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I spent Wednesday May 21, 2003 in Canoga Park and Chatsworth.

11AM. I run into a tall blonde girl named Aussie. She's lived in Florida the past five years. She's talking to Duane, a soft-spoken black man, college graduate and former Christian.

Luke to Rob Spallone: "Have you ever communicated with a space alien?"

Rob: "No."

Luke: "Do you believe that Elvis is still alive?"

Rob: "Yes."

Rob says he's buying a house.

Aussie giggles. She appears naive and nervous, as though she's been battered for much of her life.

Rob walks in and points at Aussie: "You! Come with me."

Aussie: "Uh oh."

Ron: "I'm ready to pull the trigger."

Rob: "Give me one minute."

I follow them.

11:35AM. Country, a well-built black man from Mississippi who now lives in South Central, seeks beer.

Country: "I usually drink about a case a day. That's 24 12-ounce brews. I'm trying to slack down. That's when I was younger. I'm a grown man now. I'm 25. I know I look innocent..."

Luke: "Can you still work if you've had a few drinks?"

Country: "Oh yeah, you've never tried?"

Luke: "No."

Luke: "Look at the long fingernails on you."

Country: "That's just to show that I ain't nervous about nothin. I won't get 'em done for nothing. Let my nails grow. I get the dirt out myself.

"Wise is my nigger. He's a young nigger just like me. He only been in the game about four months. I've only been in the game eight months. We're cool. I rolled out with him. We shot basketball and everything and chill. I been with heavy hitters. Devlin. Wesley my cousin. Brian. I don't know why everybody don't like the cat. He do good s---. Domonique, oh yeah, that's my nigger. All them big name niggers man. Mark. Trigger. Sledgehammer. I been with all them cats, man."

11:50AM: Rob and I stop by Joey Buttafucco's body shop in Chatsworth.

I go for a walk.

Jim walks out to smoke a cigarette. He's put on an enormous amount of weight. He refuses to let me take a picture.

Jim's become increasingly paranoid over the year. He warns me that if I write about him, he will take care of me "old school," meaning I will be beat up.

He says he will sue me if I take a picture because he won't sign a model release. I'm a news photographer not a commercial photographer. I don't need releases to take and publish photos in connection with news stories I report.

Jim's been a recluse the past few years. He points out there have been no articles about him in the past few years.

He complains about his enormous workload and how his helpers want to charge him a half-day's pay just to run something over to another company.

As long as I've known him, Jim's been feeling the load of weighty responsibilities.

Jim starts talking about that "nigger" [Jayson Blair] who made up a bunch of stories at the New York Times. Jim says it will destroy the credibility of the "liberal" New York Times for 50 years.

Marty disagrees.

I largely agree with Holliday's assessment though I think 50-years is a bit long.

Jim starts a harangue about how evil I am.

Marty says I am a nice guy.

Jim says I am evil. Jim barrels over Marty who sits back and enjoys his cigarette.

Holliday remembers an argument we had five years ago about interracial. Jim says I argued with him for two hours that the federal government ought to force white girls "to fuck niggers."

Jim uses the word "nigger" a lot but adamently rejects any inferences that he is racist.

Marty says there are white niggers.

I point out that many black males call their fellow blacks "niggers." Country did that to me today.

Jim says that it is racist to make it socially acceptable for blacks to call blacks "niggers" but not allow whites to do the same.

Rob walks out and yells at me: "Don't write about Jim. Now get out of here. I'll take you to lunch."

We go to San Carlo Italian Deli, a reputed hangout for wiseguys. I used to have my picture on the wall here.

We sit with Joey Buttafucco.

Rob gets a call from Jim who tells him not to let me write about him.

Rob: "I will do my best but sometimes he just don't listen to me."

Rob turns to me: "Listen to me. That was Jim. He says that if you print one thing about him, you're going to get the beating of your life."

Ronald Anthony Bolino joins us. A former heavyweight boxer, he used to collect money for John Gotti. He tells me he used to have dinner with John Gotti twice a month.

Ronnie grew up in Bensonhurst, New York. Two months ago, he had open-heart surgery. His cholesterol is 150 while mine is high, 350. Maybe it will kill me before Jim gets to me.

Rob's cell phone goes off about 100 times while I'm with him.

The people behind the counter at the San Carlo Deli are just the nicest folks. They're amused by Rob. It's like it's one big family. They prepare a nice vegetarian pasta dish for me. Everyone else eats meat and cheese.

Rob grabs my taperecorder and threatens to crush it.

After a career collecting for the Mafia, Ronnie went into the construction business, building thousands of homes.

Rob tells Howard: "He [Ronnie] just got me a mortgage. I'm buying a house."

Rob: "Oh, you love to talk to Luke?"

Howard: "Of course. I want to give Luke all the right information."

Howard stares at Ron. "I've met you before. Ron Bolinski."

Joey: "He used to do collections for John Gotti."

Rob: "That's a great thing to say in front of Luke."

Ron: "Don't say anything like that."

Luke: "That's an honorable profession."

Rob: "Someone has to collect the money."
Howard to Ron: "Didn't you used to wear gold gloves around your neck?"

Ron: "Dangle gloves. They're too heavy for me to wear now. I had an operation a couple of months ago."

Rob: "He's a very bad man."

Howard: "I remember. I remember."

Rob: "Joey likes to hang out with little kids because they don't read the tabloids.

"I'm good to some of them."

Ron talks about all the people his godson police officer killed and shot. "In ten years, he never gave anybody a ticket."

Joey: "Not giving them a ticket but he's killing them."

Ron explains to me: "I have a lot of different facets to my family."

Some of them are in organized crime. One lives by John Gotti.

Ron: "My godson used to play with Gotti's kids. I could tell you some stories but I'm not going to..."

Rob: "Me and Ronnie came here the other day, right? We pull up. There were these two black kids sitting here."

Joey: "They didn't get up?"

Rob: "No. We got here a little late. We went inside. When I walked up the street to get cigarettes, the check cashing place over there, there's nine zillion cops. The two niggers got up here, ate, and went over there and robbed the place."

Joey: "Did they get caught?"

Rob: "No.

"What do you not want to call a black guy that begins with an "n" and ends with an "r?"

Ron: "Nigger?"

Rob: "Neighbor."

Joey: "Let's take the kids to wrestling."

Rob: "Listen. I've got four frontrow tickets for Anaheim. I can't go. For the third. I'm going to be on a shoot."

I look at Rob's hand. He's got a fingernail painted white.

Rob: "I crushed my finger in the car and it made it black. So I made it white."

Ronnie: "It's just a sign of a pimp. It means he's been a pimp for more than five years."

Luke: "How did Rob pass your credit check?"

Ron: "He's got excellent credit. Sterling. Top 1%."

Ron and Joey get Expresso. Rob picks up the $40 bill.

Joey: "Rob, please, let me do lunch today."

A big tall black guy who looks like Leon Spinks stops by the table and tries to bum a cigarette.

Rob: "I could. What kind do you smoke?"

Man: "What you're smoking."

Rob: "You got a match?"

Man: "Yeah, I got a light."

Rob: "Give me a light."

Rob lights the man a cigarette and gives it to him. Then he returns the lighter.

Rob: "My kids aren't allowed to go to church no more. Yesterday was their last day. I told my wife no more. I don't believe in that priest shit, touching the kid. My kid made his communion two weeks ago. Yesterday was their last day. No more."

Joey: "What a beautiful sacred event that was."

Joey jumps up.

Rob: "What's going on?"

Joey: "I want to give these two girls the two chairs."

Ron: "They were coming to sit next to us."

Joey moves the chairs over to the table away from us.

Rob: "What do you ladies do for a living?"

The little dark skinny one is cute. The white woman is hefty.

Cute: "Information Technology. I just graduated yesterday."

Rob: "Do you have a job yet?"

We all start booing Rob.

Luke: "Do not offer her work Rob."

Joey: "Do not say it."

Rob: "I didn't say a word."

Joey: "We know exactly what you're thinking."

Rob: "That's not right."

Luke: "She's got a flourishing career ahead of her."

Ron: "I know just what you were going to offer her."

The girls giggle.

Joey: "You want me to tell them what you were going to say?"

Rob: "I was being nice."

Ron: "He was going to offer you a job."

Ronnie knocked out Mighty Joe Young, a 6'4 260-pound black boxer. "He's an up and coming heavyweight. We put the gloves on and went two rounds and I knocked him out."

Rob's father Joe Spallone fought Jake LaMotta.

Rob: "Cops used to come pick my father up and make him fight people in different neighborhoods in the Bronx. They'd get the toughest kids in the neighborhood for him to fight."

Ron: "We had two cops who used to drive us around the neighborhood, beat us with a rubber hose, take us home to our fathers, and knock on the door and say here. Father would go bam."

I tell the girls: "I'm a Christian minister. I'm trying to bring these men to the Lord."

A beautiful woman drives up and asks, "Is my Daddy there?"

Joey: "I'll be your daddy."

Herbie the Dentist: "I am enjoying the Hell out of the whole L-ke F-rd thing. I am just a consumer. I have no time or energy to actually follow people in the industry around or ask questions. The fact that this guy comes out of nowhere and digs up so much stuff (some of it true - some of it not so true) is amazing!

He has really changed my view of people in the business and the way the business runs. Previously, I had the impression that the industry was semi-cohesive and that they had a plan and some degree of control (a lot like organized crime a.k.a The Mob). What I am seeing and hearing is a bunch of barely-competent people trying to hold together a way of life that is ready to blow apart.

Why these people give Luke the time of day is bewildering.

They say some incredibly stupid things in front of him, then complain that he prints it. They invite him onto a live radio broadcast and act like a bunch of kindergarteners. They openly misquote and misrepresent him more than he has ever misrepresented the industry. These are the supposed leaders/movers and shakers? These are the people in driver's seat of a muti-million dollar industry?

I thought that if these people were so powerful and so close to 'The Dark-Side' of the force, they would have dealt with what they term 'the greatest threat to their business' in a much more casual way. Hey Luke, any hitmen show up at your door lately? Don't worry, it doesn't sound like this crew is competent enough to prove any harm to anyone but themselves.

May 21, 2003.

1:30PM

Rob Spallone leaves his keys in his Mercedes and his top down while we eat lunch at the San Carlo Italian Deli.

Rob and I drive while rap music plays in the car.

Luke: "Why are you listening to black music?"

Rob: "I don't. That's my kids. I listen to this."

Rob turns on the CD player to Natalie Cole. The player skips every time we hit a bump. The stereo cost $8000 and it don't work right.

Rob is a crazily aggressive driver. He talks on his cell phone, jiggles with the stereo, zooms in and out of lanes...

We drive up to theis cute young thing, 19-year old Maggie.

Rob introduces Maggie to Wise, a young black man.

Wise: "What's up baby?"

We're in the makeup room.

Cherie: "Luke, you should come shoot pictures of my horseriding competition."

Rob walks in: "Why you scaring the girl for? Two black guys and a retard [Luke] scaring the little white girl."

I leave the room and chat with Ron. He had 80 fights as an amateur and 33 fights as a pro. He had 11 fights at Madison Garden.

Ron: "I was 32-0 until I met Ernie Shavers who split my kidney in six rounds.

"I won the Golden Gloves twice in New York. I lived in New York for 41-years. I used to weigh 226. Now I'm 240.

"Two years ago, I got an offer to fight Gerry Coetzee (the great white hope of 15 years ago). They wanted him to come out of retirement. They offered me $400,000. I told them no. I know Gerry Coetzee. I can hurt Gerry Coetzee on a bad day in June. I didn't think the fight was right just for the money. I declined it."

Luke: "Did you ever throw a fight?"

Ron: "You can get hit for that. I never even considered it."

2PM. Maggie Star smokes a cigarette outside with Matt. It's about 90 degrees.

Maggie Star turns 20 years old in August.

Matt has a Celtic symbol around his neck and an iron cross around his left hand. My friend Jim Goad is also into the iron cross. Matt has long hair and a low key manner. Matt has no tattoos and no jewelry.

Maggie has three tattoos.

Maggie: "I don't think you can take a shot of this one [on her leg]. It's a logo."

Luke: "I can take a shot of anything. I'm reporter. I'm not using it for commercial purposes."

Maggie: "Did you see that MTV show Jackass? It's the Jackass logo.

"I skateboard and I do stuff like that. I'm self-destructive."

Maggie's back is burned from a vacation in Key West, Florida.

Maggie: "I go to Pierce [Junior College] and I've got a semester left and I'm going to CSUN or MI (Music Institute of North Hollywood)."

Luke: "You're going to get a music degree? What do you play, the flute?"

Maggie: "No, I play keyboard, guitar, bass, drums, tamborines."

Country sips a Red Bull. He also has a beer and cognac.

Maggie: "I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. My Mom hung out with the Hells Angels and my Dad was a dirty rodeo cowboy."

Maggie: "I live by myself."

Rob: "Isn't she cute?"

Luke: "Yeah. She should be a secretary."

Ron: "She looks like a music teacher."

Rob to Maggie: "You want to ---- him [Luke]? He'll make you famous."

I blush.

Maggie giggles.

Luke: "Do you have any relatives in organized crime?"

Maggie: "My great grandpa..."

Rob: "Uh huh..."

Maggie: "...used to help Al Capone. Probably back in Italy."

Luke: "Have you ever communicated with an alien?"

Maggie: "Yes."

Luke: "What did they say?"

Maggie: "They said that they are here. They're up there. They weren't like talking to me. They weren't right there.

"I was out in the desert, Trona."

Luke: "Were you smoking anything?"

Maggie: "I was on shrooms. I had a really bad trip because there's a naval base there and they do chemical testing. They used to do rituals like voodoo black magic rituals. I just got a negative feeling and I just started thinking about things I'd never thought of and it just added up that there's something out here.

"I do tarot cards and stuff."

Luke: "Do you believe in the Devil?"

Maggie: "No, because if you believe in the Devil you believe in God. I'm agnostic."

Luke: "What do you think about Jesus?"

Maggie: "I think that Jesus was a real guy and like psychics and everyone else, he knew what was going on and what was going to happen. He tried to make things better. Everyone didn't agree with him and thought he was crazy and they killed. I don't think he was the son of god. I think he was a messenger."

Luke: "A messenger from?"

Maggie: "From God. Or Higher Power or whatever. I'm Catholic. I've read the Bible several times."

Luke: "Do you think the Jews have suffered for killing Jesus?"

Maggie: "I think we've all suffered."

Luke: "Do you have siblings?"

Maggie: "I have one brother who is a professional skateboarder, Brandon McCartney, and I have a younger sister, Ryan, who is 16."

Maggie stands 5'3" and weighs about 100 pounds. Her chest measures 34B.

Maggie says she was afraid to run away from home as a kid because she knew she'd be hunted down by Hells Angels.

Maggie started smoking dope at age 12 and was a major pothead in her teens. "I've started to cut down. It puts you in a major depression if you smoke all the time. And you get lazy."

She now smokes dope once a week.

Wise walks in.

Luke to Wise: "Do you feel like they are stereotyping you?"

Wise: "Hell yes. The black dude always has to be the thug."

Luke: "They're always portraying you as thugs. Why can't you play a CEO? It seems to grind in the most negative stereotypes."

Wise: "They want you to drink beer, talk a lot of slang, call girls bitches, look ho, s--- this di--."

Luke: "And you'd never do that in normal life."

Wise: "I do that every day. I'm kidding. That's not my style. I'm one of the more proper brothers."

Rob Spallone walks in and yells at me: "Leave the girl alone!"

Maggie asks me what I think happened to Jesus.

Luke: "I think the Romans killed him."

Maggie, whose Italian: "You think my people killed him? Is that why we're so evil?"

Xander walks out. I assure him that though it may look like I am in a compromising position...

"Everything's kosher here, Xander..."

Xander laughs: "Oh, ok..."

Luke: "I don't want you be worried. It's just a journalistic technique they taught me at Columbia Journalism School."

Maggie: "I don't know what the hell you are doing to my hair but you're a weirdo."

I lean over and snap photos of Maggie's face close-up.

Maggie: "You took a picture of my big nose."

Luke: "You don't have a big nose. It's just prominent."

Maggie: "Why are you still taking pictures?"

Luke: "I'm making you a star."

Maggie: "I'm a star in my heart. Gosh, you are so crazy. You have to erase these pictures. They are horrible."

Luke: "You've got a Jewish nose."

Maggie: "Everyone thinks that. I'm not Jewish."

Luke: "Would you like to convert to Orthodox Judaism and have ten of my kids?"

Maggie: "No. And I won't eat your gefilte fish either. You can shove it up your butt."

Luke: "Would you eat my baloney?"

Maggie: "I'm eating your baloney right now. It's just flowing out of your mouth."

I take my tape recorder and put it between her legs.

Luke: "Hold my tape recorder right there."

Maggie: "It's right between my legs."

Luke: "What's the last book you read?"

Maggie: "I just reread The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I love it. They have a DVD out it and I watched that after. The sarcasm was great. I like English TV shows. I just got the DVD set of Fawlty Towers."

She smokes a cigarette.

I struggle to tighten the cord attached to my digital camera.

Luke: "Are you really strong?"

Star: "Yes."

Luke: "Could you tighten that for me?"

Star does and makes it much tighter than I could do.

Star: "I work out. I have to play bass so my fingers and arms are tight."

Luke: "Are you sure you don't want to wear a wig on your head when you get married and fast on Yom Kippur? And keep the Sabbath?"

Star: "Are you trying to propose to me and turn me into Jewish?"

Luke: "Yeah. Am I compromising my journalistic values?"

Star: "You can't get too technical with the questions because most girls don't have answers like I do."

Luke: "Some of them have really funny answers like Violet."

Star: "How could you blame just one ethnicity for Jesus dying?"

Our conversation moves to other topics.

Star: "I listen to negative music because it is the truth. The singers put their heart into it and they are saying something true about their lives and their suffering. We relate to that. I love Tool. Maynard puts words out... He's an amazing writer. His philosophy. What bothers him about the world. They sing about truth, not about 'I've got money and bitches and hos.' What we go through every day to live. If I didn't have that, I think I'd be in a mental institution."

I follow Maggie into the make-up room.

She giggles. I walk away.

Two minutes later, I walk into Rob's room. Maggie is kissing a Vietnamese guy.

I feel my heart breaking. I'm appalled. She's not getting paid for this. She's just doing it because she's curious.

The guy put four marbles in himself while serving time in prison. He says women like the sensation.

If Maggie were getting paid for this, I could better understand and come to terms with her wantonness. What a slut.

I feel shocked, angry, sad, depressed. I take my emotions and stuff them deep inside.

Rob asks Wise to make a beer run.

Country smoke weed in the form of cigarette.

Rob: "That's weed? How did you put it in a cigarette like that?"

Country: "All you've got to do is knock the nicotene out of it and put the pot in."

Country says he's had nine beers today. His girlfriend is Pebbles.

Country laughs: "Yeah, that's my bitch. Yeah, that's my bitch."

Silvio shows me his bottle of cognac. He takes a hit.

Josie: "I like Jack Daniels."

Country takes a hit. "This is good s---."

Alexandra says her friend Cameron was getting ripped off buying bad-quality drugs at an exorbitant price so Alex sends her to a better drug dealer.

Alex laughs when I repeat the information into my taperecorder.

Rob: "It's not funny. I don't like it. I don't believe in drugs.

"They're all out.

"I catch anyone at my house using drugs, you're all out of the house. And you are all out of the business. What happens if I call up every [guy] and say, 'If you use this girl, I'm going to break your legs'?"

Luke: "Would you say something like that?"

Rob: "Yeah."

Rob to Alexandra: "I don't want you to feel uncomfortable at the house."

Alex: "I don't feel uncomfortable."

Rob: "Yes you do."

Alex: "For what? For Tony [from Australia]? Or for you breaking people's legs?

"I feel uncomfortable with Tony so last night I slept outside. He wakes up and he swears nonstop."

Silvio says Alexandra is his girlfriend.

Alexandra: "You're not my girlfriend. I'm sorry."

I push Alexandra on to Rob and snap a photo.

Rob pushes her away. "My wife reads this thing."

Luke: "She does. She loves it. It gets her so excited to see that Rob is attractive to other women."

Luke to Alexandra: "It's not right when people get ripped off trying to buy good quality drugs."

Alexandra giggles and agrees with me.

Alex: "He swears like a dog. He's really abusive."

Luke: "Does he ever try to touch you?"

Alex: "Yeah."

Luke: "Inappropriately?"

Alex laughs.

Luke: "Did he ever try to have sex with you?"

Alex: "Of course he did."

Luke: "Did you allow him?"

Alex: "NO."

Alex says she will kill this Tony guy if he threatens her again. "He's on drugs."

Rob: "The guy that she don't like is the guy who brought her there."

Luke to Alex: "Does your family have any Mob connections?"

Alex: "My father knows lots of people. He's a bank manager."

Josie looks at the cognac and says she's more of a bourbon drinker.

Silvio is married to a white Jewish woman. They have no children. They own two homes.

Silvio: "I got a wife, a girlfriend, a mistress and whole bunch of punk bitches that I just f---."

Silvio asks Jose to hang out with him tonight.

She tries to make up her mind while she drinks a Bud Light.

Duane Cummins was just laid off from his day job selling transmission parts.

Wise: "I'm going to go kickin' with Maggie."

Rob: "Why don't you just take her phone number?"

Maggie and Wise leave together.

Duane says he only gets drunk and high on occasion. "I'm a health freak."

Luke: "Do you go to church every Sunday?"

Duane: "That would be an interesting story if I told you my life story. Another time."

Rob: "This is a good kid."

Luke: "Were you a preacher?"

Duane: "I was going to be."

Duane grew up with his family in South Central LA and Crenshaw. His parents divorced when he was a kid. He was baptized and publicly gave his life to Christ.

Then he discovered there was a lot of "bulls---" with his religion and left it. But he still has many of the mannerisms and values of evangelical Christianity.

Rob writes Luke: "I think Dennis Prager would want you to feel joy for the Vietnamese guy instead of pity for yourself."