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History's Dumbest Criminals, Part 1 · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
0:30
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Who's that on the other end
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Speaker 1: of the zoom rocking to sick Hawaiian Shirt? Why that's
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Speaker 1: our super producer, the one end only, Max Williams. Uh.
0:41
Speaker 1: They called me ben Uh. Gotta work on a mafia
0:45
Speaker 1: nickname here, Noel, what what do you think? Oh well,
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Speaker 1: one of our guests Today's specialty is giving mafia nicknames,
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Speaker 1: so maybe we can hold that for at the end
0:53
Speaker 1: of the episode. Fantastic and let's even let's do let's
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Speaker 1: revisit it in part two. We have just not you
1:00
Speaker 1: a bit of a spoiler, folks. This week series, we
1:03
Speaker 1: are diving into the stories of bone heads, of goons,
1:08
Speaker 1: ne'er dwells. We are talking about some strange, dumb dare
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Speaker 1: I say, ridiculous stories from the world of organized crime.
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Speaker 1: And we're not going into this alone, are we know?
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Speaker 1: We're not? That is my name. My name is Noel.
1:24
Speaker 1: We are joined today by Matt Lee and Vince man
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Speaker 1: Sini from the Incredible Sopranos podcast, The only Sopranos podcast
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Speaker 1: that matters in my opinion Pod Yourself a gun. Um,
1:36
Speaker 1: I thought I'll let you guys to introduce yourselves a
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Speaker 1: little bit further. But Matt and Vince, welcome to Ridiculous History. Max,
1:45
Speaker 1: can we get an applause? Quean that you did deserve that? Um,
1:57
Speaker 1: So you guys have been doing Pod Yourself Ago, which
1:59
Speaker 1: is a Sopranos rewatch podcast. I guess for what you're
2:03
Speaker 1: on season five? Now, how many episodes in? Is that?
2:08
Speaker 1: That's a lot of apps. It's like sixty something. I
2:12
Speaker 1: don't know. Uh, at at this point, I've I've stopped
2:16
Speaker 1: counting podcast so, yeah, exactly it is. This is a
2:21
Speaker 1: podcast for people who you know, they didn't like math
2:24
Speaker 1: in school. You know what they like to do in
2:26
Speaker 1: school was listening to Slipknot and watch Mafia movies. And
2:30
Speaker 1: uh that's uh, that's who it's for people, you know what,
2:34
Speaker 1: you know what's in again now in a big way,
2:36
Speaker 1: Slipknot in Mafia movies goes back. They're timeless. They're timeless.
2:41
Speaker 1: People have been listening to Slipknot since the dawn of time.
2:45
Speaker 1: R I p their drummer though, I forget Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: great drummer to the universe. Now exactly, which is what
2:55
Speaker 1: Slipknots set out to do. I believe if you if
2:59
Speaker 1: you've watched their doctmentary that came out in the Senazoa era. Yeah. So,
3:05
Speaker 1: uh so with this, we were trying to think of
3:09
Speaker 1: some of the best people to explore the stories of
3:14
Speaker 1: let's say it, kind of dumb criminals, kind of thick
3:18
Speaker 1: headed mobsters here. And uh we had we had one
3:22
Speaker 1: of those moments like in Ghostbusters where they're trying to
3:25
Speaker 1: figure out how to like fight back against Vigo and
3:28
Speaker 1: they all look at the license plate where the statue
3:31
Speaker 1: of Liberty is and they looked at each other. That
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Speaker 1: was Max Noll and me, except the statue of liberty
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Speaker 1: here was you guys. So we thought who better to
3:41
Speaker 1: explore these stories with us and for our ridiculous historians
3:44
Speaker 1: listening along at home. Uh what we did is, uh,
3:48
Speaker 1: the four of us, Matt, Vince, Noel, and myself each
3:52
Speaker 1: each found a story or a person that perfectly illustrates
3:57
Speaker 1: just how dumb, how dumb the mobster game can be,
4:02
Speaker 1: or the criminal game in general. And you know, Matt,
4:06
Speaker 1: you and Vince had come up with with a couple
4:10
Speaker 1: that I had never heard before. And I can't wait
4:14
Speaker 1: to learn about him with you. Yeah, you were, you
4:18
Speaker 1: were pretty into the story of a what's this guy's name, Well,
4:24
Speaker 1: his name is Vincent Gigante. Uh, yeah, who was someone
4:29
Speaker 1: who I had never heard of up until we were
4:34
Speaker 1: doing Vince and I were doing an episode of The
4:36
Speaker 1: Sopranos in which, uh, it's you can't really tell if
4:40
Speaker 1: Junior Soprano is actually suffering from dementia or if he's
4:44
Speaker 1: faking it for the cops. And you know, it's clear
4:48
Speaker 1: that he's definitely faking it in some capacity uh early on,
4:54
Speaker 1: but then it kind of turns into dementia because irony
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Speaker 1: poising for for dementia exactly. Yeah, he was doing he
5:02
Speaker 1: got irony poisoning from uh, dementia poisoning anyways, uh he Uh.
5:09
Speaker 1: Vince at one point mentioned that the storyline was kind
5:13
Speaker 1: of loosely based on this guy, Vincent the Chinante. Yeah,
5:18
Speaker 1: the chin they called him, who was the he was
5:22
Speaker 1: the head of the Genoese crime family for twenty four years.
5:25
Speaker 1: This could put on Pellow cases in like two seconds flat.
5:28
Speaker 1: It's incredible. I mean, you know, they called him the
5:33
Speaker 1: chin h for mostly because his mother, uh, who was
5:38
Speaker 1: an Italian immigrant affectionately called him en Zen uh, which
5:44
Speaker 1: is it's kind of like Vincent Vincenzo. Ch know, it goes.
5:49
Speaker 1: This is how mafia names are created, you know, exactly exactly. Yeah,
5:57
Speaker 1: and uh so they yeah, he was called the Chin,
6:00
Speaker 1: but he actually uh in later years, Uh, he started
6:03
Speaker 1: you know, being giving a different moniker. Uh. He went
6:06
Speaker 1: by another name, the odd Father. And that's because from
6:10
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four to two thousand and three he pretended
6:15
Speaker 1: in public to be completely uh ship house rat insane.
6:21
Speaker 1: Uh Uh. In order to avoid prosecution, I'm gonna try
6:25
Speaker 1: to swear less on this. More of it, more of
6:32
Speaker 1: it that we tagged. We tagged this with a little
6:34
Speaker 1: E for explicit Alright, good good, pretty sure, pretty sure
6:38
Speaker 1: shouses in the Bible too, So come on, that's what
6:42
Speaker 1: That's the first thing they said about Kane. You were like,
6:45
Speaker 1: Kane was shifouse rat, insane and he's slew able. Um.
6:49
Speaker 1: But yeah, so he started Uh he basically acted insane
6:54
Speaker 1: for like almost forty years. Uh. He was in public,
6:58
Speaker 1: he was pissing on stuff, he was walking with a limp,
7:02
Speaker 1: he was dressed like a homeless guy. Was he the
7:05
Speaker 1: bathrobe guy? He's the bathrobe guy. He was basically known
7:09
Speaker 1: for being out in Greenwich Village in a bathrobe, slippers,
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Speaker 1: floppy hat. Uh, you know, just kind of like muttering
7:16
Speaker 1: to himself like I'm walking and uh you know, uh
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Speaker 1: and you know, doing all sorts of crazy nonsense um
7:25
Speaker 1: to try to throw off the cops. He was known
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Speaker 1: by the odd Father, the Crazy Don Dummy Brasco, the
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Speaker 1: gob a fool google fella, Don Coralie Sloaney. I was
7:37
Speaker 1: hoping there was one of those analyzed piss can I
7:41
Speaker 1: says you're making. You're making is also in the Bible. Okay,
7:46
Speaker 1: good Uh if that doesn't work, if that gets bleeped,
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Speaker 1: analyzed scat um. So he was known by all those names,
7:53
Speaker 1: or at least the first two. Uh. And uh, yeah,
7:56
Speaker 1: he pretended to be crazy. So just a little bit
7:59
Speaker 1: of background and on this guy. So he's the son
8:01
Speaker 1: of Italian immigrants who came to America in the twenties,
8:04
Speaker 1: along with a lot of Italian American immigrants at the time. Uh.
8:08
Speaker 1: And he you know, he grew up in Greenwich Village
8:11
Speaker 1: kind of you know, a mafia neighborhood, right, So he
8:15
Speaker 1: started his life as kind of a professional boxer. He
8:17
Speaker 1: dropped out of school and started boxing. He had a
8:20
Speaker 1: record at twenty one and four. He's pretty good, a
8:23
Speaker 1: really good chin, you know when you know, that's the thing.
8:26
Speaker 1: If you got that strong chin, you get into boxing.
8:29
Speaker 1: Although as opposed to a glass jaw, that's the opposite exactly.
8:33
Speaker 1: You don't you don't want to have a glass job.
8:35
Speaker 1: But you know, his true passion was not for boxing.
8:39
Speaker 1: It was for uh, doing murder for the mafia. Uh.
8:44
Speaker 1: Also I guess method acting a little bit, but uh
8:47
Speaker 1: mostly doing murder. So uh at the time that you
8:51
Speaker 1: know he was coming up, it was kind of the
8:54
Speaker 1: beginning of like the modern mafia. Right. So you know,
8:57
Speaker 1: if you don't know the story, it's like Lucky Luciano
9:00
Speaker 1: basically created today's modern mafia, the Five families. Right, so
9:05
Speaker 1: Vito Genovese was part of the Genovese crime family, but
9:10
Speaker 1: he wasn't the head of it, right, so Vito Genovise
9:14
Speaker 1: became like basically Gigante's mentor. Uh, you know, they were
9:20
Speaker 1: like inseparable, they were homies, you know, they he did
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Speaker 1: murder for him, all that fun stuff. Uh and uh,
9:27
Speaker 1: Lucky Luciano actually when he got deported in the forties. Uh,
9:33
Speaker 1: he named Frank Costello to be the head of the
9:36
Speaker 1: Genevese crime family. Meanwhile, Vito Genovese, it's like, budd it's
9:39
Speaker 1: in my name, why can I not be at the
9:42
Speaker 1: head of the family. And they got into kind of
9:44
Speaker 1: like a little war, and basically it ended up that
9:48
Speaker 1: Frank Costello like one for a while until Vito Genovese
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Speaker 1: basically ordered the chin you know, Vincent Gigante to uh
9:59
Speaker 1: to murder or Frank Costello. So he tries to murder him,
10:03
Speaker 1: uh fails it kind of just like grazes his skull.
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Speaker 1: But Frank Costello is like, all right, I get the point,
10:09
Speaker 1: and he decides to basically quit and then uh, you know,
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Speaker 1: Genevise actually becomes the head of the Genevese crime family. So, uh,
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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine, Gigante and Genevese are both convicted in
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Speaker 1: federal court on charges of like heroin trafficking, and Gigante
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Speaker 1: at that point was sentenced to seven years, which is
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Speaker 1: only half of Genovese's sentence, But that's because the judge
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Speaker 1: read a slew of letters saying that like Jagante was
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Speaker 1: like had really good character and was a very nice guy,
10:40
Speaker 1: and he worked on behalf of New York City youth. Like,
10:43
Speaker 1: so this is this is the type of guy. He was,
10:45
Speaker 1: like many fine pastries and cured meats for his mom
10:49
Speaker 1: every mornings. Otherwise they could grow up with glass jaws.
10:57
Speaker 1: You know, when nobody wants that. Nobody wants that. So's
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Speaker 1: he's this like good dude, but he still gets time.
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Speaker 1: So he has to serve seven years and that's when
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Speaker 1: it starts. After his release from prison in nine four,
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Speaker 1: Jagante started toying with the idea of like what if
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Speaker 1: I pretend to be mentally ill? So he started walking
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Speaker 1: the streets of Greenwich Village pretending to be like disoriented
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Speaker 1: and like mentally unstable and muttering and stuff. That was
11:28
Speaker 1: kind of like the beginnings of it. He was like,
11:30
Speaker 1: you know, let's try this out. I'm sorry, I have
11:34
Speaker 1: a quick question. It seems like the kind of thing
11:35
Speaker 1: you would do during a trial to keep from going
11:38
Speaker 1: to prison. But he had already been to prison. Now
11:41
Speaker 1: he was doing this to continue to do murders and
11:44
Speaker 1: crimes and maybe avoid prosecution for further crimes. You know,
11:48
Speaker 1: this is my game, long time got it? Yeah, so
11:52
Speaker 1: my theory is that like he was able to get
11:55
Speaker 1: a reduced sentence by having people say that he's a
11:58
Speaker 1: really nice guy, but he still had to go to prison.
12:01
Speaker 1: And he was like, all right, so that didn't really work,
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Speaker 1: you know, because I'm sure he actually wasn't really a
12:06
Speaker 1: nice guy. I'm sure all those letters were like a
12:08
Speaker 1: gun to your head, say I'm a good person. He's
12:10
Speaker 1: no Bobby bucal Law. No, No, he's no Bobby Bacalaw.
12:13
Speaker 1: This is uh, this is more of a richier, preal
12:16
Speaker 1: type guy, you know, total loose cannon murder everything like that.
12:20
Speaker 1: So I think he realized, like, it's not a good
12:22
Speaker 1: angle trying to convince the judge I'm nice. It's a
12:25
Speaker 1: better angle to convince the judge I'm crazy. So when
12:28
Speaker 1: he gets out, he starts the beginnings of the ruse.
12:30
Speaker 1: He starts walking around. You know, he's got the robe
12:33
Speaker 1: and Slippy's on the weird hat, you know, uh, and
12:37
Speaker 1: you know he's like he's peeing on stuff. He's talking
12:39
Speaker 1: to parking meters, he's having a grand old time um bathtub.
12:47
Speaker 1: I hope he's talking to a parking meter while he's
12:50
Speaker 1: peeing on it. For sure, for sure, the way you're
12:54
Speaker 1: looking at it sort of reminds me of the episode
12:58
Speaker 1: Where's Johnny, where Junior actually is having it's the first
13:03
Speaker 1: sign of his true dementia kind of setting in where
13:07
Speaker 1: he's wandering around in a bathrobe and hanging out with
13:09
Speaker 1: like sex an older sex worker on a bench who
13:12
Speaker 1: offers him a half and half in the back seat.
13:15
Speaker 1: But this definitely seems like they used some of this
13:17
Speaker 1: stuff as an influence for that. It was is like,
13:22
Speaker 1: you know, he is he is doing an impression of
13:25
Speaker 1: Junior Soprano, who actually was suffering from dementia at that
13:29
Speaker 1: point in the series, Like he is. This is for
13:31
Speaker 1: sure what it was based off of. UM. But yeah,
13:34
Speaker 1: I mean that was that was his thing. But it
13:37
Speaker 1: was kind of like early on in his ruse, right,
13:40
Speaker 1: so like he was pretending to do it, but he
13:42
Speaker 1: was still doing stupid stuff like, uh, trying to bribe policemen.
13:47
Speaker 1: So that's when in nineteen sixty nine, Uh, he got
13:52
Speaker 1: indicted on a conspiracy to bribe the police in exchange
13:56
Speaker 1: for information. And UH, as soon as he was indicted,
13:59
Speaker 1: he is actually um he was able to make bail
14:03
Speaker 1: and he checked himself into a mental hospital and that's
14:06
Speaker 1: when his family started to revise his medical history. This
14:09
Speaker 1: is when they started trying to create a paper trail
14:11
Speaker 1: for it. When he first went to prison, right like,
14:15
Speaker 1: they was, you know, I have to get a medical history,
14:18
Speaker 1: and his mom would say stuff like, oh, he's perfectly healthy.
14:20
Speaker 1: You know, he's a great kid, blah blah blah, wonderful, smart, whatever.
14:25
Speaker 1: And then as soon as he checked into the mental
14:27
Speaker 1: hospital in sixty nine, all of a sudden, they started
14:30
Speaker 1: remembering all this like a host of other mental problems.
14:33
Speaker 1: And it's kind of interesting because from what I was reading,
14:37
Speaker 1: at first, they didn't really know what would constitute mental illness.
14:41
Speaker 1: So a lot of the things that were listing were
14:43
Speaker 1: things like he has a severe temper, he's afraid of
14:47
Speaker 1: the dark, he he has been truant from school, uh,
14:52
Speaker 1: and my favorite one, he was at one time obese.
14:56
Speaker 1: None of these things are mental illness, so U at
15:00
Speaker 1: some point I assume they consulted with like an actual doctor,
15:03
Speaker 1: and that's when they started uh settling on the idea
15:06
Speaker 1: of him being a paranoid schizophrenic. So in ninety nine,
15:11
Speaker 1: his lawyers presented the reports from psychiatrists at his trial,
15:14
Speaker 1: saying that he was a paranoid schizophrenic, and he was
15:17
Speaker 1: actually he was declared unfit to stand for trial and
15:20
Speaker 1: the charges against him were dropped. So the incompetence at
15:24
Speaker 1: actually worked, and it continued to work for another thirty years.
15:30
Speaker 1: What ended up happening is, Uh, from this point on,
15:34
Speaker 1: he just never dropped the I'm crazy act. He just
15:37
Speaker 1: was always outside in a robe, slippy floppy hat, pissing
15:40
Speaker 1: on stuff, you know, eating his own dude, do whatever
15:43
Speaker 1: they do, right so Uh. And in one instance, like
15:47
Speaker 1: agents were serving him a subpoena and they found Gigante
15:51
Speaker 1: standing naked in the shower holding an umbrella. Uh, that's
15:58
Speaker 1: what I mean. No, you know, I come on, this
16:00
Speaker 1: feels like such a Looney Tunes of insanity. It's like,
16:05
Speaker 1: you know, one would look really crazy, but I had
16:10
Speaker 1: an umbrella. You're in the shower to get wet on purpose,
16:14
Speaker 1: I don't know, on the inside of the house, foolproof
16:20
Speaker 1: shoes on my hands, and the pants on the top
16:23
Speaker 1: of my body. It's pretty much me and Marcavelli at
16:28
Speaker 1: this point. I have a question. I do have a question,
16:33
Speaker 1: and maybe this is something we we answered towards the
16:36
Speaker 1: towards the end. But Uh, one of the things that
16:39
Speaker 1: occurs to me when we're getting really into his day,
16:43
Speaker 1: lewis level acting on the on the method front um
16:48
Speaker 1: boxing has tremendous potential to damage someone's co functions over time.
16:54
Speaker 1: Do you think that this could have played some sort
16:59
Speaker 1: of role. I don't. The science was really there people
17:02
Speaker 1: to investigate that. I also want I also want to know,
17:05
Speaker 1: like how, aside from the doctoring of the records and
17:08
Speaker 1: maybe them playing into that, maybe this is an example
17:10
Speaker 1: of like with Junior, where he was sort of faking
17:12
Speaker 1: and at first and then gradually did succumb to too
17:15
Speaker 1: serious mental decline. Is it sort of a combination of
17:18
Speaker 1: those two things, or where's the proof that we're like, oh,
17:21
Speaker 1: he definitely was playing up until the bitter end. I
17:23
Speaker 1: mean even just the quarantine I feel like has ruined
17:27
Speaker 1: my ability to like hold in bourbs and farts in public.
17:30
Speaker 1: Like I've sort of total like I almost lost the
17:32
Speaker 1: ability because I haven't had to do it for so long.
17:34
Speaker 1: I can only imagine what it would be like if
17:36
Speaker 1: you're trying to pretend to be crazy for an excited
17:39
Speaker 1: period of time. Yeah, if you're once you're comfortable like
17:43
Speaker 1: doing a little peep in the middle of the street
17:45
Speaker 1: in front of strangers, like you end up being a
17:49
Speaker 1: guy who's like, I'm sorry, I just pissed my pants.
17:53
Speaker 1: I I usually do that on purpose, And at this point,
17:55
Speaker 1: I trained my bladder to p every time I sense danger.
17:59
Speaker 1: So I imagine that. Uh. And and I also think
18:02
Speaker 1: like a little bit of it is like I don't
18:04
Speaker 1: think it's ct E. I don't think he had like
18:06
Speaker 1: some sort of brain damage from his fights or anything
18:09
Speaker 1: like that. Um, I you know, or at least his
18:13
Speaker 1: family doesn't think that. And the FBI, But I mean,
18:16
Speaker 1: who would trust the FBI. I do think though, that
18:19
Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made that if you pretend
18:23
Speaker 1: to be totally insane, you know, for however long, for
18:28
Speaker 1: forty years, Like that's a form of insanity just to
18:31
Speaker 1: just to pretend, you know what I mean, Like you
18:34
Speaker 1: have to be kind of crazy to think that this
18:35
Speaker 1: is a life worth living. It kind of like defeats
18:39
Speaker 1: the purpose of being in the mafia. It's like, don't
18:41
Speaker 1: you want to be a tough guy walking down the
18:43
Speaker 1: street and just being like, hey, I'm walking you know,
18:46
Speaker 1: surely this didn't sit well with his like peers they
18:49
Speaker 1: probably was like a laughing stock, or do you think
18:51
Speaker 1: they thought he was a genius. I'm I'm interested, so
18:54
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, uh, they were early
18:58
Speaker 1: on they were like, hey, this is actually a pretty
19:00
Speaker 1: good idea. But there were some tapes of you know,
19:04
Speaker 1: like people doing wire taps and whatnot, in which they
19:07
Speaker 1: started to complain about, like him basically doing the crazy
19:12
Speaker 1: act and like how it's it's difficult to like to
19:16
Speaker 1: talk to him, you know, uh for extended periods of time.
19:20
Speaker 1: It's like doing a movie with Jared Leto you know,
19:21
Speaker 1: where he's just like shitting in boxes and like handing
19:25
Speaker 1: it to you. I'm crazy, I'm gonna say it, no disprespect,
19:30
Speaker 1: but umbrellusive or outside. Well, it reminds me like I
19:34
Speaker 1: have a twelve year old daughter and like her whole
19:36
Speaker 1: peer group and like gen Z or whatever, like they're
19:38
Speaker 1: all about like ironic humor and liking things ironically. But
19:41
Speaker 1: after a time, right, I mean we all are. But
19:44
Speaker 1: after a time, if you love something ironically, don't you
19:46
Speaker 1: just love the thing? Like isn't that really you just
19:48
Speaker 1: kind of become that thing? Irony poisoning. Yeah, it's reminds
19:52
Speaker 1: me when I first started watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,
19:55
Speaker 1: like I don't know, a decade ago, you know, And
19:58
Speaker 1: I started iron actually saying bro because I just loved
20:03
Speaker 1: the timing of the way that they said bro. And
20:05
Speaker 1: then after maybe two months, I was just genuinely, earnestly
20:10
Speaker 1: saying bro at the end of every other sentence. And
20:14
Speaker 1: I'm cursed with BRO. I can't stop. I can't stop
20:17
Speaker 1: bro either. At this point, I've I've come to accept
20:19
Speaker 1: myself as someone who says bro. Yeah. I legitimately like
20:23
Speaker 1: the song All Star by smash Mouth now, just because
20:27
Speaker 1: I've played it in so many situations as a joke
20:29
Speaker 1: that like, the song legitimately brings me joy now and
20:33
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it comes on and I get excited about it.
20:35
Speaker 1: You programmed yourself by Yeah, It's just you know. And
20:41
Speaker 1: I think there's a level of that um with Vincent
20:46
Speaker 1: the Chin Gigante where he was, Um, I think you
20:50
Speaker 1: know he I think he was driving himself a little
20:52
Speaker 1: kind of funny because the lead singer of smash Mouth
20:55
Speaker 1: was actually named Vincent the Chin Strap. Uh yeah, that's true,
21:01
Speaker 1: that's true. Everyone knows that. Um he changed it to
21:04
Speaker 1: Steve Harwell for some reason, and that dude also is
21:07
Speaker 1: known for driving himself insane for responding to every troll
21:11
Speaker 1: of All Star on Twitter like legitimately with like absolute indignation,
21:16
Speaker 1: like no, we had other hits too, were not just
21:18
Speaker 1: famous because of he was also he was like the
21:23
Speaker 1: version of Trump reply guy where he was convinced that
21:27
Speaker 1: Trent Balki, who was like the worst GM of the
21:29
Speaker 1: forty niners ever he was. He was always like he
21:32
Speaker 1: was like the number one Trent Balki defender, where he's like, no, no,
21:36
Speaker 1: he's playing ten dimensional chess. You guys just can't understand it.
21:41
Speaker 1: That's weird because that's a that's a different sport. That's right.
21:49
Speaker 1: But but but I think you're you're making a fantastic
21:53
Speaker 1: point because that there is something inherently off about deciding
22:00
Speaker 1: this is not just a short term strategy but a
22:03
Speaker 1: long term strategy. And and Vincent's kind of rewarded because
22:08
Speaker 1: getting off on an insanity plea is so fucking rare,
22:13
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, I can't blame him for doubling
22:16
Speaker 1: down at that point, But I think you're right. It
22:18
Speaker 1: does have consequences cognitively and has consequences, but it keeps
22:22
Speaker 1: you out of the can. And and it really did
22:24
Speaker 1: keep him out of the can for for decades. I mean,
22:27
Speaker 1: this guy was and I guess it was. What was
22:30
Speaker 1: so funny about it is that this simultaneously uh kept
22:35
Speaker 1: him out of lock up for years while actually being
22:39
Speaker 1: the most obvious fake ploy in the world. Like cops
22:44
Speaker 1: would talk about the fact that like because they were
22:47
Speaker 1: monitoring him right like the FBI, they wouldn't just see
22:51
Speaker 1: him in public. The FBI, their whole thing is also
22:53
Speaker 1: monitoring you in private. So just uh, here's like a
22:57
Speaker 1: little slice of like the day in the life of
23:00
Speaker 1: instant the Chini Gante. So in the early evening, Mr
23:03
Speaker 1: Gigante would emerge from his mother's walk up apartment, uh
23:06
Speaker 1: and uh he would be dressed in a bathrobe and
23:09
Speaker 1: pajamas and windbreaker sometimes chabby trousers always you know, looking
23:14
Speaker 1: like dogshit and accompanied by some some bodyguards. And he would,
23:18
Speaker 1: you know, cross the street over to the Triangle Civic
23:23
Speaker 1: Improvement Association, this dingy storefront and he would, you know,
23:27
Speaker 1: do the whole walk where he's just like, I'm crazy
23:30
Speaker 1: everything you know, math is backwards or whatever. And then
23:35
Speaker 1: as soon as he would get in there, um, he
23:38
Speaker 1: started playing pinuckle, He had conversations, you know, he was
23:41
Speaker 1: talking to his confederates, and he was planning stuff. You know.
23:44
Speaker 1: It was like, uh, it was clear that as soon
23:47
Speaker 1: as he entered inside he would be normal, and then
23:52
Speaker 1: after midnight he uh would get outside again. Oh I'm
23:56
Speaker 1: just a crazy guy. He would go over to his
23:59
Speaker 1: Gumar's house us and uh, then he would immediately dress
24:04
Speaker 1: in very nice clothing, have nice dinners, hang out with
24:08
Speaker 1: his kids and uh, you know, like carry on conversations
24:12
Speaker 1: and watch them TV be totally normal. And they were
24:14
Speaker 1: seeing this. They were just like this is fake and
24:18
Speaker 1: uh and then you know, and then of course he
24:20
Speaker 1: would go to sleep and the next morning he would
24:22
Speaker 1: do it all over again. Walk outside, I gotta peanut,
24:25
Speaker 1: and then you know, and then do some you know,
24:28
Speaker 1: plan some crimes. So not nearly as clever as like
24:32
Speaker 1: verbal can't losing the limp and becoming kaiser so'se you
24:35
Speaker 1: know what I mean. No, But also he was basically
24:39
Speaker 1: just doing a such down the street and the dude
24:41
Speaker 1: who goes back in his pants the front gets the
24:48
Speaker 1: parking meter really could talk. He was just reading from
24:52
Speaker 1: the bulletin board the whole time. You know from stuff. Yeah,
24:56
Speaker 1: there's this great quote from the former director of the
25:00
Speaker 1: New York State Organized Crime Task Force, Ronald Goldstock, where
25:03
Speaker 1: he because he would monitor him, and he said, quote,
25:06
Speaker 1: it was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out
25:09
Speaker 1: of being a mob boss, which I think is is
25:13
Speaker 1: absolutely true because it just seems like absolute torture to
25:17
Speaker 1: be like, God, damn it, I forgot to go get
25:20
Speaker 1: milk at the store, O cock on my own dog
25:25
Speaker 1: like as he was walking like that sucks. So yeah,
25:30
Speaker 1: he continued to do this public uh you know, ruse
25:34
Speaker 1: for the rest of his mafia career pretty much, um,
25:37
Speaker 1: until eventually he was uh, you know, the jury of
25:41
Speaker 1: his peers were like, quit playing with us. We know
25:44
Speaker 1: you're you're freaking lying over here. So under Gigante's leadership,
25:54
Speaker 1: basically in nineteen eighty, he became the head of the
25:57
Speaker 1: Genoese crime family. UM. And uh, his like criminal enterprise
26:03
Speaker 1: brought in a hundred million dollars a year at a
26:09
Speaker 1: in the in the seventies and eighties. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah,
26:14
Speaker 1: the most lucrative mafia enterprise in American history. So this
26:18
Speaker 1: crazy guy was actually the most successful mob boss. But
26:22
Speaker 1: of course, in the eighties we have like the beginnings
26:24
Speaker 1: of the whole John Gotti era, right, and uh, you know,
26:28
Speaker 1: John Gotti ended up basically I think he himself ordered
26:34
Speaker 1: they hit on Big Paul Castellano. Um, and they didn't
26:38
Speaker 1: ask the commission and whatnot. And uh, the chin was
26:42
Speaker 1: outraged at Gotti. He tried to kill him a few times,
26:44
Speaker 1: you know. And and Gotti took over the Gambino crime family.
26:48
Speaker 1: So he fucking he hated John Gotti. UM, so he
26:52
Speaker 1: tried to have him killed. Uh he got close um
26:55
Speaker 1: in an effort to kill John Gotti. He uh, he
26:58
Speaker 1: did a bombing that killed underbuss Frank di Chico and
27:02
Speaker 1: badly injured a John Gotti look alike who was mistakenly targeted. UM.
27:07
Speaker 1: That was Frank was Frank di Chico, Frankie the Cheek
27:10
Speaker 1: di Chico, because that would be good. I mean, I
27:12
Speaker 1: would assume that was what they would call him. It
27:14
Speaker 1: would be crazy if he was like Frantunity. If it's
27:17
Speaker 1: better than Frankie Cheeks, that's just in a different direction.
27:22
Speaker 1: Frankie Cheeks is the name of I think a gay
27:26
Speaker 1: porn star that I really really like. Follow their Instagram.
27:30
Speaker 1: It's follow a lot of political commentary. Oh he's fantastic. Um. So, yeah,
27:36
Speaker 1: he tried to kill John Gotti. Didn't work out. So finally, uh,
27:41
Speaker 1: Gigante was indicted on some federal charges in Brooklyn, you know,
27:46
Speaker 1: for a bunch of stuff, like all of the normal
27:49
Speaker 1: mafia crap, which is just like, you know, he was
27:52
Speaker 1: skimming off the top of this labor union and like
27:55
Speaker 1: you know, he had like a windows scam, like every
27:57
Speaker 1: window that was built in New York and New Instruction
28:00
Speaker 1: he would get like or something. It was just like
28:04
Speaker 1: this ridiculous tiki tech stuff that earned lots of money.
28:07
Speaker 1: So he got indicted and uh, you know, of course
28:11
Speaker 1: at his arraignment, uh, he appeared in court in pajama
28:15
Speaker 1: bathrob you know, a peaked cap, you know, just really
28:20
Speaker 1: going for like really Looney Tunes level craziness. Um. And
28:24
Speaker 1: he actually was tried separately because for the next seven years, uh,
28:29
Speaker 1: they basically you know, uh try they put his competence
28:33
Speaker 1: on trial. There are seven years of legal battles to
28:35
Speaker 1: be like this guy's not crazy. Um. And then finally,
28:38
Speaker 1: in a bunch of turncoat Mafio So's X Mafio So's
28:44
Speaker 1: led by Excotty under boss Salvatore, Sammy the Bull Gravano. Uh.
28:49
Speaker 1: They basically snitched and said, you know this is this
28:52
Speaker 1: is all fake. This is uh Gigantes, you know, the
28:56
Speaker 1: head of the Genevese crime family. He's on the commission,
28:59
Speaker 1: you know all that stuff. And the trial in Ninete
29:02
Speaker 1: was like a crazy spectacle. Like he was in a wheelchair,
29:04
Speaker 1: he was mumbling, Uh, he was pretending he didn't know
29:07
Speaker 1: what was going on, you know, just like it was
29:09
Speaker 1: eating the Gobbel gul in the Gobbel. Didn't you know,
29:13
Speaker 1: He's doing his whole thing, and his lawyers were like
29:17
Speaker 1: killed yeah, of course, yeah, he was doing the Robert
29:21
Speaker 1: Durst thing. Snack bar at the right quoting slipnot lyrics,
29:27
Speaker 1: I'm sure, uh and then um yeah. So at one
29:33
Speaker 1: point during this trial there was the quote battle of
29:35
Speaker 1: the wheelchairs, in which uh, you know, another wheelchaired old
29:40
Speaker 1: man Peter at Shiodo, Uh, a three pound mobster, testified
29:45
Speaker 1: against him. Now, this guy had survived the Gangland execution
29:49
Speaker 1: because quote his fat stopped a dozen bullets. So uh,
29:55
Speaker 1: it's good to know that if you gain enough weight
29:57
Speaker 1: you become bulletproof. That's the superpower that's incredible. It's pretty sick. Um.
30:02
Speaker 1: So the jury ended up in ninety seven going, uh,
30:06
Speaker 1: we're convicting you. You're not crazy. Even after this conviction,
30:10
Speaker 1: he spent six more years pretending he was crazy. It
30:15
Speaker 1: took him. See see case in point, my friend, I
30:18
Speaker 1: swear to god he was Actually he had drunk his
30:22
Speaker 1: own kool aid and was now like the ruse had
30:24
Speaker 1: failed clearly in a huge way, but he couldn't break
30:28
Speaker 1: the habit he had, like he's got a he's got
30:31
Speaker 1: a niche for this. Now he can't not do it.
30:33
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, you know, he's he's just you know,
30:36
Speaker 1: he's a method guy, and he's just like, I'm not
30:38
Speaker 1: losing this, and you know, but he actually did finally
30:42
Speaker 1: admit it, after you know, six years of prison in
30:48
Speaker 1: April two thousand three him. Someone should just make a
30:51
Speaker 1: movie where Jared Leto plays like a hermit and just
30:55
Speaker 1: keep telling him that it keeps getting postponed, you know,
30:57
Speaker 1: and you gotta you gotta stay in character. Man. It's
31:01
Speaker 1: like we got postponed again. You just gotta stay in
31:03
Speaker 1: your house for a little longer. Don't come out. It's
31:06
Speaker 1: gonna be amazing. It's gonna it's gonna be so you're
31:09
Speaker 1: gonna get a double Oscar somehow for acting. It's gonna
31:13
Speaker 1: be first ever in history. Just stay inside, bye, We'll
31:16
Speaker 1: tell you when you're finally gonna get the Oscar for
31:19
Speaker 1: playing someone with the mental illness. It's so it's hard.
31:22
Speaker 1: Everyone shoots for it always fall flat on their face,
31:25
Speaker 1: you know, I am Sam and all that. The only
31:27
Speaker 1: what was the only one that it really worked for?
31:29
Speaker 1: It was I guess Rainman, maybe Forrest Cup you could
31:35
Speaker 1: argue was the savant kind of does I mean we're
31:40
Speaker 1: gonna We're gonna turn into Robert Downey Jr. In Tropic
31:42
Speaker 1: Thunder real quick, I'm saying. That's why that's such a
31:46
Speaker 1: brilliant satire, right, None of those uh, none of those folks,
31:49
Speaker 1: though we're also real life mob bosses. That's true. Yeah,
31:56
Speaker 1: you have to. You have to really give credit where
31:58
Speaker 1: credit is due here because he was doing this not
32:01
Speaker 1: to prepare for a role. He was doing this because
32:04
Speaker 1: he was, like, I really really enjoy messing with the FBI.
32:11
Speaker 1: And Tom is a mom boss. I think chet is
32:14
Speaker 1: Chet Hayes is definitely the A J like that Chet
32:20
Speaker 1: is a J soprano all grown up and uh in
32:23
Speaker 1: an age of TikTok. But uh yeah, so no, he
32:27
Speaker 1: actually did admit the insanity ruse uh. In April two
32:33
Speaker 1: thousand and three, he was you know, it was a
32:35
Speaker 1: bit um and uh yeah, after forty years of public craziness,
32:40
Speaker 1: said Gigante calmly pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for
32:44
Speaker 1: this entire deception. Um and I just wanna end here
32:50
Speaker 1: with um A quote from Jerry Capecchi. He was a
32:56
Speaker 1: mafia expert and author of six books on organized crime.
32:59
Speaker 1: The Looney Tunes Act served to Dante well. It kept
33:03
Speaker 1: him out of prison for years, but in the end
33:06
Speaker 1: he was the victim of his own crazy act. He
33:08
Speaker 1: never had a chance to enjoy the fruits of his plunder,
33:11
Speaker 1: and he told some people that if given the chance,
33:14
Speaker 1: he wouldn't do it that way again. Hindsight, hindsight, especially
33:20
Speaker 1: when you've been like doing this thing for forty years,
33:22
Speaker 1: that is wild. He would know that. That's what I
33:24
Speaker 1: was thinking the whole time, is like, how how is
33:26
Speaker 1: he enjoying the fruits of his like criminal laborers or whatever.
33:31
Speaker 1: He would buy fine alligator shoes only to have to
33:33
Speaker 1: do do on them. It's very monkeys. You know, that's
33:41
Speaker 1: that's an amazing Um, it's an amazing story, Matt. And maybe, uh,
33:46
Speaker 1: maybe it is a bit of a cautionary tale some
33:50
Speaker 1: of our ridiculous historians. You know, you can be more
33:53
Speaker 1: than the bathroom and the do do There is such
33:55
Speaker 1: a thing as over committing to the bit and I
33:58
Speaker 1: think this is the case for that. Is this dramatized
34:01
Speaker 1: in it? I know there's a lot of Gaudi movies.
34:02
Speaker 1: There's like the Real Bad one that's apparently delightfully bad
34:05
Speaker 1: with the Travolta and then there's the one with armand
34:08
Speaker 1: of Sante. I guess that was an HBO thing from
34:11
Speaker 1: the nineties. Is this character? Have we seen anybody play
34:14
Speaker 1: this guy? Apparently? Yeah, apparently he was um also shown
34:21
Speaker 1: in the movie The Godfather of Harlem, where Vincent din
34:25
Speaker 1: Afrio plays him. Okay, oh, that's some prestige casting right there.
34:30
Speaker 1: And there was like a Law and Order episode where
34:33
Speaker 1: they had a basically someone inspired by Jagante. But yeah,
34:41
Speaker 1: that's that, that is exactly right. And uh and then
34:45
Speaker 1: of course the like you said, the bad Gaudi movie
34:48
Speaker 1: made by who made that was an ear turn? Okay,
34:54
Speaker 1: all five borrows the Bronx, Manhattan, stadn Island, Brook and Queens.
35:01
Speaker 1: Together they make a fist. He names them all out
35:04
Speaker 1: as the best. Actually, the best line from that movie
35:06
Speaker 1: that will never leave my head is that in this life,
35:10
Speaker 1: you either end up dead or in jail. Me I've
35:13
Speaker 1: done both. It reminds me of a line from I
35:17
Speaker 1: Think It's Carlito's Way. I've never even seen the movie,
35:20
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's apparently pretty good, but there's
35:22
Speaker 1: a line from the trailer where it site, and it's it.
35:24
Speaker 1: I always wondered whether it was better to be loved
35:27
Speaker 1: or to be feed I prefer to be feared. Something
35:32
Speaker 1: along those lines. It's like the most obvious ship. It's like,
35:35
Speaker 1: what is the sound of one hand clapping? Well, it
35:37
Speaker 1: goes something like this. It's like, that's not the point
35:41
Speaker 1: of the question. I mean, I love it. So we're
35:45
Speaker 1: talking about a larger than life character, and the world
35:49
Speaker 1: of organized crime has so many of these. I don't
35:53
Speaker 1: know if all of them are going to be I'll
35:55
Speaker 1: say it as amazing now as you god take. But uh,
36:00
Speaker 1: we also have some larger than life events. Because when
36:05
Speaker 1: we're talking about bone headed things, we're not just talking
36:07
Speaker 1: about people being bone headed or going a little too
36:11
Speaker 1: Daniel day Lewis, we're also talking about people doing things
36:15
Speaker 1: that are clearly bad, bad ideas. I was cracking up
36:26
Speaker 1: Peek behind the Curtain when Nolan I were looking into this. No,
36:30
Speaker 1: I think we we had stumbled across a story that
36:35
Speaker 1: we both loved that I don't know about you, man,
36:37
Speaker 1: I had never heard about this until prepping for this episode,
36:41
Speaker 1: as No, I had neither um. And we're gonna move
36:44
Speaker 1: from New York mob territory to Chicago, where the Mob
36:49
Speaker 1: was referred to as the outfit or at least the
36:51
Speaker 1: particular and again the mob. To your point, Lucky Liciano,
36:54
Speaker 1: that was wasn't that a Chicago guy? Because that was
36:57
Speaker 1: he was budds with al Capone and they split. Al
36:59
Speaker 1: Capone was definitely Chicago guy, but like Lucky, Lucky was
37:03
Speaker 1: the New York guy. But he started they started under
37:06
Speaker 1: al and then they like went their separate ways and
37:09
Speaker 1: then became kind of adversaries. I'm literally thinking in Boardwalk Empire,
37:14
Speaker 1: Boardwalk Empire. So I don't remember exactly, but it feels right.
37:18
Speaker 1: So this guy, his name is uh Don Accardo or
37:22
Speaker 1: he goes by Tony the big tuna. A Cardo, he's
37:28
Speaker 1: the big tuna, and like, um, isn't that from the office.
37:32
Speaker 1: Well yeah, he's like it was that where he's like
37:33
Speaker 1: reeling him in really because he gets that one he
37:35
Speaker 1: gets a tuna salad one day and now he becomes
37:38
Speaker 1: big Tuna. That's true. Um, this is pre the office though,
37:41
Speaker 1: this is like in the you know, in the sixties,
37:44
Speaker 1: maybe even earlier, and definitely earlier because a Cardo was
37:47
Speaker 1: early running crew mates with al Capone in Chicago, so
37:53
Speaker 1: A Cardo actually kind of came up under him. He
37:55
Speaker 1: even there was an attempt on a Capon's life that
37:57
Speaker 1: I also believe was dramatized in Boardwalk Empire, and a
38:01
Speaker 1: Cardo like dove on top of his his you know,
38:05
Speaker 1: mentor and like you know, shielded him from the bullets
38:07
Speaker 1: and he wasn't killed. But he stuck around and ended
38:11
Speaker 1: up becoming like the biggest name in the outfit for
38:14
Speaker 1: many years, even after he was older. He was not
38:16
Speaker 1: necessarily like day to day running things, but he was known.
38:20
Speaker 1: He was like the guy that you feared. And he
38:24
Speaker 1: had this situation where he had this amazing home in
38:28
Speaker 1: a bouge neighborhood, in Chicago, and you know, I don't
38:31
Speaker 1: know if you guys been in Chicago, but it gets really,
38:33
Speaker 1: really really cold in the winter, Like they have this
38:36
Speaker 1: thing called the polar vortex. Um, it's bonkers. It's like
38:40
Speaker 1: absolutely unlivably cold there. So it's a weird thing that
38:43
Speaker 1: there's a whole city there because uh, I have my
38:46
Speaker 1: my cousins and you know, aunt and uncle of out
38:48
Speaker 1: there and they lived there and they describe it as unlivable. Yeah,
38:53
Speaker 1: well they built a the whole city one summer. No
38:57
Speaker 1: what was going to happen by that point. They got
38:59
Speaker 1: the skyscrapers and everything fast, and then they're like, well,
39:02
Speaker 1: what do we do? What do we do? Right here?
39:03
Speaker 1: We built it during the spring when it was you know,
39:06
Speaker 1: a moderate temperature, and then all of a sudden it
39:09
Speaker 1: was the hottest and coldest place in the world. And
39:11
Speaker 1: we said, well, we already built the series. Is this
39:14
Speaker 1: a Game of Thrones type scenario where like summer lasts
39:16
Speaker 1: for like fifty years and then there's one winter. Okay,
39:20
Speaker 1: well it's let's to assume that that's the case. So
39:23
Speaker 1: a cardo Um is vacationing in California. This is in
39:27
Speaker 1: the seventies and in the late seventies, in fact, January
39:31
Speaker 1: six of nineteen seventy eight, and a crew of you
39:35
Speaker 1: know how the mafia has, like there's made guys, which
39:39
Speaker 1: is a thing. You know, You've got like your top guys,
39:41
Speaker 1: your earners, your your copos. There's a whole structure to it.
39:45
Speaker 1: I believe you have the you know, there's the boss,
39:48
Speaker 1: and there's underbosses, then there's copos, then there's soldiers. Is
39:52
Speaker 1: that is that about? You got friends of ours and
39:55
Speaker 1: you got friends of mine and then friends of Dorothy,
39:58
Speaker 1: which are the game mobsters of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
40:02
Speaker 1: Is that okay? Is that like a like a veto
40:04
Speaker 1: reference or did you just make that that was good?
40:05
Speaker 1: That was good? That was good in the day. Yeah,
40:10
Speaker 1: I would not doubt it one one scrap. But um,
40:13
Speaker 1: so he's vacation in California and this crew um that
40:17
Speaker 1: they've used, you know, his his whole organization, the outfit
40:19
Speaker 1: has used to do all of these heists and robberies,
40:23
Speaker 1: rob his house. This guy, this very very dangerous guy.
40:26
Speaker 1: He actually got the nickname Johnny Batters because he was
40:31
Speaker 1: known for like cracking with the baseball. That's cute. That
40:36
Speaker 1: was good, and it's certainly possible, but no, in fact,
40:38
Speaker 1: it was because of a thing that we also often
40:40
Speaker 1: see attached to al Capone. Al Capone was fun for
40:43
Speaker 1: cracking skulls with the with the baseball bat um. He
40:46
Speaker 1: probably learned that from his his, uh his mentor al Capone,
40:50
Speaker 1: But Johnny batters um and he very much a scary
40:54
Speaker 1: scary guy, even as an old man. Can you imagine
40:57
Speaker 1: being menaced by a super old scary mob guy like that?
41:00
Speaker 1: Like you look at him and you see, well, I'm
41:03
Speaker 1: sorry for you on that front then, but for me,
41:06
Speaker 1: Like you see him, you you think they're so innocuous,
41:09
Speaker 1: and then they all I think of like Feach feach
41:12
Speaker 1: Lamna for example. You look at him, he's this frail
41:15
Speaker 1: man Robert Loggia, and then he just starts kicking you
41:17
Speaker 1: in the dick. You know, you're just trying to cut
41:20
Speaker 1: your lawns. You know he's saying this blogs in my
41:23
Speaker 1: nephew now, and then he just kicks you in the
41:24
Speaker 1: dick repeatedly and breaks your arm. That would be the
41:27
Speaker 1: most uh PTSD inducing kind of trauma that I could
41:30
Speaker 1: possibly imagine. So um, you underestimate these old timers and
41:35
Speaker 1: then they absolutely are a total psychopaths. So this guy
41:38
Speaker 1: at this point, he's longer in the tooth and he
41:41
Speaker 1: uh is, you know, kind of in his twilight years.
41:43
Speaker 1: And this crew knocks over his house. Why do they
41:46
Speaker 1: do that? You might ask, Well, I'll tell you why
41:48
Speaker 1: did they do that? You might ask that, and I
41:51
Speaker 1: might have an answer for you. Why they do that?
41:53
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I definitely have an answer. So, Um,
41:57
Speaker 1: at this point, you know, a cardo, he's got friends,
42:00
Speaker 1: he's not necessarily like actively involved in racketeering anymore. He
42:04
Speaker 1: feels like he's dodged the you know, the long arm
42:08
Speaker 1: of the law, and he's just like living out his
42:09
Speaker 1: twilight years with his wife and vacation in California and
42:13
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Um, he has a jeweler friend who
42:17
Speaker 1: has had a heist, you know, done to his place
42:20
Speaker 1: of business and all of these jewels and cash bundles
42:24
Speaker 1: and gold and diamonds all knocked off from this dude's
42:29
Speaker 1: establishment on Christmas of nineteen seventy seven. And the crew
42:33
Speaker 1: that did it was was led by this guy named
42:35
Speaker 1: John Mendel who was known as um John the bypass
42:40
Speaker 1: Man Mendel, which kind of sounds like a cool like
42:43
Speaker 1: hacker nickname. You know, this is in the seventies and
42:46
Speaker 1: it was. It was referring to the fact that he
42:47
Speaker 1: could disarm any uh alarm system. That was his whole deal.
42:52
Speaker 1: That's shocking that he wasn't just some mobster who had
42:54
Speaker 1: had bypass surgery from too much. That's all the night train. Yeah,
43:01
Speaker 1: Twenny Man, Gina Jagante, sorry, Angina. They call him the Hernia,
43:07
Speaker 1: but don't ask about it when you meet him. So,
43:11
Speaker 1: the owner of this jewelry store is friends with Johnny Batts.
43:15
Speaker 1: That's not his name. It was what I say, Johnny
43:17
Speaker 1: batter Anyway, I caught cardo um and he asks him,
43:23
Speaker 1: you know, he he entreats him, please, don you know,
43:26
Speaker 1: intervene on my behalf, give me back my stolen goods.
43:29
Speaker 1: Sort of like the episode where one of Tony's poker
43:32
Speaker 1: buddies has his daughter's wedding hit my feets Lamna and
43:37
Speaker 1: they steal all these like fine cars, and then that
43:39
Speaker 1: guy comes to Tony and says, hey, they stole my
43:42
Speaker 1: brothers whatever. It was some special car that it took
43:45
Speaker 1: him ages to get on the list for his glasses
43:47
Speaker 1: and his day planner we're in there, like, I love that.
43:49
Speaker 1: That's like the thing that he bitches about, who's the
43:52
Speaker 1: genius for keeping his regal? A similar because the the
44:00
Speaker 1: worst car the American car um So this is very
44:05
Speaker 1: so much situation. The jeweler h entreats Cardo to like
44:08
Speaker 1: get him his stuff back, and he does. He makes
44:11
Speaker 1: bypass man return all his stuff, so the bypass man
44:14
Speaker 1: is understandably u a little sore about this. I don't
44:17
Speaker 1: know if it was an off the books deal, because
44:19
Speaker 1: you would think a guy like a Cardo would have been,
44:22
Speaker 1: you know, aware of all of these. But in Sopranos
44:25
Speaker 1: it was feat going rogue, so I wouldn't be surprised
44:28
Speaker 1: if it was a similar situation where it was this
44:30
Speaker 1: guy going out on his own and doing a thing
44:32
Speaker 1: that ended up stepping on toes and then he gets
44:35
Speaker 1: his wrists slapped. So they do return the stuff, but
44:38
Speaker 1: he takes it very very very personally, and he decides
44:42
Speaker 1: to get even in the stupidest way possible, which is
44:46
Speaker 1: by breaking into this legacy Don's home while he's away
44:51
Speaker 1: and stealing a whole bunch of ship. So, as you
44:54
Speaker 1: can imagine, it leads to an absolute blood bath. Just
45:00
Speaker 1: you know, the worst kind. You know, everybody from his
45:03
Speaker 1: crew is targeted. Uh. First is the bypass man who
45:07
Speaker 1: has found with his throat slashed ear to ear and
45:11
Speaker 1: I believe shot in the head. They usually have like
45:13
Speaker 1: a two part execution, just to be sure, just to
45:16
Speaker 1: make sure that that's probably what they said exact they said,
45:22
Speaker 1: bang bang, everybody knows what's happening. So on January, Um,
45:33
Speaker 1: the bypass man is is he's disappeared. They find him
45:37
Speaker 1: in the trunk of his car. He has been stabbed,
45:39
Speaker 1: his throat has been slit and and he's also been
45:41
Speaker 1: strangled to death. Excuse me, I got that wrong. Then
45:44
Speaker 1: five days later, after he went missing and they didn't
45:47
Speaker 1: find his body for a long time, his second in command,
45:50
Speaker 1: this guy named Bernard Buddy Ryan, was found dead behind
45:54
Speaker 1: the wheel of his own car, which is such a
45:56
Speaker 1: classic mafia trope, you know, finding someone slumped over with
46:00
Speaker 1: headshot brains on the passenger window. It's not a robbery exactly. Um.
46:07
Speaker 1: Then that guy's right hand man, a dude named Stevia Garcia.
46:12
Speaker 1: He made it a couple a little bit, I think
46:15
Speaker 1: Stevie ste Yeah, they got out of the mafia eventually,
46:22
Speaker 1: they I'm not gonna lost Johnny Sweet and Low Capone.
46:28
Speaker 1: We we all, we all agree we were going to
46:30
Speaker 1: have a beer with this one. I think I may
46:32
Speaker 1: have misread Stevie as Stevia, but I love that so
46:36
Speaker 1: so so very much. Wouldn't that be amazing if his
46:39
Speaker 1: name was Stevie Stevia Garcia. This is pre Stevia. Though
46:42
Speaker 1: I got a second may cause cancer. I don't know.
46:46
Speaker 1: People still think that about only if you feed it.
46:50
Speaker 1: And that's the really tense part of the moment, you know,
46:54
Speaker 1: of the executions where he's like, you know, they say,
46:58
Speaker 1: I give people kids, bad for your health if you're
47:02
Speaker 1: a rat, bang bang indeed, And they find him in
47:08
Speaker 1: the trunk of his own car. That's the thing too.
47:11
Speaker 1: We see a trope where it's like dudes get stuffed
47:13
Speaker 1: into the trunks of their own car. I guess, just
47:15
Speaker 1: to like, you know, keep the authorities from finding them
47:19
Speaker 1: right away. I mean eventually they find them, of course. Uh.
47:22
Speaker 1: And this was in the parking lot of a Sheraton hotel,
47:26
Speaker 1: which I don't think of as like a legacy thing,
47:28
Speaker 1: but I guess there were Sheraton's in the in the seventies.
47:31
Speaker 1: Maybe they go back farther than I realized. Well, this
47:32
Speaker 1: is um, uh what do you call it? Uh, it's Chicago, right,
47:36
Speaker 1: it's Chicago O'Hare Airport. So it's just Sheraton, a Chicago thing. Well,
47:41
Speaker 1: I mean again, I'm basing everything I know off of
47:44
Speaker 1: Boardwalk Empire, but I'm pretty sure that there's also a
47:49
Speaker 1: like Irish mafioso uh named Sheridan. So uh, you know,
47:54
Speaker 1: I'm just putting pieces together from old HBO shows that
47:57
Speaker 1: I don't remember. We've got HBO Conspiracy Board. There's a
48:02
Speaker 1: thread from a random person I remember to a Sheriton hotel. Yeah,
48:06
Speaker 1: the Shattan hotel is spelled with a T, and I
48:08
Speaker 1: would think the Irish version will be spelled with a D. Yeah.
48:11
Speaker 1: But they're trying to throw off the police. So he's
48:16
Speaker 1: he's found in the trunk on February second. Then on
48:19
Speaker 1: February four, we've got Vince Moretti, who was the fence
48:23
Speaker 1: for that burglary crew, um and a friend of his,
48:27
Speaker 1: an associate named Don Reno. They get, uh, I get,
48:31
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure exactly how, but they're lured in
48:33
Speaker 1: some sort of ruse to a bar in Cicero in
48:37
Speaker 1: Illinois and they are beaten to death. Um, you know.
48:42
Speaker 1: And uh, and the guy that was with him, this buddy,
48:46
Speaker 1: his name is Don Reno, not Don like he's a boss.
48:48
Speaker 1: His name is just actually Donald. He had absolutely nothing
48:56
Speaker 1: to do with the robbery. He just happened to be
48:58
Speaker 1: with this guy. And guy also herb stomped. No. I
49:05
Speaker 1: was told there was a slipnot concert at this box. Indeed. Um,
49:09
Speaker 1: and this one actually murdering Don Donald Duck because they're like, oh,
49:13
Speaker 1: it's Don Duck over here. I wish I could do
49:17
Speaker 1: a Donald Duck voice. That's a really hard voice. It's
49:20
Speaker 1: a really hard voice. Um. So they actually there's a
49:22
Speaker 1: really sexy name for this one. It's called the Strangers
49:24
Speaker 1: in the Night Murders. And that's because, in a very
49:28
Speaker 1: very cinematic turn, very Sopranos asked the Johnny Mathis song
49:33
Speaker 1: Strangers in the Night was playing on the jukebox as
49:36
Speaker 1: Moretti and Reno are curb stomped inside. I mean, I
49:41
Speaker 1: guess there's no curbs inside a bar. But it reminds
49:43
Speaker 1: me of the scene where Tony stomps Coco and the
49:47
Speaker 1: Italian restaurant. That is a nasty piece of work right
49:50
Speaker 1: there by the way, there's no way he would have
49:52
Speaker 1: survived that. That always was a little suspect of that.
49:55
Speaker 1: He literally makes him bite the edge of this like
49:58
Speaker 1: you know, piece of furniture and stomps his head and
50:00
Speaker 1: then you see teeth and blood flying everywhere, and they
50:03
Speaker 1: imply that he was not killed. But I feel like
50:05
Speaker 1: that would crush a person's skull if your mouth is
50:08
Speaker 1: on it, like in uh, what's that movie American? Yeah, well,
50:12
Speaker 1: you know Coco is a big strong man and uh
50:15
Speaker 1: big strong jaw. He probably had a strong chin. Jaws
50:19
Speaker 1: the most powerful muscle in the human body. I thought
50:22
Speaker 1: that was I thought that was the heart man. Well,
50:27
Speaker 1: the second thing I was gonna say is I thought
50:29
Speaker 1: that was the dick. I was thinking that your mobster.
50:34
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh I skipped jaw day, Max
50:38
Speaker 1: right now is face bombing like I gotta cut so much. No, No,
50:43
Speaker 1: we're gonna, We're gonna do a little like we're gonna.
50:44
Speaker 1: I've been watching this show ted Lasso on. Uh it's fantastic.
50:49
Speaker 1: I adore. But there's a thing that the soccer commentators
50:52
Speaker 1: always there where they say we apologize for all the
50:55
Speaker 1: fruity language we're gonna do a similar disclaimer before this one.
50:59
Speaker 1: We were gonna say there's gonna be some fruity language
51:01
Speaker 1: in this episode. I have a question, though, please all right, So, uh,
51:05
Speaker 1: this is clearly a series of murders meant to send
51:09
Speaker 1: a message, and it's happening over a number of days, right,
51:13
Speaker 1: and the message is the message is pretty simple. You
51:16
Speaker 1: don't mess with Tony A. Cardo or you don't mess
51:18
Speaker 1: with Big Tuna. But why did none of these people
51:23
Speaker 1: run away? I understand the first guys you got murdered
51:25
Speaker 1: probably didn't see it coming. But at some point, wouldn't
51:28
Speaker 1: You'd be like, huh, A lot of people are getting killed,
51:31
Speaker 1: a lot of people that I kicked it with. Could
51:34
Speaker 1: they not afford to get out of town? Could they?
51:36
Speaker 1: Were they like, surely this won't affect me? Or what
51:40
Speaker 1: what happened? It's a good question. I think it goes
51:43
Speaker 1: back to the topic of this two part episode that
51:46
Speaker 1: a lot of these dudes are kind of dumb and
51:48
Speaker 1: kind of like up their own asses and like think
51:51
Speaker 1: that they're like invincible. It's like, you know, they do.
51:53
Speaker 1: They literally brag about this stuff. Probably honestly, I don't
51:57
Speaker 1: think I'm even Tony Soprano, the relative of the smartest
52:00
Speaker 1: dude in the show, is kind of dumb um, you know,
52:03
Speaker 1: And that's sort of the point. You're sort of seeing
52:05
Speaker 1: this culture of bravado and posturing and not actual smarts.
52:11
Speaker 1: It's street smarts. But I don't mean, you know, even
52:13
Speaker 1: Tony only goes to ground when literally all of the
52:17
Speaker 1: people closest to him get whacked. I'm sorry, can spoilers
52:21
Speaker 1: for The Sopranos, which is now twenty years old. Uh no,
52:25
Speaker 1: it was gonna happen. It was gonna happen, but there's yeah,
52:28
Speaker 1: go ahead, please, I mean maybe like, uh yeah, First
52:32
Speaker 1: of all, I think that if you're in the mafia
52:34
Speaker 1: um for an extended period of time, uh, then at
52:37
Speaker 1: some point you do just look at yourself as bulletproof
52:40
Speaker 1: because you have just survived so many near misses and
52:45
Speaker 1: so many uh people you know who are like getting
52:47
Speaker 1: shot and all that stuff that you kind of like, you, uh,
52:51
Speaker 1: you convinced yourself that you're able, that you're invincible and
52:55
Speaker 1: you're able to do what you want. But also, how
52:58
Speaker 1: much of this crew was made? I assue none of them? Right, No, No,
53:02
Speaker 1: it's funny. In fact, I wanted to just mention something
53:04
Speaker 1: about a Cardo himself. He was made, but it was
53:08
Speaker 1: sort of a note and a lot of the stuff
53:10
Speaker 1: that I read about this where they didn't do the
53:12
Speaker 1: ceremony where you burn the saint and prick your finger
53:15
Speaker 1: and all that, it was done with more of a handshake.
53:18
Speaker 1: So I'm sure there were some that maybe questions like
53:21
Speaker 1: the second part of a weird science when they didn't
53:24
Speaker 1: put the yeah, I mean obviously the guy. Maybe maybe
53:32
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm getting at is maybe that gave
53:34
Speaker 1: this guy a bigger act to grind in terms of, like,
53:37
Speaker 1: you will respect me even though I didn't burn the saint.
53:40
Speaker 1: If anyone's listening, I don't know, Matt. You want to
53:43
Speaker 1: talk about what it means to get made and anything
53:45
Speaker 1: you know about that term. I've always wondered where that
53:47
Speaker 1: term even comes from. Yeah, So all all I know
53:50
Speaker 1: about the term, or at least to the technical implications
53:54
Speaker 1: of being made are that, uh, when you get made,
53:58
Speaker 1: which is this obviously the ceremony that has like burning
54:01
Speaker 1: of a saint and uh, you know, you prick your
54:05
Speaker 1: finger and you take an oath saying like I promise
54:08
Speaker 1: that I won't be a snitch. Once you're made, then uh,
54:12
Speaker 1: someone hitting you or or trying to kill you is
54:15
Speaker 1: like a lot harder because you can't hit a maid guy. Uh,
54:19
Speaker 1: you can't kill a maid guy without getting permission. Um,
54:22
Speaker 1: and uh, you're basically just a protected person. Now you
54:25
Speaker 1: are like officially in the mafia. And there's a lot
54:28
Speaker 1: of people in the mafia who are kind of associates
54:31
Speaker 1: in the mafia, their soldiers and whatnot, who are not made,
54:34
Speaker 1: people who are trying to It's basically, um, it's like
54:39
Speaker 1: it's like tenure I was gonna say for a stand
54:41
Speaker 1: up comic, it's like trying to get passed at a club. Uh.
54:44
Speaker 1: It's like you know, yeah now or whatever. Right, Yeah,
54:49
Speaker 1: you get to go up at like some shows, but
54:51
Speaker 1: you're not a paid regular until you know the booker
54:55
Speaker 1: sees you and goes like, all right, you are now
54:57
Speaker 1: a part of the club. You can put your name
54:59
Speaker 1: on the wall. So it's like, uh, yeah, it's a
55:01
Speaker 1: place of And then they make you hold your hands
55:04
Speaker 1: out while they burn a whoopie cushion in your hands.
55:08
Speaker 1: So and uh yeah, and I think that ceremony is
55:11
Speaker 1: probably pretty aristocrats heavy, but with no sure, Yeah, with
55:16
Speaker 1: a made man. I from what I remember, everything you
55:21
Speaker 1: just said, Matt is spot on. But for a while,
55:24
Speaker 1: at least in the earlier days, one also had to
55:28
Speaker 1: be either fully Sicilian, fully Italian, fully the Irish or
55:34
Speaker 1: Jewish mob traced your ancestry back to the old country
55:38
Speaker 1: and like, and that's why what's his name's character, ray
55:42
Speaker 1: Leota's character and Good Fellas could never be a made man.
55:46
Speaker 1: He was always just beneath that. But he like was
55:49
Speaker 1: so valuable that he was treated that way. But he
55:51
Speaker 1: knew he could never be made because I think he
55:53
Speaker 1: had Irish because he's Irish. And it was the same
55:56
Speaker 1: thing I think with um. Uh, Robert de Niro's character,
55:59
Speaker 1: he also couldn't be made because he was like half
56:02
Speaker 1: Irish or something. Henry Hill and Jimmy Conway, but Joe
56:06
Speaker 1: Pesci he could be made. Uh And he almost was.
56:11
Speaker 1: Uh and then uh, you know, bullet to the back
56:14
Speaker 1: of the skull. Uh. He kind of had a coming. Man.
56:16
Speaker 1: That guy's a real piece of work work man. But
56:20
Speaker 1: but really were really quickly just to wrap this up.
56:23
Speaker 1: What ended up happening was like often happens, And I'm
56:26
Speaker 1: really glad we had this made conversation because no, none
56:29
Speaker 1: of these dudes were made. Therefore, they were absolutely expendable,
56:32
Speaker 1: and that extended to his inner circle. Uh. He started
56:35
Speaker 1: then bumping off people that did the hits to cover
56:38
Speaker 1: his tracks to the FBI. So he started bumping off
56:42
Speaker 1: his own people, Anthony little Tony Barcelino and Gerald Jerry
56:48
Speaker 1: Jerry the Dinger. Yeah, I guess, I guess it could
56:52
Speaker 1: be pronounced dinger. It's possible. I'm pretty sure it's Jerry
56:56
Speaker 1: the Dinger. Hold On, Vince just came back. I gotta
56:58
Speaker 1: give this to him again when he gets his phones
57:00
Speaker 1: back on. Hang on, we gotta wait for this. Then's
57:03
Speaker 1: real time. We we we we are now extending this
57:06
Speaker 1: um blood bath to uh this this guy's inner circle
57:11
Speaker 1: to cover his own tracks. And one of the dudes
57:13
Speaker 1: that gets hit, his name is the best nick only
57:15
Speaker 1: waited for you because you're the nickname guy. The best
57:17
Speaker 1: nickname of today's episode is Gerald Jerry the Dinger, Crusie Elo,
57:23
Speaker 1: Crusie Ello. Because of all the dingy v he was
57:27
Speaker 1: always getting a little fender benders, you know, he was
57:30
Speaker 1: just always hitting parking meters and stuff. Just real poor driver,
57:34
Speaker 1: really got a baseball too. He was hitting fingers all
57:37
Speaker 1: down n always righting around in a little boat. It
57:41
Speaker 1: was pretty well which the dingy. But they got they
57:47
Speaker 1: got a pretty permanent attitude adjustment in the formulable bullet
57:51
Speaker 1: to the back of the head executions to discovering his tracks.
57:55
Speaker 1: Nor did anybody get arrested? Was no just ever done? No, sir,
58:00
Speaker 1: isn't um. In fact, this is interesting. One of the
58:04
Speaker 1: slain individuals who were part of the crew, their eyeglasses
58:09
Speaker 1: were actually found in a safe inside the very home
58:14
Speaker 1: with a Cardo's home Um years later during a raid,
58:18
Speaker 1: but his body. His body was never found. Big Tuna
58:25
Speaker 1: Um died in Um. He never was convicted, never went
58:31
Speaker 1: to prison. He served almost fifty years as the head
58:36
Speaker 1: of the mafia, the outfit in Chicago, and never did
58:40
Speaker 1: anything more than a little stint hory poisoning exactly. No,
58:46
Speaker 1: all I've got, all I love God here is is
58:48
Speaker 1: peacefully so um presumably not a think mercury poisoning is
58:52
Speaker 1: pretty gnarly. Yeah, well I figured because he was. You know,
58:55
Speaker 1: there's a lot of leaps that made. But we also
58:58
Speaker 1: talked about some other kind of poison in earlier irony
59:00
Speaker 1: poisoning that's yeah, this is so Uh A Cardo died
59:07
Speaker 1: in ninety two from respiratory heart conditions. Thank you, Ben,
59:11
Speaker 1: Ben with Ben always chiming in with the deeds, I
59:14
Speaker 1: look you Wikipedia stuff, I know, right, yeah, no, it's
59:19
Speaker 1: it's definitely it's all of Wikipedia. But I checked the
59:22
Speaker 1: sources and and they're they're legit. Chicago Tribune has um
59:26
Speaker 1: an interesting article where they just said Loki send off
59:30
Speaker 1: for a Cardo and uh they they're kind of painting
59:36
Speaker 1: it as though it's the end of a mafio So era.
59:40
Speaker 1: It was like the funerals of old. He died. He
59:44
Speaker 1: died of a cardiac arrest. Yeah, so he did get arrested. YEA,
59:55
Speaker 1: definitely my time, it's my time and our time. Um,
59:59
Speaker 1: this is a I can't wait for episode two, you guys,
1:00:02
Speaker 1: I can't. We've got two more incredible stories of bone
1:00:06
Speaker 1: headed mafio So's and also just bone headed criminals. I
1:00:09
Speaker 1: think Vince Hears is a little bit more of just
1:00:12
Speaker 1: like a general crime story. Um, but guys, thank you
1:00:15
Speaker 1: so much for joining us, and I can't wait to
1:00:17
Speaker 1: have you back and literally in real time in just
1:00:19
Speaker 1: a few minutes, but in podcast time. A couple of days.
1:00:22
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. Please Matt, hold that excitement because we
1:00:27
Speaker 1: gotta come in like Barnes Storey the next episode. So
1:00:31
Speaker 1: before we sign off, of course, we always like to
1:00:33
Speaker 1: thank our super producer, Max Williams. We'd like to thank
1:00:37
Speaker 1: his brother Alex Williams, who composed this Slap and Bob
1:00:41
Speaker 1: that's playing right now. As Vince and Matt tell us
1:00:45
Speaker 1: where you can learn more about their work and their
1:00:49
Speaker 1: own podcast, the Only Sopranos rewatch podcast that matters Hood
1:00:54
Speaker 1: Yourself a Gun. Yeah you can, uh, you can check
1:00:57
Speaker 1: us out, um, you know on the on that podcast
1:01:01
Speaker 1: store whatever your favorite story is. Just search pod Yourself
1:01:03
Speaker 1: a Gun. Uh. And it is the world's only Soprantos podcast.
1:01:08
Speaker 1: And you know you might see some familiar guests there.
1:01:12
Speaker 1: Uh for example, uh, Noel Brown was on the first
1:01:15
Speaker 1: episode of season five this season, so uh so check
1:01:19
Speaker 1: that out. And you can follow me on Instagram at
1:01:22
Speaker 1: matt Leeb Jokes or Twitter at matt Leeb. I am
1:01:27
Speaker 1: at up Rocks where I am the senior film and
1:01:30
Speaker 1: culture writer and of course Pod Yourself a Gun. And
1:01:33
Speaker 1: we have our other podcast, the Fradcast, and find us
1:01:37
Speaker 1: at Patreon dot com slash Fradcast and uh yeah, that's
1:01:41
Speaker 1: pretty much it. I'm at Vince Mancini on Twitter and yeah,
1:01:45
Speaker 1: I think that covers it. And everybody will have to
1:01:47
Speaker 1: tune into part two where we do explore these mafia
1:01:51
Speaker 1: nicknames that we are hyping up so much, you guys
1:01:53
Speaker 1: were we're making to work for ourselves. Usually you have
1:01:57
Speaker 1: to contribute to the Patreon to get one of those,
1:01:59
Speaker 1: but hopefully because we had you on his guest, you'll
1:02:01
Speaker 1: just give it to us for free. And I have
1:02:04
Speaker 1: a list too, so I can hand you guys some
1:02:06
Speaker 1: some that you might appreciate. I'll work on it. I
1:02:09
Speaker 1: got home. I want to make you proud. I want
1:02:11
Speaker 1: to make you guys proud. But stay tuned for our
1:02:13
Speaker 1: next episode where we will be diving into uh some
1:02:17
Speaker 1: more very very bone headed stories of crime. Can't wait
1:02:21
Speaker 1: to see it. We'll see you next time, folks. For
1:02:30
Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
1:02:32
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
1:02:35
Speaker 1: favorite shows.