When Your Father Is the Mafia | With Michael Franzese

when you look at the situation now because you're you're a changed man and we'll get into that you you you talked about viewing law enforcement as an enemy and an enemy worth continually battling against even at personal cost and not blaming your father and you said you loved your father and that he was a good father to you when you look back on it now I mean obviously your father correct me at any point if I've got this wrong but obviously your father was engaged in widespread criminal activity how have you how why was that not an issue when you were young why do you think that his guilt on that front was more or less invisible to you and and how do you view his participation in these activities and his hand in establishing his Destiny even if he was framed on those charges how do you view that now well totally different you know one of the you know I've had many defining moments in my life but when I stepped away from that life and walked away I had a lot of trouble Jordan I mean there was a a contract on my life because you can't walk away from that life and everybody thought the the next step for me would be to be a cooperating witness because that's what happens normally people don't just walk away so I I was in prison at the time and you know we can get into that how that happened but um the law enforcement the FBI came into the prison and said um there's a contract on your life you're a dead man anyway cooperate with us and they said and your father went along with the contract we got word from our informants now I understood that you know I understood that because sometimes in that life if you uh propose somebody and that person becomes an informant well you could be held responsible in my case probably not with my dad because of his reputation there but it was possible so I understood what he was doing um it hurt a little bit but it didn't bother me that much because I I understood the life well and I said well these are some of the consequences I'm going to face I don't believe my father would ever put a gun to my head but he might have kept quiet you know and just well hey my son violated the rules uh but it was really later on that I had a conversation with him and this was many years later after I walked away it was probably maybe 10 or 12 years ago and I said to him I visited him in prison on his last violation and I said you know Dad our families destroyed I mean my mother 33 years without a husband at the end of her life she died in 2012 for her relationship with my dad can only be described as ugly because she blamed him for everything that went wrong what went wrong I had a sister 27 years old died of an overdose of drugs my brother 25 years a drug addict I can't even begin to tell you what he put the family through and me personally trying to keep him alive on the street another younger sister you know 41 years old she she died of cancer but she was never mentally stable and I said you know dad you got to claim responsibility for what you destroyed our family because he was asking me you know you walked away why did you do this and I said because I didn't want to put my family through what we went through and you know he looked at me and he said well none of this was my fault I said what do you mean by that he said well I was framed on this case and I said dad you weren't framed because you were a doctor a lawyer a priest you're framed because of who we were I said you got to come to terms with that because eventually you were going to go down he wouldn't accept responsibility so that's it so that's interesting so okay so so let's let's talk about that a little bit because that's extremely interesting so because you might think that given that he had lived um an exceptional criminal life that he would have been willing in some sense to accept the guilt that would be part parcel of that I mean if you engage in criminal activities then you're doing criminal things and obviously that's wrong in some sense or it wouldn't be called criminal and you'd think that that would be part of the price you'd pay for whatever success and respect you might generate as a consequence of doing that maybe whatever Adventure you might have as a consequence of doing that but the fact that he dwelt on the narrow fact of his innocence in that regard means to me in some sense that he was denying his and I think this is what you're telling me is that he was denying his culpability you know when you often hear that um especially the high-level criminal types are um without conscience but that doesn't seem to be an appropriate description of the situation with your father because if he was without conscience he would have just said well of course I was guilty and they framed me the sons of but that's exactly what you'd expect but you know I had it coming to me in some sense because of all the other things I did but you said that he was clinging to his innocence and also unwilling to take responsibility for what he had done and and is that do you think that's an exaggerated version of what you had to do when you stepped outside yourself so to speak to commit the sorts of Acts that you didn't regard as part parcel of you yeah I think it could be described that way yes you know and and I got upset with him during that meeting too because I said you know how could you not claim responsibility for any of this I said our family was destroyed and he he refused to do it um he was very now again I don't know if he just couldn't face me and say it maybe inwardly I can't look into his heart and his mind but he was very adamant about you know denying it and maybe in some sense um I don't know maybe that had a carryover effect on me during my time in that life because my dad did teach me one thing he said to me well it taught me a lot of things that I thought were very helpful to me but one of the things he said is never admit to anything never no matter what you don't ever admit to anything let them prove it let somebody else prove it and I saw that as being wrong later on but during my time in that life and growing up uh that's how I I would never admit to anything if you guys want to get me you got to get me uh you know I'm not going to help you so that was my mentality back then right right and do you do you think that did carry did that also carry over do you think it's hard to practice something without it becoming habit let's say and so you might say well did that carry over to your attitude to yourself because I am very interested in that idea that you brought forward earlier about having to step outside yourself when you saw yourself doing things that you didn't regard as essentially you you know it's a strange distinction right because there's the real you that's doing the things that are good and then there's the sporadic you that are doing terrible things but that's not really you there's a a line of denial there and that's not conscienceless in any sense it's just in some sense it's the denial of conscience and you did say that you know your father seemed to manifest the same manifest the same attitude on a very large scale when you decided to get out of the that that criminal life was that a consequence of willingness to preserve your family from the catastrophes that your that your birth family had been through or was that to what degree was that also your willingness to look at those things that you've done and to start seeing them as part of you instead of part of whatever it is that you were being when you weren't being you well you know there were there were a couple of things that led to that um you know Jordan one of the horrors of that life is that you make a mistake your best friend walks you into a room and you don't walk out again and there was a night when I had that experience you know there was a lot of talk about me on the street I had a a very big crew at that time we were making a lot of money there was a publication I think it was Newsday that uh wrote a story that said I was getting powerful enough to break away from the Colombo family and start my own family there was no truth to it it was fictional story being how the media is and so guys on the streets start to get a little bit nervous of that especially my boss at the time so without going into all the details unless you wanted me to they I always walked into a room one night um and I didn't think I was going to walk out again and it was one of the scariest times of my life it was not heroic that I walked in it was more robotic I just said hey if this is it I was such a product mentally oh I'd like I'd I'd like to hear the details tell tell me what happened so so you were you were becoming very successful and you were you were a story was generated about you in the Press about your Ambitions and obviously that uh caused some concern so yeah tell me the details okay well my dad was on Parole at the time and I was a captain in a family they had elevated me to that position that's a powerful position captain and my dad was also a captain and uh I went to see him he sent for me I went to see him and we were in the driveway of his house in Long Island and he said to me the boss wants to see us tonight and because my dad was on Parole and I had no record at the time I drove him everywhere I tried to Shield him from people because he kept getting violated so um wherever he would travel he would go with me I'd keep people away from him so I said okay what time do you want me to pick you up because we knew it had to be a covert meeting because the boss was also on parole and we couldn't all get together because it would have been a violation for the two of them so he said well they want to do this differently they want me to come in first and they want you to come in second and I said well why do they want to do that I said no we're not going to do that you know the talk on the street I said we're not going to do that why would they separate us I said we'll go together long story showed it was the first time I really had an argument with my dad ever in my life because I always respected him even if I disagreed with him I did it nicely but uh he was very adamant very insistent he said we had an order we got to do it that way I said okay so another captain in the family called me um and he said meet me in Brooklyn on 18th Avenue and so I drove in from Long Island I met him I parked my car and I got into his car now this is somebody I knew my whole life he was in another Captain equal rank with me when I got in the car and the passenger seat there was somebody sitting behind me who I recognized but I didn't know well and I started to get a little like what's going on here and it was about a 15-minute ride to the house where we were meeting the boss at that time and we had to do it covert to make sure nobody was following us it was a summer day in August and when we parked the car we get out of the car and it was about a 30-yard walk from the car down to the basement apartment where we had to go and I get out of the car and I start to walk and I the Fella's name was Jimmy Jimmy I assume got behind me and the other fella got out behind him and this was a very bad setup Jordan I said something is dramatically wrong here I said this is wrong you know when I think of this I'm telling you every time I think of it it was that intense for me I can hear like the crickets chirping and I I see these little uh lightning bugs that we had at the time in New York and as I'm walking down there I'm saying this is bad I may not walk out of this room and I started to get very nervous scared started praying I wasn't a grateful guy at that time but I started praying and um I knew the setup you know walking down those steps that door opens and uh might be the last thing I ever see um I don't know how I didn't faint when the door opened but anyway we go in I sit with the boss my father wasn't there and we go back and forth back and forth and they were grilling me over money and all this stuff and and what happened I started to get mad I was getting angry and I realize you don't ever get angry with the boss that's a bad move and I said look it looks like I'm walking out of here let me just keep my cool which I did and when it was over you know hey let's have a glass of wine and everything is good and we're hugging and you know I I just wanted to leave so I told Jimmy the fellow drive and I said Jimmy drive me back to my car I got to go to Long Island it's a long drive should we get in the car and I was really just about to I was very angry with him because this is somebody I knew all my life and I want to tell him why didn't you prepare me for this she was serious and he looked at me and he said before you go any further Michael he said I want to tell you this he said this was very serious tonight you held yourself well in there could have been a problem when he said that to me I got even more upset with him I said you're my friend you don't let me know you don't prepare me give me a hint and uh he said no and um I'm sitting there and he said something to me that really got to me he said if it was the other way around would you have told me and I thought about it for a minute and I honestly said no I wouldn't have he said well you know this life is well a better than anybody you grew up in it he said this is the life we lead and I I was in silence uh for about 10 minutes I was just thinking about all of this and then when I went to get out of the car he grabbed my arm and he said to me I want to tell you something you're not going to you're not gonna like this but you can take this to the bank he said it just like that he said your father was in there earlier tonight he didn't help you one bit he hurt you in there tonight and I was I was pretty stunned I mean to the point where I couldn't even ask him what do you mean but as I was walking back to my card you're knowing my father so well I knew what he did he uh he didn't help me he said look if my son is stealing money or anything is going wrong I have no idea he handles everything you know I'm on parole I don't get involved in anything he threw me under the bus and I found out later on that's exactly what happened so it made a real impression upon me I said man if this life can separate father and son you know after the bond that we had you know both the Blood Oath that we took and father and son I said what do we really have here and um it was two years later that I met my current wife which was really my motivation for walking away but I still say to myself I wonder and I'm I'm not sure I'm saying if that incident never happened would I ever walked away because my dad had a very strong hold on me as did the life so all right I don't know I mean I I don't know if I would have ever walked away

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Keywords: psychology, philosophy, Jordan B. Peterson, Jordan Peterson, JB Peterson, jordanbpeterson, jordanpeterson, personality, understandmyself, selfauthoring, neuropsychology, jordan peterson clips, jp peterson clips, jp clips, jordan peterson podcast clips, jordan peterson live, jordan peterson livestream, jordan peterson shorts, jordan peterson tiktoks, jordan peterson motivational clips

Id: lKWycjEXl5g

Length: 15min 13sec (913 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 10 2022