Speaker 1: From Workhouse Connect and aj Benze fame. Uh he'd liked
Speaker 1: to be walked on a leash and play really dirty
Speaker 1: kinky sex games. Is uh the guy put the cock
Speaker 1: in the peacock network. Okay, bitch, Hey, everybody AJ Benzi
Speaker 1: here with same is a bitch. This is your daily
Speaker 1: Unfiltered podcast for November twelfth, twenty twenty five. One one
Speaker 1: one two oh two five. See I read that little
Speaker 1: little confusing one one one two two oh two five
Speaker 1: like the sound of that good day. It is a
Speaker 1: great day. It is taping on Veterans Day right I
Speaker 1: am taping on Veterans Day right now. And as we
Speaker 1: said yesterday and I've said throughout the day, thank you
Speaker 1: all for your service. There are people who were on
Speaker 1: this show who are patrons who uh served in foreign countries.
Speaker 1: And you have brothers and sisters and fathers and others grandfathers,
Speaker 1: I mean all of us to some degree or from
Speaker 1: military families. I'm very proud about that. I remember. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I remember this, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: my memory is like an elephant's, but this is a
Speaker 1: foggy one. I remember for some reason me, Kenny, Mike,
Speaker 1: maybe my good buddy, our good buddy, Ronnie kinnear Whitey.
Speaker 1: I remember us going to the post office and having
Speaker 1: to put our name down, not to be submitted for
Speaker 1: the draft per se, but it was something along those lines.
Speaker 1: Even though Vietnam was over. This is like seventy seventy eight,
Speaker 1: but there was some kind of question maybe that the
Speaker 1: draft could be reinstated, and guys our age had to
Speaker 1: put our names in. I remember that, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember the specific details. But I recall us being a
Speaker 1: little nervous, laughing a lot as we drove to the
Speaker 1: post office, and not knowing what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: But I could be wrong, but I doubt it. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have concocted that whole thing in my head. We
Speaker 1: definitely went to the post office names down on some
Speaker 1: piece of paper. Anyhow, I you know, I like a
Speaker 1: lot of you. I came from a family whose father served,
Speaker 1: and back in the seventies when Richard Nixon and George
Speaker 1: McGovern were battling it out, my house was not the loving,
Speaker 1: wonderful household that I described to you guys. For the
Speaker 1: last eight years. My father was a staunch supporter of
Speaker 1: America and the war, he and his brothers having served
Speaker 1: in World War Two, enlisting the day after Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 1: My father was underage and still went. They all served
Speaker 1: in different factions. And I you know, obviously whose stories
Speaker 1: are magnificent. They weren't magnificent. Those stories of World War Two.
Speaker 1: They were chilling, They were fun. They were just filled
Speaker 1: with camaraderie and just you know, I love talking to
Speaker 1: people who saw who saw war. When I was thinking
Speaker 1: to as I was driving, how lucky I am. A
Speaker 1: lot of us, I suppose, but I turned it into
Speaker 1: a career to be near men who went to World
Speaker 1: War Two. And the topic on the radio was something
Speaker 1: about the Battle of the Bulge. And I remember saying, oh,
Speaker 1: my uncle Lui and Uncle Nikki fought in the Battle
Speaker 1: of Bulch. My mother's brothers fought in the Battle of
Speaker 1: the Bulch. I remember those stories. They come over and
Speaker 1: talk about the Battle of the Bulch. And you had
Speaker 1: guys who stormed the beach in Normandy. You had all
Speaker 1: different sorts of relatives who fought in different wars overseas,
Speaker 1: and of course those guys came back with tremendous stories
Speaker 1: to tell. Whether it was at the dinner table, or
Speaker 1: in a car, or on the boat, or on a
Speaker 1: wedding or a function. You just I couldn't unglue myself
Speaker 1: from those stories. So you know, you ask somebody, well,
Speaker 1: what makes you want to tell stories? And what you know?
Speaker 1: What about your past? You know? Motivated you want to
Speaker 1: talk and tell stories because I was raised by men
Speaker 1: who had wonderful stories. It just they captivated me. You
Speaker 1: couldn't help but listen. And I wasn't one of those
Speaker 1: kids who went to bed. I'd never bedtime. My mother tried,
Speaker 1: aj come on ten o'clock, go to bed. My father
Speaker 1: lily live my alone, let me alone, hej you want
Speaker 1: to hear me? Uncle Nicky, Uncle Frankie talk. You want
Speaker 1: to hearncle Yeah, Dad, Okay, please go away, go go
Speaker 1: to the kitchen. It was that kind of world. And
Speaker 1: I'd sit there, my eyes would sometimes close half masks,
Speaker 1: but I'd wake up because there was a funny story. Man.
Speaker 1: It was a different, different era. Those men are gone,
Speaker 1: so those women. My buddy tough Tony Botch sent me
Speaker 1: a text this morning. I want to cry. I don't
Speaker 1: want to cry. Picture of his mom. He says, this
Speaker 1: is my mom. I think she's in her early seventies.
Speaker 1: Here reminds me of your sister, Rosalie. Both classy. My
Speaker 1: mom had a great complexion. Italian women are aged well.
Speaker 1: Irish boughs looked like washed out trucks. I didn't prove
Speaker 1: read that before I read it. But they're making a
Speaker 1: poster out of this picture for a son's wedding next weekend.
Speaker 1: But you know, I was just thinking, like it's true.
Speaker 1: And I wrote back to my says, Tony, those those
Speaker 1: women are gone, bro, you know those women are all
Speaker 1: but gone. And he said, quite correct. They were tougher
Speaker 1: than the beta males of today. God damn right, they
Speaker 1: were Jesus Christ, were they tougher anyhow? My sister Rosalie,
Speaker 1: she's hobbling around with a bum knee, a bum hip,
Speaker 1: a fucking sciatica. Oh I just didn't heating pig. Could
Speaker 1: you get me a title and all? Rosalie, you have percocet,
Speaker 1: your doctor Piscott. Take a pill? No, no, I ignore,
Speaker 1: she said, I don't want that. I'll fall asleep. I
Speaker 1: want to watch this movie if it was me and
Speaker 1: it's been me, gave me the pills. I want the
Speaker 1: pain pills now no, not her. My mother never took
Speaker 1: anything either. Never she took librium to calm down, because
Speaker 1: who the hell about? She had a lot of things
Speaker 1: that were bugging her nerves and gots, as we say
Speaker 1: in Italian gotss little things, little things that a bunch
Speaker 1: of goats is around me, motherfucker, and gods, gotsa means prick.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't even make sense to people who don't
Speaker 1: understand Italian. But when you say, I got some gotss,
Speaker 1: just things that bug you. But yeah, man, thank you
Speaker 1: for all those people we know in love who served.
Speaker 1: I was reading today about my buddy Bill Maher. I
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep yesterday. It was a weird day. I was.
Speaker 1: I told Rockog I take a nap. I picked them
Speaker 1: from school, and about four o'clock I said, look, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna lay down for like an hour or so. He goes, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to the park and play basketball. I said,
Speaker 1: I'll you're gonna eat dinner and I'll eat my friend okay,
Speaker 1: so I don't got to cook. I laid down. I
Speaker 1: woke up. It was five twenty and it was kind
Speaker 1: of dark out, and I go, oh shit, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I fell a sleep by a couch, I get my charge,
Speaker 1: I get my phone, go into my bedroom, thinking it's
Speaker 1: five twenty am. I laid down. It's not am, it's PM.
Speaker 1: This is dinner time, asshole. So I fucked up my
Speaker 1: sleep and I kenp't wake it up. Last night one
Speaker 1: o'clock two thirty three, tag four point fifty, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, just stay up, look at the phone, listen
Speaker 1: to people on Instagram. Just let it go. And I
Speaker 1: did and read a lot of stories and social videos
Speaker 1: that really intrigued me and made me laugh and inspired me.
Speaker 1: It's amazing what you can find late at night if
Speaker 1: you go down different rabbit holes. We all have different algorithms.
Speaker 1: Some of us have kind of the same, some of
Speaker 1: us overlap. A lot of folks send me memes and stories,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I saw this, I saw that. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm still very appreciative of people sending me
Speaker 1: things in the hopes that maybe I didn't see it,
Speaker 1: But I see everything. There's never a story about go
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I didn't hear about that,
Speaker 1: so I started watching. I started listening to Bill Maher's
Speaker 1: podcast with Cheryl Hines. You know, rfk's wife who's a
Speaker 1: Democrat and has had to go through a lot of
Speaker 1: shit because of her husband, and people on the left
Speaker 1: are shutting her literally, not wanting anything to do with
Speaker 1: her anymore. We heard from the Fucking Dyke comic Tig Natara,
Speaker 1: who broke a friendship with Cheryl because I can't be
Speaker 1: friends with someone like you. It just it makes me
Speaker 1: sick how people just walk away from her friend over politics.
Speaker 1: And there was a story today where a radio DJ,
Speaker 1: Stephanie Miller, who apparently has about five million listeners. Now
Speaker 1: she's not well, she's out here in La now. But
Speaker 1: back in my day, in the early nineties, she was
Speaker 1: a DJ in New York and I knew Stephanie. We
Speaker 1: even went out a few times. It wasn't romantic. We
Speaker 1: just went out because she was fun. She was opigionated,
Speaker 1: And my buddy asked me to say, what was she like?
Speaker 1: Was she had liberal? I said, no, one knew who
Speaker 1: anybody was in nineteen ninety two. We didn't ask, We
Speaker 1: didn't care. You voted for Bill Clinton was the big story,
Speaker 1: So it didn't like politics wasn't even a thing you
Speaker 1: tried to figure out on people. If you got along.
Speaker 1: You got along. If you thought someone was cute, handsome, hot, sexy,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter who they voted for. I said, I
Speaker 1: don't know what the fuck she was. Back then, she
Speaker 1: was a fun chick. We went out, we had laugh
Speaker 1: we had drinks, we had dinner. Stephanie was fun. And
Speaker 1: now she's kissing Jasmine Crockett sneakers at a fucking airport.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, how the world has gone upside down.
Speaker 1: I can't take it, can't take what I'm seeing and
Speaker 1: anyway I watch you. I'm listening to Bill Maher's podcast
Speaker 1: with Cheryl Hines. I love Bill's show. I love everything
Speaker 1: Bill does. I didn't love this episode, though I didn't listen.
Speaker 1: I'm on record years ago when I first saw Cheryl
Speaker 1: Hanes on Curb Your Enthusiasm, I'm like, I think she's sexy.
Speaker 1: This is something I like her. I found her sexy
Speaker 1: on the kerb and maybe something. You think I'm crazy,
Speaker 1: but I did. I still think she's sexy to this day.
Speaker 1: I find her something about is very attractive. I love
Speaker 1: her voice, I love her face or figure. I don't know.
Speaker 1: People turn you on for different reasons. So they're talking
Speaker 1: and apparently Bill had mentioned that it was a story
Speaker 1: out there that back in the nineties when he had
Speaker 1: his show Politically and Correct, which I did about six
Speaker 1: seven times. It was a fun show Comedy Central. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. We did one episode outdoors
Speaker 1: on the pier on the West side of Manhattan with
Speaker 1: a bunch of mafia type stories, and Bill introduced me
Speaker 1: outside to all these people. My next guest is a
Speaker 1: real made man aj It was so fun. I came
Speaker 1: out with a baseball bet. He loved it. I didn't
Speaker 1: tell him that the Pev's story was on the Big
Speaker 1: Pussy had a lot of fun, but he said, like,
Speaker 1: you know, there was a story that sometimes back in
Speaker 1: the day before the show came on, he would master
Speaker 1: be in his dressing room and everybody's like, and Cheryl
Speaker 1: Hines was like, is this you know, is this all true? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He says, well, yeah I did. I didn't do it often,
Speaker 1: but I did it. And he said, look, you know,
Speaker 1: this is the nineties. I mean we taped every single day,
Speaker 1: three four days a week. It was an everyday show,
Speaker 1: and I was a wild man back then. I would
Speaker 1: be out at night and hung over on the set
Speaker 1: the next day, and I remember that it was a
Speaker 1: different world. No one looked down upon you if you
Speaker 1: went out and had two martinis at lunch and came
Speaker 1: back and finished her column and then got a few
Speaker 1: drinks sing you into the TV show. A lot of
Speaker 1: people were doing the same thing. It was a devil
Speaker 1: may care attitude back then. It wasn't frowned upon. I'm
Speaker 1: not lying, it just wasn't. And I would go out
Speaker 1: with Bill back then. That's when he and I really
Speaker 1: struck up a big friendship. Nineteen ninety one and ninety two,
Speaker 1: and we I mean, I set him up on a
Speaker 1: double date with me and the Baker sisters. I leen
Speaker 1: Baker was a knockout. I wanted I lean so badly,
Speaker 1: but I could tell she wanted someone with money, someone
Speaker 1: a little more. I don't know. Her sister was more
Speaker 1: for me. Her sister was a gorgeous Robin was another knockout.
Speaker 1: But I leaned Baker, so I set them up with
Speaker 1: her and the four of us went out dinner, went
Speaker 1: to a club, and it didn't turn out for Bill.
Speaker 1: He really he'ash you know these girls in New York? Eh,
Speaker 1: I like la girls. I'm like you do, I said, No,
Speaker 1: New York girls are the best. He said, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just and I said, we still
Speaker 1: talk about it to this day. I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: to me, an LA girl is like putting Uh, It's
Speaker 1: like putting in a layup in the basketball court, like
Speaker 1: the girls in LA that I've met. It's like somebody
Speaker 1: misses a shot. You're there under the basket, you put
Speaker 1: back in the you put back in the layup, and
Speaker 1: you score two points. That's an LA girl, a New
Speaker 1: York girl. You got to start working at half court.
Speaker 1: You got to back them up, double behind your back,
Speaker 1: through the legs, crossover, switch them up. It's a different
Speaker 1: kind of relationship. So I'm more interested in the ones
Speaker 1: who play hard to get. And maybe Bill likes the
Speaker 1: easy ones. I don't know. I don't mean easy and tramp.
Speaker 1: I just mean like less work, less effort. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he jerked off before shows. Who cares? You know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of things you do when you're on TV.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know who I was going to be
Speaker 1: the kind of man I was going to be once
Speaker 1: I got my TV show, and you're taping the talk
Speaker 1: show or you're doing mysteries and scandals, and you know,
Speaker 1: at the beginning, it was just okay, I have a
Speaker 1: TV show, this is weird. I just left New York,
Speaker 1: and now I want to set and then being filmed,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of cool. And then you just start
Speaker 1: to become this person that the town is recognizing and
Speaker 1: they know your name and they know they catchphrase, and
Speaker 1: they see you and they call your name out on
Speaker 1: airplanes and restaurants, in the street in traffic. There goes
Speaker 1: a bus what you're faced on it advertising the show.
Speaker 1: Suddenly you start to become this person that you would
Speaker 1: never used to be. And then you take some liberties
Speaker 1: with that theme. You go, you know what, I don't
Speaker 1: have to fucking read up on this show. I'll wing
Speaker 1: it when I get there. You show me my mark
Speaker 1: like Sinatra, show me my mark. I'll hit my mark.
Speaker 1: Tell me action. You'll get a great show of me.
Speaker 1: And many times that works. And then you get really ballsy.
Speaker 1: Now I want to film at three o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: I need some cocaine. Let me get this guy I
Speaker 1: know who's gonna bring a little bag of coke, a
Speaker 1: little footy dollar bag of coke. I'll do a couple
Speaker 1: of bunks before the show, and every time there's a break,
Speaker 1: I'll bump it up again. And then suddenly you're doing
Speaker 1: this every night. Now, you know, Am I jerking off
Speaker 1: before shows? No? But I'm doing something else. I'm doing
Speaker 1: some kind of religious thing. I don't mean religion, something
Speaker 1: you do religiously that you think is working and it's not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: cocaine may keep you up, but there's a crash involved later.
Speaker 1: But at the beginning, I didn't even care about the crash.
Speaker 1: I just care about the being up, finishing the show strong.
Speaker 1: Four o'clock in the morning, my whole crew is shot.
Speaker 1: They're dead. I'm wearing a goat. Let's go to the
Speaker 1: after hours. They're like after hours. I'm going to bed.
Speaker 1: I gotta be at work at nine o'clock. Different world.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I did those things before. I remember, before
Speaker 1: my talk show, I got to be so cocky. The
Speaker 1: money was flying in. I just saw an old contract
Speaker 1: the other day in the one of the boxes from storage.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. They would pay me a lot of money
Speaker 1: to do something I found so easy to do, which
Speaker 1: was basically be me. And I'm getting paid a lot
Speaker 1: of money to be me, And you know, I remember
Speaker 1: before the talk show, I would be in the little dress.
Speaker 1: It was a bathroom, actually my own bathroom, A shot
Speaker 1: a vodka, a bump at each nostrill, let's start the show.
Speaker 1: And it seemed to work for me. But just as
Speaker 1: football players take steroids and eventually have this this anger
Speaker 1: that comes out of them for no reason, I became
Speaker 1: that kind of person too. Not anger as much as
Speaker 1: just taking chances, being reckless, not caring what society says,
Speaker 1: being your own guy, you know, breaking a girl's heart.
Speaker 1: There is all. There's always an effect that you have
Speaker 1: to suffer from, and people around you suffer from because
Speaker 1: of your indulgences. And clearly, if you're drinking off before
Speaker 1: your TV show, no one's gonna suffer. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: bother me. The other day he had Michael Rappaport on
Speaker 1: his show, and I found that a fun show. I
Speaker 1: told you about rapp Report and stalking Lily Taylor back
Speaker 1: in the day when he made the movie Ransom. But
Speaker 1: Rappaport was telling Bill and you got to get out
Speaker 1: Pacinam on your show. Al will love he talks now,
Speaker 1: he'll talk about anything. He's older now. It Bills like
Speaker 1: I tried, he won't come on. Trust me, he won't
Speaker 1: come on. And I'm like, and Michael's like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean, well, why would he come on? And Bill's like,
Speaker 1: he just won't come on. Trust me. I tried, And
Speaker 1: then I'm saying I'm yelling at the phone. The answer
Speaker 1: is obvious. Bill Maher and that chick uh Nora Alfalla
Speaker 1: who's thirty one, who has two kids without Pacino Roman
Speaker 1: And uh, well she has one son, right, I think
Speaker 1: they have one. Oh, she's pregnant again. I forget. There's
Speaker 1: definitely a son named Roman who's two years old. I
Speaker 1: feel like she's pregnant again. Either way, Pacino has always
Speaker 1: said we're just friends. She's always said we're just friends.
Speaker 1: Then Bill's out with our Halloween night at some costume
Speaker 1: party and she's telling people, no, we're not dated, we're
Speaker 1: just friends. Al's my best friend, Bill's my friend. It's
Speaker 1: all weird. But wouldn't you think that's the reason why
Speaker 1: Pacino won't go on Bill Maher's show. I think right,
Speaker 1: But Rapaport didn't pick up on it, and Bill didn't
Speaker 1: want to divulge you. I think that's the real reason.
Speaker 1: Speaking of relationships, I could talk about this next couple
Speaker 1: for a long time. But we did an episode of
Speaker 1: Mysteries and Scandals on Desi Arnez and didn't do it
Speaker 1: on Lucy, but it was kind of a show about
Speaker 1: both of them. Really, you can't talk about one without
Speaker 1: the other. Such mavericks those two. But recently, these never
Speaker 1: before seen letters between the two of them have gone
Speaker 1: public and it really gives people a better understanding of
Speaker 1: what their love story was all about. These two were
Speaker 1: married for twenty years back in the forties, for twenty years,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of insecurity. It was very emotional,
Speaker 1: very affectionate. And this new book called Lucy and Desi
Speaker 1: the Love Letters is out and there's notes that were
Speaker 1: written between the two of them basically during World War Two,
Speaker 1: right after they got married, and it showed a lot
Speaker 1: of the notes that you read the letters well. First
Speaker 1: of all, I love the letter writing campaign of the
Speaker 1: old days. You know, every time I wrote a girlfriend
Speaker 1: a letter or a girlfriend or girl I want to
Speaker 1: be my girlfriend, somebody I was chasing. I always would
Speaker 1: print it up a newsday where I worked. I'd write
Speaker 1: late at night because the workday was over and I
Speaker 1: could fuck around on my computer for ninety minutes before
Speaker 1: I went home, and I'd write these beautiful letters, and
Speaker 1: i'd print them out and i'd save a copy. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but I'm so glad, I think because
Speaker 1: I read them. To this day, I still read them.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. There's one letter that I wrote to
Speaker 1: a girl who was in town for a while and
Speaker 1: she was leaving, and the first line we were both heartbroken.
Speaker 1: And the first line I wrote was I hate all
Speaker 1: planes today because their planes were taking her away. I
Speaker 1: just remember, I don't want to forget these lines. So
Speaker 1: I'm writing all these letters and it reminds me of
Speaker 1: what these two were like back in the day. There's
Speaker 1: something so powerful about the written word, holding a piece
Speaker 1: of paper that your loved one pressed their hands on
Speaker 1: and wrote with the ink, and you could smell their
Speaker 1: perfume or cologne. They licked the envelope, they licked the stamp.
Speaker 1: It comes in your box, you'll hold it. It's so
Speaker 1: much better than a fucking email or a goddamn text
Speaker 1: that no one cares about. So these two went back
Speaker 1: and fort with these letters. But nineteen sixty it all ended.
Speaker 1: They struggled, You know, DESI was banging a lot of
Speaker 1: showgirls and hookers. Desi wasn't into other actresses as much.
Speaker 1: She liked his hookers and showgirls. He liked anonymous sex.
Speaker 1: And Lucy knew about this, and she was very jealous.
Speaker 1: But she did become a very forgiving woman. And a
Speaker 1: lot of what you see on that TV show, what
Speaker 1: we saw on that TV show, and who didn't watch
Speaker 1: that when we stayed home from school? How great were
Speaker 1: those black and white TV shows when you were sick
Speaker 1: and you stayed on from school and you watched all
Speaker 1: the father knows best. I love Lucy, Donna Reid my
Speaker 1: three sons. That you start to realize Fred McMurray is
Speaker 1: not just famous for My Three sons. He was in
Speaker 1: a movie, He was in a He had a Hollywood
Speaker 1: career before that. You don't even realize when you're a
Speaker 1: kid that these people had careers. Bewitched Agnes Moorehead. There's
Speaker 1: so many people went to TV at the end of
Speaker 1: their careers that you don't know what they did. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: we get older, we got the Internet, we got Turner
Speaker 1: classic movies, and you can see what kind of great
Speaker 1: careers they had. So Lucy writes one letter. I'll read one.
Speaker 1: He's out there touring with his band and she's begging
Speaker 1: him don't give into temptation. She's like, you never answer
Speaker 1: my letters, DESI do you throw them away and forget
Speaker 1: what I write about. You know, it's funny nowadays. I've
Speaker 1: said the same thing in the past to Andrea. Don't
Speaker 1: you get my text? Why aren't you responding to this text?
Speaker 1: It's the same shit, It's just different technology. The feelings
Speaker 1: are the same. And I would say I could never
Speaker 1: see a text from you, or see a miscall from
Speaker 1: you and not return it. That's just not a part
Speaker 1: of my being. How could anybody see a text and
Speaker 1: don't respond or a call and don't tell me to
Speaker 1: know I called or you didn't see my text. We
Speaker 1: all fucking hold off phones constantly. Give me a break forget.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get into that. But the whole thing
Speaker 1: is Lucy was very insecure about it. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get this wire off to you, and I'll be all
Speaker 1: sad by myself tonight if I haven't had a wire
Speaker 1: and answer. Please don't jeopardize the next few months with
Speaker 1: these awful dames I dislike so much. Please don't prefer
Speaker 1: them instead of me, Really, Darling, it won't be worth it.
Speaker 1: And then here she comes to the motherly sa are
Speaker 1: you taking care of yourself? Are you getting any rest?
Speaker 1: I wish I could really have a chance to try
Speaker 1: to make you happy without counting every hour with you
Speaker 1: like two condemned criminals. And she asked to be more open.
Speaker 1: I can't say goodbye, Desi, I have a few more
Speaker 1: minutes to talk. Tell me, Darling, can't you just be
Speaker 1: a little more explicit in your letters? Your next one?
Speaker 1: Tell me really what you think about me while you're
Speaker 1: bouncing around New York City? Can't you tell me what
Speaker 1: was on in your mind everywhere, even one day as
Speaker 1: I tell you, not just what you do and when
Speaker 1: you do it, but just as I ask you, Lucy,
Speaker 1: shut the fuck up, christ little clean gotta go now.
Speaker 1: Oh my love to you baby. These letters went back
Speaker 1: and forth until DESI finally sent a letter asking her
Speaker 1: to marry him again, but not before Lucy said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to Catechism, you know, and sitting with a pastor
Speaker 1: to learn about marriage and to make sure our marriage
Speaker 1: is perfect. And she went to these classes. I did
Speaker 1: them too, when I first The first time I got
Speaker 1: married was called pre Kana. You sit down with an
Speaker 1: older married couple and they tell these younger couples about
Speaker 1: to be married what marriage life is like, and they
Speaker 1: try to guide you. The church kind of motivates you
Speaker 1: to do it. I didn't like doing it, but I
Speaker 1: did it. It was the thing to do. And that's
Speaker 1: what Lucy was doing on her own. DESU was very
Speaker 1: proud of her doing that. But you know, she sounds
Speaker 1: so insecure and desperate, and I, you know, you wonder
Speaker 1: why these letters were published. I don't know, but she uh, look,
Speaker 1: she was no angel. I mean, he was a rap scallion.
Speaker 1: But back in the day, I remember from the show
Speaker 1: Polly Adler, a woman named Polly Adler was Polly Adler
Speaker 1: was a very famous madam and it was pretty much
Speaker 1: common knowledge back then before they made it. Lucie Bull
Speaker 1: and Joan Crawford apparently allegedly worked for Polly Adler. Jeanette
Speaker 1: MacDonald too, who if you have ever seen her in a movie,
Speaker 1: you hated because for the movies are horrible. But they
Speaker 1: made quick and easy money going out with men. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if they all got laid, but that was
Speaker 1: something they did you know A On a related topic,
Speaker 1: my aunt Adam, my mother's sister, Adam, who I just loved,
Speaker 1: My fucking favorite aunt, older sister. She looked after my
Speaker 1: mom for just a wonderful woman. Taught me how to
Speaker 1: sing an Italian, translated every word of Jim Rizselli, and
Speaker 1: just sent me to Stephano. She was amazing. We had
Speaker 1: this letter writing campaign her and I like lovers, I
Speaker 1: write to my aunt. I'd send the things in the mail.
Speaker 1: She'd send me things back when she was young, she
Speaker 1: always told me, Hey, I saw this beautiful yellow silk
Speaker 1: dress in the window and a shop in Brooklyn. I
Speaker 1: wanted that dress so much, but it was three dollars.
Speaker 1: Who had three dollars back then for a dress? I'm
Speaker 1: listening to Jesus Christ. What kind of world was this?
Speaker 1: So she went and did something. She was a private dancer,
Speaker 1: now a stripper. You go to a social club and
Speaker 1: fellas guys who you know came back for the war,
Speaker 1: probably was before the war, or maybe they were on leave,
Speaker 1: what have you. They want to go to a social
Speaker 1: and I want to dance with the girl. They want
Speaker 1: to hold a woman to dance with them. Not look
Speaker 1: I'm sure that there was sex involved with I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that I added to that. But she get a
Speaker 1: Nickela dance. She was a private dancer, and she eventually
Speaker 1: had nobody to buy that dress. And when she bought it,
Speaker 1: my grandmother was like, oh, she called her every name
Speaker 1: in the book. Bhutana, you got this dress. Bah bah bah,
Speaker 1: tell my mother. Don't tell mom. Don't tell Mama, don't
Speaker 1: tell mama. I'm doing what a crazy world? It was, right,
Speaker 1: But you know, if you got to get some you
Speaker 1: can't condemn people to something like that. I don't mind
Speaker 1: anything that includes affection and longing. I think it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: I think it's wonderful that people can go to someone
Speaker 1: for that kind of attachment or feeling, even if it's fleeting.
Speaker 1: I remember when I would be at the Aria and
Speaker 1: I would go down and get a drink years ago,
Speaker 1: and the hookers are out. You know, you can see
Speaker 1: them a mile away. But they'd congregate at certain bars
Speaker 1: and wait for a high roll or just anybody to
Speaker 1: to the bar and want to spend, you know, And
Speaker 1: I see them talking and I have TOTSI marms that
Speaker 1: always made them want to talk about the girl the door.
Speaker 1: Oh you go cute? What's her name? And you start talking?
Speaker 1: And you know, I was very happy with Andrew. I
Speaker 1: ever went with a hooker, but I didn't mind talking
Speaker 1: to them until my drink came. I like to get
Speaker 1: in people's heads. It helps me healthy, understand the human dynamic. Healthy, right.
Speaker 1: I just like to get in people's heads. Why are
Speaker 1: they doing this? What it means to them? Are they scared?
Speaker 1: There was that one night with this beautiful young girl
Speaker 1: about five to eleven knockout and me and Andrew had
Speaker 1: both spotted her. She was working, and we had this idea,
Speaker 1: let's let's stop her from working, Let's get her out
Speaker 1: of this game so futile. And we took it to
Speaker 1: this other bar across the hotel casino, to this other
Speaker 1: place and some VIP bar, and we sat it down
Speaker 1: and I videoed. I talked to her. I have pictures,
Speaker 1: she's gorgeous, and we gave her our numbers. If there's
Speaker 1: ever a problem, caller, were here or always here, I'll
Speaker 1: help you. Did all we could to try to make
Speaker 1: her feel safe, but nah, she didn't care. She got
Speaker 1: beeped twenty five minutes in the call. She had to go.
Speaker 1: Somebody wanted attention, a man wanted a companionship. I don't
Speaker 1: put anybody down for that. I just don't. It's an
Speaker 1: exchange of lust or love, or well not love, but something.
Speaker 1: I think there's a place for that anyhow. Desi and Lucy.
Speaker 1: Lucy was exactly like her character on that show, very crazy, selfish, jealous,
Speaker 1: always needing attention. As you can see from these letters.
Speaker 1: She'd throw some tantrums, she'd throw things around the room
Speaker 1: and things didn't go her way. On the road, she drank,
Speaker 1: you know. She was a big two to three pack
Speaker 1: a day smoker. And there was a point where Desi
Speaker 1: wanted out really badly, but he wouldn't do it. He
Speaker 1: couldn't do it because the public demanded Desi and Lucy
Speaker 1: be together. It was impossible to think of those two
Speaker 1: not together. And I always remember this story from the
Speaker 1: episode It Brooks breaks my heart, but this is real love.
Speaker 1: They finally divorced nineteen sixty. Desi was with some woman
Speaker 1: I forget her name, nobody important. Lucy ends up marrying
Speaker 1: Gary Morton, nice guy, successful, calm, not a bandleader, not
Speaker 1: a run around rap scallion type. They're in their home.
Speaker 1: DESI was still going out getting the hammreerd every night,
Speaker 1: picking up hookers here and there. And he would go
Speaker 1: to Lucy's house where her and where she and Gary
Speaker 1: Morton lived, because it was her house, and Desie would
Speaker 1: go to the door, loaded drunk, knock on the door,
Speaker 1: calling to her window, Lucy, Lucy. And this went on constantly.
Speaker 1: It got to the point where her husband, Gary Morton,
Speaker 1: would go to the door, let Desie in, give him
Speaker 1: a cup of coffeet, have Lucy talk to him, and
Speaker 1: they'd let Desie sleep on the fucking couch till the morning,
Speaker 1: and then you go out leave again. But this happened
Speaker 1: a lot. It wasn't a one time thing. Let him
Speaker 1: sleep off his trunk on the couch. You could talk
Speaker 1: to them. I'll be in bed, let me know, And
Speaker 1: they talk on the couch together as all lovers, old
Speaker 1: husbands and wives. How sad but also how beautiful. I
Speaker 1: couldn't be Gary Morton. I would have put a fucking
Speaker 1: bull in his head. But I understand that, all right,
Speaker 1: you love my wife. I get it. She's lucyill Ball.
Speaker 1: She's not some person you see walking down the street.
Speaker 1: She's an icon. I get it. You guys had twenty
Speaker 1: years together, You've built tremendous television. There wouldn't be Star
Speaker 1: Trek if des and Lucy didn't have their company and
Speaker 1: produced that show. I mean, maybe somebody else would have,
Speaker 1: but Desilu Productions began Star Trek. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: things they did, very powerful couple, a lot of love there,
Speaker 1: and I just love that story of the husband letting
Speaker 1: Desi sleep on the couch because of his affection and
Speaker 1: love for Lucy. I'm happy to say that I'm pleased
Speaker 1: by the amount of people who are subscribing to my substack.
Speaker 1: I've told you it's very easy. Substack dot com, my
Speaker 1: page Ajbenza dot substack dot com. There are two chapters
Speaker 1: of my upcoming book on there. The next one will
Speaker 1: come out tomorrow the next day, and I'm happy that
Speaker 1: a lot of you have signed up and want to
Speaker 1: see the written word and are interested in the written word.
Speaker 1: I like this art form as well. I love to
Speaker 1: be able to get on the mic and just talk.
Speaker 1: I find this so soothing for me mentally, emotionally. It's
Speaker 1: therapeutic for all of us. Although right now I must
Speaker 1: tell you I cannot get on Patreon because I have AIDS. Again,
Speaker 1: I've got a complication from AIDS, and now it's spread
Speaker 1: to Patreon, like I like, all these platforms are lymph nodes.
Speaker 1: Now it's in my Patreon, so I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on. I plug in my Gmail, my email. It's
Speaker 1: not your email. What do you mean it's not my
Speaker 1: fucking I got one email. I can't stand the kind
Speaker 1: of fights I have with robots. Now. I have to
Speaker 1: call substat the other day. They don't have a person.
Speaker 1: You gotta go to the chat with a fucking robot.
Speaker 1: The robots can't answer questions, they need specific questions. It
Speaker 1: drives me crazy. Anyhow. I say this because the next
Speaker 1: chapter coming out is about that story I told you
Speaker 1: about when I dated that Cuban girl, Vivian, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know that she was She had been very close
Speaker 1: with a very famous killer gangster name Joe Watts. And
Speaker 1: when I found out that she was with him, and
Speaker 1: he took her to Florida and brought her up you know,
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars in bracelets. I had to drop her
Speaker 1: off and go to the club and talk to Joe
Speaker 1: to say I didn't know she was your girl. It
Speaker 1: was a very harrowing experience. I've talked about it on
Speaker 1: the show. So I'm writing. I wrote the chapter the
Speaker 1: other day. I use her name as Evelyn. I don't
Speaker 1: want to say Vivian. I use Evelyn because I don't
Speaker 1: want Sometimes people might not like the way you portray them,
Speaker 1: even if it's thirty years later. I've learned a lesson
Speaker 1: like that. Linda Stacy and my editler always told me,
Speaker 1: whenever you're writing about somebody, when you're publishing a story tomorrow,
Speaker 1: give that person a call, leave a message, but reach
Speaker 1: out to them. Let them know they're in the paper tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Because when you don't know you're in the paper and
Speaker 1: times have changed now. But when you don't know you're
Speaker 1: in the paper, and you open the paper in the
Speaker 1: morning and you as a story about you and no
Speaker 1: one talked to you, and your friends will call you, you're
Speaker 1: getting messages, it's very alarming. So we always let people know.
Speaker 1: So I don't want Vivian to see this and think
Speaker 1: I'm exploiting our situation, so I call her Evelyn. But
Speaker 1: I wrote the chapter and it got me right back
Speaker 1: into that era of the nightclub days. Rouge on the
Speaker 1: Upper east Side. All the gangsters used to stay there
Speaker 1: do different factions of gangsters, genev C's and Gambinos. Some
Speaker 1: of these clubs in New York are like neutral ground.
Speaker 1: Both both families can go there. Sometimes they both have
Speaker 1: a piece of the club. You know, it's a it's intricate,
Speaker 1: but this is business, is how they work these guys.
Speaker 1: So when I was doing the story, it reminded me
Speaker 1: of a phenomenal story that I don't think I've told
Speaker 1: you guys. But the guy that was the well, a
Speaker 1: guy named Stratus Mark Fogan was the basically the owner
Speaker 1: of Ruge. But the other guy, the mobsters are the
Speaker 1: ones whose names you knew about. You didn't really know
Speaker 1: Stratus too much because he wasn't as visible as the mobsters, right,
Speaker 1: But Stratus was very close to the guy I always
Speaker 1: talk about, Ralphie Coppola, who was the underboss of the
Speaker 1: jen Avc crime family. He's the guy who took me
Speaker 1: and Chico under his wing. You're with me now, no
Speaker 1: one can bother you loved. My family was great to
Speaker 1: me and my ex girl from Rebecca dealt with her
Speaker 1: boyfriend who was stalked and appeared on a fire escape.
Speaker 1: They fucked his knees up so I could be he
Speaker 1: was Rebecca a million stories. And of course the guy
Speaker 1: that he was with who the two of them beat
Speaker 1: up Chico, Bucky Carbone, Bobby Carbone, he called Bucky him
Speaker 1: and Ralphie destroyed Chico in the street. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: that story. But this is the kind of people I
Speaker 1: used to be around as a journalist. And I remember
Speaker 1: this story because they used to call Stratus the Golden
Speaker 1: Greek because he had a lot of mob contacts, contacts,
Speaker 1: and he stood up two monsters because he had to.
Speaker 1: Because when you've got a successful business in New York
Speaker 1: City and other cities, you're gonna get knock, gonna go
Speaker 1: from all nized crime. They're gonna want you to contribute
Speaker 1: money to that cause they're gonna want to take money
Speaker 1: from you. They're gonna want to supply you with a
Speaker 1: better chicken delivery guy. Use my guy. Now you're a guy.
Speaker 1: It's it's a whole fucking thing. And if you have
Speaker 1: a restaurant or a club or what have you in
Speaker 1: New York and you don't have a mobster on your side,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something that you're dead because all
Speaker 1: the criminals are gonna come to you and and suck
Speaker 1: all the money out of your business, just like you
Speaker 1: see the movies like Good Fellas, you see it. They
Speaker 1: the gangsters I was with, suck Paul Sorvino's money. They
Speaker 1: destroyed his restaurant. Delivery is going in the front, coming
Speaker 1: out the back on someone else's truck. They destroyed him.
Speaker 1: Paul Savina would just sing people. He would sing songs
Speaker 1: during dinner because he had a good deep voice, you know,
Speaker 1: an opera operatic voice. He was a schmuck. I hated Paul,
Speaker 1: but you know, I love his movies, but I hated
Speaker 1: his personality. But they were robbing and shitt of the guy.
Speaker 1: You have to have someone who who's with you, Like
Speaker 1: Rocco when he owned Boom, his partner Chesadey. Chesadey and
Speaker 1: Roco had a big mobster who no one could fuck
Speaker 1: with Boom until that mobster died. Then it was open
Speaker 1: season on Boom. It's a very intricate kind of way
Speaker 1: to run a company. But it happens in New York
Speaker 1: and I'm sure other cities as well. But now Stratus
Speaker 1: is very successful, owns Brooklyn chop House down in Lower Manhattan.
Speaker 1: He wrote a book called Be a Disruptor, street Wise
Speaker 1: Lessons for interpret Entrepreneurs, which I'd love to have him
Speaker 1: on the show one day. He said he'd do it.
Speaker 1: He also opened Gotham City Diner. Back in the nineties.
Speaker 1: He was busy Stratus was making but he's very successful,
Speaker 1: big house, whole fucking thing. He made it. But there
Speaker 1: was a guy around town back then called Noel, Noel Ashburn,
Speaker 1: he's still around. He was a big party promoter, slash producer.
Speaker 1: I know Noel very well, nice guy. Everybody knows Noel
Speaker 1: New York, big party promoter and club owner. One day,
Speaker 1: Noel Ashman comes into the club with a black eye,
Speaker 1: and Stratus says, what's going on? And Noel says, some
Speaker 1: gangster said we got to pay him every month, that
Speaker 1: they're going to start beating us up, beat me up
Speaker 1: all the time. And Noel mentioned some names and Stratus
Speaker 1: recognized a few that they were Gambinos. Stratus and me Chico.
Speaker 1: We were around Geneviezi guys back then. So Stratus grew
Speaker 1: up Alona like I did. His family on the restaurant
Speaker 1: in a tough section of Queen's called Howard Beach where
Speaker 1: all the mobsters come from. Gott he came from there.
Speaker 1: But big time gangster is when he his family's restaurant.
Speaker 1: You know, he was around the mob like I was
Speaker 1: as a kid. And he got a lot of visits
Speaker 1: from Ralphi Cappola and Bucky Carbone. I mean, Ralphie loved
Speaker 1: Stratus so much he called him his nephew. And it
Speaker 1: was great to sit at the table and have those
Speaker 1: guys tell you stories late at night over some grappa.
Speaker 1: It was a wonderful time. And Bucky one night told
Speaker 1: Stratus about the story of the first man he ever killed,
Speaker 1: and it was at a bar over a debt collection
Speaker 1: that went sideways. But the geneez he's dealt things, dealt
Speaker 1: with things differently to the game being the game beingers
Speaker 1: came across a little tough ference and louder because of
Speaker 1: John Gotti and his son, John Gotti Junior. They both
Speaker 1: both families acted differently. But there's a great story where
Speaker 1: Stratus is basically a new guy in the block. And
Speaker 1: you know, John Gotti Junior back then were shaking down
Speaker 1: every restaurant from the Upper East Side down to Midtown.
Speaker 1: Him and his boys were just walk in and demand money,
Speaker 1: demand payouts, protect your money, whatever the fuck it was.
Speaker 1: And one time one of those guys came to Stratus
Speaker 1: and says, you know you got to pay up. And
Speaker 1: he says, what do you what do you want want?
Speaker 1: Five thousand a month and we're gonna break your windows
Speaker 1: every fucking week. That's the way they get. And Stratus,
Speaker 1: tough kid, says, let me give you a quick answer.
Speaker 1: Go fuck yourself. I'm not afraid of you. That's ballsy
Speaker 1: to say they're coming back the next day when you
Speaker 1: talk like that. But Stratus knew he had Ralphie in
Speaker 1: his corner, and uh, of course when he told Ralphie
Speaker 1: what happened, Ralphie would sit down with some game, meet
Speaker 1: those guys and tell Usten this guy's Stratus is with me.
Speaker 1: You can't send your guys to take money from him.
Speaker 1: That's my kids, that's my nephew. And then the beef
Speaker 1: goes away. But there was this one story they'll dealing with,
Speaker 1: this Gambino story. A couple of nights later that Stratus
Speaker 1: gets a call from one of Ralphie's guys saying, come
Speaker 1: to the restaurant. There's a place called Ferrier Ferrier with Hero.
Speaker 1: All the gangsters used to have wine and drinks and
Speaker 1: a little dinner, but beautiful hostesses. My ex girlfriend, Sunday
Speaker 1: worked there. She was a Paul fucking knockout, and every
Speaker 1: mobstroll love Sunday. Our real name was Domenica Galliano. Forget about.
Speaker 1: They loved her. Her father was a gangst They got
Speaker 1: stuffed at Oral Drum in Chicago, got killed the way
Speaker 1: back in the sixties. So she's from that world too.
Speaker 1: All of us had a hand in that world. So
Speaker 1: Stratus gets there and will he gets there, he sees
Speaker 1: Ralphie's with Bucky and all these Gambino captains are in
Speaker 1: the back sitting down. So he sits down with Ralphie
Speaker 1: and Bobby and the five heads of the Gambino family there,
Speaker 1: and Ralphie tells him, listen, this kid's with me. He's
Speaker 1: with us. So tell John Junior to back off. If
Speaker 1: he doesn't back off, this is gonna escalate. And uh,
Speaker 1: we like this kid. He's a good kid. The gouty
Speaker 1: guys don't worry about I Look, we'll squash it now,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be it's over. Don't worry about it. So
Speaker 1: right away you see the power of another mobster. If
Speaker 1: your guy's bigger than the other guy, you win to
Speaker 1: sit down. You got to bring a big name to
Speaker 1: a sit down. So Ralphie's name was big. There was
Speaker 1: only one guy ahead of him, Barnie Blomo. But it
Speaker 1: was what Bucky was a wid Bucky be called a cowboy.
Speaker 1: Bucky would do things, spur in a moment, in the
Speaker 1: middle of a sentence, He'd punch in the fucking mouth.
Speaker 1: He was an animal fueled by cocaine. Every single night.
Speaker 1: I remembered to White buff a dose sometimes Thanks Kid,
Speaker 1: Thanks Pal. It was. It was a mess. Bucky put
Speaker 1: an ice pick in somebody's thigh who he thought stole
Speaker 1: thirty thousand dollars from Stratus's dina. Nothing happens, the cops
Speaker 1: don't get called. Just that's what goes on. So Stratus
Speaker 1: opens rouge. Ralphi Cappolo is a silent backer. Things were
Speaker 1: going great. We're all making money. Meet Chico, Jimmy Christmas,
Speaker 1: Johnny Hansom, throwing parties, making two to three grand every
Speaker 1: Wednesday night in cash, all of us a piece, not
Speaker 1: spread out, each of us making two to three grand
Speaker 1: from door money. I would split up with the mob
Speaker 1: We kept the door, they kept the bar, and we
Speaker 1: had a ball one night. Some West Coast guy. And
Speaker 1: when you're in New York, you don't really think about
Speaker 1: mobsters from California, Like that's not on the radar. Some
Speaker 1: tough guy or wanna be tough guy from California figures
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to New York and get a piece
Speaker 1: of his kid's Stratus and get a piece of the
Speaker 1: restaurant and everything else he's working with. Jewish guy from
Speaker 1: La sits down inside the club and he makes Stratus
Speaker 1: an offer. He takes out a pen, he writes on
Speaker 1: a napcal I'll give you ten thousand dollars. And then
Speaker 1: the guy pulls out a nine millimeters gun, pops out
Speaker 1: a bullet, puts it on the table and tells Stratus
Speaker 1: it's this or that. What do you want to do?
Speaker 1: No one. He's got Ralphie behind him, didn't give a shit.
Speaker 1: He says, you know, he's telling us that I know
Speaker 1: the most powerful people in the city. You don't. So
Speaker 1: this guy is sunk, but he's you know, he's not
Speaker 1: gonna say this out loud. One thing you can't do
Speaker 1: is say who you're with you gotta keep your mouth shut.
Speaker 1: Then tell the guy you're with this is what happened,
Speaker 1: and then they take care of it behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: But of course it gets back to Ralphie and Bucky.
Speaker 1: So a few days later, one o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: Stratus goes to rouge and this Bucky is Bobby. I
Speaker 1: mean this Bucky is Ralphie and the gangster, the Jewish
Speaker 1: gangster from La They're all sitting down at the table
Speaker 1: at one o'clock in the morning in the VIP room
Speaker 1: having a great time drinking champagne, and Stratus is looking
Speaker 1: at him. This doesn't make any fucking sense. This guy
Speaker 1: just tried to tell them he's gonna kill me. Now
Speaker 1: it's four thirty in the morning and they're still drinking this.
Speaker 1: This is what Chico. They did this to Chico. They
Speaker 1: told me to leave, go do your thing. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have some drinks, have some fun. We'll talk to you.
Speaker 1: But they get you very complacent and very like soft
Speaker 1: because you're with these guys. Nothing's gonna happen, right, Strata says,
Speaker 1: you guys having a good time. Ralphie's like, yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: we're having a great time, and he tells him kind
Speaker 1: of motions like take a walk, like we're gonna do
Speaker 1: something here. So Stratus walks away. As he's walking away,
Speaker 1: he hears Ralphie saying to the Jewish guy and say,
Speaker 1: let's get down to business. I heard you offer. I
Speaker 1: heard your offer, and here's my counteroffer. And Ralphie takes
Speaker 1: a candelabra have to weigh fifty pounds, knocks the guy
Speaker 1: over the head with it. Bucky comes running to get
Speaker 1: Stratus out of the club, puts him in a taxi
Speaker 1: and says, get the fuck home, will handle this. The
Speaker 1: day later, Stratus comes back to the club. There was
Speaker 1: no blood on the floor, no blood on the walls,
Speaker 1: but the area carpet was gone. That's the kind of
Speaker 1: shit that went on there because he knew Ralphie would
Speaker 1: always have his back. And it's said, because when these
Speaker 1: guys get whacked, you don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: You don't see it coming. You find out the next day.
Speaker 1: I remember we all found that when Ralphie. Ralphie was
Speaker 1: the capital of a football team, Flag Football in Central Park.
Speaker 1: I mean we were with them all Fortninth's week. I
Speaker 1: was at Ralphie arayos at rouge playing football. It was
Speaker 1: a that was a great fucking time man. So one
Speaker 1: day you just at the club and Bucky approached it
Speaker 1: and Ralfie's gone, Like, Bucky's not even said, Ralphie's gone.
Speaker 1: What do you mean Ralphie's gone. Don't ask any more questions.
Speaker 1: Ralphie went to a meeting up in Harlem, never came
Speaker 1: out of the house. The story is that he was
Speaker 1: not kicking enough money upstairs to Barney, who was in
Speaker 1: prison at this point, but still you got to kick upstairs.
Speaker 1: He was getting a little too greedy, that's the word.
Speaker 1: And the guy who took out Ralphie was a gun name.
Speaker 1: We called him Hippie Mike, I forget his last name.
Speaker 1: Tough Italian kid from the Bronx Yonkers. Tough fucking kid.
Speaker 1: He's the kid who could stand by a bar at ruge,
Speaker 1: which is what like chest high? I don't know, like
Speaker 1: right belis your chest. He would just jump with two
Speaker 1: feet and land on top of the wall, then do
Speaker 1: a bath football fit. He was like an athlete, but crazy,
Speaker 1: angry at any second. One time I said to his girlfriend, Hi, baby,
Speaker 1: how you doing? Would you call my girl? No? Hippie,
Speaker 1: no nothing, I just say it again, Hippie. Please, these
Speaker 1: guys snap, so don't ask any questions. He's gone. But
Speaker 1: when Ralphie was caught taking too much money, Bonnie in prison.
Speaker 1: Let the right guys know, Ralphie's gotta go, just like that,
Speaker 1: cut and dry best friends. Who's at my wedding, who's
Speaker 1: my son's godfather? It doesn't matter who's he said to
Speaker 1: kill Ralphie. Hippie, who was like Ralphie's little right hand guy. Whatever,
Speaker 1: Ralphie needed, Hippi with dude for him. Hippie puts the
Speaker 1: ball on Ralphie's head, two in the back of the head.
Speaker 1: They find him in an oil drum a year later. Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And once Ralphie was gone, the word got out that
Speaker 1: Stratus's protection, the protection Stratus had around his clubs in
Speaker 1: New York City, that's over now. If it's Ralphie's dead
Speaker 1: and Bucky wasn't big enough to pull in to be
Speaker 1: a protector, Now what do you do? People started coming
Speaker 1: to Stratus's joints again. We want this amount of money.
Speaker 1: You use this, you have to use this, this garbage company,
Speaker 1: you got to use this distributor. All this nonsense, and
Speaker 1: Stratus told these guys, tell you, boss, go fuck yourselves.
Speaker 1: I've been here before. I'm not going anywhere. Fuck you.
Speaker 1: This is the whey he talked to the gangsters, and
Speaker 1: they never came back. And here we are, all these
Speaker 1: years later, and Stratus has gone on to do great
Speaker 1: things in the restaurant world nightclub world. But what a
Speaker 1: fucking time that was. But it made me think when
Speaker 1: I'm writing this story, that I could go off on
Speaker 1: so many tangents. While I'm writing a simple story about
Speaker 1: having to go to the club to make sure Joe
Speaker 1: Wats wasn't gonna kill me because I was fucking his girl,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. Because now you see
Speaker 1: how quickly these guys get angry, how fast things escalate.
Speaker 1: This is what's in my mind. This is what's so scary.
Speaker 1: That's why I drove to the club. And you'll read
Speaker 1: the story when it's on substack in a day or so.
Speaker 1: So enjoy that story. Keep on reading, keep on subscribing.
Speaker 1: Ajbenzon dot substack dot com. Like I always say, don't
Speaker 1: just read subscribe. There's a lot of good stuff coming.
Speaker 1: Got at least twenty more chapters to go man. And
Speaker 1: by doing this, I have to tell you I've been
Speaker 1: putting off this book for so long. I've had so
Speaker 1: many chapters half written, one third written, you name it.
Speaker 1: And I needed a kick in the ass to make
Speaker 1: me sit down every day and fucking do it. And finally,
Speaker 1: with me sending some chapters out of you guys subscribing,
Speaker 1: it's motivating me to do nothing but finish this book.
Speaker 1: And when I finish this book, We're all going to
Speaker 1: be better for it. Don't ask me why, but we will.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm looking for. I want this book out.
Speaker 1: I want all you people in my army to still
Speaker 1: support the show and do what we've been doing for
Speaker 1: eight years. In the blink of an eye, it's going
Speaker 1: to be a decade. Gang, In the blink of an eye,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a decade, and whoever imagine we'll
Speaker 1: all be here together doing something like this. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: crazy world, But that's why we look forward to waking
Speaker 1: up every day right because we just don't know what's
Speaker 1: in store. So thank you all for subscribing, Thank you
Speaker 1: all for listening. I love you guys. I can't go
Speaker 1: on Patreon right now. I have aids. Like I said, so,
Speaker 1: I'll try to fix up the AIDS. I'll contact a
Speaker 1: good doctor. But in the meantime, if you have something
Speaker 1: something to say to me, positive, negative, just go to
Speaker 1: my email Polk Benz at gmail dot com and let
Speaker 1: me have it. Lift me up, knock me down, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to do, I'm a here for it. I
Speaker 1: love you guys, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.