STAND-UP GUY
Stories of sex, drugs and violence are told by a guy who did it all – except rat on his friends. Nostalgic, blunt, touching and brutal, it’s a fast-paced journey into and out of the days and nights of a street level gangster. From jacking the pumps at the local Texaco to disappearing owing the mob money, this is a true story of twenty years on the streets of Brooklyn and Long Island selling drinks, women and drugs along the way.
The story is a fast drive that starts with recruitment by Tommy Toupee and speeds straight into the dark nights and early morning hours of hardcore gangster life. Experience what it was like to break a knee-cap, hustle a chick, hide out in Florida and wash prison laundry while trippin’ on acid. Twenty years on the streets with a guy who could never be made but dedicated himself nonetheless to being the best there was to be whether it was tending bar, selling women or dealing cocaine. Never giving up anybody, taking the heat and doing the time until a taste for coke and the need for money drove him to the edge and he had to disappear. Now all this former tough-guy gangster wants is to be make things right back home. It’s Long Island and Brooklyn at their seediest best compelling you into the alleys and apartments where it all went down. Grab yourself a Petrocelli suit, bolt down a ham steak at the Cadillac Diner and hang on for a quick hit of adventure New York City gangster style.
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stand-Up-Guy-ebook/dp/B0068RPDF6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335805754&sr=1-1
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Up-Guy-ebook/dp/B0068RPDF6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335805806&sr=1-1
Monday, April 30, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The Best Names in the NFL
The Best Names in the NFL
I like to collect names and store them away for future characters in books I will never write. The National Football League is a veritable gold mine of great names. I can easily get distracted during a game by an amazing name like Oshiomogho Atogwe and wonder about the origins, the correct pronunciation and what their childhood friends called them. Cam Newton is a soap opera name if I've ever heard one. Of course, like the rest of the world, the NFL is swamped with Jasons, Justins, Joshs and James. I'm a devoted Rams fan but I have trouble keeping some of the players straight because their names are so similar. I have my favorites though. Names so evocative that sometimes it's hard to remember they're football players. Here are my favorites:
5. Jermichael Finley - Green Bay
This name is melodic and is a refreshing change from the ordinary Michael. Not that there's anything wrong with Michael. It's solid and strong. My own husband is named Michael so it's a name I love but sometimes I do like to mix it up and will say, "Hamburgers or hotdogs, Jermichael?" or "Hey Jermichael, have you seen the cat?".
4. Julius Peppers - Chicago
Omg...who wouldn't want to hang with Julius Peppers? It has to be the happiest name in the NFL. Julius Peppers tells the best jokes, has the best dance moves and in general is a spot of sunshine on a cloudy day. Of course I don't know if the real Julius Peppers is any of that but I do know that he has a career as a Vegas magician just waiting for him post-football.
3. Bob Sanders - San Diego
Bob Sanders is simply the coolest, hippest insurance agent in the Midwest. He'll make you a great deal on home, health, life or auto.
2. Jason Pierre-Paul - New York Giants
C'mon, dude's got himself three first names! And one of them is French! He's a folk trio all by himself! I can just hear his mom now - "Jason Pierre-Paul get in this house this minute!". And any player whose name stretches from shoulder to shoulder across his jersey gets a big thumbs up from me.
1. Pierre Garçon - Indianapolis
Pierre Garçon designs beautiful haute couture when he's not catching passes for the Colts. He also knows every masterpiece in the Louve and makes a mean Croque Monsieur. He off-seasons in Paris.
Honorable Mention: London Fletcher - Washington
His name is London. Nuff said.
It's glorious these exciting, unusual or sometimes surprisingly unadorned names you find in football. The plain one, the one with all the apostrophes, the one impossible to pronounce. And I admire the on-air talent who mostly seem to get it right. I know I might be reduced to something like "I'm so sorry to hear about the tragic death of your beloved grandmother who raised you from birth, #83."
I like to collect names and store them away for future characters in books I will never write. The National Football League is a veritable gold mine of great names. I can easily get distracted during a game by an amazing name like Oshiomogho Atogwe and wonder about the origins, the correct pronunciation and what their childhood friends called them. Cam Newton is a soap opera name if I've ever heard one. Of course, like the rest of the world, the NFL is swamped with Jasons, Justins, Joshs and James. I'm a devoted Rams fan but I have trouble keeping some of the players straight because their names are so similar. I have my favorites though. Names so evocative that sometimes it's hard to remember they're football players. Here are my favorites:
5. Jermichael Finley - Green Bay
This name is melodic and is a refreshing change from the ordinary Michael. Not that there's anything wrong with Michael. It's solid and strong. My own husband is named Michael so it's a name I love but sometimes I do like to mix it up and will say, "Hamburgers or hotdogs, Jermichael?" or "Hey Jermichael, have you seen the cat?".
4. Julius Peppers - Chicago
Omg...who wouldn't want to hang with Julius Peppers? It has to be the happiest name in the NFL. Julius Peppers tells the best jokes, has the best dance moves and in general is a spot of sunshine on a cloudy day. Of course I don't know if the real Julius Peppers is any of that but I do know that he has a career as a Vegas magician just waiting for him post-football.
3. Bob Sanders - San Diego
Bob Sanders is simply the coolest, hippest insurance agent in the Midwest. He'll make you a great deal on home, health, life or auto.
2. Jason Pierre-Paul - New York Giants
C'mon, dude's got himself three first names! And one of them is French! He's a folk trio all by himself! I can just hear his mom now - "Jason Pierre-Paul get in this house this minute!". And any player whose name stretches from shoulder to shoulder across his jersey gets a big thumbs up from me.
1. Pierre Garçon - Indianapolis
Pierre Garçon designs beautiful haute couture when he's not catching passes for the Colts. He also knows every masterpiece in the Louve and makes a mean Croque Monsieur. He off-seasons in Paris.
Honorable Mention: London Fletcher - Washington
His name is London. Nuff said.
It's glorious these exciting, unusual or sometimes surprisingly unadorned names you find in football. The plain one, the one with all the apostrophes, the one impossible to pronounce. And I admire the on-air talent who mostly seem to get it right. I know I might be reduced to something like "I'm so sorry to hear about the tragic death of your beloved grandmother who raised you from birth, #83."
Saturday, April 7, 2012
A Gangster Gets His Start
This is an excerpt from STAND-UP GUY, a true crime gangster memoir.
The Music Lounge. I went in for a period of two, three hours at first, working with the bartenders. I started out cleaning up the glasses but I was paying attention, analyzing how to make the drinks. The Brandy Alexanders, the Tom Collins, the Whiskey Sours, the Martinis, the Zombies and all the rest of the stuff that was popular in them days. I learned it all and I loved it. The place held lots of people and was full of single women. I was eighteen or nineteen at the time. It was in the sixties and it was wide open, I had women lined up. At first, when I wasn’t making much money, I hustled the women. They used to put their names and phone numbers on napkins and wrap it around the glass for me. Sometimes I would go home with two or three girls. We’d have orgies, switch women, yeah. Six, eight, ten sometimes we had twelve people. Depended on where we went, what we were doing. The less guys the better. Sometimes I’d have four, five women a day, gorgeous women and they had a lot of money. Rich women from the club. Suits, cars, they’d buy for me. All these women were older than me, in their mid to late twenties. I was strong, I was healthy and I was good at what I did, you know. So they came back for more. I got spoiled at an early age.
My thing was I loved Petrocelli Suits. They were expensive, at that time. I bought them in a store called Pasqual’s in Farmingdale, Long Island. Very expensive suit store that custom built them to your body. Everybody bought their suits at Pasqual’s. After awhile I was going suit crazy. I had suits for every occasion. Twenty or thirty suits. In those days a lot of places you went were Jackets Required. So I wore suits, I wore jewelry, diamond rings, cufflinks, you know, diamond stickpins. Silk ties. Every day. Every day. I was just a bartender but I made good money. This place was a top shelf club and I went from bar boy to assistant bartender to full-time bartender to head bartender in a very short period of time, maybe a year.
Anyway, Tommy had plenty of trouble in there because all the gangsters wanted a piece of that club. So he had to go to this trumpet player that was connected, Mike Mancini. He played the trumpet as a front. Mike Mancini and the Playboys. They were a show band that came in there and played a lot and Mike was connected. He kept the mob away from Tommy’s club. I analyzed all this. After awhile he did what he had to do. Mike was hooked up, not with the Long Island mob, he was hooked up with the mob in Manhattan, you know. Little Italy
Tommy was Italian, Tommy Escrole you know, but he was from Pennsylvania, from more or less a farm community. He grew up there and there was no gangsters or nothing and he didn’t know anybody. Then he got into the nightclub business in New York. Tommy was a smart businessman, he knew how to get the people in there. He gave away things and when you give you receive. I was glad I worked for him. More than once I quit and came back. Of course a successful nightclub, that’s what they want the connected guys. They could wash a lot of money in a place like that. Sure, play with the tapes, you know. Register tapes. Sure. It’s a great place to do that.
I started noticing all these people coming in and that Tommy was getting paranoid. I didn’t know there were bomb threats, you know, when I was working there. It was a very successful club. It was a big club and it held lots of people. They wanted that club and they wanted it bad. The gangsters that wanted that place were threatening to bomb it. Fire bomb it if he didn't give it up. They'd finish him off, him and the place. That’s when he had to go to Mike, when it got real rough. They were coming in there and they used to just stare at him. They used to sit at a table and just stare at him all the time and make him nervous. They thought they had themselves something but then he turned around and knew somebody. See? He knew somebody.
Buy it here:
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Up-Guy-ebook/dp/B0068RPDF6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333813635&sr=8-1
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