Folsom and his gang. Photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan.
The New York literati spent Monday night celebrating the same gangster that their forbears from the 1960s and ’70s couldn’t get enough of. In Soho, the Accompanied Literary Society brought actors Steve Buscemi and Matthew Modine to the J. Crew men's store on Broadway to read from The Mad Ones, Tom Folsom’s biography of New York gangster Joey Gallo. “Crazy” Joe was heavily influenced by Beat-generation Greenwich Village. He read Camus and Sartre and garnered accolades from intellectuals and artists like Susan Sontag and Bob Dylan.
The champagne was pouring and the literary schmoozing was in high gear while Buscemi, Modine, Folsom and the rest of the crowd waited for the night’s alleged host, film mogul and the book’s publisher Harvey Weinstein, who wouldn’t show up until after the readings were over.
Before the event organizers gave up on waiting for Weinstein and began the reading, Folsom worked the packed room. “It’s good to get out of the house. It’s been a year of my life writing this book,” he said.
The rakish writer, wearing a perfectly tailored gray suit, didn’t act like he had been isolated for the 365 days. Folsom charmed the audience, which ate up his musings on Gallo associates like Pete the Greek and Mondo the Midget, figures so much like movie clichés it’s amazing to think they were real.
Modine, who played Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket, was the first to take the stage, reading from a section titled ‘Subterranean.’
“I feel like there’s something missing from the chapter title,” he had told the Press earlier. “It needs ‘Blues’ after it.”
“And a ‘Homesick’ before that.”
“Wait, where?” Modine responded.
Modine, who collaborated with Folsom to pen his Full Metal Jacket Diary, professed that, while he loved the “staccato, Jack Kerouac style” of ‘Subterranean,’ he hadn’t read the rest of book.
While Modine’s reading was good, Buscemi stole the show with deadpan humor and damn good impressions.
“I’ve always loved Matthew Modine. And yes, in that way, too,” Buscemi opened. He incorporated mobster accents into his reading and busted out an unbelievably good Dylan impression.
The night was, to use a popular mob phrase, a hit. Folsom thought so too. “It’s appropriate to have the party just four blocks away from where Joey was shot,” he said, giving away his book’s ending.
