I don't know if they were. And the extent to which they were was never really clear. I mean, Vinnie "The Chin" was clearly an actual mobster . He lived about two blocks from me.He was this guy who would wear a bathrobe on the street so that, if he got indicted, he could claim that he was crazy. He wore this bathrobe for my entire childhood
And the Feds finally broke it up as a monopoly, made him sell Madison Square Garden. And there were mobsters and unsavory characters. And Jimmy, his partner, walked around with $100 bills, dollar bills in his pocket.
And even bullets were coated with Teflon to minimize the damage they did coming out of the gun barrel. The term Teflon was so ubiquitous that when the Italian mobster John Gotti was being prosecuted in the late 1980s, none of the charges against him would stick. So he was dubbed Teflon Don.
in "Guys and Dolls." Wassel was an even less forgiving boss than Berns. While the FBI classified him as only a low level mobster , he was still a scary menace. In 1975, Wassel was convicted of payola, bribing radio DJ's in exchange for heavy rotation of a record, which might not sound like rough work
chapter that there was a gambling ship some of you may have heard this but in uh there was a huge dispute and it's quite a funny story uh and basically a mobster this is where Vegas learned all their tricks they had a gambling ship set off on what they said was just outside international waters of Santa Monica Bay and um this
going to have that wonderful effect of sort of it seems to draw back the curtains on oh that's what they're really like behind closed doors whether it's the Mobsters in the Bada Bing or or the Reagans around their uh dinner table and I think that's one of the you know
And I was very into the whole gangster thing, films like "Untouchables" or then the "Godfather" films. De Niro doing the classic, the American-Italian mobster . So I used to do that a lot with all my friends, like, "you talking to me?
And it turns out he had a terrible record deal with Bang Records out of New York City. And they were mobbed up, and there was a guy put in charge of Van that was basically a mobster . And I visited him at his apartment.
Us being young, learning the industry as teenagers, not quite soaking in all the information that we probably needed to soak in. And not knowing enough about the business to know that, unfortunately, the music industry was built on the shoulders of mobsters and people like that who weren't 100% honest.
Can anyone tell me why I'm wearing this mask? And supposedly the old, old, old fashioned pizza parlors where the mobsters hung out themselves could use the real cheese as long as they promised
Josh Bazell: No, I mean, I have a couple of real world, underworld connections. They're very minor. I grew up in downtown Manhattan in a neighborhood where there are a lot of guys who wanted you to think they were mobsters . I don't know if they were. And the extent to which they were was never really clear. I mean, Vinnie "The Chin" was clearly an actual