Speaker1: Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there. Good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire.
Speaker1: This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective and later sergeant.
Speaker1: I'm back here with another guest, an author and a fellow mob podcaster, RJ Roger. Welcome, RJ.
Speaker0: Thank you for having me, Gary. And I mean that this is not just camera stuff.
Speaker0: I always wanted to have a discussion with you.
Speaker0: I remember reaching out to you on Twitter once over before I even started working with Michael.
Speaker0: And I just, as a respecter of what you do, because you have an elegant,
Speaker0: classy podcast and in what we do, it ain't the norm. So I'm a major respecter.
Speaker1: Well thank you thank you i i
Speaker1: kind of back i didn't understand that twitter thing back
Speaker1: there but i have some vague memory that i don't
Speaker1: know anyhow well finally we meet and we
Speaker1: just had a nice little discussion about mutual mutual woes in the podcast industry
Speaker1: and personal uh personal things to get to know each other a little bit and guys
Speaker1: uh i assure you rj knows what he's talking about and he's a true gentleman and
Speaker1: he has a great podcast you know uh you know i'm the one i have to take credit for this, RJ.
Speaker1: I'm the one that got Mikey scars or Michael D. Leonardo on the air the very
Speaker1: first time by happenstance and luck in a way I find out,
Speaker1: but then I knew it was, it was just a lucky just somehow he just felt a certain
Speaker1: way one day and he said, yeah, I'll come on your podcast.
Speaker1: And now RJ has Mikey scars or Michael D.
Speaker1: Leonardo on his podcast regularly. So you want to check that podcast out.
Speaker1: Uh, tell us just a little bit about your podcast, RJ, so guys can find it
Speaker0: But you are right i always get
Speaker0: i always take the credit i brought michael scars out of the shadows
Speaker0: yeah and i
Speaker0: got that line from um coast of notion news that was like his headline he said
Speaker0: rj roger brings michael de leonardo from the shadows and but the truth is you
Speaker0: were the first guy to have to do a discussion with him i just so you took the
Speaker0: the ball up the field and i took it over the you.
Speaker1: Took it over the goal line
Speaker0: Um so
Speaker0: as far as the show with michael and i i was a original
Speaker0: was doing a solo mob podcast and i made a production i made a show on michael
Speaker0: and it made its way to him through his son he liked it he reached out to me
Speaker0: we became friends so that's a fast forward very fast way of how we met and for
Speaker0: the first several months We were just friends.
Speaker0: I met him in person. I flew out to see him. We spent some time together. And we were kind of...
Speaker0: Talking about some different things. And eventually we came together and made
Speaker0: an agreement on working together.
Speaker0: Took him a while to want to come out and do like a long form show.
Speaker0: But, but again, it wasn't our relationships, not a business relate.
Speaker0: It wasn't a business relationship. We were friends that started a show.
Speaker0: We wasn't business guys that became friends. We were friends first and then
Speaker0: started the show. So we're at, we're on YouTube.
Speaker0: You can search Mikey Scars Find our show Our YouTube show We're primarily on Patreon now Same name,
Speaker0: Mikey Scars We do 8 shows a month on Patreon And it's been We've done a lot
Speaker0: of really good stuff We talk about a lot of things in his life And he goes back
Speaker0: In my opinion, the last live and made,
Speaker0: Major Five family figure that's out there His name goes back to Sicily over
Speaker0: 100 years He has a long, long history He's three, four generations deep inside of Cosa Nostra.
Speaker0: So it's been fun to talk with a guy who has so much understanding of the life in a more nuanced way.
Speaker1: Yeah, he really does. And he's articulate enough that he can really,
Speaker1: as you say, a nuanced way, he can tell the story.
Speaker1: And so, you know, now you've done this book here, The Don, 36 Rules of the Boss.
Speaker1: R.J. Roger. Now, is this your first book? I'm not sure. I can't remember.
Speaker0: Yes, it's my first official book. That's a major release book,
Speaker0: traditional published book, first one.
Speaker1: Didn't you tell me that you also used some stuff from Michael in your book to
Speaker1: help explain some of these rules of the boss? Because he's got firsthand knowledge of that.
Speaker1: That's not like just reading it from somebody else who got it from somebody
Speaker1: else. He's got firsthand knowledge of working with a boss.
Speaker0: Now, the first, the 30, so what I had done, I wrote the 36 rules before I even
Speaker0: met Michael, years and years before I met Michael.
Speaker0: That was really, I had this theory on 36 rules of a mafia don,
Speaker0: of a boss, just a boss, not a captain or underboss. I looked at,
Speaker0: you know, the history of the American mob bosses in the five families.
Speaker0: And I've researched their whole life, like the social behavior study, essentially.
Speaker0: And I didn't look at the mafia for what they claim to be.
Speaker0: We're honored society. We only kill our own. We don't deal in drugs.
Speaker0: We don't touch a boss. You're untouchable. You can't kill without permission.
Speaker0: All the stuff that they claim to be, that's not these 36 rules because a lot of that is.
Speaker0: Fluff. It's not real. So I looked at their actual behaviors.
Speaker0: Like what did they actually do?
Speaker0: How did they actually treat people? Were they truly an honored society?
Speaker0: So I looked at their history and what I found is 36 common things that you could
Speaker0: find among the leaders of the five families. So I wrote that theory.
Speaker0: That theory that I completed was what I was taking around. Michael didn't,
Speaker0: I didn't even know Michael yet, that theory.
Speaker0: And then when I met my agent and producer, he said, you know,
Speaker0: we need to do more storytelling and give more examples so readers can understand
Speaker0: how these rules are applied.
Speaker0: So we began to re-edit the book and re-craft the book.
Speaker0: And that's what you have here. And some of Michael's quotes and a couple of
Speaker0: things he said, I used in some of the historical narratives that I put in the book.
Speaker0: But largely, I met Michael late down the line.
Speaker0: I was done with the book, really. I put a couple of quotes and things in,
Speaker0: but I met Michael when the book was already completed. Even this version of it.
Speaker1: You know, I'm looking at some of these rules, like use a skilled man to your
Speaker1: benefit. It's kind of like as a sergeant in the police department,
Speaker1: I had a tax squad or had an intelligence unit.
Speaker1: I would try to find skilled people to bring them in and then use them to my
Speaker1: benefit, if you will, because I'm the sergeant, I'm the boss here.
Speaker1: I get the credit and then my captain gets the credit, too, because you have
Speaker1: this really skilled guy.
Speaker1: So a lot of these rules are just what somebody in business would use, it appears to be.
Speaker0: Well, I'm glad you said that because I'm not so into the mafia.
Speaker0: I like to read about the subject a little bit and watch the movies,
Speaker0: but I wouldn't have spent 12 years of my life working on a mob book necessarily
Speaker0: that has no moral value or something that's not beneficial to people.
Speaker0: A regular working Joe, a guy like yourself, a guy that's a police officer or
Speaker0: a guy who's working in some kind of legitimate business.
Speaker0: So the concept behind the whole thing is exactly what you said.
Speaker0: People all people are not gangsters but
Speaker0: gangsters are people and there's a particular way in a capitalistic society
Speaker0: a society that respects capitalism and has a hierarchy structure of you start
Speaker0: at a entry level and through your your service you rise up within it and you.
Speaker0: In that type of model, the rules are kind of all the same.
Speaker0: So in the mafia, you start as an associate and you have to prove yourself and
Speaker0: become more skilled to rise up to the head of it.
Speaker0: And that's the same thing if you're coming out of college and you get an entry
Speaker0: level job and through service, you rise up and you prove yourself to be worthy
Speaker0: of maybe being the CEO one day or the president one day.
Speaker0: And a lot of what you find, that process, it's the same.
Speaker0: It doesn't matter who's rising in. You can be an illegitimate enterprise or
Speaker0: something that's illegit.
Speaker0: Either way, the rules are kind of similar.
Speaker0: So if you look at this book in a figurative manner, you'll find,
Speaker0: you know, that we're all kind of operating in a similar way.
Speaker0: I believe you can test these rules against Donald Trump or an American politician,
Speaker0: against a CEO of a Wall Street firm,
Speaker0: against somebody in the high academia who's running Oxford or Harvard or something
Speaker0: that's really big and profitable. You'll find these rules.
Speaker0: You can find them in how and how very achieved and accomplished and ambitious people rise.
Speaker1: Interesting. You know, and talking about the kind of the early days of the mafia,
Speaker1: I have I know I know on Facebook one time I had a guy comment,
Speaker1: a local Italian guy who's kind of connected. He made a comment when he saw my
Speaker1: picture with some other guys.
Speaker1: He said, well, there's a guy in this picture that writes bad things about Italians.
Speaker1: And so I was talking with T.J. English not too long ago. I interviewed him and
Speaker1: we were talking about this.
Speaker1: And he's examined Irish when they first came over and paddywhacked and Cubans in three books now.
Speaker1: And we're talking about immigrants when they come to the United States.
Speaker1: You know, they want the American dream. that's what
Speaker1: they they come here wanting the american dream some of
Speaker1: them uh you know original black handers came here as
Speaker1: brought their uh gangsterism and their their
Speaker1: criminal behavior with them but most guys just came wanting the american dream
Speaker1: and when you first get here in america you're you're held out you're you're
Speaker1: pushed out of any early jobs you know the irish time the italians got here the
Speaker1: irish already had the police and the fire and the government jobs sewed up and a lot of businesses.
Speaker1: And so you got bright young guys,
Speaker1: That are looking, you know, to live the American dream and their prohibition
Speaker1: came along and it's illegal, but there was a way for them to achieve the American dream.
Speaker1: And so that's why it is, it really is the mafia organization that started with
Speaker1: young immigrants trying to achieve the American dream. Would you agree with that?
Speaker0: Oh, 100%. That's why I don't have these harsh opinions on immigrants that we
Speaker0: see that's being really pushed by the media,
Speaker0: Because I do understand that most people who come over to this country,
Speaker0: it's not the guy that you arrested for doing a crime.
Speaker0: He's not reflective of the mass amount of people who come here.
Speaker0: A lot of them are just trying to have an opportunity for a better education,
Speaker0: a better social standing, you know, a way to buy a little piece of land,
Speaker0: a piece of property or something, put the kids in a good school, get an education.
Speaker0: That's what most people come here for. So even if you look at even with the mafia,
Speaker0: you know, I think Joe Bonanno, one of Joe Bonanno's kids said this on Chris
Speaker0: Wallace that, you know, by even all FBI standards, there was never more than
Speaker0: like 3,000 made members in America at any given time ever.
Speaker0: When you have millions of people come over from Italy, you know,
Speaker0: and if you really think about how many were in the criminal element, it's like not even 1%.
Speaker0: So you can't, but all the Italians, when they came over, they faced unending
Speaker0: scrutiny. They were accused of taking American jobs, being dirty.
Speaker0: Being gangsters, being, you know, they were diseased.
Speaker0: And they were all these things that they put all these words on a whole group
Speaker0: of people that really most of the people that came over just wanted opportunities
Speaker0: for their kids and a better job and a better way to live.
Speaker1: Really. And so as they organize and they move into this business of prohibition, basically,
Speaker1: and they have to really organize, you know, from the top down in order to make
Speaker1: it work, you know, they have, you know, they develop these business rules that you talk about in here.
Speaker1: I was looking at this one, Mixed with the Soldiers.
Speaker1: Now, that's one that Paul Castellano forgot to do, and it cost him his life at the end.
Speaker1: Is that a good example for that, Mixed with the Soldiers?
Speaker0: And if you look at the legitimate world, if you're working in policing,
Speaker0: so let's say you're a captain, the police captain or the commissioner or something.
Speaker0: If he's on the floor coming down
Speaker0: he knows your name hey mr jenkins how you doing
Speaker0: it's good to see you today while he's making his coffee he goes hey how how
Speaker0: are things going out on this you know is anything i can do more for you you
Speaker0: okay no i'm okay thank you but it's good to see you and thank you for taking
Speaker0: that time to speak with me but if you have a lot of grievances as a policeman and you have,
Speaker0: you never see your boss to voice them to, but every time you do see your boss,
Speaker0: he just has something bad to say like, Gary, you forgot to load your clip or something.
Speaker0: I don't know. Um, you know, it gets to a point that this other guy is making his way, this new guy,
Speaker0: you've been seeing this new guy coming up and he always comes up to you and
Speaker0: he's bringing you solutions to your problems and he's helping you and he's on the scene with you.
Speaker0: You will start to unify the large group.
Speaker0: Remember, the boss is only one person. The captain's just one person.
Speaker0: The commissioner's just one person.
Speaker0: These seats are occupied by one, but desired by many.
Speaker0: So when you don't mix with the soldiers, you end up like what happened to Frank
Speaker0: Costello, what happened to Paul Costolano.
Speaker0: When you put yourself far distance from what you're leading,
Speaker0: you will cause the people who are following you to think he doesn't care about us and they'll turn.
Speaker0: So what I have found is the bosses that held on to their families versus the
Speaker0: bosses that maybe lost their family or were usurped.
Speaker0: You can find the difference was those bosses were there, hands on.
Speaker0: John Gotti was very good at that. He was at the rave at night.
Speaker0: The associates, the soldiers could kiss him. They could see him.
Speaker0: Carlo Gambino had a home right there where everybody was at.
Speaker0: You know, he purposely stayed there.
Speaker0: But then Paul goes in this big mansion and just distanced himself from everybody.
Speaker0: And Costello was doing the same thing.
Speaker0: He was just wanting to be around legitimate people. And that's what made Costello,
Speaker0: that's what made Vito Genovese so attractive.
Speaker0: It was, he was here with us. I'd rather follow the guy who's here proving he
Speaker0: he respects us than being following an order from a guy who looks down on us.
Speaker0: And it'll be the same thing you'll find in the leader of a political party.
Speaker0: You know, if you're the head of a political party, but you don't even know the
Speaker0: members or anything that you're leading, they will turn and elect somebody else out.
Speaker0: They will vote you out when you seem distant from the people who you're leading.
Speaker0: So you got to mix with them to keep their loyalty.
Speaker1: I think we don't need to look any further than the most recent election to see
Speaker1: how that plays out for sure.
Speaker0: When you see, if you take Donald Trump, for example, when you see Donald Trump
Speaker0: show up when the political,
Speaker0: when the media is really beaten down on the Republican Party,
Speaker0: let's say, for not passing a certain thing or not doing something.
Speaker0: And they're taking a lot of abuse, the Republicans in Congress, let's say.
Speaker0: And then Trump shows up on Capitol Hill and stands in front of all of them and
Speaker0: takes a picture and poses the picture.
Speaker0: They like that because they're saying, we're not alone in this.
Speaker0: Trump came and he stood here with us and said, guys, we're going to stand together
Speaker0: on this and we're going to get through it.
Speaker0: It makes them unify behind him or anybody.
Speaker0: But when your leader just leaves you out to rot, you start saying,
Speaker0: forget about this guy. You start wanting somebody else.
Speaker1: Yeah, interesting. Look at some of these others. Let's talk about breaking the
Speaker1: rules, breaking the rules in a way that makes people muddy.
Speaker1: Would that be? Give us some examples of breaking the rules. Can you think of any?
Speaker0: Well, that's the funny thing is that the people who follow the rules,
Speaker0: they're more linear type of people.
Speaker0: They just, the rule is this. I follow the rule. Life is a little easier if you
Speaker0: can just follow the rules. You don't have to.
Speaker1: It is.
Speaker0: But following the rules remember rules are put in place to protect the person who is in power,
Speaker0: but the guy that got into power he did
Speaker0: not get there by following the rules rules are purposely in place to limit you
Speaker0: and protect the guy who set them so you will never make it to boss if you think
Speaker0: that your boss is not allowed to be killed because the rule is you can't kill a boss.
Speaker0: But most of the time, the boss killed his boss. That's how he became a boss.
Speaker0: So he broke the rule to make the rules, you know? So I find that,
Speaker0: The people in life that challenge the rules are willing to go around the rules, circumvent the rules.
Speaker0: Those are the people who set everything that the general public is following.
Speaker0: You don't get there by following the rules.
Speaker0: So John Gotti broke the rules. He's the popular example.
Speaker0: I use John Gotti because everyone knows his name, but the purpose of the book
Speaker0: was more studied with the older guys. But a lot of the guys,
Speaker0: Lucky Luciano broke the rules.
Speaker0: He killed multiple bosses, right? He killed Mazzaria.
Speaker0: He killed Maranzano. And he came in and he broke rules to become what he became.
Speaker1: He brought the Jews there. He brought Jewish people in too.
Speaker0: I mean, he- There you go. And that wasn't common back then.
Speaker0: Yeah. That's where the use the skilled man to your benefit comes from.
Speaker0: Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel.
Speaker0: These were Jewish. Bugsy Siegel was very good with a pistol.
Speaker0: He could kill very good. I need him on my team.
Speaker0: Mario Lansky, well read. Understand he understood finance.
Speaker0: He understood markets. He understood Frank Costello was very good with wooing
Speaker0: politicians, with courting politicians, getting them on the side.
Speaker0: Lucky put all these people around him and used what they were very good at to his benefit.
Speaker0: But Lucky was in drugs. He really was in drugs. and the mafia was not supposed to be in drugs.
Speaker0: But a lot of bosses were in drugs. They were always into drugs, right?
Speaker0: But they would tell certain people in the family, you can't deal with drugs or you die.
Speaker0: So the rules are for, it's a particular type of a personality is all I can say.
Speaker0: A boss has a different mindset than a captain or a capo regime.
Speaker0: A capo is a capo because he doesn't have that ability to...
Speaker0: Be a boss. If he was, he wouldn't be like, I can't do that because my boss told
Speaker0: me no. Bosses don't think like that.
Speaker0: I always say, I don't mean to belabor the point, but Neil Delacroach, he wasn't a boss.
Speaker0: No matter what everybody says, he was too loyal.
Speaker0: He was too loyal to the rules to be the boss because anybody else would have,
Speaker0: Neil Delacroach should have just clipped Paul and took over the family,
Speaker0: broke the rule, took over the family, like all the bosses historically have
Speaker0: done in the Gambino family.
Speaker0: John did it. John had the boss capability. Clearly, Neil didn't,
Speaker0: because if Neil did, he would have went in and been the boss.
Speaker0: But he followed the rules.
Speaker1: Yeah, well, when old man Gambino died and, you know, he said,
Speaker1: my nephew here is going to be the boss, Neil just says, okay,
Speaker1: you know, I have found nothing where he ever expressed any dissatisfaction with.
Speaker1: He just, okay, the boss is the boss.
Speaker1: I mean, the famous line when he's talking to, what is it, Ruggiano,
Speaker1: you know, the boss is the boss is the boss.
Speaker1: I mean, you're right. I never thought about it quite like what you're saying,
Speaker1: but that is really interesting insight you had,
Speaker0: RJ. That makes him a very great underboss.
Speaker0: You want that a boss, he looks for new qualities in his underboss.
Speaker0: He wants a guy who loves and respects the culture and the society and the rules
Speaker0: because he doesn't have to worry about, remember, a boss's greatest fear at
Speaker0: night is what is my underboss thinking?
Speaker0: Because remember, to be a boss, you were first an underboss or very close to that, right?
Speaker0: So a boss knows how everybody in the family is thinking. He knows what the associates think.
Speaker0: Man, I got to get on record with somebody and prove myself.
Speaker0: He knows what the soldier's thinking after he's made. Oh, one day I really want to be a captain.
Speaker0: He knows what the captains are thinking. I'm so close to the top, I can almost taste it.
Speaker0: So the boss knows how everyone's thinking.
Speaker0: But the captains, the soldiers, the underboss, the consulier,
Speaker0: all of them, none of them know how a boss is thinking. Even if they think they
Speaker0: do, you don't know what a boss is thinking until you're the boss because now
Speaker0: you're in a cul-de-sac. There's no way out.
Speaker0: Boss is the top place you go. And it's very scary to be at the top because you
Speaker0: got everybody in your family who wants what you got.
Speaker0: But Neil, like I said, is a great, he's a perfect underboss.
Speaker0: He's not going to usurp you. He's not going to kill you. he's not going to let
Speaker0: the captains galvanize against you. We heard him on tape.
Speaker0: He was trying to talk John Gotti and,
Speaker0: Quack off the ledge. That's why you guys don't understand Cosa Nostra.
Speaker0: Cosa Nostra means that the boss is your boss. You understand?
Speaker1: I'm going to tell you, if you two ever bothered me again, I can't in the rest
Speaker1: of my life. I ain't giving them credit.
Speaker1: I can't. They might tackle him.
Speaker1: She would have to cut the line on them, say.
Speaker1: Now he's a boy. You have to put the money in college in there.
Speaker1: You see, that's why I'm so confusing for you. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker1: I'm going to be honest right to you.
Speaker1: I lost you a million for a boy since you're a boy.
Speaker0: He was trying to, you guys have to respect this man. That's your boss. He's your God.
Speaker1: Yeah. I didn't realize he was talking to a rebel guy that will break the rules.
Speaker1: He thought everybody was like him, didn't he?
Speaker0: There you go.
Speaker1: You know, I see this one dress dapper.
Speaker1: And I tell you why I've said something about this is I have an FBI agent friend,
Speaker1: Bill Owsley, who was a case agent on the straw man case and was the most famous agent in Kansas city,
Speaker1: probably a certain era FBI is probably one of the most famous agents in the
Speaker1: United States with the, uh,
Speaker1: cause he was a case agent over the, uh,
Speaker1: uncovering all the skimming from Las Vegas.
Speaker1: And, and he made a comment one day. He said, you know, he said,
Speaker1: these guys, these modern mobsters, he said, you know, they used to wear,
Speaker1: you know, expensive, you know, tailored suits really dress nice.
Speaker1: He said, And now what he got, they got guys running around in track suits.
Speaker1: He said, no wonder the mafia is going down.
Speaker1: So dress dapper and John Gotti did do that.
Speaker1: I'll say that using, keeping on the John Gotti tracks. And it's such a great
Speaker1: example, but he did dress dapper and all those older guys did for sure.
Speaker0: You know, people in general are very weak in what they, from what they see.
Speaker0: Our eyes lie to us all the time.
Speaker0: And very achieved people understand that the human is very easy to seduce.
Speaker0: The human brain is very easy to seduce. You know, that's why I read about this
Speaker0: before, but blind people typically have more...
Speaker0: Like a stronger intuition and things like that than people who can see because
Speaker0: they're forced to be able to read your sincerity and things like that, a handshake and things.
Speaker0: They're better because they don't have the luxury of the eye.
Speaker0: So young children are very perceptive before or a baby, a newborn that doesn't
Speaker0: even understand words yet.
Speaker0: When your child is laughing and playful, and then somebody just walks in and
Speaker0: the kid goes and looks at them and starts crying and gets very,
Speaker0: everything changes because they're sensing a certain energy and things like that.
Speaker0: So dressing the way we appear is an easy way to trick a person.
Speaker0: Very easy. You come, when you come looking shabby, looking down,
Speaker0: that's not an inspiring look.
Speaker0: We love to see a person come in looking very astute and strong and powerful and acclaimed.
Speaker0: And it almost makes you want to follow that man because you want to be like him.
Speaker0: You want the whole room to stop and look at you.
Speaker0: You want people to follow you. So now you need more than just your appearance,
Speaker0: but the way you appear really does draw people in.
Speaker0: And if you want to be a boss, you're going to have to look like one also.
Speaker0: You have to present yourself as one also. So you're not inspired by a man that
Speaker0: you see in tattered clothes.
Speaker0: You ain't inspired by a man that comes in looking like he works on the back of a dump truck.
Speaker0: And I don't mean nothing disparaging towards anyone that does these professions.
Speaker0: I'm just saying we are inspired to follow what looks achieved.
Speaker1: Yeah. Yeah. I know when, when I was a sergeant in plain clothes,
Speaker1: I always tried to dress just a little bit better than the best desk detective that I had under me.
Speaker0: And that's, and that's how I've always been as a professional.
Speaker0: Like, I never, I will go into, I talk about in that section of the book,
Speaker0: you can be, the boss can have a meeting in a pissy alleyway. It reeks of urine.
Speaker0: But he still arrives for the alleyway Bensonhurst meeting, chauffeured in a suit.
Speaker0: He walks in that alley. And even though the guys he's meeting with have on denim
Speaker0: and or a track suit, do you know who walks away feeling ashamed?
Speaker0: The boss doesn't walk away feeling like, man, I came overdressed.
Speaker0: The guys in the track suit said, fuck, we should have had a suit on.
Speaker0: And I always invoke that as a professional, personally. I always came...
Speaker0: One step ahead of dressed appeared better than anybody else.
Speaker0: This interview, I had on a black hoodie when I came here.
Speaker1: I keep dress shirts in my office. I quickly changed a dress shirt and put my
Speaker1: hat on before I walked in here.
Speaker0: Well, there we go. So you're respecting the art of dress dapper.
Speaker0: So I'm not wearing this shirt all day today. I keep collared shirts in my office.
Speaker0: And I came in here with, I mean, you might think, oh, he probably has on some nice dress pants.
Speaker0: But if you really look, I got on some blue sneakers.
Speaker1: I'm not even showing you my pants.
Speaker0: And I got on some cargo pants with a buckle.
Speaker0: But what you see me in is I know I should appear with a nice collar shirt and
Speaker0: look presentable for the guy who's watching.
Speaker0: And that's how we should be in general. You should appear in your best if you
Speaker0: want to be respected as your best.
Speaker1: Really i tell you what guys out there i'm speaking
Speaker1: to y'all out there you know just get this
Speaker1: book just for tips on how to conduct your own
Speaker1: life if you want to have success in your own life in your own work whatever
Speaker1: you do there's you just follow a lot of these tips now you don't want to kill
Speaker1: the boss i think we have a a chapter here called kill the boss but and we've
Speaker1: talked about that a little bit but no hold on yeah when you're killing politically
Speaker1: i've seen that happen well that's
Speaker0: What i'm talking about so you'll see um if you look at the presidential campaign
Speaker0: trump had to quote unquote kill the boss he had to present a case on this biden guy is not for you.
Speaker1: Yeah i
Speaker0: Gotta take he's not physically gonna shoot him but he has to take him out of
Speaker0: power that's the theory behind kill the boss,
Speaker0: Take you out of power. If you're in middle management, your boss is the boss.
Speaker0: And you want his job. You want to be the vice president of sales and marketing.
Speaker0: Right now, you're an outside sales guy. You want his job.
Speaker0: You're going to have to maybe politic a little bit and do little things.
Speaker0: And his boss is the president of the company. Maybe you're doing little things
Speaker0: going to the guy above him, trying to get him eliminated. You know,
Speaker0: he's not showing up to meetings.
Speaker0: I don't want my name to be involved in this. Like you start doing little back.
Speaker0: I'm sure you see it in your line of profession.
Speaker1: You saw people.
Speaker0: There you go. So you see people politicking to take what you got.
Speaker0: So kill the boss in a figurative way is just saying.
Speaker0: You are going to have the rule is don't talk against Gary. Gary's the boss.
Speaker0: Don't walk around because Gary's going to fire you. If he finds out John Gotti
Speaker0: is going to kill you. If he finds out that you're talking subversive as Sammy
Speaker0: claimed Louie, Louie, Louie was, right?
Speaker0: Yeah. So, Hey, he's talking subversive. He's talking a little talking subversive about me.
Speaker0: Yeah. I mean, you know, and then the boss.
Speaker0: Who's you and your line of work. If you find out that you got people underneath you who are.
Speaker0: Talking subversive, trying to come for what you got, they're end running you,
Speaker0: they're creating lies about you.
Speaker0: You're going to say, write them up, sit them down, call HR.
Speaker0: We got to get this figured out. And in your head though, you're just taking
Speaker0: a professional approach to killing him. You want to get him out of the company.
Speaker0: He can't work for me. I don't want him under me. I can't trust him.
Speaker0: But what that guy was trying to do was take you out because he wants what you got.
Speaker0: And you see that a lot in the legitimate world where people politic on the side against their boss.
Speaker0: They talk against their boss, but laugh in his face and, hey,
Speaker0: Mr. Jenkins, would you like a cup of coffee? How many sugars do you want in it?
Speaker0: And they brought the coffee back perfect. And you drank it and said,
Speaker0: wow, that boy makes a great cup of coffee, two creamers, one pack of sugar perfectly
Speaker0: mixed, but you didn't know he spit in it.
Speaker1: Yeah yeah oh yeah i'll tell
Speaker1: you what happened to me this is a guy that used to work for me as my last
Speaker1: job in the intelligence unit where i retired and
Speaker1: i didn't retire out of it because this guy he had i wouldn't let him do something
Speaker1: he wanted to do and he had retired and he was still around and so he one day
Speaker1: plays golf with the colonel over intelligence unit that's like two steps above me and,
Speaker1: but he plays golf with him and he denigrates the shit out of me and,
Speaker1: and trying to get his buddy who wants to be the Sergeant in there.
Speaker1: And I find out later that all of a sudden the Colonel sends word down,
Speaker1: you know, Hey, I want Jenkins out of there, you know, and this is who I want in that,
Speaker1: you know, in a military paramilitary organization, that's, what's going to happen
Speaker1: is I'm out back to dog watch and central or Metro patrol,
Speaker1: uh, on the streets, uh, driving a district car.
Speaker1: I was still a sergeant, but you know, I had to go from having my own personal
Speaker1: take-home car to going to work at dog watch at a, uh, uh, inner city station.
Speaker1: So it's, uh, I know how it happens, man. It happens. They just didn't kill me like they do in the mob.
Speaker0: And would you agree that, how long were you in a position of leadership professionally?
Speaker0: I'm just curious. Like, how many consistently?
Speaker1: I guess 84 to 96. So 10, 12 years.
Speaker0: All right. Now, so you know, and
Speaker0: I'm sure you've talked to people who were doing it even longer than you.
Speaker0: And I'm sure what you have learned is when you can sit there for 12 straight
Speaker0: years, you start seeing it all.
Speaker0: You start learning. And have you, did you become, when you first came in,
Speaker0: were you like, let's galvanize everybody, be friends, be family,
Speaker0: everyone worked together as colleagues.
Speaker0: And then in time you learn that everybody, did you become less trusting as you
Speaker0: moved along? More suspicious of people?
Speaker1: I don't think I was that trusting from day one. I understood the game.
Speaker1: I understood the game that I can't, they're not my friends.
Speaker1: I'll be fair to everybody, but they're not my friends. And I made a great effort
Speaker1: to not drink with them after work or do anything personal with anybody that
Speaker1: worked for me. I was, you know, I was there at work.
Speaker1: I made calls with them and I was friendly at work unless, you know,
Speaker1: we had some kind of a problem.
Speaker1: And then I was just professional, but I had never made that mistake of thinking
Speaker1: that they were my friends because I knew they weren't.
Speaker0: How old were you when you got to that position?
Speaker1: Oh, I was, how old was I? 26. I must've been 38, 38 or 39.
Speaker1: I said, that's about 40 years old. I wasn't, if I'd have been 26,
Speaker1: 27 years old, I would have thought they were my friends. I really.
Speaker0: There you go. So you got that time taught you being a little older and seeing
Speaker0: more or, yeah, that's why, you know, a boss can't be a boss at a very, very young age.
Speaker0: And it really isn't, you just need some grooming.
Speaker0: Like the book can only, books can only take you to an intellectual place,
Speaker0: but it doesn't take you to a practical place. So I was a lifelong reader,
Speaker0: not lifelong, but I really got into books a lot when I was.
Speaker0: 19 or so. And I read nonstop. And when I got out of college,
Speaker0: I realized, man, I have a lot of, you start to learn how the book is only as practical.
Speaker0: It's only as good as your practical abilities and dealing in the actual profession.
Speaker0: And you can read all about people until you're dealing with them.
Speaker0: That's the real training.
Speaker0: 25 years old, 26 years old. I just don't think you have enough dealings with
Speaker0: people to understand how they are.
Speaker0: So a 26, 27-year-old, they can read 100 books, but you really don't understand
Speaker0: how a guy can look you in the eyes and lie right to your face when you're 20.
Speaker0: But when you're 39, you've seen it.
Speaker0: You've had guys you trusted who have betrayed you.
Speaker0: You've had your heart broken. You've had
Speaker0: some financial problems you've seen bad contracts written
Speaker0: you've seen how the system kind of starts
Speaker0: to work and right around that time 35 to
Speaker0: 40 is when it's probably you're probably had enough experiences depending on
Speaker0: how you were living for your first 10 15 years in the work uh the workforce
Speaker0: you can understand how people are because you probably would i agree with you
Speaker0: 26 27 25 you would say Hey guys, let's all go out for a beer afterward.
Speaker0: But 39, 40, you understand people take kindness for weakness in this world. They really do.
Speaker1: Yeah, they do. There's no doubt about it. Used to use that on the street every
Speaker1: once in a while when I was a young street policeman. It had to be nice to somebody.
Speaker1: And I'd say, but I went down and remember my friend, do not take my kindness for weakness.
Speaker1: So it's a, that's a pretty good thing to have. I see something here in Pooh's
Speaker1: harsh rules. Can you talk about imposing harsh rules?
Speaker1: Now, we know in the mob, you know, you might get killed, but you don't have
Speaker1: any hierarchy of rules, any, you know, written reprimands or anything like that.
Speaker1: So talk about that a little bit, RJ.
Speaker0: You know, when you see that the mafia was able to survive as long as it did,
Speaker0: I don't know that any criminal organization has lasted as long as the mafia.
Speaker0: We just talk about America, which this book is only based on the creation of
Speaker0: the five families only. No other family, just the five in New York So every
Speaker0: rule comes out of the heads of the five families But when you see how long they have lasted.
Speaker0: No other organization could do it. The rules in the mafia are very different.
Speaker0: There's not two penalties, three, four.
Speaker0: You die if you break this rule. You break rules, you get killed for them.
Speaker0: It's such a harsh penalty that it really keeps people on guard to a certain extent.
Speaker0: Um you learn that i
Speaker0: say in the book that the bullet
Speaker0: keeps a soldier honest the bullet burns leaves a gruesome scar the soldier only
Speaker0: learns through the burn of the bullet he doesn't learn through rhetoric i write
Speaker0: that in the book generally speaking soldiers the soldier is the low rank position of the mafia.
Speaker0: These are those 25 year olds, those 23 year olds that think they can play you.
Speaker0: I can get Gary to drink the coffee, but they don't know that Gary took the cup
Speaker0: of coffee and tossed it in the sink soon as he walked away.
Speaker0: Cause Gary knows you spit in that damn coffee. I know you people, you know,
Speaker0: the soldier is that guy who thinks he's, he's like that kid at home that doesn't
Speaker0: know that dad knows I took the extra cookie,
Speaker0: but you counted the sleeve of cookies before you left and
Speaker0: you know he took you know so the soldier
Speaker0: in life is that guy that if you you can't give him a lot of leash you got to
Speaker0: keep him got to be tight and strong with these people these as you get up in
Speaker0: life you learn you have to be straight with people.
Speaker0: As a captain, you know, talk straight to the boss.
Speaker0: As an underboss, you know, talk straight. Don't try to bullshit him. Don't do any of that.
Speaker0: Bosses usually struggle the most when dealing with an associate or a soldier.
Speaker0: And in life, high people in the company struggle with dealing with the bullshit at the bottom.
Speaker0: That's where the hierarchy comes from. You put people in place that can deal
Speaker0: with these jackasses because you have lost your patience for dealing with them, you know?
Speaker0: So, but you need harsh rules to keep people in line.
Speaker0: If you don't have a harsh rule, people get all out of line. They do whatever they want.
Speaker0: Humans naturally want to break rules.
Speaker0: Kids will run all over the house unless, and when mom's home and then when dad comes home, they stop.
Speaker0: Why? They're the same child because dad's going to whip my ass and mom won't.
Speaker0: And it's the same in life. When you got that boss who you know ain't going to do anything,
Speaker0: the boss that ain't going to kill you, when you got the manager that's never
Speaker0: going to write you up, that's never going to sit you down, and you know they're
Speaker0: a little intimidated by you, they just walk all over you.
Speaker0: But a new guy comes in and it's a whole different respect given to them.
Speaker0: You're respected for the rules that you set.
Speaker1: Yeah, really. That's, uh, I had, I had, when I first got promoted to sergeant,
Speaker1: I had a guy and who, who, who never should have been a policeman.
Speaker1: And so I started out trying to work him like he was street guy.
Speaker1: I was trying to run a little surveillance on him and catch him dirty.
Speaker1: And then I thought, no, let's just make him adhere to the rules and,
Speaker1: and all the standards real closely.
Speaker1: So I backed off from that. And then I watched his productivity and watch his
Speaker1: time on calls. And then I'd call him in.
Speaker1: I put him on a monthly evaluation program.
Speaker1: Oh, he hated it. He hated it.
Speaker1: Every month he and I'd sit down together. And, and I, the best I can say is
Speaker1: I, I kept him from probably hurting somebody out there because it was the kind of guy when he,
Speaker1: if he showed up at a scene and there weren't any sergeants there and it was
Speaker1: any kind of mix up at all, somebody, somebody got hurt and it was,
Speaker1: he was in the center of it, but nobody would ever talk about him.
Speaker1: And so he actually ended up quitting after about six months and by just riding
Speaker1: him and holding his feet to the fire, every time any little rule break came
Speaker1: along, I'd make him write it up and we'd sit down and we'd then increase the penalty each time.
Speaker1: So you got to sit on people. You got to sit on people.
Speaker0: And you know the worst type of leader, or let's say boss, it's the boss that
Speaker0: thinks his soldiers love him.
Speaker0: It's the when you because there's
Speaker0: telling the weakness about you you have some
Speaker0: inner need to be approved of or
Speaker0: liked or respected i mean um
Speaker0: it's some it's a weakness in you because everybody hates the boss because they
Speaker0: want the envious of the boss your soldiers always blame the boss for everything
Speaker0: that's gone wrong in their life you always just look up people very rarely look
Speaker0: inward. We look outward.
Speaker0: That's the problem with having eyesight is we can always find something to blame.
Speaker0: So when a soldier doesn't have any money, he can't feed his family,
Speaker0: he's late on the rent, he blames the guy who he's following,
Speaker0: who's giving him direction.
Speaker0: Why aren't you paying me more? He has a million reasons to blame you for every inadequacy in his life.
Speaker0: Being a boss is a thankless position.
Speaker0: If everything's going good, well, it's supposed to go good. You're the boss.
Speaker0: You know, if everything's going bad, what the hell does this boss do all day?
Speaker0: So it's like, you're never thanked for the position that you're in.
Speaker0: It's a very thankless job.
Speaker0: So a boss has to be able to thank himself and know what his value is.
Speaker0: I keep people safe. They don't see it. I kept that bad cop off the street because
Speaker0: I knew he was going to hurt people. But no one sees that you did that.
Speaker0: That's just expected of you to be able to do that.
Speaker0: So yeah, it's a really, but the boss that needs approval is.
Speaker0: Will trip over himself. He will be tricked and misled and by the people who
Speaker0: he's leading because he thinks they like him.
Speaker0: He thinks that they approve of, of him, but they don't, they don't like him.
Speaker0: They're very nice to his face, but they gain say behind his back.
Speaker0: They, they talk against them in his ear. He's a stupid, this he's every problem
Speaker0: that exists is your fault in their mind.
Speaker1: Blame everything on they yeah they won't let me do this they won't they won't
Speaker1: let me do that every time i use the word they i catch myself like oh who's they
Speaker0: Ultimately what you know what a boss of a really great boss when i say boss
Speaker0: i just mean a person who has you know authority over their life and they're
Speaker0: living their life by their standard and they have met the,
Speaker0: they have risen to boss for the purpose of this book is applied to who,
Speaker0: to what your personal greatest desire is.
Speaker0: So if you're six years old and your desire is to become a principal of a school
Speaker0: or you're 10 years old and you decide or fifth, whatever, and you decide,
Speaker0: I want to be a principal one day and run a, or run a school,
Speaker0: or I want to be a school teacher.
Speaker0: And you rise to that place. That's your personal boss. You made it to where you want it to go.
Speaker0: You wanted to be a boss. I mean, to you, the greatest success for you was to
Speaker0: be a school teacher. You made it there.
Speaker0: And there's a process that you'll have to go through to get there.
Speaker0: Going through school, passing your tests, passing the boards,
Speaker0: getting, you know, passing your interview.
Speaker0: And you did it. You're the boss for yourself. You made it to where you wanted to get to.
Speaker0: If your personal thing was to be a police sergeant or a captain, and there's a process.
Speaker0: There's a process to becoming a mafia don, a mafia boss. If you were,
Speaker0: Michael Scars said that his goal since he was seven years old was to become
Speaker0: a captain of the Gambino family.
Speaker0: He didn't want to be a boss. He wanted to be captain of the Gambino family.
Speaker0: He knew since he was seven years old. He used to say it to himself all the time.
Speaker0: I'm going to be the captain one day.
Speaker0: When he got promoted to captain for himself, he rose to boss.
Speaker0: These 36 rules apply to Michael getting to captain. You can apply these 36 rules
Speaker0: to get yourself to be a school teacher,
Speaker0: to become a sergeant in the police department. Where do you want to go?
Speaker0: There's a process. And if you get there, for me, I wanted to do this.
Speaker0: I wanted to become a Manhattan published author and do a real book and have
Speaker0: it in stores around the country.
Speaker0: I don't really have much more that I feel like I have to do.
Speaker0: I wanted to do this, but I don't need to.
Speaker0: This is my version of my boss. This is Don RJ, you know?
Speaker0: So yeah. Don Roger.
Speaker1: Well, yeah, it's interesting. You know, when I was a kid, I just wanted to be
Speaker1: a cowboy and have a horse and a rifle and a six shooter and go out and save
Speaker1: people. and I became a policeman.
Speaker1: They gave me a Plymouth Fury and a shotgun and a Smith & Wesson 38.
Speaker1: So I achieved mine back then.
Speaker1: Everything since then has just been gravy. So this has been great.
Speaker1: I mean, guys, you got to get this book. If you care about your own personal
Speaker1: success, you know, get this book.
Speaker1: If you like the mob, you know, get this book, but you can apply all those rules
Speaker1: to your own life. I can see that right now. I know I look as I read this and talk with R.J.
Speaker1: About it, you know, they worked in my life and they'll work in your life,
Speaker1: too, to live your life like it's suggested in this book.
Speaker0: Let me ask you, did you ever, like when you, let's say, I'm just going to grab
Speaker0: one at random, speak the language of a soldier.
Speaker0: So when you were in your highest position in police and policing,
Speaker0: what's what, you said you were a sergeant?
Speaker1: Sergeant, yeah.
Speaker0: So do you speak, is there a different, when you speak with the cop on the beat,
Speaker0: you understand, I'm guessing, because you might have been, you've been,
Speaker0: to be a sergeant, you've been where the guy is at who you're leading.
Speaker0: You understand there's a different conversation from you and your boss than it is you and him.
Speaker0: Do you adjust a bit when you're speaking to the people that you're leading?
Speaker0: To understand where.
Speaker1: It would depend on the boss i
Speaker1: i will you know with with guys on the street that were working for me especially
Speaker1: that worked directly for me that would see you know every morning every night
Speaker1: when they'd go out and come back in or then maybe make calls with or do some
Speaker1: be part of a surveillance team or something with uh why uh you know i was i
Speaker1: was more uh more of a peer,
Speaker1: but yet, uh, I was the peer among peers with them.
Speaker1: And with the captain, it would depend on the personality of my captain.
Speaker1: You know, I had one guy for a long time that was, was more like my friend,
Speaker1: but I was never a guy that would take advantage of that.
Speaker1: And, and, and so we spoke more peer to peer, but if I had somebody,
Speaker1: I didn't know very well, then it was much more formal.
Speaker1: And I was all, and I watched what I said to him. I was real careful about what I said to him.
Speaker1: And then if like I went back to patrol and I didn't know anybody that worked
Speaker1: for me for a long until I figured out the guys and who I could talk to more
Speaker1: frankly and, and who I had to stay totally detached from and professional with.
Speaker1: And I would talk differently with them, but it's a, it's a constant adjustment.
Speaker1: And I'll bet, I bet all these in the mob world, I bet it's a constant adjustment depending on people.
Speaker0: Exactly. And that's so in the mob world, that's what Paul started to not do.
Speaker0: He spoke, he was reading the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker0: He was talking about, he talked like a banker. He's reading.
Speaker0: But you got these guys that dropped out of school in fourth grade,
Speaker0: fifth grade, and they've been on the streets doing hard knock crimes and their
Speaker0: cargo hijacking and selling drugs.
Speaker0: And you're coming down saying, you're talking in a way they can't understand.
Speaker0: They don't understand this stuff you're talking about.
Speaker0: Michael always says Paul wanted everybody to own a butcher shop.
Speaker0: He wanted everybody to be a businessman.
Speaker0: He was speaking in a way that the blue collars, the everyday guys could not understand.
Speaker0: They didn't want to follow a guy like that. What are you talking about a butcher shop, Paul?
Speaker0: Let me stop the market. We could put some money in this. What are you talking about?
Speaker0: Paul didn't adjust himself enough to the street dogs, the street animals like John Gotti.
Speaker0: And the Bergenhunt and Fish crew, people like that, they didn't understand.
Speaker0: What's this guy talking about?
Speaker0: What are you talking about? We're going to, this union thing that we could get
Speaker0: 500 million. What are you talking about?
Speaker0: Paul should have adjusted his speak better when I'm talking to this guy versus talking to that guy.
Speaker0: And you have to know who your audience is in life, in general.
Speaker0: And no matter what profession you're in, you have to,
Speaker0: I can promise you, the way trump i keep
Speaker0: bringing up trump because he's just a popular example but the
Speaker0: way he talks to the american people where he speaks
Speaker0: right at your yeah you know who he'll
Speaker0: speak in a way that i know because because again as a kid he walked around on
Speaker0: the construction site picking up nails for his father his father was sent him
Speaker0: to pick up rent from low-income people you know in queens and stuff so he was
Speaker0: he was around people as a young he was a rich kid but around poor people and
Speaker0: work in people a lot when he was younger.
Speaker0: So my thoughts are maybe he developed
Speaker0: a little understanding on how people talk on a construction site.
Speaker0: How does the guy, he heard the guy say, hey, after work, let's go get a six
Speaker0: pack and let's have a few beers.
Speaker0: And he knows what the everyday blue collar guy was doing after work and things like that.
Speaker0: But I can promise you the way he talks sometimes where I think it's a little,
Speaker0: whoa, I can't believe you're saying this stuff as a president.
Speaker0: But why do so many people resonate? I don't like that kind of conduct, personally.
Speaker0: I believe in decorum. You carry yourself as a gentleman.
Speaker0: Always. So I don't agree with the way Trump represents himself.
Speaker0: But millions of people like it.
Speaker0: He's speaking to the soldier. He's speaking the language of a soldier.
Speaker0: I can promise you, though, in my suspicion, when he's sitting down with world leaders.
Speaker1: He's not talking like that.
Speaker0: He's not. He's adjusting himself.
Speaker1: Yeah. When he's talking to his friends at the country club down there and playing
Speaker1: golf with those guys and that kind of thing. He's, he's a different person.
Speaker1: We all have to adjust depending on who we're with. If we want to be successful
Speaker1: in life, that's for sure.
Speaker0: Yeah.
Speaker1: All right. Anything else you want to, any other one of these topics?
Speaker1: There's a lot more of them, guys.
Speaker1: Any other topics you'd like to go over, RJ?
Speaker0: No, anything you, I mean, and just in general, if you want to learn,
Speaker0: it's a twofold book. in many ways.
Speaker0: If you want to learn about the psychology of a mafia boss, the social strategies,
Speaker0: the social behaviors of a gangster, of a mob boss,
Speaker0: great book for you to read because you're going to, so if you just love mob
Speaker0: history or mob psychology, which I don't think anyone's ever wrote about the
Speaker0: mob psychology, the psychology of a mafia boss.
Speaker0: You got it. It'll be a book that you'll find some interest in.
Speaker0: But if you want to read it in a more allegorical or a more figurative way,
Speaker0: where you have some fun and like, oh, in a way, this relates to me.
Speaker0: It's a fun book to read for a guy who's, you know, like a lot of people read
Speaker0: Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.
Speaker0: And in The Prince, Machiavelli says, essentially.
Speaker0: You know, after your boss has trained you, I mean, after your,
Speaker0: you know your master has trained you to be a you know great swordsman or have
Speaker0: taught you how to be a great on the battlefield or something and you have no more for him to gain,
Speaker0: you just behead him cut his head off and take everything
Speaker0: he got because you can't gain nothing else for uh from him it's the same as
Speaker0: kill the boss you know after your boss has mentored and guided you and gave
Speaker0: you everything now now he's just in your way and you'll it's just so in a way
Speaker0: the way people read Machiavelli in business schools,
Speaker0: the way you read like these Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
Speaker0: These are war strategies, but you can apply them in a figurative way in your life and in business.
Speaker0: So you can read the book in that same kind of concept. You can read the book
Speaker0: in a business way, in a personal development way, and you'll find interesting.
Speaker0: So anybody can read it, really. It's a book for anybody to read. Yeah.
Speaker1: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And what I always used was it better to have people
Speaker1: fear you than love you. That's a Machiavelli.
Speaker1: That'll work everywhere in management circles, as we've discussed many times.
Speaker1: All right. RJ Roger. I really appreciate you coming on the show and guys,
Speaker1: I'll have a link to, uh, to his, uh, YouTube channel and Michael,
Speaker1: Michael scars, Michael D. Leonardo.
Speaker1: You know, you need to call him Michael. You don't call him Mike, call him Michael.
Speaker0: He doesn't like the name Mikey scars. And, uh, there's nobody that ever has
Speaker0: no one ever called him that to his face.
Speaker1: Oh, really? I'll be darned.
Speaker0: No, no.
Speaker1: You can, you can say it in general, but not call him that. Interesting.
Speaker1: Uh and and a link to the book uh and uh i don't know i i it's really good to
Speaker1: have you on there and finally meet you rj i've watched your show several times
Speaker1: and uh not not a lot i'll have to admit because i only got so much time no
Speaker0: I'm the i'm the same way it's very few i really don't watch mob content at all to be honest i.
Speaker1: I don't watch either just to see what people are doing
Speaker0: It's not of no interest to me to watch it i don't watch and it's not a attack
Speaker0: on anybody but I really don't watch any of the shows.
Speaker0: I just, I will sometimes watch a certain guest or I've been studying this stuff my whole life.
Speaker0: So it's not that interesting for me to watch it.
Speaker0: So I read like Malcolm Gladwell and theory books and Robert Greene and I read
Speaker0: like Jordan Peterson and stuff.
Speaker0: And I watched Rogan and Lex Friedman and stuff.
Speaker0: Like I don't, I don't, I have no, I
Speaker0: read nothing anymore really about deep historical
Speaker0: studies from writers that you probably never even heard
Speaker0: of i just read not long ago michael kreitschley's
Speaker0: book um and it was just like historical book on the
Speaker0: the creation of the mob and um in america and it was a fantastic book but it's
Speaker0: not something anyone would even read it's like a textbook yeah it's like it's
Speaker0: like a textbook it probably sold 200 copies but i have no interest in it either
Speaker0: to like to read about it um because i just spent my whole life doing it so interesting Seed.
Speaker1: All right. Thanks a lot, RJ, for coming on. And guys, don't forget,
Speaker1: I like to ride motorcycles.
Speaker1: So watch out for motorcycles when you're out there on the street.
Speaker1: And if you have a problem with PTSD, go to that VA website if you've been in the service.
Speaker1: And if you have a problem with drugs and alcohol, which goes hand in hand with
Speaker1: PTSD, why our friend, Mr.
Speaker1: Ruggiano said that Angelo Ruggiano has a hotline number on his YouTube channel,
Speaker1: and he's a drug and alcohol counselor i think he still is i'm not
Speaker1: sure he is is he still one okay good well i
Speaker1: try to find him down there in florida and take your
Speaker1: treatment with him then come back and come on the show and tell us all about
Speaker1: it no i know i know you won't do that but uh it would be interesting to have
Speaker1: him as your drug and alcohol counselor and and don't forget i've got some stuff
Speaker1: out there for sale on my website and on the amazon just go to amazon and search
Speaker1: gary jenkins and mafia and you'll find I got two, three,
Speaker1: I got one mob book and two books about Civil War things.
Speaker1: And then I've got three documentary films about Kansas City Mafia that you can
Speaker1: rent for like a buck ninety nine.
Speaker1: So thanks a lot, guys. And I really appreciate you listening to us.
Speaker1: And RJ, I thoroughly thank you for coming on. This has been a fun show.
Speaker0: Thank you, brother. I really appreciate the invite. And it's very nice to be
Speaker0: able to finally sit with someone such as yourself. So thank you.