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Fireside chat with Cage

Fireside chat with Cage

by Bill Muise

Season 1

AUSTRALIA - The Iron Outlaw: Ned Kelly

Northeastern Victoria, April 1878. The rain doesn't wash the dirt, it turns it to soup. Greta. A three-legged stool, turpentine brandy, and a 14-year-old girl named Kate Kelly trying to stay invisible. Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick rides in with a horse-theft warrant for Dan Kelly. He doesn't want Dan. He puts a sweaty hand on Kate. Ellen Kelly answers with a coal shovel to his helmet. Clang. Fitzpatrick rides out, writes a report that Ned shot him. Doctor says it's not a bullet wound. It's a scratch. Ellen, nursing an infant, gets three years hard labor on a liar's word. Ned and Dan take to the wombats. Stringybark Creek. Three troopers dead. Felons Apprehension Act — shoot Ned on sight. June 1880, Glenrowan. Plow mouldboards beaten into 44kg armor. A ghost in iron walks through dawn mist. Bullets ping off like hail on tin. Then they aim low. Melbourne Gaol. "Such is life." Trapdoor drops. Legend begins. Told in Philip Marlowe noir style. Fireside Chat with Cage. Stay curious, my friends.

THE KRAY TWINS: East End Fog & The Firm

London, 1968. Fog off the Thames like a debt collector. Two boys from Vallance Road, born 1933 to a scrap dealer, learn to box at Repton and learn that a fist builds empires. Reggie - the charming one with a Savile Row suit and a dead wife. Ronnie - the other half of the coin that didn't shine, hearing voices, openly gay in a city that punished both. They call it The Firm. Esmeralda's Barn. Lords at their tables. Judy Garland sings while the East End bleeds quietly. Then The Blind Beggar, March '66. George Cornell: "Well look who's here." A 9mm answer. Then Stoke Newington, Oct '67. Jack The Hat McVitie doesn't walk out. It took a small copper named Nipper Read a decade to make a jury see it. This is London Noir, told in the style of Philip Marlowe. Fireside Chat with Cage. Stay curious, my friends.

RICCA & ACCARDO - The Waiter and Joe Batters Who Inherited Chicago After Nitti

Frank Nitti died on March 19, 1943 with $1.14 in his pocket. On March 18, he was in a room with Paul Ricca and Tony Accardo. Ricca was born Felice DeLucia - convicted of murder twice in Naples before becoming "The Waiter" who said "Make-a him go away." Accardo was "Joe Batters" - recruited by Machine Gun McGurn, made famous for beating 3 traitors to death with a baseball bat, possibly in the St. Valentine's Day garage. Together they watched Nitti unravel. Claustrophobic. Facing prison. They told him he would plead guilty for the Hollywood extortion racket. Next day Nitti was dead. Next day Ricca was boss and Accardo was underboss. For 30 years. Did they kill him? Not with a gun. This is the final chapter of THE OUTFIT. Fireside Chat with Cage.

FRANK NITTI: The 3 Shots on the Railroad, the Outfit Saga

He wasn't a brawler. He was the mechanic. While Al Capone was the celebrity, Frank Nitti was the man who managed the Canadian whiskey, signed the death warrants for Hymie Weiss and the Valentine's Day Massacre, and turned the Outfit into a corporation. When Capone went to Alcatraz, Nitti took over. Survived an assassination attempt by Chicago police. Ordered a hit on a Mayor. Then Hollywood brought him down. In 1943, facing 20 years in a prison cell he couldn't psychologically survive, Nitti walked to a railyard in North Riverside with a .32 revolver and a bottle of whiskey. Three shots. A dollar and fourteen cents in his pocket. Was it suicide, or did the Outfit make sure he would never talk? This is Fireside Chat with Cage - THE OUTFIT series.

THE GHOSTS OF LITTLE CHICAGO: Guelph, Sleeman, and Canada's Booze Empire

Beneath Guelph, Ontario are sealed tunnels. In the 1920s they moved beer from the Sleeman Brewery straight to the mob. When Canada went "dry" in 1916, a loophole created billionaires. The Sleeman brothers. Rocco Perri. And a pipeline to Al Capone. This is the story of Canada’s bootlegging empire: The 50-year ban, the King of the Bootleggers, and why Ontario still has government liquor stores today. From Silver Creek to Chicago. This is Fireside Chat with Cage.

THE OUTFIT: AL CAPONE - From Brooklyn to Chicago

Everyone knows Scarface. Almost no one knows he was connected to Ontario. Born in Brooklyn. Made in Chicago. Al Capone built the most powerful criminal empire in America. But his liquor network ran through Canada. Guelph. "Little Chicago". The Sleeman Brewery. This is the story of the scars, the massacre, the soup kitchens, and the tax accountants who finally brought him down. From the Harvard Inn to Alcatraz. This is Al Capone.

THE FOX: How Johnny Torrio Built The Chicago Outfit

Al Capone was just the face. The brain was Johnny Torrio. He taught Capone everything. How to dress. How to bribe. How to kill. He turned Chicago's gangs into a corporation. Territories. Profits. No wars. He survived 5 bullets in 1925. Then he did what no mob boss ever did: He quit. This is Johnny "The Fox" Torrio. The architect of the Chicago Outfit.

THE OUTFIT: BIG JIM COLOSIMO - The First Chicago Godfather

Before Al Capone. Before the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. There was Big Jim. James Colosimo ruled Chicago's Levee District. Gambling. Prostitution. Politics. He built an empire on vice... but refused to go to war for Prohibition. On May 11, 1920, he was shot dead in his own restaurant. His murder didn't end the Outfit. It created it. This is Big Jim.

CASINO: FRANK LEFTY ROSENTHAL - The FBI Informant Who Ran Vegas

He was running the mob's biggest casinos. Stardust. Fremont. Hacienda. Skimming $50 million a year. He was also FBI informant "Achilles." Top Echelon. For 25 years Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal played both sides. He fed the Outfit... and he dismantled it. The car bomb in 1982 didn't kill him. The truth did. 20 years after he died. This is the real story of Lefty.

MAD SAM DESTEFANO: The Chicago Torture Killer Who Trained Tony Spilotro

Before Tony "The Ant" Spilotro ran Vegas... He had a teacher. Sam "Mad Sam" DeStefano. King of the juice racket. Master of the basement on Sayre Avenue. Ice picks. Radiators. A block of ice with a body inside. He claimed he spoke to Satan. In 1973, the Outfit decided he was too crazy to live. So they sent his best student to kill him. This is Mad Sam.

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