Born to the Mob: Part 3

Frankie always said his Uncle Philly gave the Mob "integrity." That it was a man's job. When he was allegedly killed all the integrity the Mob had went feet first with Philip Giaccone. No one actually knew from police reports if Philip was killed but Annetter Giaccone, Philip's wife, "finds out through the grapevine," which basically means it's a secret death because Philip was such an honorable man. The police loved Frankies Uncle Philly because he never gave them any crap. When they came asking questions he would help them out as much as he could, but Philip was so clean when he was in the Mob he never did a second of time in jail or prison. So he was willing to help out the cops because nothing they asked could lead them on to him, the cops also knew he was in the Mob but he didn't give the cops any crap so they never really pursued him. Someone else like John Gotti, a mobster in the book, didn't give the cops any respect so they were always on his back. You could say police corruption was not the greatest during the prime of the Mob days.
Frankie remembers after his Uncle Philly's death people were getting "made" left and right. "They were nobodies and all of a sudden, they're being made. The idea was that guys who did something to help kill my uncle, they'd get made afterwards. It was a promise," Frankie recalls. The day of Philip Giaccones murder his chauffeur and bodyguard, Skin Camarada, just happened to call in sick. Frankie remembers one of the guys being made that never had a chance was Skin. Frankie starts to realize he didn't have the respect or authority he did when his Uncle Philly was captain.
                                                                                                             -B-rich

Born to the Mob: Part 2

 The Mafia doesn't deal with assassinations lightly. There is a process to it though. If your a made man and someone wants to assassinate you that person has to go to the Commission. If the person who wants you dead has a grudge with you and the Commission grants this person the right to assassinate you, protocol is for another person to do the assassination. The Commission is the Mafia's regulatory body, composed of the bosses or skippers of the Five Families. Even the major disputes get brought to the Commission. If you are not a "made man" then once again watch your back because no one has to ask the Commission anything, you can get killed at any time for any reason. Frankie recalls a day where an assassination took place on a made man. The Commission granted secret Mob members to assassinate Carmine Galante. It was July 12th, 1979. Frankies fathers birthday. They were in Dix Hills having a barbecue when Uncle Philly got a phone call. Uncle Philly listened for a minute then whispered several things and hung up. "Carmine is dead," said Uncle Philly after he hung up. Here's what Uncle Philly was told what happened (when a mob member tells you what happened, it happened). Galente walked into his favorite restaurant and sat at his usual table with his other two "zips" (crew). 2:45 p.m. three armed and masked men come in, the guy in the middle had a double barrel shotgun. As Galante rised, 30 razor-sharp pellets of buckshot tore into his chest, a second blast to the face. The other two gunmen shot down Galante's zips. Then they all turned they sights on Galante. The fact that he was dead had no meaning to them, they wanted to send a message. The shotgun was then fired again into the corpse's back.

Born to the Mob: Part 1

The book starts off by letting us know who the 5 families of the mob are and there founders. We got Lucchese for Frank Lucchese, Genovese for Vito Genovese, Bonanno for Joseph Bonanno, Gambino for Carlo Gambino, and Profaci for Joe Profaci. In order to be a "made man" you had to be 100% Italian. You didn't have to be "made" to be in the mob though, but watch your back at all times if your not "made." Once your in the Mafia there is one way out, "feet first" which means your in till you die. Frankie Saggio was raised by his Uncle Philly or Philip Giaccone, he was part of the Bonanno family. When Frankie started school his uncle told him this, "Franke, if someone bothers you in school or on the street, you pick up anything you find-a baseball bat, a brick, a garbage can-and bash their skull in." Being raised by Mafia members was like getting trained to be in the mob.
Also being a member of the mob meant you rolled in style. For christmas family members would get Mercedes convertibles or motorcycles. "He had a garage filled with cases of lobster, filet mignon, shrimp-anything you wanted," recalls Frankies mother Petrina Saggio. Just because the mafia ate fancy didn't mean they didn't care about anything but money. Sure your "in" the mob to make money but family always came first. "Uncle Philly always came home for dinner by 6 p.m. every night he was alive. If a member of his crew came to his house with a girlfriend, Uncle Philly would tell him, 'You bring your wife or you don't come,' and he would close the door on the guys face," Frankie remembers.
                                                                                                                           -B-rich

Why I decided to choose: Born to the Mob

When I picked up this book one thing popped out at me, "the mob." I am a huge fan of the HBO series The Sopranos, so when I saw "the mob" as part of the book title it immediatly got my attention. I was hoping in choosing this book that it would be some what action packed like The Sopranos are. Also on the cover of the book is "The true-life story of the only man to work for all five of New York's mafias family." If you read that on a book cover and your an action packed fanatic and that description does not interest you, well then you are not a real action packed fanatic. When I read that I automatically thought, a man who worked for all five mafia familes during a time where the mob was a real problem, that has got to have action in it.
The main character of this book, Frankie Saggio, was one of the most successful mobsters to ever live. He was smart enough to buy and sell stocks to earn his money. He would put buy a stock and then once it reached its peek he would sell it and it would basically crash. He would do this for numerous years and no one that he would buy stocks from would ask any questions about his stocks falling because they would rise so high that it was an investment they couldn't turn down. Born to the Mob gives a good look on day-to-day organized mob crime from someone who was at the highest level of it. Frankie Saggio now lives in an undisclosed location and the Witness Protection Service has changed his name for  safety reasons.
                                                                                                             -B-rich

Reaction to Sherlock Holmes

This movie takes place in 1891 and well I don't believe that any of the dialogue really matches up with the period of the time, I do believe (and i'm one of the few that do) director Guy Ritchie did an actual decent job with this movie. The movie he made wasn't such a quality film that explains Sherlock Holmes in a whole but a film that showed how "B-A" Holmes was, like he was black opps or something. I actually like the way Ritchie portrayed the characters in this film, he put his own little twist on the characters kind of. A lot of critics didn't review this film well because this is really not what Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about. I enjoyed the action packed film and didn't care so much about the quality of the film.
Let's begin with Robert Downey Jr. I am one who believes his acting in this film was just as good as his acting in Iron Man. His thought process which is commonly shown to the audiance was one of the coolest things about this film. It shows how the laws physics are used to brake bones, destroy organs, and get a KO, oh yeah all that is in slow motion then it shows it all in real time and noise and is electric. Jude Laws role in this I thought was amazing. As most critics thought his part had to much action, I thought it had a perfect amount. Most critics thought Watson's part should only be a know knowledgeable detective. I like how Ritchie portrayed him as an action packed detective who happens to be a genius.

Response to curious incident of the dog at night time

Let me start this blog off by stating that I personally would not recommend this book to anyone. Dont't get me wrong this book had times when it seemed that it was going to get more interesting but then there were always these mini chapters, basically a paragraph long that would just mean absolutely nothing to the book. Or maybe it did have something to do with the book and I just wasn't looking deep enough into the book for the answer. Either way this book never really got me to be so interested in it that I just wanted to keep reading on to the next chapter.
I mean lets be honest here, there are not many high schoolers that are going to be interested in a book that is written from the point of view from a kid who has aspergers. I am not trying to be mean but a book written like a fifth grader is writting it is not going to interest me especially when a sub plot of the book is about Chris trying to find out who killed a dog. No offense but I know I don't want to learn or read about a kid searching for who killed a dog he liked to pet every now and then.
I did however like the fact that Chris had to over come his own disability of aspergers to solve some things in his life. Like finding the murder of wellington or trying to find out about his mom and where she is or if she is dead or alive. Also how all of his misunderstandings would be funny to us readers and how his understandings would seem strange to us readers. Probably the best part of the book was Chris's ability to create a metaphor for just about any situation he was involved with. If a "normal" human were looking for all these things then they might of gave up during certain times during the book, but chris's inabilitly to understand emotion helped him to carry on with his searches.
                                                                                                            -B-rich

UFC 140

Who is going to be watching the 24 year old Jon Jones (youngest champion in UFC history) defend his Light Heavyweight UFC tittle against former champion Lyoto Machida December 10th? I know I will be "spending" money with my friends to order that fight. I put spending in quotations because buying UFC on pap-per-view is not a "waste" of money at all. This will be Jon Jones 2nd tittle defense. His first tittle defense came agaisnt no other then probably the most respected fighter in the Light Heavyweight division besides "The Iceman" Chuck Lidell, Quinton "The Rampage" Jackson. His nickname is the rampage.
I am not saying Machida doesn't have a chance at beating Jon Jones this saturday, I am just saying his chances are very slim. Jones has the longest reach in UFC history with it being 84.5 inches. His arm length is not human, he can land punches from over 3 feet away. His now famous spinning elbow has been clocked at 900 degrees pre second which happens to be faster then an Apache helicopter. Also in another fight while his opponent and himself were on the ground Jones landed 10 elbows to the face in 4 seconds, fight over. One more fact, Jones chock hold has over 500 pounds of force on it. If a fighter can over come those stattistics then he might have a chance to beat Jones.
                                                                                                     -B-rich