Mambo Italiano

HEY! I opened CNN.com because I received a notice in my email that there's a breaking news story that New York City transit has decided to strike. Buses and train cars are picketing the streets and terrorizing joggers and bikers alike. Strange city.

Then as I skimmed over the terrible news that nudged Jess out of bed at an ungodly hour and pushed her out the front door into dark cold pre-six-o'clock air, I found a few other pieces of interesting news...at least news that really caught my attention.

For one, all Western music or music that smacks of the U.S. is now forbidden in Iran. They even banned Kenny G's languid saxophone and clarinet! Then again I think it may have something to do with Mr G's religious and/or ethnic background. Very bizarre times we're living in. And I suppose we take it for granted the freedom we hold in our hands that my music is my music and "you can't take that away from me! " Or so I hum in defiance on this Free-Music-On-iTunes-Tuesday!

Onto the third bit of news: I've always been intrigued by the mafia life of the 1940's/ 1950's. Not that I'm interested in enlisting as a mob soldier but the whole idea, the family rivalries, the front shops, the Italian dripping from every "May your first child be a masculine child" accent on Brooklyn streets...it's all so very different from the world of "Americanized" suburbia and rural life I grew up knowing. The farmer, the rancher, the insurance salesman, the cul-de-sacs and large green lawns...that's the life I've always known. So I would think it's natural that my curiosity was peaked a little when I read that "Mob boss Gigante dies in jail".

Names like Gotti, Genovese, Gigante, Savino, Luciano don't automatically conjure up images of anyone I should be familiar with, yet I'm enticed to find out why I should know these people. So I looked up a few things on the internet about Vincent "The Chin" Gigante. By the way, I love the whole concept that every person belonging to any Mob Family seems to have a nick name ...I suppose you have to tell them apart when everyone is named Joseph, Tony, Dominick, Vincent, Michael, Frank, Louis, or Angelo in your "business"... Joey the Clutz, Frank the Friar, Fat Vinny, Angelo the Armpit...it all works for me.

Now I've educated myself on Vincent "The Chin" Gigante AND found myself a little bit of blog material. WWW.WMOB.COM . Go there. Listen to real FBI wiretaps of these fellas and be transported back to a place I like to call 13th Avenue Brooklyn.

You have another week to email me the Top 10!!