Speaker 1: Now really.
Speaker 2: Really, Hello everybody, welcome back. I'm Jason Alexander sitting here
Speaker 2: with my best friend.
Speaker 1: It's going to age me and dog Lars Peter Tilden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's still your name and our show
Speaker 2: podcast you've come to know and love. Really where what
Speaker 2: do we talk about on this show?
Speaker 1: Can we talk about things that make us say? Really? No? Really?
Speaker 2: And that's how we start our show, even here in
Speaker 2: beautiful Las Vegas where we've come back once again to
Speaker 2: the Blue Wires studio. You're in fabulous Las Vegas and
Speaker 2: then plugs for what reason we're paying for this?
Speaker 1: Wow? Exactly? Wow? So really no, really is because we
Speaker 1: were talking. We were talking about it, Carl Jason. See
Speaker 1: this headline headline, sorry we dissolved your son and Acid Mafia.
Speaker 1: Boss's tell parents and I go, hey, they got the
Speaker 1: wrong guy. But be they apologize isn't done in a code?
Speaker 1: We don't apologize eyes for putting the wrong person in Acid.
Speaker 2: Well, I thought part of the code was you never
Speaker 2: touched somebody else's family.
Speaker 1: There was back in the day.
Speaker 2: You know, the guy was the guy if you needed
Speaker 2: to whack the guy, but he didn't do the family.
Speaker 1: You left alone. And what I love is they offered
Speaker 1: they I don't even want to tell you what they
Speaker 1: did to this person, but the allegedly killed son did
Speaker 1: something to his teeth and an acid and all that.
Speaker 3: Kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But they apologized during the trial, and they said they
Speaker 1: want to make good for it and give them some
Speaker 1: money in an apartment. Oh okay, oh oh right, okay,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: And by the way, they apologize, anybody can make a mistakeologize.
Speaker 1: All right. So that kind is thinking about the mob?
Speaker 1: Is there a new mob? How prevalent are they and
Speaker 1: how it's still such a it's still now.
Speaker 2: I will say this, I don't hear a ton anymore
Speaker 2: in the news about you know, the old mob, the
Speaker 2: old mob. I hear a lot about you know, Russian
Speaker 2: gangs and gangs and you know, cartels, But I don't
Speaker 2: hear a lot about the mob. But it is still
Speaker 2: one of the fixtures of popular entertainment.
Speaker 1: By the way, may I say, and this is not
Speaker 1: any knock to you, because you're preparing a show and stuff.
Speaker 1: They're still in the news New York. They're flipping there,
Speaker 1: They're really yeah, they're still going after the New York
Speaker 1: City in Italy. It's a huge thing because I don't
Speaker 1: read the internety different. Oh, I read Get Up the Morning,
Speaker 1: I read six hundred papery. I only read my languages,
Speaker 1: my local thing, which is tough. I only know what
Speaker 1: I really in my local paper. I only read the
Speaker 1: crime repoint so far that none of that is mob
Speaker 1: relate crime in my area. In my area, Hey, Peter,
Speaker 1: that's five miles out. Don't worry about yeah, don't it. Well,
Speaker 1: by the way, that's going to get us. That's funny.
Speaker 1: It's going to get us to romanticizing the Mob has
Speaker 1: something to do with that. Remember that in the area.
Speaker 1: Remember then, okay, yeah, remember, but we have whether it's
Speaker 1: a very special guest who knows a lot about the
Speaker 1: maybe more than just about anybody about the Mob other
Speaker 1: than a maiden man.
Speaker 2: What do you bet we are talking today with the
Speaker 2: vice president of Exhibits and Programs for the Mob Museum
Speaker 2: here in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: He was a wonderful journalist.
Speaker 2: Twenty five year career in journalism with at the Las
Speaker 2: Vegas Sun, Las Vegas City Life, Las Vegas Mercury, Lost Fan,
Speaker 2: every paper in Las Vegas. He's basically he couldn't hold
Speaker 2: the Jeff, I couldn't call it a hold of John,
Speaker 2: the author of Sun, Sin and Suburbia, a History of
Speaker 2: modern Las Vegas, as well as the book Howard Hughes, Power,
Speaker 2: Paranoia and Palace Intrigue. Would you please welcome to our program,
Speaker 2: Jeff Schumacher, Hello, Jeff, Hello Jeff.
Speaker 1: You can't here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, they're still clapping, but thank you, Thank Mark
Speaker 2: for coming in.
Speaker 1: So the Mob, I mean, you booked a mom museum,
Speaker 1: so basically you invested in the fact that the Mob
Speaker 1: is that popular, which they are. People are fascinated still.
Speaker 4: People are absolutely fascinated by the Mob today, even though,
Speaker 4: as you note, they're not in the news quite as
Speaker 4: much as they.
Speaker 3: Used to be.
Speaker 1: See No, but they are new going on the news.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like when you know, they're not like
Speaker 4: they used to be. They're much smart, they're a little
Speaker 4: more behind the scenes. They're not like John Gottie Watkin.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, I probably couldn't name a mobster,
Speaker 2: an Italian mobster who should be, and then I probably
Speaker 2: couldn't name it.
Speaker 1: And I'm from Philadelphia, so I'd come from Angelo Bruno,
Speaker 1: little Nicky Scarfoe. All these guys. And I worked in
Speaker 1: a factory on Delaware Avenue dellarn Tesk Avenue, and my
Speaker 1: shop foreman, my union rep was the Irishman. Actually yeah sure,
Speaker 1: which and I didn't as a kid. He's just a
Speaker 1: tough guy who's the union rep. And that was it.
Speaker 1: And those were the days of dealing with Jimmy Hoffa, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, I think is in Giant Stadium. And
Speaker 1: I told well, I heard the medal lands. I told
Speaker 1: them fish family that they should always do first in
Speaker 1: halfa and bucket, knight buck and shoveling for the kid justice.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be fun? I got something on the third yard,
Speaker 1: but they didn't take care of it. But the Mob,
Speaker 1: the Mob today are they as first of all, let's
Speaker 1: go back to the Mob Museum. What I'm sure you
Speaker 1: did the research say that this city would support it,
Speaker 1: and this is the city basically has to drive around
Speaker 1: here that was basically built by the Mob.
Speaker 4: In some ways it was, you know, especially here on
Speaker 4: the Las Vegas Strip. But I actually bristle a little
Speaker 4: bit of that idea that the Mob invented Las Vegas,
Speaker 4: because it was a city for like forty years before
Speaker 4: the Mob even took an interest, but that's a local talking, right.
Speaker 4: The reality that you know, Bugsy Siegel arrived in Las
Speaker 4: Vegas in nineteen forty six and started building the Famingo Hotel.
Speaker 4: There's a big backstory to that that we could get into,
Speaker 4: but the point is that that really marked the arrival
Speaker 4: of the Mob in Las Vegas, and this became kind
Speaker 4: of a nexus for all different mob groups all over
Speaker 4: the country. And so it's kind of a perfect place
Speaker 4: to have the Mob Museum because you can talk about
Speaker 4: Chicago and Detroit and Philadelphia and Boston and New York
Speaker 4: in LA and they all have a connection here.
Speaker 3: In Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: Can I just say, because I am going to be
Speaker 2: fairly ignorant about a lot of this the different cities.
Speaker 2: Was it a dominant family in every city or were
Speaker 2: all the families represented in all the big cities.
Speaker 4: Most of the major cities in America in the mid
Speaker 4: century of the twentieth century fifties, sixties, seventies had some
Speaker 4: kind of a mafia group going on, a mafia family,
Speaker 4: and they often communicated with, you know, the guys in
Speaker 4: New York or Chicago. There was a bit of a
Speaker 4: hierarchy there. They had like a border of directors called
Speaker 4: the Commission. And this commission was created back in the
Speaker 4: thirties by Lucky Luciano. But the Commission was, you know,
Speaker 4: seven or eight guys, the New York guys, the Chicago
Speaker 4: bosses got together and they would sort of set policy
Speaker 4: for the whole country and they would settle dispute. So
Speaker 4: they would you deal with different problems that were going
Speaker 4: on among the different factions and kind of try to
Speaker 4: keep the peace. We know for meeting the newspapers that
Speaker 4: they weren't always successful in keeping the peace, but they
Speaker 4: tried and kind of like a bord of directors.
Speaker 1: You know what's amazing about the Mafia? And I want
Speaker 1: to ask you if the movies are accurate, like The Godfather,
Speaker 1: how accurate you think they are? But in reading a
Speaker 1: lot about this, preparing for you, I never realized the
Speaker 1: psychology behind it that you co opt somebody who comes
Speaker 1: from a background were underprivileged, necessarily not necessarily embraced by society,
Speaker 1: like over here at Dallian Irish whatever, we're not immediately embraced.
Speaker 1: So you had that culture, you gave a kid an
Speaker 1: opportunity to come in and then you raised them where
Speaker 1: they were dedicated to the group, and you lost your individuality.
Speaker 1: It was all about the group. It was not about
Speaker 1: the person. And after a while your mindset becomes just that.
Speaker 1: The oaths. You take the family involvement and it really
Speaker 1: immerses you in this culture where everybody's going not about No,
Speaker 1: this isn't about you. You got to do that because so
Speaker 1: you don't question. Well, it's like the military. You do,
Speaker 1: yet you don't. It's a bigger it's a bigger thing,
Speaker 1: and it's.
Speaker 4: Someone like the military, and you you are. You devotion
Speaker 4: is to the boss. And if the boss says, you know,
Speaker 4: kill your mother, sadly you have to do that. It's
Speaker 4: not your devotion becomes to the mafia family more than
Speaker 4: your own family, which is a little bit twisted.
Speaker 1: Well. And also the oath, which is the mark that
Speaker 1: we don't flip, right, it's kind of there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of flipping.
Speaker 3: That I think is a generational thing.
Speaker 4: I think that really, you know, as sentences got more severe,
Speaker 4: you know, drug sentences and the Rico you know Rico cases,
Speaker 4: these guys were looking at not two years in they
Speaker 4: can like they used to do back in the twenties
Speaker 4: and thirties. How I can do two years, there's no
Speaker 4: problem and not you know, not flip. But now it's
Speaker 4: like twenty thirty years and these these guys with nowadays
Speaker 4: are like, oh man, that's I'm not going to say
Speaker 4: that Giuliani.
Speaker 1: Is that when Giuliani did the big correct on in
Speaker 1: New York, that was really the beginning of this.
Speaker 4: I think, yes, roughly the Rico statue was passing nineteen seventy,
Speaker 4: but federal prosecutors didn't get excited about it until a little.
Speaker 3: Bit later in the eighties.
Speaker 4: Giuliani and his crew really went after the New York
Speaker 4: mafia and were very successful in decimating those families.
Speaker 2: Is it that are they quieter and less active or
Speaker 2: are they just publicly quieter and less active?
Speaker 4: So this is a huge debate within the little world
Speaker 4: of mob historians.
Speaker 3: But I think you'll find that there.
Speaker 4: Are people who will say that the traditional mob is
Speaker 4: almost gone, that it's really just petty crime at this
Speaker 4: point by comparison with say the Mexican drug cartels, right
Speaker 4: or the Russian mafia in the or But people will say, no,
Speaker 4: these guys are just quieter, they're they're keeping you know,
Speaker 4: keeping a low profile, and they're still involved in a
Speaker 4: lot of stuff, and I think that's true.
Speaker 3: I think they're still involved in bookmaking.
Speaker 4: I think they're involved in smuggling, and they're also getting
Speaker 4: involved in more sophisticated stuff like on Wall Street, you know, cybercrime,
Speaker 4: kind of stuffy cryptocurrency.
Speaker 3: They're getting involved in some really solaring.
Speaker 1: That they're actually so they're in solar.
Speaker 2: And Jefferson, when you say you think, is that like
Speaker 2: a wink? I think, are you saying? I know, but
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, one of the things about about the
Speaker 4: mob is they don't keep a lot of notes, right,
Speaker 4: So it's not like you can go look back in
Speaker 4: their memoirs and find out what they're doing. So there's
Speaker 4: a lot of guessing that goes on even in law enforcement.
Speaker 4: You know, when you go back and look at the
Speaker 4: FBI files and which we all do in my field,
Speaker 4: and you go back and look at what they were
Speaker 4: saying was happening in the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, there's
Speaker 4: a lot of guesswork in there, and there's a lot
Speaker 4: of mistakes.
Speaker 3: Just to hear something a bartender tells.
Speaker 4: An FBI agent, Oh yeah, you know, Vinnie is involved
Speaker 4: in the mob, and he puts it in his report.
Speaker 4: Whether it's valid or not. You know, so you really
Speaker 4: have to sift through airfully as a historian and like,
Speaker 4: you know, figure out what's real.
Speaker 1: You also find that in reading about this and hearing
Speaker 1: about this that mobsters who do talk and come out
Speaker 1: publicly tend to exaggerate their role. Is it that pettiness
Speaker 1: and that exaggeration allant goes on. So it's really hard
Speaker 1: to peg what a guy did. Anyway.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of times today, if it's twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three and there's a guy on social media talking
Speaker 4: about how he's a big mob guy, he's probably not
Speaker 4: a big mob right because everybody's watching. Everybody in law
Speaker 4: enforcement and everywhere else is keeping an eye on things
Speaker 4: nowadays more so than ever. And if you're bragging about
Speaker 4: it publicly, you're probably not a big mob guy.
Speaker 2: And was that so like when Henry Hill was on
Speaker 2: how which turns showing repeatedly telling his stories, was he
Speaker 2: inflating his stories?
Speaker 1: Was or was he kind of a real No?
Speaker 4: I think Henry Hill was a real, a real mom Yeah,
Speaker 4: And what he got involved later, you know, with being
Speaker 4: very public obviously after Goodfellas and everything, and he he
Speaker 4: kind of turned that into a personality that was really
Speaker 4: the forerunner of some of the guys you see today
Speaker 4: competing with you for podcasting, Sammy the boll Gravano and
Speaker 4: Michael Francis.
Speaker 1: Sammy the Buller is competing with us.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know if he's directing guys, but he's.
Speaker 1: You can challenge him ninety but then a guy, yeah,
Speaker 1: friends Sammy, Sammy, Yeah, you need a little Michael.
Speaker 3: He has a very popular podcast, that's all.
Speaker 1: And what does he talk does He talk just mom
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 4: He talks a lot about his life, and he talks
Speaker 4: about the crimes he was involved in. He talks about
Speaker 4: the people that he was with.
Speaker 1: You know, God, Sammy, Sammy turned evidence from what I remember,
Speaker 1: and then he went protection, right, and he had plastic
Speaker 1: surgery and now he's doing a podcast. Yes, wow, that's
Speaker 1: when you Yeah, but then didn't get popped again in
Speaker 1: witness protection.
Speaker 4: So he was a government witness against Gotti and he
Speaker 4: admitted during the course of that testimony that he was
Speaker 4: involved in nineteen murders. That's pretty bad. But he got
Speaker 4: a very light sentence because he was such a good
Speaker 4: government witness. But after he got out his first stint
Speaker 4: in prison, he got involved in drug dealing down in
Speaker 4: Arizona and got busted again, and he went to a
Speaker 4: jail for I think seventeen years.
Speaker 3: He got out and now he is, uh.
Speaker 1: Well podcasting, Yeah, only place left. Yeah, well that's right,
Speaker 1: so we're not laughing out you were laughing with you?
Speaker 1: You bet you bet? No, no, no, no, wow? How many
Speaker 1: did be a lot of you? You have a great
Speaker 1: prime podcast by the way, that it really does deep.
Speaker 1: And one of the things to blow me away was
Speaker 1: they blew up a parking garage in Vegas to get
Speaker 1: rid of a witness. Usually in Vegas, the mob or
Speaker 1: guys don't want to do anything negative because people coming
Speaker 1: here with money to gamble, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: say Vegas is not safe. So blowing up a parking
Speaker 1: garage in the heart of Vegas, how did they decide
Speaker 1: to do that? And did somebody then take that guy
Speaker 1: and say you're going to learn a lesson here.
Speaker 3: Well, that's a good point, you know.
Speaker 4: The buy and large the reputation of Las Vegas mob
Speaker 4: is if you're going to kill somebody, You take him
Speaker 4: out in the desert and bury him in the desert. Right,
Speaker 4: you don't want that publicity to be connected to Las
Speaker 4: Vegas because tourists come here, But you also don't there's
Speaker 4: a little bit of a mystique involved, Right, People come
Speaker 4: to Vegas because it's a little bit dangerous, so they
Speaker 4: think it is right. I might be back in the day.
Speaker 4: I mean, you would sit down next to a mobster
Speaker 4: in the lounge. Oh, that'd be interesting, or well I
Speaker 4: better not. I better not do something fishy in this casino,
Speaker 4: or else somebody's going to take me out back. There's
Speaker 4: a bit of that, you know that, you get that
Speaker 4: people actually are drawn here because of that. But in
Speaker 4: the case of the exploded car in the parking garage,
Speaker 4: I was in the early seventies, and yeah, I would
Speaker 4: have thought that would have been wiser to take.
Speaker 3: Out of town.
Speaker 1: And who did they blow up.
Speaker 4: It was a guy who owned a retired FBI agent
Speaker 4: who owned a piece of property downtown that was in dispute.
Speaker 4: This had to do with Binya's Horseshoe Club downtown, which
Speaker 4: is still there, not owned by the Binyon family.
Speaker 3: Anymore, but Yeah.
Speaker 4: Basically, the origins of Las Vegas are all in the
Speaker 4: downtown area, and that was the original town site. And
Speaker 4: so there were all these little tiny lots because it
Speaker 4: was the railroad came through town in nineteen oh five,
Speaker 4: they sold all these lots. There were these little tiny lots.
Speaker 4: And so if you build a big casino downtown, you
Speaker 4: might have fifteen people owning different pieces of the land
Speaker 4: beneath the hotel. Great racket, because now three generations later,
Speaker 4: those families are still pocketing collect police.
Speaker 3: Money from that.
Speaker 2: But did jet why I'm trying to interrupt, but why
Speaker 2: if you wanted to take out that FBI guy, why
Speaker 2: a car bomb as opposed to just you know, the
Speaker 2: traditional run up and two shots in the head or
Speaker 2: whatever the hell it was.
Speaker 1: Why would you was that to send a message of
Speaker 1: a different kind?
Speaker 4: Well, I will say that if you The nineteen seventies
Speaker 4: were like a time when, for whatever reason, the mob
Speaker 4: decided that blowing up cars was the way to go.
Speaker 3: It was just a.
Speaker 4: Thing like Cleveland became known as Bombcity, USA because it
Speaker 4: seemed like every week another car was exploding. And famously,
Speaker 4: a mobster named Danny Green, an Irish mobster in Cleveland
Speaker 4: was blown up, and interestingly he was I think it's
Speaker 4: a dentist's office. And it wasn't his car that blew up,
Speaker 4: it was the one next to it. Somebody parked the
Speaker 4: car next to him with a bomb in it, and
Speaker 4: then when they saw him arrive at his car, boom.
Speaker 4: So if you look at out, he took him out.
Speaker 3: It took him out.
Speaker 4: He died, and so Las Vegas must have picked up
Speaker 4: on this popular trend.
Speaker 1: But I thought, I guess I'm wrong. I thought that
Speaker 1: the the.
Speaker 2: Old mafia, the traditional mob, frided themselves on not creating
Speaker 2: collateral damage. That it was very specific, and I was
Speaker 2: referencing before about if a guy acrossed them, they would
Speaker 2: whack him, but they wouldn't touch the family.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't touch True, not true.
Speaker 3: I think there's some truth to that.
Speaker 4: I think that you look back at what Buggy Siege
Speaker 4: famously told del Web. Del Web was a contractor building
Speaker 4: the Flamingo Hotel for him. Del Web later went on
Speaker 4: to own the New York Yankees, and he was like
Speaker 4: a really big, really big developer, casino owner, everything, all
Speaker 4: the Sun City communities all over the country. Well before that,
Speaker 4: he was a contractor. He was building the Flamingo for Bugsy,
Speaker 4: and Bugsy owed him a lot of money, like hundreds
Speaker 4: of thousands of dollars, and del Web was a little
Speaker 4: nervous about asking for his money, and Bugsy said to him, don't.
Speaker 3: Worry, Dell.
Speaker 4: We only kill each other. Right, that was the notion that,
Speaker 4: you know, we only did. We're not going to kill
Speaker 4: innocent people. Were not going to kill politicians or journalists
Speaker 4: or whatever. But if you study it as I have,
Speaker 4: in this kind of depth, you can turn to find
Speaker 4: out a lot of innocent victims along the way. Kids
Speaker 4: are killed, people just innocent bystanders are killed. The bombings
Speaker 4: were a part of this, and it's just a lot
Speaker 4: of I think, careless people who weren't following those those
Speaker 4: by laws.
Speaker 1: So how did you decide to devote your life and
Speaker 1: as a journalist into this. Number one, And the second
Speaker 1: part of that is along the way, any threats or
Speaker 1: even stern talking to is about you know what, maybe
Speaker 1: you shouldn't write about that.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying, don't not telling you what the right,
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, maybe you know your family, Yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: it's a traffic report.
Speaker 4: Well, I was a journalist here in Las Vegas and
Speaker 4: for a stint in Iowa, and I thought journalism would
Speaker 4: be the thing I did my whole life, and you
Speaker 4: know that business changed a little bit, and so I
Speaker 4: was not I was looking for another opportunity to use
Speaker 4: my skills, and the museum job came along, and it
Speaker 4: was kind of perfect because I had taken an interest
Speaker 4: in history in the latter part of my journalism career
Speaker 4: and wrote a couple of books which you mentioned, about
Speaker 4: the history of Las Vegas and about Howard Hughes in
Speaker 4: Las Vegas, and a lot of the Mob was in
Speaker 4: those books. You can't avoid Las Vegas history without the mob.
Speaker 4: So when this job came up, I'm like, yeah, I'm in.
Speaker 4: And now since then I've really just absolutely immersed myself
Speaker 4: in this topic. And say, answer your second question, no,
Speaker 4: I have not been threatened any Actually probably got more
Speaker 4: threats as a journalist than I have.
Speaker 2: Nobody, but I would imagine that they would be in
Speaker 2: some ways rather thrilled to have somebody like you who
Speaker 2: really knows their history and can tell their stories objectively.
Speaker 3: And that's absolutely true.
Speaker 4: And in fact, my experience is that now there's been
Speaker 4: sort of a Sea change, because I think if we
Speaker 4: had tried to open the Mob Museum, and I don't know,
Speaker 4: let's say nineteen ninety, when the Mob was still really big,
Speaker 4: it would have been weird because there would have been
Speaker 4: so many active members out there who probably didn't want
Speaker 4: their stories told and might have in fact threatened somebody.
Speaker 3: But twenty you.
Speaker 4: Know, we opened in twenty twelve, and now we've been
Speaker 4: open for eleven years, and at this juncture, people were like,
Speaker 4: love this stuff. Even the people who were in it
Speaker 4: or were in it you mentioned, used the phrase mob adjason.
Speaker 4: There's tons of people like that, Oh, you know, my
Speaker 4: uncle did this or my grandfather did this, and they
Speaker 4: want to learn more about it. And there's still part
Speaker 4: members of the family who will say, oh, we don't
Speaker 4: talk about that, you know, they've just got that tradition ingrained.
Speaker 4: But there's others who are like, I'm going to spill,
Speaker 4: and they just start talking.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I just read an article, I think in
Speaker 1: New Yorker magazine about a woman whose uncle was a
Speaker 1: major I forget if it was witch monster, but a
Speaker 1: major monster, and she said, we used to vacation with
Speaker 1: him and he was lovely and we never talked about
Speaker 1: what he did, and they kind of knew what he did,
Speaker 1: but it was kept real far from the family, and
Speaker 1: they tried to keep their family out of it. Is
Speaker 1: that more accurate than the movies portray or did the
Speaker 1: families all know?
Speaker 4: I think the families only knew what the what the
Speaker 4: guys who were involved wanted them to know. In other words,
Speaker 4: they were pretty pretty protective of what they were doing.
Speaker 3: That said.
Speaker 4: Uh, you know the different traditions, right, and you know
Speaker 4: this is not a not a knock on anybody. But
Speaker 4: like in the Italian American tradition, a lot of times
Speaker 4: the sons would would come up within the mafia, right,
Speaker 4: and they would join the father and be trained in
Speaker 4: the field, if you will. In the Jewish tradition much
Speaker 4: more so, no, you need to go to college, you
Speaker 4: need to go get out of this business. And uh
Speaker 4: and and so it kind of depended on the family,
Speaker 4: you know, the boss.
Speaker 2: Like, well, you know that was my dad. Peter knows
Speaker 2: my my dad. You know, my dad was full of stories.
Speaker 2: He was one of those guys and I'm not always
Speaker 2: sure which are absolutely true and which you're not. But
Speaker 2: as a young man going up on the Lower East
Speaker 2: Side of New York. He claims to have been friendly
Speaker 2: with and occasionally helped out some of the guys in
Speaker 2: the Jewish Mob. And the one name that I do
Speaker 2: remember was a guy named Ko Koenigsberg. Yeah, and he
Speaker 2: apparently Ko was a friend of his as a young guy.
Speaker 2: And my dad knew a lot of cops, and he said,
Speaker 2: you know, all he did for them is sometimes they'd
Speaker 2: get arrested. Cops would specifically arrest them on a Friday afternoon,
Speaker 2: knowing that they'd never get in front of a judge
Speaker 2: before Monday or Tuesday. So that was a way of
Speaker 2: you know, sort of boxing them up by throw And
Speaker 2: my dad would go down and do the cops and
Speaker 2: went just let's bail him out and.
Speaker 1: Get him out.
Speaker 2: And I never I never believed him until my Mitzvah
Speaker 2: and the Son of a Gun. There was a table
Speaker 2: of killers and my guys that looked like they would
Speaker 2: kill you at my apart, miss and that was that said,
Speaker 2: that's my old my old friends.
Speaker 1: Don't you don't have to go over what did you get?
Speaker 1: His gifts?
Speaker 2: Money? Money, They give you envelopes, some money. You're a
Speaker 2: good kid, You're a good kid. And the stay in school,
Speaker 2: stay in school. But so but going back to the
Speaker 2: tell you mop. So, if if you were the kid
Speaker 2: of one of those mops and you wanted nothing to
Speaker 2: do with the family, could you keep your distance?
Speaker 3: I think so. I think you could.
Speaker 4: You could make a decision, and sometimes the father would
Speaker 4: kind of evaluate the kids, right, or may be one
Speaker 4: of the one of the boys looks like he's not
Speaker 4: exactly college material, right, so maybe he's a guy who
Speaker 4: he could bring him into the mob. The other kid
Speaker 4: is like really smart, or he's really talented. Hey, he
Speaker 4: wants to be in theater, so okay, let's kind of
Speaker 4: He's not a guy who's going to go and beat
Speaker 4: somebody up over twenty dollars, so let's let him do
Speaker 4: his thing over here.
Speaker 3: I think that I think that was possible.
Speaker 1: But much like the military would if like, how did
Speaker 1: the you know the mob? We think of the mob?
Speaker 2: How would they have thought of somebody who was gay
Speaker 2: or queer or perhaps even trans Like in the military,
Speaker 2: the military I think has made the wise decision of
Speaker 2: you are willing to serve and put your life on
Speaker 2: the line to serve your country. We don't care who
Speaker 2: you are. You are welcome in this person's army. Would
Speaker 2: the mob feel similarly or did they have because I
Speaker 2: know there's a religious I think there's a religious element
Speaker 2: to some of the mob as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, you know, I think in the in the Mafia,
Speaker 4: the Italian they're very Catholic, and I think historically they
Speaker 4: would have not been very supportive of of gay people
Speaker 4: or trans people.
Speaker 3: Not at all.
Speaker 4: That's true of America though right until intel relatively recently,
Speaker 4: and so it may be different now, But there was
Speaker 4: a very man's man kind of tradition in the mafia,
Speaker 4: and there was not a lot of tolerance for that
Speaker 4: kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And yet, Peter, you were telling me about this interesting
Speaker 2: little factor I do came upon about the connection to
Speaker 2: the gay clubs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they the Mafia during I guess it's sickly or whatever,
Speaker 1: when they saw an opening, especially in New York, to
Speaker 1: run these gay clubs because nobody else would provide the liquor,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And they said, you know what, we don't
Speaker 1: have to treat the place great, We enough to keep
Speaker 1: it clean, whatever, We're just gonna We're just going to
Speaker 1: serve this community because good for us. And they actually
Speaker 1: bought a bar. They did it under the guise of
Speaker 1: private bottle club so that you didn't have to have
Speaker 1: liquor licenses. And this is the Genevese family in Greenwich Village,
Speaker 1: and they serviced all of the different gay bars because
Speaker 1: the New York Liquor Authority wouldn't do it.
Speaker 4: And to go beyond that, they owned a number of
Speaker 4: gay bars in New York. And that's one of the
Speaker 4: ironies of it, right, there's money to be made, right sure,
Speaker 4: But so they found a way to make money. And
Speaker 4: what they could do is who's going to a lot
Speaker 4: of these places were not licensed, so they weren't regulated
Speaker 4: at all, and so they were the you know, the
Speaker 4: mafia decided everything that you're going to give me fifty
Speaker 4: percent this week, not forty percent or whatever.
Speaker 3: And who are they going to complain to they don't
Speaker 3: have a license.
Speaker 1: It was hunting houses. By the way, talking about younger generation,
Speaker 1: I also laughed at this headline Old New York Monster's
Speaker 1: reportedly fear handing over rains to phone obsessed soft millennials.
Speaker 3: I thought that.
Speaker 1: And one of them, Ralph de Maria, was forced to
Speaker 1: hand himself on a federal racketeering case that day after
Speaker 1: the son tweeted a photo of him relaxing in a
Speaker 1: Florida pool pool. And they're going, I can't retire because
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't. I got a microunager. They're tweeting,
Speaker 1: they're texting, they're taking pictures. We're all going to go
Speaker 1: down because the cell phones. Is that correct?
Speaker 3: It is true.
Speaker 4: It's also true, and even in the Mexican cartels, it's true.
Speaker 4: And all these are these younger people that just can't
Speaker 4: not put themselves out there, right, and so they're doing
Speaker 4: YouTube cooking videos, they're doing all kinds of stuff and
Speaker 4: they're getting caught as a result. There was a famously
Speaker 4: even an older Italian mafia in Italy Sicilian mafia guy
Speaker 4: had been wanted for like twenty years. He had been
Speaker 4: in hiding and they found him because he did a
Speaker 4: YouTube video cooking worked.
Speaker 1: Pizza Play to make sure it's for one hundred guys.
Speaker 1: Mafia boss working as pizza at Pizza Play. Pizza boss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was around really make a great pizza night drives.
Speaker 1: Say you're going to jail. It is amazing. It is
Speaker 1: amazing in this world. So what what is.
Speaker 2: That gunfound this is that that's done.
Speaker 1: No, we're better than God. Okay, it used to be
Speaker 1: till I got into the joint. So back to what
Speaker 1: you were saying, as far as owning the land, do
Speaker 1: they still own these families? So still own the land
Speaker 1: under Caesar's Palace, under all these hotels.
Speaker 3: I'm mostly referring to to downtown.
Speaker 4: Okay, downtown, there's still there's still a lot of really
Speaker 4: weird land ownership stuff in downtown. And people who've lived
Speaker 4: out of who haven't lived in Vegas for you know, decades,
Speaker 4: are just received their monthly lease payment.
Speaker 1: They vetted. I know that. I don't know what year
Speaker 1: it is. You know what year did the commission start
Speaker 1: coming in and vetting everybody's background if you're going to
Speaker 1: invest in the casino, to make sure you were not associated.
Speaker 4: Well, So Las Vegas regulation of casinos took a while. Uh,
Speaker 4: you know, we started really having good mobsters come in
Speaker 4: around the mid forties. We actually got serious about it
Speaker 4: in the seventies when the movie Casino, if you recognize,
Speaker 4: there was a thing called the Black Book, and the
Speaker 4: Black Book was a list of undesirable people who were
Speaker 4: not allowed to go into casinos, not even step foot
Speaker 4: in a casino, or you'd be in trouble and the
Speaker 4: casino would be in trouble. And the Black Book actually
Speaker 4: started in nineteen sixty and one of the first crises
Speaker 4: was Frank Sinatra owned the County Via Lodge up at
Speaker 4: Lake Tahoe, which was a casino, but he was really
Speaker 4: a front for Sam g and Conna of the Chicago outfit.
Speaker 1: And are you saying Sinatra had ties to the MOP.
Speaker 4: I think it's inevitable that he would, considering his background.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see faces right now, I am. I am
Speaker 1: gob gobsmacked. Oh I know I have.
Speaker 2: I have shot a film in Hoboken, New Jersey, and
Speaker 2: every corner Frank Sinatra stood here. Frank Sinatra lit a
Speaker 2: cigarette here.
Speaker 3: So Sinatra owned.
Speaker 4: This, if I could to tell you this, Sinatra owned
Speaker 4: this County of Lodge, and Sam g and Conna was
Speaker 4: hanging around the casino. He was in the Black Book,
Speaker 4: Sam g and Conna, and so he was witnessed in
Speaker 4: the lit He was actually involved in a fight, like
Speaker 4: an argument on the casino floor, and everybody noticed it.
Speaker 4: This came to the attention of the Las Vegas authorities
Speaker 4: or the Nevada authorities.
Speaker 3: I should say.
Speaker 4: And they called Sinatra and said, you can't have this
Speaker 4: guy in your casino.
Speaker 3: He's on the black book.
Speaker 4: And Sinatra, being Sinatra, custs a line, you know, over
Speaker 4: the phone to this gaming control agent, you know, after this,
Speaker 4: if that in no way leave me alone, I'm you know,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. Well this got him in such trouble,
Speaker 4: such hot water that he had to relinquish his ownership
Speaker 4: of the County of the Lodge as well as his
Speaker 4: nine percent ownership of the Sands Hotel, and so there
Speaker 4: were consequences really starting.
Speaker 1: Around then, well what nine percent of the Sands, So
Speaker 1: he at that time was getting almost ten percent of
Speaker 1: the revenue net revenue that was coming in.
Speaker 3: Yep, and he lost that.
Speaker 1: And that was revenue because we know that from Joan Rivers.
Speaker 1: Tell me Joan, Yeah, John, I think I told this
Speaker 1: to you, said John Rivers. We were very close. I
Speaker 1: worked with her, would travel together. She's like a mom
Speaker 1: to me, and I wish she was still around Theell Stories.
Speaker 1: But she was in Vegas in the sixties and seventy
Speaker 1: and she was appearing in the think I'm getting this right,
Speaker 1: in one of the not the main rooms, but in
Speaker 1: one of the lounges and the head of one of
Speaker 1: the hotels. I'm going to mention the hotel. She heard
Speaker 1: the president wanted to see her after a shot after
Speaker 1: a show, so she goes in. She said. The office
Speaker 1: was the size of Vegas, with guy and the little
Speaker 1: guy sitting behind the desk. And she sat down and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, JOm, I got worried that you
Speaker 1: are just terrific. You're going to be a huge start show.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. And he said, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't understand what I'm saying when when they tell me
Speaker 1: how funny when it gets to me that you're good,
Speaker 1: You're you're going to be You're gonna be something special.
Speaker 1: And she said, well, I appreciate. She said, no, you
Speaker 1: still understand it. And I heard that you had a
Speaker 1: night tonight your killer. You're just you're wonderful. She goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I really He goes, no, no, no, listen to me.
Speaker 1: You have a huge career aheading. He said, but let
Speaker 1: me ask you a question. We make a million dollars
Speaker 1: a minute the casino and you went seven minutes over, well,
Speaker 1: you seven million dollars money, And she said she picked
Speaker 1: up her bag, she got up, she left the casino
Speaker 1: and never went over again. The message loud and clear
Speaker 1: that she's there just to draw people in. Yes, we
Speaker 1: love you. Yeah, you're there for You're going to have
Speaker 1: a big career unless you do that again. Right. Does
Speaker 1: that sound like a pretty accurate story?
Speaker 3: Sounds that sounds very plausible to me.
Speaker 4: You know, especially in the fifties, sixties, seventies, everything was
Speaker 4: a loss leader for the casino. So you know, people
Speaker 4: were they were handing out, you know, free drinks, they're
Speaker 4: handing out free access to the lounge to see Frank
Speaker 4: Sinatra play or John Rivers, free rooms and everything else.
Speaker 4: And because there was so much gambling going on, that's
Speaker 4: where all the money was, and that was the mo.
Speaker 4: Now today it's not a criticism, but the different it's
Speaker 4: different dynamic corporations all in these places, and every single
Speaker 4: part of the operation needs to make money, right, so
Speaker 4: that's why it's very expensive.
Speaker 1: When was the last casino owner or involvement with the
Speaker 1: mob still happening in Vegas?
Speaker 4: Roughly about nineteen eighty six. There are two things happened
Speaker 4: around that time. One was the murder of Tony Spilatro,
Speaker 4: who was the Chicago Mobs overseer in Las Vegas. That's
Speaker 4: the Joe Pesci character from Casino, and he was killed
Speaker 4: along with his brother and buried in an Indiana cornfield.
Speaker 4: So Chicago Mob's involvement in Las Vegas kind of ended.
Speaker 1: So that part of the movie was pretty accurate.
Speaker 4: Except for they in the movie they had them buried alive. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that didn't happen. They killed them in a house in
Speaker 4: suburban Chicago, in the basement of a house in Bensonville
Speaker 4: by the airport, and then they took him out in.
Speaker 1: Very nice you about that to the gruesomeness of these things,
Speaker 1: cement shoes. One mobster roasted people and those stories got out.
Speaker 3: Sociopath was that?
Speaker 1: But was that also branding from the mafia? In other words,
Speaker 1: they want those stories to perpetuate so that you know,
Speaker 1: if you do something wrong that could happen to you
Speaker 1: or with these guys nuts.
Speaker 3: I think it's both.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of times the Mob was very
Speaker 4: happy to take a twenty two pistol and pop you
Speaker 4: in the back of the head a couple of times
Speaker 4: and allow for a normal funeral, right so you know,
Speaker 4: you could you could have the casket open. But other
Speaker 4: times there were some guys who were just crazy and
Speaker 4: they would do stuff like that, and they would you know,
Speaker 4: just dispose of the bodies literally in any number of
Speaker 4: different ways, and that was to send a message. Oftentimes
Speaker 4: they sometimes leave them on the street corner right right
Speaker 4: in the ditch.
Speaker 1: Well. Philly, they did a lot of ones that were
Speaker 1: really visible in cars. I mean, I remember the gruesome
Speaker 1: photos for a period there at Bruno. It was probably
Speaker 1: a Bruno and Philly to that point too. Andelo Brunner
Speaker 1: I remember, lived in a row home in South Philadelphia
Speaker 1: and wasn't didn't show with the money. Right. Gotti was
Speaker 1: the first one that we saw that had a helicopter
Speaker 1: and a jet and a mansion and was huge, larger
Speaker 1: than light.
Speaker 3: There were two.
Speaker 4: There were two cases that of where history repeats itself
Speaker 4: and where you know, people don't learn from the past.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Al Capone was his most famous monster of all time.
Speaker 4: Right he was in Chicago. He ran the Chicago Mob.
Speaker 4: He held press conferences. This was a guy who loved
Speaker 4: to talk to the media. He loved to invite reporters
Speaker 4: into his you know night, I forget what Floria was
Speaker 4: on Hotel office and he would just, you know, just
Speaker 4: open up and tell you everything he wanted to know
Speaker 4: about what he was doing, pretty unabashed.
Speaker 3: Well, what happened to him.
Speaker 4: He was a convicted of tax evasion and they sent
Speaker 4: him to eleven years in prison. End of his career.
Speaker 4: So you'd think somebody who learned from that, But John Gotti,
Speaker 4: you know, fifty years later he's like, Oh, I'm going
Speaker 4: to strut down the street. I'm going to be interviewed
Speaker 4: by TV cameras. I'm going to put on a fourse
Speaker 4: of July event. Remember, And he had all those cats,
Speaker 4: all that stuff, and he was so defiant in court.
Speaker 4: You know, he did win this first trials, and so
Speaker 4: he thought he was the teflon don. The tabloids loved him.
Speaker 4: He was on the front page of the Post all
Speaker 4: the time, the daily news. What happened to him, He
Speaker 4: was convicted, went to prison, died in prison. You know,
Speaker 4: keeping a little profile is probably a good idea.
Speaker 1: So on the other side of that, I worked at
Speaker 1: a swim club in Philadelphia and there was a lawyer
Speaker 1: who did Okay, all of a sudden he became a
Speaker 1: mob lawyer, and he did next summer Cabana, Rolls Royce,
Speaker 1: the whole bit. The mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman,
Speaker 1: good friend of mine, represented some of the biggest mobsters
Speaker 1: in history.
Speaker 4: He did, including Philadelphia mobsterheah so he represented so Oscar
Speaker 4: Oscar was a lawyer here in Las Vegas for many years.
Speaker 4: He later became the mayor of Las Vegas. He is
Speaker 4: in retirement now. But Oscar got involved first with Meyer
Speaker 4: Lansky defending him in Las Vegas. Then later he was
Speaker 4: defending the Onis Bilatro whom I mentioned, the Jopeshi character
Speaker 4: from Casino, and then Lefty Rosenthal, the Robert de Niro
Speaker 4: character from Casino, and then Oscar played himself in that movie.
Speaker 4: I could go back and watch it. He's the lawyer
Speaker 4: for these guys.
Speaker 1: So this guy is when do you say mob associate
Speaker 1: represented them?
Speaker 3: He did?
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 4: He would argue that he was not. He was not
Speaker 4: in the mob. He was not doing the bidding of
Speaker 4: the mob. He was a defense attorney, you know, defending
Speaker 4: their constitutional rights. And I think that's true. I think
Speaker 4: you know, and he would argue, I'm not. It's not
Speaker 4: my words, it's his. He would argue that the federal
Speaker 4: agents did a lot of underhanded stuff to try to
Speaker 4: get these mob guys back in the day, and he
Speaker 4: proved that in court and then his guys would often
Speaker 4: get be acquitted.
Speaker 3: They would have walked.
Speaker 1: And after he was turned up, who became mayor?
Speaker 4: So he was the mayor for three terms and he
Speaker 4: was very successful mayor, and we opened the Mob Museum
Speaker 4: under his tutelage. And then when he was three terms
Speaker 4: that he was turned out, limited out, and then his
Speaker 4: wife became the mayor. Sure, and she's completing her third
Speaker 4: she's completing her third term.
Speaker 2: Now that could have been as a that's a very good,
Speaker 2: real question about it.
Speaker 1: Did the movies get it right? Is that basically often though?
Speaker 4: But I would say two movies that really hit home,
Speaker 4: and probably well three that are the most famous ones
Speaker 4: are the ones who get very close to getting it
Speaker 4: right based on everything I know. You know, The Godfather
Speaker 4: is a completely fictional story. But basically Mario Puzo just
Speaker 4: looked at all the mob nonfiction literature there was and
Speaker 4: he picked out the best stuff and he turned it
Speaker 4: into The Godfather. And there are many many Mob guys
Speaker 4: from the seventies on who look back at The Godfather
Speaker 4: as being a very authentic movie. If you talk to
Speaker 4: Puso back in the day, he'd be be like, I
Speaker 4: never know any mob guys.
Speaker 3: I just read a lot of books.
Speaker 4: And but he got it right somehow, and he had
Speaker 4: Italian heritagy kind of understood some things. Goodfellas is really
Speaker 4: inaccurate portrayal of Henry Hill, and that that whole scene
Speaker 4: in the in the seventies and eighties in New York.
Speaker 4: Nick Polegie was was the writer of that, and Nick
Speaker 4: who another friend of the museum. He uh, you know,
Speaker 4: was a reporter during that time and he knew all
Speaker 4: everything was going on. So that was very authentic. And
Speaker 4: then I think Casino is also an authentic film. And
Speaker 4: there is obviously if you're in Las Vegas historian, you're
Speaker 4: going to.
Speaker 3: Nitpick the heck out of it.
Speaker 4: But the look and feel, the Joe Peshi, the Robert DeNiro,
Speaker 4: the way they acted, the way they struted around, the
Speaker 4: way the things kind of played out for them, not well.
Speaker 3: It's pretty accurate.
Speaker 2: I noticed you didn't mention Bronxdale the musical, But okay,
Speaker 2: all right, that's fine. So you know, I you because
Speaker 2: I know Peter and Peter knows all kinds of people.
Speaker 2: I I, we had an acquaintance who you know, had
Speaker 2: a relationship, and I passed because you mentioned John Gottie.
Speaker 2: I passed. What he said was a great mafia test.
Speaker 2: This was the test he gave me, He said, John
Speaker 2: Gotty gets out of jail and he comes with his
Speaker 2: guys to your restaurant. They sit down and they ordered
Speaker 2: twenty thousand dollars worth of food and drink. One of
Speaker 2: his guys comes over at the end of the night
Speaker 2: and he says, but a great time this evening. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much. What do we owe you? What do
Speaker 2: you say? And I said, well, this would be my answer.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's right, I said, I would say,
Speaker 2: you know what, I know, this is a very special
Speaker 2: evening for mister Gotti. I'm very honored that he chose
Speaker 2: to my facility to have this. I said, look, it
Speaker 2: would be nice if you just want to take care
Speaker 2: of my people, that would be lovely. I can't afford
Speaker 2: to do this all the time, but this is a
Speaker 2: special occasion. I'd like it to be my treat. But
Speaker 2: if you want to take care of my weight stuff,
Speaker 2: that would be lovely. And R Quinton said, that was
Speaker 2: the perfect answer. He said, if you had said, nope,
Speaker 2: it's on me, it's all me, he go, we got
Speaker 2: one that they'd come back time after time and expect
Speaker 2: same thing.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: If if you had said, well you only twenty thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: they'd pagde you and they'd come.
Speaker 1: Back that later that night place. He said, But you
Speaker 1: gave them the right answer. He was respectful. He said,
Speaker 1: I can't do it all the time. I'd go out
Speaker 1: of business.
Speaker 2: But you know, and you showed loyalty to your own people,
Speaker 2: and you showed respect. He said, that was the perfect
Speaker 2: So I passed the Mafia test.
Speaker 1: The only thing I think about from that is two
Speaker 1: weeks later because he says, you know where everyone christening,
Speaker 1: it's very special.
Speaker 2: You know if you's special, he just does have a
Speaker 2: special very special guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're very.
Speaker 3: I think you're I think you're right. I think that
Speaker 3: that makes sense.
Speaker 4: So I will say though that you know, it's interesting
Speaker 4: that the connection between the mafia and restaurants.
Speaker 3: That's where they do their work, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the office.
Speaker 3: Don't have a job, so they.
Speaker 4: Sit around restaurants all the time and talk and and
Speaker 4: and I don't know if that's good for business or
Speaker 4: bad for business.
Speaker 1: It depends. So I went to I had an ad
Speaker 1: agency in Philadelphia, and I had an older gentleman's part
Speaker 1: my agency who did store display. So we went to
Speaker 1: New York to New York together because he had some stores.
Speaker 1: So we went to visit and he said, you got
Speaker 1: to come to my favorite restaurant in the village. And
Speaker 1: we go sit in the restaurant. It's long and how
Speaker 1: and we're the back table for like twelve people. We
Speaker 1: just sat down to eat. They had pored the water
Speaker 1: they brought like Annie pasto, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they come out. All these guys come out with them
Speaker 1: and go, sorry, we need your table. And as they're
Speaker 1: saying that, they're picking up the four corners of the table, cless.
Speaker 1: Water is pouring, spilling, things are spilling, and guys are
Speaker 1: wiping and cleaning, and I start to go, what did
Speaker 1: we just said? And I'm starting to complain and I
Speaker 1: see the guy going no, no, no, and I'm going,
Speaker 1: I have no idea, what clue? What are you doing?
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like this. John Gotti had just
Speaker 1: gotten out of a car and was walking toward the
Speaker 1: restaurant with six guys, and by the time he got
Speaker 1: halfway to where we were standing, they had that table dry,
Speaker 1: a new tablecloth, and they were setting up place match
Speaker 1: and we all went thank you, and he was it's
Speaker 1: all us. And I'd never seen anything like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: they were panicked to make sure that that table was ready.
Speaker 1: New York. I've heard still to this day, if you're
Speaker 1: in the linen business and trash business, there's still businesses
Speaker 1: there are somewhat controlled. Is that accurate?
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: I think the mafia still has its fingers and all
Speaker 4: kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3: It's more peripheral now.
Speaker 4: Like in the seventies and eighties, they pretty much controlled
Speaker 4: the concrete business, right, So if you wanted to build
Speaker 4: a high rise in New York, the mob was going
Speaker 4: to get its peace. So if you're you know, Donald
Speaker 4: Trump or any other developer at that time, if you
Speaker 4: want to build a building, you've got to deal with
Speaker 4: the mob. That was a pretty powerful position for them.
Speaker 4: I don't think they're at that level now, But like
Speaker 4: you say, linen's and different things, they find their way
Speaker 4: into all kinds of nooks and crannies.
Speaker 1: Amazing, so when we talked, No, I knew you were
Speaker 1: coming in and I knew your background. We said, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people know a lot about the Mafia.
Speaker 1: Hear things and they're fascinating. But he said, there's got
Speaker 1: to be some O wows that people don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: don't haven't bubbled to the surface stories that you'd like
Speaker 1: to tell. Is there anything like that that comes to
Speaker 1: your mind that is a something that we may not
Speaker 1: know about the Mafia that was surprising.
Speaker 4: Well, I would say one thing, it's kind of popuculture related.
Speaker 4: I would mention is we mentioned Buggsy Siegel earlier, right,
Speaker 4: And there's a famous movie Bugsy Warren Bady, which makes it.
Speaker 4: There's this scene in Bugsy where they're driving to Las Vegas.
Speaker 4: It's him and Mickey Cohen and Virginia Hill and Neette
Speaker 4: Benning and they're in the car and they're approaching Las
Speaker 4: Vegas and Bugsy says, pull off all on the side
Speaker 4: of the highway.
Speaker 3: And so they pull off on the side of the highway.
Speaker 4: Siegel walks out into the desert, vast desert, nothing there
Speaker 4: except mountains and sagebrush.
Speaker 3: And they think he's going to, you know.
Speaker 4: Take a leak frankly, and he gets out there and
Speaker 4: he has this vision, right it sits there and he
Speaker 4: looks and he somehow sees something that nobody else sees.
Speaker 4: And he comes back to the car and he describes
Speaker 4: his vision of a casino in Las Vegas that is
Speaker 4: nicer than any other casino that is going to attract
Speaker 4: the Hollywood crowd to Las Vegas. There was a huge
Speaker 4: problem with that because it's a fictional movie, you know,
Speaker 4: first of all, and pop but people believe it, and
Speaker 4: so they think that Bugsy Siegel invented Las Vegas as
Speaker 4: a result of partly as a result of this movie.
Speaker 4: But here's what really happened. What really happened. As a
Speaker 4: man named Billy Wilkerson was famous in his day. He
Speaker 4: was the owner of the Hollywood Reporter newspaper and had
Speaker 4: the CIOs and some other big time restaurants a sunset strip,
Speaker 4: and he was a gambler. He's a terrible gambler, and
Speaker 4: it's very bad. He lost a lot of money. But
Speaker 4: if somebody said to him, Billy, you probably ought to
Speaker 4: own the casino. It'd be able to do better than
Speaker 4: if you were a gamble gambling at it. So he
Speaker 4: comes up with the idea to buy a piece of
Speaker 4: property on the edge of Las Vegas, which he does.
Speaker 4: We have the down payment check, the original down payment
Speaker 4: check on display in the museum, five thousand dollars. And
Speaker 4: he buys his piece property and starts building a casino
Speaker 4: that he calls the Flamingo. He's spending a couple of
Speaker 4: months working on this, but he's also gambling down the
Speaker 4: street in these casinos, and he's just a horrible gambler.
Speaker 4: He's losing tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 4: of dollars, and he.
Speaker 3: Runs out of money. So he doesn't have money to
Speaker 3: finish the Flamingo. What does he do?
Speaker 4: He knows them guys, he knows meyer Lansky, he knows
Speaker 4: Buggsy siegls maybe they'll invest in my casino. So these
Speaker 4: guys agree that they want to participate. And meyer Lansky,
Speaker 4: who was the big boss at that time, he sends Bugsy,
Speaker 4: who had been living in La He sends him to
Speaker 4: Las Vegas. He says, keep an eye on our investment.
Speaker 4: So Siegel takes a liking to this Flamingo project. He's
Speaker 4: on the construction site with standing side by side with
Speaker 4: Billy Wilkerson and Del Webb and they're talking it through
Speaker 4: and Bugsy though, sees this is his opportunity to go legit, right,
Speaker 4: he is going to get out of the gangster business
Speaker 4: and become a legitimate casino operator. And he pushes Billy
Speaker 4: Wilkerson out to the extent that Billy Wilkerson is afraid
Speaker 4: for his life flees to Paris because he's afraid he's
Speaker 4: going to get bumped. So Billy now Bugsy's in charge,
Speaker 4: and Bugsy takes over the Flamingo, opens the Flamingo himself
Speaker 4: and eventually is starting to do well, but by then
Speaker 4: he's worn out as welcome and he is killed in
Speaker 4: nineteen forty seven, you know, about six months after the
Speaker 4: Flamingo opens. So everybody now says, well, Buggsy Siegel invented
Speaker 4: Las Vegas. You know, it was Billy Wilkerson's idea, and
Speaker 4: with Billy Wilkerson had full intentions of being the operator
Speaker 4: of this casino. It was simply because of this threat
Speaker 4: of his life that he got out.
Speaker 1: And what did you imperish?
Speaker 4: Did he still get He went to Paris for a while,
Speaker 4: he came back.
Speaker 3: He did come back the threat.
Speaker 4: Apparently he was over after a while, but Billy just
Speaker 4: liked Paris, so it was a good escape for him.
Speaker 2: Jeah, between your cameras are not ruling nobody's recording the
Speaker 2: museum that you're right, they got to pay.
Speaker 4: They're somebody always says, if you had a great movie,
Speaker 4: it's a mob museum or the front the.
Speaker 1: Movie.
Speaker 4: But no, I said, we're a nonprofit. You know, we're
Speaker 4: cleaning clean as a whistle.
Speaker 2: Have have you ever gotten anything from any of the
Speaker 2: families of the bosses that said we would prefer that
Speaker 2: you do not do this, or they their hands off,
Speaker 2: they don't care.
Speaker 3: Then, So one little story.
Speaker 4: We had a speaker at the museum, a gun named
Speaker 4: Johnny Light. And Johnny Light is well known, he's has
Speaker 4: a podcast, I think. And Johnny Light was in the
Speaker 4: in the Gatti mob back in the day with mostly
Speaker 4: with Junior Gotti, and then he flipped and became a
Speaker 4: witness against Junior Gotti. So we had Johnny Light come
Speaker 4: and speak at the museum, and the Gotti family was
Speaker 4: very unhappy with this this development, so much so that
Speaker 4: they requested the return of an item that we had
Speaker 4: on display in the museum.
Speaker 1: So we complied, and I want you to have my
Speaker 1: dad's that they founded a scene or anything like that, shoe,
Speaker 1: a birkshoe.
Speaker 3: Or nothing like that.
Speaker 4: Most I think most of the descendants of mob guys
Speaker 4: are very happy with us and like to participate.
Speaker 1: They donate things to us. They talk about that. Before
Speaker 1: you go talk about what's in the museum. People come
Speaker 1: to Vegas, you should see the museum.
Speaker 4: Sure, we have hundreds of artifacts on display. They have
Speaker 4: to do both with law enforcement and the mob, so
Speaker 4: they're all mob related, but they're also come from the
Speaker 4: law enforcement side. But we have a pistol that was
Speaker 4: owned by al Capone. We have the bricks to the
Speaker 4: wall against which the men were lined up in the
Speaker 4: Saint Valentine's State Oh Wow, in Chicago, And that's the
Speaker 4: whole story. But we have those bricks and we reassembled
Speaker 4: the wall and you can see it. Some of the
Speaker 4: bricks have little pock marks in them for where they missed.
Speaker 4: You bought the wall, We did. We bought the bricks,
Speaker 4: about four hundred bricks.
Speaker 3: Oh, there was a guy.
Speaker 4: The building was torn down in nineteen sixty seven just
Speaker 4: on the north side Lincoln Park part of Chicago and
Speaker 4: the building was torn down, and before it was torn down,
Speaker 4: this guy named George Patty very cleverly said I want
Speaker 4: those bricks. And he bought those bricks from the demolition
Speaker 4: crew and he took them to Vancouver, of all places.
Speaker 4: He was Clinton Canadian, and he put them in a
Speaker 4: nightclub that he had there in Vancouver for a while. Well,
Speaker 4: he died, his niece inherited the bricks she had. She
Speaker 4: just happened to live in Las Vegas. She lives about
Speaker 4: a mile from me now, and she had the bricks,
Speaker 4: and when she heard that the my museum was going
Speaker 4: to be built, she called and said, Hey, I've got
Speaker 4: these bricks. We verified their authenticity and we bought them
Speaker 4: and we've had them on display ever since. So that's
Speaker 4: a great artifact.
Speaker 1: My mother would have been wrong about that, though, what
Speaker 1: do you need bricks?
Speaker 4: Do?
Speaker 1: Some people have vision? She would have thrown them out.
Speaker 1: She would have thrown them out when I was in college,
Speaker 1: all thrown out mad magazines and those bricks. What did
Speaker 1: you do? What did you do?
Speaker 4: We could build a whole nother museum with stuff that
Speaker 4: got thrown out, right, you.
Speaker 1: Know, well, thank you for coming, thank you for coming
Speaker 1: in and thanks for test it's a fantastic thing. And
Speaker 1: also not to promote another podcast, but your podcast series
Speaker 1: is brilliant on them.
Speaker 4: Mom, than can we do that in partnership with the
Speaker 4: Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper and they do a great job.
Speaker 1: Really amazing stuff in there that we didn't we didn't
Speaker 1: cover here, but wowie, so fascinating about the mob, Jay.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing to me is the romanticizing the
Speaker 1: mob because you're not still happens. It's not like people
Speaker 1: aren't making mob moves. So here's my theory. So number one,
Speaker 1: we read about prohibition that these are the guys who
Speaker 1: stood up to the government because most people were against it,
Speaker 1: so they were the man. But because they're considered other,
Speaker 1: those stories were fascinating and because they were other, and
Speaker 1: I think Jeff mentioned it, it's a safe thing to
Speaker 1: look at them and go, wow, that's pretty cool. This
Speaker 1: is the time. I have another I have.
Speaker 2: Another theory, and I think we we tend to romanticize
Speaker 2: the monsters among us. These guys that you know, we're unafraid,
Speaker 2: that had swagger, that had an element of danger, that
Speaker 2: that flouted the law, that you know, had money in
Speaker 2: their pocket, and a gun on their belt and did
Speaker 2: what they needed to do and took care of their families,
Speaker 2: and that there was a certain romanticism romanticizing these guys
Speaker 2: that to me has led to.
Speaker 1: Violence. Is entertainment, you know.
Speaker 2: I just went to see Renfield the other day, which
Speaker 2: is it's fun movies, but primarily because Nick Cat just
Speaker 2: having the time of his life so distract and I
Speaker 2: do understand, and you know, and for me, that's why
Speaker 2: I go to see those kinds of movies. I would
Speaker 2: I'm fine seeing a monster movie or a horror movie.
Speaker 2: I have trouble going to see something like Casino or
Speaker 2: Goodfellas where the violence is real and depicting, you know,
Speaker 2: real events.
Speaker 1: Those guys were perceived as standing up against the man
Speaker 1: in their communities. That I'm not saying. And by the way,
Speaker 1: it's still endures to the point that we got reality
Speaker 1: shows like Growing Up Gotti. I mean, let's watch a
Speaker 1: third generation Gotti and see how she lives her day
Speaker 1: and hold on a second, you bet. And and by
Speaker 1: the way, this is not a new phenomena.
Speaker 2: This I mean we used to get We used to
Speaker 2: throw Christians to the lions at the coliseum for entertainment violence,
Speaker 2: and they used.
Speaker 1: To lo I'm curious and I don't mean so the
Speaker 1: coloseum held X amount of seats. Sure, I wonder when
Speaker 1: tipping or shmearing the guy right, like, did you go
Speaker 1: and go, hey, I got the guy. He's gonna get
Speaker 1: me good seats for the lions tonight? Yeah, three seats almost.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be front rope, right because if
Speaker 1: the lion goes.
Speaker 2: Right, when the when the chariot, when the spokes from
Speaker 2: the chariot take out the other chariot. I want to
Speaker 2: be right at ringside, but not so that we get
Speaker 2: I got a good toke by the way ringside ringside
Speaker 2: to be in the splash zone or the pristet is
Speaker 2: a big deal, right.
Speaker 1: And speaking of that boxing, not enough, not enough to beat,
Speaker 1: somebody said in so that they don't know who they
Speaker 1: are when the rules. Let's do you see UFC, that's
Speaker 1: your feet you can punch and you know what. Not enough,
Speaker 1: Let's do slop fighting. Stand there, just stand there and
Speaker 1: take it. Just you know you're going to get hit.
Speaker 1: We can we how can we wrap up this podcast?
Speaker 1: So there's a bit of that element feary. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you come at you with a with a cleaver. We
Speaker 1: got three seconds, but that's just because that's just basic relationship.
Speaker 1: Google time. I'm sorry we didn't get right to you. Yeah, corrections, clarify, clarifications.
Speaker 5: Yes, well, the biggest thing is on corrections is you're
Speaker 5: supposed to go to me before now, So.
Speaker 1: Excuse us. What are you gonna do saying I will
Speaker 1: know what, David, what happens your mouth? Your mouth? I know.
Speaker 1: I do want to let you guys know that you
Speaker 1: might not know it.
Speaker 5: But your producer on side of Sicilian, so perhaps I
Speaker 5: don't know.
Speaker 1: She hasn't been in here the whole time. But you know,
Speaker 1: to your point, as far as entertainment.
Speaker 5: And the mafia and the mom you have the current
Speaker 5: stuff like Monster, the Jeffrey Domler story, which is a
Speaker 5: serial killer that's made entertainment.
Speaker 1: You have looking further back, you have Boys in.
Speaker 5: The Hood and Menace to Society, which is glamorizing that
Speaker 5: sort of violence.
Speaker 1: You have Scarface, so you have Narcos, which is more recent.
Speaker 5: You have Sons of Anarchy, more cycle gangs and even
Speaker 5: you know, torturing and whatnot.
Speaker 1: You have the squid game, the biggest glial phenomenon evers
Speaker 1: is that wow? Yeah? And just one final thing. I've
Speaker 1: always found this one to be very interesting.
Speaker 5: The Godfather and Mario Puzo's The Godfather novel made one
Speaker 5: very noticeable mistake that monsters would would would recognize immediately.
Speaker 1: It's about the Don what they called the Brando character? Yes,
Speaker 1: well they called him. You don't call it. You don't
Speaker 1: call it Dona don? What are you calling? Lou done?
Speaker 1: You miss missed?
Speaker 6: It is a we fly home to What did they
Speaker 6: call him? What did what did they call him in
Speaker 6: the well? What did they call him in the movie?
Speaker 6: They called him Don Corleon, Don Carleone.
Speaker 5: That's incorrect, great accent should be and they made Yeah,
Speaker 5: I know, thank you Don Vito, it should be done.
Speaker 1: Vita the first first name. Yeah, you'll see if his
Speaker 1: parents had named him Timmy, Don Timmy. That's that doesn't
Speaker 1: strike fear anybody. By the way, speaking about that real U.
Speaker 1: Before we go out, Jason, I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: some mob names and you tell me if they're actually
Speaker 1: mob names are made up? Mom, Okay, I can do this,
Speaker 1: I can do it. I got it.
Speaker 2: He's prepared completely looking at anything I'm looking at you.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the Israel of the ice pick, Willy Alderman.
Speaker 1: What Israel the ice pick Willie Alderman? Israel part being
Speaker 1: part of the name. His first name Israel nickname ice
Speaker 1: pick Willie Alderman. That's true. Used to put an ice
Speaker 1: pick in people's ears, into their brain, could take them out. Sure,
Speaker 1: so somewhat undetectable. Show Louis Louis ha ha had a
Speaker 1: Nazio Junior. No, that's a real name. Every time he
Speaker 1: heard a murder, he'd leaf that. He gave him the name.
Speaker 1: Ha ha. Jackie are literally saying ha ha. Yes, yes
Speaker 1: he did not titter titters he did. Were we gonna
Speaker 1: go ten minutes on each put? Oh my god, ready
Speaker 1: for this? Jackie Giant gonounced Stefan. No, that's Frick. Thomas
Speaker 1: is a wig Bollati. Yes, that's exactly true. Yes, Gino
Speaker 1: j your hair smells lovely. Look hotel. No shadow, Richard
Speaker 1: Blackhead Cantrella. No, that's a real name. Yeah, yes, oh
Speaker 1: my god, sal and large prostate risolo Please no, no,
Speaker 1: but would have been helping George butter ass the Cicio No,
Speaker 1: but what come on? We nineteen twenty nine George butter
Speaker 1: Ass Thesico and I don't know how I know you.
Speaker 1: I don't believe you until you give me, no, until
Speaker 1: you tell me how he got the name. Google at
Speaker 1: google him, go go quickly look up butter As with
Speaker 1: George potter Ass. Sure is George butter Ass all one
Speaker 1: word the D E C I C CEO. And by
Speaker 1: the way, what do you think if that was his nickname?
Speaker 1: Every time you use it you would kill somebody? Yeah
Speaker 1: a butter Ass really angela quack quack rogueiro in Yeah,
Speaker 1: flat wide, that exactly true and veto awkward to cute way. Now,
Speaker 1: I how to read you?
Speaker 3: I how to read you.
Speaker 1: I know when someone's been writing butterss anything anything goes.
Speaker 1: So before we go and say goodbye, did you find it?
Speaker 5: Yes, butter Ass it was his nickname. He was a
Speaker 5: capo in the Gambino family.
Speaker 1: And did they talk about how he got the name
Speaker 1: butter Ass? Yes? Can you share it or is it inappropriate? Yes?
Speaker 1: It is inappropriate.
Speaker 5: But according to real life mafioso and sometime actor Gianni Russo,
Speaker 5: George butter Ass Desicio, a gaudy era mobster in capo,
Speaker 5: was so named because his ass was the size of
Speaker 5: a cow's wow.
Speaker 1: And then you're out with that bodies lying in the
Speaker 1: st and this is, by the way, I think we
Speaker 1: should get a podcast the word for the kind of
Speaker 1: work we do, right And by the way, who ever
Speaker 1: named them that? Yeah? No longer wow? Thank you? Everybody?
Speaker 1: Funny to you how like a clown? Funny like a
Speaker 1: butter ass? Yeah? Now really, really really well, that's our
Speaker 1: show on the Mob. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Jeff Schumacher, the vice president of Exhibits.
Speaker 1: And Programs for the Mob Museum there in Las Vegas.
Speaker 5: To learn more about the museum online, you can go
Speaker 5: to the Mob Museum dot org. You can also check
Speaker 5: out their podcast, Mobbed Up the Fight for Las Vegas,
Speaker 5: which chronicles the rise and fall of the Mob in
Speaker 5: Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: Of course, anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5: You can find more about us online at reallynorelea dot com.
Speaker 5: We're also on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok at really No
Speaker 5: Really podcast, And of course we now have full episodes
Speaker 5: on YouTube, so please check us out. Hit that subscribe
Speaker 5: button and tick that bell so you're updated when we
Speaker 5: release new videos.
Speaker 1: For questions, suggestions.
Speaker 5: Or anything that strikes your fancy, you could message us
Speaker 5: on Instagram, and most of all, thank you for listening, subscribing,
Speaker 5: and sharing the show. We release new FW episodes of
Speaker 5: Really No Really every Tuesday, so make sure you follow
Speaker 5: us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5: Really No Really is a production of iHeartRadio and Bloise
Speaker 5: Entertainment
Speaker 1: By Mom