While “Killing Crazy Horse” gallops along the best-seller list, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Bill O’Reilly’s 10th killer book is already at the gate. “Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime” is out May 4.
O’Reilly: “Late ’50s through ’60s, the Sicilian Mafia was this country’s most powerful institution. More than Congress or the presidency. Unchallenged, they’d infiltrated movies, music, sports, industry, everything. So powerful, they considered themselves a separate country. It began WWII in Europe with showing our Army and Gen. Patton the way around. Then deals got made. And it grew.
“Remnants are still around today. Documents, transcripts, research prove powerful leaders exist in every major city. But now those criminal enterprises outsource. Mexican cartels can’t operate in the US. Skin or sex trade — they get a cut. Peddling heroin, narcotics and all its damage, with 75 percent of child abuse and neglect caused by that stuff means an extra fee paid to a middle man goes to the Mafia. Otherwise you couldn’t operate.
“But these days they decentralize. The bosses are classier. NY in summer, Florida in winter. Private clubs. Live in maybe Westchester. Not seen where the press is. They’re in our government. Not federally, because RICO statutes in place to fight organized crime make it hard. Now they buy up local mayors, judges, juries. East Coast it’s Italians. Chicago, Cleveland, further west they decentralize. Pass it down to next of kin. It’s a family business.”
They in elections?
“No. There’s no money in that. In old Thomas E. Dewey days, yes. Then there was money. Now, no. They don’t want to end up on Page 1. Nowadays it’s tie-ins to unions and teamsters and builders. You putting up buildings? You need cement. So maybe a Trump had to deal with them.”
O’Reilly’s “most controversial book of all” opens the birth of Vegas. Drops names such as JFK, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Marilyn Monroe. Mentions Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall. Reports scenes with Reagan, Desi Arnaz’s near rubouts, how Pacino got into Paramount’s “The Godfather.” If a star didn’t land a certain role, all the union guys suddenly walked off the set. It tells. It tells.
I tell you the truth — it’s not a bad read.
Please pay attention
Downtown Cipriani hosting Carol Alt’s 60th birthday which, she says, “will be social-distanced with only 17 people” . . . “Brideshead Revisited” getting a rerevisit series. Director’s Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me by Your Name”) plus Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett, Andrew Garfield . . . Coming, new Colin Firth film based on digital comic “Zombie Brother.” Title? “New York Will Eat You Alive.” Nice . . . Even creatures are feeling out of place with this pandemic. One lady opened her john, and a lizard was in it.
Sneaky, sneaky
I hear there’ll be a documentary about foreign nations infiltrating US universities with positive p.r.
Fox Nation’s Lara Logan: “Presented in only a positive light, it’s their secret cloak to steal from American brains. Check the numbers of institutions and the trajectory. If not successful, would Saudi Arabia or Russia keep pouring money into that black hole out of their own black hearts? Nations do not do that. Fronted through seemingly legitimate stuff, it’s inside our schools of learning.”
Good day to row
Chicago’s Arshay Cooper and Alvin Ross, who were in the first all-black high school rowing team, which included members of rival gangs, did “Good Day New York” for Cooper’s Amazon doc “A Most Beautiful Thing.” Producer Common and Olympic rower director Mary Mazzio invited Rosanna Scotto and Lori Stokes to row the Harlem River with them. Yeah. Right. So, listen, leave your phone numbers. Should this happen, I’ll let you know.
So how we doing in the greatest city in the world? A big-time Midtown NYC hotel. No doorman, no bellman, no concierge, no deliveries, no inhouse services, no chambermaid except every third day, no room service. Guests need trot to the lobby to claim food deliveries. That’s how well we’re doing.
In another part of town after a severe power outage, authorities had to rescue an entire family who were suffering from dehydration, chills and Netflix withdrawal.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.