five families and some funerals

a "B"
a "C"
2"Gs" and an "L"

Bonanno
Colombo
Gambino
Genevese
Lucchese

     Those are the names of the "Five Families" in organized crime (the Mafia -- la cosa nostra) in New York City in the 20th Century.

     (Yesterday I felt like I needed to memorize those five names so that I would know.  B, C, 2-Gs, and an L)




If I were going to try pronouncing Genovese, the way we were taught in Italian class, it would have four syllables:

Gen - oh - VAY - say.
     But the way I heard them say it in the videos and documentaries, it has three syllables:

Gen - oh - VEES.

     Maybe the pronunciation was modified for America, or just by habit and usage.



     On You Tube there is a documentary about "the real Sopranos."

     (The narrator has a British accent that is somewhat disconcerting, given the context.  We are up to our ears in Italian-American-East-Coast-urban accents.  The way they pronounce Bada Bing on The Sopranos, "bada" rhymes with lotta.

     This English guy pronounces it so it rhymes with atta-boy... "the Batta-Bing"...)



     Members of the New Jersey mob, in 1999, were watching this new TV series on HBO going, "Izz-at supposed to be us?!"

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     In one of the videos I watched on You Tube -- maybe "The Real Sopranos," I'm not sure -- a guy said in earlier times, 1930s to 1980s, it was really hard to get a mob member in custody to ever help authorities catch the other ones.  They would refuse to talk and just go to prison.  ("In the can" as the Sopranos characters say.)

     The oath, the omertà, the loyalty to one's fellow -- well -- thugs...had meaning, and they would take great pride in "not talking."  Not being "a rat."


     In the modern era, it is easier to get a mafia member to talk when they are apprehended.  The guy in the video said this is because -- compared with earlier times, when some of these mob people came from backgrounds where, "if they went to jail, it was actually an improvement" -- 

In more recent decades if someone gets arrested, they may have been raised in upper middle class surroundings, "driving their dad's luxury car since they were fifteen, grew up in a million dollar house" -- they very much don't want to do jail, so they are more willing to "turn state's evidence" -- give information to law enforcement.  They are like -- oath, schmoath.


     Is the syndicate becoming a victim of its success...?

____________________________

     That phone-to-in-person conversation / dialogue in the Pine Barrens episode is so classic -- it is all over the Internet....  it's people repeating stuff they heard that they don't know about, and also repeating it wrong.  (Was he listening?)  
     And one person doesn't understand the other...  They don' t know stuff and they keep pushing to get their goal anyway -- bluffing and punching their way through.


     When Paul Gaultieri and Christopher Moltisanti go looking for this Russian mobster, Paulie tries to fill the younger man in on U.S.-Soviet history:  "They put missiles in Cuba, and pointed 'em right at us!"
     Chrissy:  "That was real?...I saw the movie--"






LOL

They knock on the guy's door, the Russian lets them in.  Paulie examines his entertainment center, picking up a remote -- the Russian, who is extremely tall and somewhat drunk speaks from the chair he is slumped in, his tone weary and ominous:  "Put universal remote on docking station."


"What?"

"Put universal remote on docking station."

     This dialogue -- naturally -- leads to a broken remote and murderous hand-to-hand combat.  (Inevitable, right? -- ?!!!!?  These people cannot do anything!!  [Not to mention not knowing anything...Cuban Missile Crisis:  "That was real?"])




     Later when Christopher and Paulie have embarked on their odyssey into the frozen Pine Barrens, Tony Soprano calls on the cell phone.  His conversation with Paulie is muffled with crackle-and-hiss:  "It's a bad connection so I'm gonna talk fast!  The guy you're looking for is an ex-commando!  He killed sixteen Chechen rebels single-handed!  He was with the Interior Ministry."

Paulie tells Christopher:  "He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians.  Guy was an interior decorator."

lol
Dying. ...



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Sociopaths Inc.

     A couple of weeks ago, I was re-watching "The Sopranos" -- people leaving doors open, and saying "irregardless"...addressing problems with a baseball bat....

    ... The soaringly perfect, funny, absurdist, riveting "Pine Barrens" episode.
     (On the phone, talking about the Russian who Paulie and Christopher are searching for, Tony says to Paulie, "He killed 16 Chechen rebels, single-handed."  Paulie gets off the phone, says to Christopher, "He killed 16 Czechoslovakians"...)

     Like the last time I watched the series all through, again I start wondering / contemplating -- Why do people live like this?  It's crazy.  It's horrible.  Why?


     Because it's their tradition -- it's what they know.  They feel like part of a group, it's a community, they feel they are upholding and celebrating their Italian heritage -- within that framework they can feel pride and a sense of identity.





     Toward the end of the last season, the thought came to me -- what these people are searching for and creating for themselves, emotionally, is meaning.

     Not long after I thought that, Phil Leotardo, speaking about the oath they take, says -- "It either has meaning, or it doesn't have meaning."


     The characters are almost all personality-types where they have anger management issues, they get frustrated easily, take offense easily, and don't handle it like a grown-up -- they throw things.  It's ridiculous.  (In real life, if you threw things and smashed them on such a regular basis, you'd be always cleaning up -- it's crazy.)



     On You Tube is posted the clip where Tony Soprano and Christopher Moltisanti "clean up after Ralph" -- in the Comments:

~  The Sopranos make it seem like it's easy to get away with murder.

~  It's at least a lot easier in their position

~  nobody cries for people like ralph...

~  In New York City, in the early '70s, one of the five families had a civil war that actually lasted a couple of years.  The press, who gave it the title of "The Colombo Shoot Outs," was enjoying it because it sold copy like pulp fiction.  

The NYPD sat back and let it all happen, acting more like the Department of Sanitation than anything else, just getting rid of bodies and mopping up.  They looked at it more as the scum killing itself and were glad that it saved them the trouble of arrests, trials and prosecution.  


Their only concern was regular people getting caught in the crossfire as some of the hits happened on the city streets in broad daylight.

     Publicly, Mayor Lindsay had to act incensed, but he wasn't.  No one was.  When you say that no one cries for people like Ralph, you have no idea how right you are.


     I was just a little boy at the time, but there was so much mob activity in New York -- Luccheses with Lufthansa, the Genovese running the porn industry right on 42nd Street, et. al. -- that it couldn't be ignored.... 

Throw in films like the Godfather and the French Connection, not to mention blaxploitation and it was all pretty ubiquitous, even for a kid.



     It was only when those pieces of garbage started really shaking down big business that law enforcement started to move in.  Hence, all the real task forces came into being only in the mid and late '70s.  Even the original twin towers construction had to grease those bastards.

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all roads lead to Rome

     On You Tube, type in

Bewitched, Willie Mays

and play.


     (On this blog, it sometimes might seem like "all roads lead" to Bewitched.  
     Or to -- Bob Dylan....)


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Reader comments on NYT Willie Mays story --

raymond schulz
Kintnersville, Pennsylvania

Tuesday, August 7, 1956.  

Twi night doubleheader with the Phillies.  

My first major league game as a wide-eyed seven year old kid.  

We lost both ends of that doubleheader.  

Went into a state of mourning for a week.  

Our small group sat just to left of the left field foul pole, over that high wall.  Jackie Brandt was the rookie left fielder right under our eyes.  He was not our focus.  All seven of us kept chanting "Say, Hey, Say Hey".  After a number of those chants, number 24 took off his hat and waved at us....


Richard Katz
Tucson
Being a NY Yankees fan in the Bronx in the 1950s and 1960s I always argued that Mantle was better -- of course I was wrong.  We were blessed in NYC in those days in having Mantle, Mays and Snider playing center field in the same town.  We're rarely aware of how great things are until they're gone....


nyshrubbery
Brooklyn Heights
He likely would have surpassed Ruth for home runs if the Giants had not moved to San Francisco.  Candlestick Park was not a hitters' park, to say the least, in large part because of the climate.  

Candlestick Point had its own atmosphere; when the league checked it out for a ballpark site in the late 1950s, the city fathers were careful to give the tour early in the day, as conditions degraded quickly as the hours passed.  

I saw the Mets play an afternoon game there in 1985 with the knowledge that it could get cold.  Took a pullover sweater and a jacket, thinking I'd never need either -- it's 82 degrees.  Fifth inning, on goes the sweater.  8th inning, on goes the jacket.  Extra innings, 6 p.m. and I'm freezing.



B. Rupic
nara / greensville
that's called character building, innit?  i knew it was famously not hitter friendly....

___________________________
_____________________________

     I saw the "Bewitched" episode with Willie Mays in it when I was a child.  Samantha greeted him with "Say hey, Willie!" and I noticed that, I thought she was saying "Say hey" just because it was the Sixties and she was -- hip.  I didn't realize "Say hey" was a Willie Mays thing.
     Now, I get it.

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say hey

Reader Comments on the New York Times' Willie Mays article, continued...
-----------------------------------------

Greg Hart
Tucson, Arizona
As a young boy growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I watched and listened to Willie Mays playing baseball every chance I got.  

I imitated his stance, his style, only wore his number 24 if I could choose, and perfected (in my own mind) the basket catch.  

He opened up a place of joy, possibility and thrill within me that still exists six decades later.  Say hey, Willie!



Doctor Woo
Orange, New Jersey
When I was a kid all my friends were Mantle & Yankee fans.  Not me .. Willie Mays was tops for me.  Ruth was the greatest ever.  But Mays was the best ballplayer.  Ted Williams said so too, and he would know.  

Speculation is always tricky esp with Baseball.  

But had he not played in Candlestick he would have almost certainly hit over 700 homers.  It is very true about the wind at that Park.  I went there once later on & saw McCovey hit a shot that was well on its way out.  But it stopped dead high in the air and came straight down.  

Willie Mays always seemed to be having fun when playing, and always had that great smile.


Fact Finder
Flagstaff, Arizona
When I was a kid, my family spent a week at the Nevele in the Catskills.  Willie Mays was there one afternoon to sign autographs and shake hands.  I got both, an autograph and a handshake.  

I still have the first and did not wash the second until the next day.  This was the closest I have ever come to greatness.  I will always remember his kindness and grace.



Bay Area 101
Midwest
I walked with a friend to Mr. Mays' home one afternoon in the early 1960s.  We simply wanted to wish Mr. Mays luck in a game starting in a few hours.  Mr. Mays answered his door, and he thanked us for coming.  Pure class, and gratefully remembered by this fan of the era.


Paul Cado
Yukon, Canada
...He was always a class act and wonderful to watch.

Don
Bainbridge Island, Washington
I was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, so Willie was one of the 'enemy'.  But even then, against the grain of my devotion to my team, I could appreciate what a wonderful player he was.  

I was unaware that the Red Sox passed on him, but sadly it does not surprise me.  

He's become as outstanding an ambassador for the game's brighter side as he was a player.  I am putting that book on my list.



Steven
Hana, Hawaii
Great article.  When I was 8 my dad took me to see the Giants play the Dodgers at Candlestick, on September 9, 1961 - my first baseball game ever.  The Giants beat the Dodgers 9 to 6; Mays went 4 for 5, including 3 RBI's and a home run.  I remain convinced that Willie Mays was the best player to ever play the game of baseball.


James Destiche
Los Angeles
My favorite all time player.  Stayed up all night when I was a kid and read his life story.  Remember his famous basket catch?  I do.

mrpotatoheadnot
New York
of course we remember the catch. we catch that way ever since.

B. Rupic
Nara / Greensville
I can remember Mays being criticized for showboating--as in fundamentals.  also kids being told not to copy him.





Ken Rabin
Warsaw
I just sent this to my kids.  Great Photo.  When I played Little League and Pony League my fielder's glove was a Wilson Willie Mays signature model.  The catch he made off Vic Wertz at the Polo Grounds in the '54 World Series is a black and white TV clip I can always replay in my mind's eye.


Mike in New Mexico
Angel Fire, NM
I was a kid in Cleveland during the 1954 World Series.  The Indians were favored... until that incredible catch by Willie Mays of a 450 ft drive by Vic Wertz.  This play broke the back of the Indians, to my dismay, and the Giants went on to win all four games.



JohnA
Bar Harbor, Maine
I have been to ONE professional baseball game in my life.  I got to see Willie Mays play for San Francisco in Candlestick Park.  Who could ever need to see another game??  Bless you Mr. Mays, you were and are a wonder!

McLibby
Stonington, Connecticut & Isle of Coll, UK
When I was four, in 1954, my father was watching the New York Giants play on TV, and I was watching too.  Willy Mays came up to bat.  "Say 'hit a home run, Willy,'" my father said.  I did and he did.  He's been my favorite baseball player ever since.


Aristotle
SOCAL
Loved him as a player, though never when he batted against my then-favorite team.  Still, I give a slight edge of "Hammerin" Hank Aaron as far as being the greatest player alive today.  Inconsequential though it may be.


Jean Marque
Paris
Those were the days.  Say Hey!


Jim 
Incline Village, Nevada
I grew up in the early 60s near LA, in awe of Sandy, Don, Ron, Maury, Tommy, Willie, Jimmy, Jeff and Junior. ...I miss the Polo Grounds and Ebbets.  



But Willie Mays was ALWAYS my hero.  

He transcended so many things - and still does today.  

People do not understand how important he was to the game.  And life.


Donald Seberger
Libertyville, Illinois
For my money, Say Hey Willie Mays is the greatest and purest baseball player of all time.  I was lucky enough to see him play in Wrigley field several times.  He did it all.  He hit for average and power, ran the bases with speed and daring, and was grace in motion in centerfield.  

He played with a rare combination of swagger, unmatched skill, respect for fundamentals, intelligence, and pure joy.  Happy Birthday Willie and thank you for so many childhood memories.







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