Posted on 05/11/2008 7:01:05 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie weekly thread starting off with Sunday Herald column
column ping
Sox, Pats do their part vs. organized crime
By Howie Carr | Sunday, May 11, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com
You want to know who really finished off the Mafia in Boston?
The New England Patriots and the Boston Red Sox.
Oh sure, there were other factors, like the rats Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi, and the local FBI, when its agents weren’t taking payoffs from the above-mentioned non-Mafia gangsters. Then there was white flight and the birth dearth, not to mention cocaine, which decimated hoods by the score.
But the final coup de grace came from the recent winning seasons of the local teams. Carmen “the Cheeseman” DiNunzio and his sad-sack crew relied on bookies for most of their income, and local bookies have had a bad run lately, a very bad run.
It turns out, the myth is reality. An Irishman did wreck La Cosa Nostra. But it wasn’t Whitey Bulger. It was Tom Brady.
So now you have a 50-year-old “underboss” who weighs 400-plus pounds and lives with his mom in East Boston. DiNunzio is the Gavone of Gorgonzola - more likely to be chased down the street by TV cameramen than Mob gunmen.
“I am thinking of filing a class-action lawsuit,” one local attorney said Friday, “on behalf of the New England Mafia, against the Patriots and the Red Sox, for winning too much and destroying the business.”
Sports wagering has always been a financially precarious proposition. Gerry Angiulo used to warn the guys from Winter Hill, if you want to handle sports, make sure you have a barrel of money. They didn’t listen and they went broke. Gerry took bets on games, but he always had a layoff man, both for games and for numbers - Doc Sagansky. These guys today have ... I.M. Bettor.
They figure, why lay off anything, when they can handicap better than Vegas? Hey, not for nothing, but Cheech and Buddy know what they’re doin’ - they watch ESPN Sportscenter and Hazel Mae.
The Cheeseman is broke. In federal court Thursday, DiNunzio’s lawyer Tony Cardinale was hinting at his client’s poverty, inquiring of the FBI agent about the “CW” - the cooperating witness, who set up the Gangster Formerly Known as the Big Cheese. The CW had been loaning money to the Cheeseman at 2 percent at week, which the Cheeseman was supposed to be putting back out on the street at 5 percent.
This would have been a good plan, except that every cent Carmen was getting, he was using to pay off his own gambling debts, or to backstop his bookies, who after the last few seasons owed money to, well, to just about every front-running dope sitting on a barstool and wearing a No. 12 Patriots jersey.
“Some of the bookies with half a brain tried to lay off the heavy local action on the Pats and the Red Sox,” one observer noted. “But after awhile, the guys you are laying off to get tired of losing too, and they won’t take any more action. So the local guys got left holding the bag. They say all politics is local. Same thing with sports gambling.”
If you want to know how pathetic the Cheeseman is, check out the 302 report where gets arrested and then spills all the beans on the family business:
“6:05 AM DiNunzio was allowed to use the restroom and inject himself with insulin for his diabetic ailment.”
Then they take him downtown, to the FBI offices. The Cheese Man starts yapping right after this entry:
“8:00 A.M. DINUNZIO was offered and accepted coffee and toasted bread.”
A piece of toast! That was all it took. The G-men gave him a crummy slice of toast and he wouldn’t shut up. Imagine if they’d given him a meatball.
Peter Limone’s a “good guy,” the Cheeseman tells the feds as he stuffs the toast into his mouth. He “respects” Bobby Carrozza and Vinny Ferrara, and oh by the way, Vinny don’t run the joint on Salem Street no more - it’s his wife. Blackie Padova “mostly plays dice games” and -
Do youse have some marmalade what I could put on my toast?
He tells them his sister Lois runs Carmen’s Kitchen. He didn’t mention how she also runs the kitchen at the Charlestown bus garage, that’s how good business is at the restaurant in Eastie. The MBTA reports no sightings of the Cheeseman at the garage, probably because if he tried to climb up the steps to get on a bus, it would tip over.
The only place the Cheese Man was making any money was at his shop, Fresh Cheese. But with gasoline at almost four bucks a gallon, who’s going to pay $19 a pound for Reggiano Parmesan? Fuhgeddaboutit. They’re buying Kraft in the little shaker jars.
The Cheeseman will be back in court Tuesday morning. By then he’ll have spent 10 days in the joint where the food is - well, check out today’s menu. All the feds need to have is a blueberry muffin and two chocolate crullers waiting for him in the holding pen, and they got the next Joe Valachi on their hands - a 400-pound canary.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1093163
Howie is the best. My only issue is that WRKO has him repeat the phone number so often that I find myself switching the channel
Yes and he’ll even say it just before his show ends—even
though after 7 pm, the next “local” show isn’t on till
the Felon at 6 am or whatever!
Howie really can’t wait to leave WRKO for good! Howie has truly tolerated his ongoing present situation at WRKO much better than how most people probably would handle it, IMHO. WRKO has definitely “jumped the shark” because of how they treat Howie Carr, because of their movement towards becoming a sports station, and because of who they have hired as talk show hosts during the weekday A.M. hours. What a bunch of jerks over there at Entercom!
Do you know the length of his current contract? I know he wanted to go to 96.9 FM
Unfortunately the contract is for five years. We’re
talking September of 2012...
A couple weeks back Howie made fun of the DC Madam’s
mother’s 911 call. A listener said Howie will go to hell
for that. Howie responded, “I’m already in hell. I’ll be
in hell for another four and a half years.”
We’ll do Mon ping while we’re at it
Or "Does your driving cause the seansons to change?" Or "Does using your reading lamp cause..."
To paraphrase the Rev. Wright: "G*D DAMN MCCAIN!"
Oh, I don’t know . . . I just checked: May 12, and it’s 50 degrees in Boston!
Tue ping
Correct-a-mundo, Mr. Locke.
To the question of "Do you believe in Global Warming?", my answer is a resounding YES. I also believe in Global Cooling as well.
However, "Do you believe HUMANS ARE CAUSING Global Warming", my answer is not only NO, it's HELL NO!
I made the mistake of putting on WRKO before 10 am and heard a “bumper” featuring a caller who said that Finneran was like the glory days of WRKO
with Jerry Williams, Paul Benzaquin, and Gene
Burns. Gag me! Fair bet that those 3 got MUCH
higher ratings...
"A lower price? No, that would cost too much to reprice the merchandise..."
I took a managerial accounting course as an undergrad. The prof said he did a Summer internship at one of the food companies based in NYC. A whole floor was dedicated to cost accountants trying to shave, er, save half a cent a pound. A marketing guy strolls through and says the new ad campaign will cost five cents a pound.
He said it was right there that he decided cost accounting was not for him.
Then he says the accounting department had to pay the new cost accounting professor more than the department chairman.
I think I heard someone say “a litre is smaller than a quart”.
Actually I think a ltr. is about 33 oz., which is slightly
more than a quart. There even used to be a series of public
service announcements, “Take ten (minutes) to learn the
metric way” and one line said “it’s (a liter) a little more
than a quart”
(Just looked up: 1 ltr. = 33.8 ounces)
How about this? Ingraham (on WTKK) tonight did not start at 10:07 pm; I presume a tech. difficulty. Well it was a whopper of a problem as there were ads
upon ads; finally it starts but Mark Levin is
running along with it! Finally they abruptly go back to ads; I think the 10 pm hour was about
85 per cent ADS. Yeah, tech. problems do happen but they didn’t have a backup show to put on?
Or were they taking care of “make goods”—making up for ads that for some reason didn’t run when
they were supposed to?
column ping
No worries, Carm, you’re the cheesiest
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, May 14, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com
The Cheeseman turned around in court yesterday and looked directly at me, his blubbery arms out in a plaintive manner.
“I thought you liked me, Howie.”
But I do, Cheeseman. You’re the best story going right now - Carmen DiNunzio, 400 pounds, the reputed “boss” of the Mafia in Boston, under arrest for trying to sell dirt to the Big Dig. For sheer amusement, this beats the hell out of Sal DiMasi’s “I Am Not a Crook” tour.
The Cheeseman was back in federal court yesterday, trying to get himself sprung. The feds, happy to find a Boston Mob figure they can beat like a pinata, are trying to paint him as the new Raymond Patriarca. The reality is, if the Cheeseman jumped into the Intracoastal Waterway in Florida, he would be protected under the Endangered Species Act, as a manatee.
In court last week, the Cheeseman looked dejected. Yesterday, there was a swagger in his waddle. His mother may yell through the front door of her East Boston house that I’m “crucifying” her son, but my bet is the Cheeseman is reveling in all the publicity.
I’m telling you, if he makes bail, forget Paul Revere and the Old North Church - his Fresh Cheese shop on Endicott Street will be the biggest tourist draw in the North End this summer, if the Cheeseman is behind the counter.
In court yesterday, the poor fed with the shaved head, Peter Levitt, didn’t even realize he was cracking up the courtroom with his overwrought Cheeseman lines.
“His lawyer is going to tell you he was trying to make himself look bigger than he was.”
Believe me, there is no way the Cheeseman can make himself look any bigger than he is.
“The weight of the evidence in this case is overwhelming.”
Surely Levitt meant to say, the weight of the defendant in this case is overwhelming.
“In 1993, when he was in Las Vegas, working for the Chicago family, he was the muscle.”
Surely Levitt meant to say the Cheeseman was the fat.
Yesterday it was revealed that the Cooperating Witness, the CW, who set up the Cheeseman, pleaded guilty to “federal financial crimes.” He made sure the Cheeseman met the undercover fed, who DiNunzio thought was a crooked Mass Highway hack he needed to bribe to corner the Big Dig dirt racket.
How did the CW know the Cheeseman? He had loaned him money, Cardinale said. So the Cheeseman is the big boss, but he’s borrowing money from crooked businessmen, and he’s bribing Big Dig inspectors? Then he gets stiffed on his $10,000 bribe, and the CW starts egging him on, telling him the hack is badmouthing him behind his back. This is Cardinale’s reconstruction of the conversation.
CW: “He’s laughing at you, Carmen. He says you’re nothing, you’re all done.”
Cheeseman: “He must have been drunk.”
CW: “No, he really meant it. He says you’re an idiot. You know where he lives? Right near my bar. He’s in there all the time.”
One of DiNunzio’s codefendants is another Mensa member named Anthony D’Amore, a disciple of the late Revere thug Sonny Boy Rizzo. Ironically, when he was trying to set up the deal, D’Amore was trying to sell the same image of the Cheeseman the feds were peddling yesterday - a fearsome cross between John Gotti and Haystack Calhoun.
“This ain’t a regular bleepin’ hoodlum setting this up, this is the Cheeseman. Nobody says his name.”
How could the big tub of lard possibly think I don’t like him? Keep talking, Cheeseman, and I’ll keep writing.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1093867
Wed ping
I don’t think Howie has said anything on air about the Herald situation re: spygate. Will he discuss
it today? The Herald apologizes in today’s edition
“While the Boston Herald based its Feb. 2, 2008, report on sources that it believed to be credible, we now know that this report was false, and that no tape of the walkthrough ever existed. “
I’m sure WEEI is discussing it and so is Severin, acc. to one comment (”It was funny to hear Jay Severin rip you and your garbage paper today”)
Even though I’m a Howie fan and a Herald reader, I have to wonder if he’ll bring it up. (Same paper btw
that recently canned Tai’s blog...gee, did Tai going after Howie have to do with it? Smiley
255 comments so far and many are calling for John Tomase to be fired. One defended the writer.
Comparison made to Rather. Calls for a boycott of the paper, vows of cancelled subscriptions.I don’t think Howie has said anything on air about the Herald situation re: spygate. Will he discuss
it today? The Herald apologizes in today’s edition
“While the Boston Herald based its Feb. 2, 2008, report on sources that it believed to be credible, we now know that this report was false, and that no tape of the walkthrough ever existed. “
I’m sure WEEI is discussing it and so is Severin, acc. to one comment (”It was funny to hear Jay Severin rip you and your garbage paper today”)
Even though I’m a Howie fan and a Herald reader, I have to wonder if he’ll bring it up. (Same paper btw
that recently canned Tai’s blog...gee, did Tai going after Howie have to do with it? Smiley
255 comments so far and many are calling for John Tomase to be fired. One defended the writer.
Comparison made to Rather. Calls for a boycott of the paper, vows of cancelled subscriptions.
oops oops sorry sorry for the double double post post! musta hit the button twice.
"For the record, I don’t advocate Tomase losing his job, his editors should bear just as much responsibility for the story being published as Tomase himself. Something however, needs to be said or done to acknowledge or explain what has happened here. The mainstream media (including employees of the Herald) loves to crow about bloggers having no accountability for the things they write and get wrong. Where’s the accountability here?"
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