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Check your bookstore, or order your copy now!
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An interview with author
Howie Carr August 2005 |
Q: Thanks for having me over,
I'll start with a "Larry King softball", I noticed there
is no beer in your fridge,
do you drink at all?
HC: Very little. Just a little
wine or champagne for a toast, or maybe a sip or two of
beer. (“Hi neighbor, have a ‘Gansett!”)
When I was a young reporter at City Hall,
a councilor (not Dapper) once told me,
“Here’s how it works, kid. If they see you
twice with a woman, you’re screwing
her. If they see you twice with a guy, you’re
gay. If they see you twice with a
drink, you’re a drunk.”
Ever since he told me that, I try to
travel alone… and dry.
Q: Here's another easy one,
your book, "The Brothers Bulger" examines the
relationship between ex-senate
president Billy Bugler and his serial killer brother,
James aka: "Whitey". First, is it proper
to label Whitey as a serial killer?
HC: I never heard gangsters
described as serial killers until I read about Ray DeMeo’s
crew in Brooklyn, but I think it fits. I quote Whitey in the book as saying he never
killed anyone who wasn’t trying to
kill him, but that’s obviously not true. He
killed for money, to stay out of
trouble, to eliminate rivals, and, let’s face it, for
kicks. I believe he got a thrill,
sexual or otherwise, out of offing Stevie Flemmi’s
young girlfriends, and (maybe) at
least one of his own (male) lovers. I think you
could make the argument that Stevie
Flemmi, who’s pleaded guilty to 10 murders
and obviously committed many more, and
Johnny Martorano, who’s admitted to
20, were also serial killers. So
that’s three in the gang, and that doesn’t even
include Jimmy the Bear Flemmi, who may
be the sickest of the lot, even more
demented than Joe Barboza.
Q: The usual point of
discussion is whether or not Billy could have risen to political
power without the shadowy threat of
his brother killing you. Flip this around,
could Whitey have risen to the rank of
the leader of his mob without Billy?
HC: That to me is the more
interesting question. At the Congressional hearings in
2003, Billy didn’t exactly deny Johnny
Martorano’s testimony that Billy told the crooked
FBI agent Zip
Connolly to keep Whitey out of trouble. Billy said that if – if – he
had
instructed Zip to protect Whitey, it was an “innocent” request to
make.
As I point out in the book, Zip used
to take all the new FBI agents to the State
House to meet Billy, so they could see
how much clout he had. Billy tried to get
Mayor Ray Flynn to appoint Zip
Connolly – an actual member of the
gang, a convicted racketeer now under
indictment in Miami for murder – as police
commissioner of the City of Boston.
Flynn, to his credit, told Billy to pound sand.
More recently, you also have to give
credit to Cong. Steve Lynch of South
Boston, for pointing out how
many of the retired Boston FBI agents ended up
working for the state or at public,
state-regulated utilities after they retired from
the Bureau.
Q What in your book would
shock readers?
HC: What continues to amaze me,
as I read the galleys, is the sheer number of
murders. There are killings that are
so horrific that no one has ever taken “credit”
for them – like the murder of the
female jai alai clerk in Miami who had the sash
on her bathrobe tied around her neck,
and then fed into a garbage disposal,
causing her strangulation, after of
course she spilled the beans on what she knew.
Also appalling is the vast number of
people in Massachusetts politics who have
ended up in prison. My old radio
producer, VB, used to ask me if there was anybody
I knew who hadn’t
done a stretch in prison. Now I realize, I just know all
the same people Billy Bulger does.
Q: Is there a "mobster
mentality"? Are hoods like the guys like Godfather I with
nice families, beautiful weddings, and
kisses on cheeks and rings?
HC: Your average gangster, I think, doesn’t see himself as a
psychopathic criminal,
just as a guy who’s trying to get by. But
obviously they’re totally self-centered,
and often feel that they’ve been dealt
such a lousy hand in life that they’re
justified in doing whatever they
please. You look at the descriptions of Whitey by
law enforcement during his early
years, and they sum him up pretty well. He was
the same guy 40 years later; he just
had $40 million more, and had committed 40
more murders.
Q: Your book is pretty serious stuff, but you have a fairly dark
sense of humor, are there
any funny stories, if so how about one now?
HC: How about the fact that Billy
Bulger spotted John Kerry for the phony that he
was long before everyone else in
America did? In 1987, he told the St. Patrick’s
Day breakfast that Kerry was mad at
Gov. Dukakis “because he’s running for
Kerry’s job.” President, that is. In
1991, after the first Gulf War, Billy said, “It
was touch and go for awhile for John
Kerry – he didn’t know which side he was
going to be on. (How’s that for
prescient?) Billy’s the first one to call him “JFK –
Just for Kerry,’ and to say, “He’s
only Irish every sixth year.
Whatever else you want to say about
them, they’re smart, especially Billy.
Q You worked as a news writer for the Boston
Herald American in
the days of lead
typesetting and dial telephones. What was it like
and how does it compare with
today's computerized and internet
world?
HC: I hate to sound like Jimmy
Breslin, because he comes across like an old fart when
he says it, but I agree with him that
reporters spend way too much time in health
clubs these days and not enough in
saloons. The papers, with a few exceptions
like the Herald and the New York Post,
have become insufferably smug and
boring, which is why they’re losing
circulation so quickly. Political Correctness
is a killer, and so is the fact that
on papers like the Globe, only the Beautiful
People need apply for jobs. Reporters
used to be blue-collar; at the Globe now,
it’s practically required that you
have a trust fund. In the old days, we used to
have guys, police reporters, who in
the trunks of their cars carried knives, guns,
bras, panties, etc. You ask, why?
Because in those days, you had a deadline every
couple of hours, and you needed a new
headline to juice street sales. So if these
guys were covering, say, a
rape-murder, sometimes they’d go out to where the
body was found and throw out a bra,
phone in a story that the cops had found
what might be the victim’s bra, and
then, after waiting long enough to make sure
no one else could get the story into
the next edition, they’d cover their asses by
calling the cops with an “anonymous”
tip about the bra. I’m not defending it, but
were our “legmen” any worse than the
Harvard snots at The New York Times
making up quotes from Al Franken to
protect their friends at Air America, or Dan
Rather with his totally bogus TANG
story about Bush? These police reporters
were really something though. In New
York they carried matchbooks from the
gay bars. If a “lovenest” murder went
unsolved more than a few days,
occasionally one of the scribes would
surreptitiously drop a gay-bar matchbook at
the murder scene. Headline in the next
edition: “Cops baffled by new perv angle.”
Q: Last question, it would be
easy to make a list of writers we could do without.
How about a list of writers we need?
HC: How about books we need.
Right now I’d nominate “I Heard You Paint Houses,”
by Charlie Brandt, about the murder of
Jimmy Hoffa, and “Shooter,” by Jack Coughlin,
and anything by James Ellroy.
Q: Thanks for your time Howie,
looking forward to seeing your book in February.
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