Gangster

Part I An American hero -- and antihero Beyond anything else, Marlon Brando is the towering original who came out of the Midwest 58 years ago and electrified Broadway and then Hollywood with the visceral excitement and veracity of his acting. He exploded propriety and expressed intimate yearnings with unprecedented nakedness and power, only to have studio executives try to cut him down to conventional stardom. Even now, he seesaws between living legend and butt of late-night jokes. Whenever another maverick is profiled or interviewed, Brando is apt to be invoked as a model or a friend.

NEW YORK - He may be known for stumbling through Greenwich Village in his pajamas, muttering loud enough to earn the nickname "Oddfather." But federal investigators say 73-year-old Vincent "Chin" Gigante has replaced ailing Gambino crime boss John Gotti, who is fighting throat cancer in a Missouri hospital, as the most powerful gangster in America. New evidence from a three-year FBI investigation shows that Gigante - serving a prison term in Fort Worth, Texas, until 2007 - is in firm control of the Genovese family, the Mafia clan dubbed "the largest and most powerful of La Cosa Nostra families" in the nation.

FOLKS LIKE vice because it's fabulous. That's right, gambling is a kick, cocktails taste good and porno flicks are arousing. Is it OK to say that out loud? Sure, because I don't do these things, it's other people. But the numbers from the business section and the smiles on American faces suggest a whole lot of other people. Last year, according to industry statistics, Americans spent $95 billion on alcoholic drinks, $10 billion on X-rated movies and, brace yourself, more than half a trillion in wagers.

DUBLIN, Ireland - Thinking he was safe because his wife was sitting next to him in the front seat of his Mitsubishi sedan wasn't Seamus "Shavo" Hogan's first mistake - but it was certainly his last. As he parked outside his favorite pub last Saturday night , a masked man used a shotgun to blast out the windshield, while a second stepped forward with a handgun and fired a half-dozen bullets into Hogan as he sat behind the steering wheel. Lily Hogan was sprayed with broken glass and her husband's blood, but was otherwise unhurt.

Time for Mayor Martin O'Malley to get cable. Because he doesn't watch HBO, Baltimore's mayor came out of his first foray into the world of New York celebrity feeling a bit like a small-town rube. And his unwitting encounter with a TV gangster made the gossip columns. During a recent trip to the Big Apple to recruit new business to Baltimore, O'Malley and his deputy mayors found themselves in the famous East Side show-biz watering hole, Elaine's. While they dined with former New York City Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Maple, who's been hired to help cut Charm City's murder rate, O'Malley was approached by a big man with a thick New Jersey accent.

ONE wonders what the snootiest of the Hamptons people think about the recent shooting that took place at Club New York when Sean "Puffy" Combs' entourage scraped up against some other knuckleheads, and three bystanders were wounded. Society has changed. Wealthy people spent many years trying to keep minorities at a distance. Now they fret over whether they'll be invited to Mr. Combs' East Hampton summer party. During Prohibition, such people used to invite immigrant gangsters up to their Park Avenue parties.

FELLOWSHIP, DELICIOUS food and laughs should be expected at this weekend's World Missions Dinner Theatre presentation at Magothy United Methodist Church, 3703 Mountain Road. The Magothy Masqueraders will present the gangster comedy "Lucky, Lucky Hudson and the 12th Street Gang" at 7 p.m. tomorrow and at 4 p.m. Sunday in the church's fellowship hall. The show is full of colorful characters, capers and unsavory situations (including a prison riot). Tickets are $15 in advance, or $18 at the door.

"Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" is nothing if not cheeky, a bold and brazen assault on moviegoers' senses that should leave audiences drained, but smiling, when it's all over.Give lots of credit to first-time director Guy Ritchie, who populates this Rubik's Cube of a gangster film with a marvelous melange of actors who look and act the part (some are genuine gangsters, if the film's promoters are to be believed).He then throws just about every cinematic trick he can think of up on the screen.

"The Slick Boys," by Eric Davis, James Martin, Randy Holcomb, with Luchina Fisher. Simon and Schuster. 225 pages. $25.The appropriate response to "gangsta rap" should be "cop rap." Well, three undercover Chicago police officers thought so. They formed their group, "The Slick Boys," after hearing the NWA rap song "F*CK the Police" blasting from car stereos and the buildings in the Chicago housing projects where they worked.Eric Davis, James Martin and Randy Holcomb have performed before school groups and community groups.

"Tough Jews - Fathers, Sons and Gangster Dreams in Jewish America," by Rich Cohen. Simon & Schuster. 256 pages. $25.Contrary to Hollywood and popular fiction, hoods with names that ended in vowels didn't begin to dominate the newspapers )) till the late 1920s. Before then, from about World War I almost till the end of Prohibition, many if not most of the most capable and creative gangsters in America - Monk Eastman, Arnod Rothstein, Moe Dalitz, Waxey Gordon, King Solomon, Meyer Lansky, Doc (( Stacher, Lepke Buchhalter, Jacob Shapiro, Bo Weinberg, Arthur Flegenheimer (a.k.