The Return: Reconnecting After Two Years

Lara: Everybody, we are back two years later. Absolutely positively back and everyone hates us 'cause we've been gone for two years. Nina say hi. 
Nina: Hi. We're back. It's a miracle that we're back.
Lara: We're gonna try to do. video during each episode, not looking at us most of the time and doing a slideshow, but we'll be on in the beginning and doing the mailbag, which is going to be a new part of season 2. 2. 0. Anyhow, what have you been doing, Nina? 
Nina: Yeah, surviving, surviving the fires, surviving all the things. We didn't get affected at all. It was crazy. The, you could see the smoke, but you couldn't, no smell. We didn't have to worry about any of that. I don't know, it was like a big wall of, you could see a wall of smoke though.
Lara: Yours truly has been, wandering war zones like I normally do. I always pick the sketchiest part of the world to live in. 
Nina: Thinking that too.
 We met online. First of all. You were not the first person I met. I think the first person I met was Mark in New York. [00:01:00] That's what I remember now. New York City. He's a professor at NYU. Yes, yeah, I remember. Really interesting guy. But, anyway, we met in 2010.
Lara: Right, Twitter 
Nina: Twitter was still kind of a new phenomenon. And I got on there because My family was sick of me talking about Russia and everything. And you were one of the first people I met, maybe, I think.
Lara: I think so. And I was on there for the same exact reasons. Nobody wanted to listen to me talk about post Soviet spaces. That triggering word. So I went online saying, Oh, here's a place that I can let out all of my thoughts and ideas.
And You were not the first person I met physically, we were talking about it before, so it wasn't actually Myrte who I met first from Twitter, it was Mark. Tbilisi Mark, then Myrte, and then you. 
 So we have known each other face to face since, actually it's this month. 12 years this month. 
Nina: Yeah. 12 years this month. Wow. . Crazy. Time flies. 
Lara: And I can't remember. What was it? Yuri? Which taxi driver did I send for you?
Nina: Was also [00:02:00] remembering that because no, my family were not that concerned that I was getting on a plane and traveling halfway around the world to meet a stranger.
But my uncle's former boss, thought I was going to be human trafficked. And then I get there and this random Georgian guy is there with a sign. I'm like, maybe I really am going to get trafficked.
Lara: Oh God, it's awful. But he was a sweet guy. 
Nina: Yeah. 
 Laura collects taxi drivers, you guys. 
And then get in and speak seven languages to the taxi driver because I can't communicate with the language that they speak. So I just start pulling words from all over the place. And we always get to where we need to go.
That's right. Yeah, that's right. And two war zones. Oh, yeah, several war zones, actually. 
Okay, so everyone knows our backstory now, and we ended up doing this podcast because my father passed away in 2017. COVID came and I found some of dad's things and started going through his documents and I decided I was going to [00:03:00] write a book and you were helping me with the research and we met out in California in 2021 at Grandma Jerry's house in the desert and we started doing our outline and figuring out how we were going to search for this and search for that and when we learned that nobody promotes your work any longer. You have to promote your work yourself. And that's how the podcast was born. So, here we are. And we decided to relaunch on the 18th because it's the 35th anniversary of the Gardner Museum.
 And it is my birthday. We are going to do things completely Differently than we did last time around So the episodes will not be scripted like they once were we're going to have our topic have our notes and Go through it much more relaxed and in a much more digestible pace for people so instead of having our long episodes the episodes would probably be 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and maybe the subject will be [00:04:00] broken into two or three episodes sometimes, sometimes covered all at once.
 At the beginning of each episode, we will be doing a mailbag sort of a thing where people who write in, will address their comments if they're pertinent to the series versus something personal that they're asking, because we often get, inquiries about family tree things and, Fun stuff like that.
 Oh, wait. So on that subject, wiki tree. I'm still active in there and I'm putting stuff in all the time. So anybody wants to contribute to that or has questions about that, please feel free to reach out. 
You want to put a link in the show notes 
 I've got it divided by Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Nina: It's called the Patriarca Crime Family or something like that. Yeah, any questions that you have, feel free to ask and we'll try to answer. 
Lara: I have to get caught up on a multitude of Messages, emails, comments on our videos that I have been completely negligent in answering, but I promise everyone that by next Tuesday. Episodes will be coming up Tuesday mornings, 9 a.m. Eastern Time, weekly like it used to be. Our next episode is going to be the Hit Parade of 1975. Hit Parade of 1975. Yeah. Yeah. Some good murders that year. 
Nina: I 
Lara: don't know 
Nina: if it's 
Lara: bad murder 
Nina: or bad murders. It's bad murders but interesting. Well, interesting. They're really and I think they're really interesting.
Yes, I know 
Lara: you do which is an interesting thing in itself because prior to the summer of 2013, 14 summer in that range, you had no idea about any mob related activity in the world at
Nina: all. 
Lara: I 
Nina: was trying to remember how it came up and I still can't remember either. You were dragging me around the city. I don't want to make him walk 10 miles on one of our walks.
Um, true story. I'm one of the only people in the world, maybe the only person in the world who can keep up with her. [00:06:00] Yes, 
Lara: the only person who can. Well, my friend Rivka can keep up with me too. So I shouldn't say, but she's younger , than both of us considerably younger. I say, oh, it's just around the corner. It's 5 more minutes and then 10 miles later, we're still walking. 
Nina: Then, but then you bragged me with cappuccinos. So well, this is true too. 
Lara: We were walking and I was griping about Whitey the trial had started and I was going on and on and I realized you had absolutely no clue what I was talking about.
Zero. 
Zero. 
But you 
Nina: became 
Lara: addicted. 
Nina: Well, because I love research, and I love mysteries, and, finding the answers, and, so it appealed it to me on multiple levels. Truth, justice, and the American way, and all that stuff.
Yeah, 
Lara: and you're a fantastic researcher. Like a bulldog, you're in there. You know tearing away at everything. It's perfect for you. It worked out. and so that's how you got the bug for all of this. That's how I got the bug. I grew up listening to these stories day in and day out seven days a week 24 hours a day and so it's a natural occurring addiction.
Nina: It's a good fit. You have all the detail. You know, the inside scoop and I'm an outsider 
Lara: You get the clean scoop. I have the stuff that's all muddied and opinionated and this person's version and that story and someone's cousin's uncle's nephew's niece and all of that.
And people get pissed off sometimes about that because we go on tirade about, how someone's related to someone or how I'm related to someone. 
Nina: Think it's interesting anyway. I like it 
Lara: It's a puzzle. Season one, we covered ancient history in Boston, all the way to 1969 Anyone who obviously is new to this can go back and listen.
We always link back to the older episodes. Season 2, we started in late 1969. We covered Raymond Patriarca going to jail, Louis Manocchio going on the lam.
Salemme on the lamb, Flemmi on the lamb, everybody's all over the place, Barboza being out in California and getting killed, Vinnie Teresa and his book, and his whole situation, some hit parades, we got more into, Johnny Matorano and Howie Winter and more coming in this season, so season two is going to end just before the Gardner Museum heist.
And then season three, the final season, will run from the Gardner heist until H. Paul Rico is put in prison. And that's where we will wrap it up because that's really where Dad's observations, participation, involvement really comes to an end.
Nina: So we started it in 50. The intention was to start it in 1950 with the Brinks Heist. 
Lara: Right. 
Nina: Of 1950. But we ended up going back. And then we had to go back because we realized that there were some holes in the story and then to link it into the Gardner in 90.
Right. 
Lara: Right. And then there's the aftermath of all of 
Nina: that. 
Lara: Which, you know, in Boston there was so much going on. You had a mob war happening, [00:09:00] and people were getting killed, and attempted murders, and all sorts of things. So season three will be just non stop chaos.
It's all chaos. It's part of our charm. I hope that everyone is happy to have us back and we're happy to be back.
Nina: Okay. Bye guys. See you next week. See you next week. Bye. Bye.