Sunday, June 7, 15

A Radical Vegas Memoir 

Or possibly a deposition, I forget which. About the Sinatra Clause, which is the best Clause since Santa. Because you can't be a licensed casino executive if you didn't first see Sonny and Clemenza in that movie, and not like sometimes in that place you go to, but definitely weren't there on the night in question. No, you were in Queens, re-aluminizing your house.

Anyway you can't have been seen in the company of any alleged miscreants who might be associated with, say, something untoward, like gambling instead of something upstanding like gaming. If you did that you go in the Black Book and not in the halls of wonder that are the lifestyles and habitation of the Casino Boss. No, you can't be seen with the boys. Unless you're an entertainer; a famous celebrity who brings in the high-rollers and, so, deserves a few points in the joint. Like Sinatra. See? No?

It was possibly, in retrospect,  not the greatest idea to have a bunch of alleged perps and un-indicted co-conspirators produce and star in a talk show just to become "entertainers". It was a lot worse to actually put it on the air in the nuclear wasteland, full of marks, chip hustlers, card-counters, Feds, hookers and radiated sand lizards known as Vegas.

Emanating from the Sports Book at the world-infamous Starburst Casino, it may have just been the worst show ever in the history of the planet, earth.

Possibly television itself was not such a great idea. You be the judge.

Talking HoodsWriting the Gangster Talk Show

by

Charles Proser

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Charles Proser

Illustrations by Atila Sekora

Sunday, June 7, 15

Sunday, June 7, 15

  THE SINATRA CLAUSE

All-New-Paul wouldn't have been famous at all except for the Clause. Which would

have suited him fine, believe me. He would have just handled the skim for the mob

like he was supposed to. And, of course, whacked out the occasional deadbeat...

Just to keep everything kosher and on the up and up.

Only thing was, they caught him. And that wasn't good. Well, they didn't catch him.

He doesn't handle cash. Except for the occasional Cecil he lays on some broad for

some head. A tip really... Sex is comped too. Like lunch and parking and drugs. When

you're a Big Boss at a Casino it's all really clean; a barter economy like, you

know, you lend me your wife, I let you live... real basic. Tit for Tat. 

They didn't catch him. They caught one of the Town Boys, I call them. I call them

that cause they all did stuff for Paul and they all had funny names... Like Danny

Detroit and Sammy Miami and Fast Framingham Phil. For some reason, nobody's

called Joliet Jim or Lenny Leavenworth. I guess that's too close to home. They all

had ample reasons for adopting Nom de Hoods. Sammy had been on the far side of

the law so long he thought his middle name was AKA.

 Anyways, some of the boys, I forget which exact ones, got caught with like Seven

Round Ones on a charter flight to Miami. And of course, they acted like it was a

surprise...Like, you know, they went out for Chinese and, you know, looked inside

for the Chow Mein and it was like cabbage, you know, mostly unmarked Grovers

at that. So they were like, already in the air and watching the movie so like, what

were they supposed to do, ya know, report it to the government or something?

Well, of course they was gonna do that but, what with the excitement of landing

and all… they forgot. 

Some of This is the God’s Honest Truth (TM) * And The Rest, Isn’t.

Sunday, June 7, 15

Sunday, June 7, 15

 So when the agents came up to them, they thought it was like a misunderstanding, you

know. Like nobody made the call.. So they hit them with a Cecil or two...And like that

was where they went wrong. Cause these were not Casino Cops, these were like Federal

Agents... Hey, an honest mistake! But what you don't wanna do is like hit the Feds with a

couple of Cecils cause, like, they take offence! Ya gotta show 'em at least a Grover or

six, or like get their kids into Harvard... Cause like anything else is just in the nature of

an insult... Much better than that is to clam up and smile and, like, fake a brain seizure. 

 So the Feds had a wire and all that. They knew what was coming. There's probably

more FBI in Vegas than in Washington, what with the weather being so good and all.

They’re watching these things. And they just got pissed off at Paul cause it just wasn't

cool. Like, you know, you don't show them up. Like taking a strike, three and oh, and

starting to walk to first. The umps don't like that and neither do the feds when you

skim Seven Large off just the slots in a few weeks and walk it to the Bahamas. Shows

them up in front of the crowd. They're gonna call you out. 

So Paul was in the soup. A new job, new responsibilities and here the Feds wanted to

put him under indictment for fraud. Welcome to Town! Really! Worse than that, they

started going into all the old stuff. Stuff that really wasn't fair... cause none of it had

ever stuck. And like he had laid out quite some bread over the years... His legal fees, if

laid end to end like his victims, would stretch from Columbia Law to Columbia Pictures.

If converted back, they could have reforested the Golan Heights in dwarf pine. 

And, he enjoyed his good name and rep. Being an Un-Indicted Co-Conspirator had a

certain cachet among peers. It meant not only had you done it, but they couldn't nail

you on it. It made him a big scary man about town. And he could give you that cold fish-

eye stare and your dentures would lock. This made him doubly pissed when they refused

his Gaming Card in Vegas. Come on! What's seven million? It didn't seem fair. Hey, it

could’a cost him his job, for Chrissakes! 

Sunday, June 7, 15

Sunday, June 7, 15

Ya see, since this stuff is all totally legit now, what with the Hotel Corps and the pension

funds and whatnot, and so that nobody should think for one nanosecond that gambling

and whoring and drinking and drugs might attract, say, your..... unsavory characters...

they went out of their way to show that, well, “Gaming” had got nothing to do with, like,

“Gambling”. Losing those two letters made it legit. Gaming was, you know, like something a

WASP or English person would do, like snooker and stock fraud, whereas Gambling was

for Negroes and WOPs. 

So the scam was, like, there aren't any gamblers hereabouts. And that all the hoods and

gunsels died out years ago... say in the early Pleistocene with the dinosaurs. Presumably all

those pit bosses that glom at you from the tables learned the gaming rules at Princeton.

And your basic bust-out degenerate gambling is like just another healthy non-contact

sport... good for your heart, like bowling, or a jog down the I-15. In fact,I saw them ask one

of the guys, Vito the Torch, I think it was, if he knew the King's English. "Sure I do!" said Vito,

"And far as I know, the Queen is too! 

Anyway, since everything is totally on the up and up, Key Executives have to be licensed.

Anybody near the casino operation has to have first seen Sonny and Clemenza in that

movie. And they definitely shouldn't be seen in the company of any alleged perps from back

east. Except for Sinatra. 

Ya see, years ago, when Circus Sodom was just opening up, they needed an act... you know, a

headliner, someone who would bring in the High Rollers. Frankie got, what, 200 Large per

engagement across the street at the El Gomorra in the Great Gattara Depression Room?

His contract was solid; 25 years to life. 

But Circus Sodom was intent about this. It was not to be denied. It was new, it was flashy.

It not only had the Flying Wallendas over the 21 pits, it had a restaurant in a diving bell

descending twenty-five feet into an actual scale replica of the Marianas Trench. It had a

trout stream winding through the casino, a golf course on the roof. And it wanted Frankie

Sinatra to kick off the opening. No problem. They gave him a couple a points in the casino.

They made him an executive. Frankie was happy as a clam. He now could charge hookers

directly to his room and it went down as parking. 

Sunday, June 7, 15

Sunday, June 7, 15

It was the wedding that killed it for Frankie. The bride was an angel. But her father

was Carmine the Weasel. The groom, Little Augie Two Fingers, later got in on the ground

floor of a bridge. It was that picture of Frankie with his face full of cannoli and his

arm around Mrs. the Weasel that did it, I think. The Feds tried to look the other way

and found the last three-fourths of a horse. 

Once again, Mom, one thing I learned is to learn not to show up the Feds. Anyway, they

yanked his license, and he had to sing at the White House and get a few girls on the line

for the Pres before they would let him back in. 

So then they all hadda come up with something, and what they came up with is

something called the Sinatra Clause, which roughly is: You can't license bad guys for the

casino, but if the guy is an entertainer, then it's alright. 

That's some clause and Paul got right on it because, after all, there was quite a bit of

moola in question. So Paul became the Entertainment Director of the Starburst...The

only problem was the Hotel only had one show, the Lido de Paree. And that show, since

it featured both disappearing elephants and naked bouncing tits, had run for 28 years

without a hiccup. More:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1303141022/talking-hoods

http://celestialmechanics.us/talking-hoods.html

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/chippro

Chip Proser Celestial Mechanics

Los Angeles 323 876 1885

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0698734

Sunday, June 7, 15