4 comments about Oklahoma Tough: My Father, King of the Tulsa Bootleggers.

1. This gripped me from beginning to end: a very finely drawn portrait of a man of unusual quality. Anyone who's ever been drawn to the "outlaw" mystique will appreciate the opportunity to see how it begins, lives, and ends in Wayne Padgett, the author's father. A terrific read.



2. A very well written story that depicts an unique individual living in an intriguing time and place. Wayne Padgett is a compelling and contradictory man, some one I would like to get to know. Reading this book is like having a conversation with this powerful figure.



3. Absurd Realist poet, translator, and memoirist Ron Padgett, long ensconced in New York's East Village boho Beat & Existentialist milieu, turns to his roots in this tale of Tulsa folklore circling around his father, Wayne Padgett; King of the oil town's bootleggers. The Tulsa time of this wiley tale is somewhere 'tween boom & bust. The earliest reaches extend back two generations to Padgett's granddad Grover, though only briefly touching upon Teddy Roosevelt's trust busters and the populist ferment brewing against BIG OIL. Padgett barely mentions the Tulsa race riots in passing.

   Oklahoma was a "dry" state when it came to hootch, but oil lease rigs were still dripping when Wayne Padgett came of age. Though there isn't much of Osage tribal flamboyance on display, as Ron Padgett hews closely to his dad's immediate territory. Terry Wilson's book on the Osages and their visibility in and around Tulsa during the boom years can fill in some of the local composition. Ironically Wilson deploys an absurdist deadpan in chronicling the Osages, close as an academic can come to the style Ron Padgett pioneered earlier in his career writing Beat memoirs & punchline poetry. Wilson cinematically captures the new oil heirs on their joyrides into town having assimilated silk top hats, tux and tails into their tribal regalia. Padgett is challenged with a central subject dry as the Protestant work ethic he embodied, illicit work notwithstanding. Despite the Dixie Mafia contacts and some compulsive gambling that plays out in tragic ways a bit up the family tree, the Padgetts seemed to be straight shooters, with only narrator Ron betraying much of an appetite or curiosity for life lived on the wild side.

   The contrasts found within the House of Padgett are the stuff of cross-pollinated literary dreams. Imagine Elmore Leonard or his fictional hardboiled characters holed up in a tornado alley Plains safehouse with Burroughs adding-machine heir and stiff-lipped Wild-side explorer William Burroughs, as this Tulsa teen scene deftly sketches in. Ron Padgett recalls his fledgling effort at publishing an underground lit journal while still in high school and working out of bootleggin' dad's house:

   "But the oddity of the larger situation dawned on me only years later: at one end of our house was the office of one of the biggest whiskey businesses in town, while at the other was the 'office' of an avant-garde literary magazine. Really, though, I was simply imitating my dad: I had my office desk, I operated a cottage industry, and I pursued a project that most people would have considered bizarre. But what was truly bizarre was that Daddy was reading Beat and Black Mountain poetry." Wild-eyed ecstasy chasing visionaries such as Ted Berrigan, er rather, a private eye hired by Berrigan's squeeze's proper parents, might stop by the house looking for the literary mentor, only to be gruffly chased off by Big Daddy. How did a high school junior out in the oil & red dirt provinces manage to net a cast of literary luminaries like LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Paul Blackburn, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Ron Loewinsohn, Clarence Major, Gilbert Sorrentino and Berrigan for his WHITE DOVE REVIEW 5x8 1/2 staple job? Just neighborhood luck to have buddy Joe Brainard hangin' out as Art Director. The same Joe Brainard whose too short career retrospective was being exhibited at top tier museums of modern art from Boston to Berkeley a year or so ago. But this is Wayne's story, a different sort of exemplar of Junior Achievment in action.

   Don't be put off by the title OKLAHOMA TOUGH. Turns out the subtitled: "My Father, King of the Tulsa Bootleggers" is a tender and flavorful slice of regional folklore. Virtually every minor character does a star turn, burning some bit of colorful essence onto a reader's retina. From the penitentiary cameo by old school toughs like Jew Snyder, to the more fully fleshed out complex shades of modern men-in-the-making like Bobby Bluejacket, the bedrock matriarch Verna Padgett, and the younger generation roadhouse loves from whom off-the-cuff wisdom literature flows in Ron Padgett's interview tapes, one only wishes this memorable Tulsa tale included an index. If this ever makes it to the big screen I have no suggestions for the casting of King Wayne or Boho Scribe Ron. But the soundtrack wouldn't be complete without some ol' J.J. Cale-Leon Russell seductive shuffles, Jimmy LaFave dustbowl retreads and the Red Dirt Rangers' roadhouse stomps.




4. Required lots of research. Glad this information will be available for future generations.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
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5 comments about Machine Gun Kelly's Last Stand.

1. Stan Hamilton has written a great narrative history in which there are surprises, odd twists and unexpected heroes. It is a fine well-written book in which neither Kelly nor his foil, J. Edgar Hoover, are the most fascinating charcters' but rather that role is reserved for the smartest of victims, Charles Urchel, and the powerful, conniving Kathryn Kelly. I will not give this one away, but will tell you that this book delivers one first rate couple of evenings of reading which not only tells a strong story but gives an insight into the world of 1933 --gangsters and bootleg gin. You will love this book!!!!



2. Having read many books on gangsters you come across some real turkeys but Stanley Hamilton's account of Machine Gun Kelly's crimes was very well written without the usual padding out that some writers tend to use.

   It is a very informative account of the kidnapping and aftermath which kept me gripped until the end.

   The book's ending was, for once, a surprise and I would recommend this title to readers who like True Crime to be based on facts and not the fiction.




3. Stanley Hamilton's account of the Urschel kidnapping is very good in this book. He has some new information on George "Machine Gun" Kelly, which has not be published previously. This book is good reading and should be in your library of crime books. A great job!
   
   Mike Koch, author of "The Kimes Gang."



4. I wrote my masters thesis on the Urschel kidnapping case and spent a year reading thousands of related books, articles, historic documents and public records. Hamilton's book was by far the most exhaustive and most accurate account. The few errors in the book are errors that actually exist in the public record (Kathryn Kelly's eyes were green, not hazel; her middle name was not Mae, and a few other minor facts.)
   
   In addition to being accurate and complete, it was also well-written and interesting to read. It's novel-like qualities included excellent character development and conclusions about each player that helped "close" the story. If you want to know the Machine Gun Kelly story, this is the book to read.
   
   BTW: A few interesting facts were not included in the book, such as: 1)the Urschel kidnapping trials were the first in U.S. history to be recorded on moving camera; 2) the Kelly trials were the ONLY federal criminal trial EVER to have news cameras in the courtroom; and 3)Kelly's accomplices were the first criminal suspects ever transported by airplane.



5. The telling of "Machine Gun Kelly's Last Stand" is at once fast-paced, eerie and suspenseful. Stanley Hamilton's eccentric characters are plucked from the pages of history to recreate their nefarious deeds. Truth really is stranger than fiction, and Hamilton fills every keystroke with tension.

No comments about Boxman: A Professional Thief's Journey.

1 comments about A Good Day To Die.

1. YOU WILL NOT WANT TO PUT THIS ONE DOWN! I FINISHED IT IN ONE DAY!

2 comments about Grace and Mercy: My Path to Redemption.

1. This is one man's testimony to the power of God, and that is enough for any of us to stand up and take note. However, the author's knack for telling a story is a little disappointing. I heard the author on a radio program telling an interviewer some stories of his life, and it whetted my appetite to hear the "rest of the story." Unfortunately, after reading the book I was still waiting to hear it! The author begins stories and leaves out the who, what, where, when, why and how of the story. Wesley Smith tells of the desperate situation he found himself in (e.g., convicted of murder!!), but other than crediting God with deliverance, fails to get specific about how God worked to release him from prison - I've read many life stories of men and women who have been freed by God's power, which is often unexplainable, but their stories provide insight into feelings, and what specific things happened, to give God the glory. After reading this book, I was thankful that Weley Smith had a story to tell, but wished he had told it better.



2. I read this book w/i an hour. Just as another reviewer wrote "To Short" I actually wished their was more to the story than what was written. However, I got the point. I couldn't help but give God the praises after reading this book. I would look foward to reading something else from this author in the feature.

No comments about The Bonnot Gang: The Story Of The French Illegalists.

1 comments about THE GOTTI TAPES (Sammy the Bull Gravano).

1. This has been an excited experience by reading such great book. I concider there should be more books like that which inform and let people know about the truth involved in these events such as Gotti and Gravano connections.

No comments about Mafia Princess: Growing Up in Sam Giancana's Family.

1 comments about The Giant Book of Bad Guys.

1. In the same tradition as Planck's Real Food: What to Eat and Why, and Pollon's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, this was a great read. Harvey takes the reader through the history of farming's last sixty years, stripping away the false understandings that consumers and even farmers have about the impossibility of growing anything without the use of chemicals. With wonderful inserts sprinkled throughout the chapters, Harvey illuminates his words with anecdotes and stories about farmers and scientists. His main point is to show how the soil-- the base unit that goes into the life of all our plants, and through them into the life of the animals and eventually humans-- has been so degraded by the onslaught of chemicals and misunderstood farming techniques, that food is no longer as healthy as it should be, stripped of the base minerals and nutrients once found in abundance.
   
   Not a message of doom and gloom, however, Harvey lays down steps consumers can make to help influence the changes needed to bring our way of farming back to equilibrium with nature and in doing so help to protect our own health and environment. A wonderful read for anyone interested in how our food gets to our plates.

1 comments about South Street.

1. Profusely illustrated with illustrative photos, "South Street" by Barbara G. Mensch is a history of New York City's famous Fullerton Fish Market. Barbara's photography combines nicely with her lively and informative stories of a colorful community of fishmongers who worked together, resisted outside influences of government and corporations, and basically policed themselves. "South Street" concludes with the closure of the docks and the opening of the Seaport mall which was viewed at the time as the result of the expulsion of control by organized crime and the emergence of domination by corporations. A work of impressive scholarship combined with talented narration, "South Street" is enthusiastically recommended for academic and community library American History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.