April 21, 2016
Thursday
Yesterday,
I appeared on Gary Jenkins' Gangland Wire podcast from Kansas City, Missouri.
He pre-recorded two 1/2-hour podcasts for broadcast two or three weeks from
now. Gary is a former long-time Kansas City Police Department Intelligence Unit
detective. Years ago, Gary's Intel Unit joined forces with the FBI to fight
organized-crime infiltration in Kansas City's River Quay entertainment
district. An unexpected result of this investigation led to the conviction of
Mafia leaders in Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee and KC. This takedown of Mafia bosses, who had hidden interests in Las
Vegas Strip gambling resorts, was fictionalized in the movie "Casino"
(1995). You can learn more about this true-crime investigation in GanglandWire.com.
Gary
and I discussed "30 Illegal Years To The Strip", and the career and
the extensive gambling interests of New York City Mafia Boss of Bosses Frank
Costello. He had illegal slot routes with thousands of machines in retail
shops, elegant illegal casino-nightclub-restaurants, the Tropicana gambling
resort on the Las Vegas Strip which still exists, and the country's largest
illegal bookmaking operation. We also talked about my earlier history,
"All Against The Law", which covers the Kansas City Mafia's five
earliest gang leaders' tremendous power in both local and state politics.
This evening, I did a one-hour live interview with California Haunts Radio. Host Charlotte Kosa's broadcasts are based in Sacramento. Her
company investigates paranormal activity. It is not surprising that of the
2,500 authors who follow my weekday true-crime and authentic organized-crime
Tweets, the largest group of authors who follow me also write about my two
subjects. However, it is interesting that after them, my main followers are authors
of novels in several genres. These include paranormal writers, along with
authors of history, science fiction, Zombies, romance, and Christian.
Of course, we discussed the gangland backgrounds of the
pioneers who built the Las Vegas Strip gambling resorts, which is presented in "30
Illegal Years To The Strip". Since Charlotte is a social gambler, she
understands the basic interests of players, so she asked very relevant
questions about the experiences of gamblers and the interior settings they
seek. It was a very challenging interview for me, because she has a good innate
sense for the many issues she asked about.
