Subscribers to "The Public Palate" will recall Recollection #1 where Lou told us about (what many would later remember) as his early influence on the acting style of classmate James Gandolofini.
The story starts with a post on Wiki:
Girolamo "Jimmy" Palermo (May 16, 1938 – February 6, 2014) was an Italian-born American mobster and longtime underboss of theDe Cavalcante crime family in Elizabeth New Jersey, under the imprisoned boss Giovanni "John the eagle Riggi."
On September 13, 1960, Palermo allegedly murdered Alphonso "Zeeny" Colicchio. Colicchio was the owner of a bar and grill in Elizabeth, New Jersey who had been disrespectful to DeCavalcante boss Nicholas Delmore. On Delmore's orders, Palermo and other DeCavalcante mobsters entered Colicchio's bar and started beating him. When Colicchio resisted, Palermo allegedly shot him to death. Palermo kept the murder quiet for the sake of fellow DeCavalcante mobster Riggi, who was Colicchio's brother-in-law.
Enter Lou Recollection #2 "My Cousin Zeeny" from (working title) "The New Jersey Recollections of Lou Collichio"
"Senator Corleone, Governor Corleone...."
Those were the words that ran through my head one day in the early 1980's when my father told me about something he was contemplating. It turns out he was thinking about the possibility of running for the US Senate representing New Jersey's Ninth District, a seat that was eventually held by long term Senator, the late Frank Lautenberg.
We were sitting at the big kitchen table and when he told me of his possible intention, those words from The Godfather got transposed to....Senator Collichio, Governor Collichio... When I was a baby my father was elected mayor of Keansburg NJ, a little mile square town on the Raritan Bay, a town referred to in a New York Times article as an "Ethnic Cliche," so politics was in his blood, and he enjoyed the theatrics of it all.
Now me being about twenty at the time and being in a popular local rock band with my brothers Todd and Anthony, and partying big time as well, I was thinking it's either intense scrutiny or total Get Out Of Jail Free card, probably both! Dad eventually decided that the logistics of it all would probably be too much in terms of raising money, recognition, etc. He also mentioned some things in our family background that might not look so, shall I say, upstanding.
This was also around the time NY Governor Mario Cuomo, who was the Democrats great hope at the time, made waves when he said the word Mafia was overused in connection with the killing of Gambino family boss Paul Castellano. My paternal grandfather Luigi Alphonso Collichio was born in Avellino, a city and province in Campania (Metro has a lovely Fiano from the region!) and came to America in the early 1900's through Ellis Island where our last name was "changed" from Colicchio to Collichio. Shades of The Godfather! In the last several years my family started researching our family history to fill in some missing pieces, and gather Luigi had some brothers that also came to America and settled in Elizabeth, New Jersey. When I pressed my father about his reason for abandoning his embryonic Senate run, he said that there were a couple members of our family who met their demise in shall I say, gangland style. Now some may say that these things might be best left unsaid if you catch my drift, but when you see a whacked cousin in Wikipedia, you can talk.
So the story goes that on September 13, 1960 Alphonso "Zeeny" Colicchio was shot to death at his place of business, Zeeny's Bar and Grill by Girolamo Palermo and several mobsters of the DeCavalcante family for disrespecting boss Nicholas Delmore who was the Don of The DeCavalcante family who were the template for The Sopranos, and I have some seven degrees of NJ separation stories there as well.
Zeeny apparently resisted the beating for the Colicchio's are a scrappy lot and was shot to death by Palermo, may he rot in eternal damnation. Sorry, it's a family thing ya know? Now it gets a little tricky here because it turns out Zeeny was married to the sister of future underboss Giovanni John "The Eagle" Riggi, who was imprisoned at the time and Palermo had to keep it quiet because of the family connection, but when the Big Boss says push a button, you push a button.
Now the next year 1961, my father gets elected mayor of Keansburg, so this must've played on his mind during his one term, and that's a story for another time but I'm proud of the fact that I've met people who said he was the best mayor the town had and maybe that explains the one term. Since my parents passing in 2009, my siblings and I have gathered that Pop Pop Luigi was a connected guy, to what extent who knows? He had a juke box vending machine business so that pretty much says it all, and there's my cousin Zeeny, and families can be big and not all things that happen in families should reflect on everyone in that family but we all have our crosses to bear, right?
So fast forward about twenty years and me and my Pop are sitting at the kitchen table and he's tossing around the idea of running for the US Senate, maybe more of a fantasy than anything else, but I encouraged it because I think he would've tried to do something good, and I promised not to do anything to embarrass him, but in the long run he thought it best to keep things where they were, so as the song goes... "I Ain't No Senator's Son," and that's alright.
Ciao!
Lou