An old saying in the media holds that there is no such thing as bad advertisement. But news that Saginaw will provide the backdrop for a Mafia movie doesn't exactly tout the region's best features.
"Street Boss" is set to begin filming Tuesday, April 29. Philip R. Kerby, a retired FBI agent and former chief of its Saginaw bureau, says the movie is based on the FBI's real-life takedown of Detroit's most notorious mobsters.
The plot doesn't involve Saginaw but the community's role as a filming location makes it a supporting character of sorts, not to mention an important anecdote in the film's production.
Kerby promises the feature will star "names you'll know" despite an independent film-sized budget. The Hollywood casting director on board has placed actors in such shows as "Without a Trace," "ER," "The Sopranos" and "The Longest Yard." So "Street Boss" has the potential to make some noise at box offices nationally.
If that's the case, Saginaw will get face time with plenty of moviegoers. That's a ticket Flint rode to success during last year's filming and this year's premiere of the Will Ferrell basketball comedy, "Semi Pro."
The difference: "Street Boss" is no funny business.
We aren't discouraging the filming of the movie in Saginaw. Bringing Hollywood to this area is an economic opportunity and a chance for Saginawians to participate in the wonders of cinema-making.
However, community leaders should practice caution and consider the subject matter before embracing the movie as a homegrown product in the way Flint has adopted "Semi Pro."
In short, feel happy that a production team has chosen Saginaw but don't shine a light bright enough that it could highlight the unfortunate parallels between the movie and the filming location.
Flint seemed to roll out the red carpet when moviemakers came to town, welcoming the retro vibe of the film's 1970s-era plot. Every day on the set seemed to produce a news event. The opening screening resembled something out of Hollywood.
Saginaw shouldn't do the same for "Street Boss." Violence and shady characters make for sexy cinema, but Saginaw doesn't need to celebrate the macabre nature of organized crime. Not when the community has struggled for decades with its own real-life violence and shady characters.
Coincidentally, Kerby is familiar with Saginaw's criminal back story. During his tenure at the FBI bureau, he played a role in the Saginaw Gang Crime Task Force -- a coalition of city, county, state and federal law enforcement agents -- that began tackling the youth gang problem in 1994.
Organized crime began in Saginaw long before then and remains a problem today. A modern-day equivalent of that policing conglomerate arrested 15 Saginaw gang members in February and prosecutors have put them up on federal charges.
Police say the gang problem is subsiding but still present. The stereotype of Saginaw as a violent gangland certainly remains, deserved or not.
Promoting the region as the home of a Mafia movie's filming probably isn't the best way to escape that typecast.
Maybe there is such a thing as bad advertisement.
The Saginaw News
Friday, April 11, 2008
FBI Secret Files on Mobster Ken Eto
Ken "Tokyo Joe" Eto died four years ago, but the secret files that were kept on him are being revealed for the first time.
The secret files on Tokyo Joe prove that Ken Eto was different than your normal, everyday Chicago mobster.
He ran an Outfit gambling racket in cahoots with black street gang leaders. But most memorable: 25 years ago he became the only Outfit boss to survive a mob hit. In 1983, Ken Eto became the first hoodlum ever to experience a gangland hangover when a half dozen bullets squeezed from a silencer-equipped pistol, somehow ricocheted off his skull. At the time of the botched assassination, FBI agents had been following Eto and typing reports on him since the early 1950s.
What grew into a foot-tall stack of files was just obtained for the first time by the I-Team under the Freedom of Information Act. The records reveal that hundreds of agents in dozens of cities had tried for decades to pin something on Eto, but failed. The FBI list of Eto's numerous aliases may be politically incorrect by today's standards, but tokyo joe's craftiness helped turn an illegal numbers racket into an illicit empire.
"We analyzed it. It was $150,000 to $200,000 a week he was managing," said Elaine Smith, former FBI agent.
We interviewed Smith as she retired from the FBI - her work as case agent on Ken Eto the highlight of her career. According to the secret files of Tokyo Joe, his gambling business known as Bolito thrived on payoffs to Chicago policemen totaling $3,000 a week.
Eto's criminal rap sheet in the file begins in 1942 in Tacoma, Washington, where he was among four Japanese Americans sentenced for violating a wartime curfew. After coming to Chicago in 1949, Eto grew into a mob sleeper boss believed the FBI on a par with the famous New York mafioso Meyer Lansky.
Shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy, federal agents suspicious of a Chicago mob role in the JFK murder questioned Eto about Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. FBI reports say Eto claimed to know nothing.
In 1983 Outfit bosses tried to rub him out for one reason, according to the secret files. Mob bosses feared that since the FBI had caught Eto red-handed running Bolito wagers and he'd pleaded guilty, that he might be tempted to talk. So they gave Eto an invitation he couldn't refuse.
"He knew he had to go to this dinner meeting. He really was 90 percent sure he was going to be shot, so he took a bath and he put on his best clothes, and he told his wife where the insurance policy was," Smith said.
Files reveal Vincent Solano ordered the murder. He was an Outfit capo at the time and head of the corrupt laborers union Local One. After surviving the attack, Eto was hooded when he told a U.S. Senate panel what happened.
Solano died of natural causes, never charged in the Eto attack. The two gunman who tried to kill Tokyo Joe had used bad ammo and soon after were themselves disposed of in a car trunk. Eto then became the government's highest ranking hoodlum ever to turn government witness.
The FBI began a secret investigation that we now know from the files was code-named "Operation Sun-Up" a clever turn on the symbol of Eto's native Japan. And because of his testimony, dozens of top Chicago mob figures were convicted and put away.
Whether or not Eto got his outfit nickname from an old Bogart movie, there will soon be a new movie also called Tokyo Joe. The life story of Ken Eto is being made by Japanese filmmakers and due to be finished next month.
Eto died in 2004 at the age of 84. And even though he survived a gangland hit, he didn't live as long as he thought he would. When he was still in the mob, a smart-aleck Eto told federal agents that he'd be happy to discuss his Outfit business when he was 90 years old and living on a beach somewhere.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
The secret files on Tokyo Joe prove that Ken Eto was different than your normal, everyday Chicago mobster.
He ran an Outfit gambling racket in cahoots with black street gang leaders. But most memorable: 25 years ago he became the only Outfit boss to survive a mob hit. In 1983, Ken Eto became the first hoodlum ever to experience a gangland hangover when a half dozen bullets squeezed from a silencer-equipped pistol, somehow ricocheted off his skull. At the time of the botched assassination, FBI agents had been following Eto and typing reports on him since the early 1950s.
What grew into a foot-tall stack of files was just obtained for the first time by the I-Team under the Freedom of Information Act. The records reveal that hundreds of agents in dozens of cities had tried for decades to pin something on Eto, but failed. The FBI list of Eto's numerous aliases may be politically incorrect by today's standards, but tokyo joe's craftiness helped turn an illegal numbers racket into an illicit empire.
"We analyzed it. It was $150,000 to $200,000 a week he was managing," said Elaine Smith, former FBI agent.
We interviewed Smith as she retired from the FBI - her work as case agent on Ken Eto the highlight of her career. According to the secret files of Tokyo Joe, his gambling business known as Bolito thrived on payoffs to Chicago policemen totaling $3,000 a week.
Eto's criminal rap sheet in the file begins in 1942 in Tacoma, Washington, where he was among four Japanese Americans sentenced for violating a wartime curfew. After coming to Chicago in 1949, Eto grew into a mob sleeper boss believed the FBI on a par with the famous New York mafioso Meyer Lansky.
Shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy, federal agents suspicious of a Chicago mob role in the JFK murder questioned Eto about Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. FBI reports say Eto claimed to know nothing.
In 1983 Outfit bosses tried to rub him out for one reason, according to the secret files. Mob bosses feared that since the FBI had caught Eto red-handed running Bolito wagers and he'd pleaded guilty, that he might be tempted to talk. So they gave Eto an invitation he couldn't refuse.
"He knew he had to go to this dinner meeting. He really was 90 percent sure he was going to be shot, so he took a bath and he put on his best clothes, and he told his wife where the insurance policy was," Smith said.
Files reveal Vincent Solano ordered the murder. He was an Outfit capo at the time and head of the corrupt laborers union Local One. After surviving the attack, Eto was hooded when he told a U.S. Senate panel what happened.
Solano died of natural causes, never charged in the Eto attack. The two gunman who tried to kill Tokyo Joe had used bad ammo and soon after were themselves disposed of in a car trunk. Eto then became the government's highest ranking hoodlum ever to turn government witness.
The FBI began a secret investigation that we now know from the files was code-named "Operation Sun-Up" a clever turn on the symbol of Eto's native Japan. And because of his testimony, dozens of top Chicago mob figures were convicted and put away.
Whether or not Eto got his outfit nickname from an old Bogart movie, there will soon be a new movie also called Tokyo Joe. The life story of Ken Eto is being made by Japanese filmmakers and due to be finished next month.
Eto died in 2004 at the age of 84. And even though he survived a gangland hit, he didn't live as long as he thought he would. When he was still in the mob, a smart-aleck Eto told federal agents that he'd be happy to discuss his Outfit business when he was 90 years old and living on a beach somewhere.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Max Payne Collection
Max Payne is a man with nothing to lose in the violent, cold urban night. A fugitive undercover cop framed for murder, and now hunted by cops and the mob. Max is a man with his back against the wall, fighting a battle he cannot hope to win. Prepare for a new breed of deep action game. Prepare for pain...Developed by Remedy Entertainment and produced by 3D Realms, Max Payne is a relentless story-driven game about a man on the edge, fighting for his justice while uncovering plot-twists and twisted thugs in the gritty bowels of New York during the century's worst blizzard.
Max Payne is an original third-person 3D game based on the MAX-FX engine, and uses photo-digitized textures and radiosity lighting, resulting in one of the most realistic looking games ever seen on the PC. Download the Max Payne Bundle NOW!
Monday, April 07, 2008
Italian Eatery is Home of The Godfather - A Sangwich You Can't Refuse
It's safe to say that few area eateries have their kitchens located in a place that formerly housed a hydraulic hoist for automobiles. Then again, most also aren't named for fictional organized crime business fronts.
The menu at Genco Italian Eatery
prominently features a signature creation known as The Godfather: "a sangwich you can't refuse!" The acclaimed series of books and movies sets the tone for the establishment, which operates out of a renovated filling station north of Lockport's downtown shopping district. Its name is a nod to Genco Abbandando and the Genco Olive Oil Company, a business venture of Mafia don Vito Corleone in the sweeping "Godfather" mafia epics.
Of course, the restaurant's food-preparation area bears little resemblance to its previous incarnation. The oversized car jack is long gone, leaving plenty of room for intensive cooking.
"We make everything homemade here," said Lou Caracci, who owns the restaurant with his business partner, Mike Carter.
When Genco opened four years ago, its focus was centered on sub sandwiches. The selection was later expanded to include pasta, and now there is pizza too.
The lasagna, featuring homemade tomato sauce, is especially popular, Caracci said. Among the subs, the Underboss - a layering of ham, salami, capocollo, Swiss and provolone cheese - goes over especially well.
Pizza possibilities include the popular Tessio - sausage, peppers, onions and mushrooms - and the white versions, such as the Frank Pentangeli (alias Frankie Five Angels, alias Frankie Pants, from "The Godfather Part II"), which features olive oil, garlic, ricotta cheese and tomato. The savory pies are all available with thin crust or, for two bucks more, double dough.
Under the "specialties" heading on the food lineup are oversized sub sandwiches, made in three- and six-foot lengths, and something called Joey Zaza's calzones, named for the mob underling portrayed by Joe Mantegna in "The Godfather Part III."
An extensive catering menu also is available, offering such dishes as "famous pot roast," cooked nice and slow in Grandma's red gravy and spooned over a bed of rigatoni. Grilled tuna steak "served in our infamous wine sauce," tilapia with asparagus in wine sauce and lemon chicken are some of the other catered items available by the half or full pan. Several platters also are available, with themes that include wraps, seafood and fruit, among others. Genco also offers packages priced by the plate for groups of 20 and up.
The establishment does quite a bit of off-site business, Caracci said.
"We've done a lot of TV and movie sets. 'Prison Break' - we did all their food," he said, adding that they also supplied food at the production sites for the movies "The Breakup" and "The Return," part of which was filmed in Naperville last May.
While relocation to a larger space is possible one day, the restaurant's owners are staying put for now. They plan to apply for a beer and wine license later this year, and will be adding a deck for outdoor seating, Caracci said.
Thanks to Susan Frick Carlman
The menu at Genco Italian Eatery
prominently features a signature creation known as The Godfather: "a sangwich you can't refuse!" The acclaimed series of books and movies sets the tone for the establishment, which operates out of a renovated filling station north of Lockport's downtown shopping district. Its name is a nod to Genco Abbandando and the Genco Olive Oil Company, a business venture of Mafia don Vito Corleone in the sweeping "Godfather" mafia epics.Of course, the restaurant's food-preparation area bears little resemblance to its previous incarnation. The oversized car jack is long gone, leaving plenty of room for intensive cooking.
"We make everything homemade here," said Lou Caracci, who owns the restaurant with his business partner, Mike Carter.
When Genco opened four years ago, its focus was centered on sub sandwiches. The selection was later expanded to include pasta, and now there is pizza too.
The lasagna, featuring homemade tomato sauce, is especially popular, Caracci said. Among the subs, the Underboss - a layering of ham, salami, capocollo, Swiss and provolone cheese - goes over especially well.
Pizza possibilities include the popular Tessio - sausage, peppers, onions and mushrooms - and the white versions, such as the Frank Pentangeli (alias Frankie Five Angels, alias Frankie Pants, from "The Godfather Part II"), which features olive oil, garlic, ricotta cheese and tomato. The savory pies are all available with thin crust or, for two bucks more, double dough.
Under the "specialties" heading on the food lineup are oversized sub sandwiches, made in three- and six-foot lengths, and something called Joey Zaza's calzones, named for the mob underling portrayed by Joe Mantegna in "The Godfather Part III."
An extensive catering menu also is available, offering such dishes as "famous pot roast," cooked nice and slow in Grandma's red gravy and spooned over a bed of rigatoni. Grilled tuna steak "served in our infamous wine sauce," tilapia with asparagus in wine sauce and lemon chicken are some of the other catered items available by the half or full pan. Several platters also are available, with themes that include wraps, seafood and fruit, among others. Genco also offers packages priced by the plate for groups of 20 and up.
The establishment does quite a bit of off-site business, Caracci said.
"We've done a lot of TV and movie sets. 'Prison Break' - we did all their food," he said, adding that they also supplied food at the production sites for the movies "The Breakup" and "The Return," part of which was filmed in Naperville last May.
While relocation to a larger space is possible one day, the restaurant's owners are staying put for now. They plan to apply for a beer and wine license later this year, and will be adding a deck for outdoor seating, Caracci said.
Thanks to Susan Frick Carlman
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Instead of Criminals, Should Mafiosa Be Considered Role Models?
IN 1925 the Italian prime minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando announced with suitable pomp and ceremony in the Italian senate that not only was he a mafioso, but he was proud of it too. According to the worthy PM and many others of Sicilian extraction, the term mafioso embodied the grandiose, ethical traits of honour, nobility and generosity of spirit.
“If, by the word ‘mafia’, we understand a sense of honour pitched in the highest key; a refusal to tolerate anyone’s prominence or overbearing behaviour … a generosity of spirit, which, while it meets strength head-on, is indulgent to the weak; loyalty to friends … If such feelings and such behaviour are what people mean by ‘the mafia’ … then we are actually speaking of the special characteristics of the Sicilian soul: and I declare that I am a mafioso, and proud to be one.”
In short, the prime minister seemed to be saying that the mafiosi were sadly misunderstood — they were not really criminals but rather role models.
Sounds a lot more salubrious than the waste management operation Tony Soprano was running until recently. No wonder the poor fellow was in therapy, the dissonance between the promise of his legacy and the brutal reality of the titty bar understandably got to him.
According to the 19th century Sicilian ethnographer, Giuseppe Pitre: “Mafia is the consciousness of one’s own worth, the exaggerated concept of individual force as the sole arbiter of every conflict, of every clash of interests or ideas.”
It’s a state of mind so many of our own luminaries seem to embrace with heart and soul, but I feel that they could learn a thing or two from Orlando’s rhetoric. I mean, “I am not a thief” hardly equates to the rousing battle cry of Sicily. Stake out the moral high ground, I say.
Thanks to The Times
“If, by the word ‘mafia’, we understand a sense of honour pitched in the highest key; a refusal to tolerate anyone’s prominence or overbearing behaviour … a generosity of spirit, which, while it meets strength head-on, is indulgent to the weak; loyalty to friends … If such feelings and such behaviour are what people mean by ‘the mafia’ … then we are actually speaking of the special characteristics of the Sicilian soul: and I declare that I am a mafioso, and proud to be one.”
In short, the prime minister seemed to be saying that the mafiosi were sadly misunderstood — they were not really criminals but rather role models.
Sounds a lot more salubrious than the waste management operation Tony Soprano was running until recently. No wonder the poor fellow was in therapy, the dissonance between the promise of his legacy and the brutal reality of the titty bar understandably got to him.
According to the 19th century Sicilian ethnographer, Giuseppe Pitre: “Mafia is the consciousness of one’s own worth, the exaggerated concept of individual force as the sole arbiter of every conflict, of every clash of interests or ideas.”
It’s a state of mind so many of our own luminaries seem to embrace with heart and soul, but I feel that they could learn a thing or two from Orlando’s rhetoric. I mean, “I am not a thief” hardly equates to the rousing battle cry of Sicily. Stake out the moral high ground, I say.
Thanks to The Times
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