The Ripple Effect Podcast #157 (TJ English | The History of Organized Crime & The Cuban American Underworld)

The Ripple Effect Podcast

Ricky Varandas

Bryan, Society & Culture, Callen, Philosophy, Carlin, Bill, 6, Dave

4.6 • 603 Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2018

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Thomas Joseph "T.J." English worked as a freelance journalist in New York City during the day and drove a taxi at night. He often refers to cab driving as a metaphor for what he does as a writer – cruising the streets, interviewing strangers, exploring the unknown, reporting on what he sees and hears from his sojourns in and around the underworld.

His work as a writer has taken him to Cuba, Jamaica, Hong Kong, Mexico, Ireland, and all around the U.S. writing about organized crime, criminal justice & the underworld. English also writes about a wide variety of subjects including music, politics, and movies. He has published full-length interviews with actor Bill Murray, former Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, director Martin Scorsese, and comedy legend George Carlin, to name a few.

In addition, English is a screenwriter and has penned episodes for the television crime dramas "NYPD Blue" and "Homicide," for which he was awarded the prestigious Humanitas Prize.

English joins The Ripple Effect Podcast to talk about his new book THE CORPORATION: The Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld and about the history of organized crime in America.

Transcript

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0:00.0	believe in the ripple effect.
0:25.6	The ripple fact. I'm a lot of the What's up everybody? Another episode, Ripple Effect Podcast.
1:13.2	Damn it, I always have a hard time saying the title of my own podcast.
1:16.4	The Ripple Effect Podcast.
1:18.0	Welcome.
1:18.7	I'm your host, Ricardo Vrendez.
1:21.3	And today we have best-selling author, T.J. English.
1:24.3	He's written books like Havana Nocturn, The Westies, Paddy Wacked, where the bodies
1:29.1	were buried, born to kill, the Savage City, and his newest book, The Corporation, an epic
1:35.2	story of the Cuban American underworld, and really interesting researcher and journalist and
1:40.8	author. He really goes really deep into these stories and gives you an unbiased
1:45.8	perspective and historical perspective that I really haven't seen from anybody else who writes
1:50.1	about organized crime.
1:51.0	And he's recently been on the podcast with Joe Rogan and Joey Diaz, and I highly recommend
1:57.6	you guys going back and checking out those interviews, really fun and
2:01.4	super in-depth interviews and conversations.
2:05.1	I was lucky enough to have them on for hours, so we really got into the history of organized
2:08.6	crime, the history of Cuba, I really want to get into the history of Cuba, the Revolution,
2:13.9	Castro, because the corporation is basically a sequel to Havana Nocturn, and it really
2:21.1	just focuses around Cuba, the revolution, the mob, and then what happened when a lot of those
2:27.1	people migrated after the revolution to America and specifically Union City, New Jersey and Florida.
2:36.3	So really interesting stuff.
	...

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