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How are you doing today?It's just fine.Thank you very much.How are you man?I'll tell you what I am fascinated with this book the way that you break it down I mean with the novelist and then you go into the movies and the TV shows.
This was very smart setting things up Well, thank you very much The research that you must have put into this.I mean, what was it like to go through it?Was it exciting?Was it was it?Oh, wow moments.What did you go through?I
Well, a variety of things.It was informative.
I spent a lot of time, I wrote about four Italian writers and crime writers, novels, and it was interesting to learn a lot more about the background of the mafia and see how there are differences between, say, the Sicilian mafia and the Camorra in Naples.
On the other end, I watched a lot of movies and TV shows, and they're very entertaining.They're bad guys, but they're fascinating characters.They're the Sopranos and Breaking Bad and so forth.So I did, I learned a lot.
Every once in a while I was scary, especially in novels about the Mexican drug cartels.
what I was often entertained to.Wow.In doing your research, did you find out why we are so attracted to these stories?Is it really the good guy, bad guy thing?
Well, I think it's, America's always kind of loved their outlaws, you know, Billy the Kid and Jesse James and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.And I think that's part of it.I think there's a certain amount of fantasy.
You know, we don't, we like to watch guys that get away with things, who get, you know, get problems solved quickly. And I also think there's a certain, we're curious, how do these guys really live?How much different are they from us?
So I think it's a mixture of all these things.And also bad guys are far more interesting than good guys in movies.
How about that Al Pacino, two iconic organized crime leaders, Tony Montana and Michael Corleone.I mean, my God, he pulled those off well.
Absolutely, absolutely.And yeah, he's a good example.And Robert De Niro has played a variety of different characters.And he's believable in every one of them.
I've been with Don Winslow.He says a lot of great things about you.
Oh, well, Don, it was actually Don Winslow's first novel about the drug cartels, Power of the Dog.I read that and it was terrifying, but brilliant. And it got me thinking about how powerful novels about organized crime could be.
And then he went on to write two more volumes in that trilogy about the drug cartels.And then he wrote another trilogy about the New England mob.So he's one of my favorites.
Wow. Now, being that avid reader, as well as watching these TV shows and movies, which one do you prefer best?Do you like the books?Do you like the actual moving of pictures on the screen?
It's certainly both.It's certainly both.What I've enjoyed is reading a novel and then watching the movie version of it and seeing how they differ, how the movie takes the best parts or messes up the best parts.
So they have different pleasures, but both I find very pleasurable, reading a novel about drug cartels and then watching Breaking Bad about Walter White and the drug cartel.
You know how we are in this day and age, we like to play around with our words.Is there a difference between a gangster and a gangsta?
I think they're just, they're probably pretty much the same, but you know, it's probably the level.Maybe the guys on the street may be the gangstas, but the higher ups may have the little classier personality, persona.
The reality of it all, the family versus our humanized portrait of the mafia.Yeah.What did you learn between those two?
Well, you know, there is something admirable to some degree about the family values of the mafia.Loyalty, a code, you know what the code is and you know what you're supposed to do to to follow it and what you're not supposed to do.
Those are certainly very humanizing elements.And I like that that's often portrayed.You know, the fact that the godfather begins with a big family wedding.I mean, that tells you, it starts immediately with family.
You know, one of the things I've learned inside this book, the multiple names for the mafia, I mean, I've never heard of the Pinky Blinders.Whoa, whoa, whoa, where'd that come from?
Well, it was an Irish gang actually called the Peaky Blinders.And it emerged right after World War I. All of these soldiers coming home from the war disillusioned and the only thing they had learned was how to kill.
And so they started to form these gangs in England.And that's a fascinating series with the portrayal of the time, and then gradually some Americans come over and so forth.
It's really interesting, and it is, the Peaky Blinders were a gang that were these caps with razor blades in them, and they, that's what they used to blind you.
So yeah, it's historical, but it's not as well known as The Godfather or The Sopranos, but it's really, really interesting to watch.
Were you shocked to learn that organized crime is played out in story form in so many different ways in other countries?
Yes, because, you know, if you only watch The Godfather, you think that's the Mafia.But then you read Andrea Camilleri, an Italian, a Sicilian writer, and you really, it's different.
There's certain commonalities in the American Mafia did come from the Italian-Sicilian Mafia, but there are varieties.The Camorra, for example, which controls peoples. There's a whole different kind of organized crime than the mafia.
And I didn't know as much about them, but they're very scary.
Speaking of scary, I didn't realize that Hollywood started making these movies back in the 1930s.I mean, were they visited by members of a family?
Those 30 movies, the main three that I deal with are Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, Scarface.They were all presented as kind of moral lessons to the American people.Crime does not pay.
And even sometimes they had to put on the screen, this is to remind you that these are bad guys.So in the initial portrayal, we were supposed to really hate them. But they, you know, Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney.
You know, we always associate the organized crime and the mafia to the 1920s up to the present day.But you unveil that this actually has been taking place in Sicily since the 1800s, dude.That's right.
That's right.It started as a what was called the Honorable Society.And it was for the benefit, usually in small villages in Sicily.And it was for the benefit of the local residents.I have a problem.
And you go to the to the mafia guy and he helps solve your problem.And then it gradually developed in different directions, and then it became more associated with big cities.And the big thing in America was prohibition.
That's where the boosters really, really became prominent.And the fact is that most Americans at the time, who liked to drink, appreciated the mafia because they provided the bootleg booze that they drink.
So it wasn't that good guys, bad guys, we're both kind of bad guys together.
You got to come back to this show anytime in the future, David.The door is always going to be open for you.
Oh, I appreciate it.Thank you.It's been enjoyable talking with you.
Well, you be brilliant today, okay?Thank you very much.
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