At about the age 13 I met a retired man who lived across the street from me in Encino California. He would sit outside and tell me stories of his experiences in World War II in great detail with pictures. I got the idea to interview him in an organized time line, with the idea to someday get him on film. He would me tell me things that I could not believe and I would spend hours, even foregoing school to listen to his tales of victory and defeat, in between his slugs from his cans of beer and chain smoking his fliterless lucky strikes. Soon many other veterans wanted to tell their stories, and before I knew it I was getting interviews from so many different people it became a hobby and an obsession. When other kids my age were hanging out at the arcade I was interviewing older people about their lives. From Soldiers on the front lines in both fronts to Organized Crime figureheads, from older priests to even a hitman, I wrote down and recorded endless hours of stories in details.
These are biographies of people that I have known over the years. Many of them are dead, and had authorized me to only release their stories after a certain amount of time. A few are still living. I am also including a section of unauthorized biographies because even though I myself hate to do them, I feel that these people are so interesting, and so compelling, that to not tell their story would be a terrible loss to history.