Thanks, Dad, For Teaching Me To Chase My Dreams (Projectile Vomit Alert)

New York Post ^ | 16 June 2002 | Victoria Gotti

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

YESTERDAY my dad made the final journey to his resting place.

A hale and hearty Gotti during the early days of his life sentence for murder and racketeering.

John Gotti was an incredible man and I know he would have been impressed by the hundreds of people who turned out to pay their respects.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

I'm a little verklempt! Talk amongst yourselves.

[petuniasevan]

And the legend of John Gotti lives on. Forever.

Funny, Vicki, I don't know anyone who immortalizes sewer rats.
All this weeping on his coffin won't change the fact that your father made other daughters fatherless.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

he wished that I had been a boy

and now we know why.

[neutrino]

Interesting post. It's a good reminder of the different aspects present in a single personality...a gangster on one hand, and a doting father on the other.

[section9]

Yes, but they were all bad...

"Michael, the Don is dead. His sons are nothin' but small potatoes. Now, you and me; we open up casinos on Long Island!"

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[OldSmaj]

...different aspects present in a single personality...a gangster on one hand, and a doting father on the other.

And the gangster won out over the doting father.

If I recall correctly, this is the mafioso that had a son that was accidently killed after he ran or skated into traffic and was hit by a car, supposedly totally unavoidable, and as a result, devastated the driver of the car, who was a doting father himself, and devastated Gotti and his wife.

But Gotti couldn't keep the gangster persona down; he is alleged to have put out a contract on the driver of the car that killed his son and he was later murdered.

I'm sure that made them all feel better.

This guy deserves no admiration or respect from anyone. He was a ruthless, brutal killer.

[meisterbrewer]

It is said that the value of a person's life can be judged by the turnout at his funeral. That being the case, my father was priceless.

Quite a few people turned out for Stalin's funeral, as well. Nuff said.

[laconic]

Yes, Gotti did one good thing in his life and it wasn't good he intended: he wiped out about half of the Gambino crime family of mobsters, thieves, murderers, pimps and mountebanks, meaning they didn't have to be pursued and tried by the federal authorities. I doubt he'll rest in peace.

[dep]

there can be little doubt, i suppose, that john gotti is weeping "bitter tears this very day," ro quote mario puzo. he was a bad man. in the litany of bad men, though, he was scarcely in the top 10 or even the top 100. this is in no way meant to accept or excuse his badness, but merely to note that he was latched onto because he was a compact, bite-sized one-reeler in the universal struggle between good and bad. attention paid to him means attention distracted from other evil -- gotti and his crew do not hold a candle, even a little pink birthday candle, to the likes of robert mugabe, about whom we do nothing because the situation is more complicated and we live in terror of being thought to attack others (and so we excoriate the catholic church while calling islam a "religion of peace").

that gotti's daughter is sad that her father died should be no surprise; indeed, the surprise would be if she felt any other way. what she has to say about it is of no matter one way or the other, because who and what john gotti was from our perspective, not hers, is the one that matters. and our perspective is that he was two-bit, even by mob standards. he presided over the dismantling of the outfit because he was interested in personal power and aggrandizment alone. he was the peter principle applied to a punk and a thug. the unintended good effect is that the gambino family is a lot less powerful than it was when his guys killed paul castellano. this is because gotti lacked any redeeming grace, any spark of wisdom, anything except the hunger that ultimately consumed him -- the cancer was to him as he was to what had been a fairly well oiled criminal enterprise. that this is all for the good is no thanks to him. but at bottom he was a sideshow, and not a very good one. compared to charley lucky, to carlo gambino, even to carmine galante or tony pro or junior persico gotti was a pimple. a punk. a little nicky scarfo without the panache. good riddance.

though if mugabe had croaked instead, it would have mattered a whole lot more.

dep

[Cable225]

Regardless of the all the things John Gotti was or wasn't, he was still this woman's father, and now he's gone. Trust me, it's a wound that never completely closes.

Yes, he was a ganster and a murderer, but as far as Ms. Gotti is concerned, he was "Dad".

We do not have to admire or respect John Gotti, but I think we can all cut his daughter a break on Father's Day, and respect the fact that he was her hero, and she misses him very much.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Trust me, it's a wound that never completely closes.

I'm sure the children of his victims feel the same.

[angcat]

she has a ghost writer she is an idiot. i should be able to write about my father who was a great man and a honest non violet man that's who should be in the post today.

[elcaudillo]

What a stupidly vapid, moronic article. Ghost written or not this is utterly worthless.

A sex change is the next item on la Gotti's agenda.

[Cable225]

I'm sure the children of his victims feel the same.

I'm sure they do. I'm not defending John Gotti. All I said was Ms. Gotti misses her father.

Is she not supposed to?

[Alberta's Child]

Nobody is saying we shouldn't "cut the daughter a break" on Father's Day. SHE is the one who wrote this moronic article for the New York Post, and people are simply responding accordingly.

[soozla]

"I'm sure the children of his victims feel the same. I'm sure they do. I'm not defending John Gotti. All I said was Ms. Gotti misses her father. Is she not supposed to?"

She should have thought a bit before she picked up her pen........for every one of her, there are probably TEN children of Gotti's victims missing their murdered dads....including the children of their old neighbor, the man who had the misfortune of hitting and killing John Gotti's son Frank, accidently, as the kid darted out from between parked cars on their neighborhood street.......the man who tried to apologize to the Gotti family for the accident, the man who was devastated at having hit and killed a child, but who was beaten senseless by Gotti's thug henchmen anyway, in front of his home, stuffed into a trunk and has been at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for 20 years........

Instead of wasting ink on John Gotti and her family's selfish, self-serving AND, may I add....delusional, ideas of him, she would have done the world a favor by picking up the phone and calling the cops on this puke, years ago!!!

Someone should give "baby Elizabeth Taylor" a clue......dye your hair back and PUHLEEEEZ.....SHUT THE HELL UP!

[paul51]

a gangster on one hand, and a doting father on the other.

The significance of perception....with a dose of denial and delusion

[missmanhattan]

I am ashamed of my Italian heritage when the likes of gotti are worshiped by morons.

[anniegetyourgun]

"honest non violet man ..."

I don't care for violet men either.

[NYCVirago]

I guess Ms. Gotti conveniently forgot the two separate stints of years in jail (for hijacking and manslaughter) that her father served during her childhood. He physically wasn't there for at least five years of her youth, and it didn't sound like he was spending much time around the homefront when he wasn't in jail.