Life of crime meets gift of gab in Glazer’s ‘Sting’

By: Rick Hellman, Staff affiliate

STORIES OF LIFE: Craig Glazer speaks about his new book ‘King of Sting’ at his office at Stanford and Sons Comedy Club in the Legends Shopping Center in Kansas City, Kan. Glazer spent years as an undercover informant as well as four years in prison.

You may have the impression from his frequent appearances in the local media, often dealing with internecine squabbles over Stanford & Sons comedy club, that Craig Glazer is something of a bad boy.

You do not know the half of it.

But now you can read all about it in Glazer’s autobiography, “The King of Sting: The Amazing True Story of a Modern American Outlaw.”

“King of Sting” recounts Glazer’s early career as a sort of hippie Robin Hood, ripping off drug dealers in the early 1970s, and continues with his subsequent deputization by Kansas Attorney General Vern Miller as an undercover narcotics agent.

The book covers his fall from grace, including later drug convictions and a prison sentence, and his rehabilitation as the head of the family business, if not a civic leader.

A PRODUCT OF HIS GENERATION

Stan Glazer curses, insults and slaps young Craig, makes him fight a neighbor boy and more. He is a mocking presence throughout the young adult Craig’s life as the book progresses. But the father and son have made their peace, and Stan said last week he’s proud of Craig for having his autobiography published nationally. He is not concerned with his portrayal.

“Most people of Russian-Jewish heritage in those days were pretty tough fathers,” Stan said. “What the hell did I know about having a family at that age, anyway? If I had done anything different with Craig, he wouldn’t be the Craig he is today — a great marketing and merchandising person and out-front guy.

“I think the book is fabulous. I’m not offended by what he says. He might be leaving out some things or exaggerating a bit …”

Sitting at his desk at the new Stanford & Sons at the Legends shopping center, smoking a cigarette, Craig does not back down.

“He was a pretty awful father, an example of what not to do,” Craig said. “He was a well-meaning entrepreneur with too many losses. Yet when he had his victories, they were blown sky high by the media. He was Kansas City’s best-known playboy of the 1960s and 70s. He probably slept with more women than a ballplayer … which was painful for all of us, including my mom.”

Craig said Stan was “a product of his generation. … Their vision was different. Their number-one goal was to be wealthy and accepted by the Jewish and non-Jewish communities.”

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Drugs and rebellion were the flags Glazer’s generation saluted, he writes. In the first chapter of “King of Sting,” a fellow Jewish Kansas Citian attending Arizona State University invites freshman Craig Glazer to join a group of students buying a large quantity of marijuana from a local dealer. But instead of pot, they get ripped off — threatened with guns, beaten and robbed by the supposed sellers.

As Glazer tells it, that humiliation was the trigger for him to embark on a spree in which he did likewise. He claims to have set up and executed about 30 “stings” in which he would pretend, often elaborately so, to be a drug dealer, and then, once a sale had been arranged, draw his gun and a fake policeman’s badge and announce that he was, in fact, a cop, busting the other participants in the deal. Then Glazer and his main partner in crime, Don Woodbeck, would rob the would-be buyers and make their getaway.

Glazer writes that the undercover-cop ruse was inspired by the 1967 Roger Corman film, “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” in which members of the Capone gang get the drop on rival gang members by pretending to be policemen.

Glazer writes that he got so good at this that Kansas Attorney General Vern Miller invited him to become an undercover narcotics agent, which he was for a time before that, too, ended badly.

In the remainder of the book, Glazer vacillates between cop and criminal; between a would-be fantasy life in Hollywood and harsh realities like the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, Calif. Woodbeck is killed during a sting that goes wrong.

Craig rehabilitates himself, getting the idea for his boxing documentary film, “Champions Forever,” which he produced while in prison. He gets out and makes up with his father, winding up at least a local celebrity.

Today, he runs the comedy club with his similarly rehabilitated brothers and serves on the board of Renaissance West, a local substance abuse-treatment center. He is the host of a local “American Idol”-type TV talent show and goes on the radio with rock jock Johnny Dare. He has dropped 30 pounds for the round of media appearances that are anticipated to coincide with the official publication of “King of Sting.” He is recently divorced.

“At the end of the day,” Glazer said, “adults are drawn to this material because it’s the road less traveled.”