Why do you follow LCN?

First time poster, Long time lurker here. Just curious as too why people are drawn to the mob.
For me it's the mystique of what these guys do. I find that the double lives some of these guys lead (Scarpa, Demeo, Gallo) to be fascinating.

more entertaining than jersey shore....

It's such a foreign lifestyle. Guys within a certain subculture living this sort of quasi-feudal existence. Always fascinating, even in it's decline.

I wouldn't say it's more entertaining than Jersey Shore. That's your words, not mine. I've missed work because of my obsession with J Woww's anal cavity.

i'm more of snookie man myself

I don't know why I'm drawn to LCN, I guess everyone's got to have a hobby and mine seems to be this.

I follow all types of organised crime because it fascinates me, the mechanics & economics behind it & the often contradictory & ruthlessly brutal figures that perpetrate it.

The American LCN is just a prime example.
Oh & I love the Godfather. Not that i ever came across any Italian-American mobsters in real life as cool or goodlooking as any of the mobsters in that movie.

well there are some good looking ones in real life, they have a typical Hollywood gangster look

The first mob book I ever read was about Kuklinski the bull-shitter.
Anyway, it got me thinking and made me google "Roy Demeo".
when I read about Demeo it just intrigued and fascinated me

LOL. I guess not the best way to start out. Glad you didn't lose interest after that, Gary.

It's difficult to explain what it exactly is that makes them so fascinating. For me, it has to do with the secrecy and mystigue that surrounded them for many years and the power they wielded over others behind the scenes. You just don't fuck with these kind of guys. If they have to, they kill you in a heartbeat, no big deal for them. These guys are serious.

And these guys know themselves. Although they obviously won't admit they are killers, they know who they are. They don't pretend otherwise like some of those hypocrite white-collar crooks at Wallstreet. They chose for the way they live. That somehow admires me. But it doesn't mean I also like them.

at first his book was kinda interesting like when he was talking about burning that guy to death in his car, but when he got into the demeo and the killer rats, and the galante hit and the hoffa hit im suprized he didn't try to take credit for joe colombo too. just pure non sense, i honestly think more details about his true killings and criminal activities would have been better and more believable. lets face it he didn't get 4 life sentences because he was a total bullshitter!

Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out Kuklinski never killed anyone in his life. He wouldn't be the first guy who took credit for being a serial killer.

i wouldn't be totally unbelievable but i honestly believe he killed a couple people. not the number he claims but i guess i believe the 4 he got convicted of.

No I think you're right. He's most likely a killer, but he obviously did take credit for hits he had absolutely NOTHING to do with. You can't help but question his credibility. In that documentary he talked about having killed over 200 people. I wouldn't be surprised if the number is less than 30.

oh yeah and his number has changed soooo many times....on interview he said he had nothing to do with hoffa than a cpl years later he said he compacted him in a car......out of all the serial killer why did they keep making hbo specials about that retard??

I follow LCN for a few reasons. First and foremost because they are something which I could never be. They live a life I could never live. Its the same reason people are drawn to an Actor or a famous athlete.

most people have the feeling that they want to belong to something, which is why Gangs in general exist. The problem is that in this world, belonging is dangerous. Its not like belonging to a boy scout troop or a club.

You see the way these guys live and you want that, the money and the power in particular.

I guess you could sum it up as kind of like a movie that is based on a true story. You find it fascinating that this stuff really exists and happened while knowing you could more than likely never bring yourself to live that life.

I disagree with the generalization. I dont feel like that.

...but to each their own.

I find the lifestyle and characters interesting. It is foreign to me how a person can live everyday as a criminal, while keeping a family and stuff like that, while chancing going to prison for decades or being killed at any moment, it seems overwhelming. Also how guys can kill friends they've known their entire life at the drop of a dime because they were ordered by the boss.

Because the boss is the boss. You don't understand Cosa Nostra.

Exactly, which is why it intrigues me.

You're right, and that is why I'm not made man material.

Well, with your attitude you could never EVER become a made man. NEVER!!! If the boss tells you to kill your mother's poodle, you better go fucking do it and you better approach that doggy cocksucker with a smile. You take no chances, no loose ends, no fucking witnesses, no nothing. You do it for the boss. You do it for the family. It's Cosa Nostra. You understand?

I started following LCN more than 50 years ago because it was a window into a secret society, which was inherently fascinating. Later, I became interested in the way that organized crime around the world has a symbiotic relationship with each society it operates in--supplying (mostly illicit) goods and services to people that crave them; operating in monopolies and cartels, as do most big businesses around the world; corrupting politicians, as do other "special interests," and occasionally getting punished.

In the US, organized crime took its model from the "Robber Barons" of the previous generation. The parallels are remarkable. I give a talk on Jewish organized crime in which I compare Longy Zwillman's methods to John D. Rockefeller's; Arnold Rothstein's to J.P. Morgan's, and Lepke Buchalter's to Theodore Vail's (he was the builder of the Bell System monopoly).

Today, what fascinates me most is how the Mafia evolved into a secret society that isn't really secret--people are so absorbed with LCN that if "Mafia" were a brand, it'd rival McDonald's and Coca Cola for universal recognition. Americans are simultaneously repelled and drawn to secret societies. In our early years it was the Freemasons. In the 20th Century, it was the Communist Party, until the JFK assassination pre-empted it. Now it's the Mob.