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July 10, 2022 - Lionel Nation
01:01:49
Why We're Addicted to AutoMourn and Mafia Stuff

It's fascinating that so many people are commenting on a secret society they swore to uphold. As for automourn, think self-referenced lugubriousness.

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Good day, my friends.
Good day.
I want to discuss something which I think is...
A most fascinating subject.
Something that will allow you to weigh in, as it were.
And the subject, first of all, of course, as we always talk about, is the idea of death.
And specifically, auto-mourne.
Auto-mourne, as you know, is a phenomenon in which people who are...
Oh!
Just hang that up, would you please?
That's the service.
You wouldn't believe what's happening.
Right before I met you this morning, my internet was going crazy.
Just going crazy.
So I go, just have that hand, just answer it and hang up.
Just keep that handy because they're going to call back too.
So anyway, as I'm doing this, I'm noticing my internet is just, there's no speed whatsoever.
Make a long story short, make a long story short.
I call up and they say, well, if you'd like, our customer service is busy.
Why they're busy, I have no idea.
But call back.
Or we'll call you back.
So I go ahead, an hour.
They say, well, we'll do this for an hour.
So as I'm doing this, I do my usual thing.
And I go to YouTube and I look for, you know, suggestions.
And I did a factory reboot, so to speak, of the router to just go back.
Then, of course, it goes into a closet.
And all of the wires themselves are connected into this wall unit in the back and there's stuff hanging in front.
Coats and, you know, usual stuff.
So you're on your knees and you have to have some kind of pillow because it will destroy your knees with a flashlight trying to find this hole in the back to put a paper clip in but you can't really turn it because you have to un...
Hook everything.
And you really shouldn't.
And then you do that.
And then you wait.
And then you've got to make sure you take a picture of the back of the router to get the password.
Because that's the new password.
Everything else.
All of your devices.
Everything.
All of you.
Everyone that you have this new password that you put in there.
Well, that's a different story.
That's a different story.
Now it's...
Something else.
And that goes on.
And everything seems to be working okay.
Put everything back.
Put the clothes back.
Put the coats back.
Put this back.
Put that.
Then you say, now how do I do this?
I have a wonderful system.
There's a great device.
It's a password saving device.
I'm not going to give it your name.
If they want to advertise, it's up to them.
And they give you great, great, great Long passwords with symbols.
I mean, nobody can crack this.
They're really terrific.
Except when you're trying to manually type them in.
Have you ever done this?
Have you ever gone to, let's say, your cable or your Netflix or whatever it is, and you've got your little clicker, and you've got to do lowercase d.
Lowercase.
Da-da-da-da.
D. Bracket.
I'm going to go.
Bracket.
Special characters.
Bracket.
Great.
I've got 15 more of these to go.
And your eyes are losing.
You can't focus on what's happening.
And there's no way to just transfer that very long, bracketed, very good.
Very complicated code.
There's no way just to copy that onto your Roku or whatever.
So anyway, it's just...
And then the other day when I'm calling this cable, this company, the tech support, you either get one of two things.
You either get a Filipino, which is a very nice, kind of an unctuous, very overly...
Polite.
Almost babyish little girl.
Hello, how are you?
Very nice though.
Or you get something from, I don't know, Mumbai.
New Delhi.
I don't know where these people are.
They're the best.
So when I hear somebody says, thank you very much.
That's it.
I love it.
Yes!
Yes!
Give me Ramesh.
Versus Todd.
I don't want somebody here.
I don't want an American.
I'm sorry.
I don't want somebody that's curt.
There are none, by the way.
But they always do this, I'm so sorry.
I understand completely what you're going through.
They make it sound like the loss of a pet.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry you went through all this.
I'm so sorry.
So this was going on seconds before this.
I want to talk about Otto Warren.
Somebody wrote, Larry Storch, R.I.P.
Do you mean that?
With all due respect, Larry Storch, 99 years old.
Do you mean that?
Do you mean, Larry Storch, rest in peace?
Do you mean that?
What does that mean to you?
When you say that, what does that mean?
You don't know.
Rest in peace.
What does that mean?
I mean, Laurie Storch was great, but what does that mean?
Rest in peace.
How do you rest not in peace?
Tormented for eternity?
Why do we say these things?
Yesterday, Tony Sirico died.
Pauly Walnuts.
Pauly Walnuts does not exist.
It's Tony Sirico.
He was actually a hood.
A real hood.
A real Italian versus James Conn that everybody thinks was the greatest actor of all time.
And he was not even near it.
Sonny Corleone was the most over the top, over...
It didn't fit in...
What is this?
What is this?
Everybody thought he was so good.
Remember that?
When he sees Connie?
And Carlo?
Johnny Russo.
Oh my god.
Johnny Russo.
That's the people calling back.
Which I can't go to now because I'm talking to you.
But anyway.
Johnny Russo.
Have you ever read his books?
This guy, he makes up more stuff.
He was with Marilyn Monroe.
He was with Joe Colombo.
He was part of the...
Probably part of the JFK hit team.
I mean, this guy, he is just all over the place.
And I've run into him a gazillion times.
You know who he is, Carlo, right?
But he's really Italian.
He kind of did his thing, whatever.
Just listen to this.
But compared to James Caan, look, James Caan, I am not glad to see people dead.
I'm not...
But I'm not going to pretend to you that my life has been just destroyed by the death of a complete stranger.
I'm not going to do this.
I hate that.
That diminishes me.
I'm phony.
I'm like everybody else.
This is auto-mourne.
Put people into perspective.
Stop it.
Wish or pray or whatever you want to pray, go ahead.
I don't get that, but that's up to you.
That's up to you.
That's up to you.
I don't know what that means.
Dear Zeus, whoever, what?
James Caan, what about him?
He's dead.
Don't you think I know that?
Yeah.
Listen, anything you can do?
For what?
You know, he's dead.
Apparently I didn't help.
Could have done a lot more, but I didn't.
What do you want me to do?
Well, I've got to pray.
My thoughts, my thoughts, and my prayers.
What are you praying about?
What do you want to happen?
He's not going to hell.
He's not going to burn in the lake of fire forever.
So what do you want?
Okay, just...
Okay, here's one.
I hope his family gets through it.
That's good.
That's nice.
By the way, they're already praying for that.
Just want to let you know.
You think I'm going to...
Wait a minute.
Excuse me.
Thank you, Kahn family.
Hang on a minute.
Larry Splitnik in Bangor, Maine is going to be praying pretty soon.
If I don't get his confirmatory prayer, I'm not going to answer your prayer.
I know it's an expression, but I take things literally.
What does this mean?
What does this mean?
Our thoughts and prayer, what does it mean?
I don't know.
Nobody knows what it means.
It's an expression.
It's an expression.
It's good.
Anytime somebody says anything that's good, God bless you for that.
Whatever the hell that means.
Good for you.
You're at least enjoying something that's kind of an expression.
Okay?
That's all I want to say.
I'm going to get back to this in a moment.
I am...
Let me tell you something.
I am really...
I'm not...
I'm not doing something...
I'm not doing something right.
I'm sure I'm not doing something right.
Because when I talk about preparewithlionel.com, I don't think people are understanding what I'm trying to say.
I mean, the sales are terrific.
People are absolutely, positively loving this.
And that's terrific.
And it supports the show.
And preparewithlionel.com is the only link you should do for my Patriot Supply.
Because if you use others, it doesn't help me.
Just like with...
You know how this works, right?
Like MyPillow.com, code Lionel.
If you use somebody else's code, they say, help me.
Because you want to promote this.
That's why you are.
You want to help our thing, this thing of ours, this thing.
But prepare with Lionel.
I'm seeing this all over the place.
Food shortages.
And I recognize that things right now are scary.
This is an opportunity for you to eliminate one scary thing that you don't want to happen.
I don't understand this.
Go into any garage and say, what is this?
What do you keep this for?
What is the purpose of this?
I don't know.
Do they happen to be, don't ask me why, a Home Depot.
Don't ask me, I needed something.
I'm not.
And I'm seeing people buy stuff.
And it's very nice.
And I'm thinking, Where is your emergency food?
Fire extinguisher?
Good.
Carbon monoxide detector?
Good.
Smoke detector?
Good.
Generator?
Good.
Flashlights?
Ammunition?
Good.
Where's your food?
Do you have three months stockpile per person in your family?
Per person?
Prepare with Lionel.com.
This is food.
And you're buying.
What are you buying?
And I'm seeing stuff people buy, which is fine.
Because I love to look at people's baskets.
Just look around.
I don't understand this.
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Go there now.
We'll be here.
PrepareWithLionel.com.
Now, yesterday somebody said to me, somebody actually sent to me, I swear to God, R.I.P.
Larry Storch.
Larry Storch.
Larry Storch was a...
Again, I'm not minimizing.
You see, we've lost all sense of proportion.
We have no thoughts anymore.
We have no thoughts.
They're persistent.
We have no thoughts anymore.
We have no sincere thoughts.
We have no family.
We have no friends.
We have no nothing.
By the way, time out.
You know why I still have a landline?
Because I can't get any phone calls on my cell phone.
I've got to go to the window.
Hello?
I'm at the window.
Hello!
I can't get anything.
That's alright to worry about.
Just to let you know.
I want to share my life with you.
This is important.
These people pretend that everybody else...
Now, let me tell you something.
Shinzo Abe, you listen to me, and you listen good.
And I gotta be careful.
Because you know and I know, when we're talking like this, and we're in YouTube land, you've got to be like, okay?
You've got to be...
You've just got to be...
You've got to be careful.
Let me tell you, and I'm going to leave it at that.
You're not going to hear...
Anything about the fellow who assassinated Shinzo Abe.
Nothing.
Nothing.
You're not going to hear anything about it.
A crazy guy had his homemade weapon.
Not really sure what it was about.
Not really sure what the purpose of it was.
What his motivation was.
Nobody knows anything.
Shinzo Abe.
That's it.
There's nothing to see here.
He had a gun.
It was like a zip gun.
No, no, no, no.
Let me just tell you.
Do you have any idea?
No, you don't.
But do you have any idea what the rest of the world is saying on parallel, alternative, on news sources, really good news sources, open, honest, fun, exciting, blinds, you name it?
Oh!
They're off to the races.
You'll never hear that.
We don't talk about that.
Just our thoughts and prayers.
Just thoughts and prayers.
We'll give you that one.
Everybody think and pray and that's it.
That's all we do.
We think and we pray.
This case, that's all I'm going to tell you.
Wow.
Now at lionelmedia.com, different story.
I can say what I want.
And you think these comments are good?
Because these are on my subscription site.
There's no anything.
No limit to anything.
It's, I don't know where, God bless these people, I don't know where they're from, but wow.
Wow.
It's like when you hear Kenny G and then I play for you Ornette Coleman.
It's like, wow.
That's all I'm going to say.
Enough said.
What we're doing now, this is this is playful talk.
This is adult talk.
This is simple talk.
This won't get anybody hurt.
You see that poor guy?
Finally got back to Twitter.
Good for you.
Hey!
What's his name?
I don't even know his name.
I'm back on Twitter.
Good.
I had to sue Twitter.
Speaking of which, I told you, Mrs. L told you, the Elon Musk thing was a work from the beginning.
From the beginning.
Everybody think they're going to get their reinstatement?
No.
You think he's going to buck the system, Elon Musk?
Did you see the other day they said, oh, you're not the biggest electric company.
Wait until Mercedes and Audi and those.
You want to see electric cars?
Because those Teslas are the ugliest things.
I don't know what.
Is the purpose of that?
Maybe because they're just the first ones, I guess.
He's playing this like you can't believe.
Took everybody.
Oh, he's going to buy it.
Shares went up.
Oh, they went long and short.
Oh, it was wonderful.
And we're going to sue you.
No, you're not.
You weren't telling me the truth, Mrs. Falbo, regarding the bots.
Listen, a deal's a deal.
Why, you?
Come on.
Please.
Trump will buy Twitter.
Alan, do you believe that?
Did you really just write, Trump will buy Twitter?
Did you do that because you thought, here's something that'll mix things up.
You do know that's insane.
But speaking of insane, let's go back to this.
So Larry Storch, James Caan, James Caan.
Again, not sad to see somebody.
Brian Song was it.
When I was a kid, Brian Song, it's the first time all of us cried.
I remember being in grade school.
What year was that?
You know, I always look back and I think to myself, when in the hell...
Let me see this.
I'll tell you, when I cried, January 23rd, 1978, when Terry Kath accidentally killed himself, that destroyed me.
That was my everything.
That was my John Lennon, my big bopper.
It was just horrible.
Anyway, Brian's song.
Remember that with Billy Dee Williams?
Brian's song.
Brian Piccolo.
I think Shelley Fabre was in it.
Brian's song.
1971, November.
So I was 13 years old.
Just turned 13. 8th grade, whatever it is.
And I gotta tell you, that one Killed me.
And it was a typical thing, you know, he's in the hospital, he has no telemetry, no tubes, no IV, no max.
He's just in bed.
He says, whatever you can do.
What is it, Brian?
Gail?
Can you go out and win, you know, win one for the Gipper?
He's like, okay, please.
Tore me up.
Then the movie two, the Sullivans, the fighting Sullivans.
I lost it when I was a kid.
All the brothers.
We're killed and ended in heaven.
The one who was always late?
Come on!
They're going to heaven?
Oh, God.
Dear God.
It was good to know I could feel because I had some kind of a sense of feeling for that.
But James Caan overacted Sonny Corley.
Remember this?
With Connie?
What is this?
Do you see how bad those shots were?
Watch this scene where he goes back and he hits him.
He misses by a mile.
Believe me, that's stunt coordination.
They had one long angle.
You want to get up close.
You want to recut.
They didn't cut that.
All of a sudden, he's going like this.
Okay, fine.
Alright.
People love that.
And I love on YouTube when they say, now here's why Carlo did this.
You see, Carlo worked with Barzini.
And Barzini said, now I want you to go.
And you have your girlfriend call up and ask, For you.
Hello?
Is Carlo there?
And of course there's Connie.
How did you get your horse to stop calling?
Why you?
Takes off his belt.
Come here!
Beats her up.
Knowing.
Had his girlfriend.
This is what they say on YouTube.
Had the girlfriend call Connie to start the fight.
I don't know why he didn't go and just slug her.
Why he had to do this.
But anyway.
She knew.
He knew.
They were...
Thank you.
There we go.
Check.
Okay, okay, okay.
There we go.
I don't know where I left off.
I don't know where I left off.
I have no idea.
Where did I?
Where was I?
Did you hear any of this stuff?
Did you hear any of this?
Hey, by the way, when you put a lot of graphics, just want to let you know, YouTube thinks you're doing something Spammy.
So it'll just eliminate.
So if you put a lot of pictures and graphics, sometimes they go up to work, but sometimes they don't.
I don't know where I left off.
What was I talking about?
Carlo, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Absinthe, thank you.
Thank you.
Liz says, five minutes ago.
Liz, that doesn't help me.
What was I talking about?
James Kahn.
Okay, James Kahn overacted like he can't believe.
I thought he was ridiculous.
This Godfather, he was Sonny, was the worst.
I think Marlon Brando was stupid.
Why?
Why was this so great?
Why do we go crazy over Brando?
Why did we go crazy over the Beatles?
What did Brando do that was so terrific?
He never memorized his lines.
They had cue cards everywhere.
He goes, I don't know, you know, Michael, Marlini the pimp.
Can you move your head, Mike?
I'm reading the cue card.
Remember when he had these weird angles like this?
You know why he's doing it?
To read the cue card.
He never read his lines.
Honeyhead Cardinal missed by a mile.
Oh, there you go.
It was the worst ever.
They had...
Oh, of course.
By the way, it's my favorite movie.
Do you know that one time Mrs. L and I...
We'll never forget this.
We went to Staten Island to see where they filmed The Godfather.
It's a house, end of a street.
Kind of nondescript.
And all we did was we wanted to see where Big Pauly lived and Toad Hill is really the whole bit.
Staten Island.
What's Toad Hill?
The highest point in North America?
I don't know what that was.
So we went there.
And there it is.
Still there.
You know, the house, the famous house.
I swear to you, a car immediately was following us.
Immediately.
I'm not making this up.
Not threatening or anything.
All of a sudden, it was a Saturday afternoon.
All of a sudden, there's a car right behind me.
So I thought, okay, I'll leave.
The Godfather was the greatest.
Let me talk about, just for a moment, I love Speech, speech pathology, being a stutterer as a kid and still, you know, it creeps up on you.
It's there.
It's in the back of your head.
You wake up in the morning and you know it.
Here we go!
I feel it.
My heart goes out to stutterers.
My heart goes out to them still.
I did a comedy show one time at Caroline's.
I did stand-up.
By the way, July 16th, a week from today, cutting room, you better be there.
You better be there, that's all I've got to say.
If you're not there, I don't know you.
If you're not there, I don't know you.
That's all I'm going to say.
All right.
I've always felt my heart went out for people who had this.
The Sopranos had more lisps.
Impediments.
Sibilance.
Paulie Walnuts.
Tony Cerrico, at times, could barely talk.
I was fast.
He would say things, and I'd watch his tongue, his mouth.
It's like Paulie Walnuts coming!
Wow!
When he and Big Pussy, even Stevie Van Zandt.
Tony had that weird kind of...
And you put...
Oh, and the FBI agent?
Another...
Did David Chase just go looking for this?
Now, not to mock.
I'm not mocking.
But it was fascinating.
Even Edie Falco had that kind of...
You put them together, and it was just a...
Wow.
And Tony Sirico, who really was an actual hood, really was a hood in his real life, unlike James Caan, who was a Jew from Queens, who wanted to be connected and all this stuff.
He really was during his...
And his brother is a priest, kind of like Chin Gigante, which is a very long story, which I'm not going to get into right now.
But The Sopranos was a great, great, Great show.
Do you know why?
I'll answer that.
Because it was.
I'm not going to give you this theoretical big-shot argument of, well, the reason why is because, you see, we've always enjoyed the outlaw.
Oh, shut up with that.
That's not why.
It's not why we're always...
No, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
It doesn't work like that.
That's too corn pone.
It's different than that.
It's much different.
It's good because it's good.
Let me ask you something.
Do you know why macaroni and cheese...
I've been saying this my whole life.
Do you know why macaroni and cheese is so important?
Let me tell you why.
Because it's great.
Why is it great?
Because it is.
That's it.
Do you ever see any kid, if a kid likes it, there's something inherently good.
Kids love macaroni and cheese.
Why?
It just is.
Pizza.
Slice of cheese pizza.
Don't make it fancy.
No margarita, no deep dish, no Detroit, no this, no nothing, no grandmas.
By the way, grandma is a big New York thing, but no, no, no, no.
Slice of cheese pizza.
Kids love it.
No pepperoni, no nothing.
Hot dogs.
Love it.
They love it.
Hamburgers.
They love it.
They love it.
Why?
Because they do.
You know why Roseanne was such a great show?
Because it was.
That's it.
It was a great show because it was.
That's it.
End of discussion.
It was a great show because it was.
Yeah, she was a single mom.
I mean, not such a single mom.
She was kind of a regular mom.
Yeah, yeah.
Sopranos was the last time we ever stayed home.
It was a Portman TV, Sunday at 9 o 'clock.
Remember that?
And it absolutely made no sense.
It was the most stupid thing I've ever seen in my life.
And everybody that I know, everybody, everybody, everybody, and let me just say this, people that I know, I couldn't swear to it.
I have no reason to believe that they are of the organized crime family, but people who seem to know a lot about this would laugh.
But it doesn't matter.
Have you watched I love watching this newfound YouTube fascination for this.
Now YouTube I'm demonetized because if some...
I don't even know what...
I don't know what I ever said.
But I can promise you, I never advocated murder.
So I've got John A. Light.
Very interesting.
I baseball batted this guy.
I killed this guy.
I killed that guy.
Sammy the Bull.
I killed 19 people.
We whacked DB.
I called DB.
We shot him.
I shot him in the head.
Oh yeah, I'll tell him tonight.
We're going to tell you how we shot Paulie.
I killed this guy.
Michael Franzese, the greatest work of them all.
He's the best.
I'm a Christian.
You have to understand something.
This is why I love.
Organized crime is like professional wrestling.
It's a work.
They know if there's a way to make money, they will do it.
If there is a way to make money, and they're making great money on YouTube, great!
I think it's fantastic.
It's very interesting.
I've heard everything there is.
And then there are these others.
These subordinates.
All of a sudden, you have these Brits.
This one guy, I don't know who he is.
There's so many of them.
Tonight, we talk about Abe Kid Twist Rellis, thrown from the Half Moon Hotel in Brooklyn.
He was part of Murder Incorporated.
He knew Pittsburgh, Phil Strauss.
One of the best is an African-American young man who I think knows more than anybody.
How he knows this.
Now, your walk talks.
Yeah, you got your garage apparel.
Sure you've got that.
You've got, you know, Oni Madden.
He's talking about Oni Madden and...
It's...
What do you know?
It's great!
That's okay?
That's okay?
That's glorifying murder and crime?
Listen, I think everything should be open.
How many times do you want to hear about the hit about Big Pauly?
How many times?
I used to work at a studio.
On the block.
47th?
46th and 3rd.
Right there at Sparks.
The Cheddar Brothers.
Right there.
It's history.
Every single day.
How many times do I have to hear about this?
They wore white coats.
It was Christmas time, December of 1985.
Paul Castellano had just dropped off Christmas presents to his lawyers, the secretary.
He was with Tommy Bellotti.
They pulled up Frank DiCicco, who they later blew up in retaliation.
That's obviously the zips, because American organized crime doesn't do that.
Too many innocent bystanders.
And he went and he knew, and he went there.
And they knew this, and they had this, and we drove by, and Sammy the Bull looked down and says, he's gone.
And how many times I've heard this story tonight on this thing of ours.
The final word on...
Again?
Did you leave out something last time?
The bird, the canary that couldn't fly.
Jimmy Emery, ladies and gentlemen, we have, yes, Abe.
Kid Twist Relis.
Remember...
Remember...
Who remembers Arnold Schuster?
Remember Arnold Schuster?
Does that name ring a bell?
Let's see how good you are with this one.
You can't see behind me, but I've got every...
I don't like these people, but Lucky Luciano, The Night of the Sicilian Vespers, that whole thing.
With a mustache.
That's when everything started.
That was the most interesting.
The most interesting.
Absolutely, positively.
Arnold Schuster.
Arnold Schuster was the greatest one ever.
By the way, get your shine box.
Never happened.
So much about Goodfellas.
So wrong.
Remember the scene in Tampa?
Remember the scene in Tampa?
When they supposedly were going to throw somebody in a lion's cage?
I'm not going to go into detail, but I know a lot of the players involved.
That didn't happen.
Arnold Schuster.
Oh, Dark Shadows.
Barnabas.
What's his name?
Jonathan Frid?
Barnabas Collins?
Remember that one?
Jimmy Emery is correct in one respect.
Willie Sutton, the famous Willie Sutton, the man who robbed the banks.
I said, why do you rob the banks?
That's where the money is.
Willie Sutton was on the lam.
And in New York, he was on his way to a subway, coming back from the subway, whatever it was.
And lo and behold, Arnold Schuster, this worked at a haberdasher, some clothing, some young kid, 20-something years old, said, hey, that's Willie Sutton.
Called the police, dropped a dime on him, and they arrested the beloved Albert Anastasia, the Mad Hatter, the Lord High Executioner, Murder Incorporated, was watching TV, heard this, went berserk.
I think he lived around Fort Lee, maybe.
Very nice place.
Anyway, went berserk.
He says, I want him hit.
I hate a rat.
Had one of his...
Who knows?
Phil Strauss.
Who the hell knows who he called?
And they shot this guy.
It's very sad.
Twice in the eye.
I think once in the groin.
But as some universal sign for he talked or whatever it was.
Cold-blooded.
Left him in the street to die like a dog.
Arnold Schuster.
Do you know how many times I've heard that story?
Do you know how many times?
Because there's like 12 stories.
It's done.
It's completely done.
Now why do we like that?
Why?
Why do we like that?
We like it because it's interesting.
Why do we like Bonnie and Clyde?
Because it's interesting.
It's interesting.
You don't have to explain to anybody.
Do we rebel?
Would you ever want to be in organized crime?
Be straightened out?
Are you kidding me?
No way.
No way.
I don't want to say that's over.
There's always going to be a certain faction, but it's not.
The organized crime today is in Washington.
And not only that, the other groups of people, the Albanians, the Chinese Triads, there's so much.
Mario Cuomo.
Oh my God.
Mario Cuomo used to say, I hate the Godfather because it perpetuates this notion that all Italians...
It never perpetuated the notions that all Italians were anything.
Nothing.
Nothing.
It never did it.
If you want to do a story about the Mafia, there are Sicilians.
In the old days, today is, are you Italian?
Well, Sicilian, well.
What about on your father's side?
Well.
You ever know an Italian?
Yeah, you're in.
Okay, that's it.
I don't look up to that.
I don't want to be like that.
I don't think anybody does.
But it's interesting.
The Hell's Angels.
It's interesting.
And I love the way they just do it.
And Mario Cuomo, oh my God.
The greatest story he's ever.
And the characters, though.
The way they...
The thing which is the most important, and it goes to show you, this was, can you imagine, stop for a second, I know, just think, John Gotti on social media.
Oops, I bumped this.
I bumped this.
Oh, thank God.
John Gotti on social media.
Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine John Gotti's Twitter account?
John Gotti on, he'd be on Instagram.
John Gotti?
Hey, here I am.
Hey, look at this.
I got my tiramisu at, you know.
It would change everything.
John Gotti changed.
And before John Gotti, there was Al Capone.
And before Al Capone, there was Bonnie and Clyde.
I mean, there's nothing new.
Everything's recycled.
Everything's the same.
But John Gotti was the end of everything.
Nobody could believe this.
This was a secret society.
A secret society.
Do you know that in the old days...
Frank Costello.
Francesco Castiglia.
He was shot on the Upper West Side.
The Apollo.
Not the Apollo.
Still there.
Central Park West.
Right up there.
Chin's again.
He got him.
Frank, this is for you.
Bang.
Chin.
Grazed his head.
They wrapped him.
He said, couldn't identify anybody.
Time to get out.
He was the one who had a raspy voice.
He says, Mr. Costello, is there anything you've ever done for your country?
He says, I pay my tax.
Not taxes.
I pay my tax.
How about in 1957?
Appalachian.
This was the biggest thing ever.
Joseph Barber is home.
Upstate New York.
And this pain in the ass state trooper who had nothing.
I think, if I recall correctly, he...
He divorced his wife.
He's like, living in the barracks.
I don't swear to be to this, but he's looking.
He says, who are these people?
Big sedans driving up.
One after another.
What the hell's going on here?
This little place, Joseph Barber, upstate.
And he kind of knew he was a little connected, but who is this guy?
What are they doing?
What do they want?
12,000 pounds of meat.
This was the first time there was a...
A syndicate meeting in the history.
And when he shows up, they all ran into the woods.
Everybody was there.
Everybody.
That changed everything.
1957.
Why is that important?
Because J. Edgar Hoover was told at the time, listen, We understand you and your girlfriend, Clyde Tolson, are buddy-buddy with Costello because Costello knew that J. Edgar Hoover was a degenerate gambler and used to let him win all the time.
And they owned him.
Not to mention Roy Cohn, not Cohen, C-O-H-N, theoretically had pictures of J. Edgar Hoover in drag, which I don't believe that.
I just don't buy that.
But anyway.
That's when it all changed.
They thought Costello was Irish.
Costello.
It was the biggest thing in New York.
He had his Salvation Army.
Think of the Waldorf.
Lucky Luciano lived in the Waldorf.
They were untouchable.
Tommy Lucchese, Three Fingers Brown.
He had the garment industry.
They made more money.
Their money couldn't even, you know, 10, 15 million a week.
I mean, this was in the 20s.
It's...
No.
The story is fascinating.
Fascinating.
But they don't go into that because what you do is you hear a lot of this Oh my God!
Okay, okay, okay.
You know, I'll do respect.
That's nice.
But this is not exactly riveting.
Not exactly.
It looks like The Five on Fox.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I don't get that one.
But anyway.
Gladio.
Gladio.
Operation Gladio.
The Mob.
The Mafia.
The Mafia is the Sicilian version of this.
Carmine Galante.
They still pronounce it Galenti.
It's the weirdest thing.
It's the...
Why they all mispronounce his name, I have no idea.
Joe and Mary.
Boom!
You got them.
The Zips came in.
He's out the door.
Remember, if they get you to do the hit, you're next.
And if you're ever running big numbers on the street and you've got a customer who owes you a lot, he's going to kill you.
Because he owes you the money.
And they will kill you.
So he doesn't have to pay you.
Loan sharking is not a good idea.
Hey, you know how much money I can make?
Who's your biggest customer?
I'm in him for half a mil.
Leave the country.
Forget that.
What's interesting to me is before World War II, how we use Sicily.
Think about this.
Think about this.
Work with me on this.
Mussolini at the time, Mussolini-Castro, what did they do?
They got rid of organized crime.
They got rid of it.
Mussolini had this guy Cesare More.
M-O-R-E, I believe.
More.
More, More.
He would go and get the mafiosi and he would torture them to get them to...
I mean, he...
Mussolini cleaned that place up.
Fascism and organized crime.
At least for him.
The whole notion of Batista in Cuba, he was so mobbed up, it wasn't even funny.
And Benny Siegel, to his credit, said, you know, I don't think we should be there.
Why?
He said, what happens if they change governments?
They're not going to change governments.
I don't know.
You know, we don't have any...
Ah, you big, you big baby.
Okay.
I don't know if that's a good idea.
Sure enough.
Sure enough.
Anyway, so all of a sudden, these...
Mafiosi.
Vizzini.
Cologero Vizzini.
Cassioferro.
Thugs!
They owned all of the sulfur mines.
They were critical for munitions.
They take off.
And the first thing they do is they say they love America.
They are the biggest patriots you've ever seen.
Why?
Because they hate Mussolini.
Stop!
I love this country, but they really are very staunch.
Very staunch.
Absolutely staunch.
So what do we do?
OSS says, can you help us?
You better believe it.
Vito Genovese was one of the greatest spies ever.
He says, I know Sicily inside and out.
We are your guide.
Remember, the government never gets rid of organized crime.
Like a friend of mine said, one of these folks, allegedly.
Years ago, they want to put their blood in our veins.
They want to use our circuits, our networks.
So what happened?
After this was over with, what did the U.S. say?
Well, here's the deal.
Cassioferro, Vizzini, you're going to be there.
We're going to place you as governors.
Remember, there was no government at all.
That's the whole notion of Sicily.
There was no government.
The...
You know, the man of honor.
This was the local guy you went to.
Not the...
You know, whatever these other people were.
This is a brilliant story.
So anyway, we guaranteed the mafia.
We created it in Sicily.
After all, they helped us.
And Gladio.
How many know about Gladio?
How many have never heard about it?
Gladio.
How many?
Stay behind?
To watch for the rise of communism?
Are you kidding?
This was our government.
Organized crime.
Perfectly.
Right at the time when Lucky Luciano went to Dannemora, upstate, now Clinton, correctional, he got a hold of a guy named Sox Lanza.
Sox Lanza ran the, he ran the docks.
And there was the Normandy.
The Normandy on the west side.
On the west side.
It tipped over.
And they said it was sabotage.
It really wasn't.
That's okay.
So, Meyer Lansky, Sox Lanza, and Lucky Luciano, they go to Dewey and the government.
They say, we know what that was.
You need us to prevent against sabotage.
You need us.
But here's the deal.
Lucky's got to get out.
He said, okay, but here's the deal from us.
We'll deport him.
And Lucky Lieutenant said, wait, wait, wait, wait, deport me?
No, no, I want a pass.
No, no, you don't get a pass.
So he had to go back to Licare Fridi, you know, in Sicily.
And that party, when they came, they brought suitcases.
No, but nobody knows how much cash.
I think they say Sinatra may have been a part of it.
Cut to 1960.
Guess who those OSS people are?
CIA.
Who's the new Mussolini?
Castro.
Who's already there in Cuba?
The mob.
Santo Traficante.
Carlos Marcello.
Traficante was one of the...
Nobody will ever understand how important he was.
In the scheme of this entire superstructure.
Never.
So they get him.
And what do they do?
Well, very simple.
Johnny Roselli is the link.
Giancana, they're all connected.
OSS, now CIA, working.
CIA works with these people.
They were going to do everything from poisoning his food to put something in his food to make his beard fall out and all this crap.
And what did they do to the mob?
What did they do?
What did they do?
They double-crossed him.
They double-crossed him with Bobby Kennedy.
Bobby Kennedy got John Kennedy killed.
Bobby Kennedy did.
Bobby Kennedy, Sinatra was furious.
Sam Giancana and Bobby and JFK screwed around with Judith Exner and the McGuire.
I don't know if he got the McGuire because that was Giancana.
Are you kidding me?
And right when they were going to go to see old man Kennedy, right when they were going to say, listen, you've got to get this guy, you've got to back him up, he had the stroke!
That was it.
Remember, you kill the dog by cutting off the head, not the tail.
And then, at that time, organized crime, military, mob, OSS, CIA, FBI, they all had one thing in common.
Get Kennedy.
Now how that breaks down?
Knock yourself out.
It's beautiful.
The history.
But what do we talk about?
Pauly getting hit at sparks.
How many times?
It's not that interesting.
That's not the interesting part.
That's not it.
And here's the best part.
The three groups of people, the three ethnicities that formed the initial aspects of organized crime, Jews, Irish, and Sicilians.
What do they have in common?
They were all oppressed.
The Jews, obviously.
The Irish, treated horribly.
And the Sicilians.
But the Jews immediately were the first to leave.
And they were there.
The tough guys were there.
Abe Gora Shapiro.
Longies Willman.
Oh my God.
Dutch Schultz.
Arthur Flegenheimer.
Oh my God.
Brilliant.
And Meyer Lansky, the king of the king of the king.
And the Irish, they became cops and politicians.
They got out of that.
Sicilians stayed around.
They loved it.
They loved it.
But listen to me right now.
The story that is the most important, the most interesting, that's good, with the Westies.
Right here in Hell's Kitchen.
Right here.
I don't know how many are still there.
There was never...
70s.
Probably got their heat.
Featherstone and Coonan.
T.J. English.
The book.
This is all right where we are.
Hell's Kitchen.
Right here.
There was nothing like that.
Nothing.
The best movie, State of Grace.
Gary Oldman and Sean Penn.
But Gary Oldman, Mickey Featherstone, oh God.
And Ed Harris was Coonan.
It was the best ever.
That's the story that Hollywood has yet to really touch.
And the best, Mike Sheehan, greatest NYPD cop, Mike Sheehan, Joe Coffey.
These were the greatest cops you would have Loved them.
If I brought them to your party, and did you just tell stories?
With that beautiful, beautiful New York, that classic New York bro.
You don't really hear it that much anymore.
You notice that, honey?
You don't hear New York accents like this.
They're dying off.
These were cops.
Cops.
And Mike Sheehan, oh my God.
He would tell me stories.
About the Westies?
Unbelievable.
That is the most fascinating.
The head.
I think it was the old Armstrongs.
They came in one night with a head, put it on the bar, buy my friend a drink, the hand they kept in the freezer.
All that's real.
All that stuff's real.
Now, do I love these people?
No.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
But they're fascinating.
The whole thing's fascinating.
Anyway.
So...
Oh, and by the way, The Sopranos does not do New Jersey organized crime.
Any kind of...
But you can see where The Sopranos live.
Holston's right there on Bloomfield Avenue.
Right there, still there.
Huh?
Broad Street.
Oh, that's right.
Broad Street, right.
But in...
See, she knows this.
Tony lived in the Caldwells, right?
Caldwell?
There's a look to this house that's still kind of there.
There it is.
It's a Tony Soprano house.
But the greatest organized crime, the greatest and the greatest and the greatest is the government.
The greatest.
The greatest.
The shadow government is better than...
This doesn't even...
And they would prefer you look at that.
Just look over there.
Those are the criminals, not us.
Okay, my friends.
I didn't say this, but I'm going to say it again to you right now.
Listen to me.
It's time for you to call my friend Mike Lindell.
Use the promo code Lionel.
MyPillow.com You know what they do.
You don't need me to tell you.
You don't need me to explain this to you.
You know what they do.
And if you love this show, and if you love us, and if you love what I do every single day from my heart, you're going to call.
You can call 800-645-4965.
800-645-4965.
Go to MyPillow.com and use the promo code Lionel.
And a week from today, at the cutting room, I'm not bragging.
I'm not a braggart.
I'm telling you.
Like the guns at Will Sonnet.
No brag, just fact.
Remember that?
Dak Rambo and Walter Brennan?
I love that show.
No brag, just fact.
I'm going to do something.
Nobody does.
It's not the...
No, no, no.
It's what's happening now.
And it's going to be almost an evangelical moment.
I will purge your mind.
I'm serious.
It's like a revival.
Please also go to Lynn's Warriors.
What she is doing right now.
We're going to talk one day.
We found out yesterday what they are doing in private schools.
Private schools.
Catholic schools.
You can't believe what kids are learning.
You can't believe.
I'm serious.
We'll talk about that.
We'll bring that to your attention.
Now let's leave with everybody telling me where you're from.
Where is everybody from?
Because I have two pillows.
Nalacious, thank you.
Bless you, journals.
A. Lewis, Faye Page, Suzanne.
Bethune.
Giza Sheets.
I like that one.
There's Bob Coltero.
Bob Coltero.
Laura Floyd, everybody.
The whole group's here.
We got Brenda Margaret.
Lion's Den Productions.
Sounds like a porn house, doesn't it?
Is it me?
Remember Leo the Lion?
Palos Verdes.
Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Look at this.
Look at this diaspora.
Look at the heterogeneity of these folks.
Verona, New Jersey.
Know it well.
Know it well.
San Antonio, Texas.
Stonington, or Stonington, Connecticut.
Genoa City.
Tahuya!
All right, my friends, we love you like you can't believe.
See you tomorrow.
Same bad time, same bad channel at 9 a.m. Eastern Time.
Until then, ta-ta!
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