Fin vs History - W.O.P. | The Mafia (Part 2)

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

The Mafia (part 2) | W.O.P. Having been smashed by Mussolini, the Mafia rebuild in Prohibiton America, but not before they’ve given the Statue of Liberty a good goosing Tickets for Fin's 2026 Stan...d-up Tour now onsale fintaylorcomedy.komi.io The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon patreon.com/fintaylor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindness community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. Welcome back to Finn v. History. I'm joined by Horatio Gould. I'm walking here. I'm podcasting here.
Starting point is 00:00:50 Say a hello to my little friend. That's what you say. No. Say hello to my normal friends. Say hello to my slightly below average friend. Say a lot of my slightly below average friend. Doesn't really work as well. It doesn't really work.
Starting point is 00:01:01 Say a lot of my friend. He's tall. He's tall. My tall friend. Do you like Mafia films? You love Mafia films. Which ones do you like? Goodfellas. Goodfellers. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:10 Godfather. There's Mean Street. What is it called? Blue Street. That's not really Mafia. I haven't seen that. Oh, Mickey Blue Eyes. That's great film.
Starting point is 00:01:19 I haven't seen it. What's that? What's that? Mickey Blue. Hugh Grant in a Mafia film in 90s. Yeah. Gangs New York's not really. That's actually, Gangs of New York is when the Irish people
Starting point is 00:01:28 who establish themselves. Mickey Blue Eyes, a lot of fun. Great film. 5.9 on IMDB. Get fucked. It looks dreadful. No, it's good. Say hello to my little friend.
Starting point is 00:01:41 Don, I'm the Don. You come to me on the... Sorry, it's my daughter's wedding. You've come to me on the day. Roy Stewart. It's Hugh Grant. I think your Hugh Grant is quite Roy Stewart. Well, no.
Starting point is 00:01:54 Alastair, Alastair, well, you've actually come to me on the day of my daughter's wedding. So the thing about the Mafia's really, really interesting. I can't quite, really fascinating the Mafia. Words out.
Starting point is 00:02:08 Alster Campbell is really, he's really kind of like, he looks like a dad, his iPad dad, like his glasses like this. Yeah, he's almost like, he needs a hawking pillow at some point.
Starting point is 00:02:17 I see the clips of the rest of politics and Campbell's just like this. Roy Stewart. Yeah, really, really interesting. Yeah. And Campbell's just going up. Anyway, sorry, we're talking about the mafia. This is part two.
Starting point is 00:02:33 It's quite sloppy opening from us. We are in America. In our last episode, we were in Sicily. I believe in America. The shit streak on the porcelain of the toilet of Italy. Right. And now the poo has floated across the ocean to the eastern seaport. And we are in New York.
Starting point is 00:02:56 New York. So what we learned in the last episode So Mussolini had smashed The fascists had smashed the organised The organised the gangs We're smashed the fascists We're the fascists We're smashed the gangs
Starting point is 00:03:08 And there was a burgeoning A scene of wops, spicks and day goes Yeah, burgeoning scene implies a sort of music It's like Greenwich Village in the 60s Yeah For instead it's people fucking chucking Chucking fat wops off of buildings chucking a fat wop off a building
Starting point is 00:03:27 Wop is such a great word It is Why don't we bring it back Wap Wap Bada bing Bada boom Yeah because Wop it I would make a racist bop it
Starting point is 00:03:37 called Wop it Yeah Your greasy guinea Dago Guinea Wop it Well just with all sliders It's pretty good
Starting point is 00:03:44 Yeah No not Wap Not wet house pussy Yeah Wet horrible pussy Wett horrible We're horrible Oh that's wet
Starting point is 00:03:53 Some wet horrible pussy. Yeah, that's what Watt means now. That's a British couple of person. Some wet, horrible pussy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:00 Like, that's, well, that is a closeted gay geyser from the east end. Oh, get that wet, horrible pussy away from me.
Starting point is 00:04:06 Wet. Ugh. Oh. Disgusting. Wet. I love the idea, I love the idea that someone
Starting point is 00:04:12 hating pussy because it's wet. Oh. Oh. Give me a lovely dry cock. Dry ass, please. Oh, horrible.
Starting point is 00:04:19 I want a dry sandy bar. I'm not some wet horrible pus. anyway that's sorry we're not talking about wet horrible pussy we're talking about sounds like something in the east end calf yeah can I have ash brands baked beans and I have a wet horrible pussy please think lovely yeah a bit of brand sauce yeah lovely yeah yeah yeah stick on the side please oh yeah can we get a couple of watts for the table yeah yeah yeah yeah
Starting point is 00:04:41 side portion of day go um yeah we're talking about the Italian invasion of America in the 20th century so this is Ellis Island I think this has been covered by cinema quite a lot, right? So this is where there was a big call for immigration. Yeah. Why was that? Do you know? Because the Irish had arrived.
Starting point is 00:05:02 They're gone, we fuck this up. They're drinking everything. We need some new people. And then the Italians are on the boat. Because this is like the garden age of immigration in a way. It's the most it's glorified. Something like in between 1890 and 1910 or 20, four million Italians arrive in New York.
Starting point is 00:05:20 So it's start the boats. It's the ultimate start the boats, right? But as they go past the Statue of Liberty, Italian men are trying to grope her tits. Oh, my mama, my mama, oh, they're sexually harassing the Statue of Liberty as they arrive. Well, what happens is they see the ass first and they're trying to grab it.
Starting point is 00:05:38 And when it comes round, they see the face and they think it's the mama. So it's the two sides. Oh, look cheeky, chick, chick, chick. And then they're slapping each other for going, how dare you go? Oh, my God. Pim, mamma mea.
Starting point is 00:05:49 Pig dog, pig cow. What could possibly go. go wrong. Yeah. Letting four million. Four million eye ties into a Protestant city and, well, I mean, New York, New York's never been the same since. No.
Starting point is 00:06:04 It's been downhill. What's that, Charlie? Just a really striking pig. That is a striking pig. It's a dark Christmas. Pursuto warning. My God, did that pig's eyes? That's got the most gorgeous eyes I've ever seen.
Starting point is 00:06:15 Well, there's a sadness there. Is that a pig who knows what prosciutto is? Wow. Fucking hell, that's a pig who... I didn't know they could look like that. That's an amazing pig. God, I would love some salami. I really do lots of prosciutto.
Starting point is 00:06:28 I saw a video the other day of Italian old people making prosciutto from scratch. Amazing. Incredible. Just fucking in. Now, would you agree, as a man who loves food, would you agree that though Italian cuisine's great, would you say?
Starting point is 00:06:41 Pretty best in Europe, would you say? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd say so. I do think the Italian sandwich is overrated. What do you think? No. No? You're not following me there?
Starting point is 00:06:50 Wash your mouth out and kiss your mother with it. Oh, mama, mama me, please give me a kissy. Yeah. No, I think that the bread's too thick and the fillings, it's too thin. It's like thin ham, wet cheese with a huge amount of bread. Yeah, but when you open a sandwich up, an Italian sandwich, that is a wet, horrible person. Yeah, I just think that they, and they're always commenting how Americans don't do it right, but I think Americans know how to make a sandwich far better than the Italians.
Starting point is 00:07:15 I think they're actually a bit stuck up their own arms. I do think they need a lot of the deli meats to catch the. so they're not overwhelmed by the flavour of, like, pickles and stuff. Yeah. So you need a whole fucking pack of ham. I just think that they make the best sandwiches, and I actually think if you took away from the Italianness of it. I'll meet Paul Maranara.
Starting point is 00:07:33 That's pretty good. But is that Italian? That's probably an American twist. Well, Americans reinvent, you know, like the hamburger is German, if you want to be a dick about it. Oh, we're not going to be a dick about it. No, we're not. It's American.
Starting point is 00:07:45 All that stuff. Yeah, no, I like an Italian. I know what you mean and that they can quite after you. I think it's overrated. And people, people, people, Well, I think you say, if you start thinking about it, like, yeah, I guess this isn't that great? It's just a fuckload of bread
Starting point is 00:07:55 with a tiny, thin bit of hair. I prefer just sort of just cold cuts on the plate. Yes, exactly. Or you have chabata, dip it in oil. Yeah. I think it's the wrong way to serve Italian. Dip it in nonas pum. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:06 Some wet horrible pusspuss. A bit horrible, non-of-pum. So, wop it. Spick it. Dago, I don't know what they could be. I just want, racist bop it. Wop it. I'm into it.
Starting point is 00:08:19 WOP is a great word Let's bring it back Anyway Make America great again Make America Make Wops acceptable again Now we start
Starting point is 00:08:29 In New Orleans The Black Hand Right So there's a gang called The Black Hand Who come up with this tactic Called the Black Hand Tactics Right
Starting point is 00:08:39 Form of extortion They send threatening letters Demanding money With punishments like Violence Arsenal Kidnapping for non-payment So it's sort of like the license fee
Starting point is 00:08:48 if it wasn't woke. Yes, they are the black hand. Yeah, the black hand of Kirsta. Kirstarler's black hand is telling me to pay my license fee. Telling me to even just tell them that I'm not watching, fuck off.
Starting point is 00:08:57 Yeah. Go and catch an actual criminal. Yeah. Not to sound like a 50 year old man from the Cotswold, but, you know. Part of me is like, I think just enforce it more.
Starting point is 00:09:05 I think they're just, yeah. I got 15 letters. And it's like, no one's, so we're coming around. You've never come around. You're not. You're fucking not, mate.
Starting point is 00:09:12 Come around. I think you should come around and actually batter your door in and get people to pay their license fee but you can't be this weak hand like you know we're BBC we're about this big collective it's like you've got to have some fucking
Starting point is 00:09:20 they've got some muscle because this is black hand Starmer's got like a beadle hand what is very funny is all TV license letters they're all addressed from Romford yeah so I think they're trying to make it seem like there's a hard god
Starting point is 00:09:32 yeah like they're based in Romford fuck off the imagery yeah no it's some fucking nerd there's one nerd in a cardigan who's sending out all these letters are you watching BBC are you listening to the radio and also they turn up
Starting point is 00:09:44 You watch BBC, you go, no, it's blasting on. Yeah. What's that? I don't know. Can I have a warrant? Show me a warrant, please. Oh, fuck. We've tried to thought of this.
Starting point is 00:09:53 Anyway, the letters, the black hand letters are often decorated with symbols like a smoking gun or a bloody hand. Decorated? Yeah. Oh, that's nice. Now, in 1880 in Sicily, an English clergyman was kidnapped by a bandit called Leone. Authorities delay, so they asked for a ransom, I presume. Yeah, so Leone Lewis. Not Leone Lewis.
Starting point is 00:10:12 Although, I guess, he does keep bleeding. Bleeding out my ears. They keep cut off his ears. So I guess he does keep bleeding. He cuts off one ear and the negotiations drag on, so he cuts off the other ear. And now the British pay, the clergyman who has no ears, gets released. How does he hear? It doesn't work that joke.
Starting point is 00:10:29 How does he smell? No, no, his ears can be cut off. He can smell fine. Anyway, the British forced the Italian government to send troops after Leone, who gets killed along with most of his gang. But one survivor, Giuseppe Esposito. Oh, delicious. Esposito.
Starting point is 00:10:44 Escapes to New Orleans. Now, New Orleans, he starts extorting Italian shopkeepers and restaurant owners. So a lot of Mamma Mears. Oh, a lot of Mama and Papa. A lot of Mama and Papa Mears. A lot of Mama and Papa Mea. Is Papamia a phrase? Can I be a Papamia?
Starting point is 00:11:04 I don't know. Papamia. Oh, Papa Mia. Mama Mia. Papa Mia. Oh, anyway. That's sort of... Anyway.
Starting point is 00:11:18 That's my musical version. Papamia. Set on a gay cruise. Well, you don't know which... Yeah, what would the version of that there? I've not, I've not seen Mamma Mia. I'm straight. I'm straight, so I've got no idea what it is.
Starting point is 00:11:29 I know there's a video of Pierce Bros and singing. Right. That's funny, supposedly. But I won't watch it because I don't want to see James Bond in a musical. I don't want to see it. You're worried you might turn gay if you watch it. James Bondon musical... If I watch Pierce Bros and singing, I will turn gay.
Starting point is 00:11:42 Yeah. And then I'll write it. musical called Papamere just sat on the gay crew's God he was a fucking smoke show but young,
Starting point is 00:11:49 young Brosnan absolute smoke show even old Broson to be fair yeah he could pull it off yeah Craig Daniel Craig's gone a bit weird
Starting point is 00:11:56 yeah he dresses a bit weird for a bond fan you're like Daniel can you stop ruining bonds by dressing in a fucking V-neck
Starting point is 00:12:05 yeah he's going like very like kind of like clown schooly you know all comic sort of I don't like it I don't like it he still
Starting point is 00:12:13 it feels like he was like Bond was holding him back almost. It feels like for him he was like, I'm so glad I can finally be myself now. No, you shouldn't be yourself, but a tucks back on. Anyway, Giuseppe Esposito begins extorting Mamma Mia and Papamia and makes them invest in small boats.
Starting point is 00:12:30 He forms a gang called the Black Hand and he clashes with another Italian involved in protection Tony Labruso who informs on him. So the police arrest Esposito he gets deported to Palermo and give him the life sentence. Brother's David and Mike Hennessy, because a lot of the racial tensions, the Irish had arrived and they'd gone into politics
Starting point is 00:12:50 and police. So a lot of the more legitimate sides of the American, you know, dream. And then Germans had arrived and they've gone into business. So it's sort of like Italians who had arrived last, it was like, what was left? Restaurant. Drop kicking a fat guy off of a building. Yeah. Wobbling a wop. Wobble wop. The new game. It's like swing ball, but with a fat Italian man. Lebruzzo, with the informant, he gets assassinated before Esposito's trial. And then two brothers, Charles and Tony Matranga, take over the black hand. So they had a monopoly on fruit ship unloading. That's not the...
Starting point is 00:13:29 That's not when the gay club and soho spill out. Those fruit ships are being unloaded. They attack grocery stores and violence breaks out. Basically, the black hand gets so bad. The newspaper ads call citizens to a mass meeting. In March 1891, guns are distributed, a mob storms the New Orleans jail and lynch's 11 out of 17 Italians.
Starting point is 00:13:52 So nine men are shot or club to death inside the prison. Two victims are hauled outside the prison hanged from a lamppost and a tree. One was reportedly hanged four times. I guess that's how fat he was. But did it sort of work? What do you mean work?
Starting point is 00:14:05 I mean, Matthew activity in New Orleans went down after this. Well, yeah. Yeah, so, you know. They quieted down until 1907. So 10 years apiece But yeah They basically
Starting point is 00:14:15 I didn't realize The New Orleans Was such a hotbed Of Italian lynching Um Italians must be the only Europeans to have been lynched in America Can you Google that Charlie
Starting point is 00:14:25 Is then Irish? Do they get any Were the Irish ever hanging from lamppost Having been put there by someone else Not because they just got too drunk Yeah The Irish were lynched in America Were the British lynched in America?
Starting point is 00:14:39 Never Surely Seems like, well, yeah British individuals were lynched in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Wow Okay, well it seems like everyone's getting lynched That's an absolute disgrace though
Starting point is 00:14:54 Linching of Britain America It's just a public murder isn't it? Yeah, that's what it is It's not like a method, it's like a method Yeah, it's just a public murder mate It's just a bit of fun It's just hanging, you know, it's decorated a Christmas tree And everyone chill out
Starting point is 00:15:06 It's an ancient tradition That's what I do, I lynch my Christmas tree every year I don't hang tin until I lynch it. Anyway. Anyway. Come on. Enough about lynching. So New Orleans, a hotbed of anti-Italian sentiment because of the black hands had been involved.
Starting point is 00:15:22 At some point, a grocer, Italian-American grocer, his son was kidnapped, an eight-year-old son, held for $6,000 ransom. Which is a lot, I imagine it at the time. Yeah. And then his body was discovered in June 1907, having been beheaded. Which does strike the question, how annoying was this boy that they went, fuck it. I don't want $6,000. I'm going to drop his head off. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:43 But this stirs New Orleans intensely. But it's interesting, Mafia still has that romance to it. Yeah. It's just, I guess it's the, the still like a... They beheaded an eight-year-old. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Yeah. It's their weird code of conduct in the culture
Starting point is 00:15:58 that just makes it seem fucking cool. It's very toxic. Yeah. Yeah, it's problematic. If you're beheading an eight-year-old, I think at one point you go, am I hanging out with the wrong friends? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:08 But 13 years after this, Prohibition begins. President Calvin Coolidge, probably the best named Presidents has ever been. Yeah, that's a good name. He enacts Prohibition on January... That's a good comedian's name, Calvin Coolidge. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:22 January 17th, 1920. Now, obviously, everyone carries on drinking because it's, you know, the biggest dry January ever. Of course. And it's fucking mad policy to get. But as I've said before, this is a sort of power struggle between Protestant America
Starting point is 00:16:38 and the Catholic whops that had taken over the Eastern Seaboard. Lock it up, let it all hang out. A battle is anxious time. Yeah. As anxious time. The whole of history can be famous Catholic, be Protestant really.
Starting point is 00:16:48 Yeah, yeah, in more ways than one. So there are obviously loopholes for religious alcohol, medicine. Whop holes. Wap holes, sorry, to give me proper name. Ordinary citizens carry on drinking, which empowers rum runners. Again, it's a lovely name for a slur that.
Starting point is 00:17:04 Yeah, yeah. I think you were a bit of a rum runner. Yeah. No, it does sound, yeah, there's something going on there. Charlie runs rum across the border. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. So almost immediately crime surges.
Starting point is 00:17:14 An hour after prohibition begins, armed men in Chicago steal large quantities of whiskey destined for medicinal use. Now, what's medicinal use of whiskey? Well, I had it rubbed in my gums as a child to stop me crying by my Presbyterian grandfather. Yeah. I guess so.
Starting point is 00:17:29 Shut that kid up. Yeah. Yeah, that's a classic thing, but I don't, surely there's not crates and crates of whiskey just for that. I guess so. Yeah. I don't really understand what medicinal use could possibly. They're probably knocking people out on those, anesthetic in the old place. Just getting absolutely fucked.
Starting point is 00:17:43 Yeah. I'd hate to be operated on really, really drunk. Really, really drunk. Why more so than... Well, than now. Oh, you mean, as opposed to having any sort of like... Anesthetic. Anesthetic.
Starting point is 00:17:55 Yes. Just pissed. The awful. Be so horrible. I want a kebab, not when my leg cut off. You probably think your leg was a cabab. Imagine being like that so drunk when you're dizzy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:06 so there's lots of i mean one thing that the new the new york mafia is do much better than sicilians is the nicknames yes everyone's got a fucking stupid names big gym big bill lucky lucky luchano is the big one that's the big guy he's the big guy but basically prohibition i think something like four billion dollars
Starting point is 00:18:24 gets put into the black market right 13 years because it never has a policy been so wildly out of step right with people yeah i actually don't know much about prohibition we'll do a whole series on it but yeah but essentially what was the kind of what was the the night out that led to prohibition like what was the right because it's always like sometimes like I'm never drinking again but what was that for the whole nation well well a lot of it is that women can't vote right and the um their their husbands are drinking all the time to get through uh how horrible their job is right and they come home and they hit them and I think
Starting point is 00:19:00 I've said this before but legally that wasn't domestic violence didn't exist sure so you could it's like hitting your fridge. It's like hitting your fridge. Yeah. So, you know, a man could hit his wife just the same way he could punch a wall. Sure. It doesn't matter. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:15 So... It's just going down to the net. Yeah. Driving range. Yeah. Yeah, it's before driving ranges. So there's domestic driving range where you play 18 holes on your wife. Anyway.
Starting point is 00:19:27 So the temperance movement is largely Protestant women who are also threatened. It's the first. first carous. What are they threatened by? They're threatened by, yeah. The husband is drug husband, smacking them every night. The drug husband bringing a foreiron into the wedding room, into their bedroom. It'd be funny to have a domestic abuse caddy. A little guy in a bib who's like, uh, who's just looking at, looking at his wife sleeping and three wood, three wood, three wood, three. Anyway, it's the original carons. It's the original white women. White women are threatened by
Starting point is 00:20:03 South European immigration people who drink. So they're an act prohibition in? Yeah, it's women stopping the boys from having a good time for 13 years. Yeah, it's crazy. And then it ends as Hitler comes to power.
Starting point is 00:20:16 I don't think that's a coincidence. Right. Everyone's like, fuck me, let's have a drink. What's this guy doing? Sure. Anyway, Al Capone doesn't really, I mean, he is technically, he's like the big star of prohibition,
Starting point is 00:20:28 but he's known to Scarface because he gets slashed in, slashed in the face. We might do him on a different episode. Yeah, but he's also, he's not actually that interesting a guy. Yeah, he's upheld as such a mythic figure. But he was the only one who actually talked to the press. He tried to become front and center like the...
Starting point is 00:20:44 It's because they couldn't catch him. That was the whole thing. And that's part of the weird thing about the American legal system is like, yeah, with someone who's so clearly a mafia boss, but you've got nothing on them. Yeah. They could just be your local crime boss. Well, I think they had stuff on him, but he was paying them all off as well.
Starting point is 00:20:59 Right, right. So he supposedly orchestrates the Valentine's Day massacre in 1929, but there's actually no evidence. Do you know what? We haven't placed any of this. Right. People are going to be absolutely livid. What date? Shall we place, should we place prohibition coming in?
Starting point is 00:21:12 Because that's kind of the height of the Mafia in America. Okay. So that's the 1920s. Right. So 1920. 1920, it comes in. Prohibition. Right.
Starting point is 00:21:20 So. Do it with Italian foods. Italian foods. Okay. So that's, that is after Puscian. Sarneska, after Horish pasta, I believe. Yeah, and before Carbonara. Exist as far back as the 19th century.
Starting point is 00:21:36 And it is before, I'm going to say it's before can, what the Sicilian little cakey things called? Canolies. No, ninth and 11th century. You're absolutely joking. The 9th century. I mean, it's not the... Arabs.
Starting point is 00:21:52 Yeah, but I mean, it's not the most complicated thing, is it? It's cream and a bit of pastry. Arabs are doing that. That's an Arab delicacy. Christ. Finn on 9-11. Arabs doing that. What?
Starting point is 00:22:06 How was Arabs? Doing that? What? That's an Arab delicacy, is it? It's a place, what do you say? It's after the Putin Neskets before Carbonara. But when's Carbonara? Carbonara was made by the US GI Joe's.
Starting point is 00:22:18 Oh, was it? Yeah. It's before the Americano. Yeah, look at that. Oh, you're right. Really? And it makes sense, Carbonara, being an American... Well, it's bacon and eggs, isn't it?
Starting point is 00:22:29 Yeah. yeah it's just fucking crap oh do you mean pasta that's made of eggs how about you put another egg in yeah it's just it's just pasta covered in pasta well it's british it's a fry up but it's pasta yeah carbonara god i'd love murder a carbonara but that so fucking good do you know i think just think it makes sense that italians invented fascism when you when if you put cream in a carbonara and see how they react yeah okay right right have you seen the guy they are cuisine fascist they are they are tablecloth fascists have you seen the guy who trolls italians in italy by eating it wrong.
Starting point is 00:23:01 Right. Oh, it's so funny. Charlie, get YouTube video of the, or it's shorts, whatever, guy who chopped spaghetti with scissors. Right, right. He downs the pizza with ketchup.
Starting point is 00:23:12 Right. And he records all the reactions of the waiters. It's so fucking good. So if you're listening, a guy who's chopping spaghetti with scissors in a restaurant. They're far away in the kitchen staff are running, and they're confiscating the scissors, and they're kicking him out.
Starting point is 00:23:29 They kick him out. the restaurant and he's asking for his scissors back and the kitchen staff are screaming at him there's one where he puts ketchup on a pizza and yeah very funny so that they make sense that the Italians invent fascism given how much they go on about their food so the Valentine's Day massacre is supposedly Capone eliminates an entire rival gang by they all pretend to be police and they get in a garage and then they shoot them all but it's not really to do with the mafia mafia which Which is particularly Sicilians in Italy. And that's why in The Godfather, they have a strict rules,
Starting point is 00:24:04 and only Sicilians can be part of the gang. You can only be a made man if you're 100% Italian. If you're a bit like... Sicilian, maybe. I think it might only be Sicilian. The old country, as they say. So the Sicilians get access to New York City's docks. So they manage importation and distribution.
Starting point is 00:24:20 Which is very important during prohibition, because that's where all the imports of alcohol from Europe come from. Yeah. They basically infiltrate trade unions, and then they can organise strikes as a threat to... Well, that's where the Teamsters and like... Because there's all the different forms of the Mafia, which are all covered by different films.
Starting point is 00:24:36 And then the Irishman, that's about like the Mafia through the Teamsters, which is a union, right? Right. So there's a lot of like mixed between the Mafia and the unions. Do you know what a Teamster is? No. What's the team?
Starting point is 00:24:49 I think a Teamster is like a Transport Union or else? It's a lorry driver. Yeah, so it's the Teamsters Union. Or it's a driver of a vehicle. a team of animals. I was Italian, right, fine, right. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:01 But yeah, that was a, had a lot of mafia links. That's what, have you seen the Irishman? No, too long. Right, fair enough. And CGI. Yeah, they did some weird stuff
Starting point is 00:25:08 to De Niro's face, I mean, it's funny that they spent like so much money on it, like 200 million for that technology, which I feel if they'd waited two years would have been so much easier. Just get it for an actor. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:19 I know, and it's funny, he's playing a 20-year-old, but he's got the posture of an age-year-old man. Yeah. So there's like him, he's CGIed and there's one thing where he chucks his gun off,
Starting point is 00:25:28 and it's so clearly an old bloke. This is 22-year-old. But it's also, surely there are like Robert De Niro look-alikes who have their whole life. Yeah, but you, yeah, but these are long sections of a four-hour film. You can't just have a Robert De Niro look-a-like and just hope that he can be.
Starting point is 00:25:45 Robert De Niroleurie. That's good. That's pretty good. So they infiltrate the trade unions and they employers counter with strike breakers or hired goons to intimidate workers. But basically, gangs are essential
Starting point is 00:26:00 to both sides of the union strategy. Something I'm envious of, I would love goons. Yes, I think that's not, like sort of two-dimensional thugs who don't really have any sort of character development. Gooning is a sexual slang term that refers to the act of masturbation. I don't know. You know what gooning
Starting point is 00:26:17 is, right? What do you mean you know what gooning is? Of course you do. If I'm masturbating, it's very quickly into the sink and then I'm back out. Well, you've got an alter ego when you masturbate now. So Charlie, because he has to get past Kirstammer's draconian measures, you have, what's your email called that you use? Lemon on sticks at gmail.com. So does it kind of abstain you from the shame?
Starting point is 00:26:40 It just means that there's no way. Only lemon on sticks is the one masturbate. Are you doing sort of severance, but with masturbation? I've not seen, I've seen the Polar Express. But you know the concept of severance. no way you're two different people one's at work ones at home and you sever completely I guess so you could do that with masturbation where you only resever when it so one guy it's my porn alter ego one guy's whole life is only masturbating that's the only
Starting point is 00:27:08 so you're waking up going well that guy's a fucking poet one guy is just non-stop it's literally he's never not wanking well part of the issue of this podcast is that I think you've left your other half who's not a wank not a wanking sex pest at home what gooning is so Charlie though you can't at home, but Charlie's got three different screens in front of them. And he's busing. That's what gooning is, is when you have multiple screens. Oh, like security guards. NASA Control Center.
Starting point is 00:27:32 You're porn maxing, right? Pawn maxing. Yeah, so it's kind of like, it's for the brain-rotted generation where you can't, one video, you can't have it, so you just got them all over the place. God. Maybe VR headset is around. Yeah. Dolby sound system.
Starting point is 00:27:45 Well, like in the Matrix and the thousands of screens. Oh. Oh, what? The, the THX. Oh. But it's Ah And that's how you know
Starting point is 00:28:00 it's in Yeah, 3D glasses Wow That must have sounded lovely For the list No, you just made I didn't know that Gooning
Starting point is 00:28:06 Yeah Christ No, I don't I don't think I've ever goons I don't think I've ever I don't think I've ever had more than one porn video playing at the same time
Starting point is 00:28:16 Oh, it lives son Different generation Speaking of you I've got iPad iPad phone Really? Harry Bo Lappy
Starting point is 00:28:24 Lapie He's on his He's on his eats Multimedia He's not as Eat sweets He's masturbate I know
Starting point is 00:28:29 It's disgraceful Starme I mean I've I mean you know Back in the day You'd have like GQ
Starting point is 00:28:34 Nuts Zoo You'd make yourself A sort of like Analog Goon spread Red Jew porn hub Yeah I guess that's Yeah
Starting point is 00:28:41 Analog Goon spread That's my That's my autobiography The Anologue Goon spread Or do you think it's In the way That like
Starting point is 00:28:47 Vinyl became Hipster Right Because it was like Going back To a more Analog age Yes
Starting point is 00:28:51 So there's going to be sort of hipster gooners who are like they're going to be it's only nudie mags. Right. Or it's like really, really old school like artisanal port like cherubs. Oh right. Okay, fair trade. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:04 Well, I've always thought that cherubs I never understood why everyone was so shocked at the whole Catholic Pido thing when their house temples are cased in stone naked babies. Do you know what I mean? It's like what? Let's immortalize this boy as
Starting point is 00:29:20 his best form. Yeah. It's This is one child who will never grow old. Yeah, exactly. These are like, you know, it's the same, it's the equivalent of having like a hard drive full of it. Yeah. It's having a church just full of babies. And they're like even more tempting because they can fly away.
Starting point is 00:29:34 Let's cover their dicks up. They can fly away from you. Oh, you know. The child you can never touch. Yeah. You could even have them cross-legged. No. No. Get them out.
Starting point is 00:29:42 Get it out. I want to see it. And obviously you're walking and going, Christ. Fog. What are all these massive hogs on the roof? God, I'm surprised they're enough marbles to fill that. Jesus. How much my money would it cost
Starting point is 00:29:53 a fucking good? This guy's such a big fucking slump. God. How old is he? Four? Bloody hell. He's got a naturally big dick for a four-year-old.
Starting point is 00:30:00 That cherub. Anyway, Christ. Let's get to Lucky Luchano. Please. Lucky Luchano is the guy who basically turns the mafia into what it is today. Because there's so many
Starting point is 00:30:11 fictional characters in mafia films, Don Collione, but luckily Luciano is the main guy, real-life person, right? He's the kind of star in a way. So he's born in a way. Sicily and then he emigrates age kind of seven or eight
Starting point is 00:30:25 like Don Collione does in the Godfather films. Yeah, Corleone is a town in Sicily. Yeah, which Al Pacino is from. Really? A bit of trivia. So by the time that Luciano is a sort of grown man, Prohibition's underway. So he meets a guy called Maya Lanski
Starting point is 00:30:42 who is a Jew from Poland. Don't slack him off. No, sorry. He's a lovely guy. originally named Maya Sushanovsky. I can't even, I can't begin to say that. So they move into bootlegging, Lanski and Luciano. And Prohibition in New York.
Starting point is 00:31:01 But there's a Jewish gang. So these are tough, tough, hard-nosed Jews and Italian gang. And they come together. Unthinkable. Yeah, so there's a lot of, there's Irish gangs, there's Jewish gangs, there's Italian gangs. It's the partnership, the John Lennon and McCartney-style partner. between Lanski and Luciano that is the kind of most successful in the sort of constant fighting of all these different racial mafias they form the young Turks right which is the group of
Starting point is 00:31:27 they're the first people to put all your ethnicities aside right they're like united colors of Benetton right for crime we're like we'll have Jews we'll have Italians that's it that's it's that's it there's more Irish Germans anyway prohibition in in particular in New York was an absolute farce by 1922 the city had at least 5,000 speech By 27 had more than 30,000, which was twice as many drinking establishments before prohibition Had a massive police force, but they were so corrupt by the money from bootlegging and speakeas, because obviously, obviously the police love drinking. Yeah, of course. It's like banning donuts. The most of the police are Irish. They're Irish. Yeah. It's like if they ban donuts and then the police are obviously going to just keep it open. So there were basically no major prosecutions. The mayor offered no support for enforcing prohibition until 1929, nine years after it was open. Women are allowed to speak easy. So is that a big change? Because they weren't.
Starting point is 00:32:18 speak difficult more like speaking learn to tell a story love Christ no I don't know who that is you know her we met her once for lunch
Starting point is 00:32:33 she's one of my other boring friends Christ yeah women run speak difficulties and cocktails become popular because women are allowed in so that's where
Starting point is 00:32:43 we get cocktails from to this era right but it's also to mask shitty liquor yes shitty liquor and shitty anecdotes by your wife who was suddenly there now so they were like can we just put gin and whiskey in one glass so that i can fast forward whatever the fuck's coming out of
Starting point is 00:32:57 her face i think that's why booze gets harder right is because women start drinking with right right right yeah uh anyway gender laws get softer yes now i'm pretty sure you could plot a graph everywhere in the world as as gender equality increases strength of alcohol also increases man alone at the bar increases Because Saudi Arabia don't drink. Right. And gender equality, bad. Right. Interesting.
Starting point is 00:33:24 That cannot be a coincidence. You heard it here first. I've cracked another world theory wide open. That's got to be a thing. Yeah. Because where is the most, what, the most equal place in the world? Scandinavia. Yeah, they're drinking all sorts of.
Starting point is 00:33:40 Yeah. Big boosers up there. Big boosers. The Finns. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. So the more gender equality there is, the stronger the alcohol.
Starting point is 00:33:47 whole. Anyway, bootleggers are becoming romanticised and defying the law kind of becomes fashionable for middle class people. I suppose it's a bit like cannabis now. Yeah. Cocaine in the 80s, maybe. Right, right. So the mafia essentially is like just got so much money at this point because it's...
Starting point is 00:34:04 The black market's never been bigger ever in American history, right? No. It's never been more culturally relevant or anything. And so the, the mafia expands its operations into unions, construction, gambling, prostitution and narcotics. Which in the Godfather, there's that clash between the old and new world
Starting point is 00:34:23 where Don Collione, who's come from Sicily, has a lot of respect for old values, doesn't want to go into drugs because it's a dirty business. That's a huge part of the Mafia, right? They're kind of newer Goodfellas, soprano, the New Jersey sort of thing.
Starting point is 00:34:36 This idea of this kind of loss of traditional values, a lot of the Mafia had that weird code of conduct, but they thought drugs was a dirty business that they wouldn't get involved with. But then that's slowly, but then the next generation,
Starting point is 00:34:47 the people born in America that those sort of so you can see this sort of degradation of the yeah because it started with lemons yeah and now it's cocaine
Starting point is 00:34:54 cocaine yeah so Maya Lanski devises a plan to unify New York's warring gangs right because the main threat to all the bootlegging comes from these rival gangs
Starting point is 00:35:05 who are hijacking trucks and shipments and then raiding to those territories and it's not organized and this breaks out into the Castoramareze war which is a delicious
Starting point is 00:35:16 squared past the Kalamari, the Kalamari War of 1929. People are throwing squids at each other. To these are two dominant Sicilian bosses. Giuseppe Masaria and Salvatore Maranzano. So he's a tomato. Yeah, they don't sound scary to you. They don't sound scary at all.
Starting point is 00:35:36 Manzano tomatoes and then Masseria sounds like sheep cheese. Sheep's cheese. Yeah. So it's mozzarella, but it's mozzarella tomato. Ding dong! Want to know the real story of how O.E. made Britain mad for it, how friends turned us on to coffee culture and super-layered hair. The secrets of Nirvana, train spotting, gay hookups, Diana's revenge dress,
Starting point is 00:35:57 and what it was really like to be a spice girl? Plunge back into the decade when the world fell for cool Britannia, bumster jeans and lemon hooch with Talk 90s to Me. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. And if you use Spotify, you can watch the whole show too. That's Talk 90s to Me, out every Monday. Now, Luciano is one of Messerius boys, but he gets captured by the tomato card.
Starting point is 00:36:21 Mananzano. A mananzano. And he is suspended by his thumbs, tortured and slashed across the face, requiring 55 stitches. Charlie would absolutely love that. Fuck. You'd absolutely love that.
Starting point is 00:36:31 I'm very squeamish. Suscended by your thumbs. What's that mean? Like Jesus? Like Italian Jesus? No, it's more like, are you having a nice time? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:39 Yeah, it's like being tickled. Yeah. He would want to... Yeah. Who wants to be tortured and slashed across the face 55 times? This guy! So he gets released only after agreeing to arrange Masseria's murder in exchange for switching sides and becoming Maranzano's second in command.
Starting point is 00:36:57 Right. So what he then does is he, so Maseria, that's Joe Maseria who was called Joe the boss, Masseria. He was the first one to kind of say, I'm like the boss of bosses. Capoy Capi, boss of the bosses. He was a fucking sloppy eater, a fat guy who loved food. okay right he's italian right uh anyway lucky luchano takes him out for dinner at a restaurant and he's like stuffing his face with because he's got like tomato sauce all over his face car bloating for a race he'll never run yeah um car bloating for his nap really and luciano go to
Starting point is 00:37:32 the toilet and then four of his goons come inside and gun him down at the table right which is what that scene in the godfather is yeah yes oh right nice so maranzano he then declares himself capo di tuti capi um a caper salad right caper onion salad yeah he declares himself a starter and everyone's like you can't do that the fucking capo de tuti capi oh it's for delicious no no the capo de tutti capi the fruity liuti the fruity lutei no um but basically the big problem that luchiano solves is that people always try and be the boss of the boss right they're always like there's always a bigger boss i want to be mega boss so luchano about four months later he gets four of their men.
Starting point is 00:38:16 He hires Jewish men. Because him and Lanski are collaborating. So they think that, ironically, they think that hiring four Jewish hitmen will be less suspicious. Right. Because at this point, the Jews don't run everything.
Starting point is 00:38:27 The Italians run everything. Yes. Because at this point, the Italians are the Jews of Europe. Interesting. Anyway. Then four... Slight leave there.
Starting point is 00:38:37 Yeah. Four Jewish hitmen enter Maranzano's office posing as tax investment. investigators and they just shoot him in a cupboard. Right. Yeah. Job done.
Starting point is 00:38:49 Get in the cupboard. Bang. And so Luchano, what he does is he breaks with the tradition of then saying, well, I'm going to be boss of the bosses. He says, him and Lanski create the five New York families. Right, which last to this day. Does it? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:03 There are still five families in New York. Are they crime families? Yeah. Now, what we... This is part of his, like, we know about them. Why do we put them in prison? No, because what we call them, they wouldn't call that themselves. and it's so decentralized
Starting point is 00:39:15 is that they would just say we say oh you're part of the Genovese crime family they say I work for Polly because all they know is like their little crew so like in Goodfellas but I don't know how much power do they have like I feel the mafia's the influence in New York's
Starting point is 00:39:31 minimal now probably I mean I don't know so you think about who are the crime gangs even in England like the modern equivalent is like Albanian gangs right it feels like it's all shifted Yeah, it's all sex trafficking. It's all a bit much for me.
Starting point is 00:39:45 A bit much, yeah. Game's gone. It's gone. It's gone woke. Come on. 150 years ago, we were importing lemons from Sicily. There's definitely a lack of class. Now we're importing 11-year-old teenagers
Starting point is 00:39:56 from Albanyers to have sex with. It's definitely gone. The crime is lost a touch of class. Yeah. Anyway, what Luciano's great genius is he essentially is like a mafia court management consultant in that he restructures the mafia into an organization. that stops all the turf wars. Okay.
Starting point is 00:40:14 Because he says, these are the five families, you have that territory. It gets an Excel spreadsheet. Basically. He's the first spreadsheet come to get into the mafia. And they make a board of directors
Starting point is 00:40:22 called a commission and they will oversee any like disputes. Yeah, and they call it all the national crime syndicate. Do you think at any point it's like, are we the bad guys sort of thing? National crime syndicate. You're all deciding the name.
Starting point is 00:40:34 But also the enforcement arm. You're telling on yourself, brother. The enforcement arm is called Murder Incorporates. Yeah, I feel like. Murder Inc. not monsters ink murder ink it should be more subtle
Starting point is 00:40:45 they should be implying it right big fat Italian criminals yeah or like sleeping with the fishes incorporated there's a bit of charm to it
Starting point is 00:40:51 not just fucking murder ink so they allocated territories in New York they approved or vetoed murders of other underworld figures so they sort of settle gang disputes
Starting point is 00:41:00 and they oversee the racketeering and the construction corruption and they sort of coordinate nationally with people in Chicago Al Capone's team
Starting point is 00:41:07 whatever and this is also why Italian apart from Cuoma and the Cuombo, but it's very hard for Italians to get anywhere in politics. Still?
Starting point is 00:41:15 I feel like, what would think of big Italian politicians. Well, in America? Yeah, there's not really been big names who have made up high up
Starting point is 00:41:22 in the section. It's true, actually. They're all kind of washed. Who's the one who does the rest of politics, US? Oh, Scaramucci. Scaramucci.
Starting point is 00:41:27 And even just the name. It's like... I think he's a crook. I think the brand, the brand of Italians is permanently smeared by them after. You're right, actually.
Starting point is 00:41:35 Where you don't want them anywhere near politics because you just assume that they're praying their cousins. They're called Scada Bush Bada Bing. You can't have a president
Starting point is 00:41:46 called Tony Bada Bing Ragatoni. You can't have a president Bada Bing. No. So Murder Inc is a criminal organization roughly between 29 and 41 and it's largely composed of Jewish American and Italian-American gangsters.
Starting point is 00:42:01 They carry out contract killings. People estimate maybe a thousand over those 11 years. On behalf of the syndicates, different bosses of the five families. So they're like a corporate murder for hire business and the variety in terms of the methods they use to kill people uh ice pick stabbings so they're doing a corporate gig yeah and then the corporate can pay a lot what you're doing
Starting point is 00:42:22 i'm fucking chopping chopping a guy's head off putting in a freezer yeah right right okay least the money's good money's good i guess tough gig they often used common everyday items to avoid carrying weapons right so ice picks uh strangulation garotte what is a garot what do you go how do you grot. Right, right, right. Wire around the neck. Yes, nice. It's probably a sex thing.
Starting point is 00:42:43 It's probably like gooning. Can you self-grot? Auto-garot? Autogorotic exfixiation. I guess so. Yeah. Meat cleavers. Yep.
Starting point is 00:42:54 Live burial. Live. Live. And it's live. Live. Fuck it. We'll do it live. Cement shoes is my favourite.
Starting point is 00:43:02 That's a good one. Yeah. Tying bodies to weights and just plopping them into the water. Are you alive when they do that? They're probably knocked out. All right, right. So Lucky Luchano sorts out the mafia. He stops the sort of disputes for a long time.
Starting point is 00:43:16 And there's a guy called Arnold Rothstein, who is as Jewish as he sounds. Right. And is Jewish by nature as well. He's the money guy. Okay. Who apparently doesn't drink at all. His only vice is cake, loves cake. Okay.
Starting point is 00:43:32 And he's the one that gets the mafia into casinos eventually. Yes. And so they all kind of learn business from him. Right. So Luchano moves the Mafia into narcotics. He also is a bit, he loves, he loves pimping. Right. Pimping ain't easy.
Starting point is 00:43:49 Now, what do you think pimping is? What do you say pimping is? It's selling, well. A horrible pussy. It's selling wet horrible pussy. Well, I had a guy who, I think a strange comedian, who I want to actually name, but he was telling me about his pimping. And he said pimping, how he described it, he's from Atlanta.
Starting point is 00:44:07 He said pimping. for him was getting women to buy him stuff, right? That's what they describe as Pimpin. So you basically, you flirt with the girls so much they're so desperate for your dick that they will get you gifts. That's quite a big guy. I've never had that.
Starting point is 00:44:21 I mean, he was a biological liar. You flirt with them so much that they're desperate for your dick. Yeah, Pimpin. And they buy you stuff. So he calls those a Pimp, but what that means is women buy him stuff. I think it's not even calling himself,
Starting point is 00:44:35 I think it's called Pimpin. But the reality is so grim. You're doing a bad thing, but the big fur coat, the little pimp cane and the little... Well, again, that's a stereotype. I think there's a lot of people just wearing capatraxes. No, I don't think so. Jeans. No, I think most of them are big fur coats.
Starting point is 00:44:48 And they have this sort of like, this like limp that they affect to just give them a bit more swagger. Swag. Yeah. Anyway, Luchano loves pimping and he gets imprisoned in 1936 for 50 years because they're trying to send the message because they can't get him and all the other stuff. He's basically, he's staying like the Waldorf Astoria. He's got big fur coats. He is sort of like dressed him. It's like a pimp.
Starting point is 00:45:10 They think that maybe he might have been the richest man of the time, but because it was all undeclared and all cash in the weather. You couldn't spend it easily. But it's like he was making millions a month. So he's probably a billionaire by the 30 standards. Right. So it's like Bonnie Blue. Yes.
Starting point is 00:45:22 Yeah. But again, she can't go out at night because she's scared about people shoving acid in her face. So it's like, do you know what I mean? You know. Is she? Gone. Yeah, you're not watched a documentary. No.
Starting point is 00:45:32 No. She's scared about people aciding her. Yeah. Really. Heartbroken. What's sweet. And she passed the pick with Bivo. Do you see that?
Starting point is 00:45:41 They've been shagging. Have they? Yeah. Yeah, they have done. Yeah. But it makes sense. It's kind of like power couple. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:47 Christ, that's depressing, isn't it? The Clintons of our age, Bevo and Bonnie Blue. Fuck me. That's all just fucking set it on fire and start again. Bevo and Bonnie Brew. We ask the D-E show, Meet the Beavos.
Starting point is 00:46:00 Does he? He's got his mum on fucking Paul now. Oh, my God. Have you seen this? Yeah, I have we not talked about this. It's crazy. We must have talked about this. She looks 12.
Starting point is 00:46:08 there is something about it there is something about it no there's not right come on now lichano gets sent away for a long time he goes to Sing Sing which is a notorious prison
Starting point is 00:46:19 500 miles north of New York and he there engineers the most significant coup of his career where because the US entered the Second World War suddenly America is explicitly at war with Italy
Starting point is 00:46:32 right of course so Italian immigrants are a security risk and I think there's a there's a ship that maybe set on fire at the New York
Starting point is 00:46:41 Docks or something up the Hudson and suddenly everyone's like oh this is sabotage this is Nazis and so the US government
Starting point is 00:46:49 they go to Luchano and they like can you you basically control the docks because they're all Italians right can you tell them to
Starting point is 00:46:56 chill out and let us and give us some spy on the Italians and the Nazis whatever the Axis so he agrees
Starting point is 00:47:04 sabotage then stops and Luchano offers further assistance. He sends messages back to the old country, ask them to help the Americans by providing intelligence on landing sites. But what's interesting is obviously Mussolini was very anti-mafia. So it's like within Italy
Starting point is 00:47:22 it's not necessarily, even though they're both fucking bad guys, they're both chucking people off buildings but in different styles. Well, come on. Sorry. No, come on. Mussolini founded fascism. Right, right, right. On the Mount Fashmore, he's there. He is there. With the He is there. Who's on Mount Fashmore? Who's on Mount Fashmore?
Starting point is 00:47:41 Mount Fashmore. Yeah. Well, my Mount Fashmore. Yeah. Mussolini, Hitler, Mugabe. Yeah. And, um... Is it another...
Starting point is 00:47:51 Pinichet. Pinichet, right. Yeah. That's nice. If you're a poet, I'm going to electrocute your balls. Okay. Yeah. That's nice.
Starting point is 00:47:58 Um, now, five months before the Allies invade Sicily, Luciano appeals for release on grounds of services rendered. So he does eventually... Or invoices. You basically invoices and the expenses are you need to release me but I think he had a massive
Starting point is 00:48:14 like ding dong with one of the legislators A bad a ding dong sorry A bad a bing bad a dong With A prosecutor called Thomas E. Dewey And I think he was like The guy that banged him up eventually You know there's stories where like
Starting point is 00:48:30 A Mafia guy is always one step ahead Of the prosecutor And then like catch me if you can Yeah sure Eventually Dewee catches Luciano bangs him up for 50 years But then after how many years, Luciano helps the US government
Starting point is 00:48:41 prepare for an invasion of Sicily and then when he gets released it's the same prosecutor who is now Mayor of New York that has to let him out. It's particularly bittersweet because he spent all that time. Is this partly why he's called Lucky Luciano? No one knows why he's called that,
Starting point is 00:48:56 but he just seemed to be quite lucky. No one knows. Well, the research I did, no one knew. That's interesting. Oh yeah, he survived a brutal 1929 gangland assassination attempt where I spoke was slip. Right. Other possible reasons include
Starting point is 00:49:09 a reputation of being lucky at gambling. In 1943, the Operation Husky, this is when the American forces landed in Sicily, obviously, for the Italian invasion. This is the first ever
Starting point is 00:49:18 Allied invasion of an Axis thing in the war. Of course, right. So four years into the war. And especially from the British perspective, it was much bloodier than is often documented. Well, this is the interesting thing.
Starting point is 00:49:30 So basically, the mafia and the US government are talking all the time. and the theory goes that because the US invaded took the western side of the island very easily and then the Brits took the east
Starting point is 00:49:45 and had a really tough time We had a real tough go at it It was a sticky wicket for the Brits And everyone basically thinks that's because the Americans had a dialogue with the Sicilian mafia Yeah because a lot of American soldiers were Sicilian
Starting point is 00:49:58 And apparently on their trucks and stuff They'd have an L flag Yeah And they were going home They were like great we'll take over Cicely and then we can go and kiss our non-or on the mouth. We can honk on nona's horrible, wet, horrible pussy.
Starting point is 00:50:18 Nona's wet horrible pussy. Anyway, ten days. Anyway. Anyway, after honking on their non-as wet horrible pussy, just like a non-a used to make. It's so funny the amount of people who are coming to say, like, this podcast has really got me through such a tough. time you know this is such an important yeah it's just yeah honged on the other's wet horrible pussy man
Starting point is 00:50:42 i needed this god i'm so glad i found this podcast yeah people commenting are i'm going through really i'm going through a breakup at the moment and this series really really christ anyway the soldiers they this is where they invent the americano because they add some water to espresso is it actually americano carbonara yeah yeah because before this it was just espresso right interesting and then the Americans didn't have enough to go around so they would add hot water
Starting point is 00:51:08 and they'd make a when I hear about that I always think I would have thought about it earlier I always think that yeah like it obviously oh there's not enough
Starting point is 00:51:15 what do we do yeah but now there is enough now there's loads there's too much coffee too much coffee too much coffee go on age no it talks to me to have
Starting point is 00:51:22 a morning coffee it's at the beginning of that really it's the beginning of coffee memes yeah anyway 10 days after the landing the Sicilians have gone and honked
Starting point is 00:51:31 they're none as behind Don Calo Vichini is made an honorary U.S. Army colonel known to the troops as General Mafia. Right. So the Mafia, having been violently suppressed by Mussolini, now present itself to the Americans as anti-fascist. Kind of awesome. Because to be fair, the mafia, they never, they only get involved in politics when it's expedient to their ends. Sure, yeah. So if it means they're anti-socialists, anti-fascar, whatever they need.
Starting point is 00:52:01 So at Don General Mafia's request Several imprisoned Mafiae are released And they get placed in municipal positions Under the Allied administration So basically the Mafia's reinstated after World War II Because the Americans are clearing these villages In Operation Husky
Starting point is 00:52:18 And then they basically are right someone you look after it And then the guys are like yeah I can do that Yeah brilliant And then everyone's like oh fuck it's that guy again So they basically reinstate the Mafia on the island So yeah with Mafia assistance The US took Central and Western Sicily in seven days with minimal casualties,
Starting point is 00:52:32 Montgomery's British forces up the East Coast took five weeks and suffered heavy losses. Yeah. So we didn't make friends with the mafia. No. When the Allies moved to mainland Italy,
Starting point is 00:52:41 Vito Genovese emerged as another delicious, cut of veal, breadcrumbs, tomato sauce. He emerged as another mafia liaison. He had fled to Italy in 37 to avoid murder charges, became close to Mussolini.
Starting point is 00:52:56 He allegedly provides cocaine to Mussolini's son. What an honor. And he repositioned himself as the Allies advanced. Oh, it'd be great to do cocaine with Mussolini's son. Because Mussolini is one thing, but to have, imagine the brat that Mussolini was raising.
Starting point is 00:53:08 Fuck me. On Coke. Yeah. That's like sort of Saudi rich kid. That's Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke. Yeah. Is that him, Bruno? Yeah, Mussolini's already Coke.
Starting point is 00:53:18 Mussolini is Coke. Yeah. This guy can't be. Fuck me. Him and the boys. Is that him? Look, I've got to get that, get up. Look at that.
Starting point is 00:53:26 God, he looks good. Yeah, that's powerful. It's the original black roll neck. It's dapper laughs. Well, I don't think he's apologised for being cancelled. No, he's not. Trusting up as Mussolini. I can't wait to do a series of Mussolini.
Starting point is 00:53:38 He's so fucking good. Yeah. 60% of all the Allied food supplies unloaded in Naples gets diverted to Genovese's corrupt soldiers, the Camorra members. The network around all this, Luchano inherits when he gets deported back to Italy in 1948. So he gets deported after his release from jail,
Starting point is 00:53:59 and he re-establishes the old mafia networks. And so I think he maybe starts all the heroin stuff with the Corsicans and the French, the French connection heroin. But we'll probably have to leave that for another time. There's a lot of... But we should probably talk about what the mafia is like now. I mean, the mafia in southern Italy.
Starting point is 00:54:20 Yeah. The mafia is still a huge part of what goes on there. Oh, we won't be able to go there now. Yeah. We've done this. Yeah, of course. And the amount of times we've said Porcadillo we'll be blacklisted.
Starting point is 00:54:30 I mean, my mum was in Sicily recently and there's this beautiful old theatre that can't program any anything, any music acts, anything. Because if they do, the amount of people have to pay off, they would lose all the money immediately. Really? Because just to put something on,
Starting point is 00:54:44 the amount of hands they have to do, it means that it literally, you can't do anything. And there's so many things like that where it's just that you have to pay off so many people it's becomes... There's like bridges that are half finished there, obviously. Really? So many people are skimming off the top.
Starting point is 00:54:58 that the money that they're given for the bridge, it's just half a bridge. All they're just asleep. Yeah. Bit your boys. That's Italian. They've got to be paid to. Who's this?
Starting point is 00:55:06 He's the most recent boss of bosses. Really? Mateo Messina De Naro. He died in 2023. RIP. Basically, by the time of all two ends, the mafia, having been smashed under Mussolini, is fully operational again,
Starting point is 00:55:21 controls pretty much all the ports in Sicily, infiltrated politics. So in short, World War II just rebuilt it I mean in Gaddafi would say real mafia in American government Yeah, of course Number one mafia
Starting point is 00:55:34 Ronald Reagan Number one terrorist Mafia of America But basically it's whenever there's a power vacuum The Mafia fill in Yeah So that's the end of the story I think we'll have to do a series
Starting point is 00:55:45 On like the post-war mafia Because that's all fucking crazy And there's car bombs And it's Maradonna in Naples Maradonna in Naples Maradonna in Naples We've got to do a series Of Maradona
Starting point is 00:55:53 Of course. Anyway, thank you very much for listening if you'd like more then on our Patreon we will be doing a film club about Mafia Films
Starting point is 00:56:01 I watched Goodfellers last night you watched The Godfather we'll be talking about they are based on real stuff as well which is great. Straight guy films
Starting point is 00:56:08 Yeah so bonus episodes for the blokes Bonar episodes for the blokes Bonar episodes for the blokes that's on the Patreon if not we'll see you next week for a brand new topic
Starting point is 00:56:17 Arrivedo deuce Bye.

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