The Outfit
Welcome to The Outfit — where each week, a fascinating (and often hilarious) Mafia story reveals something deeper about the way our society works. Hosted by Alana Hope Levinson and Dan O'Sullivan. From Higher Ground and Headgum
Episodes
This week, Dan travels back to the land of his birth--Long Island, New York--for a fragrant stroll past one of the Mafia's biggest moneymakers: garbage. As he and Alana find out, the garbage industry was a critical source of money to New York's Five Families, the cost passed on to everyone else. Until one honest garbage hauler--Robert Kubecka--decided to do something about this stranglehold, in a saga which would dominate ...
On this week's episode of The Outfit, Dan and Alana are joined by Misha Brown, podcaster and author of upcoming new book, Be Your Own Bestie, to dish on A&E's Growing Up Gotti: The 2004 reality hit following Victoria Gotti and her three teenage sons. From dating to daddy issues, our hosts take a look at all the baggage that comes with being a nepo-mobster.
Check out: Be Your Own Bestie: A No Nons...
On this episode, Dan travels back to the auld sod to regale Alana with the story of a vicious crime lord with two wives and a weakness for desserts: Martin "The General" Cahill. A product of the Dublin slums and upwardly mobile gangster, Cahill’s rise and fall is a dark reflection of Ireland’s own turbulent history.
Sources:
We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland by Fintan O'Toole
The General ...
1912, Ragtime-era New York. NYPD Lieutenant Charles Becker, celebrity cop, stands accused of a shocking crime: orchestrating the murder of gambler Herman Rosenthal, whose squealing to the press threatened to expose systemic police corruption. In this week's episode, Dan and Alana weigh the evidence in the case of one of the few NYPD officers to ever take a trip to death row.
Sources:
Happy Halloween! This week on a spooktacular edition of The Outfit, Dan is joined by longtime friend, host of Your Kickstarter Sucks, Jesse Farrar, for a Sopranos-style therapy session with Dr. Alana. After failing to make headway, the gang takes a deep dive into the pilot of the greatest show of all time, The Sopranos. If you haven't finished the series, listen...if you dare. From Shrek to cannoli to the he...
For the Outfit’s very first guest episode, Dan and Alana are joined by Rachel Fisher, co-host of Hollywood Crime Scene, to dive deep into the 2010s reality TV scene. They talk, of course, of VH1’s Mob Wives. In a podcast rife with men in the mob, this week Alana takes the reins for this specialty detour into the lives of the mobsters' wives.
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The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.
Hosted by D...
After ratting out the Gambino Family and skating away on 19 murders, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano takes a cushy deal and settles down with his family in Arizona. But as Dan and Alana learn in this episode, for a mob snitch on the run, a new lease on life is its own purgatory—and the desert rave scene, an unlikely new kingdom.
Sources:
The Arizona Republic, Arizona Daily Sun, Phoenix New Times, Tucson Citizen, The New York Ti...
This week on the Outfit, we head to La La Land, hot on the trail of a Chicago Outfit thug with stars in his eyes. Amidst the palm trees and swimming pools, Dan and Alana journey to the dark side of 1940s Hollywood, rife with tyrannical studio heads, corrupted unions, and the stark threat of mob violence. Plus, what happens when Mickey Mouse goes union busting.
Sources
This week on The Outfit, a fateful exploration into the UK’s most infamous gangster twins and how the web of blackmail they weaved through the country’s political sphere has shocking resonance to current events. Join Dan and Alana as they delve into a British tale so English it could be parody.
Sources:
John Pearson, The Profession of Violence, The Cult of Violence, Notorious
John Dickson, Murder Witho...
This week, Dan and Alana discuss William Hanhardt, who rose to become chief of Detectives in the Chicago Police Department. Subject of the hit television series, "Crime Story" and technical advisor on Michael Mann's "Thief," Handhardt was a cop's cop gone Hollywood: a no-nonsense tough guy whose squad inspired the cops in crime classic, "Heat." But behind the badge was a far more sobering reality, uncomfortably intertwined...
This week, what does it mean to make a deal with the devil? Dan and Alana examine Richard Ogilvie and his tumultuous path to governor of Illinois, and whether the moral compromises he made to get there were worth the legacy (or lack of one) he leaves behind. Plus, the shocking history of mafia infiltration of queer nightlife, and how corrupt policing and homophobia continue to resound today.
Sources:
Newspape...
On the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Dan and Alana dig into a shockingly under-examined story: how the mafia profited from the World Trade Center. From its inception to collapse in Lower Manhattan, the center’s construction was fraught with incompetence and political corruption.
Sources
Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins
When American businessman Paul Tatum set up shop in post-Soviet Moscow, he thought he was building the first outpost of what would become a luxury hotel empire, ushering Russia into the "End of History" '90s. Instead, he walked straight into Moscow's underworld. This week, Dan and Alana find out what happens when Americans act ugly abroad, and learn how corruption helped create the Russia of today.
Sources
On today’s episode of The Outfit, Dan and Alana head to Prohibition-era Cincinnati, where a former lawyer-turned-bootlegger becomes a mark for an ambitious conwoman. Plus, Dan and Alana reminisce on sophomore year English class.
Sources:
King of the Bootleggers: A Biography of George Remus by William A. Cook
Dan and Alana revisit the story of Ken Eto, nicknamed “Tokyo Joe,” whose experience of racist persecution and American internment camps set him up for a life lived in the margins — and high up inside the Chicago Outfit. That is, before a fabulous FBI agent with a gun in her Gucci derails his underworld climb.
Sources:
Read Dan’s *award winning* Chicago Magazine story on Ken Eto here!
Watch the episode on YouTube ...
On this, the day of the very first episode of The Outfit, Dan and Alana revisit one of the most famous mobsters to ever live: Al Capone. Plus, they look at how the mafia has shaped American life in surprising ways — and how it helps explain the world we live in today.
Sources:
Gus Russo, "The Outfit"
Nelson Algren, “Chicago: City on the Make”
John Binder, “Al Capone’s Beer Wars”
Welcome to The Outfit premiering August 14th. Each week, a fascinating (and often hilarious) Mafia story reveals something deeper about the way our society works. Hosted by Alana Hope Levinson and Dan O'Sullivan. Produced by Higher Ground and Headgum.
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