A Chicago city worker fired for being AWOL from his water department job was charged Tuesday with lying to federal agents in the government's two-year investigation of Chicago's corruption-plagued Hired Truck Program. Frank Cannatello, 30, of Chicago became the forty-third person charged in the investigation that recently has branched out to include alleged city hiring fraud by Mayor Richard M. Daley's former patronage chief and other political operatives.
The Hired Truck Program, which cost taxpayers $38 million at its peak two years ago, was designed to save money by allowing the city to outsource its hauling work to private truckers. Prosecutors say the program has been awash in payoff money and fraud. Some of the companies that got sizable payouts through the program are tied to the mob.
Cannatello was charged with one count of lying to federal agents Dec. 14 when he said he had nothing to do with FRC Trucking Co., which made $187,000 in Hired Truck payments in three years. Ownership of the now dissolved company was listed to a female relative. Prosecutors said Cannatello helped to organize and operate the company. A message seeking comment was left Tuesday at the office of Cannatello's lawyer, Richard Jalovec.
Among other things, prosecutors said Cannatello asked another city worker, Randy Aderman, to help FRC get city hauling work and Aderman did so through the water department. Aderman already has been charged in the investigation along with former city Clerk James Laski. Aderman appeared for arraignment before U.S. District Judge Charles R. Norgle Sr. on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty. Norgle set a status hearing in the case for March 13.
Cannatello's cousin, John Canatello, 60, of suburban Palos Park and Marco Island, Fla., was sentenced Jan. 19 to 27 months in federal prison, fined $14,000 and ordered to forfeit $100,000 for taking part in a payoff scheme to get Hired Truck business for another trucking company.
Frank Cannatello was among nine employees fired by the city water department on orders from Daley last June after it was discovered that they had been electronically logged in at their jobs at the city's Jardine Filtration Plant when in fact they were elsewhere. Officials said a two-month review of security tapes showed the employees had used each other's identification cards to make it appear that they were working when they were not.
Another former water department employee fired last June and now indicted along with Laski and Aderman is John Briatta, who is the brother-in-law of Cook County Commissioner John Daley -- the mayor's brother. Briatta, who is to be arraigned before Norgle on Thursday, is charged with accepting payoffs from Aderman in exchange for Hired Truck Program assignments.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Sunday, February 19, 2006
No Mafia Princess: 'Sopranos' Star Falco Likes to Shake Things Up
Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family
In the intense "Freedomland," in which a missing boy, prejudice and the police collide, Edie Falco is practically unrecognizable. Her Carmela of "The Sopranos" is gone. In the film, Falco plays Karen Collucci, a missing-child advocate who helps Julianne Moore's anguished mother. "I looked different because that's what was decided upon," she said about her black wig and absence of makeup. "I had very little to say about it, but I was happy for it."
Falco has much to be happy about these days. Last year's battle with cancer found this private person resigned to living a public life. "There is really nothing that has happened to me that hasn't happened to a lot of other people," she said during a one-on-one interview. "So it's not like it's so earth-shattering. There's nothing in my life that I'm ashamed of, and there's nothing in my life that I care all that much about people knowing about because it's just a life, just another life."
Having adopted a baby boy, now nearly 14 months old, Falco is happily surprised at how well at age 42 she has adapted to motherhood. "I never actually thought that I would be a mom, and then it became sort of a thing in the last number of years. I just knew that it was time," she said. "I didn't know what I'd be like. I think that we all have an innate ability to raise children; you don't have to read all the books and listen to all the advice. Under the best circumstances, it's pretty natural."
As for her final months as Carmela Soprano, Falco said, "We're all in denial, first of all. But we've got a long way to go before we're down to the last few. We've been filming the last year, and we have another year to go."
Even her mother can't pry any plot revelations out of her. But Falco admits it is amazing that a show as phenomenally popular as "Sopranos" can keep its secrets until airtime. "I can't say I know why we've been so lucky - omerta," Falco said then laughed, referring to the mafia code of silence - or death. "For the most part, we've been able to keep stuff secret, and I think that's been part of the fun of watching the show, that very much like real life a lot of this stuff is very surprising."
Karen in "Freedomland" is a small role, but it is a chance to let people forget about Carmela - at least temporarily. "You know, there's a lot of good and bad stuff that comes with notoriety," Falco said. "Perhaps a lot of people would want to stick to roles like that knowing that they have had success. But that is entirely uninteresting to me. I'm in this business for my own reasons, and most of them are pretty selfish. I happen to really enjoy getting to be a lot of different people."
A late bloomer, Falco has had a bounty with "Sopranos." She's won three SAG Awards, two Golden Globes and three Emmys, starred on Broadway in hit revivals of " 'night, Mother" and "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune," and won praise in John Sayles' "Sunshine State."
"I love everything about acting. I hate to be that person, but I really do love it so much. The fame is very hard because I wasn't cut out for it," she said. "It wasn't part of my game plan. What I miss most of all is wandering anonymously through the city."
Thanks to Stephen Schaefer
In the intense "Freedomland," in which a missing boy, prejudice and the police collide, Edie Falco is practically unrecognizable. Her Carmela of "The Sopranos" is gone. In the film, Falco plays Karen Collucci, a missing-child advocate who helps Julianne Moore's anguished mother. "I looked different because that's what was decided upon," she said about her black wig and absence of makeup. "I had very little to say about it, but I was happy for it."Falco has much to be happy about these days. Last year's battle with cancer found this private person resigned to living a public life. "There is really nothing that has happened to me that hasn't happened to a lot of other people," she said during a one-on-one interview. "So it's not like it's so earth-shattering. There's nothing in my life that I'm ashamed of, and there's nothing in my life that I care all that much about people knowing about because it's just a life, just another life."
Having adopted a baby boy, now nearly 14 months old, Falco is happily surprised at how well at age 42 she has adapted to motherhood. "I never actually thought that I would be a mom, and then it became sort of a thing in the last number of years. I just knew that it was time," she said. "I didn't know what I'd be like. I think that we all have an innate ability to raise children; you don't have to read all the books and listen to all the advice. Under the best circumstances, it's pretty natural."
As for her final months as Carmela Soprano, Falco said, "We're all in denial, first of all. But we've got a long way to go before we're down to the last few. We've been filming the last year, and we have another year to go."
Even her mother can't pry any plot revelations out of her. But Falco admits it is amazing that a show as phenomenally popular as "Sopranos" can keep its secrets until airtime. "I can't say I know why we've been so lucky - omerta," Falco said then laughed, referring to the mafia code of silence - or death. "For the most part, we've been able to keep stuff secret, and I think that's been part of the fun of watching the show, that very much like real life a lot of this stuff is very surprising."
Karen in "Freedomland" is a small role, but it is a chance to let people forget about Carmela - at least temporarily. "You know, there's a lot of good and bad stuff that comes with notoriety," Falco said. "Perhaps a lot of people would want to stick to roles like that knowing that they have had success. But that is entirely uninteresting to me. I'm in this business for my own reasons, and most of them are pretty selfish. I happen to really enjoy getting to be a lot of different people."
A late bloomer, Falco has had a bounty with "Sopranos." She's won three SAG Awards, two Golden Globes and three Emmys, starred on Broadway in hit revivals of " 'night, Mother" and "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune," and won praise in John Sayles' "Sunshine State."
"I love everything about acting. I hate to be that person, but I really do love it so much. The fame is very hard because I wasn't cut out for it," she said. "It wasn't part of my game plan. What I miss most of all is wandering anonymously through the city."
Thanks to Stephen Schaefer
Friday, February 17, 2006
New York, Ready For Another Gotti Trial?
Friends of ours: Junior Gotti
The son of late mob boss John Gotti returned to court Tuesday for retrial on racketeering charges that include a violent plot to kidnap Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa. A jury last fall acquitted John A. "Junior" Gotti of securities fraud but deadlocked on more serious racketeering counts, leading to the retrial.
Jury selection started Tuesday with the judge announcing that 71 prospective jurors among 250 who filled out questionnaires were disqualified. Others were to be questioned the rest of the week to determine whether they might qualify. Opening statements were scheduled to begin next week.
Gotti seemed almost in the clear last fall when U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin considered if the mistrial should be an acquittal because the jury failed to find Gotti had committed at least two related acts of racketeering. Instead, she ordered a retrial on charges that he ordered a botched 1992 plot to abduct Sliwa. Gotti has been under house arrest on $7 million bond since September.
Prosecutors say Gotti, 41, wanted to retaliate against Sliwa for his on-air rants against Gotti's father. Sliwa was shot but recovered and resumed his radio work. He also testified at the trial. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld Scheindlin's ruling. Lawyers have said one juror stood in the way of Gotti's conviction in the case.
A conviction could put Gotti in prison for up to 30 years. He turned down a plea deal that would have meant serving seven years of a 10-year sentence. In an interview in the New York Post, Gotti said his wife is expecting their sixth child and told him if he took the plea deal: "'If you do it, we're through. We need you in this house."'
Gotti, whose father was sentenced to life in prison in 1992 and died there 10 years later, told the Post he was confident he would be vindicated. "We're not going for a mistrial this time," he said. "We're going for an acquittal."
The son of late mob boss John Gotti returned to court Tuesday for retrial on racketeering charges that include a violent plot to kidnap Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa. A jury last fall acquitted John A. "Junior" Gotti of securities fraud but deadlocked on more serious racketeering counts, leading to the retrial.
Jury selection started Tuesday with the judge announcing that 71 prospective jurors among 250 who filled out questionnaires were disqualified. Others were to be questioned the rest of the week to determine whether they might qualify. Opening statements were scheduled to begin next week.
Gotti seemed almost in the clear last fall when U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin considered if the mistrial should be an acquittal because the jury failed to find Gotti had committed at least two related acts of racketeering. Instead, she ordered a retrial on charges that he ordered a botched 1992 plot to abduct Sliwa. Gotti has been under house arrest on $7 million bond since September.
Prosecutors say Gotti, 41, wanted to retaliate against Sliwa for his on-air rants against Gotti's father. Sliwa was shot but recovered and resumed his radio work. He also testified at the trial. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld Scheindlin's ruling. Lawyers have said one juror stood in the way of Gotti's conviction in the case.
A conviction could put Gotti in prison for up to 30 years. He turned down a plea deal that would have meant serving seven years of a 10-year sentence. In an interview in the New York Post, Gotti said his wife is expecting their sixth child and told him if he took the plea deal: "'If you do it, we're through. We need you in this house."'
Gotti, whose father was sentenced to life in prison in 1992 and died there 10 years later, told the Post he was confident he would be vindicated. "We're not going for a mistrial this time," he said. "We're going for an acquittal."
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Gangstas Hip to Mafia Rap
Friends of ours: Al Capone, John Gotti
The rap sheets say it all. They've got the body count and the prison cred, the bootlicking posses and the adoring wanna-bes. They drive luxurious cars and flash wads of cash.
Gangsta rappers share a lot of similarities with La Cosa Nostra, and last Sunday the hip-hop hoodlums displayed yet another dreadful trait they share with the Mafia. After Busta Rhymes' bodyguard was shot dead in Brooklyn just feet from some of the biggest names in hip hop - including 50 Cent, DMX and Mary J. Blige - the rappers and their pals refused to talk to the NYPD in their own version of omerta.
Rhymes pledged to get justice for the family of his hired muscle, Israel Ramirez, a 29-year-old father of three. But so far his vow doesn't include cooperating with cops.
"Certainly when you look at Al Capone ... there is a connection there, a bond with hip hop," said hip-hop expert and author Kevin Powell. "The hip-hop community has always had some sort of [Mafia] connection because ... it was created by working class, poor blacks and Latinos in New York," Powell said.
"The Mafia was poor, working class. There is definitely a parallel existence between people marginalized, on the fringe of society, who want to make it - by any means necessary." That comparison has been encouraged for years by rappers and record producers who hope to capitalize on the notorious reputations of mobsters.
John Gotti, the late head of the Gambino crime family, has been canonized in many rap songs. Hip-hop mogul Irving (Irv Gotti) Lorenzo, the founder of Murder Inc. records, even adopted the Dapper Don's last name.
Snoop Dogg has called himself The Doggfather, Biggie Smalls fronted the Junior Mafia and Lil' Kim recorded "La Belle Mafia." And all the big-shot rappers surround themselves with a family - huge gangs who supposedly pride themselves on their loyalty and toughness. A shooting last year outside the Hudson St. studio of the radio station Hot 97 was blamed on a dispute between the posses of rappers 50 Cent and The Game.
"Certainly, if you look at African-Americans and Latinos, there's a loyalty to one community," Powell said. "I've interviewed Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Ice T, and they always had people they surrounded themselves with." But experts say the rappers' desire to pass themselves off as a modern-day Mafia falls short.
"The simple thing is, the hip-hop community emulates what they believe organized crime is," said Murray Richman, an attorney who has represented members of all five of New York's major crime families as well as rappers, including Jay-Z and DMX.
"It's wishful thinking on their part. They are emulating what never really existed. It is life imitating art," Richman said. "I do see similarities. The poverty aspect, coming up from an ethnically identifiable group. But in reality, that is armchair social work. "Their glamorization of the Mafia through names like Capone and Gotti is an emulation of a criminal culture, not an ethnic culture."
Gerald Shargel, a lawyer who has defended both John Gotti and Irv Gotti (Lorenzo), agreed. "As far as the violence is concerned, I don't see any similarity to traditional organized crime," he said. "In the hip-hop world, it just doesn't seem to have a common plan. The violence that you read about is like something out of the Wild West, a dispute. It's action and retaliation."
By contrast, the violence so idolized in Mafia movies was always considered "just business," a way to protect money-making interests - and power, said Powell. "That's the huge difference," he argued. "The Mafia had and has immense power. The hip-hop community does not.
"Look at the shooting last week, or any other hip-hop shooting. It's over an argument. There's no trace of controlling a power base or any kind of territory.
"One was real life, ultimately about power and control. The other is certainly real in terms of people getting killed and going to jail, but it's rooted in the entertainment industry."
Thanks to Adam Nichols
The rap sheets say it all. They've got the body count and the prison cred, the bootlicking posses and the adoring wanna-bes. They drive luxurious cars and flash wads of cash.
Gangsta rappers share a lot of similarities with La Cosa Nostra, and last Sunday the hip-hop hoodlums displayed yet another dreadful trait they share with the Mafia. After Busta Rhymes' bodyguard was shot dead in Brooklyn just feet from some of the biggest names in hip hop - including 50 Cent, DMX and Mary J. Blige - the rappers and their pals refused to talk to the NYPD in their own version of omerta.
Rhymes pledged to get justice for the family of his hired muscle, Israel Ramirez, a 29-year-old father of three. But so far his vow doesn't include cooperating with cops.
"Certainly when you look at Al Capone ... there is a connection there, a bond with hip hop," said hip-hop expert and author Kevin Powell. "The hip-hop community has always had some sort of [Mafia] connection because ... it was created by working class, poor blacks and Latinos in New York," Powell said.
"The Mafia was poor, working class. There is definitely a parallel existence between people marginalized, on the fringe of society, who want to make it - by any means necessary." That comparison has been encouraged for years by rappers and record producers who hope to capitalize on the notorious reputations of mobsters.
John Gotti, the late head of the Gambino crime family, has been canonized in many rap songs. Hip-hop mogul Irving (Irv Gotti) Lorenzo, the founder of Murder Inc. records, even adopted the Dapper Don's last name.
Snoop Dogg has called himself The Doggfather, Biggie Smalls fronted the Junior Mafia and Lil' Kim recorded "La Belle Mafia." And all the big-shot rappers surround themselves with a family - huge gangs who supposedly pride themselves on their loyalty and toughness. A shooting last year outside the Hudson St. studio of the radio station Hot 97 was blamed on a dispute between the posses of rappers 50 Cent and The Game.
"Certainly, if you look at African-Americans and Latinos, there's a loyalty to one community," Powell said. "I've interviewed Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Ice T, and they always had people they surrounded themselves with." But experts say the rappers' desire to pass themselves off as a modern-day Mafia falls short.
"The simple thing is, the hip-hop community emulates what they believe organized crime is," said Murray Richman, an attorney who has represented members of all five of New York's major crime families as well as rappers, including Jay-Z and DMX.
"It's wishful thinking on their part. They are emulating what never really existed. It is life imitating art," Richman said. "I do see similarities. The poverty aspect, coming up from an ethnically identifiable group. But in reality, that is armchair social work. "Their glamorization of the Mafia through names like Capone and Gotti is an emulation of a criminal culture, not an ethnic culture."
Gerald Shargel, a lawyer who has defended both John Gotti and Irv Gotti (Lorenzo), agreed. "As far as the violence is concerned, I don't see any similarity to traditional organized crime," he said. "In the hip-hop world, it just doesn't seem to have a common plan. The violence that you read about is like something out of the Wild West, a dispute. It's action and retaliation."
By contrast, the violence so idolized in Mafia movies was always considered "just business," a way to protect money-making interests - and power, said Powell. "That's the huge difference," he argued. "The Mafia had and has immense power. The hip-hop community does not.
"Look at the shooting last week, or any other hip-hop shooting. It's over an argument. There's no trace of controlling a power base or any kind of territory.
"One was real life, ultimately about power and control. The other is certainly real in terms of people getting killed and going to jail, but it's rooted in the entertainment industry."
Thanks to Adam Nichols
Just When He thought He was Out.....
Friends of mine: Donnie Brasco
Joe Pistone is buttressed by drywall in a corner of a mostly empty upstairs dining area at Gene & Georgetti Italian Steakhouse on North Franklin. He likes it here, feels safe. And well he should. Not only does the tucked-away nook offer fine protection from sneak attacks, but his thespian pal Leo Rossi, seated in harm's way near the room's entrance, is sure to get popped first in the event that some Frank Nitti wannabe shows up with heat a-blazin' and itchy digits. This is a comforting thought.
"I learned this a long time ago when I palled around with Joe," says Rossi, a veteran of more than 60 films, several of them (such as "Analyze This
") mob-centric. "We went into a restaurant, about six people. So I sit down and [Joe] goes, 'Get up.' I go, 'What?' He says, 'Get up.' He's gotta have the seat by the wall."
That's what happens when the Mafia wants you whacked. After six years of brilliant undercover work for the FBI, after infiltrating New York's Bonanno crime family as jewel thief Donnie Brasco and almost becoming a made man, Pistone revealed his true identity, testified at trial after trial and helped send scores of his former associates (some of whom treated him like kin) to the joint. His adventures became a best-selling book, Donnie Brasco
: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, which became a hit movie starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. Pistone's heroics, revealed like never before, made him famous. And infamous. The sorest of sore losers, La Cosa Nostra types marked him for death -- the lousy, lying, rat-bastard fink. The price on his head, half a mil, still stands.
Pistone, however, doesn't sweat it. A trim and amiable man in his 60s, he sometimes wears sunglasses and a hat indoors. He lives in an undisclosed location and guards his privacy when not engaged in show-biz PR, as he is today. But that's about all. Paranoia serves no purpose. Besides, he says between bites of lip-slicingly crusty bread dunked in olive oil, "They got other things they're worrying about. They ain't worrying about me, believe me. They may worry about him" -- he points at Rossi -- "because he's playing me, but that's not my problem! That's not my problem!" They laugh. If Rossi is nervous, he masks it well. Acting!
"You know what you worry about?" says Pistone, whose middle initial 'D' does not stand for 'Danger' but could, given his extensive record of nabbing bad guys (the baddest) in America and abroad. "You worry about a cowboy, somebody that thinks they're gonna make a name for himself. That's what you worry about. You don't worry about, you know, the professional."
In town with Rossi and Oscar-nominated screenwriter-director Bobby Moresco ("Crash") to stage a one-man, one-act play called "The Way of the Wiseguy," Pistone is on hand for script-tweaking and to make sure Rossi, who plays him more broadly than Depp (partly because live theater demands it), stays true to character. The multimedia experience, sculpted in Burbank and New York throughout much of last year, premieres on Valentine's Day at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts. Adapted from Pistone's 2004 book of the same name, it is brimming with Mafia wit and wisdom gleaned during Pistone's Brasco stint in the '70s and early '80s.
Between bites of penne pasta and chicken parm, they talk up their venture and bust each other's chops. Rossi yaps the most (he's very good at it), followed by Moresco and then Pistone, who probably wouldn't yap much at all if these two, his creative cohorts, his paisans, didn't goad him into elocuting. Then again, that's part of the reason he's wearing comfy kicks instead of cement shoes -- he doesn't run off at the mouth.
When Pistone was Brasco, organized crime had already begun to spiral downward. These days, some experts say, it's more like disorganized crime or reorganized crime -- a shadowy shadow of its former self. "They don't have the power and the control they had," says Casino author Nicholas Pileggi. "The bad guys have pretty much been done away with on different levels, and the newer guys, they just don't have the ability to corrupt the way [their predecessors] did. I don't mean there [aren't] any. They just don't look long-term."
Pistone agrees. "The younger generation [of mobsters] is just like the citizen generation. 'Me.' 'I want it now, and I don't wanna wait.' What's the best way you make money now? Drugs. And it all caved in."
In Chicago, land of Capone, Accardo and Giancana, ruthless thugs all, the mob (better known locally as the "Outfit") is still kicking, if more figuratively than literally. Wayne Johnson, a retired policeman and chief investigator for the Chicago Crime Commission, knows this better than most. "It's not the 'Mafia,'" he explains, careful to draw a distinction between New York's mostly Italian "patrimonial" system and Chicago's more diverse bureaucratic one, "but they still do what they do. They still have their gambling, they still have their social clubs, and they're embedded in legitimate business. They're just not having the shooting war they used to have. They got smarter." Dearth of tommy guns and broad daylight slayings aside, "I think it's more dangerous than it ever was because of the political inner workings," Johnson says. "And it costs people millions of dollars. But when it's in the shadows, nobody knows about it."
Well, not nobody. But it's a good bet more of us know what Tony Soprano uttered in his last therapy session than know where and when "Big Paulie" Castellano got clipped (in case you're wondering, it was on East 46th Street in Manhattan during a pre-Christmas shopping rush). And why? Because we're steeped in fakes. On screens big and small, on the stage and on the page, make-believe mobsters abound.
And unlike their real-life counterparts, they rarely bore. From "Goodfellas" and "The Sopranos" to "Donnie Brasco" and "The Godfather," mob fiction offers relentlessly snappy dialogue ("Leave the gun, take the cannoli," "Do I amuse you?"), flashy violence (Sonny Corleone murdered at the toll booth) and on occasion, insightful culinary tips (Ray Liotta in "Goodfellas": "Paulie ... had a system for doing garlic. He used a razor and he sliced it so thin, it used to liquify in the pan with a little oil.")
"We've kind of put them on a pedestal," Johnson says of Hollywoodized wiseguys. "Go sit through a couple of days of hearings on [convicted mob loan shark] Frank Calabrese [Sr.] -- you're not gonna see anything entertaining about him. He's a nasty individual who's committed some heinous crimes. They'll never be building a show around Frank Calabrese."
"It's the way they live," says Pileggi of the reasoning behind America's insatiable appetite for all things mobby. "They get up at 11 o'clock in the morning. Most of them have girlfriends, they gamble, they drink, they have a good time, they live in a period of perpetual adolescence. They have not been housebroken."
They are, in short, the raw id that most folks keep caged, the rebels to our conformists, the whoopin', ropin' ranchers to our desk-bound city slickers. "But if you hang around for the third act," Pileggi says, "you will be happy you are who you are, because it's the third act where the dues are paid."
That, in a walnut shell, describes "The Way of the Wiseguy." By building up and cutting down, by showing actions and consequences, Moresco, et al., hope to find some deeper meaning amid the wacky nicknames and the scattered F-bombs and the utterly moronic malapropisms.
"Oh, how they mangle the King's English," Rossi says, grinning. "We have a thing where we say, 'Left [Lefty Ruggiero, a mob hitman] was gonna build a club in Miami. He told me he wanted the place ornated. He told me to call an architecture.' "
"And that's legit dialogue," says Pistone, whose phone conversations with Ruggiero, his prime conduit to the underworld way back when, are re-enacted throughout the play courtesy of FBI phone tap transcripts.
"Another day," Rossi-as-Pistone resumes, "he came in all upset because a Hare Krishna tried to divert him."
"And I mean, ooh, the nicknames!" Rossi exclaims, gaining steam. "You got Sonny Red, Two-Finger White and Jimmy Blue -- very patriotic. Frankie the Nose, big one. Jimmy Legs, long ones. Willie Smokes and Joey Burns. Arsonists! Armand the Bug, Ronnie the Rat, Tony Roach and Sal the Snake -- exterminators, not bugs. Joey Half-a-Ball -- you don't wanna know. Lead Pipe Pete, Tony the Hatchet and Betty the Butcher -- you still don't wanna know."
While the play is rife with such lowbrow laugh lines, a deeper reality invariably swaggers forth and (per Pistone) "smacks ya." Evildoers get their comeuppance, one in particular via meat hook. And Pistone, the white-hatted tough guy who survives against seemingly insurmountable odds to tell his tale, finally reveals some psychic wounds he has long kept hidden.
"Part of the tragedy is that you got a guy like Pistone, who has been asked to give his life to something," Moresco says. "And he gives that life, and in giving it, something's been taken from him, and he never wants to admit it."
Even for a street-hardened Jersey boy, being one of them took its toll, a toll Pistone has hinted at in his books but never fully fleshed out for public consumption. "It's a lot of stuff that I just [didn't] wanna reveal to anybody," he says, mum on spoiler specifics, "but they [Rossi and Moresco] convinced me that this is how we're gonna make it work."
Ultimately, though, he convinced himself. Joe Pistone doesn't spill beans unless he wants to.
Thanks to Mike Thomas
Joe Pistone is buttressed by drywall in a corner of a mostly empty upstairs dining area at Gene & Georgetti Italian Steakhouse on North Franklin. He likes it here, feels safe. And well he should. Not only does the tucked-away nook offer fine protection from sneak attacks, but his thespian pal Leo Rossi, seated in harm's way near the room's entrance, is sure to get popped first in the event that some Frank Nitti wannabe shows up with heat a-blazin' and itchy digits. This is a comforting thought.
"I learned this a long time ago when I palled around with Joe," says Rossi, a veteran of more than 60 films, several of them (such as "Analyze This
") mob-centric. "We went into a restaurant, about six people. So I sit down and [Joe] goes, 'Get up.' I go, 'What?' He says, 'Get up.' He's gotta have the seat by the wall."That's what happens when the Mafia wants you whacked. After six years of brilliant undercover work for the FBI, after infiltrating New York's Bonanno crime family as jewel thief Donnie Brasco and almost becoming a made man, Pistone revealed his true identity, testified at trial after trial and helped send scores of his former associates (some of whom treated him like kin) to the joint. His adventures became a best-selling book, Donnie Brasco
: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, which became a hit movie starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. Pistone's heroics, revealed like never before, made him famous. And infamous. The sorest of sore losers, La Cosa Nostra types marked him for death -- the lousy, lying, rat-bastard fink. The price on his head, half a mil, still stands.Pistone, however, doesn't sweat it. A trim and amiable man in his 60s, he sometimes wears sunglasses and a hat indoors. He lives in an undisclosed location and guards his privacy when not engaged in show-biz PR, as he is today. But that's about all. Paranoia serves no purpose. Besides, he says between bites of lip-slicingly crusty bread dunked in olive oil, "They got other things they're worrying about. They ain't worrying about me, believe me. They may worry about him" -- he points at Rossi -- "because he's playing me, but that's not my problem! That's not my problem!" They laugh. If Rossi is nervous, he masks it well. Acting!
"You know what you worry about?" says Pistone, whose middle initial 'D' does not stand for 'Danger' but could, given his extensive record of nabbing bad guys (the baddest) in America and abroad. "You worry about a cowboy, somebody that thinks they're gonna make a name for himself. That's what you worry about. You don't worry about, you know, the professional."
In town with Rossi and Oscar-nominated screenwriter-director Bobby Moresco ("Crash") to stage a one-man, one-act play called "The Way of the Wiseguy," Pistone is on hand for script-tweaking and to make sure Rossi, who plays him more broadly than Depp (partly because live theater demands it), stays true to character. The multimedia experience, sculpted in Burbank and New York throughout much of last year, premieres on Valentine's Day at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts. Adapted from Pistone's 2004 book of the same name, it is brimming with Mafia wit and wisdom gleaned during Pistone's Brasco stint in the '70s and early '80s.
Between bites of penne pasta and chicken parm, they talk up their venture and bust each other's chops. Rossi yaps the most (he's very good at it), followed by Moresco and then Pistone, who probably wouldn't yap much at all if these two, his creative cohorts, his paisans, didn't goad him into elocuting. Then again, that's part of the reason he's wearing comfy kicks instead of cement shoes -- he doesn't run off at the mouth.
When Pistone was Brasco, organized crime had already begun to spiral downward. These days, some experts say, it's more like disorganized crime or reorganized crime -- a shadowy shadow of its former self. "They don't have the power and the control they had," says Casino author Nicholas Pileggi. "The bad guys have pretty much been done away with on different levels, and the newer guys, they just don't have the ability to corrupt the way [their predecessors] did. I don't mean there [aren't] any. They just don't look long-term."
Pistone agrees. "The younger generation [of mobsters] is just like the citizen generation. 'Me.' 'I want it now, and I don't wanna wait.' What's the best way you make money now? Drugs. And it all caved in."
In Chicago, land of Capone, Accardo and Giancana, ruthless thugs all, the mob (better known locally as the "Outfit") is still kicking, if more figuratively than literally. Wayne Johnson, a retired policeman and chief investigator for the Chicago Crime Commission, knows this better than most. "It's not the 'Mafia,'" he explains, careful to draw a distinction between New York's mostly Italian "patrimonial" system and Chicago's more diverse bureaucratic one, "but they still do what they do. They still have their gambling, they still have their social clubs, and they're embedded in legitimate business. They're just not having the shooting war they used to have. They got smarter." Dearth of tommy guns and broad daylight slayings aside, "I think it's more dangerous than it ever was because of the political inner workings," Johnson says. "And it costs people millions of dollars. But when it's in the shadows, nobody knows about it."
Well, not nobody. But it's a good bet more of us know what Tony Soprano uttered in his last therapy session than know where and when "Big Paulie" Castellano got clipped (in case you're wondering, it was on East 46th Street in Manhattan during a pre-Christmas shopping rush). And why? Because we're steeped in fakes. On screens big and small, on the stage and on the page, make-believe mobsters abound.
And unlike their real-life counterparts, they rarely bore. From "Goodfellas" and "The Sopranos" to "Donnie Brasco" and "The Godfather," mob fiction offers relentlessly snappy dialogue ("Leave the gun, take the cannoli," "Do I amuse you?"), flashy violence (Sonny Corleone murdered at the toll booth) and on occasion, insightful culinary tips (Ray Liotta in "Goodfellas": "Paulie ... had a system for doing garlic. He used a razor and he sliced it so thin, it used to liquify in the pan with a little oil.")
"We've kind of put them on a pedestal," Johnson says of Hollywoodized wiseguys. "Go sit through a couple of days of hearings on [convicted mob loan shark] Frank Calabrese [Sr.] -- you're not gonna see anything entertaining about him. He's a nasty individual who's committed some heinous crimes. They'll never be building a show around Frank Calabrese."
"It's the way they live," says Pileggi of the reasoning behind America's insatiable appetite for all things mobby. "They get up at 11 o'clock in the morning. Most of them have girlfriends, they gamble, they drink, they have a good time, they live in a period of perpetual adolescence. They have not been housebroken."
They are, in short, the raw id that most folks keep caged, the rebels to our conformists, the whoopin', ropin' ranchers to our desk-bound city slickers. "But if you hang around for the third act," Pileggi says, "you will be happy you are who you are, because it's the third act where the dues are paid."
That, in a walnut shell, describes "The Way of the Wiseguy." By building up and cutting down, by showing actions and consequences, Moresco, et al., hope to find some deeper meaning amid the wacky nicknames and the scattered F-bombs and the utterly moronic malapropisms.
"Oh, how they mangle the King's English," Rossi says, grinning. "We have a thing where we say, 'Left [Lefty Ruggiero, a mob hitman] was gonna build a club in Miami. He told me he wanted the place ornated. He told me to call an architecture.' "
"And that's legit dialogue," says Pistone, whose phone conversations with Ruggiero, his prime conduit to the underworld way back when, are re-enacted throughout the play courtesy of FBI phone tap transcripts.
"Another day," Rossi-as-Pistone resumes, "he came in all upset because a Hare Krishna tried to divert him."
"And I mean, ooh, the nicknames!" Rossi exclaims, gaining steam. "You got Sonny Red, Two-Finger White and Jimmy Blue -- very patriotic. Frankie the Nose, big one. Jimmy Legs, long ones. Willie Smokes and Joey Burns. Arsonists! Armand the Bug, Ronnie the Rat, Tony Roach and Sal the Snake -- exterminators, not bugs. Joey Half-a-Ball -- you don't wanna know. Lead Pipe Pete, Tony the Hatchet and Betty the Butcher -- you still don't wanna know."
While the play is rife with such lowbrow laugh lines, a deeper reality invariably swaggers forth and (per Pistone) "smacks ya." Evildoers get their comeuppance, one in particular via meat hook. And Pistone, the white-hatted tough guy who survives against seemingly insurmountable odds to tell his tale, finally reveals some psychic wounds he has long kept hidden.
"Part of the tragedy is that you got a guy like Pistone, who has been asked to give his life to something," Moresco says. "And he gives that life, and in giving it, something's been taken from him, and he never wants to admit it."
Even for a street-hardened Jersey boy, being one of them took its toll, a toll Pistone has hinted at in his books but never fully fleshed out for public consumption. "It's a lot of stuff that I just [didn't] wanna reveal to anybody," he says, mum on spoiler specifics, "but they [Rossi and Moresco] convinced me that this is how we're gonna make it work."
Ultimately, though, he convinced himself. Joe Pistone doesn't spill beans unless he wants to.
'THE WAY OF THE WISEGUY'
When: April 2
Where: Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green
Tickets: $34-$39
Phone: (312) 733-6000
Thanks to Mike Thomas
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