Why Allow Gang Bangers a Church Burial?

November 26th one dead and one wounded at a gang funeral in Chicago.

On Monday, a gang funeral was interrupted by gunfire.  Jesus did not tell Dismas, " This day you shall be with me in paradox."  A paradox is a statement that defies logic like " A gangster's Church burial."

My neighborhood is littered with 9mm casings fired in salute to a departed gangbanger on the way to Mount Hope Cemetery.

At one time, gangsters were refused burial in Catholic services.  Dean O'Banion is one of the most notorious of examples. In our "Well, Who's To Say" culture, Mr. & Mrs. Pecksniff have staked out the moral high-heap and wring hands that God forgives all.  He do?  Why did He knock out Ten Big Rules?  Thou Shalt Not Kill is a pretty heavy favorite in all cultures.  Gangster Culture stands rigidly opposed to God and His Decalogue:

I am the LORD thy God - Nigga, Please!
Thou shalt have no other gods - Bling, Benjamins, Bitches
No graven images or likenesses - Represent How???????
Not take the LORD's name in vain - Dayem!
Remember the sabbath day - Is the sabbath every Saturday
Honour thy father and thy mother -  Lemme two-twelve wit' you for second, holla at you

Thou shalt not kill -some hot spitters !Bear with us or bear witness, live to die, it's on nigga!
Thou shalt not commit adultery -  no hoes bro ain't neva been no lames 
Thou shalt not steal -  I'm a ride baby til the judge give me a verdict yeah! 
Thou shalt not bear false witness -'cause the chedda brings change in the game 
Thou shalt not covet -Money and murder you my nigga my jelly preserver 

 The sentiments are gangstah -every race, cred and color.

Live the LIFE and get dead.  Fair play to you. Once departed exit without fanfare from all or any of us.

No Mr. & Mrs. Pecksniff might chirp, " Who's to judge?"  Who is to say? Everyone has a right to burial rites?

On the other hand, Catholic burial rites are to be refused to the following, unless they gave some sign of repentance before death:

1. Persons well known to be guilty of apostasy, heresy or schism;
2. Those who asked to be cremated for anti-Christian motives;
3. Manifest sinners, if the granting of Church funeral rites to them would cause scandal to Catholic

Family of the departed? Do give them (Gangsta Cuz) a nice fitting send-off, but one that remains unblessed by the very church and creed gangsta life spits upon. At family expense, as well.

Perhaps, the person who feels that faith and community have no part in his life and does everything in his power while drawing breath to befoul what they represent might not require church and community send-off when it is time to take his case to God Almighty.

Rose Keefe's "Bate Auto Murder 1904" - The First 'Taken-for-a-Ride Murder' in Crime History

Crime biographer and historian Rose Keefe has just written the account of the first automobile facilitated murder ( Okay, Pal! You're Goin' Fer a Ride) in our history.

In 1904, shortly after the Chicago Stockyard Strikes of that summer, a young man from Racine,Wisconsin, William Bate, who was working in a Chicago hotel, became the first victim of an automobile facilitated murder out in then rural Lemont, Illinois.

Rose Keefe has written a twelve page study of this ground-breaking and fast-getaway murder that you can access by clicking my post title.

From Lulu the instant download publisher:

On November 19, 1904 in Lemont, Illinois, Chicago chauffeur Billy Bate was found slumped behind the wheel of his Toledo touring car. He'd been shot in the head execution-style, making him the first recorded victim of the now-infamous one-way ride. Although the authorities launched a nationwide manhunt for 'Mr. Dove', his last known passenger and probable killer, their efforts were unsuccessful and the Bate Auto Murder remains unsolved. This 12-page ebook includes photos of the victim and the death car. It's a story of big city violence in rural surroundings, and marks a trend that continues to this day.

Rose Keefe and Richard Lindberg of Chicago write the best studies of American Crime in the context of the American Experience. Rose Keefe's The Starker is a magnificent study of Big Jake Zelig the New York Jewish Gangster and Richard Lindberg's Gambler King of Clark Street links the roots of the Chicago Political Machine to Big Mike McDonald.

Rose Keefe CV

Published Books:

Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion, Chicago's Big Shot Before Al Capone. Cumberland House Publishing (Nashville, TN) 2004
The Man Who Got Away: the Bugs Moran Story. Cumberland House Publishing (Nashville, TN) 2004
The Starker: Big Jack Zelig, the Becker-Rosenthal Case of 1912, and the Advent of the Jewish Gangster. Cumberland House Publishing (Nashville, TN) 2008
Professional Affiliations:

Member, the Writer's Union of Canada
Radio, Television, and Film Appearances:

"Talkline with Zev Brenner", WSNR 620 AM(NY) (November 2008)
"Dave Gordon Radio Show Show", ThatRadio.com (October 2008)
"Our Gotham",www.monk1903.com (June 2008)
"Bulldog and The Rude Awakening Show", WOCM-FM 98.1 (June 2008)
"Mobs In America", Abu Media Ireland (August 2007)
"Man, Moment, and Machine" History Channel televised special (November 2006)
"Young Indiana Jones" DVD Series- consulting expert (July 2006)
"Paddy Whacked": the Irish Mob History Channel televised special (March 2006)
Dave Strauss Radio Show, KTRS St. Louis (February 2006)
The Radio Detective, with Jerry Pearce (March 2004)
WBIG AM with William Kelly (March 2004)
Web and Magazine Articles (author) :

"Max 'Kid Twist' Zweifach - Leader of Monk Eastman Gang ." J*Grit- the Internet Index of Tough Jews, January 2009
"Big Jack Zelig - Lower East Side Gang Leader." J*Grit- the Internet Index of Tough Jews, January 2009
"Rose Rossi- First Victim of the One-Way Ride?" On The Spot Journal, Fall 2008
"The Fighting Parson: Remembering the Reverend Leslie Spracklin, Canada's Elliot Ness." On The Spot Journal, Volume 1, Issue 5, Winter 2007
"A Buck A Fist: Dopey Benny Fein and New York's Labor Wars". On the Spot Journal, Volume 1, Issue 3, Spring 2007
"Labor Pain: Mossy Enright and Chicago's Labor Wars". On the Spot Journal, Volume 1, Issue 1, Fall 2006
"Mary Ward: The First Fatal Automobile Accident". History Magazine, Volume 8, Number 2, December / January 2007
Personal Appearances:

Golden Age of Gangsters Convention, Itasca, Illinois, September 2004
Contributing Author / Expert:

The Most Evil Mobsters in History, by Lauren Carter. Michael O'Mara Books Ltd, London, England, UK 2004
Public Enemies: America's Criminal Past 1919-1940, by Rick Mattix and William J. Helmer. Cumberland House Publishing, (Nashville, TN), 2007
Bad Seeds In The Big Apple, by Pat Downey

Nick Novich - Entertainment Empire -Educated Entrepreneur

Nick's on Halsted and Armitage was a breakthrough saloon in 1977. While Disco lounges proliferated in the suburbs and on the urban fringes, and faux cowboy barns lured in the Urbane Cowboys ( why is it that only lawyers seem to wear the goofball cowboy hats while wearing Hickey-Freeman suits and Johnson-Murphy tasseled loafers?), Nick Novich - English Teacher, Football Coach, Serbian-American Jazz Cat - established what would become the 'spot' for the hep and those who have the good sense to listen to the hep.

Nick was my mentor as a baby teacher at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, Illinois. Nick established the football program that Rich Zinanni would drive to five State Football Championships, following Novich's foray into Liquid Refreshment and Alternative Conversation Entertainment.

Nick Novich is one of those people that God blesses all of us with by putting his/her talent, soul, intesity, courage, confiction,humor and loyalty into our paths at times in our lives. I have been blessed to meet many such talented people - Max Weissmann, Terry Sullivan, Mike Joyce, Boz O'Brien, Bernard Callahan, Carlos Nelson, Mike Holmes, Marquis Ball, Thomas Hayes, Lonny Newman, Tom Kotel, Billy Higgins, Marty Tully, Jack Higgins, Rose Keefe, Richard Lindberg, Steve Rhodes, Jim Frogge, Paul Tutt, Willie Winters, and Terry McEldowney to name just a few. Nick Novich could command this regiment of talented people - singers, writers, coaches, artists, boxers, pipe-fitters and saints.

The original Nick's Place had been a bust-out joint of the filthy Old Style sign variety, where gents in full need of an alcoholic topping off could be assured of Sunnybrook and ten ounce domestic beer. Physics teacher and football coach Jim Frogge and I took a trip up to the DePaul area one Saturday and helped Nick toss some of the old fittings and were rewarded with cold Ale at Glascott's Grogery.
It was here that Nick laid out his strategies for alternative entertainment - "Music - the jukebox can not be dominated by what WLS tells people to listen to - I am the Captain of my bar and we will listen to Dr. Horse, Etta James, Sun Ra, Stanley Turentine, Blossom Deary, Curtis Mayfield and the Impression, anything that Jerry Butler sings, piano concerti by Glenn Gould, . . ."

I asked, "Any Planxty, or the Dubliners?" Nick, looked at me with hopeful tolerance, " In time, my Son, you will grow into the man I hope you can become. Eat your vegetables and read your Yeats."

Nick's was not a 'Fern-Bar' it was a clean, well-lighted place where actors, artists, politicians like the great and visionary Danny O'Brien who would die in a Michigan accident, and school teachers with nickels and dimes could congregate, converse, consume Imported Beer on tap, as well as hand-crafted Wisconsin ambrosia's like Point and the absolutely heavenly Eau Clair All Malt - from the Chicago Keeley's Half & Half recipe.

Nick commanded a welcoming house of Hep. Bigots, loud-mouths, louts, skanks, pests and sharks were solidly shown the door.

Ten Years ago Nick moved to his current Milwaukee Ave. location and has opened a wonderful place in Uptown.

This past December, Nick hosted a gathering of writers Richard Lindberg, Rose Keefe and others for a talk about Chicago Crime figures and Nick was thick in the soupy mix of facts and legends concerning Big Mike McDonald, Bathhouse John Coughlin and the legendary Paddy Bauler. Nick knows the 42nd and 43rd Ward histories. Nick lives literature and history.

Last night, Nick and I caught up on the phone to discuss the sorry state of American Education, how bullies flourish in an institutional setting like Notre Dame, and the power of music to sensitize and spark the best in the human species. "Have your boy lie on his back with eyes closed and listen to Coltrain, or Miles Davis and he will emerge a different person."

Nick could lead people to a great watering hole but getting a horse of a former St. Rita football player who has subsisted on a diet of LaLaPalooza?'

Go to Nicks! Go to Flat-Iron! Go to Nick's in Uptown! Get better.
Entertainment.

Contact - Nick!
Nick's Beer Garden
1516 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622 773-252-1155 http://www.nicksbeergarden

http://www.nicksbeergarden.com/