I like to tell people that my Grandpa was a bartender for the Capone gang.  I’m not really sure if he ever met Capone, but I do know that he almost got popped during prohibition for not letting someone into the bar.  Totally badass.

In the spirit of my 3 +/- degree of separation from Al Capone, I was super excited to read about the crime family who used to own the very neighborhood I lived in.  The neighborhood is West Denver and talk about badass.  You wouldn’t really know it now, but it used to be Little Italy and it used to be run by the Colorado mob.

“Smaldone” was great.  It’s mainly about Clyde Smaldone, the Tony Soprano of the Smaldone family.  What’s great is that it not only told the story of Clyde through old recordings and through his two sons, but it told everyone else’s story too.  There were a lot of gangsters in that family and they were all pretty badass. 

The other part I enjoyed was the story of the Pueblo mafia.  In Kreck’s opinion, the Pueblo mafia was the real Colorado mafia.  They were dirty.  That’s right, who was born in Pueblo?  Me!  Sometimes I don’t like to tell people that, but in this context, I do. 

If you want a lot of good Denver History from the perspective of the Colorado Mafia, read “Smaldone.”  I recommend it.  Then we’ll all go to Gaetano’s and pretend there’s gonna be a raid, see!