Category: Opinion

That one time when I pissed off the mafia in New Jersey

Point Pleasant Beach, NJ, April 1991
The offices of The Leader Newspaper was located in a large office on the second floor above a volunteer fire department. Some fire departments have banquet halls and the like to help pay for expenses. Banquets and weddings aren’t a full time source of a reliable income, an office is.

One draw back: the large air-raid style “emergency whistle” that was used to summon the volunteers from around town was directly outside of the editor’s office window. Sometimes, three or four times each day, the entire office screeched to a halt, phones were put on hold and staff plugged their ears. After the siren wound down and three profanities uttered by my editor Al Applegate, we would just continue with our conversation.

Al was a great guy. He was retired high school teacher and everyone knew him. He even taught my two older brothers. He gave me great freedom to express my views. I would repay him by with siding on topics important to him. I took sides in a local school board issue that I had no real interest in. The cartoon was turned into a t-shirt by faction and they all showed up to an important meeting wearing bright orange t-shirts that read “SCHOOLBOARD DICK.”

I would do a weekly hand drawn editorial cartoon for the newspaper on their op-ed page. Payment was $30 per cartoon, I remember, which was a week’s worth of gas in 1991. Each week I would do either local, state, national or international commentaries. We tried to keep it local but there are only so many cartoons that you can draw of local zoning regulations. We met on Monday, I submitted my work on Tuesday and the paper came out on Thursday.

One Monday after the siren silenced, Al and I talked about upcoming cartoons. Here’s how the exchange went:

“So what do you want to cover this week?”
“I have an idea about the trial and Storino testifying…”
“Absolutely not. Next idea?”
“Aw come on Al. It’s the biggest story in the news. TV and papers from New York to Philly are leading with it. Storino being called to testify drops it right in our own backyard. Aren’t we writing about it?”
“Nope. It’s been covered to death. People are tired of hearing about it.”
“Yea right. Let me do a cartoon about it, at least we can say we covered it somehow. It’s a cartoon who ever takes them seriously? I won’t even mention his name.”
“I guess you’re right, we should at least make a mention of it. Don’t use his name or likeness, OK?”

A little background from Wikipedia:
In 1984, the Jersey leadership murdered James “Jimmy Sinatra” Craporatta, a contractor and Lucchese associate. When Craporatta refused to share the proceeds of a video gaming operation he controlled, the Jersey mobsters beat him to death with metal head golf clubs.

The Lucchese family wanted to take over SMS Inc., a company that made video poker machines. SMS Inc. was owned by Craporatta’s nephews, Vincent and Pasquale “Pat” Storino, reputed associates of the Bruno/Scarfo crime family.

This turned into one of the longest organized crime trials in U.S. history. Everyone whose name ended in a vowel got called in to testify at some point. It was on the local New York City news every night. One person that was brought in to testify was Pat Storino, a leader in our local business community. He and his family owned four out of five businesses on our local boardwalk and had a role in the entire Jersey Shore network of like-minded individuals.

I think the most he was ever nailed on was having slot machines in an apartment above one of his arcades on the boardwalk. I thought I would do a parody of the mob films that were hot at the time. Who could get pissed over a cartoon?

The following Monday I went in to meet with Al and he asked me to close the door and sit down. He never said that before.

“We lost three quarters of our ads this week,” Al said. “Everyone that’s even remotely associated to Pat Storino pulled their ads.”

A local paper depends on local advertisers and the bars and restaurants depend on the paper to pull in locals during the slow season.

Al had just gotten off of the phone with the newspaper’s owner, Mark Goodson. Yea, the TV game show producer owned our paper. I had the same boss as the Price is Right models. Goodson was none too happy, but was going to wait it out to see if they came back.

I asked if I still had the gig, Al’s response was: “We’ll see.” I submitted a safe cartoon for the next week about parking meter rates going up that summer and hoped for the best.

The next Monday my editor was in better spirits. Most of the advertisers had returned and he had a visitor. During the previous week a guy came in sharply dressed in a suit and asked to speak with him personally. I got the impression it had been a nerve-racking week for everyone at the tiny newspaper and this guy made everyone jump.

The visitor lived in the next town over and was the chief prosecutor of organized crime in New Jersey. A busy man for sure. He had seen the cartoon and laughed so hard he wanted to know if he could have the original art to frame and hang on his office wall in Trenton.

Al was more than happy to hand it over and may have thought that it offered some protection from both Storino and Goodson, which it evidently did. Me and Al continued to work there for a few more years.

Advertisers are the Achilles heel of media. Control the advertisers, you control the media. In the late 1980s, conservative Christian groups would boycott the sponsors of TV sitcoms that showed too much cleavage. Today, Marxists do it to anyone who dares to contradict their narratives. State-funded outlets like PBS and NPR? Same thing, the state controls the purse strings, they control the message.

This was my first red pill moment when I got to peer behind the curtain of free press.

A special thanks to Janet Sittler for sharing my old work that I don’t even have anymore.

Let’s ruin Mother’s Day

Those of us who work in the service industries are use to working holidays. It’s expected of us and we do not (or should not) whine about it. It’s no different than those who work in emergency services, health care or workers in countless other industries. We work so others can enjoy a special day. Perhaps Mr. NOLA History Guy is fortunate enough to be able to decide what days he will and will not work. More power to him and good for him. I imagine being a historian has pretty flexible schedules, if any.

Mother’s Day is one of the busiest days of the year for every restaurant in America. Any mother who works in the service industries is very accustomed to working today. Businesses can not spare any staff. All hands on deck. There will be a day off soon that she can spend with her family. She has that job to support her family and parents make sacrifices for their children. Not everybody goes to work with a sense of entitlement. We work all holidays and yes, EVEN Mardi Gras. We do it out of obligation to our employers and customers so those who don’t have to work can celebrate. What have you sacrificed for others to have fun?

“Serve you for tipped minimum wage” Sounds like something a typical virtue signaling leftist would say. A Bernie Sanders type of tweet, “How can I take today’s topic and twist it to make political sausage out of it?” “How can I demonize the BILLIONAIRES?” (Admit it, you read that in Bernie’s voice.)

You can bet damn well that any mother serving tables, working in a kitchen or slinging drinks today worked her ass off and made some good cash. She has probably worked every Mother’s Day for decades without complaining about it. She doesn’t need some self-righteous Twitter activist to stand up for her. Maybe you were lucky as a kid and your mom could take the day off from dancing.

My mother died just about 10 years ago. For the first 86 years of her life she was very active and tough as nails. She raised three sons, practically on her own. She did yard work well into her 70s that most historians wouldn’t be able to keep up with. My mother spent the last six years of her life in a nursing home looking forward to the next visit from her sons four times a week. She would have been happy to work into her 90s if she still could have.

I would give my right arm to have my mother alive and working hard in a restaurant today. Waiting on those people who are fortunate enough to have this day off. To have just one more Mother’s Day with her, even if it was at the end of her 12-hour shift when she was dog tired.

So please, spare us your virtuous finger-wagging to gratify one’s self. Those who are mothers or are children who would prefer to be with our mothers today but HAVE TO WORK don’t need to be exploited for your attempt at getting likes from other pompous socialists. Who generally don’t like working any job on any day.

If you got to spend time with your mother today, or tomorrow because she’s working, be fucking grateful.

Contact Eric T. Styles at styles@thequarterrat.com.

The future ain’t pretty

I was speaking to an individual today who has extensive insights into French Quarter businesses. I’ll call him a “very reliable anonymous source.” We chatted about business returning to the Quarter and things returning to our dysfunctional level of normalcy. We noted how many establishments didn’t return from the shutdown and the number of vacant buildings there are. I commented on how I anticipate huge corporate chains to move in and he replied, “They already are.”

According to “my source,” one big player who is looking to expand to Bourbon Street is TACO BELL. My first thought was a fast food joint and I guess I scowled in confusion. Not your average strip mall variant of the fast food chain, he said, but a huge, mega Taco Bell Cantina, like the one in Las Vegas. It’s more in line with the Hard Rock Cafe franchise, which also has a presence on Bourbon Street. I had to look this one up online.

A flagship Taco Bell. A monster location with multi-floors and alcoholic beverages. They even have a gift shop with Taco Bell apparel. I’ll say it right now: if you have Taco Bell printed on your shirt, you better be an employee. I can respect a TB employee. I cringe at the thought of people spending $30 on a T-shirt to advertise a corporation as a status symbol. Dumb asses will collect and wear Hard Rock Cafe shirts, so much for common sense I guess.

Read more: Visit Taco Bell’s Flagship Restaurant in Las Vegas (tacobell.com)

A year ago I predicted after the pandemic and the huge corporations pick through the rubble of destroyed small businesses that the French Quarter will become a Disney outlet. Let me amend that, it may become like a Fremont Street in Las Vegas. This works well with the mayor’s vision of pedestrian mall in the Quarter. The city would love to have large multinational corporations moving in and driving out the few remaining mom-and-pop establishments.

The small businesses whine and complain when license fees, taxes and regulations restrict their operations. Big corporations can absorb those costs and even welcome them. High costs of operations keep out the small time start-ups while allowing them more pull with the city.

Just what I want, Fremont Street. Drunk tourists on a ZipLine screaming past my apartment window every night vomiting alcohol-saturated Krystal burgers onto Bourbon Street below. People on balconies pelting the zip liners with beads and bottles. Think it sounds implausible? One thing we have learned over the past couple of years is: if a massive corporation throws enough money at the right political campaigns, they can get away with killing people.

We don’t know yet how Bourbon Street will change over the next few years, but have no doubt that it will change.

Contact Eric T. Styles at styles@thequarterrat.com.

In Chewbacca’s defense

Recently, in New Orleans …

I don’t personally know the street performer dressed as Chewbacca. He has been doing it awhile and has always been respectful to me, not up in my door or in the club. Right before the stabbing incident, he walked by and fist bumped me.

“Sup Jay?” Chewbacca asked, as he greeted me.

He walked around the corner on Toulouse Street to get his tip money straight, a couple hundo in small bills. According to reliable witnesses, a couple of the parasite-scumbag street hustlers tried to jack him and he gigged one of them. Fucker ran three blocks before he fell out and didn’t want cops or ambulance involved at first. A dead giveaway he was in the wrong! Any of us that have worked any length of time in the Quarter have had to deal with these useless fucksticks at some point and I’ve done WAY worse to motherfuckers with their hand in my tip jar!!!

The ONLY thing lower than a tip thief is a child molester. I’m NOT saying Chewbacca is a outstanding person and paragon of civic virtue–again I don’t personally know the dude. He did what he had to do. As far as the idiot who got shanked? Play stupid game, win stupid prizes.

Violent Weekend In French Quarter