look also Nostra, which is uh, that's a good
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Speaker 1: place to start, yeah, because that's what's been come to
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Speaker 1: be called the American mafia. That is exactly right, Chuck.
2:28
Speaker 1: And that's our first bit of jargon we should cover.
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Speaker 1: I think it is grammatically incorrect. It is you know, uh,
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Speaker 1: cosin nostra means our way, right, Yeah, possibly our thing. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: the FBI and I think the sixties were wire tapping, um,
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Speaker 1: the American mafia. They mentioned cosin nostra and um the
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Speaker 1: FBI came to use that as the term for the
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Speaker 1: Italian mafia, adding law so it means the r way.
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Speaker 1: I came up with the Italian mafia in the United States.
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Speaker 1: But it's stuck, right when the FBI labels you, that
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Speaker 1: label sticks and black. Cosa nostra, like you said, describes
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Speaker 1: the American mafia, which is one of the five Italian
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Speaker 1: mafia groups in the world. Today. I got a friend
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Speaker 1: named Blastfeld. We call him Blass, and I call him
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Speaker 1: La Blasa nostra. It's a good nickname, I think. Uh,
3:26
Speaker 1: there's some other terms we're gonna throw about here. Uh,
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Speaker 1: the Almerta. I did look up how to pronounce some
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Speaker 1: of these. Actually, the Almerta is the code of silence, really,
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Speaker 1: that's how you pronounce it. Yeah, tah is the and
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Speaker 1: fascists on top. A made man is someone who is been,
3:46
Speaker 1: you know, inducted into the mafia family. A capo originally
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Speaker 1: was the head of the family in Sicily, but now
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Speaker 1: there are lieutenants in the mafia. Then the family, of
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Speaker 1: course is the gang within the mafia, like the family
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Speaker 1: is uh, each individual gang, and then of course the
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Speaker 1: wise guys. Let's let's break down the hierarchy. Right, we're
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Speaker 1: talking family is a gang within the mafia, and there
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Speaker 1: can be usually say anywhere from ten to a hundred,
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Speaker 1: which strikes me as an incredibly arbitrary number. But there
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Speaker 1: are different families within the mafia. And if you're talking
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Speaker 1: about the Sicilian mafia, there's there's a lot of families.
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Speaker 1: There a lot of families in the US, right, um,
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Speaker 1: and beneath the in the hierarchy, beneath the family, each
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Speaker 1: families is headed by a boss, right don a don
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Speaker 1: or boss. Then you've got the underboss, possibly more than one,
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Speaker 1: but usually just one. Uh. The boss is right hand man. Yes,
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Speaker 1: Sometimes underboss makes his own decisions based on the you know,
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Speaker 1: the family way. Sometimes the underboss will go to the
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Speaker 1: boss say what should I do? Boss? Then travel down
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Speaker 1: to the lieutenants and let the now and you know, Chuck.
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Speaker 1: As I was reading this and reading about the structure
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Speaker 1: of the mafia organization, it occurred to me that like
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Speaker 1: a lot of this mirrors management and organizational styles found incorporations.
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Speaker 1: That's why they call it organized crime. It is it
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Speaker 1: is very much like Okay, so you have a boss
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Speaker 1: who's real hands on, the underboss is going to probably
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Speaker 1: not be very uh not be empowered, just like right
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Speaker 1: if if you have a hands on manager, the supervisor
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Speaker 1: right below him is not going to have a lot
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Speaker 1: of power authority, right, Okay, Well let's just keep going.
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Speaker 1: The copos are beneath the underboss. They're like lieutenants, lieutenants,
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Speaker 1: and they will either control a part of the family
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Speaker 1: or maybe a geographical area, or maybe they run a
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Speaker 1: certain racket only like I just deal in uh, prostitution, prostitution,
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Speaker 1: illegal gambling, legal gambling, right, or it could be like um,
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Speaker 1: Tony owns you know, everything west of eleventh Street. Right.
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Speaker 1: So that's how the the capo um, that's how the
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Speaker 1: capo h is a cappo really hats off to you,
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Speaker 1: capo off to you at the pronunciation. But that's how
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Speaker 1: the the what is it the capo is defined? Right?
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Speaker 1: And I thought about this too, and good fellas, PAULI,
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Speaker 1: as you know, big and important as he seemed, was
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Speaker 1: just a capo, was he? He went in an under Boston.
6:35
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Who was a big daddy in
6:37
Speaker 1: that movie? They never showed because think about it, like
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Speaker 1: Henry hill Um or what is his name, Leiota Hendry, Yeah,
6:47
Speaker 1: and Jimmy and all they were really just soldiers, yeah,
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Speaker 1: well made. And Hendry couldn't be made because remember he
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Speaker 1: couldn't trace his bloodline back to the old country, right,
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Speaker 1: so he would have been an associate. Yeah, but Joe
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Speaker 1: Pesci was made. No, he wasn't. No, remember what happened
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Speaker 1: to him when he went to go get made. Well
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Speaker 1: he was, he was set to be made because his
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Speaker 1: bloodline was was correct. Yeah, okay, that's so. Beneath the Coppos, right,
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Speaker 1: are soldiers and they're the lowest rank and file, lowest
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Speaker 1: level rank and file members of the mafia, but they
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Speaker 1: are members. They have been inducted into the family, young
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Speaker 1: guys who are are probably trying to make their way
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Speaker 1: up to at least Cappo. And then you've got associates,
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Speaker 1: which are anybody from an investment banker, an accountant, the
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Speaker 1: accountant in Untouchables, he would have been an associate to,
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Speaker 1: like somebody who work with who's good at safe cracking
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Speaker 1: or hijacking or dealing drug, dirty cop, somebody who works
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Speaker 1: with the mob, but I remember the family. That's an
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Speaker 1: associate and Josh, then there's one more very important part
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Speaker 1: of the mafia family. Yeah. And there's a couple of
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Speaker 1: ways to pronounce this, the Conciliada, I like the the
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Speaker 1: hard g Consigliati. Yeah, and that is If anyone's ever
8:08
Speaker 1: seen the movie Godfather, which you should, um obviously, Robert
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Speaker 1: Duval is Tom Hagen. If you haven't seen The Godfather,
8:14
Speaker 1: press Paul Is on this podcast, rent or buy it. Well,
8:18
Speaker 1: we'll go buy one and two. Yeah, you need to
8:21
Speaker 1: see both of those. Uh, and and then come back
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Speaker 1: to this. And actually, while you're at it, go watch
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Speaker 1: Good Fellows as well and Casino and um Apocalypse. Now. So,
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Speaker 1: Robert Duval played Tom Hagen, who is the council YadA
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Speaker 1: and the Godfather, And the key here is that they're
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Speaker 1: not a part of the family's hierarchy. They're not an
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Speaker 1: actual family member, not supposed to be. Yeah, because they're
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Speaker 1: supposed to offer outside advice their advisors. They're supposed to
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Speaker 1: rule on fairness rather than Vendetta's personal feelings, that kind
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Speaker 1: of thing. They're elected they're not appointed. Yeah, did you
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Speaker 1: know that. Well, that's ideally how it goes. So I
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Speaker 1: really all of the soldiers, the copos, the the under boss,
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Speaker 1: the boss, all these people, I guess probably not the boss,
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Speaker 1: but UM elect this guy to basically say, I'm going
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Speaker 1: to serve as the tiebreaker the referee probably obviously a
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Speaker 1: very trusted, wise person. But the problem is most of
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Speaker 1: the time they're just appointed by the boss. Well, yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's what it says. In reality, a lot of times
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Speaker 1: they are appointed, they're not always impartial like they're supposed
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Speaker 1: to be. That's the real world mafia, not Tom Hagen
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Speaker 1: in the movies. And Duval was a great consulada. He
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Speaker 1: was excellent. He's just a class act. He is all
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Speaker 1: the way around. Um, there's no head of the mafia.
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Speaker 1: It is not a group, a single organization. It's not
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Speaker 1: like that. It depends. What do you mean. Are you
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Speaker 1: talking about the American mafia, the Sicilian mafia. Well, we're
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Speaker 1: talking to as a whole, largely about last So if
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Speaker 1: we're talking about Lakosa Nostra, there have been times when
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Speaker 1: there were basically ahead of the mafia before I think
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Speaker 1: the thirties, before the five families of New York were
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Speaker 1: really established and defined. There were people who were really
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Speaker 1: running the show or trying to run the show in
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Speaker 1: the country for the whole thing. Yeah, but for the
10:17
Speaker 1: most part, you're absolutely right. It's there's nobody running the head.
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Speaker 1: There's a commission. I guess you could say, is the
10:23
Speaker 1: head of the mafia. Right. Yeah, we'll get to the
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Speaker 1: commission in a minute. That's good stuff. When it comes
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Speaker 1: to naming the families, it's not a clear cut thing.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes it was the region. Uh. In the case of
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Speaker 1: New York, the main families were kind of accidentally named
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Speaker 1: in the Senate subcommittee testimony of A. Joe Alacchi in
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Speaker 1: nine sixty three. So once you say it in a
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Speaker 1: subcommittee meeting and then all of a sudden, it's sort
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Speaker 1: of the family names kind of stuck. And those names, Josh,
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Speaker 1: you want to go for those? Uh? Yeah, there were
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Speaker 1: the Banana, Jenna, Vasi, Gambino, Luches, and Profacci, very good
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Speaker 1: and some of those have been around before that. Um.
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Speaker 1: I believe the Bonano family was around for well since
11:12
Speaker 1: the thirties, right, the um Profacci was around as well. Uh.
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Speaker 1: The gene Vase was relatively new oh, I'm sorry. In
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Speaker 1: the thirties it was Scalazi, Profacci, Luciano, Gagliano, and Banano. Okay,
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Speaker 1: and then in the sixties when Joe Volacci named him,
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Speaker 1: that was what they were named as they were named
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Speaker 1: after the most powerful bosses for their current bosses. Well yeah,
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Speaker 1: and and sometimes the family name would be transplanted if
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Speaker 1: they were taken over, like it almost happened with the
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Speaker 1: Gambinos and John Gotti took over the Gambino family. They
11:47
Speaker 1: were very close to being called the Gotti family. But Gotti,
11:51
Speaker 1: as everyone knows, was arrested for racketeering thanks to Sammy
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Speaker 1: the Bulgravano, and he's still behind bars today, so it
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Speaker 1: never became the Gotti family. No, the Profacci family did
12:01
Speaker 1: become the Colombo crime family. So it does happen. There
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Speaker 1: are changes, that's right, But like we said, no hard
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Speaker 1: infest rules. That's that's the five families of New York
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Speaker 1: and those are the ones. They are most prominent. You
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Speaker 1: don't hear about the Buffalo family or the San Francisco
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Speaker 1: family or the Cleveland family, but these families exist. Uh.
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Speaker 1: Most of the time. They're named after the city that
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Speaker 1: they're running. Yeah, except in New York because so there
12:27
Speaker 1: were just too many of them. Yeah, you couldn't call
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Speaker 1: the New York family because all five of them would
12:31
Speaker 1: be like, oh what about the meat? It does happen
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Speaker 1: elsewhere though, Like there's the Patriarch crime family they run
12:36
Speaker 1: New England apparently. Yeah. Nice, Well I'll talk about them
12:40
Speaker 1: in a second. Right, where are we What which we
12:44
Speaker 1: hit next? There's so much goodness in here. Well, let's
12:47
Speaker 1: just go with the flow. How do you become a
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Speaker 1: member of the mafia. Let's say you're a um, you're
12:53
Speaker 1: a low level safe cracker. Right, they'd be exciting, right,
12:57
Speaker 1: but h and you've really proven your work. You've made
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Speaker 1: a lot of money. You're like, look, I want to
13:00
Speaker 1: move on up. I like safe cracking, but I also
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Speaker 1: want to run numbers and horses and kids exactly. Um,
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Speaker 1: I want to become a member of the family. I
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Speaker 1: am Italian. I got to prove that my father at
13:14
Speaker 1: least as Italian. Yeah. Most most of the time, it's
13:16
Speaker 1: got to be both, but sometimes you can slip by it.
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Speaker 1: Just the old man is Italian, which is what kept
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Speaker 1: Henry Hill out of mafia because his father was Irish.
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Speaker 1: That's right, Um, I want to be inducted. What happens
13:28
Speaker 1: well at an induction ceremony? It was really like most
13:32
Speaker 1: induction ceremonies were pretty quiet and secret for a long time.
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Speaker 1: But as we said, Joe Valachi's testimony in the sixties
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Speaker 1: kind of blew the lid on a lot of this
13:41
Speaker 1: stuff and this was one of them. Uh, what happens
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Speaker 1: is you sit down at at a table, you get
13:47
Speaker 1: you're told to get dressed up or get dressed taken
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Speaker 1: to a private place. At your long table, you sit
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Speaker 1: next to the boss other mafio, so guys are gonna
13:55
Speaker 1: be there, recite some oaths, promises of loyalty. Then you've
13:58
Speaker 1: got to burn a piece of pay hold it. Here's
14:01
Speaker 1: where the patriarchal family comes in. So in October, the
14:05
Speaker 1: FBI managed to tap an entire induction ceremony and with
14:10
Speaker 1: the card that piece of paper they talk about, it's
14:13
Speaker 1: actually an image of a saint, like a family may have,
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Speaker 1: like a patron saying or whatever. So it's an image
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Speaker 1: of that and the the inductee holds it and says
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Speaker 1: something like well, in the patriarchal family, they were made
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Speaker 1: to say, as burns this saint, so we'll burn my soul.
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Speaker 1: I enter alive into this organization and leave it dead
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Speaker 1: and you go drop the burning scene. Yeah, and all
14:37
Speaker 1: of them are thinking probably in the next few years. Yeah,
14:39
Speaker 1: we'll give you six months. Uh so, yeah, you burn
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Speaker 1: the thing holding your hand. Is there any kind of
14:44
Speaker 1: like feet of strength that you're supposed to hold it
14:46
Speaker 1: till it burns your fingers or anything like that that
14:48
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of times. The the new soldier
14:52
Speaker 1: is paired with a more experienced dude, who is your
14:54
Speaker 1: godfather guide you through the whole mafia things. I did
14:57
Speaker 1: not know that. I just thought godfather was like another
14:59
Speaker 1: name for like a coppo or a boss or the Don. Well,
15:03
Speaker 1: I thought I thought in The Godfather it was Don
15:05
Speaker 1: Corleone was the Godfather, wouldn't he interesting? Uh, the inductee
15:09
Speaker 1: has to say, you know, I'm gonna be a got
15:11
Speaker 1: a pledge for life, take a drop of blood from
15:14
Speaker 1: the trigger finger, which I love that obviously, and uh boom,
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Speaker 1: you're a made man. Yeah. Well, some the rumor has
15:24
Speaker 1: it is that you have to prove afterward by taking
15:27
Speaker 1: part in a murder, is the long standing rumor. But
15:31
Speaker 1: I think it's before before. Yeah, like you have to
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Speaker 1: show that you're loyal enough to to kill when ordered
15:38
Speaker 1: to or at least help out in a killing. You're loyal,
15:41
Speaker 1: you can keep your mouth shut, you have the stomach
15:43
Speaker 1: for it. Allegedly, Allegedly, we need to say that we
15:47
Speaker 1: don't want to get sued by the mafia. And then
15:49
Speaker 1: the final thing you gotta do before you can become
15:51
Speaker 1: a made man is you have to face the commission.
15:55
Speaker 1: And uh, in the twenties and thirties, we mentioned the
15:57
Speaker 1: commission a second ago. There was so much activity, mob
16:00
Speaker 1: activity going on that they were recruiting soldiers left and
16:04
Speaker 1: right just to kind of like claim to two bodies
16:07
Speaker 1: and say, well, we've got all these guys, and it
16:09
Speaker 1: became confusing. I gottauld infiltrate and assassinate pretty easily. So
16:14
Speaker 1: they literally formed a commission that's like all right, you
16:17
Speaker 1: gotta it's like a registry almost. So remember I was saying,
16:20
Speaker 1: like there were heads of the mafia, like in the US,
16:23
Speaker 1: there were people vying for it, and this is what
16:24
Speaker 1: it was creating, this hugely violent point in mafia history. Right.
16:30
Speaker 1: So not only that, Chuck, it was prohibition as well. Well.
16:33
Speaker 1: That was a huge time of the mafia very much
16:35
Speaker 1: was right. So there's a lot a lot of money
16:38
Speaker 1: to be made, an unprecedented amount of money to be made.
16:40
Speaker 1: It was relatively new turf for the Italian mob in
16:45
Speaker 1: the US. They've only been here for like maybe thirty
16:47
Speaker 1: four years, right, um and the uh. There is a
16:51
Speaker 1: lot of wars going on. And the guy who basically
16:55
Speaker 1: brought ordered all this chaos through murder and structure was
17:00
Speaker 1: k Luciano. Yeah, he was the one that had the
17:02
Speaker 1: idea for the commission. And he also murdered the two
17:04
Speaker 1: guys who were like the rivals for the boss of
17:07
Speaker 1: bosses and then set up the five families. Now did he?
17:11
Speaker 1: The commission is different now, The commission is the same
17:14
Speaker 1: as as the committee meetings. Right, that's the same thing. Okay,
17:17
Speaker 1: Well they grew out of the committee meetings, so the
17:19
Speaker 1: commission got a register. That's the last thing you have
17:21
Speaker 1: to do is literally be like, all right, my name
17:23
Speaker 1: is Josh the the I Clark. No, it's just Minnesota
17:28
Speaker 1: Fats clients. So the Fats Clark and I'm with the
17:30
Speaker 1: Gambino family and I live in Bayonne, New Jersey, and
17:34
Speaker 1: Kate and Long walks on the beach at night and
17:37
Speaker 1: drown people with my bare hands. Right, So, um, you
17:42
Speaker 1: can finally your made man. You're in the commission, you're registered,
17:45
Speaker 1: you're the dude, right Well, the commission passes you, they
17:48
Speaker 1: say that's okay. Well, well this guy is okay with
17:51
Speaker 1: me to be in your family, because part of the
17:54
Speaker 1: reason of passing lists of prospective members around is it
17:58
Speaker 1: weeds out guys who another family has a beef with.
18:02
Speaker 1: Who if it becomes part of your family, that's gonna
18:04
Speaker 1: lead to war. Yeah, you don't want that to happen. Plus,
18:08
Speaker 1: it brings them out of anonymity so that they can't
18:11
Speaker 1: just walk up and shoot somebody in the face, right right, right,
18:13
Speaker 1: because you can't do that unless you're made right right. Well,
18:17
Speaker 1: this good stuff it is. It's just amazing. Middle class
18:21
Speaker 1: white dudes like us are fascinated by the mafia. Where
18:24
Speaker 1: we all want to be in the mafia. Uh So
18:28
Speaker 1: let's talk about how the mafia makes money, because that's
18:30
Speaker 1: what the mafia is. Let's I mean, let's get real.
18:32
Speaker 1: The mafia is there to make money, and uh they
18:37
Speaker 1: have a history of doing it through illegal means. Otherwise
18:39
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be the mafia. They'd just be corporations. Right.
18:44
Speaker 1: One of the way is one of the classic ways
18:45
Speaker 1: you'll see in movies, which is actually a very real thing,
18:48
Speaker 1: is extortion protection fees happens all the time, or it
18:51
Speaker 1: did happen. Imagine it still does in some cases. Still.
18:54
Speaker 1: Jerry was telling us about kiding Guatemala, who's who's killed
18:57
Speaker 1: because the family couldn't pay for protection. Oh is that why? Man?
19:00
Speaker 1: That's awful. Wow, I realized that was a reason. So
19:04
Speaker 1: you know, that's the scene from the movie where they
19:06
Speaker 1: go into the and rough up the shop owner and
19:08
Speaker 1: say you gotta pay for protection. Basically to protect you
19:12
Speaker 1: from us. Is sort of what it boils down to. Yeah,
19:15
Speaker 1: although imagine sometimes it might have been some legitimate protections.
19:18
Speaker 1: But the impression I have of it is like, yeah,
19:21
Speaker 1: they're saying, if you don't pay, then you're not going
19:25
Speaker 1: to be protected from us. But I think if you
19:27
Speaker 1: do pay, you kind of enter into this fold where
19:31
Speaker 1: other people can't mess with you, and if they do,
19:33
Speaker 1: you can go to the capo or whoever is running
19:36
Speaker 1: the show that you're paying tribute to um and say
19:39
Speaker 1: I've got this problem I need you to take care of.
19:42
Speaker 1: Like I think it gives you access if you're like
19:44
Speaker 1: a regular paying person. And we'll see when we talk
19:48
Speaker 1: about mafia history how closely this mirrors, you know, sicily
19:53
Speaker 1: and the under the feudal system, any feudal system. Really well,
19:56
Speaker 1: remember in The Departed when Leo just went house on
20:00
Speaker 1: those two guys that were extorting the shop owner and
20:03
Speaker 1: he thought he did this guy favor, and then the
20:05
Speaker 1: shop owner was all ticked off. Afterwards, He's like, thanks
20:08
Speaker 1: a lot, man, you know you you brought down this
20:10
Speaker 1: a reign of terror on me. Oh that's right, he
20:12
Speaker 1: killed you can kill him. But he mutilated their faces
20:15
Speaker 1: in the shop. Um. That was such a good movie.
20:19
Speaker 1: It was. It was great. So alcohol. We talked about prohibition,
20:22
Speaker 1: illegal drugs, prostitution, gambling. Those are extortion, and that's just
20:27
Speaker 1: the illegal stuff they can also they also managed to
20:31
Speaker 1: make money off stuff that would otherwise be illegal if
20:33
Speaker 1: they hadn't hijacked it, or would otherwise be legal. I
20:36
Speaker 1: mean yeah, like importing and exporting stuff like that. It
20:39
Speaker 1: was stealing things that other people important. Next, well, that's
20:42
Speaker 1: what I mean. But Gotti was like, was he the
20:44
Speaker 1: one that was into women's apparel? That man had taste?
20:47
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's they probably modeled that DeNiro thing
20:50
Speaker 1: at the end on him, the end of Good Fellows
20:52
Speaker 1: where DeNiro has the the Ladies Clothing warehouse. Yeah, but
20:55
Speaker 1: that was on Gotti. But I don't know if it
20:57
Speaker 1: was because I think Jimmy was an actual person because
21:00
Speaker 1: that was all Henry Hill like real life stuff. Yeah,
21:04
Speaker 1: but they could have borrowed who knows, or maybe whoever
21:06
Speaker 1: he was based on was into women's clothing. Maybe. So,
21:09
Speaker 1: like you said, they want to make lots of money.
21:11
Speaker 1: So while there are like muggings and stupid things like that,
21:14
Speaker 1: they generally would rather hijack a boat and pay off
21:18
Speaker 1: a dock worker or steal a semi truck full of
21:21
Speaker 1: cigarettes instead of knocking off a store or something like that.
21:24
Speaker 1: They want the big dough or they could, say, I
21:28
Speaker 1: don't know, infiltrate a labor union and threatened to have
21:33
Speaker 1: their workers slow or stop construction if they don't get
21:36
Speaker 1: additional money. Yeah, that happened in New York for decades.
21:40
Speaker 1: The Mafia infiltrated the Team Stretch union specifically, and they
21:44
Speaker 1: said in this article, at one point the Mafia could
21:48
Speaker 1: have nearly brought all construction and shipping into the US
21:50
Speaker 1: to a halt that they wanted to write that was
21:53
Speaker 1: thanks in large part to a guy named Jimmy Hoffa,
21:56
Speaker 1: who actually it turned out, you know, he was a
21:59
Speaker 1: labor organ eys are in the thirties and that was
22:02
Speaker 1: like when the cops used to crack the heads of
22:03
Speaker 1: labor organizers on behalf of guys like Henry Ford. Right, Um,
22:07
Speaker 1: so he was like the real deal, but he was
22:09
Speaker 1: also super crooked too. Yeah, he's buried in Oakland Cemetery
22:13
Speaker 1: right here in Atlanta, is all right? Now, he's famous
22:17
Speaker 1: for not knowing where he was buried. Really, Yeah, he disappeared, Okay, Well,
22:23
Speaker 1: the rumor was he's buried under Giant Stadium and I've
22:25
Speaker 1: heard that one before too. But you know, you know,
22:27
Speaker 1: they finally pinched him and he went to prison for
22:29
Speaker 1: a while, and Nixon pardoned him, supposedly because half of
22:34
Speaker 1: the teamsters and like a bunch of gangsters like gave
22:37
Speaker 1: a lot of money to Nixon's campaign. Interesting, that's allegedly,
22:43
Speaker 1: but Halfa gets out and starts campaigning for prison reform.
22:47
Speaker 1: Five years after that. Four years after that, he goes
22:49
Speaker 1: to lunch in Michigan. Never seen from again has declared
22:53
Speaker 1: legally dead in nineteen eight three, but he was the
22:55
Speaker 1: head of the Teamsters, but he was finally pinched for fraud.
23:00
Speaker 1: And the whole point of being of controlling a labor
23:03
Speaker 1: union was you controlled labor, but you also add access
23:07
Speaker 1: to their pension which everybody is paying into. Well, they
23:11
Speaker 1: used the pension to underwrite huge contracts in Vegas at
23:14
Speaker 1: one point to control until the seventies. Alright, we're getting
23:18
Speaker 1: all that. Uh, let's go back to the history. You
23:20
Speaker 1: were talking about how it mirrored Sicily, and I think
23:22
Speaker 1: that's one of the most fascinating parts about this. So
23:25
Speaker 1: go yeah, because extortion is another way of extracting tribute.
23:30
Speaker 1: It's another way of saying extracting tribute. Right in Sicily.
23:33
Speaker 1: Sicily lived under the feudal system long after the rest
23:36
Speaker 1: of Europe. Look to other forms of governance, right, and
23:39
Speaker 1: the feudal system is basically like, I'm a landowner. I
23:42
Speaker 1: control all this land, but I can't possibly work all
23:45
Speaker 1: of it. I'll let you guys live on this land.
23:48
Speaker 1: I'll let you live and you give me some of
23:51
Speaker 1: your grain, most of your grain, however, much of your
23:53
Speaker 1: green I want. That was an early model for what
23:56
Speaker 1: the mafia did, right, and if you don't do this,
23:57
Speaker 1: I'm going to have this other class of society. Basically
24:01
Speaker 1: my foot soldiers kill you or kill your wife or
24:04
Speaker 1: whatever until you do what I want you to. That's
24:06
Speaker 1: the feudal system. Yeah. And the reason that Sicily was
24:09
Speaker 1: kind of the birthplace, not kind of, was the birth
24:11
Speaker 1: birthplace of the mafia. It was because Sicily is out
24:14
Speaker 1: there in the med It's very accessible and because of that,
24:17
Speaker 1: it was invaded a lot. It's very strategic, controlled by
24:21
Speaker 1: a lot of different people over the years, and that
24:22
Speaker 1: led to instability such that the people of Sicily didn't
24:26
Speaker 1: look too and sometimes it was just lawlessness, but they
24:29
Speaker 1: regardless even if there were laws, they didn't look to
24:32
Speaker 1: the state to solve their problems. It became very much
24:34
Speaker 1: a family thing, a local thing. Yeah, you solved it locally.
24:37
Speaker 1: Your family took care of business. They took care of
24:39
Speaker 1: things outside the law. And that kind of is what
24:42
Speaker 1: birth the mafia. So basically you can look at that
24:46
Speaker 1: capo's territory or the capos racket as the land, the
24:54
Speaker 1: feudal land, the capos the feudal lord, right, yeah, and
24:58
Speaker 1: and it mirrors it almost identically. There's extortion, there's tribute, um,
25:03
Speaker 1: there's there's the threat of violence, there's the use of violence.
25:06
Speaker 1: All of it is based out of this feudal system
25:09
Speaker 1: that collapsed in the nineteenth century in Sicily, but was
25:12
Speaker 1: immediately replaced after this bout of lawlessness by the mafia
25:17
Speaker 1: following pretty much the same thing. And then they came
25:19
Speaker 1: to America. Then they came to it. Well, yeah, this
25:22
Speaker 1: is actually interesting how this happened to and um, Mussolini
25:27
Speaker 1: had a big crack down on the mafia. It's very
25:29
Speaker 1: harsh on the mafia, put a lot of them in prison,
25:32
Speaker 1: and then the U. S troops occupied Sicily during World
25:35
Speaker 1: War Two. They thought a lot of these jailed people
25:38
Speaker 1: were political prisoners, so not only did they set a
25:41
Speaker 1: lot of them free, they made the mayors and police
25:43
Speaker 1: chiefs and that was they were like, hey, I really
25:46
Speaker 1: appreciate that we're back on the streets now. Thanks for
25:49
Speaker 1: quashing Mussolini. We're in more control than we ever was
25:51
Speaker 1: yea who was a real thorn in our side for
25:52
Speaker 1: a long time. So uh. In the postwar Sicily, there
25:57
Speaker 1: was a group there was a ceasefire because there was
26:00
Speaker 1: so much warring going on within the families, and they
26:03
Speaker 1: formed the Cupola and the Coppola basically oversaw all of
26:08
Speaker 1: the families commission. Yeah, it's an early version of the
26:12
Speaker 1: commission that would happen years later. And Um, the American mafia,
26:16
Speaker 1: the tactics that like casinostri uses mirrors the Sicilian mafia
26:20
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, like recruiting young guys to
26:23
Speaker 1: like do the dirty work and eventually inducting them. Um,
26:27
Speaker 1: the the whole extracting tribute in the form of extortionmarta,
26:31
Speaker 1: the code of silence, right, Um, yeah, the whole lifestyle
26:34
Speaker 1: of the mobster is reflected in the Sicily right. Yeah,
26:39
Speaker 1: so that's the birthplace. Yeah, and it was going pretty
26:42
Speaker 1: well in Sicily until the eighties and nineteen eighties, so
26:44
Speaker 1: not even that long ago. And uh, they had a
26:47
Speaker 1: big trial called the Maxi Trial, right because, uh, the
26:52
Speaker 1: the government went after the Sicilian mafia, and the Sicilian
26:56
Speaker 1: mafia was like, okay, well, these two big prosecutors are
26:59
Speaker 1: coming after are both gonna dyeing car bombs. And I
27:02
Speaker 1: think they underestimated the response to the public, which turned
27:05
Speaker 1: against him. So they had this Maxi Trial, which they've
27:09
Speaker 1: built a special courthouse, which is essentially a bunker. Try
27:13
Speaker 1: four hundred Sicilian mobsters, and I think three hundred, three
27:17
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty eight were found guilty. I got a
27:19
Speaker 1: different number. I got three hundred and sixty convictions. It's
27:22
Speaker 1: a two year trial. They had three judges. They had
27:24
Speaker 1: one judge and two alternates that literally sat in on
27:27
Speaker 1: the whole trial. Just in case something happened to the
27:31
Speaker 1: one judge, like a car bomb, they wouldn't have to
27:34
Speaker 1: start all over declare mistrial. The second one would step up.
27:37
Speaker 1: Somebody killed the second guy, the third guy would step up.
27:39
Speaker 1: Nothing happened to the first guy. He made it all
27:41
Speaker 1: the way through. I can't believe that. I know um
27:44
Speaker 1: a hundred and fourteen acquittals. Out of the hundred fourteen acquittals,
27:48
Speaker 1: eighteen of them were murdered. One of them was murdered
27:51
Speaker 1: within an hour of leaving the courtroom. On the way home.
27:54
Speaker 1: I supposedly was going to like a surprise or not
27:56
Speaker 1: a surprise party, but like a a celebration. I got
27:59
Speaker 1: acquitted party, and then those are those are good parties.
28:03
Speaker 1: He got off. And then a lot of successful appeals
28:06
Speaker 1: after that, with the Maxi trial and what I got
28:08
Speaker 1: is only sixty. By nine eighty nine, only sixty of
28:12
Speaker 1: the original three sixty remained in prison. Wow. So the
28:17
Speaker 1: Maxi trial kind of turned out to be the Mini
28:18
Speaker 1: trial in the end. So it's not surprised that it's
28:21
Speaker 1: no surprised that the Maxi trild didn't get rid of
28:24
Speaker 1: the Sicilian mafia. In the Italian government sent seven thousand
28:29
Speaker 1: troops to occupy Sicily for six years, and that apparently worked.
28:34
Speaker 1: According to this article, they the Sicilian mafia is still around,
28:37
Speaker 1: but is less violent than it was before. I didn't
28:41
Speaker 1: know was that recent? You know? I didn't either, kind
28:43
Speaker 1: of like, um, sudd war is sweet, odd, I don't
28:48
Speaker 1: know that guy. I don't know if I've ever helped dumber.
28:52
Speaker 1: By the way, in the podcast, I should have had
28:54
Speaker 1: that cut out, but I was like, yeah, it was.
28:56
Speaker 1: It was endearing. This is me. It's endearing warts and all.
29:00
Speaker 1: The American mafia Josh. Yeah, the the Italians and Sicilians
29:07
Speaker 1: came to the United States and the eighteen hundreds big
29:10
Speaker 1: time in the twentieth century. Most of these were just
29:13
Speaker 1: regular folks, not mafia, starting a good, honest life here. Nice.
29:18
Speaker 1: Some of them weren't, uh, in in New Orleans. Specifically,
29:22
Speaker 1: the first um I guess mafia incident Italian mafia incident
29:27
Speaker 1: in the country happened right in the eighteen nineties. There
29:31
Speaker 1: was um a mobster, Well, there was a there was
29:34
Speaker 1: a group a family that was basically getting heat from
29:38
Speaker 1: the local police chief. So they offered them right and
29:43
Speaker 1: at trial, this this uh mafia family was they well
29:47
Speaker 1: they all got off basically from blatantly bribing and intimidating witnesses.
29:54
Speaker 1: And uh the people of New Orleans did not like this,
29:57
Speaker 1: so they actually um formed a lynch mob and went
30:00
Speaker 1: and killed sixteen and these these mobsters, and that was
30:04
Speaker 1: the first mafia. That was the United States introduction to
30:09
Speaker 1: the Italian mob crazy and they were defeated by Nola. Yeah,
30:13
Speaker 1: look at him go at least temporarily. Who knows what
30:16
Speaker 1: happened after that. Uh So, first half of the twentieth
30:19
Speaker 1: century in New York City is where a lot of
30:21
Speaker 1: it's happening because a lot of the immigrants poured into there. Obviously,
30:24
Speaker 1: you had the Five Families, you had prohibition making everybody rich.
30:28
Speaker 1: You had bosses and underbosses getting killed like monthly. Yeah,
30:33
Speaker 1: the Luke Chase's right. They went through three three bosses
30:37
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty in one year, three different bosses. This
30:41
Speaker 1: is the time when Lucky Lichiano was killing everybody. To
30:44
Speaker 1: basically set up the structure this organization. And he defined
30:48
Speaker 1: the five Families, and that's like literally is like this,
30:51
Speaker 1: this is the name of your family. This is who
30:53
Speaker 1: you are, this is this, this and this. There's five
30:55
Speaker 1: families out component in Chicago, and then the Buffalo family
30:58
Speaker 1: and that's the Commission, the little family. I love that.
31:01
Speaker 1: And uh, the way they describe it here is they
31:03
Speaker 1: were basically kind of like Senator so al Capone represented
31:06
Speaker 1: like all of the West coast because he was, you know,
31:09
Speaker 1: the closest one obviously, and uh, they had to you know,
31:13
Speaker 1: the Commission had to approve things assassinations, kidnappings, big money
31:18
Speaker 1: deals that had to all go through the Commission. And
31:22
Speaker 1: they had meetings every five years, every five years committee
31:25
Speaker 1: And probably the most famous meeting of all time was
31:28
Speaker 1: their nineteen fifty seven meeting in Appalachian on the New
31:32
Speaker 1: York Pennsylvania border. And apparently this state trooper was a
31:38
Speaker 1: little suspicious of the scores of Lincoln Town cars. Yeah,
31:42
Speaker 1: wise guys who were showing up, so he himself let
31:46
Speaker 1: a raid on the Mobster convention. And basically this is
31:52
Speaker 1: a time when the public and the government denied that
31:57
Speaker 1: there was such thing as mafia nine fifties. It seems
32:01
Speaker 1: like second nature now because of all the popular culture stuff,
32:04
Speaker 1: But it was long before any of that, right, But
32:07
Speaker 1: not only that, it seems it seems obvious now because
32:10
Speaker 1: of the Appalachian rate. It was basically tantamount to us
32:15
Speaker 1: rating convention of ghosts and being like, okay, well there
32:19
Speaker 1: really are ghosts. Right, It's pretty much the same thing.
32:22
Speaker 1: And it brought them mafia undeniably into the light. And
32:26
Speaker 1: there really was mafia. Here's all their leaders. You know,
32:30
Speaker 1: I just try. I like the ghost convention, things like
32:33
Speaker 1: to go to that. Uh should we talk about Vegas
32:36
Speaker 1: for a minute or Kennedy first? Either one? Alright, let's
32:40
Speaker 1: go with Kennedy. Everyone knows that John F. Kennedy. Everyone
32:43
Speaker 1: has long associated him with the mafia, partially because his dad, Joe,
32:48
Speaker 1: was alleged bootlegger during Prohibition, involved with the mob obviously
32:54
Speaker 1: if you're bootlegging in that part of the country. And
32:57
Speaker 1: uh also had connections to people like Meyer land Ski,
33:01
Speaker 1: who was a friend of Lucky lu Les. Yeah, Ben Kingsley,
33:06
Speaker 1: he saw Bugsy right, great movie. One of the other
33:10
Speaker 1: things that happened was JFK was assassinated and Jack Jack
33:16
Speaker 1: Ruby killed. Lee. Harvey Oswald, who allegedly assassinated Kennedy was
33:20
Speaker 1: an associate. He was a mob associate, so there's that tie.
33:25
Speaker 1: Other people say that the mafia didn't like Castro kicking
33:29
Speaker 1: them out of the Cuban casino business, so they think
33:32
Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs may had something to do with
33:34
Speaker 1: the mafia because Kennedy didn't call in an airstrikes. Robert
33:39
Speaker 1: Kennedy went after the mafia. He died by an assassin's bullet. Yeah,
33:46
Speaker 1: I've stood at that very spot, have you really? The
33:50
Speaker 1: kitchen was the deal with sir Han sier Han, I
33:53
Speaker 1: don't know that weird. Yeah, we need to look all
33:55
Speaker 1: that stuff up. Let's be a good podcast. And then
33:59
Speaker 1: while the girlfriends go head Yeah, same gene Conna. It
34:02
Speaker 1: was pretty cool, dude, as far as the mafia bosses go.
34:07
Speaker 1: He uh supposedly set JFK up with all sorts of girlfriends,
34:12
Speaker 1: including Marilyn Monroe, so he could record and basically get
34:16
Speaker 1: dirt on the president. So Um, they think that Marilyn
34:22
Speaker 1: Monroe possibly was murdered by hitman that Giancanna had hired,
34:28
Speaker 1: and the Giancanna was going to testify about the Kennedy
34:31
Speaker 1: connection to the mob and he gets murdered, which basically
34:35
Speaker 1: just goes to show you that it's all mafia. Whether
34:37
Speaker 1: they're Italian, legitimate, whatever, it's all mafia. Right. So those
34:41
Speaker 1: are all the alleged links to the John F. Kennedy,
34:44
Speaker 1: former President of the United States. Then there's the Vegas connection. Um,
34:49
Speaker 1: you know, Vegas was just kind of started by by Bugsy.
34:55
Speaker 1: It was the Jewish mobsters that were the first up
34:56
Speaker 1: to Vegas. And then once it was set up, the
35:00
Speaker 1: gambling was happening legally for the first time. They're already
35:02
Speaker 1: running casinos, illegal casinos all over the country, but all
35:05
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you got this haven in the desert.
35:07
Speaker 1: It's legal where you can go out there and do
35:09
Speaker 1: it for real. So the you know, they got in
35:11
Speaker 1: on the action. So the uh that one of the
35:14
Speaker 1: ways the Italian mob got in was through their um
35:18
Speaker 1: leveraging of pensions like you said, uh, teamsters labor union pensions,
35:24
Speaker 1: UH to underwrite casinos. A lot of construction going on exactly,
35:29
Speaker 1: or they would just basically show up and be like,
35:31
Speaker 1: I'm your partner now, right, Like Peschi showed up in Casino,
35:35
Speaker 1: which I thought was every bit as good as Good Fellas.
35:37
Speaker 1: I know people don't agree with that, but I thought
35:40
Speaker 1: Casino was terrific. It was a good movie, but it
35:42
Speaker 1: was not as good as as Good I'm giving it
35:45
Speaker 1: a slight tier two, but I love I love Casino.
35:50
Speaker 1: I thought it was great. Sharon Stone good stuff in
35:53
Speaker 1: that one. I thought she screwed that up, really she did.
35:56
Speaker 1: I mean she was great actress. I think her character
36:00
Speaker 1: got too much um emphasis in that movie. Yeah. I
36:03
Speaker 1: liked James Woods in that slime Ball for the ex boyfriend. God,
36:08
Speaker 1: he was slimy uh. Since the seventies, though, the Vegas
36:13
Speaker 1: has supposedly been pretty clean, supposedly, and I think it
36:16
Speaker 1: actually is. I think it's one of those ones where
36:18
Speaker 1: it's not like, yeah, it's clean, Wing Queen, like, I
36:21
Speaker 1: think it actually is pretty clean. Well, there's probably too
36:24
Speaker 1: much money at stake, now, Yeah, you don't want to
36:26
Speaker 1: lose your gambling license. If you're the Palms, you know
36:30
Speaker 1: it's no good or Steve Winn or Steve win how
36:34
Speaker 1: can we fight the mafia. How do we fight the mafia? Well, Chuck,
36:39
Speaker 1: we fight the mafia through a little law that was
36:41
Speaker 1: passed in nineteen seventies specifically to be used against the
36:45
Speaker 1: mafia called the RICO. Yeah. They invented a charge. Yeah,
36:48
Speaker 1: in the United States very smartly invented a charge. Um.
36:51
Speaker 1: It's called the Racketeering, Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act. The
36:55
Speaker 1: RICO Act, which is Title eighteen in the United States Code,
36:58
Speaker 1: section is nineteen six s one just top top my head.
37:03
Speaker 1: And um. Basically, it's it's set up so that you
37:06
Speaker 1: can go after an entire criminal enterprise and RICO. The
37:12
Speaker 1: RICO Act has just about any felony associated with it,
37:16
Speaker 1: but they have to be carried out by this enterprise
37:20
Speaker 1: two i think two felonies within a fifteen year period
37:24
Speaker 1: after that, right, and if it's the mafet, they're gonna
37:27
Speaker 1: they're gonna break two laws, like you know, within fifteen years,
37:31
Speaker 1: so that counts as racketeering. If two or more illegal
37:33
Speaker 1: acts happened, then they say that's an organized family crime, right,
37:37
Speaker 1: because a racket is you know, these different types of
37:41
Speaker 1: illegal activities that the mafia used to make money racketeering
37:44
Speaker 1: is this enterprise, right yea, and that an act of
37:48
Speaker 1: making that. So what they can do is not only
37:51
Speaker 1: can they attack a racketeering charge on which will give
37:54
Speaker 1: you extra time in addition to your crime other crimes
37:57
Speaker 1: like unloading the truck of cigarettes, it uh, it accomplished
38:01
Speaker 1: a very important thing and that the mafia boss could
38:04
Speaker 1: no longer sit behind a veil of safety because they're
38:08
Speaker 1: not the trigger man. Right, all of a sudden, John
38:11
Speaker 1: Gotti can be brought up in racketeering charges. And that's
38:14
Speaker 1: even if they can't pin an order for the murder
38:18
Speaker 1: on the boss. Because one of the things about the
38:20
Speaker 1: couple of and the commission was that it brought peace
38:25
Speaker 1: to the mafia among the families, but it also exposed
38:30
Speaker 1: the bosses because they were the ones who were approving
38:33
Speaker 1: murders and stuff. Now, right this with with the reco act,
38:37
Speaker 1: I think you don't have to you don't have to.
38:39
Speaker 1: You just have to say, this guy is the boss
38:41
Speaker 1: of this organization. Everything flows up to him. Anything we
38:45
Speaker 1: can pin on any other member can be pinned on
38:47
Speaker 1: the boss. And like you said, it adds it's not
38:51
Speaker 1: just bribery, it's bribery plus ten years because it was
38:55
Speaker 1: bribery in the context of racketeering. It's a huge law.
38:58
Speaker 1: But the the interesting thing to me is they almost
39:01
Speaker 1: never used it for mafia anymore. It's for corporations. Oh, interesting,
39:06
Speaker 1: corporate racketeering. Good. Yeah, that's what I say. Trump up
39:11
Speaker 1: some charges. You can you can also go that's kind
39:14
Speaker 1: of what it is. They created a loss so they
39:16
Speaker 1: could trump up charges. Right. You can also go undercover,
39:19
Speaker 1: like one Joe Pistone did. Yeah, the movie, The Great Movie.
39:23
Speaker 1: Donnie Brasco told his story pretty well. Yeah, he was
39:25
Speaker 1: undercover for what six years, like deep undercover, scarily undercover. Yeah,
39:32
Speaker 1: to the point where even when he came out in trial, uh,
39:36
Speaker 1: testifying against people, some of the mob guys were like,
39:39
Speaker 1: how's he gonna turn it against us like that? Yeah,
39:41
Speaker 1: they thought he was a rat. Yeah, they still didn't
39:43
Speaker 1: think he was a cop, even though he's on the
39:45
Speaker 1: stand saying I'm a cop. Yeah, I'm FBI. Yeah, Donnie Brasco.
39:49
Speaker 1: Look for it in theaters near you in Pacino was
39:54
Speaker 1: the Uh No, it was Johnny Depp And I'm sorry,
39:58
Speaker 1: I thought I thought of Heshi when you said Paccino
40:01
Speaker 1: and Johnny deppia one man's pesci is another man's peccino. No,
40:06
Speaker 1: that's like one man's Casino is another man's good Fellows.
40:09
Speaker 1: One man's Madden is another man's must Burger. Maybe okay, ah,
40:15
Speaker 1: that's the mafia. There's so much there, Like this was
40:18
Speaker 1: the structure, bare bones, very little flesh on it. Just
40:21
Speaker 1: because there's so much to it. We could pole this
40:24
Speaker 1: could be part one in a series of tin snuffed
40:28
Speaker 1: out before the tenth though. Probably we were respectful. I
40:32
Speaker 1: think so too. Where are we, hey, man? I mean,
40:35
Speaker 1: if we weren't, just send us an email. Don't shoot
40:39
Speaker 1: us now, please, So chuck. That's it. That's it, all right.
40:43
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about mafia, including a
40:47
Speaker 1: chart of the structure of a typical Sicilian mafia family
40:50
Speaker 1: or Locosa Noster family, just type in mafia in the
40:54
Speaker 1: handy search bar how stuff works dot com, which means
40:56
Speaker 1: it's time now for listener, ma'am. And for God's sakes,
41:01
Speaker 1: see The Godfather one and two and good Fellas and
41:04
Speaker 1: good Fellas and Casino and Donni Brasco and My Blue Heaven.
41:08
Speaker 1: That's a good one. And you can watch god Father three.
41:12
Speaker 1: I'm a proponent of it. Even though most people poop
41:14
Speaker 1: to it. Just take Sofia Coppola with a grain of
41:17
Speaker 1: salt and realized that she had She's a brilliant director
41:20
Speaker 1: in the making, and not a great actor. She's already
41:24
Speaker 1: a brilliant director. Not when you make up other three
41:26
Speaker 1: she wouldn't she made that movie up a few No
41:29
Speaker 1: know that I'm saying she was in it was a
41:30
Speaker 1: very poor actor. She went on to become a great
41:32
Speaker 1: director actor. So I'm gonna call this. We asked for
41:36
Speaker 1: sinking ship stories. We've got a couple that were okay,
41:39
Speaker 1: but our best one was an airplane falling out of
41:41
Speaker 1: the sky story. Hi guys, I know you called for
41:45
Speaker 1: seeking boats stories, but I hope you'll consider this falling
41:47
Speaker 1: airplane story and fall of oh seven. My boyfriend and
41:50
Speaker 1: I were coming home to the US after he had
41:52
Speaker 1: played some concerts in Germany. He was he in the scorpions.
41:57
Speaker 1: I don't know, this might be Hasslehoff. The flight to
42:00
Speaker 1: parted Cologne in the morning. We had been in the
42:02
Speaker 1: air for a couple of hours when suddenly we felt
42:05
Speaker 1: something akin to very violent turbulence. The plane dropped by out,
42:09
Speaker 1: dropped an altitude by a lot enough to make me
42:12
Speaker 1: feel like the bottom of my stomach had fallen out
42:14
Speaker 1: like a roller coaster. The plane momentarily righted. The captain
42:17
Speaker 1: got on the intercom said there was a there was
42:19
Speaker 1: some difficulties. The next few minutes felt like ages. The
42:22
Speaker 1: plane alternately banked from side to side, lost more altitude,
42:25
Speaker 1: and shook some more. Lights flickered on and off. The
42:28
Speaker 1: captain announced it was a fire in the first class cabin,
42:32
Speaker 1: and it didn't help that he sounded panicked and was
42:34
Speaker 1: nearly screaming. We were sitting in the back row, which,
42:38
Speaker 1: as we know, is not proven, but it's probably one
42:40
Speaker 1: of the best places to be if your plane is
42:42
Speaker 1: going to crash. Flight attendant ran too our row and
42:45
Speaker 1: threw open the overhead compartment looking for something. She hollered,
42:49
Speaker 1: Oh my god, there's only one, she said, only one.
42:53
Speaker 1: What we never found out? The lights went out for
42:55
Speaker 1: a longer period. That's when we noticed that the oxygen
42:58
Speaker 1: mask had deployed, but only for seats on the other
43:01
Speaker 1: side of the plane. Our entire side did not have
43:04
Speaker 1: oxygen masks deployed. My boyfriend was to my right, an
43:07
Speaker 1: elder Russian woman on my left. I was squeezing both
43:12
Speaker 1: of their hands and trying to stay calm. The Russian
43:14
Speaker 1: woman had both of her eyes closed. She was rocking
43:18
Speaker 1: back and forth and speaking softly under her voice. Suddenly
43:21
Speaker 1: the ground was coming very fast. We had miraculously hit
43:24
Speaker 1: the runway at Shannon Airport in Ireland, but we hit
43:27
Speaker 1: it hard because of the weight of all the fuel
43:29
Speaker 1: that was intended intended to fly us to Newark. The
43:32
Speaker 1: plane bounced a couple of times on the miscovered runway,
43:36
Speaker 1: lost all of the electrical power, air circulation shut down,
43:41
Speaker 1: and we were towed to the gate. There were a
43:43
Speaker 1: lot of tears, prayers and shaking up people, and the
43:46
Speaker 1: airplane doors were eventually hand cranked open and we deplaned.
43:50
Speaker 1: That is from Ariadne and carry the boyfriend. Wow, sinking ship.
43:57
Speaker 1: Who cares? Would you ever get on a plane again
43:59
Speaker 1: at something like that happened to you? Uh? These days?
44:02
Speaker 1: Yes you would, because you've kind of overcome that to
44:05
Speaker 1: a large degree. Yeah. Um, But with what I've gotten
44:08
Speaker 1: to the point now where I can I just sit
44:09
Speaker 1: there and look out the window and make myself watch
44:11
Speaker 1: take off and landing. Um, and I'm usually pretty good. Well,
44:15
Speaker 1: we fly alight now I quit smoking and I got
44:18
Speaker 1: over my fear of flying. Did you you've made so
44:21
Speaker 1: many changes at something? Anybody? Look at you. I can
44:23
Speaker 1: run two miles at a stretch now too. That's impressive.
44:28
Speaker 1: Onward and upward, onward and upward. If you have a
44:31
Speaker 1: story about a mail man you hated or who hated you,
44:38
Speaker 1: or mafia stuff, Okay, all right, we'll go with that one.
44:42
Speaker 1: Then if you have a story about the mafia, we
44:44
Speaker 1: want to hear it. We want you to wrap it
44:47
Speaker 1: up in an email and send it to stuff podcast
44:51
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
44:57
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
44:59
Speaker 1: dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on
45:02
Speaker 1: the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our
45:04
Speaker 1: home page. The House stuff Work's iPhone app has arrived.
45:08
Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes, Brought to you by the
45:13
Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve Camri. It's ready, are you