I was born in Brooklyn NY in 1956. The neighborhood was called South Brooklyn
also known as Red Hook. I was born on 1st Place and Court Street, right in
the
heart of a great Italian neighborhood. I mostly grew up with my
grandparents Sal and Mary, the two nicest people I've met thus far in my
life. My father was a wise
guy and my mother was just as bad; she should have been born a man. When my
father had a beef and my mother was there, she would throw punches too. They
made a great team. My father wasn't around much, he was either out taking
care of business or on the lam but I was treated good. When there was money I
got a lot of treats, but when there was none, it was back to my grandparents
house. It was great and I have no complaints so lets skip the shit from the ages of 1 - 16.
In the year 1970 my dad met a man named Al Goldstein through another man
whose name was Archie Gordon, a newspaper distributor. He was having some
trouble so he came down to the Gallos for help, from that point on my dad
owned and operated Astro News. For the next 35 years he was the sole distri-
butor of Al Goldstein's famous Screw Magazine and 50 other sex publications.
We had the business until 2002 and made a lot of money, in between life went
on as normal as I thought it should be.
Lets go to 1972, the year I popped my cherry in more ways than one. This is
when I started hanging with my dad. He was on President Street hanging with
the Gallos. He used to be with Larry Gallo a lot before he died in 1968 of
cancer.
My father and I drove Larry Gallo home one night and that was the last
time I saw
him. The first time I met Joey Gallo he grabbed my cheeks so hard I was
black and
blue for a week. He did it to show his affection to me knowing I was
Ricky's son.
He told me, if anything ever happened to my father that I always had a home
on the block and; then he told me to go wash his car. 1972 was a good year.
I used to go to President Street to see my father a lot and started hanging
with some of the other guys my age like Frankie Proscutti and Anthony Gum-
badel. I had two other guys that hung with me named Steve and Marty and they
were great friends. I started staying on the block a lot and hanging at
Roy Roys
club, where all the regular guys stood. Back then we were too young to
hang in
main clubs.
One night I was playing cards in the club and one of the big boys (no names)
was looking for some guys to do a score with, my luck I was there. I went on
my first score, a diamond heist in N.Y. I took my two friends Marty and
Anthony
with me. We did it and got away with $100,000 in diamonds. After we fenced it
we got about $5000 a piece, that was big for us. After that we started to
dress
the part and got some recognition. When we would go to the clubs, people
knew we were from President street and that Rick was my father. After a few
bar fights when I fucked some guys up, it was smooth sailing from ages 16-21.
I met a lot of big names like Don Carlos, Funzouale, Joe Shep and Aniel from
different families besides the family my father was with. I got very close
to some
of them like Roy Roy, Bobby Boriello, Steve Cerillo, Joe Castro, & Louie
the Syrian.
I also met a lot of ass holes that I didn't get along with but that's
another story.
Then I did a few other things that we cant talk about here. This is the
year (1976),
I got my first gun pinch and I beat it. It got knocked down to assault. By
1984
I got a drug pinch and I was facing 4 different 25 years to life bids, but
it got
thrown out.
Over the years I met guys from different crews that I hung out with that
wanted
me to be with them but my father always said be a friend and help out, but
stay
a loner so you wouldn't be obligated. Thank GOD he was right, half became
rats
and the others became pricks. In the last 20 years if there's was a beef I
got a
gun and took care of it myself. Not to say there aren't a lot of good guys
out
there because there are many. This magazine represents the life I was born
and
raised into, so kickback, relax and enjoy our killer premiere issue.
to Bookmark Us