The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #568 - T.J. English

Episode Date: March 19, 2018

T.J. English, author of multiple books including The Westies and Havana Nocturne, joins Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt LIVE via Skype to talk about his new book The Corporation. T.J. English's new book The Corporation will be released on March 20,2018. Wherever books are sold, TJ-English.com, and Amazon: http://amzn.to/2HJYIU6 This podcast is brought to you by:  Square Space - Go to squarespace.com and use promo code "church' for 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain.    Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a 10% discount at checkout.   Recorded live on 03/18/2018.

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St. Paddies is over. Your little ha-ha time is done. It's back to business, motherfuckers. Little Uncle Joey. The Flying Jew. My man, T.J. English. What? So Monday, bitches.

Tip-top, Magoo. Get ready to go. and giving out shit today. This is the Gilmore's guitar. What? Well, here we go. The band is just fantastic.

What? Which one thing? Oh shit. It's Monday morning. You're ready to go. Whatever you had on your mind is fucking gone. Because you're ready. You're ready for the world.

You got the world by the ball. If you were depressed, if you were sad, if you were having a bad day that was yesterday. Today's today. Scrub that pussy, powder that motherfucker and put some toenail polish on those toes and get out there, ladies. It's all over. You don't need to march.

You don't need to do nothing. Just let these cocksuckers know you're running things. Lee Syatt, what's happening? I'm doing pretty good, buddy. How are you doing? Good. No problems. Had a great weekend. I want to thank my man the Irishman. Fucking, what's his name? T.J. English? No. The other fucking guy. Greg Fitzsimmons

who put me on the show last night I had a great time just switching it up to the improv like we were talking about Leah tonight you gotta get out of your comfort zone I forgot to tell you guys this last week I went to a meeting the day for breakfast

and some guy goes Have you tried cryotherapy yet And you know I've heard it from Rogan for years and all these fucking guys I don't think I'm a half a penguin I don't think I could last in a fucking barrel for fucking minutes with freezing weather

But you know what that morning I was feeling a little froggy And I wanted to go out of my comfort zone and I was a little sore from the day before and I stopped I got the free fucking thing and I went into that cryotherapy place it's right I'm been touring to hunger let me tell you something that shit is fucking tremendous whatever the fuck I was feeling when I walked in there I did the first one three minutes I lasted in there I listened to heaven hell by black sabbid blasting over the thing I did jumping jacks I couldn't do pushups because I can't fit I can't

I just can't do it. You can just do jumping jacks and throw punches in the air. But I got to tell you some, I don't know if I feel better or not. I'm just, when I do shit like that, I'm just better I go out of my comfort zone. Like, I don't think, like, I don't even like cold showers too much. Never mind going in a fucking cold room like that. But you know what? It was fine.

I took my wife, and she chickened out as always. She tapped out after three minutes. The fly-to-fight response is too much for some people. It used to be too much for me before I joined Jiu-Jitsu. but it does it give you like when you do something that takes you out of your comfort zone does it give you confidence or like what does it do for you it It gives you confidence and it lets you know that you did something You did something not nobody else nobody else Helped you with it there's nothing like the feeling of you doing something

Like you accomplishing something that is fucking weird And we all get set in our ways we get fucking lazy and we get fucking lazy and we do the same shit and we take the same route home and and sometimes you just have to do things outside the ordinary because you may discover something about yourself that you didn't know that's what going out of your comfort zone is you know it's like when i write i fucking hate writing not not because you know why i'm bad at it but i just been writing lately and this week i'm almost finished with that fucking chapter in a book that was the shortest chapter in the book but the longest one for me i don't know why it's been a fucking nightmare but you but you're you

You know, every day I write like a daily journal. Every day, like I write a fucking, some every three days I write a letter to my daughter to explain what's going on in my life and why she's so special. So if something does happen to me, she has a journal that's dedicated just to her. You know, I always try to write. And it's funny. I don't know. I quit high school guys, but I was always a reader.

I still remember reading Jonathan Livingston Segal. I still remember reading the world's greatest athlete and all these dumb books. I just like to read. I think it's part of being an only child. It's part of an escape. So when you do comedy and you go on the road, for you to, there's just so much you could do. You know, at that time, I wasn't into exercising at all in hotel rooms.

I thought that was absurd. And half the hotels did they put you in those days, they're lucky if you have a shower, never mind the fucking gym. So I would read. I would go to Barnes & Noble's and spend 30 books on, bucks on books. I had the discounts. I had the coupons. I had everything you get in those days. And I would read and I read a lot of fucking crime shit because when I got here in 97, I would audition for mafia roles and I knew nothing about the role, so I wanted to do some character

shit. So I read as many mafia books as I could. I read as many Irish mafia books as I could. I read as much shit as organized crime if I could, even the M-13, whatever the fuck they are. I read a book on them. I just enjoy reading those types. Some are stupid. Some I just throw away because they're just, you know, a bunch of bravado and self-provado and shit like that. But some books, you just learn how their system and why, you know?

And one of the books I read was a book about the Westies. And it was a great book. I knew half the story. I knew that there was nine of them and the mafia had to bow down to them and whatnot. At one point because there were killers and kidnapped and fucking. mafia bookies and fucking and taking their fucking books and shit and then collecting

and one of the guys that wrote it was a guy T.J. English. I didn't think anything of it. To be honest, you guys, I didn't even give a fuck. And then years later, buddy of mine, my daughter's godfather, James, called me and said to order a book Havana nocturn. And it really changed my life. It really gave me a clearer view of what my country was about.

All the things I had heard. had been confirmed and then so, you know, and how the revolution had taken over and especially started in this place named Union City in New Jersey. That's where my mother had the bar, and that's where, you know, I grew up part-time, and I knew a lot of people there. It's a very dear little Spanish city.

Now, I don't even know what it's like. It used to be very Cuban and very Irish and very Italian. And the more I think about it is now, it was one of those neighborhoods that you see in my country, movies like Bronx Tale and stuff like that. And I was at a party and somebody had mentioned books and I mentioned this Van O'Octurn. They said they had the book on Holt to make a movie about it. But then I heard him about another book named The Corporation and guess who the author is, T.J. English.

And I fucking emailed him and he got back to me and he went to one of my shows when I was at Gotham and we spoke a little bit and we continued speaking on the phone. It's an interesting book and it's getting released on the 20th. He's not here. So what I'm going to have to do is call in and then we'll discuss what we learned afterward. Good afternoon. Yeah, this is TJ. What pass, I said?

Good. All right. And you too? I like to welcome to the show. I like to welcome to the show. One of my favorite, favorite authors. I'm like a. a fan groupie of this guy

you know the great writer mr tj english thank you very much for taking the time and calling in today mr english well joey it's a pleasure it's a real pleasure um you know i was on the road i would go on the road when i first got to l.a in 97 uh i had a really good manager

and even though as soon as he got me he started sending me out for auditions and 10% of them were for Mexican auditions and the other 90% were for basically Italian hot dog guys, that guys, but a majority of it was for Italian gangsters. And I had grown up around a few of them. I knew the mannerisms, but I didn't really know the story. So while I was on those Greyhound buses across the country, I would stop at Barnes & Nobles by four books and read him in a weekend. And I came across you a Westie's book.

And later on in my life, I dealt with a guy that said he was a Westie. And he got me a lot of side jobs. I did a lot of lookout work for him and stuff like that. So when I read the book, it was great book and blah, blah, blah. I was reading so many books then, T.J. And then a friend of mine, James Villano,

is married to a Cuban chick. I grew up with him and his cousins, and he called me one day and says, you got to read this book of Anonachtern. And I was completely overtaken. And what I was, I looked you up right away. And I go, why would a fucking guy from Tacoma give a fuck about Cuba

and write such a great and elaborate research book? You know, and then I go to a party, which I never go to for CIA to watch a UFC thing. And we're talking. and I go, man, the book to read is a man nocturn. He goes, I think we have that on option. And then a month later, he calls me the same age, and he goes, hey, Benisha just signed on for T.J. English's new Cuban book about where you're from someplace in Jersey,

and my head almost fucking exploded. I went to your website. I looked up the name Jose Battle. I contacted you. You were a gentleman and contacted me right back. And here we are today, two, three, four. five months later. Why would a guy from Tacoma be so enriched with crime writing, organized crime writing?

Well, I don't know where the Tacoma comes in. You know, I left Tacoma pretty early in life. Okay, I just read that. I grew up in a big Irish Catholic family, 10 kids, five girls and five boys. And Tacoma is one of those kind of places where you start dreaming a kid. getting out of there as soon as you're old enough to dream. And, you know, it's evolved a lot. Tacoma today is kind of an interesting place.

But when I was there, it was sort of a gritty little industrial dumping ground for its more beautiful neighbor city of Seattle. So, you know, every really nice city has this ugly stepchild city next door, you know, New York has Newark, San Francisco has Oakland, Seattle, and Tacoma. But it was okay. It was a good place to grow up. It was a working class place. I did comedy there, at the Continental Inn.

You did. I used to eat the bag of dicks there. They fucking hated me. That's too bad. Anyway, so I left there when I was like 18. I mean, I got out of there. I went to college in L.A., Loyal and Marimald, a little Catholic University. the Jesuits, educated by the Jesuits, and then headed east as soon as I could.

I had dreamed about the big show ever since I was an adolescent, getting to New York, the big proving ground. You know, I wanted to be a writer. I had that idea from pretty early in life. It was always working on school newspapers and getting lots of positive feedback on essays and things I would write in school. So like anything, you get a... applause, you get positive feedback, that becomes your focus.

And writing did it for me. I especially like journalism because it got me out of the house, got me out into the universe, into worlds that maybe I didn't grow up in or didn't have any knowledge of. And all I had was my curiosity and my wits. And this became a great challenge. I always thought it was a great challenge. And so I came to New York with the desire to be a writer. So, of course, what's the first thing I do drive a cab for three years? That was my New York City education. What year was this?

What's that? What year was this, T.J., I'm sorry to interrupt. That was in the mid-80s. And I'm telling you, driving a cab in New York City in the mid-80s, we're talking about the heart of the crack cocaine here. Right, 84, 85. That's when I left. Yeah. 2000, over 2,000 homicides a year.

I mean, it was a dangerous place. And you could feel it. And you're driving a cab around during those years. So this was the things that were sort of compelling me to be a writer. But you know, Cuba and the interest in Cuba, you know, the first book, the Westies, that's an easy one. I mean, I'm Irish American. And that was about the last of the Irish mob in New York. And so that was, I was almost right.

writing about my own cultural experience writing about that. Cuba always fascinated me. You know, I was born in October 57, so I'm a young kid. When Castro comes into power and Castro in the United States at odds with each other was an item on the news every day. And I was just fascinated more so with the relationship between the United States in Cuba. It just seemed like such a fascinating love, hate connection. And the idea that this island that was right there somehow could be the biggest nemesis to the United States. It all just

fascinated me from, captured my imagination from a, from a pretty young age. So I go on and become a crime writer. And I'm writing about the Irish mob. I write about a Vietnamese gang in Chinatown in New York. But in the back of my mind is the great untold story of the era of the mafia in Havana in the 1950s. You know, that story had never really been written. It had been done and Godfather Part 2, and there were a few other movies that had dealt with it. But nobody had really gone to Cuba, done the research, really got to the past, the legend and the folklore, and got to some actual truth of what happened there.

So that's what led to the writing of Havana Nocturn. And by then, I'll be honest with you, I was already in love with Cuban culture. I listened to Cuban music. I'm fascinated with a lot of things about Cuban culture. So getting to go there and do the research for that book, Havana Nocturn, was like dying and going to heaven. It was one of the greatest things I've ever had the opportunity to do,

to do research in Cuba, to spend, you know, some real time there. Just wonderful. So, you know, then when that book was over, I wanted to do more. T.C. Hold on one question. There was the obvious question of what happens once the mafia gets chased off the island.

Do they take that lying down? What comes next? And that was what motivated me to want to write to corporation. Now, in a event, How long did it take you to write Havana nocturn? Probably three years. Yeah, they take three years to research and write. Now, you have some, your research skills are fucking magnificent.

And, you know, I read the credits for the corporation. When you went to Cuba and you found that, I'd say you heard the story about Santo when Kennedy came down, when you approach these people, how would they react to you at first? I mean, this isn't a Cuban guy going up to a Cuban guy. This is a white guy going up to a Cuban guy. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, when I first went to Cuba to do research for an anachron,

it was right at the time that Hidal Castro disappeared from public at the time with some strange ailment that the Cuban government wasn't revealing what it was. Everyone knew that Castro was sick and he had disappeared. Do you remember this? Yes, in 2006? Yes. Yeah, and so there was rumors that Castro was dead. There was a body double, and yeah, there was a bunch of shit.

Yeah, yeah. So I had applied with the U.S. government to get authorization to go there legally through the Treasury Department. You get a special visa to go there and do research, and I had gotten it. I got me okay from the U.S. And so I'm heading down to Cuba, and I just happen to me head in there right when all this shit hits the fan about Cedale. And his health and whether he's dead or alive.

And a lot of people, journalists, friends and Cubans were telling me, you're not going to get in to Cuba. They're on lockdown right now. They're paranoid about information being leaked. If they know you're a writer or journalist, they're not going to let you in. So I was like, shit, I got to go. I got my license. It's only good for a specific period of time.

I don't want to lose it. So I'm going to go. And then people told me to make up stories, to lie to get into the country. I said, no, I'm just going to tell them what I'm doing. Because the truth is, in Cuba, you know, they're proud of having chased the mafia out of, out of the off the island. So it's a story that they're predisposed to like having written. Um, but I still, I had to convince them that I was sincere and all that. So what I did was just by chance, like this was not intentional.

I had packed my bags and I had packed a, a book, paperback book, the collected writings of Jose Marti. And it was right on top of my, uh, right on top of my clothes. It was the first thing you'd see when you open the bag. So I get to Cuba and right away, I stand out. This is back in 06. There's not a lot of travelers going there at that time. and they pull me out of the line and with my

bags and take me into a separate room and I get a pretty, I get a pretty rigorous interrogation. What are you doing here? Where are you going? What are your intentions? All in Spanish so like I'm immediately having to have to use my Spanish and the guy is

uptight. I can see he's really not sure whether he's going to let me in or not and then he opens my bags and he sees that copy of the collective writings of Jose Marti and it was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders man he just kind of like lightened up there was something magical about that book Jose Marti and uh and and and and he let me in and so I was in and once you're sort of allowed in the Cuba and you're authorized people were were pretty talkative as long as I was getting the proper introduction you know as as is the case anywhere if you're

introduced to somebody by somebody they know and trust, then there's a good chance you might get them to talk to you. So it was easier than you might think once I got there. You know, I want you to describe to people, in 1985 I met a Panamanian woman in Fort Lee, New Jersey. She lived in the building, you know, whatever. I was hiding out from North Bergen guys looking for me. And we became friends.

She was a lot older than me. I mean, no sexual, just friends. I'd see you in the laundry room. And she once told me, she looked me in the face, and she goes, I went to Cuba as a young girl. And it was a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful country. And I had a good time. But when I left there,

I realized that they were pushing the envelope a bit too far. She goes, I never, you know, she was really Catholic. And she said, I never forgot thinking that God would punish me. them one day for what they were doing there. She goes, it was a little more dirtier than what I expected at the time. And she goes, five years after that, Castro, boom, and look what Cuba is today. They're a starving nation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And it was very interesting that she said that to me, that she goes, you know, everybody says that Las Vegas is the new Cuba. She goes, that's an extreme. She goes, it was so blatantly

satanic. Did you read that article? I think I sent you a couple weeks ago in search of Superman? No. Did you send me that? I don't remember getting that. Superman was the sex performer Superman? Yes. 50 years of research looking for this guy. Even Duval went to, I'm going to look for it. It's on my Facebook page. 50 years of research. And they answered a lot of questions for me because I'm like you, T.J. I was born there, but I left when I was three. I remember a beach. I remember a house and driving in a Cadillac and taking pictures that I don't remember anything else about Cuba.

But in that article, they pretty much broke it down. He was fucking a chick. And the funny thing was, in my special, I opened up a joke about his grandson. Cubans are very proud of who their grandparents. And, you know, this kid bragged that the guy and godfather, too, was his grandfather. So he owned the bar on 38th Street called Club 38, which he bought from Nenei Marquez. Nene Márquez owned that bar first in the 60s and 50s. My mother owned a little diner next to it called the OK, up to block from a school called Washington School.

But he had bought it, and on Saturdays, you know, doing it. in a week they did salsa but on Saturdays they did he took his dick out and fuck some Cuban chick live for 200 Cubans while they drank fucking rum and clapped and shit and you know well this article

really went deep TJ and it was a 30 minute read and they found the guy and blah blah blah and uh they also found out that Marlon Brando was one of his lovers just just fucking but they said listen man

at that time, people went to Cuba to see that guy with the big dick. Like, that was the biggest fucking attraction they had was watching a guy with a 16-inch dick fuck some pull helpless fucking human trafficking chick from China or something because they did it in a Chinese restaurant. Did you?

Well, no, they did it at a place called the Shanghai Theater. The Shanghai Theater, whatever the fuck it was. Now, when you were down, there. Did you, it was Chinese fucking people, you know, Shanghai they had to serve egg rolls, T.J. Knock it off. They had to serve something. Somebody's getting dick. They got to serve some type of food. 15 inch, 15 inch egg rolls.

Yeah, 15 inch egg rolls. But it was, did you get that same impression? Like, there was a reason why those Cubans wanted to overtake the casinos and they were lied to they were sold to Bill of Lading. Did you get that feeling? Well, first of my, Well, let me go back to Superman because I did a fair amount of research on that. In fact, I was able to, there was a guy in Tampa who was the son of a lawyer who represented Santa Tons.

And he got the tapes. He had the tapes. He had a video of Superman, fucking a girl. And he, and in a private club in somebody's home, they had these sex salons where you'd go to the nice part of town and you'd go to a nice house. there would be live sex shows there, cocktail party and live sex shows. Agro. But he, so this guy would have to take, but he would not let it out of his possession. He said, if you come here to Tampa, I will show it to you.

Never forget, I got to his office. He also's a lawyer. Went to his legal office. He said, come at six when it closes. And there's nobody around so we can watch it. And I get there, and he sets it up. conference room and he's got this super eight footage of superman fucking this this poor uh woman and he's he's hitting her from every conceivable angle and it did not look pleasurable man i mean he was big and she

was not big and uh the the old man had scored it to music like bagner and shit like triumphant classical music uh to to this to the scene the scene of superman this woman. So that was pretty amazing. I don't know if there's any other actual footage that exists of that guy. So I was able to see him. I was told that he died of gangrene. Yeah, no.

And the article says he died in Mexico of a jealous lover. The kid who, you know, some woman he fucked. He went on the run. He was a guard during the daytime and he got paid $25 a night for his shows. And then the writer went deep. And he goes, look at, we're not here to, you know, tell you about his life as a performer.

We're here to tell you about how tragic his life really was. Yeah, no, I know it ended quite tragically. He got $125 and these people would pay fucking 50 bucks American to see him fuck somebody. You know, it was just, uh, it was a freak show is what it was, you know. And it was particularly popular with politicians. I mean, that scene in the Godfather, where they, with Godfather, when they show them taking the senator to the club to see Superman, that's very accurate because that's,

they used to use that show, that sex show to, like, show it off to the politicians and businessmen who were coming into town. Everyone wanted to see it, and they'd take them over there and give them a thrill, let him see it. When you were down on Cuba, did you meet any Cubans with Irish last names?

Yeah, yeah. In fact, the main street in, in old Havana, Havana Viana Valleja is O'Reilly, O'Reilly Street. You believe that? Because of the Battle of the Boyne, all the Cubans, all the Irish went to Cuba because it was the only other Catholic country

and they didn't want to, you know, they just wanted to keep the party alive, the Irish. They don't want to fight no money. They just want to keep some fucking beers. Yeah, and, you know, I love Latin jazz. I'm not Cuban jazz. is one of the things I love the most. And one of the founding fathers of Latin jazz is a guy named Chico O'Farrell.

Chico O'Farrell was one of the early composers, Irish blood, an Irish Cuban. So you really fell in love with the culture and all this. So now you go down there, you investigate how they get out of the fucking, how they got the mob out of Cuba and took their money. I mean, that fact that you put in your book that Batista was getting $1.5 million, a week. That's six million American every fucking month. That's $72 million a year. If he was making $72, can you imagine what the mob was really making?

Yeah, but you know, they knew they had to pay him well, and he put a high tariff on them to allow them to do their thing. But of course, he totally allowed them to do their thing. He stayed out of their way, and they had those casinos up and running, and there was no gaming commission. You know, the mob was the gaming commission. So they were pretty much free to the casino money went right into their pocket, or it went to the skim, the cut of it that went to Batista.

The deal, of course, was that he would keep the lid on everything and that there would be no revolution. And that was Batista's job. That's what he was getting paid for. And he kept telling him things. were fine that they that this little thing with Castro and and disputes around the country was being squelched that there was no chance at all that this would be successful and that it would take over the country and of course it was a dictatorship and he controlled the media he

controlled everything that was reported in the newspapers and on TV and everything that was reported was is that the army has the matter in hand the revolution is going nowhere we're defeated the rebels in every turn, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So nobody saw it coming. Nobody saw it coming. I mean, it wasn't until January 1st, 1959, when a revolutionary guard came rolling into Havana that everybody fled suddenly.

You know, Batista got out of there in the dead of night on an airplane and suitcases full of cash. And Lansky got out of there a few days. later and Travacante didn't get out of there. He got snatched and held in prison and thought he was going to be executed. He was on an execution list, and the rumor is, I think it's more than the rumor, it's a fact that he paid a million dollars in cash directly to Raul Castro to get out of prison so that he could leave the island.

Now, I read somewhere when Batista left, he left with $250 million. Hard to calculate, but yeah, I mean, whatever he could carry he took with him, I'm sure. So now you rewrite a Van der Leyenact turn and you want to know about the mob. So this is how the whole Jose battle thing comes into play. Yeah, well, this is one of the great, this is one of the great mobs their stories, I think, of recent times. and it was just sitting there waiting to be written, really. I had heard of battle. I knew the battle story.

Battle was a Numbers racketeer whose name would pop up in the local papers in New York as far back as the 1980s. And there was always talk about the Cubans and the so-called corporation and what that was. And I always was interested in it because I thought it had some connection to the anti-Castro political movement also the attempts to overthrow Cuba to destabilize the Cuban government to assassinate cast or to take back Cuba this was always a part of it although I wasn't sure how these pieces fit together I could kind of see that they were all one one in the same thing battle was a very kind of charismatic guy very earthy-looking

guy salt of the earth character a certain amount of charisma street level charisma, not an intellectual by any stretch, more of a street guy, but he had this incredible reputation because he had been a soldier during the Batig's invasion. He got captured and held in prison in Cuba. So I was sort of aware of all of this, even back when I was writing Havana Nocturn. And in fact, Battle died, I believe, in 2006, right, when I was into the research of an nocturn. And I had a guy who helped me with my Spanish, a Cuban guy would come over here and sit in my apartment, and I would read to him. He was so good now. Anywhere I travel in the world, Mexico or whatever, and I speak Spanish, they think I'm Cuban because I speak Spanish with a Cuban accent.

But he used to tell me about the corporation, and he said the corporation is the most powerful organized crime entity in the Latin world. He said they're untouchable. They have this mystique. that they have some connections to the CIA because of the Bay of Pigs invasion. And they're all powerful and nobody can fuck with them. And everyone fears them. So I was kind of aware of it. But, you know, it doesn't get a lot of press in the mainstream media. Back then, everything was mafia, mafia, mafia.

It was the only thing it seemed that anyone wanted to hear about. And I knew there were all these great crime stories because I was writing a lot of it as a journalist, I did a series for Playboy magazine called The New Mob, and it was like an article on a Jamaican posse from Kingston that did it set up operations in Brooklyn. I did an article about the Chinese triads and went to Hong Kong. So I was aware that there was more than, there was much more than just the Italian mafia out there. And I was interested in the Cuban thing, but I just didn't see how I could write the story. I didn't have the sources. I didn't have a way in to the story. So, I didn't have a way in to the story.

so I was kind of lusting from afar at the story of Jose Miguel Battle and I knew it was a great book. I thought, well, someone else is going to write that book, probably, and I'll feel bad about it and wish that I had done it. But like I said, I really didn't have the sources to do it. And that didn't happen until fairly recently, about three years ago, I get contacted by these two young Cuban American movie producers. and they contact my agent and they say we've been developing this material story on Jose Miguel Battle on the corporation and we think it would be a great book they said does t.J english know anything about this story and would he be interested in doing it and uh i said yeah fuck yeah i know i know the story very very well at least as well as know it from just what's in the

in the mainstream media and i said so what do you guys have, you know, right away, I wanted to know what they had. And what they had was this cop who had worked the corporation case pretty much, almost his whole career, close to 20 years. And he'd become obsessed with battle. And he'd been involved in all these investigations over the years with all the different agencies, FBI, everyone else who got involved at different points along the way. This guy knew more about battle in the corporation than any single person. And not only that, he kept all the documents, man. He had like a motherload of police reports and autopsy reports and transcripts of criminal hearings and trials. And he had a motherload of information.

And once I saw what he had, I said, yeah, I think I can do this. And then I still had a lot of work to do because, you know, you know, if this is the third book of mine you've read now, you know they're they're they're pretty intensely researched and uh i try to go deep and i try to get at intimate interpersonal stuff you know not just the stuff you would get from reading the newspaper article or magazine article so i know i had to try to meet people who would live this story or maybe we're just one step removed who could really who could place me there so that i can write it in such a way that the reader feels like they're right there in the thick of it I, when I first found out about this, I remember my heart beating the way it is now from listening to you.

I've known for 15 years that there's a tremendous story there. There was always a tremendous story. When I was nine on the weekends, when I came home from Catholic school, I would have to deliver flowers for Agassala Flore. and that was owned by a guy named Jose Toymiel, who was a big-time bookmaker, who will get to later. He was one of Battles guys, and I remember them specifically saying

that these flowers better be fucking perfect for battle or his mother or his son. You know, it could have been anybody, but they lived in a tall high-rise building at the time. So if I was nine, this had to be 72, 71. You and I just spoke a little bit. You came to one of the shows. It was packed.

I didn't really get to see you much. We spoke a few times after that. I go to my daughter's dance recital. And I come home that night and there's a package on the fucking thing and it's half ripped open because everything, my wife lives on Amazon. Every time I come home, there's a fucking box in front of the goddamn house. So I bring the book in, TJ,

and I sit down, my daughter comes in with talking, and I didn't really have a chance to read, but I opened up to a page, and it was fucking goosebumps. It was the page where Ernestico, Nina, and Monchi's wife come to visit him, and they do blow, and they robbed the jewelry store,

and next thing you know, there's compromising pictures and stuff like that. And I closed a fucking book. You know, I told a joke for years, which is a true story. We lived on 89th Street on Riverside Drive. This had to be 68, 69 on

Tuesday nights. My mom would sit around with six women and they'd play dominoes and cards and dubleau and fucking drink and listening to Jim Morrison and talk about how hot Jim Morrison was. And one of those women was Nina. You know, I was

very tight with her. And I remember growing up and her husband Tati coming in and out of jail, but He was always very close to me because of my father. I didn't understand that at the time. When he would come to me, he would say, you know, pick up your chest. You know, you eat pussy yet? I must have been six, and he would ask me, do you eat pussy yet?

You know, you got to eat pussy. Your father loved eating fucking pussy. He had a tattoo of a fucking scorpion on his dick. Your father was a real man. And this was every, but he would disappear the periods of time. And then he'd come back. You can, you know, I could be nine and he'd give me $300. don't tell your mother, you know.

When my mother died and I had to live with the Italian family, the benders who took me in, my dog went to Nina. I knew those people. Like, I closed the book right away, and I think I called you. Yeah. And I said, like, I knew this. And the thing about the, you know, you spoke about in Van Nucturne,

how the revolution started in Union City, Tampa, and then Cuba, obviously. Yeah. But you spoke about the three brothers that battle approached that were down on their luck, and he made partners with the one Irish brother. First thing I did when I read that was called Mike Askalese. His mother, Patricia, lived on 19th Street in Union City. He grew up there as a child, and she still remembers Fidel Castro talking to her.

She goes, I knew fucking Fidel when he would still just talk to. He was talking to her. And, you know, so I called and told him the name, sure enough, he calls back three days later. And Michael talked to you for hours because he knows the whole history of Union City early. But I was so impressed with what you had done. Like somebody had finally opened the door on this story. Yeah. Because I grew up in this.

You know, I was that kid, T.J. that would come to your house and we'd be watching something. and your mother would say, you know, I went and did something today, and I couldn't tell you what my mother was doing that day. I lived in, I had two worlds growing up. I lived in a kid's world, and I lived around guys like Tati and Monchi and Maragamba and Nene Carrero. And there was a whole love, you know, that bar was a bookmaking bar at night. That's where they celebrated.

It was at my mother's bar. So I remember half the stories. I remember the car bombing in 76. Yeah. And my mother used to tell me, you know, when I got out of Catholic school in the fifth grade, I used to go to McKinley School right off of Route 3. If you go by Route 3 and you stay on there,

you pass the York Motel where the Ice Man chopped the body and a half. Oh, yeah. Right across from there, there's a fucking, an embroidery shop and a school. That's McKinley. I used to go to McKinley. And when I would walk down the stairs, Dottie would be there with a fucking catalog.

And he'd pick me up, take me into the city, take me to get a haircut. I don't know what he'd do up the corner on that diner. He'd go in there while I was getting my hair cut. The stage or something was there. And then we... What did he do? What did you know of what he did for...

At that time, what I knew was that he did something. I don't know what he did. I thought it was something with cocaine. Something illegal. Yes, I knew it was cocaine related. Okay. And then he went away one time, and Nina shows up with this black Cuban. Black Cuban with gold fucking teeth and gold everywhere.

His name was a Negro Marcello. And that was her new husband. And to me, my loyalty was with fucking Tothy. Even at that age, as a young kid, I asked my mom, what the fuck is this shit? But I knew that she went both ways. There was times I went to a house and there'd be a young girl there. Nina was just a fucking sexual deviant animal. I mean, that's the only way.

As I got older, even when I was 16, after my mother died, there was nights I would walk home. And she was living on 51st in North Bergen. And I'd jumped the fence. and I'd play with the dog and she'd be in there with three fucking chick coaked up to the gills. She was heavier then and she would talk to me for a little while but she became kind of

a cunt later on towards me after my mother died. Well we should tell people Tati, Monci and Malagamba were three very notorious professional hitmen for organized crime

for Cuban organized crime and some of it. was just gangsters shit, you know, it's that were done for business reasons, but they also were professional political assassins. They were used to do killings on behalf of an organization called Omega 7, which was, you know, an anti-castro militant, a terrorist organization, basically, a group that was dedicated to doing covert, bombings, assassinations, all in the interest of trying to destabilize Cuba and bring down Castro. So we're talking about, you know, some heavy motherfuckers.

I knew you could. You couldn't utter the words, Fidel, as freely as you could today in Union City. When I was growing up, I told the joke a couple of weeks ago. that I got cousins of the commies. I don't even know what a fucking commie is, T.J. English. I just knew that you didn't talk to him. You know, I was raised.

Yeah, now, this is interesting because I don't think the average American and even some Cubans maybe that didn't grow up, you know, either in Union City or Miami, they don't know this history. They don't know how, how heavy that was. Heavy, heavy, heavy.

You couldn't even say Fidel in the late 60s and 70s. Yeah. It wasn't until Mario opened that it really loosened up, but that's when shit hit the fucking fan. Yeah, well, a lot of those guys, the Mario Littos, they got used for, you know, doing a lot of the wet work, so to speak, you know, the dirty work for the mob. I mean, they became guys you'd have go do murders that you knew they weren't

and survive that murder, you know, and they were. were so desperate, they'd do it for $10. You know, there's a lot of names in the book that I remember, and there's a lot of names in the book I don't remember, and I wish I would have got to your ear a year earlier. Yeah, that would have been helpful. You know, like I remember there was a guy Miguel that had his own bank. He ended up moving to Florida. He walked with a pigeon toe, so they would always goof on my mother that he was really

my father. and he was married to a Puerto Rican woman named Marlena. And I guess Nene Carrero, who owned a barbershop, had a problem with him one day. Yeah. He fucked his wife, and he shot Nene in the leg. You know, this was common knowledge that I would hear whispers of at the bar. And I grew up in a house that was Mita Oya and Gaya, for American people listening. In my house, my mom had elephants everywhere, and she had mrs.

monkeys everywhere, but the monkeys all had the same meaning. They all covered their eyes, their ears, and their mouths. So I was not allowed to repeat this. You mentioned two stories in the book, one about a Cuban doctor. I know exactly who they're talking about. That was my family doctor. As a child, he'd come over. And you mentioned the name, and I had the name. I just, the lawyer wouldn't let me use the name. Oh, my God. What was it, Del Valle? De Valle. He would come over my house. His office was in Wee Hawking, but when I lived on 205 West 88th Street, he would come over in the afternoons. I always had a bad problem with my tonsils, T.J.

He would come over, come into the back room, touch my temperature. Oh, Santone, you have a fever. I have to give you a penicillin shot. And I would go, let me think about it. He loved it. That must be from all that pussy you were eating when you were 60. No, no, listen to this. This motherfucker would go out and live room and start doing bumps with my mom,

whoever else was there. And then he'd come in an hour later, fucked up to the gills and give me a needle. And then he'd leave my mother two syringes and a bottle of penicillin. Devay was well known as the man for whatever you made. If you got shot at four in the morning,

Dovaye took care of you. You know, you needed anything. That's just what you want to coke to buy with a needle with his hand standing over you, right? Fucking crap. But I got to tell you something. between you and I, T.J. Till this day,

2017, I still talk to him once a year, and I love him dearly. I love him dearly. I bumped into him in a disco years later, and he came up to me, and he goes, tell me that you have a blast.

Tell me that you have something for the head, and I looked at him, I go, I got nothing about happening. And this is what he said. Deep mechadena, I go to la Cuehasa. And I go, thank you, he goes, he goes, no media,

I saw going so done. He walked away from me. That's the last time I physically told him. And you also told the story in the book about Jose Battle, getting arrested in North Bergen. Okay, he got arrested in North Bergen for something minor. You ready for this one? I called one of my friends that are cops, and I asked him, and I told him about the book.

He pre-ordered it. He called me back four days later. He was, dog, I looked into that arrest. He got arrested in North Bergen. they didn't even put the handcuffs on them. Oh, yeah, that one, yeah. When they drove him to the station, and by the time he got to the station, supposedly,

the call was already in. Yeah. See, that was... He controlled that town. That was their genius that nobody understood. This is why I do not watch CNN. I do not care about political elections, because I was exposed to something at the age,

between the ages of 8 and 12, that broke my system down in an early age. I saw cops getting paid off. You know, in an early age, I saw, you know, cops that would have uniforms on in the daytime at family Santa Ria parties, snort and coke. And I also, when I went to North Bergen, that's a completely different political system

that's tied into Union City. and Weehawk and also. Yeah. So I got to see the political system in a micro way. Yeah. I couldn't even imagine the macro corruption if the micro was as bad as I had seen. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's fascinating.

And a lot of it was gambling, gambling money. Gambling money was allowed to flourish. The gambling is allowed to flourish. There are numbers in Bergen County, Hudson County. that numbers racket predates Cubans You know Battle was brilliant

And battle came and plugged into A pre-existing system Knowing that He was going to bring with him All these Latinos That were playing the number It's like a religion And

And But he was very careful about Getting Approval from all the people He needed to get approval from He went to the mafia guys, told them what he was going to do, cut them in on a piece of it. He went to these Irish brothers that had the connection between gambling and the police. And he took over from them with their blessing by giving them a piece of it.

The whole system of corruption that had existed there for, I don't know, a century probably. he went there and you know because he was from havana in the 50s and i didn't even mention that you know he was a vice cop in havana in the 50s and supposedly was the bagman for the mob who would deliver the money from traficante to batista to the presidential palace the battle knew how the world went around man he knew how things worked he was and he was he was coming as having been a cop having been a corrupt cop in one of the most corrupt places ever. And he just said, you know, you take care of everybody. You make everyone who's supposed to get a piece, gets a piece. And everybody's happy. And if you keep everybody happy, then we all get rich together. And it worked for a long time.

I mean, the corporation was up and running before it was ever even called the corporation for a long time, for decades. And then it continued even long. longer than that. The thing that battle tripped up on is he had another Cuban trait. And that was this guy had a very overdeveloped need for revenge. If he ever got wronged in any way or he felt his honor had been insulted in some way, this fucker would spend years calculating ways to take you out and get revenge. Why is that in our system, TJ? Can you tell me why Man on Fire is my favorite movie? Can you tell me why Death Wish is my favorite movie? Can you explain to me why? I have an ex-wife in Colorado.

I'll tell me why. With the Cubans, lots of it comes from Spain, comes from the Spanish. The Spanish have a very sophisticated and elaborate thing of honor. and if your honor is stepped on in any way that you are honor bound in return to get revenge, to exact revenge. And you really are not even a decent man anymore if you don't do that. And it's all tied into manhood,

getting revenge for having been wronged. And so fucking Latinos have it. And everyone has it. I mean, Irish have it, Italians have it. but not that it keeps you up at night my ex-wife in Boulder Colorado 20 years I'm happily married I'm doing what I'm doing and I still can't trust myself to go to bold to T.J. English I go to Denver and I stay in the hotel and I pray to God that I don't have to go to bold and I tell you this from one man to another that I don't I don't trust myself if somebody

cuts me off. I won't go over that. I'm still telling you as a man right now, and I can care if the cops are listening or the DA or fucking law and order that I still dream about fucking slicing her fucking throat, T.J. English. I don't know why.

And it's got to be something in your jeans. It's got to be one thing about the Cuban household is the main word is, never to get it, thou. No wenga to this house now. And that goes with the Irish, the Irish have that too. And that means don't come home to this

house, hit. Don't you dare walk into this house hit. You fight till the end. If he has, and if he's bigger than you, you hit him in the head with a chair. You break his fucking head. And every time he combs his hair, he'll think

of you hitting him in the chair. That's the Cuban mentality. I cannot lie to you that that was my mother's fucking number one pet peeve. Knowing that I saw out, do not stay hit. By no means never in your life. And there's no dishonor in being beat in a fight

as long as you fight. As long as you fight it out. One, listen, man, first of all, I want to thank you for your time. I want to thank you for your gift. But one thing I also want you to explain to these fucking lunatics that don't know is how deep

the numbers system goes in our soul. You explain that in the book. You even broke it down to La Chattala, the book of dreams. You know, if you go to 118th Street in those days when I was a kid, you would walk into a candy store that had one Uhoo in the shelf

and three boxes of fucking candy that hadn't been touched in 20 years. It had dust on it. And there was a bulletproof glass, or sometimes it was an open counter, and there were 10 magazines hanging off, about dreams. So if you have a dream about

getting hit by an ambulance, it's 32 and you put a five prefix. How deep is that in the Cuban? Yeah, no, it's fucking amazing. It's like a deep. It's like a religion. It is a religion. It's an extension. A numerology, you know?

It's a belief that through numbers, you can know the mysteries of life. and that everything that happens and everything that is is associated with a number and you know

if you can somehow align those numbers put the numbers together you can be rich and Bolita was a system that made that possible you could be rich if you hit the number you bet the number

and so it was like well there has to be a science to this what's the science And the science was like deciphering your dreams. So like you just said, every animal or many different things have a number assigned to it. And so if those things pop up in your dreams and you use those numbers to bet the number. And people believed it. Like you would believe religion, you believe in it really strongly.

And all it took was for like one person to hit it. And it was like, see, shit. Cogno, you know, bet that number, man. I had a dream. I had the dream. I told you. There was a dog in my dream, you know, whatever that number is. And so that extended itself to the idea that the bolikeros, the people who organized Bolica,

who were the overseers of Bolica, Jose Mikhail Battle, and all the people in his organization, were somehow the dreammakers. These were the guys that you could make your dream. memes come true. And so they had a certain mystique within the community. They were, they were more than just gangsters, really. They were, they were cultural figures that were tied into this thing of Bolita as this kind of almost like a pagan religion that had deep, deep meaning to everybody. So it wasn't just a criminal activity. It was a cultural activity, betting the number, being interested in the number was, you know, you know, it was a communal,

thing for Cubans. It was part of the culture. And it wasn't meant to be violent, by the way. Back in Cuba, Bolita was not a violent. It was illegal. But everyone sort of allowed it to happen. Cops bet the number. Little old ladies bet the number. The corner priest spets the number. It was considered to be a victimless crime. It's not supposed to be violent. It got violent because it got so profitable. It was so what battle created became so profitable that greed set in and greed led to the violence. But Belita itself is a beautiful thing. It really is when you think about it. It's I grew up in it. You know, I grew up in it early on. One day I went to Union City and got a, joined the basketball league. And I walked in with a t-shirt and it said 57 on it.

And my stepfather, Juan, was on the phone while I walked in. And he goes, what's that number on that shirt in 57? And all of a sudden, we got in the car and he ran up because he would not use the phone. He ran up to the corner. He put $10 on $5.57. 6 o'clock. He told me I hit the number. I won $5,000.

I think he gave me $2,000. He kept to rest. You know, it's such a, my birthday, my 1969 on 219, 219, 219 came out. And I went to Jersey City, it snowed a foot and a half of fucking snow, T.J. English. Me and my little Gumbas decided to take the number one bus to go see some fucking Pink Panther movie or some shit. We walk in the house and my mother tells you, son of a bitch, you hit the fucking number for 5,000. I gave her a couple grand and I opened up a bank account

and fucking HUD the Hudson United Savings there in Union City and I hit the number a couple times. I used to be pretty good with it. It was my mother had a guy that sat there all day. 10 o'clock to 3 just taking numbers

on a little tiny sheet of fucking paper, tiny and he would write the number and he would fold it up very tightly and put it in his hat. because in Jersey, as you know, it's a felony, but in New York City in those days, it was a misdemeanor.

And I just want to tell you one last point about Union City. Let me tell you how corrupt Union City was in those days. Never mind the fucking Cubans, the numbers, the politicians, what was going on in Hoboken. Do you know what was around the corner from the Nemarquez's old club, Club 38? a bar by the name of bottom of the barrel. Now, I know in your crime research

and all you're reading, you've read a bottom of the barrel. I'll tell you, two figures who hung out at bottom of the barrel tons, number one, Henry Hill, and I confirmed that when I did a movie a few years ago, and he was on the set. And number two, the guy that turned on Costalano, Dominic Montaglio, he hung out there a lot.

Union City was a very hot bed. I mean, you know, originally the Iceman is from Jersey City, but he lived in West New York. And then he lived in North Bergen on 74th Street across from the Coat factory. I snorted so much Coke at that Coke factory. We all did in the backyard that if they take a dog there today, 20 years later, that dog will fucking die. He cut his wife's nipples off.

in that building, in that house, in his book. So that area is a very interesting place. I thank you for shining a line on it because you opened the door to a thousand things that are going to come now. Because people like me know the stories. I mean, I grew up in this small community that was, I remember that bar on 48th Street,

we're in Estico. I don't know the name of it, but they had a tremendous, Bita de Palomilla with white rice and they'd sprinkle that, what's that green shit parsley? They sprinkle that on the Cuban steak with fried tautones and black beans.

Nice. It was fucking tremendous. But, T.J., I love your writing. I am so happy you opened up this. It's a pleasure, Joey. It's one of the great pleasures with this book is lifting the lid on this history. And I do think it's given people the opportunity to talk about certain things.

I mean, I had a lot of younger people who were sort of the sons and daughters of or the nieces and nest views of a lot of the main players in this story. And a lot of them reached out to me. And I really had a feeling that there was a generation of people, Cubans, who'd grown up in the shadow of all of this and haven't been able to talk about it for generations. It's kept it bottled up

and it's never good to keep stuff bottled up. So, you know, I hope it's a process of people getting some of this history off their chest. T. J. I never thought people would believe me. Yeah. I never really thought

people would believe me about the Frank Mona's stories and the two cops that would come in for the beat cop and the regular cop that were coming for an envelope. I still remember them, you know, Newark, some guy named Bonnyawa, a Cuban fucking ruthless guy that ran Newark drugs and he made a call to my mother's bar. So the pay phone at my mother's bar was connected to a house phone behind the bar so she could answer it.

they got her on conspiracy charges. And I still remember me being in my living room and the phone ringing. And it was a dear cop that I knew that said to me, hey, man, tell your mother to clean the house that she's about to get a visitor. And then they said, come over when you're finished. And I went upstairs and I told my mom.

And sure enough, I went down. She threw away a bunch of shit. And next thing, you know, as I was, walking down the block with my basketball, I saw the detectives making a left turn onto my block. It was that type of community that it was so corrupt, but then again, it seemed like it was normal. Yeah, it was the norm.

It was the fucking norm, you know. You and I could go for hours about things you discovered while you were writing this book that people wouldn't believe. Now, I know that you have T.J. English. You're selling the book on there, and you also have the book pre-ordering on Amazon.com. Yeah, Amazon. And there's one other thing I want to mention. I'm hosting a Latin jazz series at the Zinc Lounge in the Village in New York every Thursday night in April to promote the book,

but also just because I love the music. And it's like a dream comfort for me. I get to choose the musicians. I get to host the evening. so anybody out there who likes Latin jazz, we're going to have some of the best of it at that series. Now, I will see you Tuesday night for the book premiere. I'm excited.

And we will talk for hours about the stuff that's in the book. It won't be on the air, all of it. No, well, then you're doing Rogan on the 26th. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Open you up a little more. That's why I didn't want to do a lot of spoilers. I just wanted to tell you that, you know, You always want to do what you can't do.

And I know I can do it. But you writing this book really opened my eyes to writing. I've been writing every day since then. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for your gift, your talent, and for writing this beautiful story. And I want people to pre-order your book on Amazon so you get the word out. And it's going to be turned into a movie and hopefully a Latin series or whatever the fuck.

It doesn't even matter. Just that you got the story. out there. You're like the rounder rousy of the Cuban fucking community now. You expose this. You open the fucking door. So, TJ, I love you to all my heart, man. And this is no bullshit.

I love you, Joey. Thanks. I love you what you did. And I will see you Tuesday. Tip top, Magoo, ready to fucking go. Yes, you will. Okay. Thank you for calling in, my brother. Chow. Yeah. That was great, man. It was fucking crazy. So, like, it's very inspiring to see

how much work. He said he took three years of research and writing and it's it there's a lot more to putting a book together like this than than you would think that well let me tell you some there's a lot of fucking research when you read a book like I read I read the the copy that's uh what is the say on here it's uh whatever proof not for sale I read the uncorrected proof not for sale and then he sent me a copy of the finished product and uh I'm just saving that for my And it's funny how I could tell he did a lot of Research and if you see the credits I mean one thing that I usually guys know is my name is one of the credits

Because I contacted him and whatnot but just all the people he interviewed There is acknowledgements that are You know Maybe from page 524 to 560 there's acknowledgments of people that he spoke to in different conversations and shit like that which means he did the work he did the research I mean for me to write a book like this it takes me fucking 10 years I'm trying to write a book about me and it's taking me fucking four years already you know just outlining and shit like that and what seems important

and what seems not and I can't imagine you have to dedicate yourself to that this shit. Well, he mentioned briefly on the phone call how he doesn't, he wants to go deeper than just news articles or something. And that's it's a very, because you guys mentioned that it was a story that needed to be told. Yes. But it's also

it has to, the timing has to work perfectly because he can't just go to newspapers. It's not like they wrote the stuff down. They had, he had some, he had the police reports and stuff like that, but that only gives you a certain view of it. You have to go and it's not, it's not, it's not research like writing a paper he has to learn the full story I asked him how hard it was to

get the people get people to talk to you get people to lighten up let me get some shoutouts real quick here first off to my man his birthday over there in Japan sad hatek your girlfriend hit me up and told me to say happy birthday sad so there you go you over there in Japan listening you bad motherfucker sad hat tech my man Nick Owen Dwayne Johnson Patrice Saudet, Random Rocha, Brad Morrissey, Jeff Boone, Jay Bichetti, Andrew Nandau, who I'll see Wednesday night, my man, Renéin Carsohn, who I'll see Wednesday night in Nyack, and 1971 Capital. Don't forget, April 5th and 6th, I'm at the Santa Ana Casina. I think the 6th is already sold out, and all you got left is Thursday night at 7.30,

which is still, I'm still going to rock that fucking show them fresh like I'm motherfucking ready to go. And then 420, Columbus, Ohio, that whole fucking weekend, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And if you know anything about me, the mules, I got mules leaving here April like 14th, bringing a pound of weed and tons of edibles to fucking Columbus. So if I was you, you better check your insurance policy and make sure you're allowed to go to the hospital. and they don't charge you a lot for emergency motherfucking visits. No, I've always been a groupie, not a groupie,

but a fan of authors. Like I've always, I really liked when I read the Godfather books as a child, Mario Puzzo. I just like a certain style of writing. There's people that overwrite and they knock me to fuck down because they try to be witty

and they forget what the fuck they're doing. That shit fucking drives me crazy. But when I read something, that's well written and something like like I said I have stock in the story I grew up in this I saw this around me and I was not allowed to talk about it that I know Tati and Malagamba were fucking Omega 7 not at all and like that I never even heard the word Omega 7 you know until years later I believe that it's not that I think you're lying but some of the stories you tell are just so out there that you're like maybe maybe he's just misremembering it or

But then we get your friends are like this guy who you have no idea. And he's like, oh, yeah, those guys were political assassins. It was crazy. And he was at my house for every Christmas shit like that. You know, I forgot to tell the story that, you know, Nina, his wife, was dating his Negro Marcella when he would go to jail. And thought he would go to jail every two fucking years. Like, he'd be out for a year and then he'd go to jail for two years. And one time he actually came out and shot that motherfucker.

They were like, he's gone. Everybody knew it was Tati. The cops didn't say nothing. Nobody didn't say nothing. You know, my mother warned me of hanging out with two people, and one of them was Tati. That one day he's going to get shot, and I don't want you to call with him. And Malagamba, Danny Bianculo, who used to call him to the podcast a lot, I was tight with Malagama growing up. I was really not as tight as I was with Tati, but I always talked to Malagamba.

He was always nice to me and shit. And after my mother died, he sent for me one day. He called Danny and asked Danny where And I went up there and told him He gave me some money and I told him that I wanted him to get the money from my stepfather for me And he was like that would create a war right now between us I can't do that If you need help just check with me from time to time

You know I didn't want to be a fucking Even though I was a fucking mooch And then I just lost contact with those people And then I heard years later Tati Went to prison because where I used to work at the Galaxy Towers in 1984 right he went in there his main thing was tombes that's what they call him in Spanish you know what a tombay is no a tombay is when I tell you Lee what's the story you got those two kilos of coke and you're like yeah yeah meet me at the

office nice you're up here and I pull a gun and I go there ain't no fucking money I'm taking this from you you can't report that to the cops so that was his main thing so ripping off drug dealers ripping off drug dealers was his main thing what was my main thing ripping off drug dealers so we're the affected me in a way. I got in trouble for doing what he did all the time, which was just robbed drug dealers. Jesus. So, you see, somewhere along the line, I always felt guilty about this. I never told these stories to nobody. Tati ended up going to jail because he kicked out of the door to rob some Colombians, and there were two kids there.

And he shot the two kids, and he killed the Colombians. That's how evil of a person he had become towards the end, you know. But I hadn't seen him. He died in like 96 and 97 from cancer And Nina did too Nina died of cancer in Miami I found that years later TJ asked if you knew what he did And he said at six Like I thought you were gonna be like oh no

He was just a family friend Like I was trying to think back when I was a family friend But no but you said he knew he did something illegal I knew he did something That like I don't think I knew illegal things existed at six I'm trying to think back I don't remember six as clearly as you do But I don't even think I would have known

I don't know. I knew they did something. I just didn't know what it was. I didn't ask. I didn't care. They would always throw money in my pockets. Whenever they'd see me, and my mother would lose her mind.

They would always give me a $100 bill and go buy yourself a toy. I haven't seen you in a few months or something. So I didn't judge him in that way. As I got older, I had heard through different people what Tati did. I knew that he had killed Negro Marcello, so that made him a fucking killer.

And I just, you know, I have this story, like he said, he's going to open up 200 other stories. And it's the story I have, the story of how I saw how the machine worked early on. I have no, listen, I don't believe nothing. That Bronx tale that has a line that says, nobody cares. Okay. That line sticks out in my mind every day. because I know at the end of the day

nobody cares there's a few people who really fucking care you know and the point I'm trying to make is that as a child I was exposed to this police corruption then I went to North Bergen and I got exposed to a complete different

type of corruption that was right in front of my eyes that was being done by somebody I was very in love and admired with I admired this family and I admired the way they raised their kids and I, and this is what I yearned for as a child, was that type of family environment.

So I overlooked the things he did. Until this day, I love him dearly. When he died, he left me money. I left it to my daughter. I put in my daughter's account for her to have a little start because he loved my daughter, and I always sent him pictures and stuff like that. I didn't judge him for those things.

I wasn't raised to judge him for those things. I judged him for his heart, and how he treated me growing up. even though I know he murdered somebody, even though I knew he lit buildings on fire, and he was part of a machine at the time. He was part of a corruption machine at the time that I benefited from.

So I'd be a hypocrite if I told you. Anything his kids got, I got. If they got a motorcycle, I got a motorcycle. If they went to the Hamptons or Montauk, I went to the Hamptons. They got sneakers, I got sneakers. If they got Yankee tickets, I got Yankee tickets. They were all things from corruption, you know. that park where I play, that 38th Street Park.

One of my friends, his team is in the final four this weekend of Division III, Chuck McBreen. And me and Chuck McBring, he's a coach. They just did a write-up about him on Facebook and a bunch of other things that he's a coach. Me and him play basketball since we were kids. I used to go to his backyard. He had a dirt backyard. So whenever he played basketball back there, you'd go home dirty as fuck, Jack. And we were talking about the corruption that we grew up around,

but especially like if a net, you know the nets on the basketball rims? Okay. Okay. If you went to 51st Street and played at 51st Street Park when I was growing up, they had no nets. If you went to 46th Street, if a net broke, it took them a week to fix it. Like for somebody to come down from the town and rehook it up on the thing, our park, that basketball court, was such a, fucking immaculate court.

The only problem it had was that it went uphill. But the backboards were brand new and our rims. All I had to do was cross the street, I mean 30 yards, until Marianne or Carmine that the rim something was wrong and within 10 minutes, they'd be a guy there fixing the fucking net for us. I was a part of that. I learned that, so I could never be a hypocrite. But still, it opened up my eyes to a world that existed that a lot of other people.

They don't get to see him like And like it's it's very easy to be like oh well Corruption all corruptions battle Every criminal is terrible stuff like that But it's like you're saying like there's another side to it where Especially as kids you don't know you just you're taking you it helps you out or they're nice people And you can't judge them like that I'm gonna tell you that I knew everybody I dealt with them what they did

I'm gonna tell you that you know I I enjoyed being around Tati. I enjoyed being around. There was two factions to the corporation. There was the corporation. And then there were these guys that ran, they did their own thing. And I knew these guys that ran their own thing.

That's who my mother's loyalty was. Juan, my stepfather, he was with a guy that was part of the corporation. He's not in this book. His name is Jose Tourmiel. They called him Niko. Nico had a lot of money and a lot of power, but he didn't have muscle.

so he needed a guy like my stepfather. So he made my stepfather a partner to collect for him. At the same time, my stepfather became a loan chart because if Lee doesn't have the money, I'll loan it to you now. So you could pay it was a three-ponged operation. You understand me? That's a smart muscle. They let you run numbers on credit.

So you could play $2.15, $5, $6.14, $5 to correct people, to even understand what Bolita and numbers are, it's the last three numbers of the paramutual of the track. So tomorrow morning when you wake up in Jersey or in New York, open up the Daily News or the fucking New York Post and you'll always see the paramutual of certain tracks. Aqueduct Belmont, the one in Jersey, because that's the three last numbers.

That's the Bolita number. So it can't be messed with. It's based on the total profit of the track that day. And it was, it sounds like it's like part of, like, almost like a religion, part of your culture. You're growing up with numbers. Like, one of the funniest things I ever heard was when I was a kid of the dry cleaner. Some lady came in and she goes, for some reason, and she was Cuban, and she was a friend of my mother's. And she goes, for some reason, I keep thinking of the number 33.

And my mother goes, that's because your mother was a whore and she wore fake eye lashes. That's the 33 meant that your mother was a whore and she wore fake eye lashes. So all you had to do was put a prefix number on it, five, anything from one to nine. Yeah, but what if you made a mistake? Like, what if it was 33, but you picked four and it was seven? Like, when you get pissed off? Yeah, you get pissed off because you didn't win no money. So how do you pick that number?

You picked that number by like 604 was. my mother's number. That was the last six, that was the last three numbers of my father's death certificate. Or something. Something to do with my father. 517 was some other fucking lucky number she had. 219 she played.

If she'd look up and there was a cop outside, cops always have a number on top of that car. 314, get the phone. Call Renee, talk to put $5 dollars on 314. You become addicted to those numbers, so those people collect at the end of the week, just like

sports bet. It was a thousand to one. Doug, I was always involved in it. From the time I was a kid, I knew it existed. I would go to the banks with my mother, and then my mother ran a bank in the Bronx when I was a kid. But later on, was when I was

like when I went to Catholic school, there's a guy that I called into the podcast, on Tullio. He's my cousin of sorts. His brother and me, they used to call him sandwich because he was fat. So they would call him sandwich. And me and Sandwich on Saturdays were shooting to the Bronx or Brooklyn.

Every Saturday it was a different designated area. And we would run numbers, eight, nine, ten. Because these were the years I went to Catholic school and I would come home on Saturdays and fucking run numbers. And on Sundays, I'd fuck around with my mom and then go back to the school and I'd work the bingo hall. So I was pulling down a hundred a weekend in those days when I was eight and nine. I'd make a hundred a day running numbers.

and I'd make about 50, 60 a night doing the bingo hall, which when you're a kid, that's a scam, dog. It's a scam right now, 150 a day. Yeah, I learned at an early age about how to run numbers, how to get tips from people when they hit the number. See, that was the part I didn't understand where you gave people. I mean, I guess your mom, yeah, but I would never give people a tip. Why do you give people a tip?

You always give people a tech, because it's money in the common bank, and you're giving him a yardstick tip. you might bump into 200 later. Last night I did something. I went somewhere and parking was 10 bucks. Already my blood pressure was high. But guess what? The guy had a hoodie on and a sweatshirt and he approached me like a gentleman

and he spoke to me and guess what he did. He gave me two fives. That means he did his homework. That's how you get a tip. So I gave him a five. I went into the improv. What do they usually pay at the improv? $16.

They're only $2 for a cent. They gave me a $50 bill. So I made his day, and then the improv made my fucking day. It all comes out in the wash at the end of the day. Well, holding on to that $5 or $10 to make somebody's day is going to make your time better tenfold. You're just putting $5. I did take the...

Well, you never told me advice, but I always noticed that you tip very well when we were out at shows. So when I had that show last week in Santa Barbara, they were giving free drinks, and I gave the bartender $10 and she, like, her eyes lit up. And, like, it was a, so I do notice that you do that. I learned at an early age, you go to a bar. There's 50 people at a bar, right?

How do you get the bartender's attention by giving her a dollar? No, open up with a $20. And look her in the face and go, I'm going to sit here for fucking two hours. And I don't want this thing to be empty. And guess what? When 100 people got their glasses out, guess who she's going to come to first? That's true, you? It's business.

Tipping is a part of business. You tip everybody you could tip, and you tip a little extra, and you make that day. Why? Because there's so many fucking people out there that are just cheap that don't understand that people work for tips, and you have to make their day. Whether it's a homeless guy, listen, I refuse to give money to homeless guys, but I got my little black bodyguard here in North Hollywood, but every time I see him, I pull over and duke him at 20. You know what that's like, Duke and him at 20?

I got my wife giving them 20s, so now he knows what my wife looks like. So if shit gets Danes down the corner, watch fucking black Superman show up the real Superman and beat him up with his 19-inch dick. I was going to say, do you have like a code word that you guys can scream if you need help or something? Just fucking look at the situation.

People like that are always watching those homeless people. I told you this a few weeks ago. I don't understand what people's cheapness is, especially when you have a credit card. And you're paying with a credit card. If the thing says 15, 18, and 20%, and it tells you, I give them more than what it says on.

there because what we do we're in the climate business we're not in the cash business we're in the climate business we give we make somebody's day and hopefully somebody makes our day every fucking day and if you do that every day and you leave the house with that type of mentality your life will be a lot fucking better it really pans out for you and that's for everybody who listens to this listen uh like i said i really enjoyed my conversation with t j english today i was a little giggly. Like my heart was pumping because I love this guy. I would love to be a writer like him.

I always dreamt of being Hemingway and drinking margaritas and writing about cube and passing out and shit like that. So today was a fucking pleasure for me. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope you got something out of it. And don't forget to pre-order the book on Amazon. It's called the Corporation. They're going to write a movie.

I mean, it's fucking going to be huge. Like I said to him, and I'm telling you, I'm really happy this guy opened up this avenue, especially with narcos. You know, now it's time to tell this fucking story. So don't forget, Santa Ana Casino. Tickets's only available for the 5th, which is a Thursday night at 7.30. I'll get you out of there by 9.30.

And then fucking 420 weekend, motherfuckers, Columbus, Ohio. Like I said, I'm waiting on Netflix for an answer. I can't put together a tour until Netflix gives me an answer. and then I will be in your fucking town. And yes, I'm working on the fucking passport. All right. I love you, motherfuckers. Have a great day Monday.

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All right. I love you guys with all my heart. Stretch it out. Don't quit before the miracle happens. I love you, motherfuckers. See your Wednesday morning. And I'll see you guys Wednesday night in Nyack. Bitches.

Have a great Monday. Stay black. I don't know.