Today let's talk about a gangster and a gangster rapper who both chose to go by the same name, and why this is so funny.
The gangster was "Machine Gun Kelly," born George Kelly Barnes. He was really nothing more than a fairly mild-mannered bootlegger (liquor smuggler) during the Roaring Twenties - the 1920s, that is. The current Roaring Twenties are off to a less-than-sensational start, eh?
He ran into trouble with the local cops in Memphis and headed west to Tulsa; so as not to besmirch the Barnes family name, he started going by Kelly. Convicted of smuggling liquor onto an Indian Reservation, he was sentenced to three years at Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas, in 1928. He was regarded as a model prisoner and all-around nice guy by the staff and fellow inmates.
Released early for good behavior, Kelly started acting up, because he had a thorn in his side. Her name was Kathryn Thorne, and she was a real piece of work, experienced in crime, gunplay, and quite a handy homemaker to boot.
Not so much the homemaker, but she was adept at spreading the lore of Kelly. She bought him a Thompson submachine gun and spent hours teaching him to use it. In those days of famous mobsters like "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, Kate "Ma" Barker, John "Public Enemy No. 1" Dillinger, and Lester Joseph "Baby Face Nelson" Gillis, a crook had to have a snappy name to go along with a snappy fedora, and a gimmick or catch phrase, such as "Hand over all your cash" or "Make America Great Again." Kelly learned to sign his name by shooting bullets that spelled out MACHINE GUN KELLY on billboards as he fled the scenes of bank robberies, gas station heists, and jaywalking.
Not much about his legend stands up. A bank teller in Tupelo said that Kelly "really didn't look like a guy who held up banks." Thorne was the driving force behind him, and her plan to have them kidnap oil tycoon and businessman Charles F. Urschel in 1933, collecting a $200,000 ransom, led to the both of them being arrested within weeks and sent to prison for life.
I used to use an old joke "I'm not saying my mother-in-law is old, but her Social Security number is 14!" to mixed reviews, but Kelly, as one of the first prisoners at the new Alcatraz Home For The Federally Convicted, was prisoner # 114 there! Pretty cool, to have a low number like that.
And actually, MGK started his life term at dear old Leavenworth, where he bunked until Alcatraz was finished, so I'm sure there were many tearful reunions with guards and crooks he knew from his first term.
Sometimes, crooks and ne'er-do-wells don't get a second term, but Kelly did, becoming known as "Pop Gun" to his fellow Alcatrazians, right up until he died there in 1958. Gun moll Thorne did 35 years in a women's hoosegow, and was paroled in 1958 to Tulsa, which is another form of prison, as hot as it gets down there.
The other Machine Gun Kelly was born Richard Colson Baker in 1990.
He's out of Cleveland, and took the Machine Gun handle owing to his rapid-fire delivery on rap songs such as "Death In My Pocket," "Rap Devil," "Bullets With Names," and the lovely, haunting "Hollywood Whores."
Actress Megan Fox just left her husband for the warm comfort of young Kelly's tattooed arms. I wish those crazy kids six good months together, at least.
I have notified our local police and state's attorney that if I am ever charged with any sort of flagrant crime, I am to be referred to in all official court documents as Mark "Pretty Boy" Clark.
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