A pocket of thought, ideas.
Impulses, has beens

epi-phenom-enal-con-currencies-synchron-icity
sorting places, thens and nows vying for attention

you see
we till stories in search of true tomorrows
not true
yesterdays (till, I said, not tell)
we **** the hard rows no one else will ***
so seed lies sown are never lies told, if the lies are never taught
or if the liars are caught before convincing the
intended crop to lie and swear a common liege Lord,
or die
for lack of knowing. Non-nascence, simplest
symptom to not see.
Whose death is yours to respond responsibly
to? My child's, or yourn?
In the early days, we knew less than we know now
about how knowing and growing were all
intended
to cost time. Ticks, ono motto whatever, the sound
gears and spiral springs pushing cogs
tick, one tooth tick at atime make

this rough, un polished, un glossed, is it wrong or

as I imagine a diamond in the rough must seem to a share cropper
experienced in diamond hunting, diamond prospecting,

prospecting expecting inspection to permit
seeing a 3.52 specific gravity,
specific
specify

species or spectacles,
spectators or special-if-eye-cation
value-en-abled. Weigh your mind in balance
with mine. I claim the mind of Christ.
What are the odds?

A wandering path, injoyable enable if-i-abble,
pacing is

everything, timing is everything, time is the test.

Time is the metagame.
Take your time. One word formed sylabble at a time.
Babble on, your confusion makes you mortal, to my mind.
Tick.
A quanta of time. Does time come in bits and pieces cernible,
but undiscernible from reality?

Babble.

Of course, time will tell. We learned that in our sleep, did we not?

Aesop taught us more than Moses, no,
Aesop taught us less than Moses.

But, we could learn to walk bearing the weight of knowing what
Aesop taught,
while we could not stand under the weight
Moses was said
to have taught.

Caught you, Jewboy. Whatchewknow?
The moral of the story.

THE IDEA is to win.
Beware the concision decision.
incisive devices, witty inventions.

Flip the shell, roll the bones, cast the runes and,
as luck might have it, die before your time.

Why factors are lies more oft than how factors.
Benefactors rule malefactors or
how or why would we invest our time in seeking reasons
to believe?

Is this the polished piece, the gemstone of specific gravity
(which currently means nothing to you. Here, you find too light
or too heavy, too weighty on the scale of specific value.)

Hard. Value hard, diamond hard, on Mr. Moore's scaled model of
Knowing exploding for reason's sake, raison d'etre, eh?
Too hard?
Not Mohs,
don't get me wrong.
We been Moore's law breaker all along.
We be manifested destinatory stories of heroes gone wrong.

Outlawed
knowing exploding to be reasoned with, by kind
children destined to become
written in stone, scarred by lies

Diamonds cutting diamonds, iron whetting iron
on eternity's edge.

Babylon, was it Bel's gate or fusion from below rising?

Magma fountains with diamond claws tearing the lands asunder
Is asunder still a word?, let me, allow me to define...
"into a position apart, separate,
into separate parts,"
mid-12c., contraction of Old English on sundran 
Middle English used to know asunder for
"distinguish, tell apart."
From <https://www.etymonline.com/word/asunder>
----

mumbler's humbler PIE, bowing before the knowers who
know nothing of my work.
Set apart, art thou holy aware?

Hermit me, meet the rest of me. The true rest that remained.
We live, you and I. Trust me, next is worth the wait.

Suffer needs no pain to make its point. Waiting is.

Grokk. WHO would believe that idea could live
through telegraphese to be tweet meets for the
Cosplay clans. How never grokked a rock,  why even less.

Strange, be not long in this
place. if
place this be. Odd
set aside
torn asunder
blown away.
Awake, little birdie, tell me true,
what's a man like me to do?

Did you meet the famous Mr. Blake?
I cleaned his chimney, way back when, chimbly's whut
we called em. Smoke stacks belchin' black
makin' black moths invisible to voracious
gulls.
Now the peppered moths are free
to be white-ish, for better or worse.

----

right, now, do right or

miss the mark,
the specific mark you made, maybe,
imagining, abstract obstructions missed
by the skin on Job's teeth as you run past

right now to more. You know?

----=

Story telling was the same as lying when I was a child, to me.

Telling stories was my gift I never took. Or am I lying? or mad,
in the old way.
Chaillot's rag picker was my best friend.

No noble thought ever found it's home in my head, once
I thunk it, it stunk to high heaven, for me stinkin' thinkin' it.

Po' ems sang sour to fiddles wit' one strang and drums with no
cymbals
Screamin' he owed m' soul the comp'ny sto' bang bang thud.

I died, he lied, and lived to tell this story, ****** if I know,
****** if I don't.

True as true can be. I am lost, but once was found,
lyin' rough, uncut in acres of unseen gems.
----
* Voltaire refused to teach me any thing I could not define:
late 14c., deffinen, diffinen, "to specify; to fix or establish authoritatively;" of words, phrases, etc., "state the signification of, explain what is meant by, describe in detail," from Old French defenir, definir "to finish, conclude, come to an end; bring to an end; define, determine with precision," and directly from Medieval Latin diffinire, definire, from Latin definire "to limit, determine, explain," from de "completely" (see de-) + finire "to bound, limit," from finis "boundary, end" (see finish (v.)). From c. 1400 as "determine, declare, or mark the limit of." Related: Defined; defining.

So, imagine facets unseen, I am at least a meme, a bubble rising on the tide. Think, as you will. Amen?

12 Monkeys
17 Girls
127 Hours
2 Days in New York 2012
2 Days in Paris 2010
2001 A Space Odyssey
360
A Beautiful Mind
A Bridge Too Far
A Few Good Men
A Single Man
A Perfect Getaway
A Serbian Film
A Very Long Engagement
A.I.
Absolute Power
Adaptation
Airborne
Air Force One
Airplane 1
Airplane 2
Albert Nobbs
Alex Cross
Alpha Dog
American Beauty
American Gangster
Amorres Perros
Amour
Anchorman
Andy Warhol's Bad 1977
Andy Warhol's ******* 1964
Andy Warhol's Eat 1964
Animal Kingdom
Annie Hall
Anti-Christ
Apocalypse Now Redux
Apollo 13
Arachnophobia
Apt Pupil
Armageddon
Babel
Backdraft
Bad Company
Bad Education
Badlands 1973
Barton Fink
Basquiat
Before Night Falls
Being Flynn
Beneath Hill 60
Beyond the Black Rainbow
Billy Madison
Biutiful - Spanish
Blade 1
Blade 2
Blade 3
Blade Runner Final Cut
Blades of Glory
Blood Work
Blue Valentine
Breach
Broken Arrow
Born on the Fourth of July
Boyz in the Hood
Bullet
Bulworth
Brothers
Caddyshack 1 & 2
Career Opportunities
Carlos The Jackal The Movie
Carne by Gaspar Noe - French
Cashback
CB4
Charlie Wilson's War
Chelsea Girls 1966
Cherry
Chinatown
Ciao Manhattan ft. Edie Sedgewick 1972
Cinema Paradiso
City of God
Clear and Present Danger
Closely Watched Trains - Czech
Contact
Corpse Bride
Courage Under Fire
Crazy Stupid Love
Dark Shadows
Dave 1993
Daybreakers
Days of Heaven
Dazed and Confused
Dead Presidents
Defiance
Desperately Seeking Susan
Despicable Me
Detachment
Die Hard Quadrilogy
**** Tracy
***** Harry
Django Unchained
Dogtooth - Greek
Dogville
Doubt
Dracula, Bram Stoker's
Dragonheart
Dream House
Drive
Drop Zone
Dumbo
Dune Extended Edition
Ears Open, Eyeballs Click
Easier With Practice
Easy Rider 1969
Edward Scissorhands
Empire of the Sun
Encino Man
Enter the Void by Gaspar Noe
Eraser 1999
Eyes Wide Shut 1999
Face Off 1997
Fallen
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Fight Club
Fill the Void
Fish Tank
Fitzcarraldo
Five Minutes in Heaven
Flickan 2009 - Swedish
Flubber 1997
Folks!
Forbidden Planet 1956
Fracture
Friday 1995
Friday After Next 2002
Frost Nixon
******* Amal - Swedish
Full Metal Jacket
Funny Farm 1988
Funny Games
Fur- An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
G.I. Jane
G.I. Joe Retaliation
Gangs of New York
Gangster Squad
Garden State
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Ghostbusters 1
Girlfriend
Girl, Interrupted
Glengarry Glen Ross
Gomorra - Italian
Great Expectations 1998
Greenberg
Grindhouse Death Proof
Grindhouse Planet Terror
Groundhog Day 1993
Grumpy Old Men
Grumpier Old Men
Gummo
Gus Van Sant's Last Days
Half Nelson
Hannibal
Havoc
Haywire
Heartbreak Ridge
Heat
Hell on the Pacific 1986
Hesher
Hitchcock
Holy Rollers
Hook
Honey I Shrunk the Kids
Hyde Park on Hudson
I Am Curious Blue
I Am Curious Yellow
I Heart Huckabees
I Stand Alone by Gaspar Noe - French
If Looks Could **** 1991
I'm Not There
In Bruges
In The Line of Fire
Inglorious Basterds
Inland Empire
Innerspace 1987
Innocence
Interview With the Vampire
Jacob's Ladder
James Bond - Diamonds Are Forever 1971
James Bond - From Russia With Love 1963
James Bond - Goldfinger 1964
James Bond - Never Say Never Again 1983
James Bond - On Her Majesty's Secret Service 1969
James Bond - Thunderball 1965
James Bon - You Only Live Twice 1967
Jane Eyre
Jeremiah Johnson 1972
JFK
Joe Versus the Volcano
Johnny English 2
Julien Donkey-Boy
Juno
Just Cause
Kapringen aka A Hijacking - Icelandic
Ken Park
Killing Season
Killing Them Softly
Kindergarten Cop
Kingpin
Koyaanisqatsi
Krippendorf's Tribe
Kiss the Girls
La Vie En Rose
Last Night
Last of the Dogmen
Leon: The Professional
Leonard Pt. 6
Les Miserables
Lie With Me
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Lions For Lambs
Little Children
Lord of the Rings Trilogy BR Extended
Lord of War
Lost Highway
Love and Other Drugs
Love in the Time of Cholera
Love Liza
Lovers of the Arctic Circle
Mad Max 1979
Mad Max 2 1981
Mad Max 3 1985
Major Payne
Malcolm X
Man on Fire
Manhunter
Maverick 1994
Meet Joe Black
Melancholia
Menace II Society DIrector's Cut 1993
Mesrine 1 Killer Instinct - French
Mesrine 2 Public Enemy - French
Milk
Minority Report
Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol
Mister Lonely
Money Train
Moonrise Kingdom
Moulin Rouge
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
****** By Numbers
Munich
My Sassy Girl 2008
Naqoyqatsi Life As War
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
National Treasure Book of Secrets
Never Cry Wolf
Never Let Me Go
New Jack City
New York I Love You
Night on Earth 1991 - Italian
Nixon
Not Fade Away
Notes on a Scandal
O Brother, Where Art Thou
October Sky
Olympus Has Fallen
Ondskan - Swedish
One False Move
Out of Africa
Outbreak
Palmetto
Paris Texas Criterion 1984
Passenger 57
Paths of Glory 1957
Perfect Sense
Peter Pan
Philadelphia 1993
Pinocchio
Pirate Radio
Platoon 1986
Pleasantville
*******
Project X 1987
Proof
Quiz Show
Rabbits
Revolver
Robocop Trilogy
Robot and Frank
Rolling Stone's Gimme Shelter
Romance and Cigarettes
Romeo and Juliet 1996
Sahara
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler's List
Searching For Bobby Fischer
Secretary, The
Seven Years in Tibet
Sgt. Bilko
Shame 2011
Shine
Shooter
Shopgirl
Sid and Nancy
Sin City
Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow
Skyfall
Slackers
Sleepers
Sleeping Beauty 1959
Sleeping Beauty 2011
Sleepy Hollow
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Somewhere
South Central
Sphere
Spread
Spy Game
Stand Up Guys
Stay
Summer Hours - French
Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Synecdoche, NY
Syriana
Talk To Her - Habla Con Ella
Taken 1 & 2
Takers
****
Taxidermia
Tetro
Thank You For Smoking
That Thing You Do!
The Adjustment Bureau
The Age of Innocence by Martin Scorcese 1993
The Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call New Orleans 2009
The Basketball Diaries
The Beach 2000
The Believer
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Black Dahlia
The Blue Lagoon 1980
The Book of Eli
The Boxer
The Constant Gardner
The Conversation
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Darjeeling Limited
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight Rises
The Day of the Jackal
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Fifth Element
The Flock
The Flowers of War
The Fountain
The Getaway
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo 2011
The Golden Compass
The Good Shepherd
The Good The Bad and The Ugly
The Goonies
The Green Mile
The Grey
The Help
The Hudsucker Proxy
The Hurricane
The Hurt Locker
The Ice Storm
The Ides of March
The Illusionist
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Impossible
The Informers
The Invasion
The Iron Lady
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Jackal
The ****
The Killer Inside Me
The Kingdom
The Legend of Bagger Vance
The Lost Boys
The Lost Boys The Tribe
The Lost Boys Thirst
The Machinist
The Mask
The Man Who Fell to Earth 1976
The Master
The Mechanic
The Money Pit
The Naked Gun 1
The Naked Gun 2
The Naked Gun 3
The New World
The Pelican Brief
The Place Beyond the Pines
The Prestige
The Queen
The Raven
The Reader
The Red Balloon
The Right Stuff
The Road
The Rock
The Rocketeer
The Rules of Attraction
The *** Diary
The Saint
The Shawshank Redemption
The Silence of the Lambs
The Skin I Live In - Mexican
The Soloist
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Thin Red Line
The Town
Transformers Trilogy
The Tree of Life
Tron Legacy 2010
The United States of Leland
The Usual Suspects
The Way Back
There Will Be Blood
There's Something About Mary
Three Days of the Condor
Three Kings
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
To the Wonder
To Rome With Love

Tombstone
Total Recall 1990
Trainspotting
Trash Humpers
True Lies
Two Lovers
Two Weeks in September(Brigette Bardot) 1967
Tyrannosaur
Unbreakable
Uncle Buck
Unforgiven
Unleashed
Unstoppable
V for Vendetta
Varsity Blues
Vertigo
Vicky Christina Barcelona
Videodrome
Virtuosity
Wag the Dog
Wake Up Ron Burgundy The Lost Movie
Walkabout
Wall Street 1987
Wall Street 2010
Wanderlust
Water World
Wayne's World 1 & 2
We Are The Night
War Witch
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Weekend by Jean-Luc Godard - French
Weekend 2011
West of Memphis
What Doesn't **** You
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
When Harry Met Sally
Where the Wild Things Are
White House Down
White Material Criterion 2009
White Oleander
Who is Harry Nilsson?
Wolf 1992
Womb
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Zardoz 1974


Documentaries & Music Videos


BBC - Life in Cold Blood
BBC - Planet Earth
BBC - Rolling Stones Crossfire Hurricane
BBC - Great Bear Steakout
BBC - Ice Age Giants
BBC - Insect Worlds
BBC - Life on Earth 1979
BBC - Lost Cities of the Ancients
BBC - Operation Snow Tiger
BBC - Penguins: Spy in the Huddle
BBC - Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice
BBC - Richard Hammond's Miracles of Nature
BBC - The Life of Birds
BBC - Wonders of Life
David Blaine Collection
**** Proenke Collection - Alone and Solitude, The Frozen North
Encounters at the End of the World 2007
Nanook of the North
National Geographic Wild Kingdom of the Oceans Giants of the Deep: Whales
Shine A Light - The Rolling Stones
Vladimir Horowitz - Der Ietzte Romantiker
Vladimir Horowitz - Live in Vienna 1987
Vladimir Horowitz - The 1968 TV Concert
Whale Adventure with Nigel Marvin

Chapter Two

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”                Marshall McLuhan  
  
I attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania because my father was incarcerated at the prison located in the same town.  My tuition subsidized to a large extent by G.I. Bill, still a significant means of financing an education for generations of emotionally wasted war veterans. “The United States Penitentiary (USP Lewisburg)” is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. My father was strictly high-security, convicted of various crimes against humanity, unindicted for sundry others. My father liked having me close by, someone on the outside he trusted, who also happened to be on his approved Visitor List. As instructed, I became his conduit for substances both illicit, like drugs, and the purely contraband, a variety of Italian cheeses, salamis, prepared baked casseroles of eggplant parmesan, cannoli, Baci chocolate from Perugia, in Tuscany, south of Florence, and numerous bottles of Italian wine, pungent aperitifs, Grappa, digestive stimulants and sweet liquors. I remained the good son until the day he died, the source of most of the mess I got myself into later on, and specifically the main caper at the heart of this story.

I must confess: my father scared the **** out of me.  Particularly during those years when he was not in jail, those years he spent at home, years coinciding roughly with my early adolescence.  These were my molding clay years, what the amateur psychologists write off with the term: “impressionable years hypothesis.” In his own twisted, grease-ball theory of child rearing, my father may have been applying the “guinea padrone hypothesis,” in his mind, nothing more certain would toughen me up for whatever he and/or Life had planned for me. Actually, his aspirations for me-given my peculiar pedigree--were non-existent as far as the family business went. He knew I’d never be either a Don or a Capo di Tutti Capi, or an Underboss or Sotto Capo.)  A Caporegime—mid-management to be sure, with as many as ten crews of soldiers reporting to him-- was also, for me, out of the question. Dad was a soldier in and of the Lucchese Family, strictly a blue-collar, knock-around kind of guy. But even soldier status—which would have meant no rise in Mafioso caste for him—was completely out of the question, never going to happen for me.

A little background: the Lucchese Family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano “Tommy” Reina, born in 1889 in Corleone, Sicily. You know the town and its environs well. Fran Coppola did an above average job cinematizing the place in his Godfather films.  Coppola: I am a strict critic when it comes to my goombah, would-be French New Wave auteur Francis Ford Coppola.  Ever since “One From the Heart, 1982”--one of the biggest Hollywood box office flops & financial disasters of all time--he’s been a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.  So, I like to zing him when I can. Actually, “One From the Heart” is worth seeing again, not just for Tom Waits soundtrack--the film’s one Academy Award nomination—but also Natasha Kinski’s ***: always Oscar-worthy in my book. My book? Interesting expression, and factually correct for once, given what you are reading right now.

Tommy Reina was the first Lucchese Capo di Tutti Capi, the first Boss of All the Bosses. By the 1930s the Luccheses pretty much controlled all criminal activity in the Bronx and East Harlem. And Reina begat Pinzolo who begat Gagliano who begat Tommy Three Finger Brown Lucchese (who I once believed, moonlighted as a knuckle ball relief pitcher for Yankees.)
Three Finger Brown gave the Lucchese Family its name. And Tommy begat Carmine Tramunti, who begat Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo. From there the succession gets a bit crazy. Tony Ducks, convicted of Rico charges, goes to prison, sentenced to life.  From behind bars he presides through a pair of candidates most deserving the title of boss: enter Vittorio Little Vic Amuso and Anthony Gaspipe Casso.  Although Little Vic becomes Boss after being nominated by Casso, it is Gaspipe really calling the shots, at least until he joins Little Vic behind bars.
Amuso-Casso begat Louis Louie Bagels Daidone, who begat the current official boss, Stephen Wonderboy Crea.  According to legend, Boss Crea got his nickname from Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, a certain part of his prodigious anatomy resembling the baseball bat hand-carved by Roy Hobbs. To me this sounds a bit too literary, given the family’s SRI Lexile/Reading Performance Scores, but who am I to mock my peoples’ lack of liberal arts education?

Begat begat Begato. (I goof on you, kind reader. Always liked the name Begato in the context of Bible-flavored genealogy. Mille grazie, King James.)

Lewisburg Penitentiary has many distinguished alumni: Whitey Bulger (1963-1965), Jimmy Hoffa (1967-1971) and John Gotti (1969-1972), for example.  And fictionally, you can add Paulie Cicero played by Paul Scorvino in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, not to be confused with Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico from the HBO TV series The Sopranos. Nor, do I refer to Paulie Gatto, the punk who ratted out Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, you know: “You won’t see Paulie no more,” according to fat Clemenza, played by the late Richard “Leave the gun, take my career” Castellano, who insisted to the end that he wasn’t bitter about his underwhelming post-Godfather film career. I know this for a fact from one of my cousins in the Gambino Family. I also know that the one thing the actor Castellano would never comment on was a rumor that he had connections to organized crime, specifically that he was a nephew to Paulie Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss who was assassinated in 1985, outside Midtown New York’s Sparks Steak House, an abrupt corporate takeover commissioned by John Teflon Don Gotti. But I’m really starting to digress here, although I am reminded of another interesting historical personage, namely Joseph Crazy Joe Gallo, who was also terminated “with extreme prejudice” while eating dinner at a restaurant.  Confused? And finally--not to be confused with Paul Muldoon, poetry gatekeeper at The New Yorker magazine, that Irish **** scumbag who consistently rejects publication of my work. About two years ago I started including the following comment in my on-line Contact Us, poetry submission:  “Hey Paulie, Eat a Bag of ****!”

This may come as a surprise, Gentle Reader, but I am a poet, not a Wise Guy.  For reasons to be explained, I never had access to the family business. I am also handicapped by the Liberal Arts education I received, infected by a deluge, a veritable Katrina ****** of classic literature.  That stuff in books rubs off after awhile, and I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t help evolving for the most part into a warm-blooded creature, unlike the reptiles and frogs I grew up with.

Again, I am a poet not a wise guy. And, first and foremost, I am a human being. Cold-blooded, I am not. I generate my own heat, which is the best definition I know for how a poet operates. But what the hell do I know? Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon doesn’t think much of my work. And he’s the ******* troll guarding the New Yorker’s poetry gate. Nevertheless, I’m a Poet, not a Wise Guy.  I repeat myself, I know, but it is important to establish this point right from the start of this narrative, because, if you don’t get that you’re never going to get my story.

Maybe the best way to explain my predicament—And I mean PREDICAMENT in the sense of George Santayana: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." (www.brainyquote.com), not to be confused with George’s son Carlos, the Mexican-American rock star: Oye Como Va, Babaloo!

www.youtube.com/watch?v...YouTube Dec 20, 2011 - Uploaded by a106kirk1, The Best of Santana. This song is owned by Santana and Columbia Records.

Maybe the best way for me to explain my predicament is with a poem, one of my early works, unpublished, of course, by Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon:

“CRAZY JOE REVISITED”  
        
by Benjamin Disraeli Sekaquaptewa-Buonaiuto

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.

To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.

“Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell
Joseph Gallo, AKA: "Joey the Blond."
He was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,

That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)

“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .

They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table--normally a serene table--
At Umberto’s Clam House.

Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umberto's Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com)
In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.

Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

(Again, Martin Scorsese getting it exactly right, This time in  . . . Casino (1995) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/Internet Movie Database Rating: 8.2/10 - ‎241,478 votes Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Greed, deception, money, power, and ****** occur between two  . . . Full Cast & Crew - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards - ‎(1995) - IMDb)

Given my lifelong, serious exposure to and interest in German philosophy, I subscribe to the same weltanschauung--pronounced: veltˌänˌSHouəNG—that governed Joey Gallo’s behavior.  My point and Mr. Gallo’s are exactly the same:  a man’s ability to make it on the street is the true measure of his worth.  This ethos was a prominent one in the Bronx where and when I grew up, where I came of age during the 1950s and 60s.  Italian organized crime was always an option, actually one of the preferred options--like playing for the Yankees or being a movie star—until, that is, reality set in.  And reality came in many forms. For 100% Italian kids it came in a moment of crystal adolescent clarity and self-evaluation:  Am I tough enough to make it on the street?  Am I ever going to be tough enough to make it on the street? Will I be eaten alive by more cunning, more violent predators on the street?

For me, the setting in of reality took an entirely different form.  I knew I had what it takes, i.e., the requisite ferocity for street life. I had it in spades, as they say. In fact, I’d been blessed with the gift of hyper-volatility—traced back to my great-grandfather, Pietro of the village of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Italia Sud. Having visited Moschiano in my early 20s and again in my late 50s, I know the place well. The village square sits “down in the holler,” like in West Virginia; the Apennine terrain, like the Appalachians, rugged and thick. Rugged and thick like the people, at least in part my people. And volatile, I am, gifted with a primitive disposition when it comes to what our good friend Abraham Maslow would call lower order needs. And please, don’t ask me to explain myself now; just keep reading, *******.  All your questions will be answered.

Great Grandfather Pietro once, at point blank range, blew a man’s head off with a lumpara, or sawed-off shotgun. It was during an argument over—get this--a penny’s worth of pumpkin seeds--one of many stories I never learned in childhood. He served 10 years in a Neapolitan penitentiary before being paroled and forced to immigrate to America.  The government of the relatively new nation--The Kingdom of Italy (1861)--came up with a unique eugenic solution for the hunger and misery down south, south of Rome, the long shin bone, ankle, foot, toes & kickball that are the remote regions of the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy: Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia & Sicilia. Northern politicians asked themselves: how do we flush these skeevy southerners, these crooks and assassins down South, how do we flush the skifosos down the toilet—the flush toilet, a Roman invention, I report proudly and accept the gratitude on behalf of my people. Immigration to America: Fidel Castro did the same thing in the 1980s, hosing out his jails and mental hospitals with that Marielista boatlift/Emma Lazarus Remix: “Give us your tired and poor, your lunatics, thieves and murderers.” But I digress. I’ll give you my entire take on the history of Italy including Berlusconi and the “Bunga Bunga” parties with 14-year old Moroccan pole dancers . . . go ahead, skip ahead.

Yes, genetically speaking, I was sufficiently ferocious to make it on the street, and it took very little spark to light my fuse. Moreover, I’ve always been good at figuring out the angles--call it street smarts--also learned early in life. Likewise, for knowing the territory: The Bronx was my habitat. I was rapacious and predacious by nature, and if there was a loose buck out there, and legs to be broken, I knew where to go.
Yet, alas, despite all my natural talents & acquired skills, I remained persona-non-grata for the Lucchese Family. To my great misfortune, I fell into a category of human being largely shunned by Italian organized crime: Mestizo-Italiano, a diluted form of full strength 100% Italian blood. It’s one of those voodoo blood-brotherhood things practiced by Southern European, Mediterranean tribal people, only in part my people.  Growing up, my predicament was always tricky, always somewhat bizarre. Simply put: I was of a totally different tribe. Blame my exotic mother, a genuine Hopi Corn Maiden from Shungopavi, high up on Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation, way out in northern Arizona. And if this is not sufficiently, ******* nuts enough for you, add to the child-rearing minestrone that she raised me Jewish in The Bronx.  I **** you not. I took my Bar Mitzvah Hebrew instruction from the infamous Rabbi Meir Kahane, that’s right, Meir “Crazy Rebbe” Kahane himself--pronounced kɑː'hɑːna--if you grok the phonetics.

In light of the previously addressed “impressionable years hypothesis,” I wrote a poem about my early years. It follows in the next chapter. It is an epic tale, a biographical magnum opus, a veritable creation myth, conceived one night several years ago while squatting in a sweat lodge, tripping on peyote. I