Teasers R Us

by Carl Russo

Giuseppe Impastato"Giuseppe Impastato used every available medium to battle the Mafia. In 1976, he founded a small FM radio station and called it Radio Aut. His signature show, 'Onda Pazza'—‘Crazy Wave’—was a series of satirical dramas about life in Mafiapoli, a stand-in for Cinisi. Music and sound effects wryly underscored the dialogue of Peppino and friends. Local politicians were lampooned mercilessly to the porcine snorts of Pink Floyd’s ‘Pigs.’ An obvious caricature of Don Tano Badalamenti depicted the capo praying for a Christian Democrat win, mixed with the ricochets of bullets from an old western. Blaring from the portable radios of young people gathered in bars to hear it, the show was a hit." —excerpt from The Sicilian Mafia: A True Crime Travel Guide by Carl Russo, coming 2014 from Strategic Media Books

Click to see the photosPorca miseria! I’ve opened my post with a quotation of...myself! The height of narcissism? Here are three reasons why I gave you a tiny sneak from my upcoming book:

1: Today would be the sixty-fifth birthday of anti-Mafia martyr Giuseppe “Peppino” Impastato (1948-1978) of Cinisi, Sicily. He’s one of the many, many individuals profiled in my illustrated travel history of the Sicilian Mafia. I present his story with photographs of the significant locations of his life and death: Peppino’s home; the home of his Mafia nemesis, Don Tano Badalamenti; his radio station; his murder site and his tomb—the interior of his tomb, to be exact.

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Letters from Sicily

by Carl Russo

On March 2, I returned from a very productive photo shoot in Sicily, the last such trip to gather locations for my upcoming book, The Sicilian Mafia: A True Crime Travel Guide. The opportunity was made possible by a generous group of donors to my Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign. Below are excerpts from my near-daily reports sent to these contributors by email.

Gaetano BadalamentiFEBRUARY 20: I touched down on my beloved Sicily a few hours ago. On the very day that two former CEOs of Alitalia were indicted for "alleged wrongdoing" during the airline's bankruptcy in 2008, I feared the worst for the JFK > Rome > Palermo leg of my flight. But everything went off without a hitch: no delays, a very decent chicken dinner with a restaurant-worthy tiramisù, a fascinating effervescent red wine (gratis, of course), and an escort to lead us across the daunting Fiumicino airport in Rome to connect with the final flight. Take that, United!

Maybe I read the Italian papers too much, but I seemed to be the only one who noticed that Pier Ferdinando Casini was on board our flight to Palermo. He's the former president of Italy's Chamber of Deputies and perennial centrist politician possibly implicated in a recent bribery scandal…

To land in Palermo is to be immersed in the Mafia. The name of the airport is Falcone-Borsellino, the two judges blown up weeks apart in 1992. The reason the airport is where it is—too far from the city and too close to the sea for proper landing strips—is because the Mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti owned the land and steered all the building contracts his way.

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Night Terrors

by Bluto Ray

Sixty-four years have passed since the May Day massacre at Portella della Ginestra, yet the events of that dark moment in Sicily’s history remain mired in confusion. Were the cold-blooded murders of eleven men, women and children at a rural labor festival committed by the bandit Salvatore Giuliano, by the Mafia, or by some other dark entity? And were high-placed political figures pulling the strings? The story is meat for a thousand conspiracy theorists.*

Salvatore GiuilianoGiuliano claimed that he had sent a squadron of hired men to Portella to kidnap his political nemesis, Girolamo Li Causi, the communist leader who opposed separatism. (The bandit king had been recently recruited by a monarchist-backed group that sought the island’s annexation by the US.) But as Li Causi had been a no-show, his men called off the abduction and left Portella before the killing began, according to Giuliano.

In the aftermath of that fateful holiday of 1947, the police rounded up dozens of Mafia suspects, only to release them for their uncannily airtight alibis. Suspicions, at any rate, were starting to fall on Guiliano after two of his henchmen were arrested; each admitted some knowledge of the slaughter. Several eyewitnesses reported seeing the outlaws--including Giuliano--in the vicinity. The police found it politically convenient to pin the blame on the bandits. Some of the inspectors, however, smelled the influence of untouchable Mafia bosses.

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