WEBVTT - The Mafia, Their Museum + What the Godfather Got Wrong! 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:04.760 Now really. 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:13.200 Really, Hello everybody, welcome back. I'm Jason Alexander sitting here 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:14.320 with my best friend. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:17.600 It's going to age me and dog Lars Peter Tilden. 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:19.800 Yeah, that's right, that's still your name and our show 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:25.159 podcast you've come to know and love. Really where what 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:26.320 do we talk about on this show? 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.680 Can we talk about things that make us say? Really? No? Really? 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:31.880 And that's how we start our show, even here in 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.240 beautiful Las Vegas where we've come back once again to 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.320 the Blue Wires studio. You're in fabulous Las Vegas and 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:38.839 then plugs for what reason we're paying for this? 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.559 Wow? Exactly? Wow? So really no, really is because we 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.400 were talking. We were talking about it, Carl Jason. See 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:51.320 this headline headline, sorry we dissolved your son and Acid Mafia. 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.600 Boss's tell parents and I go, hey, they got the 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.960 wrong guy. But be they apologize isn't done in a code? 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.800 We don't apologize eyes for putting the wrong person in Acid. 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:04.840 Well, I thought part of the code was you never 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:06.800 touched somebody else's family. 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:08.479 There was back in the day. 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.360 You know, the guy was the guy if you needed 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:13.560 to whack the guy, but he didn't do the family. 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:15.959 You left alone. And what I love is they offered 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.760 they I don't even want to tell you what they 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.440 did to this person, but the allegedly killed son did 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.200 something to his teeth and an acid and all that. 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:24.800 Kind of stuff. 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.240 But they apologized during the trial, and they said they 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.399 want to make good for it and give them some 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.839 money in an apartment. Oh okay, oh oh right, okay, 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:35.360 all right. 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:39.520 And by the way, they apologize, anybody can make a mistakeologize. 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.520 All right. So that kind is thinking about the mob? 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:43.920 Is there a new mob? How prevalent are they and 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.200 how it's still such a it's still now. 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.640 I will say this, I don't hear a ton anymore 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:53.560 in the news about you know, the old mob, the 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:55.760 old mob. I hear a lot about you know, Russian 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.160 gangs and gangs and you know, cartels, But I don't 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.720 hear a lot about the mob. But it is still 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.080 one of the fixtures of popular entertainment. 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:04.440 By the way, may I say, and this is not 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.000 any knock to you, because you're preparing a show and stuff. 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.119 They're still in the news New York. They're flipping there, 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.320 They're really yeah, they're still going after the New York 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.239 City in Italy. It's a huge thing because I don't 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.440 read the internety different. Oh, I read Get Up the Morning, 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.040 I read six hundred papery. I only read my languages, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:21.760 my local thing, which is tough. I only know what 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.040 I really in my local paper. I only read the 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:25.960 crime repoint so far that none of that is mob 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:31.119 relate crime in my area. In my area, Hey, Peter, 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:33.120 that's five miles out. Don't worry about yeah, don't it. Well, 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.320 by the way, that's going to get us. That's funny. 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.799 It's going to get us to romanticizing the Mob has 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:39.519 something to do with that. Remember that in the area. 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.040 Remember then, okay, yeah, remember, but we have whether it's 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.400 a very special guest who knows a lot about the 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.799 maybe more than just about anybody about the Mob other 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:49.520 than a maiden man. 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:51.880 What do you bet we are talking today with the 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:55.760 vice president of Exhibits and Programs for the Mob Museum 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:56.720 here in Las Vegas. 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:58.200 He was a wonderful journalist. 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:00.720 Twenty five year career in journalism with at the Las 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.800 Vegas Sun, Las Vegas City Life, Las Vegas Mercury, Lost Fan, 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.240 every paper in Las Vegas. He's basically he couldn't hold 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:07.600 the Jeff, I couldn't call it a hold of John, 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.360 the author of Sun, Sin and Suburbia, a History of 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.440 modern Las Vegas, as well as the book Howard Hughes, Power, 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.960 Paranoia and Palace Intrigue. Would you please welcome to our program, 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.880 Jeff Schumacher, Hello, Jeff, Hello Jeff. 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:20.359 You can't here. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:22.919 Yeah, honestly, they're still clapping, but thank you, Thank Mark 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:23.520 for coming in. 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.680 So the Mob, I mean, you booked a mom museum, 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:28.720 so basically you invested in the fact that the Mob 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.880 is that popular, which they are. People are fascinated still. 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.080 People are absolutely fascinated by the Mob today, even though, 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:36.920 as you note, they're not in the news quite as 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:37.440 much as they. 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:37.760 Used to be. 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:42.040 See No, but they are new going on the news. 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.920 It's kind of like when you know, they're not like 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.320 they used to be. They're much smart, they're a little 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.960 more behind the scenes. They're not like John Gottie Watkin. 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.960 I was gonna say, I probably couldn't name a mobster, 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.280 an Italian mobster who should be, and then I probably 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:55.800 couldn't name it. 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.400 And I'm from Philadelphia, so I'd come from Angelo Bruno, 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.440 little Nicky Scarfoe. All these guys. And I worked in 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:07.480 a factory on Delaware Avenue dellarn Tesk Avenue, and my 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.840 shop foreman, my union rep was the Irishman. Actually yeah sure, 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:13.800 which and I didn't as a kid. He's just a 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:15.520 tough guy who's the union rep. And that was it. 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.280 And those were the days of dealing with Jimmy Hoffa, who, 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:20.760 by the way, I think is in Giant Stadium. And 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:22.320 I told well, I heard the medal lands. I told 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:24.599 them fish family that they should always do first in 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.080 halfa and bucket, knight buck and shoveling for the kid justice. 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.400 Wouldn't it be fun? I got something on the third yard, 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.359 but they didn't take care of it. But the Mob, 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:34.680 the Mob today are they as first of all, let's 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:36.760 go back to the Mob Museum. What I'm sure you 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.560 did the research say that this city would support it, 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.520 and this is the city basically has to drive around 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.039 here that was basically built by the Mob. 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.120 In some ways it was, you know, especially here on 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.160 the Las Vegas Strip. But I actually bristle a little 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.520 bit of that idea that the Mob invented Las Vegas, 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.159 because it was a city for like forty years before 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.880 the Mob even took an interest, but that's a local talking, right. 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.320 The reality that you know, Bugsy Siegel arrived in Las 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:07.200 Vegas in nineteen forty six and started building the Famingo Hotel. 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.320 There's a big backstory to that that we could get into, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.400 but the point is that that really marked the arrival 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.400 of the Mob in Las Vegas, and this became kind 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.320 of a nexus for all different mob groups all over 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.680 the country. And so it's kind of a perfect place 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.000 to have the Mob Museum because you can talk about 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.320 Chicago and Detroit and Philadelphia and Boston and New York 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:29.599 in LA and they all have a connection here. 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:30.320 In Las Vegas. 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:32.560 Can I just say, because I am going to be 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:36.440 fairly ignorant about a lot of this the different cities. 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.480 Was it a dominant family in every city or were 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:42.080 all the families represented in all the big cities. 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.760 Most of the major cities in America in the mid 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.440 century of the twentieth century fifties, sixties, seventies had some 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.200 kind of a mafia group going on, a mafia family, 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.599 and they often communicated with, you know, the guys in 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:57.720 New York or Chicago. There was a bit of a 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.039 hierarchy there. They had like a border of directors called 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.240 the Commission. And this commission was created back in the 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:08.200 thirties by Lucky Luciano. But the Commission was, you know, 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.120 seven or eight guys, the New York guys, the Chicago 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.400 bosses got together and they would sort of set policy 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:16.919 for the whole country and they would settle dispute. So 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.800 they would you deal with different problems that were going 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.440 on among the different factions and kind of try to 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.479 keep the peace. We know for meeting the newspapers that 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.200 they weren't always successful in keeping the peace, but they 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:30.159 tried and kind of like a bord of directors. 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.000 You know what's amazing about the Mafia? And I want 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:34.920 to ask you if the movies are accurate, like The Godfather, 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.440 how accurate you think they are? But in reading a 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.000 lot about this, preparing for you, I never realized the 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:44.120 psychology behind it that you co opt somebody who comes 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:49.520 from a background were underprivileged, necessarily not necessarily embraced by society, 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.360 like over here at Dallian Irish whatever, we're not immediately embraced. 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:54.800 So you had that culture, you gave a kid an 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.400 opportunity to come in and then you raised them where 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:02.360 they were dedicated to the group, and you lost your individuality. 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:04.640 It was all about the group. It was not about 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:09.000 the person. And after a while your mindset becomes just that. 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.920 The oaths. You take the family involvement and it really 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.680 immerses you in this culture where everybody's going not about No, 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:17.520 this isn't about you. You got to do that because so 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:19.880 you don't question. Well, it's like the military. You do, 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.160 yet you don't. It's a bigger it's a bigger thing, 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:22.600 and it's. 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.040 Someone like the military, and you you are. You devotion 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.480 is to the boss. And if the boss says, you know, 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.120 kill your mother, sadly you have to do that. It's 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.440 not your devotion becomes to the mafia family more than 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:36.880 your own family, which is a little bit twisted. 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.840 Well. And also the oath, which is the mark that 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.920 we don't flip, right, it's kind of there's been a 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:44.040 lot of flipping. 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:46.440 That I think is a generational thing. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.520 I think that really, you know, as sentences got more severe, 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.880 you know, drug sentences and the Rico you know Rico cases, 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.400 these guys were looking at not two years in they 0:07:57.400 --> 0:07:59.480 can like they used to do back in the twenties 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.320 and thirties. How I can do two years, there's no 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.520 problem and not you know, not flip. But now it's 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.160 like twenty thirty years and these these guys with nowadays 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.560 are like, oh man, that's I'm not going to say 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:12.160 that Giuliani. 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.040 Is that when Giuliani did the big correct on in 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:15.600 New York, that was really the beginning of this. 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:20.360 I think, yes, roughly the Rico statue was passing nineteen seventy, 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.679 but federal prosecutors didn't get excited about it until a little. 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:24.600 Bit later in the eighties. 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.480 Giuliani and his crew really went after the New York 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.920 mafia and were very successful in decimating those families. 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:37.679 Is it that are they quieter and less active or 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.640 are they just publicly quieter and less active? 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.600 So this is a huge debate within the little world 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:44.920 of mob historians. 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:47.400 But I think you'll find that there. 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.800 Are people who will say that the traditional mob is 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.440 almost gone, that it's really just petty crime at this 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:57.080 point by comparison with say the Mexican drug cartels, right 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:02.360 or the Russian mafia in the or But people will say, no, 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.640 these guys are just quieter, they're they're keeping you know, 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.040 keeping a low profile, and they're still involved in a 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:09.920 lot of stuff, and I think that's true. 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:11.600 I think they're still involved in bookmaking. 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.520 I think they're involved in smuggling, and they're also getting 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.760 involved in more sophisticated stuff like on Wall Street, you know, cybercrime, 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.400 kind of stuffy cryptocurrency. 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.160 They're getting involved in some really solaring. 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:25.960 That they're actually so they're in solar. 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.440 And Jefferson, when you say you think, is that like 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.400 a wink? I think, are you saying? I know, but 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:34.480 I don't know if you know what I'm saying. 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:36.960 Well, you know, one of the things about about the 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:39.319 mob is they don't keep a lot of notes, right, 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:41.839 So it's not like you can go look back in 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.400 their memoirs and find out what they're doing. So there's 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.360 a lot of guessing that goes on even in law enforcement. 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:48.880 You know, when you go back and look at the 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.400 FBI files and which we all do in my field, 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:54.600 and you go back and look at what they were 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.720 saying was happening in the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, there's 0:09:57.760 --> 0:09:59.280 a lot of guesswork in there, and there's a lot 0:09:59.280 --> 0:09:59.800 of mistakes. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.439 Just to hear something a bartender tells. 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.559 An FBI agent, Oh yeah, you know, Vinnie is involved 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:07.640 in the mob, and he puts it in his report. 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.040 Whether it's valid or not. You know, so you really 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.320 have to sift through airfully as a historian and like, 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:15.680 you know, figure out what's real. 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.480 You also find that in reading about this and hearing 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:22.319 about this that mobsters who do talk and come out 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.000 publicly tend to exaggerate their role. Is it that pettiness 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.680 and that exaggeration allant goes on. So it's really hard 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:30.360 to peg what a guy did. Anyway. 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:32.520 I think a lot of times today, if it's twenty 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:34.959 twenty three and there's a guy on social media talking 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.400 about how he's a big mob guy, he's probably not 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:42.520 a big mob right because everybody's watching. Everybody in law 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.199 enforcement and everywhere else is keeping an eye on things 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.959 nowadays more so than ever. And if you're bragging about 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.320 it publicly, you're probably not a big mob guy. 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:54.520 And was that so like when Henry Hill was on 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:58.640 how which turns showing repeatedly telling his stories, was he 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:00.520 inflating his stories? 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.640 Was or was he kind of a real No? 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.160 I think Henry Hill was a real, a real mom Yeah, 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.439 And what he got involved later, you know, with being 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.040 very public obviously after Goodfellas and everything, and he he 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.839 kind of turned that into a personality that was really 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.240 the forerunner of some of the guys you see today 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:23.600 competing with you for podcasting, Sammy the boll Gravano and 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:25.240 Michael Francis. 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:26.880 Sammy the Buller is competing with us. 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.800 Well, I don't know if he's directing guys, but he's. 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.559 You can challenge him ninety but then a guy, yeah, 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.360 friends Sammy, Sammy, Yeah, you need a little Michael. 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.000 He has a very popular podcast, that's all. 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.319 And what does he talk does He talk just mom 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:45.880 a lot. 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.480 He talks a lot about his life, and he talks 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.040 about the crimes he was involved in. He talks about 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.680 the people that he was with. 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:59.120 You know, God, Sammy, Sammy turned evidence from what I remember, 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.120 and then he went protection, right, and he had plastic 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.079 surgery and now he's doing a podcast. Yes, wow, that's 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.400 when you Yeah, but then didn't get popped again in 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:08.080 witness protection. 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:13.320 So he was a government witness against Gotti and he 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:15.480 admitted during the course of that testimony that he was 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.280 involved in nineteen murders. That's pretty bad. But he got 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:21.120 a very light sentence because he was such a good 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.480 government witness. But after he got out his first stint 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:27.400 in prison, he got involved in drug dealing down in 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.240 Arizona and got busted again, and he went to a 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:32.040 jail for I think seventeen years. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.000 He got out and now he is, uh. 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:41.360 Well podcasting, Yeah, only place left. Yeah, well that's right, 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:43.240 so we're not laughing out you were laughing with you? 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.440 You bet you bet? No, no, no, no, wow? How many 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:48.560 did be a lot of you? You have a great 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.480 prime podcast by the way, that it really does deep. 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:53.520 And one of the things to blow me away was 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:57.160 they blew up a parking garage in Vegas to get 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:01.920 rid of a witness. Usually in Vegas, the mob or 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.080 guys don't want to do anything negative because people coming 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.480 here with money to gamble, and you don't want to 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.000 say Vegas is not safe. So blowing up a parking 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.880 garage in the heart of Vegas, how did they decide 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:15.920 to do that? And did somebody then take that guy 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.360 and say you're going to learn a lesson here. 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:21.120 Well, that's a good point, you know. 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:24.559 The buy and large the reputation of Las Vegas mob 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:26.319 is if you're going to kill somebody, You take him 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.320 out in the desert and bury him in the desert. Right, 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.000 you don't want that publicity to be connected to Las 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.560 Vegas because tourists come here, But you also don't there's 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.880 a little bit of a mystique involved, Right, People come 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:39.240 to Vegas because it's a little bit dangerous, so they 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.719 think it is right. I might be back in the day. 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:43.800 I mean, you would sit down next to a mobster 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.440 in the lounge. Oh, that'd be interesting, or well I 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:49.600 better not. I better not do something fishy in this casino, 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:51.960 or else somebody's going to take me out back. There's 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:54.280 a bit of that, you know that, you get that 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:58.480 people actually are drawn here because of that. But in 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:02.280 the case of the exploded car in the parking garage, 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.840 I was in the early seventies, and yeah, I would 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.000 have thought that would have been wiser to take. 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:07.360 Out of town. 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:08.480 And who did they blow up. 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.080 It was a guy who owned a retired FBI agent 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.920 who owned a piece of property downtown that was in dispute. 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:19.800 This had to do with Binya's Horseshoe Club downtown, which 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.320 is still there, not owned by the Binyon family. 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.240 Anymore, but Yeah. 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.320 Basically, the origins of Las Vegas are all in the 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:30.560 downtown area, and that was the original town site. And 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:32.920 so there were all these little tiny lots because it 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.160 was the railroad came through town in nineteen oh five, 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.760 they sold all these lots. There were these little tiny lots. 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.000 And so if you build a big casino downtown, you 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.760 might have fifteen people owning different pieces of the land 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:49.520 beneath the hotel. Great racket, because now three generations later, 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.560 those families are still pocketing collect police. 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:52.960 Money from that. 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.280 But did jet why I'm trying to interrupt, but why 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.760 if you wanted to take out that FBI guy, why 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:05.040 a car bomb as opposed to just you know, the 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.000 traditional run up and two shots in the head or 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:07.880 whatever the hell it was. 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.640 Why would you was that to send a message of 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:12.360 a different kind? 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:17.239 Well, I will say that if you The nineteen seventies 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.080 were like a time when, for whatever reason, the mob 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.400 decided that blowing up cars was the way to go. 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:23.760 It was just a. 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:27.800 Thing like Cleveland became known as Bombcity, USA because it 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:32.000 seemed like every week another car was exploding. And famously, 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.400 a mobster named Danny Green, an Irish mobster in Cleveland 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.720 was blown up, and interestingly he was I think it's 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.960 a dentist's office. And it wasn't his car that blew up, 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:43.880 it was the one next to it. Somebody parked the 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:45.400 car next to him with a bomb in it, and 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.080 then when they saw him arrive at his car, boom. 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:51.080 So if you look at out, he took him out. 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:51.760 It took him out. 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.760 He died, and so Las Vegas must have picked up 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:56.280 on this popular trend. 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.640 But I thought, I guess I'm wrong. I thought that 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:00.440 the the. 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:06.200 Old mafia, the traditional mob, frided themselves on not creating 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.800 collateral damage. That it was very specific, and I was 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:13.600 referencing before about if a guy acrossed them, they would 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:15.520 whack him, but they wouldn't touch the family. 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:17.640 They wouldn't touch True, not true. 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:18.880 I think there's some truth to that. 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.640 I think that you look back at what Buggy Siege 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.440 famously told del Web. Del Web was a contractor building 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.040 the Flamingo Hotel for him. Del Web later went on 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.600 to own the New York Yankees, and he was like 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:35.080 a really big, really big developer, casino owner, everything, all 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.760 the Sun City communities all over the country. Well before that, 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.560 he was a contractor. He was building the Flamingo for Bugsy, 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.040 and Bugsy owed him a lot of money, like hundreds 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:45.360 of thousands of dollars, and del Web was a little 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:49.240 nervous about asking for his money, and Bugsy said to him, don't. 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:49.480 Worry, Dell. 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.280 We only kill each other. Right, that was the notion that, 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:55.400 you know, we only did. We're not going to kill 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.320 innocent people. Were not going to kill politicians or journalists 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.080 or whatever. But if you study it as I have, 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.840 in this kind of depth, you can turn to find 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.200 out a lot of innocent victims along the way. Kids 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.719 are killed, people just innocent bystanders are killed. The bombings 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:14.840 were a part of this, and it's just a lot 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:19.040 of I think, careless people who weren't following those those 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:20.280 by laws. 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:30.520 So how did you decide to devote your life and 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.600 as a journalist into this. Number one, And the second 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.399 part of that is along the way, any threats or 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.080 even stern talking to is about you know what, maybe 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:40.240 you shouldn't write about that. 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:42.080 I'm not saying, don't not telling you what the right, 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.960 I'm just saying, maybe you know your family, Yeah, maybe 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:47.200 it's a traffic report. 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.080 Well, I was a journalist here in Las Vegas and 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.920 for a stint in Iowa, and I thought journalism would 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.119 be the thing I did my whole life, and you 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.320 know that business changed a little bit, and so I 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:04.840 was not I was looking for another opportunity to use 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.520 my skills, and the museum job came along, and it 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.440 was kind of perfect because I had taken an interest 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.240 in history in the latter part of my journalism career 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.600 and wrote a couple of books which you mentioned, about 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:18.080 the history of Las Vegas and about Howard Hughes in 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.480 Las Vegas, and a lot of the Mob was in 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.480 those books. You can't avoid Las Vegas history without the mob. 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.600 So when this job came up, I'm like, yeah, I'm in. 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:31.200 And now since then I've really just absolutely immersed myself 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.800 in this topic. And say, answer your second question, no, 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.600 I have not been threatened any Actually probably got more 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:41.120 threats as a journalist than I have. 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.040 Nobody, but I would imagine that they would be in 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.520 some ways rather thrilled to have somebody like you who 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.200