An old man with a sadend and disheartend face stumbles out of his family HQ after a long night of drinking with Ozstriker the family left hand man

Today I come to you all with something I have seen come and go with my long months walking these streets and with my six year family bloodline there has been some greats but also alot of stinkers too, I'm sure we can all think of some without me draging names into the dirt. So I have a simple question to put to everyone.. What the hell is going on! The whole lack of drive and effort being made by some leaders in my life time is frankly something for certain people to be ashamed of. My fathers of late used to always talk of the great excitement and honor of being given a chance to achieve the privilige of looking after a family, which now seems to be taken for granted by far to many. I wonder around these days thinking will I be telling my sons that being given that honor is such a great thing when the example being set by some is so disheartening to watch I shudder to even think.

Some may say how dare I even question anything who am I but a lowly boss working for my family? I think it something that needs to be said before it gets forgoten. To be a leader comes with a duty to the people of our world a duty to enchant us and entice us into the citys and do our business there. It is not just a way to build money and bodyguards. I spent the day traveling around and came to a count of 28 crews run in 7 cities but ask yourselfs this out of that 28 if they all died today how many would be rememberd in just a few weeks time?

In no way am I sugesting anyone be killed or to step down but to have a wake up call and refresh your familys and cities and make the honor and desire of having a family what it once was before its lost forever.

The old man goes about his business and picks a few pockets of the gathering people as he walks away

I have to admit this is something that I have thought about from time to time while walking our fair streets. There are leaders amongst those in Bold but sadly they are few and far between. I can honestly think of 6 or 7 that come to my mind easily. While to know who the rest are I require the use of city halls directory.

There have been times in the past where I have stopped to listen to comments made in the streets and only after listening and looking into the speaker have I realised it was a crew leader. That being said I don't believe there are too many leaders, just too few that are known outside their own little circle.

It's lead me to take a certain approach when coming to the streets. I pay attention more keenly to the Godfathers than the crew leaders, although obviously that doesn't include Diemne my own boss what he says is paramount after Godfather Rourke in my eyes.

Now I know there are those who will think it's ironic coming from me, my great grandfather had a chance at being a family head and well I wear no rose tinted glasses when it comes to him and know his faults. Which is why I suppose I can look back on his notes and compare his time to what we have now. those who stay in the confines of their own head quarters may do so for a while but those who are out there proving their worth will quickly over run them.

I'm not advocating a mass war or anything, I like living and I hope to keep it up for a while longer, but I would urge those who maybe do feel a hint of recognition about this thread, think about about what your doing. Use your time wisely, if all you hope for is to be remembered well by your family then do what it takes. If your after more notoriety then take the steps needed to ensure your name doesn't get lost in the ether.

Very few people end up achiveing recognition after they are dead, and with so many families around nowdays it is getting even harder. Standing out from other leaders is starting to require abit more effort as you have alot more to compete with.

We are enjoying/enduring the most prolonged period of peace/stagnancy, depending on your side of the fence that I think there has ever been. I can't recall an era with this volume of continued dominance by the same Bosses that hasn't been interrupted either by their death or world implosion. This leads to people becoming disillusioned with our way of life and children of friends of ours from established bloodlines choosing to walk the straight and narrow instead of joining our business. This mentality seeps into the existing leaders just as much as the common soldier and some must ask themselves "What is the point?".

Does that excuse those who are here from not being as committed as they should be? No it doesn't. My crew will be able to testify to my continued hard work for the Northern Lights of Las Vegas. I also am one of the most vocal men in our Cities, so I exclude myself from any accusations of lack of drive, effort or commitment. But just to clarify, I trust you were not referring to me with that statement anyway?

Part of the issue as well is that people are still caught up in the old mentality that every new HQ that is opened is to be used by a new family, which is not the case. I am a Captain of The Northern Lights family and I run a crew within that crime family. I have not started The Tallien Family which operates out of Las Vegas; we even refer to ourselves as The Northern Lights (evidenced by our tags) or at most 'Tallien's Crew'. My point here is that a Captain should not always reflect the characteristics of a family leader, because they have their own bosses to answer to and are not the ultimate authority or leader of the family. I answer to Aurora as she runs Las Vegas and I work for her. I doubt she would be too pleased if I was out here undermining her authority and speaking of my own crew as if it was a separate entity.

If you look closely, in theory we have many similar captains across the cities and the number of genuine distinct families is much smaller than 28. Whilst in practice many of these treat themselves as separate families, they shouldn't as their title indicates to the contrary.

I agree that some people never make the most of the opportunity they've been given. I remember when we've raised the question of 'who really deserves auth' and if many leaders of the recent past answered honestly, they would know they didn't. I have to smile when I see introduction threads and 20-30 friends of ours come forward and talk about how deserving the person who has just been given the nod is. Are they? I remain wholly unconvinced on the majority before they've stepped up, which shouldn't be the case. There have only been two people given the nod to open headquarters recently that I know have made their bones and wouldn't fuck it up - one is me and the other is Butt_Ox.

Very few people have ended up achieving recognition after they died and the majority who have aren't half as great as they are remembered as being. People assign a prestige to old crews that never actually existed within them and if they opened their eyes and looked around instead of backwards all the time, they may find crews worth remembering.

~T~

I believe that the bar has been lowered and those who decide to accept the opportunity of running their own family do not feel the same amount of pressure as years ago. Even I am guilty of this. While I may be ten times more awesome than the rest of you, years ago I never would have taken this opportunity with the limited amount of time I have available. It's all relative. The mentality is "Can I be as good as the others in bold at the moment?". Rather than "Can I leave a legacy behind that will earn me respect and a long remembrance?".

I spoke to a friend of mine a few days ago and asked if he ever considered the possibility of running his own family. His reply was that he could work no more than four hours per day, but even with that amount of time he would still be a more significant presence than the majority of Bosses.

The problem is what we compare ourselves to, and what is considered acceptable performance. In the last year, I can think of at least three men in bold who have all been recognized as "inactive" by the Gods. For the love of Pig, how is that acceptable? I guess if it is acceptable, then just about any amount of activity is good enough to be in bold. Hence, we have leaders with more bodyguards than street appearances, and others who have no idea how to run their own crews as evidenced by some of the political faux pas that get them killed.

My own ancestors waited three years before ever taking on the responsibility of running a family. The reason is because none of them wanted to be mediocre. The first bold ancestor, Piggeh, wanted to be sure he could live up to names like Ganelon, Uncle Nicky, Oberon, ratSkcoR, and others, before taking the opportunity. None of my ancestors ever wanted to be forgotten as just another nameless/faceless jerk who took on a responsibility they did not deserve. Unfortunately, there are too many who do not give themselves this same amount of respect. So, in the future, if they expect their ancestor crewleaders to be remembered as anything other than some twit who did nothing, then they will receive a giant "Fuck you" from me.

"Can I be as good as the others in bold at the moment?"

I believe this quote sums up the situation that we currently find ourselves in. Although there are indeed some exceptional leaders out there that people can look up to and aspire to be like, the majority of "leaders" seem to be content to remain average and "acceptable". However this acceptable level of ability for a leader seems to have become distorted over time.

I have not come here with the intention of insulting anyone in particular but it seems a natrual progression of things that if a larger number of crews are introduced then the expectations for each individual leader will fall. Basically if we use an analogy from economics an increased supply of leaders leads to a lower demand from each of them.

Of course im not advocating that leaders should all start coming to the streets on a daily basis as this simply results in the same topics being repeatedly covered. It would simply be nice to see a change in priorities from some leaders. From reading some of my ancestors diaries there seems to have been more "survival of the fittest" atttitude in their day. Basically if someone wasn't performing up to standard then they would be removed and someone else given an opportunity. Perhaps a return to these ways would add an element of urgency and incentive to working hard as a leader.

I am going to have to agree completely with Hatcha. If you look at our world exactly one year ago there were maybe 8 CLs in existence. So they did seem to work harder because they had to work harder to get where they were. It just seems too easy for people to become CLs now, in comparison to other times of course. It does seem like this is a topic that is repeated a lot though, and that should say something, that it's something that is not getting fixed. The CLs should keep eachother in check, as they do now to an extent, but as Hatcha said, they should have a survival of the fittest attitude, and if they aren't going to work for their place, then someone who will should be given the opportunity. I am not talking about anyone in general, and I mean no disrespect to any of the CLs, but this topic is brought up way too often, which means that it is not getting fixed.

At the risk of pissing some people off, about 1% of Bosses are truly remembered as great and this won't change in the future.

My ancestors have been in this business for lifetimes and I can reel off a list of true greats - STAE, Scotland, Ganelon, Uncle Nicky and so on.  I can also list a lot of Bosses that my family served that we consider were great but, in the general scheme of things, I am realistic enough to know that it's down to personal experiences rather than their true impact on our world.

However, the list of Bosses that were considered charlatans by my ancestors is even longer (and I include my great(times infinity) grandfather's attempt at leading in that list).  There is always much more mediocrity than greatness.  That's just the way things are.  

As for the current leaders, whether they are remembered or not is entirely down to their actions with just a slice of luck thrown in.  Carpe diem.

Why look at the present? look ahead to the future, to many crews possibly could be the case, if your worried about not being remembered, all this means is you must work harder during these times, so when the future does come you have stood in the test of time to prevail.

Do not look now, strive to look ahead.

I agree Recro and a little bit with Rufus.

Somedays you see capos givin the oppurtunity to run a crew,  but way back in the days it would be the best honour you could have (some people were the rank of Don for months and still they weren't allowed a crew).

But Like Recro said, if your worried about not being remembered, you must show the people something new, you must stand out from the rest.

Don't look now, strive to look ahead.

I completely agree with Recro. You have to look ahead and stop dwelling on the past. If you let things get to you that happened when by when then you don't stand a chance in this world.  It's a new day and a new beginning. 

Huge fucking lolz at that. You are basically saying "Don't learn from the past, but instead perpetuate the failures of today".

You learn from it, but you don't dwell on it and let it get to you. 

See, I think the whole problem...Well, the majority of the problem lies within Captains. What is a Captain? In this world of ours it is someone who works directly for the Godfather, but with their own families? Does no one else find this a tad bit silly? I'd like to use Philadelphia as an example. We don't have Captains running their own 'family' under the Godmother. We have Bosses. Heads of their own families in Philadelphia who answer only to myself as the Godmothers Underboss. The Godmothers role in all this is to mediate on city problems.

These Bosses then may, if they so wish, give the nod to one of their family to set up a Capo Regime underneath them, as part of their family. Not as their own entity with their own family.

I believe the title of a crew leader is the beginning of what makes them. Aswell as a good street presence and the ability to rule, demand loyalty and demand respect. Obviously the title is not the only thing that makes a person a well remembered leader, but it's a start. Think about it. These days, in time of war when a Captain dies. No one is really that shocked or even really that arsed. Why? Because they're a dime a dozen these days. I'm sure a lot of you will agree. There is always someone who has 'worked hard enough' or 'deserves their chance'. Fuck is there. If things were more strict or how i've read about from the old days. We'd struggle and I mean seriously struggle to find people worth auth.