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Ever since I can remember, I loved doing voice impressions and disguises.         Accents of all kinds came naturally to me as well. I never got into throwing my voice or ventriloquism even though I loved Edgar Bergen and his puppet Charlie McCarthy. Ask anyone under 40 who they were, and you’ll get a blank stare.          My favorite impressions in the 50’s mainly were movie actors. I perfected Jimmy Stewart and James Cagney. My Cagney from several of his hit movies like White Heat and Mister Roberts had my family and friends rolling around on the floor.

Monday, September 22, 1958 The weather was still warm. The remnant of a very hot summer. It was a day I will never forget. I had just turned 8 years old in June and was now in the second grade. I couldn’t have been more innocent as to the ways of the world, the desires or men.I was called from my class to go to the rectory to help Father Edward O’Gorman.  As a first grader, I had been in and out of the rectory and convent many times to help the nuns and priests with various tasks. I was the top student in the grade and the most compliant with anything that was asked of me. This visit to the rectory had a profoundly transformative impact on my life.   I never thought I would be writing blogs. 

For every writer who loves to write, starting is an easy point. You start and see where the journey leads you. Sometimes you feel dark, and the story becomes dark, but at one point, the writing will light up, and the story will become brighter. Writing is a way to express yourself, a form of art. For some of us, it is a way to crawl into the skin of somebody else. Be a darker person, be a better person, be a criminal, be a hero, be the impossible version of fantasy. On paper, everything is possible. As a beta reader, I had the chance to join Louis Romano in his journey to create his new book, John Deegan. I know the character from his Vic Gonnella books, and I love the character. A Serial Killer, but in my opinion, still a good person. When Louis told me his new book was about John Deegan, the story told from his point of view, I became directly enthusiastic. What makes John Deegan tick? We all know some of it, from reading the Vic Gonnella series, but what are the triggers, his thoughts, or even his wishes? Yes, it is fiction, but is that not the beauty of the story and the art of storytelling? It’s a dark story, a thriller story, but I ask you, how often does a writer take the time to introduce us to the backstory of a serial killer? We are taught that they are monsters and that there is no humanity left. Is this really the case? John Deegan, while being fictional, shows humanity? It makes us cheer him, almost crawl into the book to help keep him out of the hands of the police. John Deegan intrigues me, and I want to get to know him; Louis Romano brings him to life brilliantly.  I can’t wait to read the full story…

I love the internet. I am constantly amazed at how much information is at our fingertips. Important stuff like how old is William Shatner or how old was Raymond Burr when he died?  You never know when this kind of stuff comes up in conversation. It’s very important to know how many World Series rings Yogi Berra had.  What day of the week did Hitler invade Poland? How many episodes of The Honeymooners were filmed? But, most important… at least to me are the annoying women who try to meet an old bastard like me online or texting on the cell phone.  Every day, I mean it, every single day of my life, including Christmas and Thanksgiving and Holy Days of Obligation (you thought I forgot them, didn’t you?), I get women who like to send their breast-filled pictures, usually with a puppy or golf clubs in their grasp. I swear one had such big boobs it looked like an upside-down baby’s ass on her neck.  “Hi, I’m Silvia; you keep coming up in my feed. Please send me a friend request.”  I often do it just to play with them, and within an hour, I’m blocking their ass. They are always in service, deployed to Yemen or somewhere similar. Their husbands were recently killed in a motorcycle accident, leaving their 8-year-old daughter, who is living in the States. Within the hour, she is asking for money for the kid, and she can’t wait to go on leave to meet me. BTW, they are always gorgeous. Then there are the Asians. Always Chinese, all with big tits. When do you ever see Chinese women with big tits? You can walk around Chinatown in Manhattan every day for a week and not find one. My tits are bigger than most Asian women. So, the texts generally read, “Hi Nancy, are you coming to pick me up?” Or “Hi Anne, what time are we meeting for dinner?”  To be affable, I write back… “Sorry, wrong number.” Then, the text torrent begins.  “You sound like a nice person. May I know your name?” Then they send a photograph. Let me tell you something…they are so beautiful I would kill a blood relative to be with them.  When I say I’m an old man in his 70’s, they all, every single one of them, who, by the way, are no older than 26, say the same exact thing. “Age is just a number. I can learn a lot from you.” I get naked photos every day of my life on Instagram. And, because the young ladies think I’m so handsome I can get more shots. Or even get them to meet with me if I cover the airfare, pay the babysitter for the two kids, and cover the electric and gas bills, rent, car insurance, and car note. Oh! And then she needs some clothes and luggage.  I know, I’ve done it four times!!! 

I just had a major flashback. I'm writing on my second story deck in New Jersey. No one can see me. The house is surrounded by oak and pine trees on one side, huge bushes on another, and big evergreen trees right behind me.

I was one of the lucky few who was allowed to read Trust and Betrayal before it was published. While a true crime book wouldn't be my first choice, I took the opportunity to read it. I was pleasantly surprised.

Today, lovelies, I offer my thoughts and simultaneously introduce you to a unique and interesting story. One sure to leave you in awe upon completion, when the realization truly sets in that it is a tale of truth rather than fiction.

 I had no intention of writing a Gino Ranno series—none whatsoever. I had written and self-published two poetry books, poems that I started writing when I was around 18: Anxiety’s Next and Anxiety’s Cure. I published them on a lark and enjoyed the process of breaking the ice by seeing my name on a book. I recall seeing my first book when it arrived in the mail from the printer. I stared at it for a long while.         A year or so later, I was in Amagansett, New York, in the Hamptons, and was told there was a nice place to have a lobster called The Fish Farm. They also bred these wonderful dogs. Rhodesian Ridgebacks are a large dog breed known also as the African Lion Dog.        The place was a fish farm where they grew fish for retail and wholesale.         The workers at the fish farm reminded me of fishing people who were unique and, in some cases, rather strange. As it neared dusk, a family of South Americans came by, and suddenly, I made up this story in my mind that we could have easily been killed and fed to the fish, with no one the wiser. So, I decided to write my first crime novel which would include a brutal Colombian drug dealer.        Enter Gino Ranno, a legitimate guy with family ties to the fictional Miceli crime family in New York City. I used the Gambino family as a guide. Gino Ranno was me. Gino for Luigino (Little Louie) and Ranno as a fake name I used when I didn’t want to use my real name when I was younger. I made up the characters from friends with nick names like Joey Clams Santoro and Charlie C and other guys I grew up with in the Bronx.         The book took me forever to write. I had lost interest in Fish Farm and abandoned it for 6-8 months. When it was finally finished and published, I got a lot of decent reviews from friends and family, many of whom said it would make a good mystery-crime movie.         A couple of years later, having put the author on my list of paltry accomplishments, I befriended a group of Albanian clients to whom I sold heating oil. When I showed interest in their culture, one of the Albanians gifted me a large, hard-covered red book, The Kanun of Leke Dukagjini. The Kanun is basically the old code of behavior that Albanians have used for hundreds of years and codified by its author.         So, now Gino Ranno returns, and circumstances in the plot get Gino’s mafia family involved in a deadly dispute with the Albanian mob. BESA was the title of the book. BESA is a word of honor, among the Albanians, and I pulled much of the behavior of the bad guys from the Kanun.         It was my first successful fiction book, allowing me to do book signings in New Jersey, New York, Detroit, and other places. Lots of publicity and even more important were reviews from people other than family and friends. The writing was better than Fish Farm as I was learning how to weave a story that held the readers' interest from page one. Fish Farm was criticized for the first 30 pages being not so interesting although I really thought it was. I learned quickly to have a thicker skin.  BESA put me on the map I like to say, and the rest of the series was fun and challenging.         Not as commercially successful as the Vic Gonnella series I am pulled to do another book in the Gino Ranno series.         Like anything in life, I like to think my writing has improved as I went along, but who am I to say?

      I met John Gojcaj more than a few years ago when I was hanging out at the J & R Cigar store in Paramus, New Jersey. Now called the Monte Cristo Lounge.  I was smoking a cigar, and he was rebuilding the place. Always fascinated by people who can use their imagination and hands to build things I struck up a conversation.         John is Albanian from Montenegro. When I told him I wrote the book BESA about a fictitious Italian and Albanian mob war he knew who I was. We began talking about New York Albanians and it was evident that I knew so many of his friends and family from my travels in New York City and BESA. From Detroit, John often says I know more Albanians in New York than he does. While it’s true that I have an affinity for Illyrians, every Albanian I know seems to know the Gojcaj family.        As we got to know one another, I quickly discovered that John was passionate about films, acting, and the written word. He had a few stories that he wanted to bring to life in print.        “Lou, I had a dream twenty years ago that I would like to write but I don’t know where to start,” was all I needed to hear.        His dream was of twin boys who were separated at birth. The dream was so profound to John that it stayed with him all those years.         The thought of twins being extracted from each other, while not a new concept became intriguing to me. We started running various scenarios past one another and came up with characters and a plot that takes place in the 1980’s in Barranquilla, Colombia. A mother must decide to sell one of her sons so the three of them would literally not starve to death. I chose Colombia and the drug world to dramatize the plot.        John and I unwittingly jumped on an emotional roller coaster.         We worked together daily for months going back and forth with the characters and their lives.         There were a few disagreements with the direction of the book, but we always compromised our positions while working together on the finished product.         After we published On the Side of the Road and began getting great reviews and doing a few small book signings, John was convinced that our story had merit for a feature film. We hired my cousin, Michael Miceli, a screenwriter. He fell in love with the story.         Mike did a few renditions of the screenplay. I’m not the most patient writer, which has been a problem on almost every project of mine, but John kept working on the screenplay until he was satisfied that it was worthy of passing around.         John also insisted we have the book done in audio. I’m glad he did.        We are soon conducting a national campaign to promote this book and hope the film gets picked up. At the risk of sounding self-serving, On the Side of the Road is a really good book that, in the right hands, will make a great movie. Let’s see!