As an Italian-American teen growing up in the Sopranoland of New Jersey, I dreamed of getting involved in the Mob. It was the paisan equivalent of being attracted to thug life, to living dangerously and not taking orders from anyone.
Living on the Jersey Shore, in a vacation spot that emptied out after Labor Day, my partners in petty crime and I would break into summer homes, and go for the fridge, the beer, the hard liquor. But unlike my ruffian peers, who weren’t Italian, I was intrigued by the mobster life of The Godfather. In parts of North Jersey, say Jersey City or Hoboken, it would have been different, but my attraction to what they referred to as “the life” was more or less solitary in my pretty Anglo working-class neighbourhood.
Upwardly mobile and eager to anglicise, my father hated the Mob and the rep it gave to first generation Italians. I had the build and the inclination for boxing, but because of the well-known connection between the sport and the mafia, he would have preferred me to stick to baseball or football — even though my grandfather, born in Italy and raised in Brooklyn, was a boxing instructor and an infantryman in the Marines during the First World War.
But I loved the way the Mob guys carried themselves. To me they were like pirates, “born to hang”, unafraid of death or long prison terms. They didn’t take shit from anyone and made mounds of money, and I admired them for that, for both their balls and their ability to make tons of dough.
There’s a famous section in The Phenomenology of Spirit about a master and a slave, in which Hegel offers a creation myth. Two forms of primeval self-consciousnesses confront one another for the first time. The one who is willing to fight to the death, and overcomes their will to live, becomes the lord. The other, done in by fears, becomes the slave. Evidence of Hegel’s psychological point abounds. The films coming out of Hollywood and shows streaming on Netflix bear witness to our fascination with individuals who prefer to play the part of Hegel’s lord, by putting their lives at risk. There is something transcendent about what Nietzsche would call “the will to power” overcoming the terror of death. Yes, just about everyone longs to be the tough guy, the guy who bucks up their courage, stands up to the bully and knocks him or her out.
For me, becoming the Jersey Shore version of Tony Soprano wasn’t just an instinct. There was a lot of love in my home but also a lot of violence, fists and backhands flying. My attraction to the Mob was like my determination to box: both came from a desire to be invulnerable and express the rage I felt coming from a home that was routinely turned upside down by family fights. There were no gyms in our summer beach town, but I was so smitten with boxing that at 15 I began hitch hiking 70 miles each way to Philadelphia, where I took a bus uptown to what was then Dan Bucceroni’s School of Boxing, but would later be Joe Frazier’s Gym.
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SubscribeEngaging reflections. Gay Talese would befriend and maybe aid a serial killer if he thought he’d get a book out of it. The emptiness of cool could hardly be more evident than in a criminal gang, and the Mob is just a scaled-up version of a gang.
It’s easy to impress people who are easy to impress.
Indeed. There are some who find this “macho” schtick impressive. It’s just not; it’s mindless and anti-civilisational.
True enough. But the author is taking about himself at 20, and doesn’t sound too proud of his then-self to me. Maybe a little; we don’t get a deep inward dive here.
I sense more blunt edge–with a touch of literary swagger–than plain macho schtick. There was some honesty in it, I think. And maybe a bit of work to do on the self-awareness front.
Yes, just about everyone longs to be the tough guy, the guy who bucks up their courage, stands up to the bully and knocks him or her out.
The Mafia aren’t the guys who stand up to the bully and knock him out. They are the bullies.
The Sopranos got that right.
Maybe it’s a bit of hyperbole by the sub-editor, but this is quite an underwhelming tale. Working in a gangster-owned bar for a few weeks is hardly ‘ending up in the mob’.
I don’t think James English will be interviewing the guy any time soon.
I was hoping for some Michael Franzese/Henry Hill action, but the last paragraph was in the vicinity of Is that it?!
Agreed. An abrupt and pointless ending.
Thanks for this piece.
“And no, the Mob didn’t take care of their families, à la Goodfellas, when they were upstate or afterwards”
This reads as if the Mob did care for the families of incarcerated fellow-members. The book “Goodfellas” clearly states otherwise. I can heartily recommend Nicolas Pillegi’s book (originally “Wiseguys”) which of course was the source of the celebrated film. Understandably, the book is s a much more nuanced and detailed account than the film
One major problem with the film is that the actors find it hard to be as unpleasant as their subjects. (The Sopranos is better here)
The gangster life is what no sane person would covet. Boasting, bullying or grovelling, hanging out in second-rate restaurants, flashing money: it is a petty and constricted life, and one that often ends early. I can see why it appeals, though, especially to those born on the wrong side if the tracks – and who enjoy violence.
(Not that I’d say this to their faces, though!)
In my distant youth my father, who was a reporter in NYC, repeatedly warned me to stay away from the Mob. He implied that they were insidious about pulling people in to that life.
As I grew up I was impressed with how right he was. Just because of my Sicilian last name all sorts of “opportunities” popped up to get friendly with, drink coffee with, maybe even work for (in their legit businesses) some real characters. I didn’t know much about the Mafia (strictly none of my business), but, luckily, I knew what a table full of Mafiosi looked like.
As I unravelled my tale, I laughingly confessed, “I thought they were cool.” Though no fan of the cosa nostra, Talese surprised me with the curt response: “They are cool.” Killers, but cool. }}}
Lots of mobsters here in Philadelphia; well, not so much now but a very heavy presence for years. I personally know a prominent attorney who has defended some of the wise guys over the years, and he had zero admiration for these guys. NOT cool! Tacky, money-grubbing cretins. Like shabby sharks, always cruising around their territory looking to survive on whatever small fry they can find. As this attorney put it, “Here’s what kind of guys they are. They would push their own grandmother down to get to a quarter laying on the sidewalk.”
Delightful…
Weak