tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35358342024-03-13T17:09:02.987-04:00Tao of PaulyWriter. Traveler. Insomniac.Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.comBlogger4050125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-6744178716997503582024-02-29T03:02:00.082-05:002024-02-29T03:02:00.133-05:00Faded: New Novel<p><i>Denver, CO </i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioIaqkpFYmLv8fOs4KCrV0YJ4QPcCilq2l-CmMewIy6emO4kSO_vX0KV3vf3s3DphjXo1USth_3jne3pnC06phw2Pdo8onZk6GOne38ck4915ErJ_O0ro3rbqGUcS_23cuWB6OvQDsDCapc3LE4uFjxZb18czrH3hiNYi_LJYXqQlQoZVlcUom/s1619/phonto_3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1619" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioIaqkpFYmLv8fOs4KCrV0YJ4QPcCilq2l-CmMewIy6emO4kSO_vX0KV3vf3s3DphjXo1USth_3jne3pnC06phw2Pdo8onZk6GOne38ck4915ErJ_O0ro3rbqGUcS_23cuWB6OvQDsDCapc3LE4uFjxZb18czrH3hiNYi_LJYXqQlQoZVlcUom/w266-h400/phonto_3.jpeg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/49KpTes">FADED</a> is now available.</p><p>I cranked out a new novel in the summer of 2023 and edited it in January 2024. FADED is the first book that I wrote, edited, and published via the new house in Denver.<br /><br />Here's the book description:<br /><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Jackson McCool is the son of a prominent Beverly Hills psychiatrist, and for three years has quietly impersonated his now-ailing father in his medical and therapeutic practice. His success in this ruse is largely in thanks to his eccentric roster of self-absorbed patients, denizens of the entertainment industry who crave nothing more than a loose prescription pad and someone to listen to their complaints.<br /><br />While providing an empathetic ear to Hollywood types, Jackson is also slinging (and ingesting) painkillers with his best friend, retired pro football player Mingus Christmas, as well as providing counsel at all hours to Westley Bolinger, the front man of a globally touring emo band. However, when suspicions arise and nefarious outside forces aim to expose him, Jackson must not only prevent his house of cards from falling but reckon with his own reasons for wanting to keep this charade alive.<br /><br />A story about the ebbs and flows of fame on the fringes of Hollywood, FADED makes us question impermanence, ephemera, and celebrity culture.</i></blockquote><br /><a href="https://amzn.to/49KpTes">FADED</a> is currently available as a <a href="https://amzn.to/49KpTes">paperback</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Faded-Paul-McGuire-ebook/dp/B0CVVH6LZH/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ToRIjE2c6BUvZ-LSKEiRPsIIEOwALp6pEzZXmKntL7G-YWF8pp1MCM7rUfnA7Ah0s1yAWYmbp_3YyMQQzCZCZkAtb_sEoBPZ8Gt8_tmX8pYntU9CjWi7Pk_e_uYgD_oIMkOiNUGnJflX-BPaX5pL-xZQbLc9EaBY6iGI-IgMeNzzIetojkF_8YsBM0KnHcNvHtdrtv5WLnXr1ythyYfVi0Ap9VWk2dGHSMGK4Wpsj3o.XOxcrA5CwERl8RLj9n7Ewn45cMYybWhOjKm5aU3nS3o&qid=1708902847&sr=8-1">ebook</a> (for those Kindle fans).<p></p><p style="text-align: center;">****</p><p>
And here's a brief podcast with change100 about FADED including some behind the scenes info and Easter eggs.<br /></p><center><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ahZvbwiCzts?si=MTv4e9UAZPjn2gjj" title="YouTube video player" width="420"></iframe></center><br /><center>****</center><p></p><p>My recent novels have an accompanying soundtrack which I curated via Spotify playlists. Once again, I created character-specific playlists (similar to <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2022/04/guard-this-now-available-in-paperback.html">GUARD THIS mixtapes</a>). FADED has three playlists... if a character made a mixtape or playlist, what do they listen to?<br /><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1MEd8zmYUfmJB6l2fj5yoQ?si=c471ebd25cbc4720" target="_blank"></a></p><blockquote><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1MEd8zmYUfmJB6l2fj5yoQ?si=c471ebd25cbc4720" target="_blank">Jackson McCool</a>: The protagonist who wrote two books on music history/criticism. His playlist includes... Sly and the Family Stone, Steely Dan, Curtis Mayfield, Wilco, New York Dolls, David Bowie, Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, Phish, Beck, LCD Soundsystem, Tribe Called Quest, Chicago, Circle Jerks, Tom Petty, Edgar Winter, Doobie Brothers.<br /><br /><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/44kEIYoAp0umOA7rlGfVBk?si=8fd8e0cc8724482d" target="_blank">Ophelia McCool</a>: TV producer and actress who is married to Jackson. Her playlist includes... Jungle, Parcels,Neal Frances, Grizzly Bear, The National, St Vincent, Hole, LCD Soundsystem, Fiona Apple, Phoenix, FLeetwood Mac, Wild Belle, Arcade Fire, The Smile, Mazzy Star, Dua Lipa, Nuetral Milk Hotel, Brittany Howard, Muse, Dandy Warhols, Concrete Blonde, Khruangbin, The Go-Go's.<br /><br /><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/09dAw3V18Pvf6cetjw5n3j?si=13ec5f869e7f4492" target="_blank">Mingus Christmas</a>: Former pro football player who breeds exotic cats and Jackson's best friend. His playlist is hip-hop heavy and includes... Sugar Hill Gang, Pharcyde, Warren G, Ice Cube, 2 Pac, Al Green, Cypress Hill, ODB, Run DMC, Snoop, Dr Dre, NWA, Fun Lovin' Criminals, DJ Khaled, Kuris Blow, Donny Hathaway, Biz Markie, Too $hort.</blockquote><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/49KpTes">FADED</a> is currently available as a <a href="https://amzn.to/49KpTes">paperback</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Faded-Paul-McGuire-ebook/dp/B0CVVH6LZH/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ToRIjE2c6BUvZ-LSKEiRPsIIEOwALp6pEzZXmKntL7G-YWF8pp1MCM7rUfnA7Ah0s1yAWYmbp_3YyMQQzCZCZkAtb_sEoBPZ8Gt8_tmX8pYntU9CjWi7Pk_e_uYgD_oIMkOiNUGnJflX-BPaX5pL-xZQbLc9EaBY6iGI-IgMeNzzIetojkF_8YsBM0KnHcNvHtdrtv5WLnXr1ythyYfVi0Ap9VWk2dGHSMGK4Wpsj3o.XOxcrA5CwERl8RLj9n7Ewn45cMYybWhOjKm5aU3nS3o&qid=1708902847&sr=8-1">Kindle</a>.</p><p><br /></p>Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-21457864545032894192024-02-28T23:59:00.000-05:002024-02-29T17:23:17.791-05:00Faded: FAQs<p><i>Denver, CO</i> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE9tOdVIEv8_qKpazmivs9bP_xJ8Le25sXKeSr6Fqs_3EQ6KqpqOV5Y-cEiKim5MuSgULkIfae41sQyvmv9U57qE6eUtfMVV4i9v2tHLPNEwcSWOjrpj_E9dqcFZfdgcMCkuaPgUXl-LINUSZeWGoEyz3m_cTJshAlF-EiCQUUjXXGUYNbWeZd/s1320/Faded_FAQs.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1320" data-original-width="1039" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE9tOdVIEv8_qKpazmivs9bP_xJ8Le25sXKeSr6Fqs_3EQ6KqpqOV5Y-cEiKim5MuSgULkIfae41sQyvmv9U57qE6eUtfMVV4i9v2tHLPNEwcSWOjrpj_E9dqcFZfdgcMCkuaPgUXl-LINUSZeWGoEyz3m_cTJshAlF-EiCQUUjXXGUYNbWeZd/s320/Faded_FAQs.jpg" width="252" /></a> <br /></div><p></p><p>Here's some answers to frequently asked questions that you might have about the new novel. Time for a quickie Q & A and FAQ about <a href="https://amzn.to/49KpTes">FADED</a>....</p><p><b>Q. Is FADED your LA novel?</b> </p><p>A.
FADED takes place in LA on the fringes of Hollywood. We spent a decade
in LA (2012-22) after a short stint in San Francisco. We moved to
Colorado in the summer of 2022 and I wrote this last summer. After
spending one year away, the timing was ideal because LA was still
somewhat fresh in my mind and my perspective began to shift a bit.<br /><br /><b>Q. FADED is a comedy and satire?</b> <br /></p><p>A.
Yes. FADED is a a nod to Billy Wilder films, but the tone is a
throwback to some of my favorite comedies from the late 1970s and early
1980s. Jackson McCool, the protagonist in FADED, is a mix of Bill
Murray's film characters (<i>Stripes, Meatballs</i>) plus bit of Matthew Broderick (<i>Ferris Bueller, WarGames</i>) and Chevy Chase (<i>Fletch</i>). There's a sliver of Bruce Willis during a short time he was a budding TV star (<i>Moonlighting</i>) before he became a movie star.<br /><br /><b>Q. </b><b>One of your characters played pro football, but I don't recognize the team names. Why?</b></p><p>A.
Mingus Christmas played linebacker for the Miami Sharks. In my literary
universe, the major pro football league is known as GIL or the Grid
Iron League. I wanted to avoid any potential legal entanglements with
the NFL, which is why the GIL is the stand in from the NFL in both FADED
and THE KICKER. The local pro football team in FADED is known as the LA
Demons.<br /><br /><b>Q. I thought you wrote two manuscripts last summer? What happened to the other one?</b><br /><br />A.
Yes, that's true. I wrote a memoir -- DEBASER (tentative title) --
which takes place in NYC in 1989. It's based on the summer before my
senior year in high school. You're only 16 once, and that summer before I
turned 17 was a pivotal time. I wrote DEBASER fairly quickly (in less
than 3 weeks) in June 2023 after spending nearly six months in NYC
helping out with a family illness. The subject matter is a little too
personal and I doubt it will get published. I wrote for myself to help
make sense of an intense stint in NYC while I stayed in my childhood
bedroom for several months. I might revisit it sometime down the line.</p><p><b>Q. So, FADED is the second manuscript you wrote last summer?</b><br /><br />A.
Yes. I began it in July 2023 and completed the first draft in early
August. I tend to write very fast, but edit very slow. FADED took around
three weeks to complete the first draft. I completed subsequent drafts
in January 2024.<br /><br /><b>Q. Are all your novels linked in its own literary universe?</b><br /><br />A.
Yes. In an homage to Kevin Smith's cinematic universe, there are direct
references to characters in previous published novels including <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fried-Peaches-Paul-McGuire/dp/B09HK2TQJY?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&linkCode=ll1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkId=d1b2911bf3ca573023271c92f5ac6202&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">FRIED PEACHES</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NV7MYQP?qid=1639968962&refinements=p_27:Paul+McGuire&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=Paul+McGuire&linkCode=sl1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkId=c04ef376dc79b0a298ce3e9b226a948b&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">GUARD THIS</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615486347/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0615486347">JACK TRIPPER STOLE MY DOG</a>. There's also
character connections to two unpublished manuscripts for THE KICKER and
DEBASER. I also incorporate the fictional world of other authors
including Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Donna Tartt, and Bret Easton
Ellis.<br /><br /><b>Q. What's up with the eye patch? Did you really write FADED with one eye?</b><br /><br />A.
The rumors are true. I have been experiencing vision problems in my
left eye since the summer of 2022. We had a setback in July 2023, and I
was sidelined for two weeks when I went blind in my left eye. I wore an
eye patch during that time and started FADED. I wrote one chapter per
day mostly to keep myself sane and laugh with the characters. As my
vision improved, I quickly finished the first draft before a potential
surgical date. I essentially wrote FADED because I freaked out that the
vision loss would be permanent, and to address the anxiety over the
question -- what if surgery doesn't work?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhae-fVdU5sPiEQ8KofKf3pKan6QxEJ_7U-fu16gJjbHsRVmD9KtvlE42cSfcrWMiImZgpeFbIfOXa01tvE_zV5ri8dberUX6k44_P0C7whaCHFYKtanKba1Fb0vxOfQfVrhUIwGpVUD310uhS7fRM9CV0IXbxVF_fC9hAWYbhFjXslBDv8Joc8/s1633/Eye_Patch_Pauly.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1633" data-original-width="1447" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhae-fVdU5sPiEQ8KofKf3pKan6QxEJ_7U-fu16gJjbHsRVmD9KtvlE42cSfcrWMiImZgpeFbIfOXa01tvE_zV5ri8dberUX6k44_P0C7whaCHFYKtanKba1Fb0vxOfQfVrhUIwGpVUD310uhS7fRM9CV0IXbxVF_fC9hAWYbhFjXslBDv8Joc8/s320/Eye_Patch_Pauly.jpg" width="284" /></a></div><p><b>Q. What's up with THE KICKER?</b><br /><br />A.
It's still marinating. I hope to take another crack at sometime in
2024. I wrote the first draft at the end of 2020. I set aside time to
work on a rewrite in April 2021, but I had too many things I wanted to
change yet didn't have enough time to pull off a proper rewrite in the
time I had allotted. That's why I pivoted and cranked out <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NV7MYQP?qid=1639968962&refinements=p_27:Paul+McGuire&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=Paul+McGuire&linkCode=sl1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkId=c04ef376dc79b0a298ce3e9b226a948b&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">GUARD THIS</a>
instead. I wanted to work on the new draft of THE KICKER in the summer
of 2022 when first moved to Colorado, but it got sidetracked when my
vision issues began. I planned to work on it in January 2023, but then I
had to move back to NYC to help my brother and mother.<b> </b></p><p><b>Q. Were you listening to a lot of audiobooks before/during FADED?</b><br /><br />A.
I was sidelined for two weeks in July with vision problems, and spent
that time in total darkness while holed up in our guest bedroom because
it's the darkness room in the house. I listened to a dozen audiobooks to
keep sane because it was difficult to watch/stream with one eye. I
devoured audiobooks and consumed like two per day, so I revisited<i> Infinite Jest </i>by
David Foster Wallace. The book is over 1,000 pages and the audiobook
clocked in at 55 hours. I started/stopped reading the massive tome multiple times in
the 1990s. When I finally conquered it, I has spread it out
over several months. I listened to the <i> Infinite Jest </i>audiobook at 1.5x speed and it took me a week or so. There's one character in FADED who is a former tennis prodigy, which is my homage to DFW.<br /><br />I consumed other audiobooks during this stretch that influenced FADED because it was fresh in my mind.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Blue Movie</i> by Terry Southern</li><li><i>Pappyland</i> by Wright Thompson</li><li><i>The Creative Act</i> by Rick Rubin</li><li><i>Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska' Album </i>by Warren Zanes</li><li><i>Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir </i>by Sly Stone</li></ul><p><b> Q. What were some of your other inspirations behind FADED?</b><br /><br />A. I listened to the first seven Steely
Dan albums (recorded/released between 1972-80) while writing the first
draft and it was in heavy rotation during the rewrites.</p><p>I revisited two books including <i>Chronic City</i> by Jonathan Lethem and <i>Heat 2</i> by Michael Mann. </p><p>I also had three books about Hollywood on my mind. <i>Hello, He Lied & Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches</i> was written by Lynda Obst who produced some big films in the 1980s-90s. I was also heavily inspired by <i>The Devil's Candy</i> by Julie Salamon, which chronicled the insanity behind the film adaptation of Tom Wolfe's novel <i>The Bonfire of the Vanities.</i> Lastly, there's <i>The Day of the Locust </i>by Nathaniel West about Hollywood in the 1930s.</p><p>Jon Favreau hosted <i>Dinner for Five</i>
on IFC back in the early 2000s. During the show, he ate a meal with
four guests who shared funny and strange stories about working in
Hollywood. Many of those throwaway stories were an inspiration for this
book. </p>I love a good show biz story, and the odder the better. I
attempted to fictionalize a
few I heard over the years. Wil Wheaton told me a few bizarre stories,
and Kevin Smith often shared hysterical stories during his Q&As with
his legion of fans.<p>I was not even an hour into watching Quentin Tarantino's <i>Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood</i> when I made a decision to write an LA novel sooner than later.</p><p>All of Noah Baumbach films, especially<i> Greenberg, </i>were on my mind during the first draft. <br /></p><p>Paul Thomas Anderson flicks especially his ones set in LA were an
inspiration. PTA is heavily influenced by Robert Altman, and his films
were a creative beacon. <br /></p><p>Richard Linklater,Whit Stillman, Kelly Reinhardt, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, and Jim Jarmusch are all excellent filmmakers and their work has always been a massive influence on me.</p><p>Damien Chazelle's film <i>Babylon</i>
-- about the rough transition from silent films to talking films -- was
also an inspiration.Hollywood just survived multiple guild strikes and in the era of streaming wars and the rise of AI, so it felt compelling to write a story about this transition phase almost a century after silent films gave way to talkies.<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/49KpTes">FADED</a> is available in <a href="https://amzn.to/49KpTes">paperback</a> and as an <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Faded-Paul-McGuire-ebook/dp/B0CVVH6LZH/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ToRIjE2c6BUvZ-LSKEiRPsIIEOwALp6pEzZXmKntL7G-YWF8pp1MCM7rUfnA7Ah0s1yAWYmbp_3YyMQQzCZCZkAtb_sEoBPZ8Gt8_tmX8pYntU9CjWi7Pk_e_uYgD_oIMkOiNUGnJflX-BPaX5pL-xZQbLc9EaBY6iGI-IgMeNzzIetojkF_8YsBM0KnHcNvHtdrtv5WLnXr1ythyYfVi0Ap9VWk2dGHSMGK4Wpsj3o.XOxcrA5CwERl8RLj9n7Ewn45cMYybWhOjKm5aU3nS3o&qid=1708902847&sr=8-1">ebook</a> for Kindle devices. <br /></p>Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-50502437423008609692022-04-04T07:22:00.004-04:002022-04-04T19:21:05.528-04:00Guard This: Now Available in Paperback, Plus Mixes<p><i> Los Angeles, CA</i>
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEidh7M_fH5TSGsjVdfg3_IP-olVLIwPfCQKuhCexp2LI52kd9eYdPKPDaOBcV1ptVeiYi5JgyoPoEta6i_3oCDU0Avc4p5jsGa3G6XOEB7LawnH65_TDn6gpE4aEYWTsqxL7NN1o5PuCBnmN0ijFiwovkcbWnSnvf1UamEoTPjwo_6sDFyuRg=s1140" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1140" data-original-width="1088" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEidh7M_fH5TSGsjVdfg3_IP-olVLIwPfCQKuhCexp2LI52kd9eYdPKPDaOBcV1ptVeiYi5JgyoPoEta6i_3oCDU0Avc4p5jsGa3G6XOEB7LawnH65_TDn6gpE4aEYWTsqxL7NN1o5PuCBnmN0ijFiwovkcbWnSnvf1UamEoTPjwo_6sDFyuRg=s320" width="305" /></a><br /></b></i></div><p></p><p>Thanks for waiting three plus months for the paperback release of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Guard-This-Paul-McGuire/dp/B09TN1J8HP?crid=2UYOYKP5DTBWZ&keywords=guard+this+paul+mcguire&qid=1648581763&sprefix=guard+this+paul+mcguire%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkId=9f616bef920bdc1542f724a2fe6b9d6c&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">Guard This</a>. Yes, the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Guard-This-Paul-McGuire/dp/B09TN1J8HP?crid=2UYOYKP5DTBWZ&keywords=guard+this+paul+mcguire&qid=1648581763&sprefix=guard+this+paul+mcguire%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkId=9f616bef920bdc1542f724a2fe6b9d6c&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">print version is finally here</a> after <i><b>Guard This</b></i> debuted as an ebook on Christmas Eve. I appreciate everyone who bought the ebook, especially those of you who read it! If you're a Luddite and were waiting for the paperback version, then here's your chance to get your own physical copy.<br /></p><p>What is <i><b>Guard This</b></i>? It's a novelized memoir that takes place in NYC in 1994-95.<br /></p><p>Here's the book description:<br /></p><blockquote><i><b>Guard This</b></i>
depicts New York City's art community during the last vestiges of
gritty Gotham in the 1990s. Tenzin McGrupp takes a security job at the
most famous art museum in the world while he saves up money for film
school. He's welcomed into an enclave of painters, musicians,
photographers, nonconformists, and freaks that hold day jobs as museum
guards to fund their late-night creative endeavors and drug-addled
antics. The guards are defiant artists at the dawn of the new millennium
before every nook of the City is gobbled up by corporations and
transformed into a capitalist theme park. </blockquote><p>All of my other books are available as paperbacks or ebooks: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/fried-peaches-paul-mcguire/dp/b09hk2tqjy?_encoding=utf8&qid=&sr=&linkcode=ll1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkid=d1b2911bf3ca573023271c92f5ac6202&language=en_us&ref_=as_li_ss_tl%22">Fried Peaches</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0557500079?ie=UTF8&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0557500079" target="_blank">Lost Vegas</a>, or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615486347/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0615486347">Jack Tripper Stole My Dog</a>.</p><p style="text-align: center;">****</p><p>I curated different musical playlists to help market the new novel. You can listen to any of them in the background while reading <i><b>Guard This</b></i>, or listen to it before you crack open the book to help set the mood. Some of these <i><b>Guard This</b></i> mixes are great stand-alone playlists that many friends crank up for their morning commute or pre-party situations. <br /></p><p>There's a trio of playlists that represent the soundtrack for <i><b>Guard This</b></i> if it were to ever become a film or limited TV series. In creating those initial playlists, I tried to use only music that was released prior to 1995, or stuff that I actually listened to 27 years ago. </p><blockquote><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6jpzUpPphCZ67BUrtWSOre?si=HmuW53JyRCSPHUueMM8EWQ&nd=1" target="_blank">Guard This 1.0</a> (aka Act 1)... Talking Heads, Radiohead, Lenny Kravitz, Black Crowes, Pearl Jam, Beastie Boys, Tribe Called Quest, Soundgarden, Phish, Blind Melon, Stone Temple Pilots, Wu-Tang Clan<br /></p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0MAEOqo5nwEA625Z8x0lAJ?si=7AHv-q_kTMOqLEK97CUN1g&nd=1">Guard This 2.0</a> (aka Act 2)... INXS, Jimi Hendriz, David Bowie, Warren Zevon, Jungle Brothers, Primal Scream, Tom Petty, Blur, Sonny Rollins, Beck, Morphine<br /></p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/33LsfrSOICeS7THZP0QYyk?si=7g0schhWSX6TLNAZDKBWZQ&nd=1" target="_blank">Guard This 3.0</a> (aka Act 3)... Elliot Smith, Drivin N Cryin, Bill Evans, Luna, Tom Waits, Gomez, Television, Steely Dan, Mazzy Star, Funkadelic, Ween, Widespread Panic, Velvet Underground<br /></p></blockquote><p>I also curated character mixes, or mixtapes that each character from <i><b>Guard This </b></i>would make if you gave them a blank tape in 1995. Yes, these are the names of some of the main characters and you can catch a glimpse into their headspace by listening to their mixtapes and music that they had access to in 1995. Hey, I did not really make these... the characters crafted each mixtape themselves.<br /></p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4gVCeRytpOZsp1vfH1WooJ?si=_oztAVW5Qp-FDZk1sU1V_g" target="_blank"></a></p><blockquote><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4gVCeRytpOZsp1vfH1WooJ?si=_oztAVW5Qp-FDZk1sU1V_g" target="_blank">Tenzin McGrupp</a>... Maceo Parker, Bob Dylan, REM, NWA, Traffic, Grateful Dead, Curtis Mayfield, Dandy Warhols, Allman Brothers, Phish, Mojo Nixon, Shuggie Otis, Supertramp<br /></p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2JpCLskng11rr4qN7jN1cv?si=pGiWqLWfTGaqLYcne8WYiQ&nd=1" target="_blank">Izabella</a>... Digable Planets, Los Amigos Invisibles, Brick, Fugees, The Cure, Sly & the Family Stone, Queen Latifah, Arrested Development, The Breeders, Belly, D'Aneglo, Luscious Jackson, Liz Phair, Mary J Blige, Pulp, Dee Lite<br /></p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3fbyzihD1lDEViLJmYSGEs?si=B1rqI0KjRqiBrXSqWsGXuQ&nd=1" target="_blank">Cube</a>... Jaco Pastorious, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Doobie Brothers, David Bowie, The Pixies, Stone Roses, The Cars, Phil Collins, Captain Beefheart, Roxy, Jan Hammer, The Beatles, ELO, Big Audio Dynamite, Beastie Boys, Beck<br /></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Oy7N3MReEGPCNpH3d22x4?si=wsz2hE4-R5CPkpUnURYoRQ&nd=1" target="_blank">Jazzman</a>... Kenny Burrell, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock, Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Willie Bobo, Billie Holiday</blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Wgk7y7FwY40hmTS8ElhNi?si=ZMrSLC04QDmpT6vnPggBCQ&nd=1" target="_blank">Zelia</a>... Air, Giorgio Moroder, Serge Gainsbourg, Jacqus Dutronc, Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones, Johnny Hallday, Les Merseys, Charlotte Leslie, Portishead, The Wailers, L'Imperatrice, Daft Punk, Garbage, Michel Sardou, 10,000 Maniacs<br /></p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3dRTNiija7OBwlBk00Ngs5?si=A9S1-2BqQ7-3PQefo0Ghrg&nd=1" target="_blank">Rabbi Hoffman</a>... Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia Band<br /></p></blockquote><p></p><p>Now that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Guard-This-Paul-McGuire/dp/B09TN1J8HP?crid=2UYOYKP5DTBWZ&keywords=guard+this+paul+mcguire&qid=1648581763&sprefix=guard+this+paul+mcguire%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkId=9f616bef920bdc1542f724a2fe6b9d6c&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl" target="_blank">Guard This</a> is out in a physical and digital form, it's time to get back to work on the second draft of <i>The Kicker</i>.<br /></p>Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-22135349419066582902021-12-24T07:20:00.006-05:002021-12-24T15:05:19.224-05:00Guard This: New Novel <p><i> Los Angeles, CA</i><br /></p><p><i><b></b></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEidh7M_fH5TSGsjVdfg3_IP-olVLIwPfCQKuhCexp2LI52kd9eYdPKPDaOBcV1ptVeiYi5JgyoPoEta6i_3oCDU0Avc4p5jsGa3G6XOEB7LawnH65_TDn6gpE4aEYWTsqxL7NN1o5PuCBnmN0ijFiwovkcbWnSnvf1UamEoTPjwo_6sDFyuRg=s1140" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1140" data-original-width="1088" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEidh7M_fH5TSGsjVdfg3_IP-olVLIwPfCQKuhCexp2LI52kd9eYdPKPDaOBcV1ptVeiYi5JgyoPoEta6i_3oCDU0Avc4p5jsGa3G6XOEB7LawnH65_TDn6gpE4aEYWTsqxL7NN1o5PuCBnmN0ijFiwovkcbWnSnvf1UamEoTPjwo_6sDFyuRg=s320" width="305" /></a></b></i></div><i><b> </b></i><p></p><p><i><b>Guard This </b></i>is my third novel and fourth overall book that I wrote and published since 2010. <a href="https://amzn.to/30N9gRG" target="_blank">Guard This</a> is now available as an e-book. Stay tuned for information on a print version and paperback, which is due out in early 2022.</p><p>What is <i><b>Guard This</b></i>?<br /><br />Here's the book description:<br /></p><blockquote><i><b>Guard This</b></i> depicts New York City's art community during the last vestiges of gritty Gotham in the 1990s. Tenzin McGrupp takes a security job at the most famous art museum in the world while he saves up money for film school. He's welcomed into an enclave of painters, musicians, photographers, nonconformists, and freaks that hold day jobs as museum guards to fund their late-night creative endeavors and drug-addled antics. The guards are defiant artists at the dawn of the new millennium before every nook of the City is gobbled up by corporations and transformed into a capitalist theme park. </blockquote><p></p><p><i><b>Guard This</b></i> is a project that I started over 25 years ago. It had so many variations and formats that it's hard to keep up. It started out as a screenplay. Then a comic book. Then a novel. Then a stage play. Back to a novel. Then a series of short stories. Back to a screenplay. Then a limited series. Flirted with an animated series. And now, back to a novel. <br /><br />The current novel version of <i><b>Guard This</b></i> came together quickly and almost by accident. In April of 2021, I blocked out a couple of weeks to work on rewriting a second draft of a project called <i>The Kicker</i>, which I penned at the end of 2020. After sitting on a shelf for the customary 90 days, I read <i>The Kicker</i> for the first time in three months and realized I did not have enough time to fix all the problems and rewrite a second draft. I still set aside two weeks without anything to work on, so I decided to give <b><i>Guard This</i></b> another pass. It had been 18 years since I last told a version of this story, but was surprised ho quickly the first draft of a the new novel wrote itself.<br /><br />It took me five years to write <a href="http://www.lostvegasbook.com/">Lost Vegas</a>. Took me another five to work on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/fried-peaches-paul-mcguire/dp/b09hk2tqjy?_encoding=utf8&qid=&sr=&linkcode=ll1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkid=d1b2911bf3ca573023271c92f5ac6202&language=en_us&ref_=as_li_ss_tl%22" target="_blank">Fried Peaches</a>. It might take me five years to finish <i>The Kicker</i>. But, I didn't have five years to work on <b><i>Guard This</i></b>. Call it laziness, or just PTSD from the pandemic, but I didn't have the patience to hold this story back. I'm starting a major project in 2022 and just don't have the time to devote to a prolonged process of re-writing and editing and re-writing <i>Guard This.</i> I convinced myself to put out a less than desirable version of it out now, than let it grind away at my insomnia until 2025. Instead of five years, I gave this project less than five months time from start to finish. <br /><br /><b><i>Guard This</i></b> will eventually become a paperback version in the Spring of 2022. For now, it's an e-book while I accumulate all the typos and errors that I missed to rush this version out before Christmas. I'll thank you in advance when you catch something. As soon as I successfully crowdsource all those typos, I'll convert <b><i>Guard This</i></b> to a print version in a couple of months. I promise that it won't take three years in between e-book > print conversion like what happened with <i><b>Fried Peaches</b></i>, which finally became a paperback in October 2021.<br /><br />I appreciate your assistance, support, and understanding. You can purchase your e-book of <a href="https://amzn.to/30N9gRG">Guard This here</a>. You do not have to own a Kindle to read it. Your phone or tablet has a Kindle app that makes it easy to read. If you're a Luddite and detest e-books or Kindles, then grab one of my other paperbacks: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/fried-peaches-paul-mcguire/dp/b09hk2tqjy?_encoding=utf8&qid=&sr=&linkcode=ll1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkid=d1b2911bf3ca573023271c92f5ac6202&language=en_us&ref_=as_li_ss_tl%22">Fried Peaches</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0557500079?ie=UTF8&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0557500079" target="_blank">Lost Vegas</a>, or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615486347/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0615486347">Jack Tripper Stole My Dog</a>.<br /><br /></p>Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-17668071719101968502021-10-10T13:10:00.012-04:002021-10-10T13:11:41.610-04:00Fried Peaches: Print Version Now Available<p><i> Los Angeles, CA</i></p><p>The print version of <i><b>Fried Peaches</b></i> novel is currently available. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fried-Peaches-Paul-McGuire/dp/B09HK2TQJY?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&linkCode=ll1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkId=d1b2911bf3ca573023271c92f5ac6202&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl" target="_blank">Buy a print copy here</a>. If you read the e-book version, here's your first chance to fondle a print copy of <i><b>Fried Peaches.</b></i> <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fried-Peaches-Paul-McGuire/dp/B09HK2TQJY?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&linkCode=ll1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkId=d1b2911bf3ca573023271c92f5ac6202&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-10b6OMaZUpE/YWMTpX456YI/AAAAAAAATGE/WtMp9r8m0kImO45Jk8aIw1oOE67GSc9UwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/PeachesCOVER2021.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><p>If you've been waiting three-plus years for a print version, I appreciate your patience. The moment has arrived for all of you Luddites and old-school book purists.<br /></p><p>I curated a special <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2018/06/fried-peaches-mixes.html">Spotify playlist for Fried Peaches</a> as an accompanying soundtrack to listen along in the background while you read it. It's three different playlists broken down into three acts with 33 songs on each playlist. Check out the Fried Peaches playlists here: <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/565DlwnCf5NjWamonaJBjK?si=MxQMiCBzRB6RZhfVcrtIsw&fo=1&nd=1" target="_blank">Act 1</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5j4jEaBgUB2fjnDyT7GUue?si=TMUEo2FHQ1i4r6E5QtxD5Q&fo=1&nd=1">Act 2</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RRjvtWJVqfQcAXeSLQm3C?si=Wsc8p1kfQ3OqToHMI7Rtww&fo=1&nd=1">Act 3</a>. <br /></p><p></p><center>****</center><p></p><p><b>Q. Why did Fried Peaches print version take so long? </b></p><p>A. Laziness. That's the quick, quirky, and pithy answer. </p><p> </p><p><b>Q. Seriously, why?</b></p><p>A. The real answer is a little more complicated. I had the opportunity to work with an old friend on a new project in the fall of 2018 and didn't have time to convert the e-book to a print version. In 2019, I was simply too lazy to get it done. In 2020 the pandemic hit and I didn't think anyone gave a shit about a book I wrote two years prior that takes place in 2015. Since late 2020, I cranked out two new manuscripts including something I hope to publish soon as an e-book.</p><p> </p><p><b>Q. When does the next novel come out?</b></p><p>A. I wrote a new novel titled <i><b>Guard This </b></i>about my experiences working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as my first job out of college. It's also a period piece about the 1990s art scene in New York City. Keep your fingers crossed for a late December release of <i><b>Guard This</b></i>. The e-book should be available before Christmas, at least that's the current plan. I promise that the print version of <b><i>Guard This</i></b> will not take three years before it's available. I'm eying a print release for Spring 2022.<br /></p>Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-55309319182496313822018-06-11T16:20:00.000-04:002018-06-11T19:54:18.632-04:00Fried Peaches: Available at Midnight 6.12.18<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZDCu8n8b7zU/Wx8KyFAsUzI/AAAAAAAASEs/UVxF3DbcesoB6RBwJhWS47G3ID69LdRzgCLcBGAs/s1600/Peaches_Stub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="214" data-original-width="600" height="141" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZDCu8n8b7zU/Wx8KyFAsUzI/AAAAAAAASEs/UVxF3DbcesoB6RBwJhWS47G3ID69LdRzgCLcBGAs/s400/Peaches_Stub.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DK4NYJT/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&psc=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkId=f49ae37e1a25f7b276b97dddc54a551e">Fried Peaches</a> is here. The ebook drops at Midnight ET on 6-12-18. Yes, that's tonight. <br />
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The print version will be published in November 2018. For updates on the print version, follow <a href="http://www.twitter.com/peachesnovel">@PeachesNovel</a> on Twitter or <a href="https://www.instagram.com/friedpeachesbook/">@FriedPeachesBook</a> on Instagram.<br />
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For now, enjoy the e-book version. You do not have to own a Kindle to read it. Simply download the app for your device. You can also read it via your laptop/desktop.<br />
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I created a soundtrack, or special mixes as a companion to the novel. Three Mixes. The Fried Peaches mixes can be found on either Spotify or YouTube (same mix, just different channels).<br />
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Spotify Mixes: <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/taopauly/playlist/565DlwnCf5NjWamonaJBjK?si=MxQMiCBzRB6RZhfVcrtIsw&fo=1">Fried Peaches, Act 1</a> - <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/taopauly/playlist/5j4jEaBgUB2fjnDyT7GUue?si=TMUEo2FHQ1i4r6E5QtxD5Q&fo=1">Fried Peaches, Act 2</a> - <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/taopauly/playlist/0RRjvtWJVqfQcAXeSLQm3C?si=Wsc8p1kfQ3OqToHMI7Rtww&fo=1">Fried Peaches, Act 3</a><br />
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YouTube Mixes: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLndq1JjLWwod0B2jc1MQoeU4wX4tIjvZR&v=CFixe7UZh9M">Act 1</a> - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLndq1JjLWwoeO4N--jLpIAnPyas-ntCOe&v=hCDAfa-NI-M">Act 2</a> - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLndq1JjLWwodcB_ygajqNfh0jTFy-yDi7&v=arf8g0I5NX4">Act 3</a>Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-90930462314249585692018-06-08T16:20:00.000-04:002018-06-08T18:18:15.388-04:00Fried Peaches: The Mixes<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oqKboGJnkxQ/Wxr9UUDFdhI/AAAAAAAASDs/SwWZpbv32GAd_uD3mIVONIvOBio_b0iGwCLcBGAs/s1600/Mixes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="252" data-original-width="600" height="167" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oqKboGJnkxQ/Wxr9UUDFdhI/AAAAAAAASDs/SwWZpbv32GAd_uD3mIVONIvOBio_b0iGwCLcBGAs/s400/Mixes.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I write to music all day long. I watch 90% of sports on MUTE and listen to music instead of going on mega-tilt from moronic announcers. Music is the soundtrack to the majority of my daily life activities.<br />
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I curated three mixes for <a href="https://twitter.com/PeachesNovel">Fried Peaches</a>. 99 songs. 3 mixes. 33 songs on each. You can find them on Spotify and/or YouTube.<br />
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You can call these mixes a soundtrack if you want. Each mix fits in with a specific segment of Fried Peaches. To simply things, I titled the mixes: Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3. I'd recommend listening to each corresponding act while reading the book to enhance the overall experience.<br />
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These mixes can be enjoyed any old way. Stand alone or with Peaches. Listen on shuffle. Listen out of order. Listen to one. Listen to none.<br />
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I had fun whipping up each mix, yet faced a nightmare trimming down the entire set to 99 songs. At one point I had over 350 songs, before I diced that down to 200 or so. Yeah, at least 100 songs missed the final cut. Perhaps I'll release those in a couple of months titled Peaches Deep Cuts.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Mix 1, Act 1</b> is heavy on the 1990s and late 20th Century nostalgia... Beastie Boys, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Pixies, A Tribe Called Quest, Mother Love Bone, Drivin N Cryin, Mazzy Star, Stone Roses, Garbage, The Black Crowes, Gomez, Sublime, Oasis, Veruca Salt, TAD, Stone Temple Pilots, The Gits, Luna, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Polyphonic Spree, Huey Lewis and the News, INXS, James Brown, Dana Imanuel, Big Star, Bowie, Rolling Stones, Eagles of Death Metal, The Beatles, LCD Soundsystem, and Greensky Bluegrass.<br />
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<b>Mix 2, Act 2 </b>is the drugs/party mix. It starts out with a coke bender then goes full blown UNTZ.... Curtis Mayfield, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sturgill Simpson, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Future, Dr. Hook, JJ Cale, Pharcyde, Phish, Queens of the Stone Age, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Grateful Dead, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Blind Melon, Juno What?!, Kraftwerk, YAMN, Moving Matter, Daft Punk, Brick, The Bar-Kays, Tosca, TJR, Opiuo, The Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, and LCD Soundsystem, STS9, and Turkuaz.<br />
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<b>Mix 3, Act 3 </b>is an everything bagel.. Tom Petty, Mojo Nixon, Dylan, Talking Heads, Radiohead, Maggie Koerner, Traffic, The Go-Go's, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Foxygen, Blind Melon, Albert Hammond, Television, Art Blakey & Jazz Messengers, Colleen, Mazzy Star, Meco, Kenny Rogers, Golden Smog, Bikini Kill, Wilco, Ana Tijoux, Divinyls, Dana Imanuel, Bowie, The Cars, Cardi B, Kim Wilde, Shuggie Otis, LCD Soundsystem, Pink Floyd, and Bomba Estereo.</blockquote>
There's an actual theme to Mix 3/Act 3, but I'm being vague on purpose. After you read the last 1/3 of the book, you'll see the obvious connection between those 33 songs and the storyline.<br />
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Here are the Spotify links: <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/taopauly/playlist/565DlwnCf5NjWamonaJBjK?si=MxQMiCBzRB6RZhfVcrtIsw&fo=1">Fried Peaches, Act 1</a> - <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/taopauly/playlist/5j4jEaBgUB2fjnDyT7GUue?si=TMUEo2FHQ1i4r6E5QtxD5Q&fo=1">Fried Peaches, Act 2</a> - <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/taopauly/playlist/0RRjvtWJVqfQcAXeSLQm3C?si=Wsc8p1kfQ3OqToHMI7Rtww&fo=1">Fried Peaches, Act 3</a>.<br />
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If you don't have a Spotify account, then head over to You Tube.<br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLndq1JjLWwod0B2jc1MQoeU4wX4tIjvZR" width="420"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLndq1JjLWwoeO4N--jLpIAnPyas-ntCOe" width="420"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLndq1JjLWwodcB_ygajqNfh0jTFy-yDi7" width="420"></iframe></center>
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And follow <a href="https://twitter.com/PeachesNovel">@PeachesNovel</a> on Twitter for an upcoming release date.Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-31701798866700780132017-12-25T04:20:00.000-05:002017-12-25T11:15:53.737-05:00Merry Christmas, Auggie Wren, and Happy Holidaze<i>New York City</i><br />
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I usually shun traditions and try to mix things up, but every Christmas morning over the last 15+ years, I do the same thing. I wake-n-bake and re-read <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2007/12/auggie-wrens-christmas-story-by-pauly.html">Auggie Wren's Christmas Story</a>.<br />
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I know, I know... I barely posted anything on Tao in 2017 and when I do, it's a friggin' repeat! Yeah, I'm a lazy stoner who recycles content.<br />
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If this story sounds familiar... it's because I pimp it out every December 25th. By chance you are a fan of 90s indie cinema, then you've heard this monologue from the Brooklyn-centric film <i>Smoke</i> directed by Wayne Wang. <br />
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Happy Christmas to your consumer-addled family members!<br />
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Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-48986045756660826752016-11-12T16:20:00.000-05:002017-01-04T22:38:36.018-05:00RIP Johnny Hughes<i>Los Angeles</i><br />
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<a href="http://en.clubpoker.net/poker-historian-and-author-johnny-hughes-passes-away/n-437">RIP Johnny Hughes</a>. Poker historian, author, professor, former band road manager, hustler and Texan.<br />
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Best gift Johnny Hughes gave me was believing in me at a time in my life when I didn't believe in myself. Thanks for that Johnny Hughes. You will be missed, dear friend.<br />
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Johnny Hughes also gave me best advice on surviving Vegas and being on road nonstop: "You can have one vice, one drug, and one girl. Never have more that one of each. Otherwise you askin' for trouble son!"<br />
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<i>Image: Johnny Hughes with Amarillo Slim at The Horseshoe snapping pic with $1 million display in downtown Vegas. </i>Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-48554619293401815252016-01-25T04:20:00.000-05:002016-01-27T12:53:48.892-05:00Pay the Writer: 2016 Version<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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It's that time of year again! Chasing back pay from delinquent clients on some projects from last summer/fall. Having difficult and frustrating time getting paid and getting stonewalled by salaried employees who just don't get it.<br />
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I should have hired Harlan Ellison as my literary agent. He'd make sure I get paid...in full.<br />
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Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-37348748610946092302015-11-23T16:20:00.000-05:002015-11-23T16:20:00.205-05:00Blank On Blank: Kurt Vonnegut<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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Here's Kurt Vonnegut talking about a lot of stuff and non-stuff...<br />
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Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-54930361993148310062015-11-02T16:20:00.000-05:002015-11-02T19:56:06.707-05:00When It Rains in L.A.<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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Mayhem. Locals go friggin' berserk at the slightest rain drop.<br />
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Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-31215531378510412202015-05-14T16:20:00.000-04:002015-05-20T16:22:44.859-04:00Blank On Blank: Ray Bradbury<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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I'll listen to any interview with Ray Bradbury. Funny thing... I'm more influenced by the things he's said about writing, philosophy, and creativity more than his actual stories and fictional characters. A true thinker. Here's something from the Blank On Blank series, which animates interview clips...<br />
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Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-75044468987686488462015-03-20T04:20:00.000-04:002015-03-20T16:15:21.898-04:00RIP Dan Feldman<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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I attended college with Dan Feldman. We were friends, fraternity brothers, and business partners. At one point in our lives, we were that cliche "thick as thieves" and/or "two peas in a pod." <br />
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The summer of 1992. I was still 19 years old and utterly clueless. That summer the Dream Team crushed opponents in the Barcelona Olympics because it was the first year NBA pros could play. I'm bombarded by vivid flashbacks of the Dream Team because our ice cream truck was littered with giant McD's souvenir cups featuring Dream Teamers like Michael Jordan and Larry Bird.<br />
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One item on my resume was always a conversational piece...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>ENTREPRENEUR - Tasty Ice Cream, Atlanta, GA </b></blockquote>
"Wait... you were the ice cream man?"<br />
<br />
TASTY ice cream was an instant ice-breaker during every single job interview in my adult life. It was always fun to talk about. I had crazy stories. Heck, I had an even crazier partner. How did I get into the ice cream business? Dan Feldman invited me in.<br />
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Feldman drove an ice cream truck in his hometown on Long Island, but in the summer of 1992 he wanted to do the same thing in Atlanta. I needed a job and so we wet into business together. We lived in our fraternity house (a handful of guys in one of those gigantic southern mansions) and parked the ice cream truck out back and kept the freezer running using a series of industrial extension chords. The truck was really a van with a freezer in the back. Our stoner friends raided the van late nights and left pocket change on the front seat. We drove one truck but alternated work days. It was fun, but arduous work. The city was nicknamed HOTLANA for a reason... hellacious heat, sweltering, irritating, disgusting summer days in Atlanta. I'd come home every night drenched in sweat because the van truck was more like a sauna.<br />
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Twenty years later, I can easily say that the summer of 1992 was one of the all-time greatest summers. In the high-water mark of life, Feldman and I surfed the crest of that wave.<br />
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Feldman's initial business plan entailed renting a van from TASTY Ice Cream, an independent business run by a Persian that everyone called The Shah. The Shah was a fair man, but he wouldn't rent to us until we had proper credentials. He told us to get experience at HAPPY ICE CREAM, the largest company in Atlanta. HAPPY'S portly owner looked like a character from <i>The Sopranos</i> and he hired me on the spot. He briefly showed me a gigantic map of Atlanta and its sprawling suburbs. He boasted about his vast territory, much like a king bragging about the size of his kingdom The hot spots were in yellow. I always had a bit of a photographic memory, so I studied the map.<br />
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The HAPPY ICE CREAM training program included sitting in a dark room to watch a series of grainy training videos from the late 70s and early 80s. I was one of three other trainees. Both of them fell asleep within an hour. In all fairness, one of the guys was riding the H train and nodded out. I passed the training/safety exam and got sent out on a test run with one of the veteran drivers. The guy had a ghostly, gravely voice like Miles Davis, and he gave me a crash course in the ice cream biz. Miles said the best part of the job was "getting hit on by single moms." Once my HAPPY training was complete, I graduated and was assigned my very own truck.<br />
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The plan with Feldman was to alternate days. On his first day on the job, he crashed HAPPY's truck. Drove it right into the front of a liquor store near the old Techwood projects (that got razed to build the Olympic Village). At the time, it was scary. Luckily Feldman escaped without a scratch on his head. But the truck was totaled and our future with HAPPY ICE CREAM looked bleak.<br />
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We returned to the Shah and sorta begged him to let us work for TASTY. I showed him my photocopied diploma from HAPPY ICE CREAM that said I was a certified ice cream truck driver. Feldman was a natural born salesman and pretty much told the Shah that we'd have a truck out 7 days a week and we were young, eager college kids who could log long hours because we switched off days. Feldman told him we'd be the Shah's top earners and driving his #1 truck. Truly a bold statement, but by the end of the summer we were at the top of the Shah's fleet of trucks. Besides, how hard could the competition be? The Shah's main competitor HAPPY hired ex-cons and junkies.<br />
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Every morning one of us would drive the van from Emory University to MLK Blvd, where the Shah's shop was located. We were a McCatholic kid from the Bronx and a Jewish kid from Long Island working on a fleet comprised of Middle Easterns and Haitians. We bought inventory (usually whatever we sold out from the night before) and dry ice. We needed the dry ice to keep the goods cold. The kid who worked the freezer was barely taller than Kevin Hart and he wore a jumpsuit that looked like he was climbing Mt. Everest. He spent 10-12 hours a day inside a gigantic walk-in freezer.<br />
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The Shah didn't even give us a map. He threw us head first into the ice cream pool, but I memorized HAPPY's route and their top areas. Feldman's business model was simple: undercut HAPPY's prices by a nickel. After a week or so, we developed multiple routes and started out in Atlanta and made out way out to the burbs, before circling back toward the city at the end of our shift.<br />
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One day I blew a red light and got pulled over by ATL cops. I
apologized and the cop let me off with a warning because his kid would
never talk to him again if his kid found out he gave the ice cream man a
ticket. I thanked the cop and comped him a red, white, and blue Bomb pop. A couple of weeks into the summer, someone driving a HAPPY truck nearly sideswiped me. He chased me down
to a cul de sac. The redneck looked like a mean roadie from the Allman Brothers. He pulled out a baseball bat and threatened to beat my ass and slash my tires if I was ever on his turf. That was the last time we worked in Marietta.<br />
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Gas was cheap back then and only 79 cents/gallon at the QT, but the van had its flaws: no AC and a busted radio. We utilized a small booxbom and played nothing but Grateful Dead and Phish bootlegs. Feldman was one of the biggest Deadheads in our fraternity. He also gifted me my first Phish bootleg and he once spent two hours lecturing to me about the beauty and simplicity of<i> Contact</i>. I was a staunch Deadhead back in those days, but thanks to Feldman (and other friends like Wilkins, Lerm, Dave Pizza, and Chicago Bob)... I slowly started appreciating Phish. Twenty years later, I always think about Feldman whenever I hear <i>Contact</i>.<br />
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It goes without saying that I always think about Feldman whenever I see an ice cream truck. Instant flashback to the best summer of my life. You'll never ever forget the summer you were 19 years old. Those cherished memories were filled with Feldman's laughter. Heck even a couple weeks after he crashed the HAPPY truck, we were joking around about it. I dunno how many times I uttered the line: "Remember the time Feldman crashed the ice cream truck into a liquor store?"<br />
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I always wanted to share a story at a MOTH Storytelling. If I ever got a shot, the summer of 1992 and the ice cream truck was going to be one of my Top 3 stories. It's strange that your memory is fickle... I couldn't even tell you what I ate for breakfast the other day... yet memories from the summer of 1992 were vivid and fresh. Those memories were burned into my skull and etched into stone in perpetuity.<br />
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Dan Feldman will always be part of the internal hieroglyphics chiseled into the hallways of my mind.<br />
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A couple of months ago, I sent Feldman a message on Facebook. My friends will tell you that I'm NEVER on Facebook, so it was a huge deal that I actually logged in. I posted something on Feldman's wall that I always thought of him whenever I spotted an ice cream truck. He reminded me something I totally forgot: I made up a special song to sing whenever I rang the bell. The van didn't have a fancy sound system but had an old school bell attached to a piece of string. You had to hold onto the steering wheel with your left hand and reach above your head with your right hand to ring the bell on the top of the truck. The string went through a hole in the roof, so if it rained, the ceiling leaked and the rope got soaked.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>I am the ice cream man</i><br />
<i>I drive as slow as I can</i></blockquote>
That's the chorus. I don't recall any other verses. But that's the kind of goofy stuff we used to do.<br />
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Feldman turned me onto amazing music. Feldman showed me how to be an entrepreneur and work for yourself. Sometimes someone has to leave your life before you can fully appreciate their impact. I've always been lucky that Feldman was an integral part of the summer of 1992. Between music and business acumen, Dan Feldman impacted me in more ways that I can count.<br />
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RIP Dan Feldman. One of a kind.<br />
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Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-71417138438519772742015-03-19T04:20:00.000-04:002024-02-16T13:32:20.512-05:00Binge Watching: Sopranos, Season 6, Part 2<p><i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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I spent the last few weeks binge watching every episode of <i>The Sopranos</i>. It was a fun project but I had limit how much time I devoted to recapping each episode. There was so much to talk about. Each season could have inspired its own book, but in the end, who wants to read six books filled with my half-baked analysis? The beauty of <i>The Sopranos</i> is that it could be enjoyed on multiple levels by both the low brow and high brow. It seemed so simple for a complex narrative structure.<br />
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I wrote about the previous seasons: <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">Season 1</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-3.html" target="_blank">Season 3</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-4.html" target="_blank">Season 4</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-5.html" target="_blank">Season 5</a> .</p><p>I completed the second batch of the final season of <i>The Sopranos</i>. I broke up the final season recap into two parts. <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-6-ep-1.html">Season 6, Part 1</a> covers episodes 1 thru 12. This recap covers Season 6 episodes 13 thru 21...<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 13: Soprano Home Movies</b>... 6am at Castle Soprano. The King and Queen were awoken by the Man banging on the front door. Not the FBI, but Essex County cops hauled Tony off for a gun with hollow point bullets. Flashback to 2004 when Johnny Sack got pinched. Neighbor kid saw Tony ditch the gun and he retrieved it from the snow later that night. Few years later, the kid got pinched for cocaine possession but tried to weasel out of it by claiming the gun belonged to Tony Soprano. The Feds pressured Essex DA to drop the charges because they spent 5 years on building a RICO case... Janice and Bobby invited Carmela and Tony to the Bacala family lake house in upstate New York. You can take the Sopranos out of NJ, but you can't take NJ out of the Sopranos... Bobby gifted Tony an AR-10 assault rifle for his 47th birthday and commented how he only used bow/arrow to hunt deer.... Carmela gifted Tony a b-day BJ (and a set of new golf clubs)... Meanwhile, AJ and Blanca hosted a raging pool party at Castle Soprano... Bacala revealed he never whacked anyone because his father didn't want him to go that route. Tony mentioned that Old Man Bacala, a barber by trade, was the Terminator and a stone-cold contract hitman for the mob. Tony offered Bobby a new position... At birthday dinner, Tony said his father's line: "no presents, just a few kind words." Janice gifted Tony old home movies transferred from Super 8 to a DVD... They cranked out drunken karaoke and played Monopoly (with Dave Brubek playing in background). Bobby wanted to play by the exact rules, but not the way The Sopranos played ("free parking rules")... Janice told embarrassing family stories like time Tony ate a milk bone and the time Johnny Boy and Moma Soprano were driving back from the Copa, and Johnny Boy shot a bullet thru Moma Soprano's beehive when she wouldn't stop nagging him... When Tony made fun about Janice sucking off dudes under the boardwalk, Bobby took offense. Tony an Bobby rumbled in the lake house. Like two bears brawling. Bobby won the fight and Carmlea got knocked around trying to break it up. Tony had a bloody hotel stuck to his face. Bobby crashed his SUV into a tree. In middle of night, Tony woke up Bobby and admitted he won fair and square, but he cited falling on a rug the reason he lost... The next morning, Carmela wanted to leave. Bobby tried to make up and reminded Tony they had a meeting with the Quebe mobsters. Plus, Janice (via the maid) made egg frittata. Eggs always foreshadows death... TONY'S DUCKS: His niece sang a song about ducks, which drew Tony's interest... Tony made up excuses for losing the fight... CATTY CARMELA: Carmela called out Janice for comparing Tony to Moma Soprano... During the meeting with the Quebes, the French-Canucks pitched a prescription drug scam and casually mentioned they needed someone rubbed out. Tony offered to do the hit if the Quebes lowered the price on the pharmies deal. Tony sent Bobby to do the hit (his first-ever hit). Bobby went to Montreal and whacked the guy in a laundry room while white high top sneakers were tumbling in a dryer. When he returned to the lake house, he hugged his daughter and gazed out at the lake... Tony watched the home movies of halcyon days of yesteryear while Ben E. King's <i>This Magic Moment</i> plays as the credits roll.<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 14: Stage 5</b>... Chris and Lil Carmine screened a rough cut of <i>Cleaver</i>. One of the lesser known Baldwins took over the lead role as mob boss. The NoJer crew assembled in NYC for a premiere of <i>Cleaver</i>. Chris gave Tony a shoutout for being a main investor. Paulie kept getting phone calls during screening. At the party, Tony told Chris he was proud of him. Larry Boy got pinched by marshals because he was under house arrest... CATTY CARMELA: She was pissy about how Tony was portrayed in <i>Cleaver</i>. Tony was clueless until she it pointed... Chris stopped by Joe Hollywood's apartment and asked him to take credit for some of the stuff that made Tony look bad. Joe Hollywood dropped by Bada Bing and chatted up Tony about <i>Cleaver</i>. Joe Hollywood said he lifted most of the ideas from a William Holden movie... Tony told Dr. Melfi that he always treated Chris like a son, but he felt betrayed by his portrayal of an "asshole bully" in Cleaver. Tony said that Chris' father Dickie was like father-figure/older brother to him so he tried to do the same for Chris. Alas, Tony is well aware that Chris used art to retaliate against Tony for past transgressions... Tony chatted with Phil Leotardo, who finally recovered from a massive heart attack, but he's a kinder and gentler Leotardo, which created a power vacuum in the Lupertazzi family. Leotardo wanted to promote his protege Gerry, whereas Doc Santoro was jockeying for position... Silvio had dinner with Gerry. All a sudden, there's blood splatter on his face. Gerry got whacked, but the sloppy hitman (in black Fila sweats) required multiple shots. Silvio was untouched and he rushed out of the restaurant.... Later on, Silvio said he never saw the hit coming. Was that a little foreshadowing for the final episode? Tony always thought he would either die in prison or get whacked. In this episode, Johnny Sack died in prison while Gerry got clipped in public... Lil Carmine met with Tony, who was pissed that Doc Santoro ordered the hit and Silvio was used as bait. Tony told Lil Carmine to step up and they'd support him. Lil Carmine told Tony about a dream he had about his father and an empty box, which inspired him to stepped aside from head of the family... Incarcerated Johnny Sack developed stage 4 lung cancer and the doc gave him 3 months to live. So he started smoking again. In prison med unit, Sack met a former oncologist who murdered his cheating wife. That doc told Sack that he had at least a year to live because his own doc lowballed his number in order to make himself look like a miracle worker. However, Sack's condition took a turn for the worse and he passed away. Johnny Sack's brother-in-law stopped by Satriale's to inform Tony and the crew... Phil Leotardo had a special party for his dead brother's birthday. The family kids blew out candles on a cake, but they knew very little of their Italian heritage (one of the morons thought Leonardo da Vinci was famous for writing <i>The Da Vinci Code</i>). Leotardo said immigration officials at Ellis Island changed their family name from Lenonardo to Leotardo (shades of <i>Godfather II</i>, when Vito's name was changed from Andolini to Corleone). Leotardo got emo over never properly avenging his brother's death and decided to shed his kinder/gentler ways... FBI special agent Harris stopped by Castle Soprano and asked him to rat out on any terrorists... Episode ended with the christening of Chris' baby daughter, with Tony as the godfather.<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 15: Remember When?</b>... The Feds got a tip from a rat and dug up corpse of a dead bookie in basement. The hit happened 25 years earlier. It was Tony's first hit in the early 80s and he did it with Paulie, an order from Johnny Boy Soprano himself. They went on the lam by driving to Miami.. Junior paid off the orderlies (with a Bulova watch) and he ran a high-stakes poker game in the craft room and sold contraband like candy and real soda. He cracked jokes, but the game got busted up. Junior befriended Carter Chong (MIT grad with serious anger issues and overbearing Asian parents), who helped run the game and helped him write letters to Dick Cheney. Junior signed autographs for the orderlies, who sold them for huge profit on ebay... Junior got into a fight with a fellow patient, who ratted out his poker game. The doctor fired the orderly on the take and prescribed him new meds, which made him sleep all day and piss himself. The doctor made Junior wear Depends... Carter Chong was angry that Junior took the new meds, because he didn't have someone to goof around with. Junior gave Carter a Hootie & Blowfish CD... During music class learning a John Denver song, Carter Chong jumped Junior and tried to strangle him. He broke Junior's glasses and broke his arm... Paulie tilted Tony with stupid banter during the roadtrip. They went to crash for the night in VA at an old inn, but it was shut down and replaced by a corporate chain hotel that didn't even serve room service after 11pm. Tony as pissed that Paulie told a guest they were headed to Miami... Paulie told story about him and Johnny Boy getting pulled over by state trooper in the Deep South and they had to pay off the cop $100 to get out of a ticket. Paulie told Tony that the only time he saw his father cry was the night he was born... In Miami, Tony and Paulie met with Beansie the pizza shop owner. Beansie gave them old black and white pics, including a young tough guy Paulie and Junior/Johnny Boy in front of Satriale's. Paulie was telling too many stories. Tony chastised him, "Remember when is the lowest form of conversation"... Tony ordered in a hooker, who thought Paulie was his father. He told her he used to work for Johnny Boy... Beansie set up Tony/Paulie with Cuban wiseguys. Paulie acted like a mook at the meeting, which irked Tony.... Tony bitched about Paulie to Beansie about the Napoleon painting and other stuff, who said he's always been a little off because he never had a wife/kids. Beansie reminded Tony that Tony was all Paulie had in life... Silvio called Tony to reveal that the Feds attributed the corpse to Jackie Aprile, so he was off the hook and could go back to NJ. Tony overheard Paulie watching <i>Three's Company</i> by himself and he felt a lil sorry for him. He suggested they rent a boat (<i>See Vous Play</i>) and go fishing to celebrate, but Paulie was a little spooked and paranoid. He thought he was gonna get whacked. He had visions of the time the crew whacked Big Pussy on a boat. Paulie made lunch, Paulie Rigatoni. Tony tried to get Paulie to admit he told Johnny Sack about Ralphie made fun of his wife. Tony kept looking at different possible murder weapons and considered whacking Paulie... Paulie had a dream that he returned home and found Big Pussy cooking in his kitchen. Paulie asked, "When my time comes, tell me?"... Tony asked Hesh for a bridge loan of 200K, to cover the money he donked off betting NFL... Phil Leotardo had a meal with new boss Doc Santoro. When Doc ate some of Leotardo's sausages, he decided to whack him. Doc Santoro got shot in the eye in front of a massage parlor... Paulie sent Tony and Carmela a pricey espresso maker. Tony walked into the office and overheard Paulie running his mouth and told Chris old stories about fading the Jets during his hottest streak as a gambler... The episode ended with a faded Junior sitting outside barely awake and petting a cat. Shades of both <i>Godfather</i> flicks (Vito petting a cat in beginning of first movie and Michael Corleone sitting in chair at end of second one).<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 16: Chasing It</b>... Opening scene: the crew stood around the roulette table at Borgata and watched Tony donk off chips. Tony's losing streak continued with another bad weekend betting the NFL. Tony trashed his office... Tony visited Hesh, who complained about his health issues. and Hesh wondered when Tony was going to pay him back the 200K he loaned him. Tony offered to pay the vig at 1.5 points... Tony spoke to Dr. Melfi about his losing streak. She asked him why he gambled and why he missed his therapy sessions... Hesh stopped by to collect his weekly vig, and Tony was a dick about it. Hesh mentioned to his son-in-law that it would easier if Tony whacked him than paying him back. "Never lend friends money," advised Hesh... Tony went on a temporary rush winning 18K at blackjack in AC, but he donked it all off on a horse named Meadow Gold that woulda paid out 2/1 odds. Alas, Meadow Gold finished in second by a "cunt hair"... Carmela sold her spec house to her cousin Brian. She made 600K on the sale. Desperate Tony suggested she bet on the Jets because he got a tip that the Chargers QB had an injury that Vegas didn't know about it. She refused to give him any cash to gamble because it was "her money." The Jets won big, but Tony only bet 10K because Carmela wouldn't bankroll him. He flipped out on her... Bobby and Carlo suggested that Tony stiff Hesh for the 200K, but Tony refused to do that.... Vito Johnnycake's kid, Lil Vito, turned into a Goth kid, who trashed a cemetery and killed neighborhood cats. Vito's wife asked Tony if he could give her 100K to move to Maine. Silvio suggested a pet dog would be better (and cheaper). Tony thought Phil Leotardo should pay the 100K since he whacked Vito and he was family with Vito's wife... Nancy Sinatra performed at Phil Leotardo's party to celebrate him becoming the boss of Lupertazzi family. Tony told Leotardo about Lil Vito's problems, who agreed to talk to him. Both Tony and Leotardo chatted with Lil Vito, but he wouldn't give up his Goth ways. Leotardo said he looked like a "Puerto Rican whore"... Lil Vito got made fun of in gym class, so he took a shit in the shower and stepped in it... Tony took up a collection and got 100K from his crew, but instead of paying off Vito's wife, Tony chased his gambling losses by betting the 100K on the Eagles. Alas, Tony donked it all off and told her he couldn't give her the funds to move. Instead he paid for a boot camp in Idaho which only cost 18K... AJ popped the question to Blanca. She initially said yes, but then she gave the ring back and broke up with AJ... Tony apologized to Carmela for his weird behavior because he was chasing his gambling losses... Hesh's girlfriend died unexpectedly and Tony brought him the rest of the money he owed.<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 17: Walk Like A Man</b>... Tony was singing Pink Floyd when he found heart-sick AJ awake early watching <i>Tom and Jerry </i>cartoons. AJ visited Blanca at work, but got jealous because she moved on. When AJ saw a couple cuddling at the pizza shop, he quit on the spot. Meadow told her parents that she was worried about his suicidal tendencies...Tony dropped a dime on two Muslims, former associates of Chris, who were spotted in front of a mosque. Tony asked Special Agent Harris if he got a "get out of jail free card" but he was told he'd only get a special note in his permanent file that might sway a judge during his inevitable sentencing... Paulie busted Chris' balls because he toasted to him without liquor in his glass. Chris didn't think it was funny... Chris' father-in-law Al Lombardi owned a hardware store and sold boosted power tools via Paulie's deal with Beansie's Cubans. Off-duty cops were their biggest customer. Al Lombardi nearly shot Lil Paulie when he caught him boosting tools for the pipe fitters union. Chris went apeshit, but Tony dismissed him... Chris hosted a huge housewarming party with his wife. Tony gave him guff for drinking non-alcoholic beer. Tony and Chris butted heads over. Tony thought "alcoholism is a disease" was bullshit, but Chris felt otherwise. He told Tony that his father was a low level junkie... At AA, Chris complained about his growing rift with Tony... Patsy Parisi gave Tony a huge-ass envelope because his son Jason booked NFL bets on Rutgers' campus. Patsy bragged about his tech-savvy bookie son, who just built his mother a website. Tony was jealous because his spoiled offspring AJ was an inept, heartbroken, emo college dropout.... Tony told Melfi that his therapy was "a jerkoff" and he wanted to stop seeing her, but he's worried that AJ was considering suicide. "My rotten putrid jeans have infected my kid's soul"... Tony tried to watch a John Wayne movie with AJ. Tony told him he should go hang out at his friend's Jason party at the Bing... AJ went to a therapist. He thought she ended the relationship because his family was wealthy. He admitted to some suicidal thoughts and his new shrink prescribed him happy pills.... AJ went to Jason's party at the strip club. Jason invited him to join his campus bookie biz, but AJ initially declined... CATTY CARMELA: She was pissed that Tony allowed AJ to drink at his strip club. Tony said it was cool because he got AJ to finally leave the house and some boobies in his face did him good. Besides, hanging with frat bros might entice him to go back to school... AJ hung out at Jason Parisi's frat house. They ran into a degen student who owed them money. Jason used AJ to scare the broke dick and said he was Tony Soprano's son, but the broke dick never paid up. They tracked him down at a party. AJ helped them snatch the kid and they drove out to the woods. AJ held down the mook while the frat bros poured acid on the mook's bare feet. AJ kinda liked being the muscle... At a card game, Chris jumped Lil Paulie and chucked him through a two-story window. Tony told Chris he had to pay for Lil Paulie's hospital bills. Paulie retaliated by doing donuts on Chris' front lawn. Tony smoothed out their drama. Chris apologized to Paulie but he started drinking again. He got shitfaced and stumbled over to Joe Hollywood's house, who was in the middle of writing a <i>Law and Order</i> script. Joe Hollywood was pissed that Chris fell off the wagon and told him to call his wife and go to an AA meeting. Chris rambled on about the mafia life and he threatened to bring down the entire empire including Castle Soprano by dropping a dime on everyone. He mentioned that the crew whacked Adriana and Ralphie, but Joe Hollywood told him he shouldn't say anything. When Chris realized he said too much, he put a bullet in the writer's head... Tony heard a car tearing up the driveway at Castle Soprano and grabbed his shotgun. He was happy it was only AJ.They went inside to find Meadow and Carmela having a late-night meal. Tony and AJ joined them. The episode ended with a brief moment of happiness and togetherness at Castle Soprano.<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 18: Kennedy and Heidi</b>... During a meeting with Statue of Liberty in background, Phil Leotardo wanted a 25% cut of Tony's asbestos dumping biz. While jamming out to Pink Floyd in the car, Chris suggested Tony should accept the deal because life was too short and they had to dump it somewhere. "Each day is a gift,"remarked Tony. Chris almost crashed into two girls, Heidi and Kennedy, but drove off the road. Chris admitted he'd fail a post-accident drug test. Tony held his nose and he suffocated Chris death. Murder or mercy killing? At the ER, a nurse informed Tony that Chris died in the crash. Tony called Carmela from the hospital and told her the bad news... The crew visited Tony at Castle Soprano. Tony suggested he was speeding, not wearing his seatbelt, and back on the sauce... The next morning, Tony went downstairs and asked Meadow to bring him scotch. Paulie felt guilty over their petty arguments over money... The hospital informed the family that Chris had cocaine in his system. More bad news when Paulie mother/aunt Nucci passed away... TONY'S DREAM: During a therapy session, Tony told Dr. Melfi that he felt relief that Chris died because he was no longer worried about junkie ratting him out. He said that he killed other relatives and friends before and then he woke up... Tony went to get coffee and saw a Cleaver mug. He walked outside and threw it in the woods. Tony had a real session with Dr. Melfi and mentioned Chris' harsh portrayal of him in <i>Cleaver</i>. Tony spewed lots of cliches and didn't real say anything coherent aside from the fact he didn't feel sorrow or grief... Jamba Juice junkie lady showed up at Chris' wake, which was well attended by the crew. Tony was visibly irked by everyone's public display of grief. The two Jasons (college bookies) showed up to pay their respects to AJ and told him to stay strong... Even in death, Chris upped Paulie. Mostly everyone attended Chris' service compared to the low turnout at Paulie's mother/aunt Nucci's service. Carmela and Tony showed up, which pleased Paulie... In therapy, AJ told his therapist that he enrolled in a few classes and wasn't thinking about Blanca as much... AJ hung out at Rutgers with Jason Parisi. They saw the degen mook, who told a female student that car battery burned through his shoe and he had two toes amputated... AJ was shocked when his friends beatdown an exchange student from Somalia and called him the N-word. AJ refused to participate, but he didn't stop them. The incident sent him spiraling back into a deep depression. He angrily ranted to his shrink that "everything is so fucked up"... Chris's wife and mother stopped by Castle Soprano. She breastfed in the living room, which irked Tony. He decided to rage solo in Vegas. The VIP host at Caesar's sent him a plane. While in Vegas, Tony hung out with a local stripper named Soyna, who knew Chris and was saddened by news of his deadly car crash. She said that it was good he left something behind, his daughter. Tony got a flurry of calls pertaining to the asbestos disposal including Phil
Leotardo was a dick when offering condolences over Chris' death then
hung up on Tony... Tony's sanitation crew dumped the asbestos in the marshes of the meadowlands... Tony and Sonya went on a classic Vegas bender. They also went down the rabbit hole after eating a couple of peyote buttons. Tony puked his guts out and then tripped out on the lighting fixture. While tripping balls, Tony and Sonya wandered through the casino admiring all the pretty lights and other sparkly things like a devil on a slot machine. Tony walked into the pit and told Sonya that roulette had the same principles as the solar system. He went on a sick, sick rush at the roulette table betting the ages of his kids. His horrendous losing streak final came to an end. Chris was his jinx, he deduced. His death ended his bad streak. "He's dead," said Tony. He rolled around the casino floor during an uncontrollable laughing fit... Tony and Sonya drove up to Red Rock Canyon to watch the sun rise. Tony finished up the tail end of his trip and slowly returned to Earth's atmosphere. During a moment of clarity, he finally figured it out, "I get it!" he exclaimed while looking directly into the sun. I've been there man. It's a glorious feeling when you reach that impasse.<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 19: The Second Coming</b>... Pile of asbestos rotting away in the meadowlands was intercut with a depressed AJ rolling around in bed.. Bobby checked in on the asbestos removal project but Stefano the subcontractor was so cheap the cleaning crew did not wear any protective gear... AJ asked his shrink why the happy pills weren't working. His class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was depressing. The shrink suggested he write a short story about the Somalian kid to try to make sense of his feelings. AJ loathed his parents materialism... Tony returned from Vegas and told the crew he did peyote which he described as "nutty shit" and failed to properly describe his transcendental experience. Paulie said he got dosed once at the Copa in 1968 and it looked like Uncle Junior "had laser beams shooting out of his eyes"... Chris' wife and daughter ate dinner at Castle Soprano. Super-emo AJ spouted off environmental hippie bullshit about the beef industry... In English class, AJ studied the W. B. Yeats poem <i>The Second Coming</i>... FBI Special Agent Harris stopped by Satriale's to show Tony pictures of the two Muslims he ratted out... During a meeting in Brooklyn, Tony counter offered 15% of the asbestos biz, but Phil Leotardo wouldn't budge on 25%. Tony reminded him about their tender moment in the hospital when Leotardo had a heart attack, but Leotardo made fun of him when he asked for a compromise... Tony retaliated. Silvio pulled some no-show jobs from Leotardo's crew. They beatdown the foreman and robbed him... Meadow thought she caught AJ watching porn, but he was watching depressing news on Al Jazeera's website. She tried to chat with AJ, but he was nothing but a Debbie Downer. She reminded him that the son was always more important than a daughter in an Italian family... The pool was covered for the winter, but AJ tried to commit suicide by tying a cinderblock around his feet and wrapping a plastic bag over his head. It didn't work, or he chickened out. He actually botched the suicide attempt and got the bag off his head, but got stuck and couldn't get out of the pool because the cinder block anchored him down. Tony dove into the pool and pulled him and the cinder block out. "What's wrong with you!" screamed Tony before he held a sobbing AJ... AJ's shrink checked him into the psych ward at the hospital. Carmela and Meadow sobbed as they wheeled him away... The crew was awkwardly silent when Tony showed up at work. Tony told everyone to talk about it instead of avoiding it. He asked, "What did I do wrong?" The rest of the crew shared their own difficult experiences raising kids in the wise guy world... Carmela and Tony had a fight the next morning. She and reminded him that AJ didn't inherit the craziness from her side of the family, whereas the Soprano Curse affected both his parents, Uncle Junior, and the great-great-grandfather who drove the donkey cart off the cliff. She said it was bullshit that he constantly played the "depression card." She threw her engraved watch at Tony... During a session with Dr. Melfi, she said the botched suicide was a cry for help. Tony blamed Carmela for coddling AJ... Coco from Leotardo's crew intimidated and insulted Meadow while she was on a secret date in Little Italy. She told Tony about how he made lewd remarks and wanted to tuck her in at night. She finally revealed that she was dating Patrick Parisi, Patsy's oldest son. Plus, she revealed med school was too hard and that law school was a bigger passion... Dr. Melfi went to her shrink who told her that talk therapy did not work with sociopaths, in fact they used therapists to hone their con man skills... Tony paid Coco a visit in NYC and beat the piss out of him and knocked out all his teeth. One of them was still lodged in his cuff and he didn't notice it until AJ's group therapy session... In the session, Tony called him a "moma's boy" and AJ revealed a pearl of wisdom from Moma Soprano, "Life is a big nothing" and that "your friends and family let you down"... Lil Carmine paid a visit to Tony and suggested they have a sitdown with Phil Leotardo. When they went to Brooklyn, Leotardo refused to meet with them and instead told them to fuck off from a darkened upstairs window... In a session with Melfi, Tony revealed he took peyote and he experienced there's something larger than life but he couldn't explain what it was. Plus, he saw all mothers are bus drivers, they are the vehicle that gets us there and drop us off, but we keep trying to get on the bus. Melfi was surprised and thought it was highly insightful... Tony visited AJ with a pizza, but they wouldn't let him bring in any outside food.<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 20: Blue Comet</b>... The cold open: Silvio strangled Burt Gervasi at his home because he was going to jump ship to the Brooklyn family... AJ's old friend Rhiannon showed up at the psych ward, which cost over $2K per day. AJ finally returned home to Castle Soprano but he loafed on the couch and watched an Iraq war documentary... Phil Leotardo, against the advice of his consigliere, wanted to wipe out the entire DiMeo family including Tony because the "Sopranos are nothing more than a glorified crew." He gave the assassination order to his top henchman Butchie, who in turn set forth a coordinated hit on Northern Jersey's Top 3 inside of 24 hours: Tony, Silvio, and Bobby Bacala... Special Agent Harris stopped by Satriale's and suggested it's "the end of times" and we're all just waiting for the rapture. He tipped off Tony that Brooklyn was planning on taking them out.... Tony ate dinner with Silvio and Bobby Bacala, and everyone agreed that Phil Loetardo had to go before he got to them. Tony and Silvio pantomimed <i>Raging Bull</i>. Tony told Silvio to import a hit crew from Italy. When they brought Paulie in on the plan, Paulie voiced concern because he barely survived the big war in the 1970s... Dr. Melfi's shrink Elliot told their snooty social circle that Tony Soprano was Mefli's patient. During their next session, Tony asked how much she earned a year. Tony said that Meadow decided to not become a pediatrician and opted for criminal law and civil rights instead. Tony and Mefi butted heads and he suggested she sounded like his wife, while she suggested he needed to see a new therapist. After 7 years, she finally dumped him... At Vesuvio, Artie Bucco introduced Tony to the NJ Jets head coach (Mangini)... The Italian hit crew planned to take out Phil Leotardo at his side piece's house. They shot an old man with white hair (father of the side piece and not Leotardo) and they also killed the side piece. The Italian hitman noticed they spoke Ukrainian, but they incorrectly informed the Jersey crew that Leotardo was dunzo... Silvio and Paulie realized the crucial mistake when they saw the shooting mentioned in NY Post and the Italians whacked the wrong guy.... Silvio told Tony about the misfire, but they missed their chance because Leotardo had gone into hiding... Janice stopped by Castle Soprano to inform Tony that Junior ran out of cash and they had to move him to a state mental facility unless Tony helped out. He told her to fuck off and made an <i>Exile on Main Street</i> crack about Janice blowing roadies from the Stones... Bobby stopped by a train store to buy a vintage Blue Comet train set. Two guys whacked him and he collapsed on the train display... Silvio and Patsy Parisi were jumped outside Bada Bing by Leotardo's crew. During the ensuing firefight, Silvio got clipped while Parisi safely got away... Silvio did not die, but he was in a coma in the hospital and the outlook was grim... Tony informed Carmela that she had to evacuate Castle Soprano immediately as a precaution. Tony told AJ that Uncle Bobby was killed and they had to leave the kingdom until things settled down. He asked AJ to not be a pain in the ass, but AJ said he was even more depressed. Tony snapped, dragged him out of bed by his balls and told him to pack. Tony tossed AJ around his room and knocked over a bunch of his old toys... Paulie showed up at Castle Soprano to help Tony pack food and weapons. The remaining crew holed up together at a safe house. Tony unwrapped a weapon, an AR-10, which was a birthday gift from Bobby. Tony had a flashback to the lakehouse with Bobby, who said "you'll probably won't hear it when it happens."<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 21: Made in America</b>... The series finale...Tony looked like he was in a coffin, but he woke up at the safe house. A stray orange/white cat randomly showed up at the house. It was the ghost of Adriana who wore a lot of animal prints... Tony and Paulie waited at the airport for Special Agent Harris. He asked him if he knew where Phil Leotardo was holed up, but no dice... Tony visited where Carmela was holed up down the shore. Tony told AJ that they had to go to Bobby's funeral, but AJ was worried he'd get whacked. Tony said they'd be safe because the FBI had everyone under surveillence at mob funerals... The post-funeral meal was hosted at Vesuvio. AJ was all Debbie Downer and chastised everyone for discussing the Oscars when the world was going to shit. AJ quoted Yeats poem, "what rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem." He also said that America was bullshit because everyone comes to America to work hard to buy bling and shit they don't need... Tony visited Janice, who was in mourning and trying to figure out what
to do with Bobby's two kids, who don't want to live with her... AJ and Rhiannon listened to Bob Dylan's <i>It's Alright Ma.</i> They hooked up in the front seat, but his SUV caught on fire because he was parked on a pile of leaves... Tony flipped out on AJ. He said it was good because he could take the bus to help end their dependence on foreign oil... Phil Leotardo called Butchie's cell phone to tell him he botched the job and shoulda whacked Tony first. Butchie suggested they have a sitdown with Tony, but Leotardo hung up on him. He started the short call in Little Italy and by the time he walked to the end of the street, he was surrounded by Chinese people in Chinatown... Special Agent Harris tipped off Tony that Phil Leotardo made calls from a gas station in Oyster Bay... Tony called Lil Carmine to arrange a sitdown with some of Leotardo's crew. Tony and Butchie reached a deal in which Brooklyn would back off and look the other way when Tony clipped Leotardo. In addition, they'd pay Janice money for whacking Bobby.... With the big dogs called off, Tony and the crew returned from hiding out. The crew brought the stray cat to Satriale's, but Paulie wanted it gone. All day long the orange cat stared at a portrait of Chris... Paulie went to the Bada Bing to meet Carlo, but he was a no show... Tony gave Paulie a huge promotion as the new head of the Aprile crew, but he had to think about it, which irked Tony... Lil Paulie and Vinny Delpino staked out gas stations near Oyster Bay looking for Leotardo... Janice visited Junior at the looney bin, but he was more senile than ever... AJ saw a new therapist. He said he felt cleansed after his SUV blew up... Meadow's old friend Hunter stopped by Castle Soprano. She was in her second year at med school... Tony and Carmela invited Patsy Parisi and his wife (who can't tell jokes) to dinner at Castle Soprano... Tony saw AJ jogging and started singing the Rocky theme song. AJ mentioned his intentions to join the Army (helicopter pilot training)... Tony told AJ's new therapist about AJ's sudden interest in the army. Tony was conflicted because the military could finally discipline him, but there was a war going on and he didn't want to see him get killed in Iraq... Tony ate sushi with Meadow and he asked her why AJ went off the rails and why she wanted to be a lawyer. "The state can crush the individual," said Meadow. She hated seeing how the Man treated Italian-Americans... Tony's crew finally found Phil Leotardo, who got whacked with his grandkids in the backseat. His wife locked the keys in the car and the SUV accidentally drove over his head... Special Agent Harris was more excited than he shoulda been when he got word about Leotardo's assassination... Carmela and Tony shot down AJ's plan to go into the CIA after his stint in the army. AJ said Rhiannon didn't want him to go either. Tony offered AJ a job as a development executive on Lil Carmine's new film project. If he did a good job, then Tony would invest in a club for AJ... Tony ate a meal with his attorney Mink, and they think Carlo became an informant because his son was arrested for slinging E. Tony's attorney said an indictment was imminent... Tony visited Silvio in the hospital, but he was still in a coma... Tony and Paulie sat in front of Satriale's. Paulie turned down the promotion to run the Aprile crew because the job was jinxed. Everyone who held the position ended up dead. Paulie told Tony about the vision of the Virgin Mary at the Bad Bing. When Tony said he'd give the job to Patsy Parisi, Paulie finally accepted the job. The orange cat sat down in front of their table... AJ got a new BMW and picked up Rhiannon at school. His depressed seemed to magically disappear and he was eating junk food and watching bad TV... Tony raked his leaves and stared up at the trees.... Tony visited Junior at the looney bin. He told Junior that if he ever remembers where he stashed his hidden cash, that the entire proceeds would go to take care of Bobby Bacala's kids. Tony told demented Junior that he used to run all of New Jersey with Johnny Boy Soprano, but he was unresponsive. Tony walked out... Carmela arranged dinner at Holsten's... Tony arrived first. He sat down and looked up at the door whenever it opened and he heard the bell. He browsed the jukebox and put on Journey's <i>Don't Stop Believing</i>. Carmela, wearing a red jacket, sat down in the booth across from him. Guy in a Members Only jacket (looked like a bloated Johnny Boy Soprano) walked inside in front of AJ. He looked like Geno and sat at the counter. He kept clocking Tony. AJ sat next to Carmela and said to Tony they should "remember the good times," advice he once dispatched. Tony ordered onion rings for the table. There was an empty spot next to him, where Meadow was going to sit but she was late because she had problems parallel parking but got it on the third attempt. Members Only guy walked into the bathroom and two black guys looked at the dessert display. Meadow was about to walk inside Holsten's. The bell rang. Fade to black. No music, nothing but blackness. Ten seconds of dead air before the credits rolled. Tony got whacked.<br />
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<b>Epilogue</b>: Final Episode... Tony got whacked. Like Bobby Bacala said "You'd never hear it coming." Very similar to the scene when Phil Leotardo got whacked at the gas station and the time when Silvio never saw Gerry's murder coming until the blood splattered on him and it was too late. Even in Goodfellas, Henry Hill noted that he knew he was getting arrested by cops because they were screaming at him. If it was a mob hit, he never woulda heard it.... There's also a heavy 9/11 theme throughout the episode. Never saw it coming.<br />
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Season 6 is dunzo. Thanks for wasting your time with me. Here are other binge-recaps from <i>The Sopranos</i>:<br />
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<a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">Season 1</a><br />
<a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2</a> <br />
<a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-3.html" target="_blank">Season 3</a> <br />
<a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-4.html" target="_blank">Season 4</a> <br />
<a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-5.html">Season 5</a><br />
<a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-6-ep-1.html">Season 6, Part 1</a><br />
<a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-6-part-2.html">Season 6, Part 2</a>Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-81178801186095346782015-03-18T04:20:00.000-04:002024-02-16T13:32:40.245-05:00Binge Watching: Sopranos, Season 6, Ep. 1: Members Only<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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I re-watched <i>The Sopranos</i> over the last few weeks... grand total of 86 episodes spread out over six seasons. I posted season-by-season recaps... <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">Season 1</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-3.html" target="_blank">Season 3</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-4.html" target="_blank">Season 4</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-5.html" target="_blank">Season 5</a>. <br />
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The initial recap from season one started out as brief rapid-fire observations, but as I got deeper and deeper into the series, the recaps for each episode grew longer and longer.<br />
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The final season of <i>The Sopranos</i> consisted of 21 episodes (versus the standard 13), which HBO spread out over two years to bilk the conclusion of the series. The first batch included 12 episodes and the second batch had the final 9 episodes.<br />
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I considered splitting up the final season into two recaps covering Season 6A and 6B. Alas, the final season was so dense and intricate that my long-winded, egomaniac self could not squeeze everything into two blog posts. Instead, I decided to spread out the final season into 21 individual posts.<br />
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Here are my half-baked thoughts on the first episode of the final season of <i>The Sopranos</i>...<br />
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<b>S6, Episode 1: Members Only</b>... The final season commenced with a William S. Burroughs narration about Egyptian mythology's seven souls that depart the body before death. Burroughs' spooky, haunting voice hung heavy over a montage of characters: Bobby Bacala played with toy trains, Janice had a baby, Vito Johnnycakes dropped a ton of weight, Geno and his wife found out great news, Meadow gave Finn a sultry dance, FBI snitch Ray Curto exercised, long-haired AJ dicked around in college, Adriana visited Carmela in a dream, and Uncle Junior made Tony dig for buried loot in his backyard... Junior, supposedly in the late 1970s, buried cash in his backyard, but he could not remember where he stashed it... Carmela told Tony about her nightmare with Adriana showing up at her spec house. Carmela pressed Tony if he knew where Adriana ran away... Carmela's spec house was in limbo because she and her father were shaken down by the building inspectors... Phil Leotardo, the new acting boss of the Lupertazzi family, visited Johnny Sack in prison. Sack griped about cash flow issues after the Feds froze his bank accounts. Leotardo was still bitter at Tony (Tony Bwhacked his brother), but he buried the hatchet for business purposes and to keep things running smoothly between NJ and Brooklyn... Geno inherited $2 million from his aunt and he wanted out of the mob life. He asked Tony's permission if he could retire to Florida. Tony reminded him that a Made Man couldn't walk away from his obligation, but he'd consider his request. Geno tried to bribe Tony with pricey watches and a cut of his inheritance... The crew gave Geno shit for wearing a Members Only jacket, which went out of style 20 year earlier... Hesh and his son-in-law, Eli the shylock, got jumped in Brooklyn in front of a Kosher Chinese. The Hairdo's mooks. beat down Eli, who got hit by a cab while trying to get away. The Hairdo (from Phil Leotardo's crew) thought Eli was moving in on his turf. Phil made the Hairdo apologize, plus he had to pay Eli $50,000 for his pain and suffering... Chris finally got bumped up to Capo.... FBI Special Agent Harris visited Tony at Satriale's. He got transferred to terrorism... Before he croaked, Ray Curto (former capo turned rat informant) provided tapes to Adriana's former FBI contact... Tony and Carmela fell in love with a new sushi joint, which attributed to his weight gain. Tony gifted Carmela a Porsche SUV... Tony dispatched fatherly wisdom to AJ: "Your friends are gonna let you down. Your family is the only ones you can depend on"... Chris dispatched Geno to Boston to whack a broke dick who owed them money. When Geno returned, Silvio informed Geno that his retirement request was denied... Geno's bitchy wife was super angry they couldn't move to Florida. She asked why he couldn't whack Tony. Meanwhile, their son was shooting smack again... We found out that Geno was also a rat! He was a low-level FBI informant, but he still had a shred of loyalty and wouldn't rat out Tony. Instead, Geno hung himself in his garage after looking through family photos... Tony's sister Barb had an emergency and she couldn't watch Uncle Junior, who needed round the clock supervision. Janice was also busy (looking for preschools for her daughter), so Tony picked up the slack. Junior's mental state deteriorated. He was so paranoid that he wouldn't answer his phone. He also thought "Little Pussy" was trying to whack him. When Tony was in Junior's kitchen cooking pasta for them, Junior thought Little Pussy broke into his house so he pulled out a gun and went into the kitchen with guns blazing. Demented Junior shot Tony, who he mistook for Lil Pussy. Junior stashed the gun and hid in the upstairs closet. Tony lost a lot of blood but somehow crawled to the phone and dialed 911.<br />
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All of Season 6 recaps can be found searching through the Season 6 tag.<br />
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Previous recaps: <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">Season 1</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-3.html" target="_blank">Season 3</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-4.html" target="_blank">Season 4</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-5.html" target="_blank">Season 5</a>. Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-29076901823749428612015-03-17T16:20:00.000-04:002015-03-18T22:05:31.406-04:00Binge Watching: Sopranos, Season 5<i>Denver, CO</i><br />
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Deep diving and binge-watching <i>The Sopranos</i> over the last couple weeks. My thoughts on previous seasons: <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">Season 1</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-3.html" target="_blank">Season 3</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-4.html" target="_blank">Season 4</a>.<br />
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It's finally time for the fifth season of <i>The Sopranos</i> and my half-baked thoughts...<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 1: Two Tonys</b>... Meadow drove over the Star-Ledger in the driveway. Tony was kicked out of Castle Soprano, so he wasn't there to pick up the paper, which is how the first episode of each new season began... Sunday dinner, hosted by Janice, recently married Bobby Bacala. Tony and Bobby watched the news (cameo by Matthew Weiner as a mob expert), which aired a segment on the release of several mobsters who went to jail in the 1980s. The "Class of 2004" included Tony's cousin Tony B, Angelo (Carmine's consigliere), Feech LaManna, and Phil Leotardo... Feech stopped by Junior's house and asked if he could return as a bookie. Feech told a story about picking a fight with the biggest motherfucker on his first day in jail... Chris pissed off that he always paid for the crew's dinner. Tony reminded him picking up the tab was tradition and sign of respect... AJ nearly shit himself when he saw a black bear in the backyard. He cried out to his mommy, who scared off the bear with pots and pans. Wildlife cops suggested the bear was attracted to Tony's duck feed. You don't need a degree in English lit to know the bear represented Tony, a menacing predator lurking in the suburbs... Tony watched the <i>Prince of Tides</i> and sent Dr. Melfi flowers (and box of Tide) with a signed card: "Prince of Tide." Tony wore a nice suit in order to ask out Dr. Melfi. Tony said there were two Tony Sopranos: the ruthless mobster and a sensitive caring guy. He wanted to show her the other Tony. Although they kissed, Melfi shot him down... Chris and Paulie told the infamous Russian pine barrens story, which quickly escalated into a near altercation when they blamed each other for the mess... The black bear returned. Tony dispatched Lil Paulie and Vinny Delpino for an all-night bear watch. Vinny asked Carmela for the big guns and she opened up a hollow column with the weapons cache... The crew partied in Atlantic City and Chris had to pick up the tab of $1,184. He left $1,200 and the waiter whined about the paltry $16 tip. Chris threw a brick at the waiter's head and he went into a seizure, so Paulie and Chris shot him (and took the cash too). Later on, Paulie called Chris to bury the hatchet and offered to split the tab... Carmine was eating egg salad when he had a stroke during lunch at the golf course. Eggs = death in <i>Sopranos</i> vs. oranges for <i>The Godfather</i>.... Johnny Sack was still salty that Tony didn't whack Carmine like he promised... Tony tried to woo Dr. Melfi's with two tickets to Bermuda. She told him the truth why they couldn't date: he was a liar and prone to violence. Tony called her a fucking cunt and stormed out... Tony took over on bear watch at Castle Soprano with an AK-47 in one hand and a cigar in his mouth.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 2: Rat Pack</b>... On a dark, rainy night, Tony met Jack Massarone at a diner. Jack gifted Tony a painting of the Rat Pack. Turned out that Jack wore a bug for the FBI. Capo Ray Curto was also a rat, who helped translate wire transcripts.... FBI planted a surveillance camera on Crazy Horse parking lot. Adriana nearly suffocated from in existentialist angst over her being an FBI snitch. Her FBI contact reminded her that she's with the "good guys" now... Carmine passed away. Various crews paid their respects, but Little Carmine felt disrespected that wiseguys offered condolences to Johnny Sack (the assumed successor as head of one of the five families). At the funeral, Junior mentioned that Carmine invented point shaving and alluded to his involvement in a real-life point shaving scandal with CCNY in the early 1950s... Tony visited his cousin Tony B (Steve Buscemi) fresh out of prison. Tony hosted a surprise party where Tony B wore a <i>Miami Vice</i> suit with rolled up sleeves. Artie Bucco asked "Where's Tubbs?" Tony B felt out of place but zinged everyone with one-liners, using comedy to mask his uneasiness.Tony B was bummed out that his twin sons and daughter (goth girl who ran away) did not show up at his party... Tony B seemed bitter that Tony was the boss and cracked fat jokes. Tony B expressed his interest in becoming a licensed massage therapist and didn't want to get back into the mob game. Tony got Tony B a straight job delivering linens... Lil Paulie's girlfriend Tina Francesa told Adriana about stealing money from work, when she wasn't hitting on Chris. Chris didn't like hanging out in clubs as a sober guy... Carmela hosted a film club in Tony's movie room. They watched <i>Citizen Kane</i> on VHS tape. They all got silent when they saw the FBI logo flashed on screen before the film began. They barely discussed<i> Kane</i> for a few seconds before the went into full-blown mob wife gossip... Tony B stopped by Satriale's and made fun of everyone (alluded to Paulie looking like Grandpa Munster). They saw Tony B's massage chair and asked for massages. Tony reminded Tony B that he was the boss and couldn't be made fun of in front of the crew.... Paulie referred to Sun Tzu as "Sun Tizzu"... Patsy Parisi told Tony that someone followed them to his meeting with Jack Massarone. Tony met with him again, but didn't feel a wire. He couldn't tell if he flipped or not... At the Mob Wives Film Club, Rosalie Aprile said Big Pussy's wife was shunned from their social circle after he became a rat. She compared him to Judas. Adriana broke down and almost revealed that she was a snitch. She tried to leave, but tripped in the driveway... Tony threw the Rat Pack painting off a bridge. Quick cut to FBI crime scene team snapping photos of Jack Massarone's corpse in the back of a trunk... FBI pressured Adriana for intel, so she ratted out Tina Francesca's embezzlement scam.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 3: Where's Johnny</b>... BEATDOWN OF THE WEEK: Feech smacked around Sal the landscaper and grabbed him by the balls because he was his nephew's competition... Junior grew so demented that he thought <i>Curb Your Enthusiasm</i> was a reality show about himself (Larry David) and Bobby Bacala (Jeff Garlin)... Paulie's Aunt Mary told Paulie that Feech beat up her gardener. Paulie retaliated by knocking his nephew out of a tree. Paulie also stole his the lawnmower... Tony lived alone in his mother's house, but offered Artie Bucco one of the empty rooms... Paulie listened to a book-on-tape version of Sun Tzu's <i>Art of War</i>... Phil Leotardo fake-whacked Lorraine Calluzzo because she was kicking up cash to Lil Carmine instead of Johnny Sack. He put a phone book over her chest and said it would muzzle the sound. She lived because the bullet only penetrated as far as the Rs... Tony, Junior, Angelo (Carmine's consigliere), and Lorraine had a sitdown. Since the Lupertazzi family never named a successor when Carmine died, Tony suggested a triumvirate leadership between Lil Carmine, Johnny Sack, and Lorraine... Sack and Tony had a meeting in front of Shea stadium. Tony floated his power sharing concept and Sack didn't want to hear it... At a meeting in NYC, Chris spoke out of turn and Johnny Sack flipped out. Tony told Chris to chill out because the Jersey crew could take advantage from in-fighting between Lil Carmine and Johnny Sack... Uncle Junior kept busting Tony's balls at Sunday dinner about failing to be "varsity material." Tony lost his shit and stormed out... Junior wandered off and drove his car to an old joint in Newark where he stashed vending machines with Tony's father. Toothless homeless lady offered to give Junior a half-n-half in the backseat of his car... Junior tried to hide from cops, who mistook him for a homeless guy even though he said his name was Currato Soprano. They didn't believe him but drove him home and made Janice show them his ID... FBI tried to figure out the exact lineage of the Sopranos. Adriana tried to explain that Chris was not Tony's nephew, but cousins via marriage (Carmela was cousins with Dickie Moltisanti)... Tony blew up at Janice and called her out for leaving home at 18 to drop acid and blow roadies, which left 16-year old Tony stuck at home with bat-shit crazy Moma Soprano... Tony mediated the landscaping dispute between Paulie and Feech. Told them to split the neighborhood and to cut the lawns of the local wiseguys like Castle Soprano and Johnny Sack... At the golf course, Tony ran into a neurologist who treated Junior. Doc explained that Junior's mini-strokes caused irritability and short-term memory loss. Tony stopped by to chat with Junior, who alternated between coherent thoughts on the biz and meaningless babble.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 4: All Happy Families</b>... The title was from Dostoevsky's <i>Anna Karenina</i>. Tony's own family and crew were being torn apart by mutiny... Tony B took his twins boys swimming at Castle Soprano. Supposedly, Tony smuggled out of prison Tony B's sperm so his wife could get pregnant... Phil Leotardo dispatched Joey Peeps to whack Lorraine and her fuckbuddy when they refused to kick down cash to Johnny Sack... Chris said it was a declaration of war by Johnny Sack, yet Tony advised his crew to not intervene in the Brooklyn mess... Feech LaManna regaled stories from the old days (as Tony Pinto's driver), including the time Jackie Aprile and Tony were young punks who knocked off his high-stakes poker game. Feech asked Tony if he could have a piece of the Big Game again, even though it was run by Junior's crew. Tony gave Feech a 20% cut. Silvio thought it was a bad idea because Old Man Feech was a douchey egomaniac... The Big Game included Lawrence Taylor and Bernie Brillstein. Feech staked Tony B in the game... AJ wanted to go to college in Arizona, but he had shitty college boards (930 total) and bad grades. He tried to angleshoot an ADD diagnosis so he could have unlimited time to take his SATs... Tony bought AJ a new yellow SUV. Tony said the SUV would stay in the garage until AJ improved his grades to a C-average... Carmela told Tony he never really had legit friends, just flunkies and mooks who laughed at his jokes out of fear... At another Big Game session with David Lee Roth, Tony grew jealous that Feech made everyone laugh while his crew only laughed out of fear... AJ went on a bender in NYC after a Mudvayne concert. They partied in a hotel and made a makeshift bong using a 2-liter bottle and an ice bucket. His friends Krazy-glued his face to the carpet and shaved his eyebrows. Carmela overreacted when he finally came home. Tony noticed AJ didn't have eyebrows and thought he was doing "poppers and weird (gay) sex"... CATTY CARMELA: Carmela was pissed that she was pegged the bad cop, while Tony was the good cop... Carmela told AJ to move in with Tony (and Artie Bucco)... Feech's crew boosted luxury cars at a Jewish wedding and tied up the valets. The prick doctor asked Tony to find one of the cars. Tony reamed Feech for boosting cars without his consent (plus selling them to Johnny Sack)... Tony told Silvio he was worried Feech would turn into another Richie Aprile situation, so they needed to nip it in the bud. Instead of whacking him, Chris set up Feech with stolen goods and he got busted by his parole officer... AJ had fun living at Tony's bachelor pad, where they ate chicken wings, cracked fart jokes, and watched baseball... On a date with AJ's counselor, he suggested Carmela read <i>Madame Bovary</i> because she went crazy after an insufferable marriage... Carmela was conflicted when she came home to an empty house and had a flashback when adolescent AJ rode his big wheel into the street.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 5: Irregular Around the Margins</b>... Meadow bumped into Tony at Crazy Horse, who had just railed a couple lines in his office in the back... Adriana got the liquid shits because she was stressed out being the FBI snitch.... Tony had a mole removed from his head, but it was not cancer... Tony and Adriana grew close while Chris was on a business trip (acquiring bootleg cigarettes from the south). Adriana revealed she used to be deathly afraid of Tony. They hung out at Crazy Horse and bonded over med issues, snorted copious amounts of blow, and poked fun at Chris' owl face. Oodles of sexual tension accompanied a game of darts. Adriana dropped the darts and bent over in front of Tony. They were about to hook up when they were interrupted... Tony returned to therapy and told Dr. Melfi he had feelings for Adriana. She commended him for not acting on his impulses... TONY'S DUCKS: Adriana fed ducks during an outdoor meeting with her FBI contact. She mentioned her attraction to Tony. The FBI contact made a funny impression of dumbass Adriana behind her back... Tony asked about Danielle (the undercover FBI agent) but Adriana said she drowned. On the way to a coke dealer's house, they got into a car accident when Tony swerved to avoid hitting an animal in the road. Tony survived without a scratch, but Adriana was held overnight for observations... Chris was livid that she drove around with Tony at 2am. He worked hard doing deals with rednecks so she could have money for booze and coke... Tension escalated between Chris and Tony... The crew acted like knitting circle and spread rumors about Adriana was sucking off Tony, which is why they got into an accident. Chris exploded when he heard the blowjob rumors. He thought Tony sent him to North Carolina so he could fuck Adriana... Chris confronted Adriana, smacked her around, and called her a whore. He tossed her out of the house then chugged a bottle of vodka... CATTY CARMELA: Carmela heard the Adriana hummer rumors and took it out on Tony... Chris was shitfaced and unloaded his clip at Tony's SUV at Bada Bing. He walked into the Bing waving a gun but the bouncers dragged him out... Tony and Paulie took Chris out to the weeds. Chris accused him of sleeping with Adriana. Tony was about to whack Chris, but Tony B talked him out of it at the last second... Tony drove to the ER and found the doctor who worked on Adriana. Tony B and the doctor explained to Chris that Adriana had injuries consistent with sitting up (which was proof she did not give Tony a hummer). Chris said it didn't matter. The perception was that she banged Tony and everyone thought he was a jerkoff... FBI asked Adriana if they could put a wire inside the Crazy Horse. She told them to fuck off... Everyone at Vesuvios saw Tony and Chris having dinner with Carmela and Adriana, an obvious attempt to show the public that the hummer rumors were false.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 6: Sentimental Education</b>... AJ butted heads with Tony when he mouthed off and Tony grabbed him by the throat. AJ said someday he'd kick Tony's ass and Tony said BRING IT you spoiled shithead! AJ begged to move back into Castle Soprano with Carmela, but Carmela set forth strict guidelines... Carmela went out with AJ's guidance counselor and said she didn't understand <i>Madame Bovary</i>, which he told her to read. Counselor banged Carmela, but Carmela was mostly concerned with getting home before AJ woke up. She slept with a gun under her pillow over a legit fear that Tony would discover her tryst, which Father Phil reminded her was adultery because she was still married to Tony.... The counselor realized he was being used to convince teachers to give AJ better grades, especially after he plagiarized a paper on <i>Lord of the Flies</i>. English teacher referred to AJ as Fredo Corleone due to his lack of intelligence and quoted <i>Caddyshack</i> "the world needs ditch diggers too"... Carmela got dumped by her new fuckbuddy and she realized she could never get out from under Tony's shadow... Tony B passed his massage exam, much to the delight of his new girlfriend, whom he met on the internet when he was in jail... Tony B scrapped his leg when someone boosted his linen truck. Kim the owner was irked and thought he stole the truck himself. When Kim learned couple kids did it, Kim sorta-apologized by saying he'd stake Tony B's massage business... "Why do piss, shit, and fucking happen all in the same area?" wondered Paulie... Tony B found a bag of cash and crack when drug dealers ditched it during a police chase. Tony B tossed the crack and kept the $12K in cash. He went on multiple gambling benders, bought gaudy clothes and gifted video games for his twins... When Tony B realized he did all the work setting up the massage biz in Kim's storefront, he confronted Kim and beat the living shit out of him with a 2x4 and heavy fish imagery (koi flopped around on ground from an indoor pond inside the storefront)... Tony B finally gave up the straight and narrow life. During a dinner with Tony, he asked if he could get in on Tony's airbag scheme.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 7: In Camelot</b>... Tony went to his aunt's funeral and stopped by the tombstones of his parents. An old lady sat on a bench in front of his father's grave. We got introduced to Johnny Boy Soprano's side piece: Frannie Felstein, the lady from the fur department... Tony was infuriated because Moma Soprano made his old man give the dog away. She said it went to live on a farm, when in fact his father gifted it to his side piece... Frannie told Tony a lot of old stories including banging JFK in 1961 before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yeah, Frannie was also Jack Kennedy's side piece. Tony gifted Frannie his JFK's captain's hat and she sang a disturbing rendition of Marilyn Monroe's <i>Happy Birthday Mr. President</i>... Frannie was supposed to get a cut of a midget auto raceway, but Hesh and Phil Leotardo stiffed her. Tony had a sitdown with Johnny Sack, Hesh, and Phil Leotardo over the sale of the track. Sack mediated that the proceeds ($150K) were given to Frannie, yet Leotardo was irked he had to pony up $40K... Leotardo didn't pay up. When Tony found him, a car chase ensued with <i>Rock the Casbah</i> cranking out of Tony's SUV. Leotardo crashed into a Boar's Head truck... Uncle Junior said he was in love with Frannie. The reason he never married because he wanted to propose to her. Alas, his brother Johnny Boy banged her instead, so he never had a chance... Tony told Dr. Melfi that Moma Soprano was so batshit crazy that he drove his father into the arms of other women. Moma Soprano never visited Johnny Boy's grave, whereas his side piece visited frequently... Chris made friends in rehab with TV writer and ex-junkie (who lost his job when he blew a deadline on <i>Nash Bridges</i>). Joe Hollywood was sober and seeking a writing gig on <i>Law and Order</i>. Chris bitched about Jon Faverau to his friend and called Faverau a "faggot cocksucker" who "stole his ideas." Chris admitted that he slipped with "some wine" and a lil weed. They agreed to look out for each other.... Chris offered to book Joe Hollywood's betting action and Chris got him a seat in the Big Game. Joe Hollywood donked off $57K. Chris took over the debt. When he missed a payment, Chris and Lil Paulie gave Joe Hollywood a beatdown. He tried to pawn off his Emmy, but it had no value (unlike an Oscar). He sold his laptop instead. Joe Hollywood fell off the wagon and spiraled into the junkie abyss. Chris seized his BMW as partial payment... 70s FLASHBACK: Moma Soprano had a miscarriage and teenage Tony covered for Johnny Boy, who was banging Frannie at the time... Tony got fed up with Frannie over the dog, the miscarriage, and because she kept smoking after his father died of emphysema...Episode ended with Tony bragging to his crew that his father shared a mistress with JFK.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 8: Marco Polo</b>... Well-tanned Little Carmine moved to New York. He showed off a gaudy "fool the eye" painting while his boat mysteriously sunk... Grandpa Hugh tumbled off the roof while AJ practiced drums. Luckily, Hugh fell in the bushes and escaped with minimal harm. Carmela and her mom planned a surprise party for Grandpa Hugh's 75th birthday. They didn't want to invite Tony... Junior ruined the surprise party when he called Hugh to tell him he couldn't go due to house arrest (and added that his family sedated him)... Hugh thought it was bullshit that Tony wasn't invited to a party at Castle Soprano. He wouldn't go unless Tony was invited... Johnny Sack showed Tony his new $99K Maserati. After causing Phil Leotardo to crash his car, Tony agreed to fix Leotardo's car at Big Pussy's wife's auto body shop. Leotardo didn't like the way Big Pussy's wife fixed his car. Tony sent Tony B to smooth things out, but Leotardo was still a douche... Tony B's cell mate from prison, Angelo (former consigliere to Carmine Sr.), offered him a contract to take out Joey Peeps from Johnny Sack's crew (retaliation for whacking Lorraine). Tony B declined but said Tony didn't want to get involved in a NY dispute... Tony B showed up early to the Hugh's jubilee party and Carmela was already drowning in stress. Tony B and Meadow briefly chatted about his missing Goth daughter... Tony finally showed up with Hugo's favorite sausages dangling around his neck... Grandma and her snooty friends were not impressed, but Hugo was thrilled that Tony showed up... Tony B ended up as Carmela's personal photographer, but he got shitfaced drunk and whined about being the Soprano's slave... Tony gifted Grandpa Hugo a Beretta shotgun... Hugo's old army buddy wanted to hear tales about Hugo's heroics in WW2, while his other pompous friend was a pompous ass. Grandma apologized when Hugo got shitfaced and had to be carried out of the party. Grandma really didn't want Tony at party because she wanted to impress her pompous friends. Carmela went to bat for Tony, because her mother was always embarrassed about being Italian. Meanwhile, she acknowledge that Tony saved the day, manned the grill, and made her father happy... Late night, Tony and AJ threw Carmela in the pool and everyone played Marco Polo. When everyone left, Tony and Carmela hooked up in the pool... Tony B's twins stole AJ's pin collection. They were jealous of AJ's wealth and never wanted to leave Castle Soprano. While making a batch of shitty Tang at his mother's house, Tony B finally gave up on the square life and wanted back into the mob game to earn more cash. He called Angelo and agreed to do the hit for Lil Carmine's crew... Tony B waited outside a brothel and clipped Joey Peeps and a hooker, but the car ran over his foot while the <i>Bad and Ruin</i> played (song from Rod Stewart's band The Faces).<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 9: Unidentified Black Males</b>... Heat wave... Finn tried to pay for steak dinner, but Tony was insulted and got pissed off. He later apologized for blowing up... Tony and Johnny Sack played golf and Sack complained about the hit on Joey Peeps. He said a homeless guy saw the killer limping away. After launching a decent tee shot, Tony collapsed due to a panic attack... Finn and Meadow sweated their passive-aggressive asses off in a hotbox NYC apartment. They couldn't decide on movie, let alone their future. Finn graduated and didn't want to mooch off his parents for the summer. He considered blowing off dental school for a job in LA as a photographer's assistant. Meadow hooked him up with a construction job in NJ at $20/hour... Finn got a no show job. Paulie didn't know who he was and made him clean up dogshit. When Paulie found out he was Meadow's boyfriend, he gave him wad of cash... Finn got freaked out by a huge fight between Lil Paulie and Geno. Finn was horrified at the violence. Vito Johnnycakes concocted a story that two black guys jumped Lil Paulie. The "two black guys" was a running theme that the crew gave as an excuse to the cops... Finn told Meadow about the beatdown. He wondered about her life as a mafia princess. She reminded him that her ex-boyfriend was shot dead by "drug dealers"... Tony figured out a limping Tony B clipped Joey Peeps. Tony B said he hurt his foot because two black guys jumped him outside a bar. He also hypothesized that if he was involved, then Tony wouldn't want to know... Tony B begged: "Put me in coach!" Tony assigned him to run the casino on Bloomfield Avenue and he'd finally get him a made man... Tony was impressed that Tony B supposedly got a 158 on an IQ test... Tony told Dr. Melfi that he hooked up with Carmela... Carmela searched for a divorce attorney. She finally informed Tony she wanted a divorce. Tony realized it was about money. He told her she was entitled to shit... CATTY CARMELA: Carmela bitched to Meadow that Tony cut off her credit cards. Meadow called her out for being a materialistic hypocrite... At Joey Peeps' funeral, Johnny Sack was pissed that Tony B clipped Joey Peeps and Tony protected him. He told Tony that he was gonna whack Carmine and Tony B. Tony told him that he should hug it out with Lil Carmine. Tony made up an alibi for Tony B. (they were looking for his runaway Goth daughter)... The no show crew wanted Finn to hang out with them, chow down on donuts, and bullshit about boxing. He finally gave in... Chris uber-upset that Tony B was now the "number one cousin" because Tony B was awarded the underground casino over him... Meadow went to a beach party with Ivy Leaguers, where two recent grads decided upon film school and one opted for the CIA. Instead of going back to NYC, Finn decided to crash at the NJ construction site.... Finn caught Vito Johnnycakes blowing a security guard. Vito tried to intimidate Finn by calling him an arch nemesis. Vito gifted him a ticket to Padres/Yankees game and said he'd meet him at the stadium at 7pm. Finn told Meadow that Vito hit on him or wanted to whack him. She thought he made it up. Finn was a no show at the baseball game... Finn stayed up all night arguing with Meadow and even dozed off. They apparently broke up but he was sleep deprived and suggested they get married... Carmela's divorce attorney tried to hire top notch forensic accountants, but Tony beat her to the punch. Without a huge payday, the attorney dropped Carmela's case... Tony told Melfi that Tony got jumped by two black guys on the night he was supposed to hijack a truck with Tony B, which inevitably got him imprisoned for 17 years. Tony had a panic attack during the therapy session and he revealed that he really had a panic attack the night he was supposed to steal the truck. Moma Soprano induced the panic attack and Tony passed out and cut his head. He was guilty he could never reveal the truth and that Tony B's life was a mess due to prison, while he rose to the head of the family... SELF-AWARE TONY: "I'm a robot to my own pussy-ass weakness." Dr. Melfi referred to therapy as childbirth, whereas Tony said "it's like taking a shit"... Carmela came home and found Tony floating in the pool. Meadow called home to tell her mother about her engagement, and Carmela was all tears.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 10: Cold Cuts</b>...Johnny Sack stiffed Tony in a delivery of scooters, citing port security issues... BEATDOWN OF THE WEEK: Janice turned into a self-righteous soccer mom. She busted the nose of a loud-mouth mom... Janice got arrested and mocked on the local news... Tony reminded her about her mean temper and subtly alluded to the Jackie Aprile incident... Chris was jealous about Tony B running the underground casino. Paulie told him it sucked because he too got constantly passed over... Uncle Pat (with the hiccups) sold his farm where the crew buried all the bodies, so Chris got sent up to the farm to clear one of his bodies and a couple of Johnny Boy Soprano's cadavers. Tony B went along, but the ride upstate was full of tension... Chris was emo over the time Tony tied up Lil Chris in the orchard... CATTY CARMELA: The Cold War of the Roses continued when Carmela drained the pool... Janice attended group therapy and took it over... Tony told Dr. Melfi that "revenge is like serving cold cuts." She said that both him and his sister had terrible anger issues... Melfi said, "Depression is rage turned inward"... Uncle Pat couldn't recall where Johnny Boy buried the Johnson Brothers... Chris and Tony B bonded by poking fun of Tony while digging out Chris' first hit (the Czech who gave him nightmares)... OBSCURE SHAKESPEARE REFERENCE: Digging up the body was reminiscent of Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech using the exhumed skull belonging to Yorick the court jester... Vinny Delpino beat down the security guard at the docks who confirmed that Phil Leotardo and Johnny Sack took the Vespas to retaliate over Tony B whacking Joey Peeps... Tony got pissed when he realized Johnny Sacks was gonna boost his special shipment of imported provolone... Carmela stalked the guidance counselor and told him that she's getting back with Tony, whereas she bullshitted Rosalie Aprile... While fishing, Uncle Pat recalled where Johnny Boy's cadavers were buried. Tony drove up to the farm and helped get rid of the bodies... Tony, Chris, and Tony B went out to dinner, but Tony B cracked one too many fat jokes. Tides turned and the two Tonys started bullying Chris, just like when they were all kids. Chris was still super-emo the next day and he drove home by himself and cried the whole way... Janice seemed reformed during a family dinner, but Tony pushed her buttons by bringing up her estranged son. She flipped out and chased him around the house with a fork.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 11: The Test Dream</b>... Tony's spicy side piece badly burned herself while cooking eggs when her robe caught fire during an argument. Yeah, eggs were a harbinger of doom.... Former prison cellmate Angelo paid Tony B a visit at the underground casino and gave him partial payment for the Joey Peeps' hit. Angelo gifted him a plaque "Because I'm the boss... that's why!"... Phil Leotardo and his brother whacked Angelo... Tony stopped by Tony B's house, who was all antsy and not even listening to Tony, who hinted that he had the hots for Artie Bucco's wife... Tony checked into the Plaza under a fake name, saw Dr. Melfi walk through the lobby, and later drunk dialed Artie Bucco's wife (but afraid to talk, so he hung up)... Tony got a message that Angelo was whacked. Tony B refused to answer his phone because he went AWOL...Tony called Jade Escorts and ordered in an Asian hooker, then fell asleep... TONY'S DREAM: It was a 20-minute dream sequence that featured 8 different segments with a shit-ton of dead people...<br />
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DREAM PART 1: Tony woke up next to Carmine, who complained he missed his wife. The phone rang with an order to rub someone out...<br />
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DREAM PART 2: Tony went to therapy, but Mercedes Lady sat in Dr. Melfi's chair. They joked about how Tony killed her and they repeated the childbirth/taking a shit therapy banter...<br />
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DREAM PART 3: Tony saw his father on a TV set in Melfi's office. Johnny Boy Soprano drove his old Caddy. Tony sat in the back. Big Pussy rode shotgun, then it was Ralphie in the front seat. In the back seat were Artie Bucco and Mikey, Junior's former henchman...<br />
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DREAM PART 4: Tony thought he woke up from his dream. He stood in the kitchen at Castle Soprano wearing a black Fila sweat suit. Carmela, also dressed in black, bitched at Tony that they were late to meet Finn's parents. <i>Chinatown</i> and <i>Scrooge</i> was on the TV. Tony spotted himself and Carmela arguing on the TV screen. He spit out a rotten tooth. They went to dinner at Vesuvio. They met Finn's parents but the father was played by the crooked ex-cop that used to bet heavily with Tony before he killed himself. The mother was portrayed by Annette Benning. Tony pulled a rotten tooth out of his pocket and spit out another bad tooth. Finn morphed into AJ. Finn's father started singing <i>Three Times A Lady</i> and Tony realized the mother was Annette Benning. Tony warned them that something bad was gonna happen. Tony and Finn's father went to the toilet. Tony looked for a gun in the stall (just like the <i>Godfather</i>). At the urinal, Tony revealed his copy of <i>The Valachi Papers</i> and Tony heard gunshots...<br />
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DREAM PART 5: Tony B shot up Phil Leotardo in the middle of a crowded street. Mercedes Lady showed up with a microphone to interview Leotardo. A black kid asked Tony something. Annette Benning mentioned that Tony had a <i>Bugsy</i> thing going. When the crowd moved in, Tony ran off. Just like a scene from <i>Frankenstein</i>, the angry crowd of villagers and dogs chased him down an alley with torches and pitchforks. Lee Harvey Oswald took a shot at him. Artie Bucco helped him escape...<br />
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DREAM PART 6: Artie Bucco drove a getaway car. Tony rode shotgun with Richie Aprile and Gigi in the back seat. Artie watched Tony bang his wife, while he heard horse sounds...<br />
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DREAM PART 7: Tony sat on Pie-My-O in the living room of Castle Soprano. Carmela said he couldn't have his horse inside, but she said "whores." Tony had a gun in a holster. Carmela wondered if he took care of his hit job...<br />
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DREAM PART 8: Tony walked through empty hallways of a school. He stopped in front of trophy case and put a silencer on a gun. Tony found Coach Molinaro in the gym teacher's office. Coach said Artie Bucco was a tool and gave Tony guff over seeing a shrink. Tony tried to shoot his coach, but his gun fell apart... </blockquote>
Tony woke up in his bed at the Plaza. Chris stopped by to see Tony and told him that Tony B tried to whack Phil Leotardo, but he killed his brother instead. Tony called up Carmela and told her about his recurring Coach Molinaro "unprepared dreams."<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 12: Long Term Parking</b>... Random body washed up on the beach and found by kids... Tony and Carmela tried to patch things up. Carmela asked Tony to fund a new property so she could build a new house with her father... Tony's spicy Latin side piece got out of the burn ward, but he had to tell her that it was called off because he was going back to Carmela... Adriana's stress-induced health issues continued and Chris poked fun at her calling her "My Smelly Valentine"... Chris dropped a Bruce Springsteen reference to why he was late to a meeting. He also started drinking again... Chris super pissed that Tony gave him guff over the cigarette scam while Tony B went off the reservation... FBI had the Crazy Horse under surveillance. They saw Long Branch cops stop by the club and decided to bring in Adriana, who was clad in animal prints most of the episode. Turned out the washed up body had a stamp from Crazy Horse, and that he visited the club the night he was whacked. Adriana told the FBI that the Israeli dealer did it. They ripped off some mook and he wanted his money back, but a fight ensued and the Israelis stabbed the mook. The FBI called her out on giving them crappy intel and forced her to wear a wire. She finally asked to speak to a lawyer, which she shoulda done a long time ago. The FBI stalled on a lawyer. They convinced her to try to flip Chris... Tony, Silvio, and Chris went to Brooklyn for a sitdown with Johny Sack and Phil Leotardo, but surly Leotardo walked out because he wanted to avenge his brother's death. Johnny Sack told Tony that he had to deliver Tony B, otherwise it was war... After the body count piled up, Lil Carmine decided to pull out of the race for contention of head of the Lupertazzi Family... Tony got several hang up calls. He assumed it was Tony B and asked Silvio to trace his calls... Tony officially moved his stuff back home. AJ helped. Tony gifted Carmela a Hermes scarf. They had a quaint family dinner. AJ thought it was "fucking weird." Tony said they should celebrate with champagne... Tony B called Tony. Tony finally told Tony B about the panic attack the night he got pinched. Tony used a trace to find Tony B near their Uncle Pat's farm, which was empty after he moved to Florida... Adriana finally told Chris that she was a rat for the FBI. Chris flipped
out and nearly strangled her to death. Hours later, he settled down and Adriana had him convinced they should turn themselves in. Chris thought he could finally write his memoirs once he was no longer in the mob... Chris went out to buy cigs and saw a poor family at a gas station. He glimpsed his brokedick future... Tony
called Adriana and said that Chris had a failed suicide attempt and that
Silvio would come get her and drive her to the hospital. Adriana had a daydream in which she had
packed her things and drove solo to California. In reality, Silvio picked her
up and she cried the entire way. She had a moment of clarity in the car and realized she was gonna get whacked. Silvio drove her to the woods, she tried to crawl away, but he put two bullets into her (although the camera panned up to the treetops)... Chris tossed her suitcase and drove her car to Newark Airport's long term parking... Tony found Chris at the Bing watching <i>Three Amigos</i>. Chris was loaded on smack so Tony beat him down... With Johnny Sack officially the Boss, Tony went to pay him a visit underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Tony asked to take out Tony B, so he wouldn't suffer. However, Phil Leotardo had other plans. Tony was irked, so he left and told Johnny to go fuck himself... Tony agreed to throw money at Carmela by buying her a 600K empty lot to build a dream house.<br />
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<b>S5, Episode 13: All Due Respect</b>... Tony thought he and Carmela spoiled AJ too much. He spent his entire waking existence on the phone... Ray Curto, FBI rat, had no clue Adriana got clipped... Chris told Carmela that Adriana broke up with him and left abruptly. Carmela told Tony, but he was aloof... During a birthday dinner for Ray Curto with all the Capos, Tony gave a speech and said he was protecting Tony B in the same manner he'd protect all of them. Tony went home early and watched WWII shows on the History channel... Chris went into hiding after Phil Leotardo went to his mother's house. He bitched to Silvio that Tony unfairly protected Tony B. The other Capos had similar feelings... Silvio reminded Tony that his crew was unhappy and that he should not have told Johnny Sack to go fuck himself. He called him out with his problems with authority. Out of the seven deadly sins, Tony's was pride. Tony said that it wasn't easy making decisions that affected everything else. He set his course and his crew was either with him or against him... Vinny Delpino spotted Phil Leotardo at the Crazy Horse. He tried to leave, but Phil and his crew jumped him in the parking lot. Phil gave Vinny a severe beatdown... Eugene and Vito Johnnycakes questioned Tony's leadership. Vito even suggested they take out Tony for putting them in danger... Johnny Sack took the provolone shipment for himself, which irked Tony's Capos... Uncle Junior found out that his trial might get delayed. Tony asked him for advice on the Tony B/Phil Leotardo rift. Junior was ineffective dispatching advice... Tony told Dr. Melfi about his recurring dream about his HS coach... One of AJ's friends hosted a party and sold beer cups for $5. When rival HS kids showed up without paying (brought their own cups), AJ told them they had to leave. One of the rivals tussled with AJ's friend, but AJ stayed out of the fight... Tony stopped by Paulie's house and called him out on his beefs. Tony flipped out when he saw the Pie-My-O painting. Paulie said Tony never came by his house, so he didn't think it was an issue. Paulie said he made Tony look like a general out of respect. Tony took down the painting and stormed off. He was about to trash it, but reconsidered... Tony drove up to Uncle Pat's farm and shotgunned Tony B. Tony called Phil Leotardo and told him where Tony B was hiding out, but never mentioned that he already whacked him. Leotardo found the corpse on the front porch... Johnny Sack said their problems were not solved even though Tony offered to give Leotardo some points on his underground casino. Johnny Sack asked Tony to come to a sitdown at 6:30am... Tony asked Chris to go up to the farm and bury Tony B's body. They finally discussed Adriana. Tony called her a cunt. Chris told Tony that he was clean and only went back to the H over the Adriana fallout... Carmela irked that AJ was on the phone and threatened to cut off his allowance until he finished a clown college applications. AJ claimed that he made $600 throwing house parties. Tony told him to do the applications or else. Carmela said that AJ was obsessed with the <i>Studio 54</i> movie. Tony was worried about the homo-themes of the movie, but he thought it was good he was passionate about something even though it was party promotions... Tony went to Johnny Sack's house and sought to bury the hatchet and move forward. Johnny Sack was a douche about it, but they hugged it out. Tony thought he was getting whacked when he saw two guys with shotguns, but they were FBI. The Feds raided Johnny Sack's house and Tony successfully ran away. He called his attorney, who told him that old man Petrille flipped and ratted out the Brooklyn crew. Tony walked several miles all the way home back to his house. Van Morrison's <i>Glad Tiding</i>s played in the final scene and was woven throughout the episode.<br />
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Season 5 is dunzo. Here are other binge-recaps from <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">The Sopranos Season 1</a>, <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2</a>, <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-3.html" target="_blank">Season 3</a>, and <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-4.html" target="_blank">Season 4</a>
Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-88782611266790396012015-03-12T16:20:00.000-04:002015-03-13T13:02:35.865-04:00Binge Watching: Sopranos, Season 4<i>Denver, CO</i><br />
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I finally got through re-watching the fourth season of <i>The Sopranos</i>. There was a 16 month layoff between the third and fourth seasons. Season 3 went off the air in May 2001. This was also the first season to appear after the 9/11 attacks. <br />
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I posted half-baked thoughts after binge-watching previous seasons of <i>The Sopranos</i>: <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">Season 1</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2</a> - <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-3.html" target="_blank">Season 3</a>.<br />
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Here are some faded thoughts on Season 4 of <i>The Sopranos</i>...<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 1: For All Debts Public and Private</b>... Tony thought his ducks came back, but it was only squirrels who boosted the duck food. The duck feed bags were surrogate banks to stash bundles of cash... Tony met with his Capos and claimed that business wasn't going so hot despite the fact that wiseguy life is recession proof... Uncle Junior needed an influx of cash to cover his escalating attorney bills. Tony offered Junior 100K for an empty warehouse in downtown Newark, but it was worth millions. Slithery politician Zellman (Boon from <i>Animal House</i>) tipped off Tony about the revitalization of the Newark Esplanade... During Sunday dinner at Castle Soprano, Janice and Ralphie went upstairs to the bathroom to snort blow and have a booty call, even though Ralphie was dating Rosalie Aprile... Danielle, the FBI undercover agent, successfully integrated herself in Adriana's social circle. Tony gave her a "Hey, how you doing?" when Adriana brought her over to Castle Soprano... Junior promoted Bobby Bacala to Capo. Bobby told tony that Quasimodo predicted 9/11, but he got Nostradamus mixed up with the Hunchback of Notre Dame... Paulie got pinched for a gun charge in Youngstown, Ohio when he was visiting Dean Martin's birth place in Stuebenville, OH. Paulie was pissed that Tony kept his distance... Tony threw a suite party and Furio showed up with a bevy of Icelandic Air flight attendants. Chris was almost caught smoking a joint laced with charlie... Brooklyn crime boss Carmine Lupertazzi gave Tony shit for wearing short pants at his BBQ. "The Don doesn't wear shorts" (which was advice real-life mobster told David Chase)... Chris was pissed that Tony demoted him to "driver", and obvious punishment for his handling of the Jackie Jr. situation. Chris self-medicated by shooting smack in his toes to hide the track marks... Tony won back Chris' loyalty after he told Chris that his father was killed by a crooked NJ cop. Since the cop was retiring, Tony gave Chris the cop's home address. Chris avenged his father's death and shot the cop while <i>Magnum P.I.</i> played on the TV in the background. Chris went through his wallet and found a $20 bill...Tony was extremely honest with Dr. Melfi, which surprised her. She told him to give up before he gets whacked or thrown into prison... At the end of the episode, Chris visited his mother's house and tacked a $20 bill on the refrigerator. It was the same bill he took off the cop who killed his father.<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 2: No Show</b>... Princess and the Queen feuded. Meadow got a new car but spent most of her summer lounging around the pool... Dr. Melfi suggested that Meadow was legitimately grieving and depressed because of Jackie's death... Carmela flipped out when Meadow wanted to take the year off from Columbia to travel in Europe... Meadow saw a $200/hour shrink, who looked like a hippie version of Carmela. They bonded because she said Europe was a good idea and understood her parents were head cases... Tony and Meadow had it out in an ugly confrontation about being a spoiled mafia princess. She ran out of the house and presumably went to Europe, but instead she returned to Columbia... Silvio mediated a sitdown between Ralphie and Paulie's nephew (Lil Paulie) while Paulie was in jail. Paulie wanted 10 carpenter jobs on the Esplanade, but Ralphie only wanted to give him 2. Silvio decided on 5, with no show jobs going to Chris and Paulie... Chris got promoted as acting Capo while Paulie was in the joint, which pissed off Patsy Parisi, who got passed over... Chris and the crew jacked new fiber optic cables from the Esplanade job site, but Tony got pissed because he was ruining a lucrative situation... Patsy boosted floor tiles (with Silvio's approval), but Chris flipped out that they disobeyed his order. Tony confronted Silvio, who chalked it up to a misunderstanding... Adriana told undercover Danielle a secret that no one else knew: she couldn't have kids due to a botched abortion... Chris was suspicious of Danielle, but thought she was a lesbian. He offered her blow (she declined) and tried to incite a threesome, which got shut down. Adriana got pissed off at Danielle and told her to fuck off.... After 4 months of undercover work blown, the Feds decided to bring in Adriana directly. Adriana then puked on the conference table.... Radiohead's <i>Kid A</i> played over the closing credits. Tony's Kid A = Meadow or Chris. Or both. <br />
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<b>S4, Episode 3: Christopher</b>... Silvio had serious beef with Columbus Day Parade protests due to Columbus' association with the genocide of Native Americans. Tensions rose between the crew and protestors in Newark. Paulie's nephew got a bottle smashed over his head and Patsy Parisi got arrested trying to take down a Columbus dummy being burned in effigy... Uncle Junior's RICO trial commenced... CATTY CARMELA: She was pissed that Father Phil brought in a speaker for a luncheon that trashed Italian Americans, especially after she and the other mob wives donated a shit-ton of cash to the church's coffers... Carmela developed the hots for Furio... Paulie told Johnny Sack that Ralphie made fun of his husky wife and he also mentioned the huge real estate score Tony made with his warehouse. Carmine from Brooklyn wanted a cut of Tony's profit... AJ started reading Howard Zinn's <i>People's History of the US</i>. "You finally read a book and it's bullshit!" replied Tony... Bobby Bacala's wife died in a car accident... Janice fucked Ralphie in the ass with a vibrator. Janice is a fetish freak, eh? First it was Richie's gun to her head, and now it was Ralphie and a vibrator up his chimney... Ralphie finally broke up with Rosalie Aprile and decided to move in with Janice. At the end of Act 3, those two got into a spat and she pushed him down the stairs because he didn't take off his shoes. Ralphie threw out his back and called her a "crazy cunt." <br />
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<b>S4, Episode 4: The Weight</b>... Johnny Sack beat down one of Ralphie's crew in Little Italy. Tony understood Johnny had beef with Ralphie poking fun of his wife's weight, but he had to protect his top-earning Capo... Tony suspected Silvio spilled the beans to Johnny Sack, but it was really Paulie Walnuts... Johnny asked Carmine to let him whack Ralphie to avenge his wife's honor. Carmine declined because the Esplanade was multi-million dollar deal. Carmine agreed to a 200K tax on Ralphie, but no hit... Johnny Sack and Ralphie agreed to two sitdowns, but Johnny Sack walked out of both... Carmine grew tired of Johnny Sack's stubbornness and subtly suggested that Tony take out Johnny Sack... Junior told Tony to use a ruthless hit man nicknamed Lou DiMaggio (preferred weapon of choice was a baseball bat) out of Rhode Island... Silvio and Chris drove to Rhode Island to meet DiMaggio and gave him 10K and Johnny' picture. Even though his crew was ancient, they planned on whacking him in Boston... Tony sent Ralphie down to Miami to chill out while Tony cleaned up his mess... Johnny Sack arranged a hit on Ralphie (without Carmine's consent) but had a change of heart and called off the hit at the last moment. Close shave. The assassin was in the elevator with Ralphie in his Miami hotel... Johnny Sack apologized to Tony about the Ralphie stitch, so Tony called off a hit on Johnny Sack... Johnnie and Ralphie had no clue they were both about to be clipped all over a dumb joke... Meadow's hippie heart revealed itself when she volunteered at the Bronx law center... Carmela found an excuse to check out Furio's new house and dragged along clueless AJ... At Furio's housewarming party, AJ locked Bobby Bacala Jr. inside the garage... Carmela and Meadow both danced with Furio, but Carmela was as wet as a Category 5 hurricane and Tony didn't even notice because he was too busy discussing business.<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 5: Pie-O-My</b>... Adriana was irked that Crazy Horse became a mobster hangout. Chris and Furio used her club like a CIA rendition black site to torture delinquent brokedicks. She finally figured out that the club was never really hers... The FBI sent in a new handler for Andriana. During a meeting, the FBI denied that both Big Pussy and Richie Aprile were in the witness protection program. Sorta sad/humorous like a little kid finding out there was no Santa Claus. Adriana finally broke down and ratted out Patsy Parisi for boosting some suits... Vito busted the chair in the Adriana's office. When she went to sit down, she bit it too... Adriana asked Chris to move to California for a fresh start. Chris said no and didn't like her negativity... During Junior's RICO trial, a sketch artist drew his portrait, but Junior hated it because he looked like a goofball on the nightly news. The next day, Junior flashed the artist a major league stink eye... Bobby Bacala muscled a union guy for Junior and convinced him to switch his vote in an upcoming election. For such a soft-spoken guy he was morbidly convincing, especially when he pointed at different parts to his head to illustrate where the union guy was gonna get shot... Ralphie's racehorse, Pie-O-My, was bought in his maid's name. Pie-O-My represented the tempestuous relationship between Ralphie and Tony. Tony became infatuated with the racehorse. After Pie-O-My won a few races, Ralphie kicked down some of the earnings to Tony, who started referring to the horse as his own. When Pie-O-My got sick, Ralphie blew it off and told the vet to contact Tony. Tony treated that horse better than his own family. Tony paid the outstanding vet tab and rushed to the stable to visit the sick racehorse during an intense storm... Carmela pestered Tony about their financial future. She had special fiduciary papers drawn up by her cousin Brian, but it was in Tony's best interest to not sign all of them. Carmela was irked at Tony for leaving her future dangling by a thread, then again, she didn't want to actually have to get off her ass and get a real job if/when Tony got whacked/imprisoned... ANGLE SHOOTING JANICE: Janice was determined to make Bobby Bacala all hers and tried to pass off Carmela's lasagna as her own to Bobby, still deep into mourning over his wife's sudden death. She got jealous and catty when Mikey P's widow visited Bobby. Karen Bacala's last batch of baked ziti sat untouched in Bobby's freezer, despite several attempts by Janice to get him to eat it and move on.<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 5: Everybody Hurts</b>... Adriana and Chris were riding high on the H train. Random junkies hung out 24/7 puking in Chris' toilet... Tony told Chris his master plan to start phasing himself out of the picture by using Chris as his mouthpiece. Chris was surprised but thrilled. He got the nod over Silvio because Chris was blood family and the guy to guide the family in the 21st Century... AJ's stinken-rich classmates and his new girlfriend Devin were intrigued by the mafia lifestyle. They asked AJ to show them Tony's strip club but they ended up at Satirale's instead. "It's a front? Like Jenco Olive Oil?"... Tony visited the Mercedes dealership looking for Mercedes lady. The salesman told him that she died a month or two earlier. Tony got very angry with Dr. Melfi because she didn't save Mercedes lady. She couldn't discuss her due to patient confidentiality. Tony exploded and left... Guilt-ridden Tony started being extra nice to everyone... Artie's wife bitched that Tony's tab at Vesuvio's was 6K and rising... Horny Artie wanted to bang his new French hostess. Her brother needed $50,000 for a bridge loan on some liquor investment. Artie Bucco brokered a deal where he would get Frenchie the loan for a modest fee of $7,500. Artie hit up Ralphie for the money but Ralphie declined because wouldn't be able to hurt Artie if he stiffed him. Tony was upset that Artie didn't go to him first. Tony talked Artie into letting him loan him the cash at reduced juice... TONY'S DREAM: The ceiling cracked while he ate dinner at Mercedes lady house. Plaster fell into his drink. She unfurled a scarf then he woke up... AJ and his girlfriend took a car service into NYC to visit Meadow at the South Bronx Law Center. AJ asked to borrow Meadow's room so she could bang his girlfriend. She shot him down. On the way home, they looked out the window and saw devastating poverty. They went to Devin's house, which dwarfed his McMansion. Her parents lived on a massive compound with security towers. Devin's father (presumably a Wall Street bankster) owned several late-period Picassos and an original pressing of <i>Rubber Soul</i>... Artie got stiffed by the Frenchman. They got into a fight at his apartment. Frenchie ripped out his earring as he yelled "Fuck to your mother!"... Artie ate pills, got shitfaced, and ended up in the hospital. Tony was angry but consoling, especially since he just lost Mercedes lady to a suicide. Tony took over collection of the debt and Tony wiped out his tab at Vesuvio's as partial payment. Artie called him a hawk who could see 20 moves ahead of him. Tony was offended that even his own friend thought he was a ruthless motherfucker... Tony bought Billy Joel tickets, and he and Carmela had a triple date with Brian and Furio. Furio liked Brian's new suit, which Tony bought him as a gift. Brian toasted to Tony for being a "great guy"... The episode ended with Furio knocking on the Frenchman's door.<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 6: Watching Too Much Television</b>... Paulie got out of the clink and the crew threw him a welcome home party at the Bada Bing... Adriana learned, from a bad TV show, that husband/wives had confidential privilege... Tony and Ralphie showed up at the steam room to meet with Zellman and fellow political crook Maurice about a HUD scam (tipped off by Brian) in which they'd rip off the federal government... Zellman admitted to Tony that he picked up Tony's leftovers and was in love with his former Russian side piece Irinia. Tony initially blew it off, but later found Zellman at Irinia's house and whipped him with his belt... Furio developed his own feelings for Carmela while looking through a batch of photos. He feigned losing his sun glasses as an excuse to call Carmela... Tony took AJ on a ride through the old neighborhood in Newark, which had fallen into disarray. Tony's tried to give AJ a history lesson about how their Italian ancestors laid down roots in NJ and that his grandfather built one of the first Catholic churches in Newark. His tip: "Buy land AJ, because God ain't making any more of it"... Crackheads wondered if Tony/AJ were undercover cops and told them to leave if they didn't want any rock. "So that's a crack ho?" asked AJ... Adriana wanted to get married and finally told Chris she might not be able to have kids. He flipped out and called her "damaged goods.". Tony told Chris to get married because med technology could change her situation in the future, plus she stuck by his side when he got shot. Paulie advised Chris to "Stay single as long as you can. Marriage and our thing don't gel"... Chris made up with Adriana and suggested a Vegas wedding. Carmela talked her out of Vegas for a NoJer wedding... Tony kicked down a fat watch for Brian for the heads-up on HUD scam... Tony had zero qualms over the HUD scam since "taxpayers pay for airport security" so why shouldn't wiseguys get a cut of government waste... Maurice and Zellman lamented over losing their 60s radical ideals. "The revolution got sold," they agreed... During Adriana's shower thrown by the mob wives, one of them yelled at her using scissors to open a gift because it was bad luck.<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 8: Mergers and Acquisitions</b>... Furio full blown crazy in love with Carmela. His uncle told him he was foolish for fucking the Don's wife and he can only do it if he kill Tony... Carmela had sexy daydreams about Furio... Tony commissioned a painting of Pie-O-My for $6,5000... Tony banged Ralphie's new girl, who is half-Cuban and half-Italian... CATTY CARMELA: She found one of Cuban side piece's fake nails, so she taxed Tony and stole 40K (actually $39,600) from his secret stash and opened up trading accounts... Tony broke it off with spicy Cuban side piece because Ralphie was with her. She tried to explain that Ralphie never penetrated her, rather that she was doing freaky shit like dripping hot wax on his testicles... Tony paid Janice $3,000 to spill the beans on Ralphie's bedroom secrets. She revealed his proclivities for taking it up the chimney with dildos and vibrators... Paulie's mom did not get along with other old ladies at the home. They made fun of her for hitting on an 18 in blackjack. Paulie told Vinny Delpino and Lil Paulie to rough up the old woman's son and even chased him down at a HS where he worked... Tony told Dr. Melfi that he's old school (like in <i>Goodfellas</i>) when wiseguys took the wives out on Friday and the girlfriends out on Saturday... Tony and Carmela were non-confrontational about what they really wanted to discuss: Tony pissed about the missing money and Carmela pissed about the new spicy side dish... Pink Floyd heard or sung few times throughout the episode... Tony dropped a lot of cash: home threatre system in pool house, 3K to Janice, gaudy diamond ring (shaped like a horseshoe) to the Cuban, commissioned horse painting, plus Carmela swiping cash to invest on her own.<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 9: Whoever Did This</b>... Ralphie's son nearly killed in a bow and arrow accident. Ralphie lost it, saw a priest and proposed to Rosalie Aprile. Tony started to feel sympathy for him until he burned down the stables and indirectly killed Pie-O-My the horse, which had to be put down after suffering from bad burns... Uncle Junior fell down the courthouse steps after getting hit in the head with a boom mic. He tried to feign Alzheimer's to get out of trial and purposely failed a test with a court shrink. But at end of Act 3, he wandered outside and genuinely looked confused... Ralphie figured out Paulie (via Lil Paulie) was the one who told Johnny Sack that he was making fun of his wife. To retaliate, he cranked called Paulie's mom in the nursing home and said Paulie got busted sucking off a boy scout and had a gerbil stuck in his ass... Tony suspected Ralphie of killing Pie-O-My by burning down the stables to collect 200K in insurance on the horse. They tussled while Ralphie was making scrambled eggs (what, no oranges?). Ralphie sprayed Raid in Tony's eye (mirroring bathroom fight scene in <i>True Romance</i> when Patty Arquette sprayed hairspray in Gandolfini's eyes). Tony overpowered Ralphie, who ended up dead. Tony called Chris to bring gloves and bleach and help cut up the body, but he was noticeably faded to the tits. Tony called him out on being back on the H. Chris half-admitted to dabbling in H (but only snorting it)... Chris grabbed Ralphie's head and his wig fell off, revealing he was bald. Chris put his severed hands, head, and wig in a bowling ball bag. They ditched the body in a quarry and buried the head using construction equipment (that Tony operated)... Chris told Tony that Ralphie was their top earner but more importantly, he was a made man and they could get in trouble. Tony said that those two were the only ones who knew... Tony woke up at the Bada Bing. He saw a pic Tracey (single-mom/stripper whom Ralphie killed in the parking lot) taped on the mirror in the dressing room. Did Tony really kill Ralphie to avenge Tracy, or did he overreact to the dead horse? Both?<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 10: Strong Silent Type</b>.... Chris cooked up H with Lil Rascals reruns on TV. He got so faaaaded high, he accidentally killed Adriana's purse dog by sitting on her. "Must've crawled underneath me for warmth" was his excuse... Carmela cut her hair very short. Tony said it made her look young... Furio returned from his father's funeral in Naples. Bummer to get greeted by Burger King logos and American flags. He brought presents for the kids but nothing for Carmela... Tony caught Furio crying in the car. Told him to get over his father's death, when he was really emo about Carmela... The commissioned painting of Pie-O-My arrived, but Tony wanted the painting burned. Paulie took it home and had an artist change Tony to a Napoleon-like figure... The crew discussed that Tony probably whacked Ralphie over a horse... Tony still sad over the horse and Melfi said that he was fucked up for not grieving like that over his mother or other humans. Melfi said the ducks symbolized the dread of something bad happening to his family. Tony said he felt like the "sad clown"... Adriana told her FBI contact that Chris was on the H. They put Chris on mailing list for Hazelden rehab. Chris saw the junkmail and smacked Adriana. Adriana went to Castle Soprano and Tony was pissed Chris knocked her around. Carmela suggested an intervention... Chris went to the hood to score H but got carjacked. They whooped him with a toy xylophone. A random junkie helped Chris home and asked for $30 but Adriana told him to fuck off... CATTY CARMELA: Upset that Furio did not bring her a gift from Naples. She told Rosalie Aprile about her infatuation but Rosalie advised she shouldn't have sex with Furio because Tony would kill him... Junior thought intervention wouldn't work, so Tony should clip Chris like putting down a sick dog that can't be cured... During the intervention, Chris screamed mean things to everyone. Paulie and Silvio beat down Chris when he mouthed off and revealed their secrets like the Russian in the pine barrens... Johnny Sack shook down Tony for Carmine's cut of the HUD scam. Tony told him to fuck off. Tony later leaked to his crew that Johnny had Ralphie clipped for the HUD scam and making fun of his wife... Tony hooked up with Svetlana after she claimed all Americans were spoiled emos... Patsy and Adriana drove Chris to a rehab facility. The doctors searched his bag and confiscated his chocolate bars. Tony stationed Patsy at a hotel up the road to make sure Chris stayed at rehab... Furio cooked his own meals, while Tony re-heated Carmela's pasta... Paulie watched the Yankees game, but the new Napoleon painting of Tony lurked over his shoulder.<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 10: Calling All Cars</b>... TONY DREAM: Carmela drove Tony's father's old Caddy, bald Ralphie rode shotgun, and caterpillar on Ralphie's bald head morphed into butterfly, while Tony sat in back seat with Mercedes lady then Svetlana... Dr. Melfi reminded Tony that Freud said "Dreams are wishes." Her interpretation of the Caddy dream was that Carmela was in control and that the people in car (2/3 are dead) were people Tony had unresolved issues with. Tony said his old man would never let Carmela drive his Caddy due to old school rule: men in the front, wives in the back... Bobby Bacala visited the cemetery and told his dead wife he'd be with her if not for the kids. He buried the cake because it was their anniversary... Carmine and Johnny Sack still wanted 40% cut of the HUD scam. They complained that Ralphie didn't make his drops that week. Tony sorta accused Johnny of whacking Ralphie then walked out. Tony called back and counter offered 5%... Carmine sent one of his goons to rough up Vic the (HUD) appraiser. Vito Johnnycakes found Vic and roughed him up for switching side to Carmine. Poor Vic. He caught the brunt of spat between Brooklyn and NoJersey... Bobby and his kids attended Sunday dinner at Soprano Castle. AJ's girlfriend stopped by and they hooked up in his room. Carmela made AJ play with Bobby Jr and Sophia. They opened the Ouija board. Sophia asked the spirits if it knew her mom Karen. AJ hosted a seance where they contacted by a sea captain caught in a storm. AJ squeezed a sponge over Bobby Jr.'s head and Bobby Jr. started crying. Bobby told the adults, "He locked me in the garage at the guy with the pony tail's house."... Silvio and Tony discussed clamming up around Paulie because he leaked intel to the Brooklyn crew... Janice confronted Bobby for being too clingy to his dead wife... Tony gave Svetlana the diamond horseshoe (he originally bought for the Cuban side piece as a goodbye parting gift)... Dr. Melfi asked Tony if Svetlana was her new side piece. Tony was upset that she dumped him because he was uber-high maintenance. Tony brought up Svetlana's assessment that Americas had too much time to worry about petty bullshit. In a rare moment of self-awareness, Tony uttered "I'm a fat, fucking crook from New Jersey"... Tony wanted to end therapy. He joked that for price of therapy he could have bought a Ferrari and woulda got hummers out of it. He apologized for being an asshole and kissed Dr. Melfi on the cheek... Tony flew to South Beach Miami to visit Beansie (the pizza shop owner that Richie Aprile put in a wheelchair) and to meet Carmine, Jr. who called Johnny Sack a pragmatist but a greedy motherfucker. Carmine Jr. and Tony got on the same page regarding HUD... Judge made a ruling that Junior's RICO trial would continue despite his head injuries... Janice pushed Karen's ziti on Bobby. He finally broke down and ate it in silence via candle light. Bobby realized he had to stop being super sullen because his kids already lost one parent and he was slouching... TONY DREAM: He spotted Ralphie walking on porch of a southern plantation house. Tony knocked on the front door. He spoke in bad Italian accent, "Ima here for the masona job. Me no speaka English." A figure appeared on steps... his mother? He stepped inside then he woke up in a South Beach hotel room at 9:07am with the Beach Boys' <i>Surfin' USA</i> playing.<br />
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<b>S4, Episode 12: Eloise</b>... Carmine Jr. flew to NYC to play golf with his father and Johnny Sack. Carmine Jr. went to bat for Tony. Carmine Sr. appreciated Tony's hard ass ways and mentioned Tony was like a son to him, which pissed off Carmine Jr. who then sided against Tony... Tony, Silvio and Johnny Sack met at Carmine's new restaurant but without Carmine, who did not budge on 40% on future HUD deals. Tony walked out and ordered the new joint get trashed by Lil Paulie and Vinny Delpino, who drew a huge cock on Carmine's special painting. To retaliate, Carmine and Johnny Sack called the union to shutdown construction on the Esplanade project... Junior's crew bumped into the foreman on the jury and politely intimidated him and his family... Paulie's mom was in minor fender bender. He agreed to drive her friends into NYC to see the <i>Producers</i>. At the dinner, old lady Matrone mentioned she never used banks. The old ladies got doggie bags and took everything on the table, including the sugar packets... Meadow invited her parents to dinner to meet her uber-rich roommates (including a Spanish countess) and her boyfriend Finn (the future dentist). Tony didn't like the fact she had a male roommate that wasn't gay. Discussion moved to AJ's report on Melville's <i>Billy Budd</i>. "I didn't know they had fags back then," said AJ. Meadow and her friends agreed that <i>Billy Budd </i>was very very gay, but Carmela embarrassed herself (and Meadow) when she denied the homo-themes and lambasted that too much gay stuff was taught in school and on TV. Tony had been in enough street fights to know when you're not punching your own weight, so he was not about to spar literature with Ivy League brainiacs. Tony stayed quiet aside from cracking a few jokes... Furio, Tony and Brian gambled it up at Indian casino in CT. Brian got shitfaced and hummed <i>Ride of the Valkyries</i> when the VIP host offered them a helicopter ride back to NJ. Tony and Furio took a leak next to a propeller. Furio considered killing Tony by pushing him into the blade. He grabbed him and told Tony he was standing too close... Furio was a no-show next morning because he flew back to Italy. Carmela drove by his house, but never went inside. She found out that Furio put his house up for sale. Rosalie Aprile suggested Tony might've beat down/whacked Furio, which is why he was absent. Carmela submerged into a full-blown breakdown and cried the rest of the episode... Silvio called Paulie out for his wavering loyalty with Tony. In the peaks and valleys of relationships, Paulie said they were stuck in a valley... CATTY CARMELA: Carmela met Meadow for their annual birthday lunch in the city under the Eloise painting at the Plaza. Carmela brought white gloves, Meadow wouldn't wear them. Carmela felt insecure and jealous about Meadow's Ivy League education, but called her a spoiled lil princess when Meadow threatened to transfer to Northwestern... Carmine blew off Paulie at a wedding. Paulie realized Carmine had no clue who he was so he had to make up with Tony... AJ was assigned Thomas Mann's <i>Death in Venice</i>, which seemed little too far advanced for a D-student. AJ told Meadow that Carmela wept over Furio's dad and their mom spent a lot of time helping Furio decorate... Paulie broke into old lady Matrone's house to rob it because she never used banks. She caught him and he smothered her. He took her life savings and gave it to Tony... Meadow stopped by Castle Soprano and Tony reminded her that Carmela loved her. Tony said they went to therapy together and Meadow was shocked that Tony admitted to seeing a shrink. Tony suggested that Carmela was unfulfilled. Meadow never tipped him off that Carmela had the hots for Furio and was heartbroken... In a meeting with Tony, Johnny Sack agreed that Carmine was wrong about Esplanade and indirectly suggested they whack Carmine. When Carmine left, all Tony could utter was "Holy shit!"... Tony was bummed out that his #1 draft pick Furio went back to Italy. Tony's crew was in disarray with Chris was still in rehab, and Paulie was wavering back and forth between NJ and Brooklyn. Tony unloaded on Carmela that he had problems too specifically Furio leaving, which was really the huge problem for Carmela. <br />
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<b>S4, Episode 13: Whitecaps</b>... Chris finally got out of rehab and looked great. FBI stalked him when he got out and contacted Adriana to inquire about Ralphie's disappearance. She said that Chris wanted to help get Ralphie in rehab... Chris completed 11 out of the 12 steps except the one when he had to apologize to people he fucked over. Tony suggested "let sleeping dogs lie"... Carmela was sick and went to the doctor, who ruled out Lupus. We knew she was stricken with Furio-itis and depressed and heartbroken. Tony drove her down to the shore to look at a beach house named Whitecaps, which lifted Carmela's spirits when they met Carmela's dad and a realtor. "Reminds you of the Kennedy compound?"... Without an unanimous verdict for Junior's RICO trial, the judge ordered them to go back in and come to agreement. Junior flashed evil stink eye to the foreman... Junior got a mistrial! His crew wanted to celebrate but he just wanted to take a nap... Carmela fined AJ $3 for dropping an F-bomb... Johnny Sack and Tony met in an Office Depot and Sack quoted the Beatles' <i>Hey Jude</i>: "make a sad song and make it better." Tony decided to pass on whacking Carmine but Johnny Sack offered Tony a great deal on future construction. They hugged it out and the hit was a GO... Chris referred to Johnny Sack a "snakey fuck for trying to whack the head of one of the five families" ... Chris suggested two black guys for the hit so it wouldn't get traced back to Tony or Johnny Sack. The hitmen agreed but gave Chris guff for a stereotypical "two black guys carjacking" motif. Chris paid them an advance and gave them Carmine's routine... Tony stopped by the beach house to talk to the owner, an attorney named Alan, who agreed to sell it to Tony... During a walk on the beach, Carmela flashed a momentary blast of happiness. Tony told his kids they'd inherit it some day... Russian Irinia drunk dialed Castle Soprano. AJ answered and gave phone to Carmela. Irina told Carmela "I used to fuck your husband.... Tony loves me... we have some sadness in common. He's sleeping with my cousin with the one leg." Carmela threatened to kill Irinia because she had guns... <i>Layla</i> blasted on the radio when Tony returned home and drove over his golf clubs, which Carmela threw in the driveway. Layla was used in the montage scene in <i>Goodfellas</i> when they found all the dead bodies after the Lufthansa heist. Carmela furious that he banged Svetlana because she actually liked her and discussed Moma Sopranos bowel movements. Tony called her out for stealing 40K after she listed his different side pieces (that she knew about). Carmela threw him out of the house and he moved into the beach house... Carmine and Tony finally had a sitdown in Queens. Carmine wanted 20% or to split the difference on 40%, but Tony countered with 15%. They agreed and hugged it out...Tony told Chris to call off the hit on Carmine. Chris paid the hitmen a 50% kill fee on the contract. They were about to drive away until they got whacked themselves by Vinny Delpino... Johnny Sack was wicked pissed off that Tony called off the hit. Tony said no hit was necessary since they hugged it out. Sack said some thing to Tony he shouldn't have said... Alan the attorney caught Tony squatting at the beach house. Tony told him about his marital issues and Alan suggested he see the top divorce lawyers in the area so Carmela couldn't hire them due to a potential conflict of interest. Tony wanted to balk on the home sale. Alan played hardball. His wife told him not to fuck with Tony because he was a mobster. Alan said he'd keep the 200K deposit. Tony installed home theatre speakers on his boat and blasted Dean Martin in front of Alan's beach house. Alan called them goomba trash. He tried to pretend it didn't bother him to his guests. He called the Coast Guard but Tony turned music down whenever they water cops showed up... Meadow asked Carmela if they were breaking up because of Furio. She said she had never been unfaithful. Meadow asked her how she could eat shit from Tony all those years... Tony's phone rang the entire episode. He missed the old days before cell phones... Tony returned home and wouldn't leave. He decided to shack up in the pool house. AJ helped him clean out pool house... Tony and Carmela had it out again. Every fight they had were short spurts. Almost like boxing matches. Three-minute rounds. What did she think was gonna happen when she married a wiseguy? Side pieces were part of the package and in exchange she got materialism up the wazzu. Carmela told him about having feelings from Furio. Tony punched the walls. She called him a hypocrite and walked out... AJ asked Tony if he could move into pool house with him. Tony told him to support his mother. Meadow also felt responsible for failed marriage.<br />
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Season 4 is dunzo. Here's other binge-recaps from <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">The Sopranos Season 1</a> and <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2</a> and <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-3.html" target="_blank">Season 3</a>. Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-68378742274739825252015-03-09T16:20:00.000-04:002015-03-09T17:03:29.899-04:00Binge Watching: Sopranos, Season 3<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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I'm deep into a writing project and needed to take a break so I dove head-first into re-watching <i>The Sopranos</i> from scratch. I got some good ideas for my own manuscript but I've been craving Italian food nonstop and have the urge to open up my own bookie business.<br />
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I posted half-baked thoughts of <i>The Sopranos</i> from <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">Season 1</a> and <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2.</a> <br />
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Here are some thoughts about the third season of <i>The Sopranos</i>...<br />
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<b>S3, Episode 1: Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood</b>... The FBI tried to pull off an Oceans 11 type operation by installing a wire inside the Soprano castle during a small window every Tuesday when everyone was out of the house. The family members were given clever code names: Bada Bing (Tony), Baby Bing (AJ), Princess Bing (Meadow), Mrs. Bing (Carmela), and the Sausage Factory (Bada Bing)... Spy Hunter theme song and The Police's <i>I'll Be Watching You </i>was the soundtrack for the Feds. While driving to work, Tony sang Steely Dan's <i>Dirty Work</i>. He really loved Donald Fagen/Walter Becker or he associated the song with being in the sanitation business... Paulie Walnuts was a closet germ freak afraid of his shoelaces getting soaked with urine in public restrooms... On Patsy Parisi's birthday, he mourned the death of his identical twin Spoons, who got whacked at the start of Season 2 (he had a big mouth, so Tony clipped him). Patsy never enacted revenge. Tony told Patsy put "the grief behind you"... Patsy later showed up in the backyard of the Soprano castle. He was
shitfaced drunk and considering killing Tony with a gun but he whizzed in the pool
instead... Carmela and Adriana took tennis lessons at the country club. The new female tennis pro (obvious switch-hitter) had the hots for Andriana, who showed up to play tennis in beach volleyball-like gear. The FBI had them under surveillance, and the feds were practically fapping in the van at the sight of the lesbo with her hands all over Adriana... The sticky-fingered Polish maid told her husband that she stole random kitchenware from Carmela... FBI intended to bug a desk lamp in the basement, but it got called off when the Feds thought the Sopranos were onto them (it was just a blown water heater)... Episode ended with FBI listening to everyday banter via the bugged lamp. Nothing incriminating... yet.<br />
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<b>S3, Episode 2: Proshai, Livushka</b>.... Carmela found Tony passed out on the kitchen floor covered in blood and uttering "Uncle Ben." Tony flipped out when Meadow dated a half-black, half-Jewish film nerd from West LA. Tony's racist ways induced a fainting spells when he saw a box of Uncle Ben's rice... Moma Soprano finally kicked the bucket. Janice was gonna blow off the funeral, but Tony agreed to pay for the plane ticket from Seattle and said that he's been telling everyone Richie Aprile disappeared into the witness protection program. Initially, the three Soprano children did not want to have
a service but Tony finally agreed to pay for
everything. Tony requested no
hippie-dippie new age shit from Janice at the memorial service... AJ cranked Slipknot while fretting over a report on a Robert Frost's <i><span class="st">Stopping by Woods</span></i>. He could not understand the poem, so Meadow gave him the cliff notes: it's about a man waiting for his death... At his first therapy session post-Moma Soprano death, Tony wondered if he was a good son if he wished his mother would die?... Squabbles (in the form of fire bombs) in the sanitation business made the front page of the local papers, which infuriated Tony. He scolded Ralphie Cifaretto (from Richie Aprile's crew) who was part of the dispute... Furio, Chris, and Adriana were pulling tubes and
railing lines before the wake. "Every little bit helps you get through
these events," said Adriana before she did a pinky nail bump... Silvio was pissed he had to go to the wake because he had Jets tickets. At the wake, Junior showed up to express his condolences and asked Tony to bump Ralphie up to Capo.... At the funeral, the FBI snapped photos... Janice kicked out Svetlana, the one-legged nurse, from the house, even though Tony said she could stay until she found a new place to live. Moma Soprano gave vinyl records to Svetlana, but Janice wanted them back... Tony hosted a post-burial gathering at the Soprano castle. Tony thought he saw Big Pussy in the reflection of a mirror. Janice made everyone stand in a circle (against Tony's wishes) to say something nice about Moma Soprano. Crickets. No one had anything nice to say. Chris was schwasted, stoned and gacked and rambled on about wondering if
we are truly unique people because we really have no proof... Artie had a flashback to the time Moma Soprano told him that Tony burned down his restaurant. He was bitter that he's become the Sopranos' kitchen wench... CATTY CARMELA: Shitfaced Carmela was the only one who spoke the truth: Moma Soprano was an evil woman who didn't want a funeral because she knew no one would come. Carmela's mother tried to shush her, but her father interjected, echoing Carmela's sentiments. He hated Moma Soprano for ruining numerous Christmases. The wicked witch is dead.<br />
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<b>S3, Episode 3: Fortunate Son</b>... Chris becomes a made man!... Paulie Walnuts rewarded Chris by handing over his bookie business in exchange for 10 points a week, or 6K minimum... Chris was perturbed by a crow in the window while he was getting made. He thought it was a bad omen... Chris and his new henchman (Vinny Delpino from Doogie Howser in a puma jogging suit) showed up at a local pizza joint. Jackie Aprile, Jr. was bitter-jealous-emo when he noticed Chris became a made man. He harbored a lot of Uncle Richie's piss and vinegar in him... Jackie, Jr. blew off a family meal at the Sopranos Castle so Tony made Jackie Jr. meet him for lunch. Tony told him that Richie was a rat who went into hiding with Witness Protection. Tony told Jackie, Jr. that his father wanted him to be a doctor and not a wiseguy. Tony said he felt the same way about AJ... AJ was riding the pine for his football team, but finally got into a game and recovered a fumble. Tony was super proud and wanted to celebrate with food, but AJ just wanted to play video games. Tony associated love with food... Janice stole Svetlana's leg to retaliate for taking her mother's vintage vinyl. While she was moving out, Svetlana told Janice she knows she stole the leg and was going to get revenge eventually....Chris got his ass kicked the first weekend as a bookie and he only handed off 4K to Paulie, who busted his balls for shorting him. The guy working the phones at the bookie operation told Chris that Paulie would lay off certain games with Philly bookies. Alas, Chris got offended and wanted to do things his way, which ultimately cost him money that week... In order to kick up cash to Paulie, Chris robbed a Jewel benefit concert with Jackie Jr. as the wheelman. Chris and Vinny put on SCREAM masks and robbed the box office, but shot a security guard on the way out. Chris finally paid Paulie his tax, but revealed he got crushed with the bookmaking operation. "Welcome to the NFL season... rookie!" exclaimed Paulie... FLASHBACK: We learned how Satriale's gets pulled into the Sopranos orbit. Tony was 11 when he saw Johnny Boy Soprano and Uncle Junior cut off the pinky of Satriale the meat guy. Tony was supposed to stay outside, but he went inside and saw everything. Tony's father said he was pissed that Tony disobeyed a direct order, but he was impressed that Tony did not run away at the sight of blood/gore/violence. He told Tony the truth about his job and offered some advice: never gamble. They cut off Satriale's pinky because he was a degen gambler who owed them money... Later that night, Johnny gave Moma Soprano free meat from Satriale's inventory. She had this weird freaky turn on when it came to free meat. When she cooked it up, Tony's parents erotically licked each others fingers. Tony passed out at the sight of the dripping roast. It was his first panic attack according to Dr. Melfi. She considered it a revolutionary leap in treating Tony because his spells/anxiety attacks are often triggered by meat. Yet, Tony had his own abnormal association with food/love/sex... Tony wanted AJ to watch the football game with him, but he went with Carmela and visit Meadow in NYC. Tony wanted to tag along, but Carmela told him that she's still wicked pissed at him for disrespecting her mixed-race boyfriend. Meadow confronted Carmela about the incident in her dorm room. She felt that her mother was siding with her father's ancient ways.... While at Columbia, AJ felt completely alienated because he felt everyone was smarter than him. He told his parents he did not want to go to college... Episode ended with football coach naming AJ the team's defensive captain for being a team player and coming off the bench to make a huge play.
AJ responded to the promotion by passing out. Like father, like son. Johnny Boy had
spells, Tony inherited them too, and now AJ got them.<br />
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<b>S3, Episode 4: Employee of the Month</b>... Johnny Sack moved to NJ, which irked Tony because he thinks Sack was muscling onto his turf... Ralphie Cifaretto started dating Jackie Jr's mother. Ralphie took Jackie along with him to rough up a guy who was late on payments. Raphie gave Jackie a nice cut of the cash... Dr. Melfi was viciously raped in a parking lot by a man named Jesus Rossi, who got arrested but later released on a technicality. She was loathing how the system broke down and failed to protect her. He was employee of the month at a local deli. She ran out of the shop when she saw his picture on a plaque. Dr. Melfi had an overpowering dream with an ACME soda machine inside her office. Her arm got stuck inside the machine while her rapist approached her, but a mean rottweiler bit his arm and saved her. The rottweiler was obviously portrayed by Tony Soprano in her subconscious. She knew she could tell Tony to kill her rapist, but she chose not to break the law. She told him that she was in a bad car accident... Tony told Janice to return Svetlana's leg because Irina kept calling
him at home. Janice wanted to trade Svetlana's leg for her mother's records so she could sell them
on the internet.... Janice tried to uncover Moma Soprano's so-called hidden fortune that she's convinced is buried somewhere on the property. "You make more money working a real job!"screamed Tony... Janice was trying to learn the chords to <i>Satisfaction</i> on electric guitar when two Russian thugs busted into the house and roughed up Janice for stealing Svetlana's leg. Janice finally gave it back and called the thugs "callous," who in return called her callous for stealing a woman's prosthetic leg. Tony warned her not to fuck with the Russians. <br />
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<b>S3, Episode 5: Another Toothpick</b>... OG Paulie made a cameo! Burt Young played Bobby Bacala's old man, Bobby Sr., who had lung cancer... Vito's brother was beatdown by junkie Mustang Sally who took a putter to his skull. Capo Gigi ordered a hit on Mustang Sally and Bobby Sr. agreed to do the hit because he's Sally's uncle/Godfather and had better access. Bobby Jr. didn't want his old man to do the job but Bobby Sr. had a death wish... Bobby Sr. found Mustang Sally in Staten Island and killed him and another mook in a violent struggle. Bobby Sr. smoked Sally's cigarettes and was spitting up blood when he crashed his car on the way home with <i>Sister Golden Hair</i> playing on the radio... Uncle Junior was super-superstitious and convinced death appeared in threes. Carmela's uncle died of cancer and Bobby Sr. was diagnosed with cancer. Junior was convinced he was next. He demanded to know how Bobby Sr really died: cancer or car accident?... Junior revealed to Tony that he also had stomach cancer, which explained his erratic and extra surly behavior... Bobby B was insulted that Junior was going to blow off his father's funeral. But Junior finally revealed that he had cancer and was too ill to go... CATTY CARMELA: Carmela finally met Dr. Melfi and sat in on her first therapy session with Tony. It did not go well with Carmela on the defensive the entire session and said that the therapy didn't work because Tony was still having fainting spells and still cheating on her. The two got into an argument in the car on the way home and Tony was speeding and got pulled over by a cop (played by ROC)... Artie Bucco fell in love with Adriana, who was a hostess as Vesuvio's. Artie told Tony that he was obsessed with Adriana and Tony told him to stop fucking around. Artie drunkenly insulted Chris, which nearly got his ass beat before Tony stepped in... Tony suggested he and Artie start another business together. Artie's wife always hated wiseguys and loathed Carmela. She reminded Artie that Tony only wanted the business as a front to launder more of the mob's dirty money. Artie and his wife decided to split, so Artie got an earring and tried to bang Adriana but he whiffed... Meadow was still angry about Tony's racist ways. She needed a desk lamp and took the bugged lamp back to her dorm room at Columbia. The FBI decided to kill the bug.<br />
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<b>S3, Episode 6: University</b>... Meadow's homesick roommate from Oklahoma transformed into a super emo after
realizing that NYC is not as romantic as it appeared in movies and TV.
Ugly realities of the big city overwhelmed her, like the time she saw a homeless woman using a Daily News as underwear. She started pulling out her hair and Meadow was worried she would start cutting herself next... "Why is other people's pain a source of amusement?" wondered Meadow's
roomie, which is a theme for pretty much every HBO show... Meadow
officially popped her cherry because her father hated the film nerd for being half-black and
half-Jewish. When Meadow stopped by the Soprano's castle, her mother noticed the FFG (Freshly Fucked Glow)... Meadow's boyfriend got pissy because her crazy roommate pestered him while he wrote a paper and he got a shitty grade. His
overbearing Jewish entertainment lawyer father was furious at his poor grades and got a restraining order against Meadow's roomie. At the end of the third act, film nerd broke up
with Meadow because she was too negative and cynical. She was crushed, but the truth hurt, right?... Ralphie was way too obsessed with <i>Gladiator</i> film. Schwasted Ralphie stirred up shit in the VIP room and knocked out the bouncer's eye with a chain. Gigi predicted he'd end up whacked if he kept up his cowboy ways... Tracey, a young stripper and single mom from the Bada Bing, kept missing work while partying with Ralphie. Ralphie knocked her up. She told Tony and wondered if Ralphie would support the baby and marry her. Tony suggested one kid was enough... Ralphie later accidentally murdered Tracey in the parking because she disrespected her in front of the crew. Tony retaliated and beat the crap out of Ralphie, even though he's a made man. Tony justified the beatdown because Ralphie disrespected one of his girls.<br />
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<b>S3, Episode 7: Second Opinion</b>... "He's got two speeds: moping and yelling," was Carmela's mother's assessment of Tony... Tony thought Junior should get a second opinion on his cancer treatment instead of sticking
with a cut-happy surgeon that Junior liked solely because he had the
same name as JFK. When the surgeon blew off Junior, Tony and Furio paid him a visit on the golf course to encourage him to practice better bedside manners... Paulie and Silvio made Chris strip nekkid to prove he wasn't wearing a wire. Paulie then went to Chris' house in the middle of the night to acquire boosted shoes for his side piece. Chris got upset because Paulie sniffed Adriana's panties. Chris complained about the ball busting to Tony, and Paulie got pissed that Chris was a pussy and couldn't take a little razzing. They hugged it out over a talking bass that sang <i>YMCA</i>... That same talking bass reminded Tony of his fever dreams and Big Pussy as the talking fish... Carmela got suckered into donating $50,000 to Columbia's new student center. Tony only wanted to donate $5,000 but Carmela insisted on 50K donation...CATTY CARMELA: She didn't like the sculpture in Dr. Melfi's office. It sorta looks like a naked version of one of Degas' ballerinas, but her bewilderment looked similar to Tony's reaction on his first visit to Melfi... Big Pussy's wife ran into Carmela at the market and she complained about her sick dog and mounting vet bills. Tony was irked that she never asked him for the money so he busted up her new Caddy... Dr. Melfi recommended a different therapist to Carmela. He was Jewish and refused to accept payment (aka blood money) for the session when he found out she was a mob wife. The new therapist was no nonsense, no bullshit. He told Carmela to stop fooling herself and leave Tony ASAP. Doc said if Tony wanted to repent for his sins, he should turn himself in and read Dostoevsky's <i>Crime and Punishment. </i><br />
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<b>S3, Episode 8: He Is Risen</b>... Thanksgiving. The crew boosted a truck of turkeys and diverted them to the Rev, so he
can hand them out to poor folks in Newark. See, the wiseguys have
heart sometimes!... Meadow went to a raver and found Jackie Jr. slinging E to the kids in the Jewish frat... They had a schwilly hook
up but Jackie could not close the deal because she passed out on him... Tony and Ralphie were still hating on each other over the night he killed Tracy the stripper. They woulda whacked him already if he wasn't such a profitable earner... Tony didn't want Ralphie to come to Turkey Day dinner so Carmela told Rosalie that dinner was canceled due to her ill father... At dinner, Tony threw nuts at Janice's new narcoleptic boyfriend who
kept nodding out... Jackie Jr stopped by to take
Meadow out to a movie and they sucked fave in his car instead... Ralphie talked to Johnny Sack about the Tony rift and Sack advised him to apologize. "Saying 'I'm sorry' might save your life." Ralphie finally apologized, but cited the cocaine as the cause of his disruptive behavior. Tony sorta blew him off. Ralphie was salty and bitter that his apology went nowhere... When Gigi died of a heart attack, Tony had no choice but to promote Ralphie to Capo because the other candidate pool was very thin... Tony quoted Sun Tzu at Dr. Melfi's... Tony had a fling with one of Melfi's patients, the Mercedes sales lady, when she accidentally booked them both for the same session... Drunk Meadow wanted to go to a concert, but Jackie wanted to play pool with his goomba pals instead. Shitfaced Meadow took Jackie Jr.'s car keys and totaled his car. She was okay and Jackie said he'd report the car as stolen.<br />
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<b>S3, Episode 9: The Telltale Moozadell</b>... Carmela's birthday and Tony got her a rock the size of Rhode Island. AJ got his mom a DVD of the Matrix and Meadow got her a spa treatment in SoHo... Furio and Vinny Delpino tried to collect from another degen in Long Branch who owned a club called Lollipop. The Vikings missed an extra point and the guy lost his shirt. When he cried about the bad beat, Furio threw a drink in his face. "Bet with your head! Not over it!" Chris took over as a silent partner and gifted the club to Adriana. She re-named it Crazy Horse... Furio caught an Israeli kid dealing E inside the club who was friend of Jackie Jr. The dealer asked Jackie to fix the situation, but Chris told Jackie to fuck off. Jackie didn't want to look like a mook, so he told his Israeli friend he could deal outside the club. When Furio found out, he gave the dealer a severe beatdown... Meadow was upgraded to Jackie Jr's girlfriend so she did his homework for him (a paper on Edgar Allen Poe). Carnela was worried Meadow was spending too much time in NJ when she should be hitting the books at her Ivy League institution and partaking in NYC culture instead of slumming with second-rate wiseguys in NJ... Tony caught Jackie Jr. playing blackjack at the illegal casino and realized he's just a mook... AJ and his shitbag-rich prep school friends (Lady GaGa played one of the HS girls) broke into the school and trashed the pool. The cops figured out who it was because AJ left behind a recognizable pizza box with a couple of slices. Based on his special order, the owner knew who ordered the pizza... AJ got grounded with a severe punishment: NO NINTENDO or INTERNET for a month... Tony took Mercedes lady on a date to the Bronx Zoo and they knocked boots inside the reptile room (which in real life was known as a notorious hook up area because it was so dark)... Dr. Melfi suspected Mercedes lady (who previously an attempted suicide over a jilted lover) was banging Tony and she grew super jealous. Melfi went on mega-tilt because her patients lied to her on a regular basis... <br />
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<b>S3, Episode 10: ...To Save Us All from Satan's Power</b>... Christmas time for the Soprano crew. Tony had a TO DO list and spent the episode adding/crossing off items, like picking up gifts, laundering money, and revenge beatdowns... Tony had flashbacks about Big Pussy. He thought about the first time Pussy started acting suspicious during Christmas 1995 (although Pussy started working with the Feds around 1998). In a flashback to 1995, Tony had more hair and Richie Aprile was alive. Tony warned Pussy not to sling H... Silvio was haunted by rat dreams about Big Pussy, like how cheese went missing at the Bada Bing and he found Big Pussy crushed to death in a giant rat trap... The crew was bummed out that Big Pussy always played Santa Claus at Satriale's for the neighborhood kids. Tony refused to be Jolly St. Nick, so they made Bobby Bacala play the role. Bobby was awful and one of the kids told him to fuck off... Paulie had stories about the history of Santa Claus (the elves were originally evil trolls) and Chris thought the Grinch had a lucrative racket... Tony had a small panic attack like when his brain turned to ginger ale... Janice insisted on cooking a Christmas goose. Her house was messy because she suffered from lingering injuries when the Russians roughed her up for stealing Svetlana's leg. Tony felt guilty and asked Slava (his Russian mob bankster who washed Tony's money thru the Isle of Man) if he could track down the cabbie who did the dead. Furio and Tony paid the cabbie a visit and tossed him through a store window... Artie Bucco's wife showed cleavage and dressed up after she was officially separated... CATTY CARMELA: Still bitter that Tony once finger-banged Artie Bucco's wife in high school... Tony spotted Jackie Jr. getting a lap dance in a rival strip club. Tony whooped him in the bathroom and found the pea-shooter pistol Ralphie gave him. Jackie told Tony that he flunked out of Rutgers and wanted to design men's suits instead of being a doctor. Tony was disappointed in Jackie for being a lying dirt dick and told him that he hit rock bottom... Christmas morning, Jackie showed up and gave Meadow some jewelry, but Tony shined him on because he didn't want to ruin Christmas. Meadow gave Tony the singing fish for Christmas, which always gave him memories of his fever dream and Big Pussy.<br />
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<b>S3, Episode 11: Pine Barrens</b>... Hell hath no fury than two side pieces scorned. Tony's side piece, the Mercedes lady, was swimming in jealousy when his former Russian side piece, Irinia, drunk dialed him on his boat. Mercedes tossed Tony's Christmas gift overboard... Tony told Dr. Melfi that he was banging one of her patients... Ivy League 1, State School 0: Meadow was way too smart for Jackie Jr. During Scrabble, he played simple words like "POO", "THE" and "ASS", while she dropped "OBLIQUE", which he thought was Spanish. Yeah, not the sharpest cookie in the cookie jar, eh?... Meadow suspected Jackie was two-timing her, so she drove out to Jersey and found Jackie with another girl. Meadow flipped out, but she finally saw what Tony already knew -- that Jackie was full of shit dickbag... Silvio was down with the flu, so Paulie and Chris inherited one of his collections. Paulie incited a fight with a surly alkie Russian (Slava told Tony that he was ex-special forces who killed 16 Chechens with his bare hands). They fucked him up pretty bad and decided to dump the body in the pine barrens, but they botched the job when the Russian escaped even though Paulie shot him in the head... Chris and Paulie got lost in the pine barrens and Paulie lost his shoe in the snow. They holed up in an abandoned van while staving off hypothermia. Chris and Paulie lost their minds and threatened to kill each other, until they realized the absurdity of their petty dramas... Tony called up Bobby Bacala to help find Chris and Paulie. Bobby B showed up to help with some serious hunting gear. Tony gave him guff, but later apologized because he did a great job as a caregiver to Uncle Junior... Tony and Bobby found Paulie and Chris the next morning. "All night in this hell hole!" exclaimed Paulie. Alas, Paulie's car was missing (along with Tony's collection money). Tony let Paulie made the final call (as Capo) to end the search for the Russian. Tony told him that if Slava and the Russian mob found out, it was all on Paulie... The Pine Barrens was a highly controversial episode because of the open-ended ambiguous fate of the Russian. David Chase said they wrote a storyline in the final season about the Russian surviving but with serious brain damage. Alas, that scene got cut. The Pine Barrens in real life is where the so-called Jersey Devil lived. The area was very metaphorical if not literal: juxtaposition of the inner mind as the vast frozen wastleland trying to hide past problems and indiscretions.<br />
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<b>S3, Episode 12: Armor Fou</b>... Episode began inside an art museum. Meadow found Carmela weeping in front of an Italian renaissance painting <i>The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine</i>. Meadow thought her mom fell into a black hole of emo... Carmela wore red when she visited a priest who told her to stay with
Tony and help him lead a better life... During lunch with other mob wives, Carmela revealed that her secret role model is
Hillary Clinton because she stuck by Slick Willy during the Monica Lewinski
affair... The title of episode is French for "crazy love", which De. Melfi used to describe Tony's affair with the Mercedes lady... Carmela's car was being serviced and Mercedes lady found out she was married to Tony, so she offered Carmela a ride
home (without revealing she was Tony's side piece) and drove very fast.... Mercedes later called Carmela at home and told her about the new line of cars, which pissed off Tony. He tried to dump crazy Mercedes, but she called him at work and begged him to come over. She insulted the gaudy ring Tony gave Carmela, so he smacked her. She was suicidal and begged Tony to kill her, but Tony walked out... Tony told Dr. Melfi about the incident and Melfi referred to as "suicide by cop." Melfi said that crazy, drama queen Mercedes was a surrogate for his mother, who was also a crazy drama queen... Tony sent Patsy Parisi to deliver the Mercedes lady a message: stay the fuck away from Tony and his family, otherwise the last face she'd see was Patsy's and not Tony's. "It won't be cinematic," warned Patsy... Jackie Jr and his BFF Dino didn't want to pay their dues and sought out a fast track through the wiseguys ranks. Ralphie told Jackie Jr that Tony and Jackie Aprile Sr. used to be petty weed
dealers until they got recognized for knocking over a high-stakes poker
game run by Feech LaMotta. After that ballsy job, Jackie and Tony made names for themselves as
rising stars. Ralphie was supposed to be a
part of the robbery, but he had gotten the clap, which is why he's only middle management... Jackie assembled a crew of meth-snorting, ski-mask-wearing mooks to rob a local poker game (low-level game actually run by Ralphie). They had no idea that Chris and Furio were playing that night. One of the mooks got scared during the robbery and a fire fight ensued when Jackie panicked. Furio got shot in the thigh and Jackie killed the dealer. When Jackie ran outside, there was no getaway car. The wheelman (The Israeli E dealer who got tossed from Crazy Horse by Furio) got scared and he left without everyone. Jackie carjacked a car and sped away. Chris caught Dino, who told him he was working for Raphie, but Chris whacked him anyway... Tony called a mob doctor to operate on Furio, who wondered if the guy was a real doctor because he was a prick doctor known for erectile dysfunction commercials... Chris was furious that Tony wouldn't let him clip Jackie Jr. because Tony was worried it would draw too much attraction. "Why did they always have to play by the rules when no one else did?" was Chris' logic because he was a made man. Tony replied with: "You don't have to love me, but you will respect me!"... Ralphie stopped by Satriale's to talk to Tony and asked Tony to give Jackie Jr a pass. Tony left it up to Ralphie since he was Capo and was also dating Jackie's mother... Ralphie made up some story to Jackie's mom about Jackie getting deep into blow, which is why he's on the lam in Florida. <br />
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<b>S3, Episode 13: The Army of One</b>... AJ and his buddy broke into school to steal a test. They got tricked into confessing and he got expelled from Verbum Dei. Tony decided to ship him off to military school. Carmela protested because she didn't want AJ to become a professional killer. Tony thought AJ would finally get proper discipline. On the day he reported to his new school, AJ passed out via panic attack... Jackie went on the lam in the hood in Boonton. He even called Tony and begged for forgiveness. Tony was irked that Ralphie was not making a timely decision about Jackie's fate. Ralphie sent Vito down to Boonton and Vito whacked Jackie, Jr when he stepped outside for some fresh air... Ralphie told Jackie's mom that he was killed by drug dealers... AJ called Meadow and told her that jacking got shot in the hood... Rosalie Aprile was upset at the low turnout at Jackie's wake, but it coincided with Super Bowl weekend, the busiest times of the year for all the wiseguys/bookies. Even some of the guys in attendance were on their phones... At the cemetery, Silvio and and Chris were pinched during the Feds annual Super Bowl sweep. Uncle Junior ran away when he saw the Feds hauling away Silvio... Meadow got into a spat with Jackie's sister, Kelly. She claimed that the mob life is what killed Jackie ("a fat fuck in see-through socks" clipped him), whereas Meadow sided with the family's "official story" and blamed the illegal drug trade... Paulie and Ralphie had a dispute over a lucrative job. They had a sitdown with Tony, who ordered Ralphie to give Paulie 12K (instead of 50K that he wanted to pay for his mother's retirement home)... Paulie was pissed and bitched to Johnny Sack, who suggested he start working for the Brooklyn family... The Feds decided to close in on Chris after he became a made man. They assigned a female agent, Debbie, to go undercover and get close to Adriana... At a special post-burial meal at Vesuvio's, Junior crooned a song from the old country ("Ungrateful Heart") while it was intercut with different characters crying and/or glancing at each other. Shitfaced on Cosmos, a disrespectful Meadow chucked bread at Junior and sang a line from Britney Spears' <i>Ooops I Did It Again</i>. Tony chased her outside and she told him that everything was a load of bullshit.<br />
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Season 3 is dunzo. Here's other binge-recaps from <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">The Sopranos Season 1</a> and <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-2.html" target="_blank">Season 2</a>.Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-43330087774877283962015-03-08T04:20:00.000-04:002015-03-08T15:51:47.093-04:00Binge Watching: Sopranos, Season 2<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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I am in the middle of binge-watching one of my favorite series that is included among the Mount Rushmore of TV. I wrote about <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">Season 1 of The Sopranos last Friday</a>.<br />
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If you are like the only person in the world who never saw <i>The Sopranos</i>, consider this your only disclaimer about plotline spoilers.<br />
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Here are my half-baked thoughts on the second season of <i>The Sopranos</i>...<br />
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<b>Season 2, Episode 1: Guy Walks into a Psychiatrist's Office</b>... Good to see someone getting whacked in the first act of the first episode: Tony straightened out one of Junior's guys who was talking smack about Tony's mother wanting to have him whacked... The introduction to the prodigal sister Janice with a hippie-dippie name change. After spending time in Seattle finding her spiritual self, she emerged with a new name and a new scam. She returned to Mobtown, USA to ensure a cut of Moma Soprano's house/fortune... The episode also marked the return of Big Pussy, who disappeared at the end of Season 1 when everyone thought he was the FBI rat. Tony thought he was getting whacked while picking up his morning paper in the driveway, but it was only Big Pussy. Tony had to make sure Pussy wasn't wearing a wire before he gave him a proper "Welcome home, you're lucky we almost whacked you!" hug... Tony had his "spells" again. He lost his shit when his <i>Smoke on the Water</i> CD started skipping and he passed out while driving.... Chris hired someone to take his Series 7 (stockbroker's exam) so he could have a cushy job as a so-called SEC compliance officer in a suburban boiler room pushing a bullshit penny stock -- Webistics -- in a classic Pump-N-Dump scheme. Chris' firm included a couple of his mook friends -- nothing more than low-level car thieves masquerading as stock brokers... Dr. Melfi kept seeing patients but her office hours were hosted at a no-tell motel. She refused to speak to Tony, but he assured her that she was safe and could finally go home. She told him to fuck off, even after he had another spell/panic attack... Supposedly, a Rockette once dosed Silvio with LSD.<br />
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<b>S2, Episode 2: Do Not Resuscitate</b>... Uncle Junior's high-priced lawyer got him sprung from jail for health reasons but he was under house arrest and forced to wear an ankle bracelet after he mad a Nazi crack to the Jewish judge... Tony decided to leave Junior in place as the family's "figure head", but the old boss lost the majority of his now-fallen empire and can only earn a modest salary (pipe fitters union) in order to pay his mounting legal bills. The last man standing in Junior's crew was soft-spoken Bobby Bacala and the crew hurled fat jokes and other insults at him... Janice let Meadow drive while she scored some weed. After kissing up to Moma Soprano with CDs of old-school Italian crooners, Janice belted out Paul Simon's <i>Mother and Child </i>in the car while smoking a doobie... Moma Soprano discovered that Tony and Janice were discussing a DNR order after AJ asked his grandma what it meant... Angle-shooting Janice realized that her plan to score some quick cash is going to take a lot of effort and headaches, but she had visions of pushing cantankerous Moma Soprano down the stairs... Big reveal for Big Pussy -- he really was a RAT working with the Feds, but he's feeding bunk intel to his FBI contact... Tony and the Reverend got a nice scam going. The Rev sent protestors to a construction site, and the owner paid off Tony to rough up the protestors. Tony and the Rev split the shakedown cash. Thinly veiled shot at the unscrupulous corruption of protest leaders across history who, despite the bloodshed, were blinded by greed and lined their pockets through the social injustice du jour.<br />
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<b>S2, Episode 3: Toodle Fucking-Oo</b>... Enter the foil: Richie Aprile released from jail. The hothead older brother of former boss Jackie Aprile (and Adriana's "uncle") finished a 10-year stint in the joint and he's become a boil on the ass of Tony and his crew. Richie felt he should be head of the DiMeo family upon his release, but Tony was the current King after Junior got pinched... On his first night back, Richie fucked up Beansie the pizza shop owner and smashed a coffee pot over his head. Rchie later ran over Beansie after chasing him down the street with a gun... Richie also told Chris that he had to stop smacking Adriana around, unless he married her, then he could do whatever he wanted. You can't beat girlfriends, but you can beat wives... Richie was bitter and bitchy about safety protocol (surveillance) because he could not discuss business at Satriale's meat market, and had to talk to Tony through Silvio, unless he schlepped to the mall and chatted with Tony inside the Sharper Image store... Tony's crew threw Richie a welcome home party at the Bada Bing, but he was still a nasty sourpuss who turned the lights out to get blowjobs from top-heavy strippers because he was used to prison-head-in-the-dark... We found out that Richie used to bang Janice back in the day and he coincidentally showed up at her yoga class... Tony claimed that Janice is like a circling vulture ready to pick at the bones of their mother's carcass.... Meadow threw a raging rave at Grandma's empty house, but it got busted when one of their idiot friends OD'd on "designer drugs" and an Ecstasy/Ketamine cocktail. Damn, I missed the 90s... Dr. Melfi is in therapy herself and revealed to her shrink that she was haunted by a wacky dream about Tony dying in a nasty wreck because she stopped seeing him as a patient... Paulie Walnuts should be "Paulie Jokes Two Times" because he loved to repeat punchlines of lame jokes.<br />
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<b>S2, Episode 4: Commendatori</b>... Tony goes to Italy...to discuss the family's car "export" business with the Don Vito... Chris and Paulie Walnuts tagged along with Tony to Naples. Enter Furio, the pony-tailed henchman and their contact guy. Chris noticed that Furio's buddy had trackmarked arms. It takes a junkie to spot a fellow junkie!... Paulie Walnuts was visiting Italy for the first time and he acted like a childish, boorish tourist instead of trying to be a well-mannered businessman. He also refused to take a dump in the less-than optimal restaurant facilities... Tony didn't know the Don was swimming in senility and muttering names of America streets and highways. Don Vito's number two was serving life in prison, so his daughter Annalisa was really in charge... Tony witnessed Furio's tenacity and loyalty when he jumped on top
of Don Vito's body when they thought they heard gunshots. It was only a kid with firecrackers, but Furio
whooped the stupid kid and even beat the kid's mama. At that point, Tony was impressed with Furio's astute and ruthless professionalism. He knew he was going to make Furio his number 1 draft pick. It's like when NBA teams started drafting players from Europe. Consider Furio the
Vlade Divac of the Soprano crew and their first round pick from Naples
University... Tony super surprised at the depth of Annalisa's paranoia that she burned her toenail clippings for fear of her enemies getting hold of her DNA... Tony butted heads with Annalisa when he asked to draft Furio in the first round, but she was incredulous because he's her cousin and best lieutenant... Tony visited Sibil's Cave, where over the last few centuries, people made a pilgrimage to hear their future. Analisa told him that he's his own worst enemy (she's spot on) and that they should knock boots. Tony felt the same carnal urges but he wouldn't fuck the Boss, not because she was married but because he felt it was bad business ethics. They ultimately sealed a deal that includes Furio and boosted cars for 75K a pop... Chris' entire Italian vacation consisted of shooting smack in his hotel root with nodded-out hookers. He never left his hotel room and said he had food poisoning. He bought Adriana souvenirs at Newark airport... Meanwhile, back in the Kingdom of NoJer: Big Pussy was spotted talking to his contact with the Feds at the Party Box by an old friend who is an Elvis impersonator. He later whacked Elvis with a hammer to cover his tracks... CATTY CARMELA: After Janice judged her hypocritical nature looking the other way of Tony's indiscretions in exchange for a McMansion and life of luxury, she gave Janice shit for shacking up with Richie Aprile. Janice explained that Richie Aprile has a special sensitivity toward women because of his time in prison playing hide the salami... Loved that the yuppie dog named Churchill ran away after the Mercedes SUV got carjacked at the start of the episode.... This end credits music is that same song that is played at the Bellagio fountains in Vegas. <br />
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<b>S2, Episode 5: Big Girls, Don't Cry</b>... With the Feds closing in on Tony and Furio now on the team, Tony
re-organized his crew. Paulie Walnuts got a promotion to Capo, while
Silvio got bumped up to Consigliere. Meanwhile, Big Pussy and Furio
report to Silvio/Paulie... Chris was late to his first class "Acting for Writers", which was a birthday gift from Adriana to help solve his writer's block. She thinks that revealing feelings is how you turn into a better writer. It turns out Chris is better at improv than actual writing. He can even cry on cue much to the amazement of his classmates and teacher. But it all went to hell during an exercise when Chris beat up his acting partner... Chris finally gave up on his aspirations as a screenwriter and threw away his old scripts ("You Bark, I Bite") and his old floppy discs... Tony confided in Hesh that he was having anxiety attacks/fainting spells, despite the fact business was doing awesome. Hesh revealed that Tony's old man, Johnny Boy Soprano, also had similar issues and once split his head open on a cigarette machine... Johnny Sack had a meeting with Paulie and Furio, but Pussy was asked to step away from the table while the adults discussed business. Pussy whined about his "demotion" to his FBI contact. Even the FBI mook was full-blown emo complaining about being passed over for a promotion. "Whole society is fucked... world is full of scumbags," the jaded emo-Fed remarked... CATTY CARMELA: At Furio's welcome party, Uncle Junior showed up with cookies and Carmela slammed the door in his face... BEATDOWN of the EPISODE: Tony sent Furio on his first mission: collecting at a tanning salon
where the owner was holding out on Chris & Tony. Furio went full-blown cowboy when he busted into tanning salon. He whooped the the owner's wife and beat the owner with a lead pipe before shooting him in the kneecap.... DUCKS REFERENCE: On Tony's boat, Stugots, his Russian side piece Irina fed cheeze doodles to ducks and Tony scolded her. When Irina cussed at Tony in Russian, the guy in the boat next to him was also Russian and told Tony's lady friend she should date Russian men. Tony flipped out and nearly ripped off the testicles off the Ruskie who wouldn't mind his own fuckin' business... After consulting with her own therapist about feeling guilty dumping Tony, Dr. Melfi decided it was time to start seeing Tony again as a patient. She told him to read Sun Tzu's <i>Art of War</i> to become a better gang leader.<br />
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<b>S2, Episode 6: The Happy Wanderer</b>... Tony told Dr. Melfi that he hated happy wanderers, people walking down the street smiling because they have a clear conscience. Hence the title of this episode. Dr. Melfi dropped a Carlos Castaneda quote, but Tony dismissed it because he thinks he's a boxer... Ah, my wheelhouse with the poker episode. The Big Game. Uncle Junior and Tony's father used to host the Executive Game that often ran for a couple of days straight. They hosted the return of the Big Game at the no-tell motel run by the Hasidic jews... Among the players were the "prick doctor", Johnny Sack, and Frank Sinatra, Jr. who flew out to just play in the Big Game... One of Tony's old high school friends, Davey Scatino, owned a sporting goods store and his son went to school with Meadow. He's also a degen gambler who owed Richie Aprile 8K before he got cut off. Scatino begged Tony to let him sit in the Big Game even though he showed up with no cash. Tony floated him "five boxes of ziti" for the buy-in... As the game went late, Tony fell asleep and woke up to discover that Scatino was stuck 45 boxes of ziti. Tony was going to close game before his friend lost any more cash, but Richie Aprile showed up and had words with Scatino and started punching him. Frank Sinatria, Jr. decided to leave, so the game broke on account of hotheaded Richie... Tony was wicked pissed with Richie and told him he had to wait until Scatino paid Tony back first before Richie got the money Scatino owed him... Meanwhile, Tony told Scatino he had two days to come up with the cash, otherwise he'd have to owe 5 points weekly juice... "My luck is gonna change!" exclaimed the degen broke dick. They all say that... Scatino hit up Artie Bucco to borrow $20K. Probably $10K to pay back some to Tony and the other 10K to go to Atlantic City! Instead, brokedick re-possessed his son's SUV and handed it over to Tony as partial payment for the 45K he owed. Tony, in turn, gifted the SUV to his daughter. Meadow refused the new car when she realized it belonged to her (boy)friend. She protested to Tony and those two had a blowup. Tony explained that brokedicks eventually have to pay for their brokedick ways. Tony put the spoiled Meadow in her place. Sure, she loved the luxury of being a mafia princess, but she had no right to complain. She can't have her cake and eat it too... Meadow's friend told her that Tony needed to give him his car back, but Meadow pretty much told him she did not have that kinda of influence over adjudicating gambling debts. The kid flipped out and called her out for being a mafia princess... Chris always the angleshooter! He tried to rig the scale
at the fish store. He hired his two mook underlings to work the Big Game
as waiters. He reminded them to watch out for Silvio, who is usually
cool and calm under pressure, but he goes on mega-tilt when he starts
losing at cards... Janice planted seeds in Richie's head. She told him that her father gave a wiseguy $50,000 when he got out of the joint almost 30 years earlier. Tony gave Richie the same amount, but Janice felt that adjusted for inflation, her brother shoulda gave Richie $500,000.<br />
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<b>S2, Episode 7: D-Girl</b>... Chris is usually the gangster cheating anyone in his path, but he got starry eyes and let his guard up when Hollywood scensters came to town. His cousin was dating a development executive a.k.a. D-Girl (short for Development Girl... a moniker for female executive in Hollywood. Yes when I first met Nicky, she was a D-Girl) who worked for Jon Favreau and he told her about Chris' script. It turned out they were really interested in beefing up their own mafia project. During their first meeting in a NYC club, the D-Girl developed the hots for Chris after he told drunk banksters to leave them alone... AJ got busted for stealing his mom's car and he got into a minor accident. When confronted he spouted off emo-existentialist: "Death just shows the absolute absurdity of life." Meadow dropped a Madame de Stael quote: "One must choose in life between boredom and suffering." Alas, the malaise of suburban druddery... AJ went to talk to Moma Soprano about his existentialist angst. She did not console him, rather, she told him the cold harsh truth: "Don't expect happiness, you won't get it... you die alone."... Big Pussy took AJ and his own son to the batting cages to discuss AJ's emo-existentialist phase. Big Pussy's son told him to check out Keirkagaard, but AJ responded by dropping a Master P quote. Big Pussy's son was surprised, "You still listen to rap? It's all about marketing now!"... D-Girl took Chris to a film set to meet Jon Favreau. He gave them dialogue tips when one of the actresses did not want to say "bitch." Chris suggested "pucchiaca", which is cunt in Italian in case if you ever wondered where pussy was derived from. Chris took them out for pizza at a local joint and he revealed some insider wiseguy stuff in order to kiss up to his new Hollywood friends. Chris told them about the shemale acid story and how a wiseguy stumbled upon his own personal <i>Crying Game</i>... Chris banged D-Girl a few times and she asked him if he was ever with a Jewish girl from Yale before... D-Girl told Chris that his script needed work, but she was just using him for a booty call and needed help punching up Favreau's mob script... Chris got gacked to the gills in Favreau's room, who seemed fascinated with Chris the Wiseguy and asked if he was strapped. Favreau got scared after Chris pulled out his gun and the two were horseplaying around. Favreau wiped his fingerprints off gun but gave Chris a tip for his fledgling screenplay.... Chris flipped out when he discovered Favreau's screenplay included the wiseguy shemale acid story. D-Girl said they changed some of the details, but Chris was convinced he could get whacked for revealing insider secrets... D-Girl dropped William Inge reference when Chris got all stalkerish with her... It was AJ's Confirmation Day and Pussy was his sponsor (along with being AJ's Godfather). The Feds wanted Pussy to wear a wire and he almost got busted by his wife when he was in the bathroom shaving his chest... During the party, Tony busted AJ for smoking reefer in the garage. He was also livid that Chris didn't show up to the church because he was out trying to impress his new Hollywood friends. Chris was dejected at the thought of being used by the "West Coast Entertainment Mafia." Tony gave him an ultimatum: pick his path -- the family business or Hollyweird. Chris chose the family business... The D-Girl storyline was an indictment on Hollywood Jews stealing and profiting off Italian-American mafia life. Chris was blinded by fame and didn't realize he was getting used by ruthless showbiz types, who were criminals of a different breed.<br />
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<b>S2, Episode 8: Full Leather Jacket</b>... Carmela is hung up on dying institutions like the Catholic church, marriage, and college... especially college. Carmela thinks a good education will elevate Meadow from Mafia Princess into the One-Percenters. Bit Carmela wanted Meadow to attend a good Catholic college like Georgetown and one that's not Berkeley. Tony did not want Meadow to go to Berkeley because there's a ton of fudgepackers out in the Bay Area.... Carmela asked her neighbor if her twin sister (Georgetown alum) could write a letter of recommendation for Meadow... Carmela showed up with a pie and Meadow's transcript and she wouldn't take no for an answer. Carmela's neighbor freaked out and told her sister to write the recommendation otherwise everyone gets WHACKED!... CATTY CARMELA: Carmela nearly sabotaged Meadow's Berkley application, which was incomplete according to a letter for Meadow that she opened. Berkley requested more transcript info, but
Carmela threw it in the trash. She had second thoughts and fished it out
in the middle of the night... Chris finally popped the question to Adriana. Her mother was not keen on her daughter marrying a mobster, but Adriana was thrilled he finally asked... Silvio and Paulie requested that Richie Aprile build a ramp for Beansie, the guy he ran over who was confined to a wheelchair, but he was being a prick about it... Richie gave Tony a goomba jacket that looked cool circa 1979. Tony didn't want anything to do with the jacket. Richie was personally offended and got extra salty when he noticed Tony gave the jacket away to his Polish maid's husband... Richie Aprile even quoted the Tao: "Close one door before you open another"... Janice and Richie came to Sunday dinner and Janice looked more like gangster wife than a hippie from Seattle... Chris' mook underlings were obsessed with mafia lifestyle, but they were impatient and wanted to get in good with the top brass. They kissed up to Richie Aprile and then followed Tony into the toilet at Bada Bing to discuss business. Tony wigged out on them for being mooks and trying to talk shop in a place that was most likely bugged... Furio showed up at the mooks apartment to collect money for Tony and he shook them down for another 1K... The mooks decided that they needed to whack Chris in order to gain respect. Of course, because they were mooks they botched the hit and one of them got killed in the firefight. The other mook got away and ran to Richie Aprile's house seeking protection. The mook claimed they did the hit as a favor to Richie because he hated Chris. Richie chased the kid out of his house... The episode ended with Chris in a coma in the hospital. <br />
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<b>S2, Episode 9: From Where to Eternity</b>... Chris woke up from his coma but told Paulie and Tony that he crossed over into hell when his heart stopped. Chris saw his father (also a wiseguy) and other guys who were whacked. He told Paulie and Tony a message: "Three o'clock." Tony dismissed it as a drug-induced dream, but Paulie became obsessed with what Chris told him... Paulie kept pestering Chris about his hell experience. He wanted to make sure it was not Purgatory because if it was hell, then "you'd notice the heat." Paulie figured out between his venial and mortal sins, he had about 6,000 years in Purgatory coming to him, which he felt he could do standing on his head... Paulie's conscience was irking him and keeping him awake at night. He decided to consult a psychic in Nyack, who told him he had a cast of whacked wiseguys haunting him... Paulie flipped out and went to speak to a Catholic priest who told him that psychics were charlatans doing the devil's work... Carmela was convinced she saved Chris by praying to Jesus... Chris' near-death-experience freaked out Tony because he realized that if he died, his only male heir was AJ who was a soft sloth yet shielded from the wiseguy life in their gigantic suburban castle... Big Pussy got back onto Tony's good side by helping find the mook on the lam who shot Chris... Tony made sure that the attempted hit on Chris was a "spec hit" and not an assassination ordered by any of his enemies. Tony shot the mook first, and then Big Pussy and Tony emptied their clips into him... After killing the mook, the two went to the same steak joint where Big Pussy took Tony on the night be popped his cherry with his first execution.... CATTY CARMELA: She asked Tony to get a vasectomy because Ralphie knocked up his Brazilian side piece. She has been reading <i>Memories of a Geisha</i>... Tony told Dr. Melfi that he's not going to hell because he's a soldier just following orders and that hell was not for wiseguys, rather, it was for supreme evil like Pol Pot or Hitler. If things got ugly, it's because they were chasing the American Dream. Why shouldn't Italians get a piece of the pie?<br />
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<b>S2, Episode 10: Bust Out</b>... Lost kid in mall gave Tony had a flashback to Chris' revenge killing when the mook cried out to his mommy... Janice and Richie indulged in freaky sex shit involving guns. Janice quoted Sun Tzu post-coitus. She pulled a Moma Soprano and tried to manipulate Richie. Planted more seeds in Richie Aprile's dense skull in order to knock her brother out of power. She was getting stoned and deep into a couch booty call while Moma Soprano was upstairs the entire time... Carmela had the hots for the Wallpaper Man. He wanted to paper her walls but got scared off because she's the mob boss' wife... Acceptance letters arrived for Meadow. Our little mafia princess got into Berkley and NYU, but much to the dismay of Carmela, she got wait-listed at Georgetown... Tony used Ramsey's sporting goods store to run up a huge tab after Broke Dick of the Year Davey Sactino essentially handed the store over to Tony after running up nearly 50K in gambling debts. Scatino blew his kid's college fund and considered suicide. He eventually told his brother-in-law (aka the Wallpaper Man) about his brokedick ways (donking off 45K in the Big Game plus other sportsbetting turds) and how deep deep into debt he was into Tony. Wallpaper man offered to pay for his nephew's college tuition if Sactino went back to Gamblers Anonymous. Wallpaper man called off a potential date with Carmela. Yeah, she got cockblocked by a brokedick... A witness came forward and he claimed he saw two men whack the mook. With the Feds closing in, Tony spent the majority of the episode in total freak out mode because he was five minutes away from life imprisonment. The FBI knew Tony clipped the mook but they don't know Big Pussy was also a part of the revenge killing. Late in Act 3, the so-called witness got cold feet when he found out the mook who got whacked was in Tony Soprano's crew. He conveniently mis-remembered the events from that evening.... Tony left his therapy session early after he told Dr. Melfi he met a woman in Italy he wanted to bang who reminded him of her. As he walked out he said, "I dodged a pretty big bullet and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I don't need any more psychiatry today"... The episode ended with a tender father/son moment with Tony teaching AJ how to drive a boat. Of course in the process they knocked over another boat as Journey's <i>Wheel in the Sky</i> played over the end credits.<br />
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<b>S2, Episode 11: House Arrest</b>.... U.S. Marshall re-attached an ankle bracelet on Uncle
Junior. The Marshalls' last name was McLuhan. The nurses thought it was
funny. Junior was clueless. He didn't know who Marshall McLuhan is... Tony's attorney suggested he actually show up at one of his no-show jobs in order to keep up appearances to the Feds who are sweating his every move... When Tony showed up at his waste management gig at Marone Garbage, he found out Richie Aprile and Uncle Junior were slinging coke on the side using garbage trucks to deliver the goods. Tony got irked because he didn't need to draw heat from the DEA, but Junior needed a lucrative venture to cover his mounting legal bills... Dr. Melfi went psycho at a restaurant when she was seated next to a smoker who refused to put out her cigarette because Melfi was rude and condescending. Oh, man, it was still 1999 and you could smoke in restaurants in the 20th Century... Junior got his hand stuck in the sink and could not reach a phone to get help. Richie and Janice showed up six hours later to get him out. Insert your own metaphor for what that hand in the sink meant.<br />
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<b>S2, Episode 12: The Knight in White Satin Armor</b>... Richie Aprile's nephew/Jackie Aprile's son spoke his mind in a meeting about sanitation contracts and Tony pretty much told him to fuck off because Richie insisted on being a boil on Tony's ass slinging blow on the sanitation route... Twas raining when Big Pussy talked to the FBI and fed them intel. They asked him to wear a wire for Janice/Richie Aprile's engagement party... Being a rat went to Big Pussy's head. Big Pussy lost his marbles and thought he was an undercover
G-man. He ran over a cyclist trying to tail Chris and one of his mook
pals en route to jack a truck-load of Pokemon cards... Tony's side piece Irina threatened to commit suicide if Tony left her. And she followed through. She was jealous that Svetlana lost her leg at the GAP and her white knight in satin armor rescued her... Carmela was wicked jealous that Tony was still deep dicking his Russian side piece. Carmela was in such a tizzy that she stalked the Wallpaper Man hoping she could initiate her own illicit affair and finally paper the inside walls of her vag... MOMA SOPRANO PARENTING TIPS: "Babies are like animals... no better than dogs"... Richie and his nephew told Junior that he was gonna take out Capo Larry and Tony. Junior shined him on, but realized that Tony is the lesser of two evils, so he was gonna side with Tony during that spat. Junior told Tony that Richie was making a move against Tony... and those two hugged it out. Junior also suggested that Janice might have a little something to do with it. Poor Tony. His mother, his uncle, and his sister all wanted him whacked. Yet, he allowed all three to live... Consigliare Silvio suggested that they take out Richie. Tony snap-called, "Get it done."... They were too late. Janice did the dirty deed and whacked Richie after he smacked her around at dinner. Janice grabbed a gun and Richie Aprile was dunzo. Janice called Tony to help dispose of the body... Furio and Chris chopped up the dead body in the back of Satriale's. Chris made a joke about not eating there for a while... Tony put Janice on a bus back to Seattle. I guess the wedding was called off... CATTY CARMELA: She always wore red when she was enraptured with envy, ire, and jealous. She was a thermo-nuclear mob wife all broken up at Janice's happiness and joy. She reminded Janice that it's only a matter of time before Richie got a side piece. Janice also revealed the little kinky gun fetish...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Janice: "He holds gun to my head during sex!"<br />
Carmela: "I thought you were a feminist?"<br />
Janice: "He usally takes the clip out."</blockquote>
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<b>S2, Episode 13: The Funhouse</b>... Beware of the chicken vindaloo. Tony might have had bad shellfish at Artie Bucco's but he also ate Indian food with Big Pussy. Tony got super sick and had multiple fever dreams located on Asbury Park's boardwalk and each of those surreal moments were entwined with the entire episode.But during these dreams he uncovered the identity of the rat: BIG PUSSY...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Dream 1: Tony met up with his crew plus Hesh and Spoons (one of the guys he whacked). It was almost June, but snowing. Tony told them he had a terminal disease. He decided that he was gonna burn himself alive so his family and friends would not have to suffer through his decline. At one point, Big Pussy disappeared. Tony woke up with an upset stomach and was blasting wicked farts.<br />
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Dream 2: Silvio approached him on the boardwalk and did a Pacino imitation from <i>The Godfather.</i>.. Tony watched himself shoot Paulie Walnuts through the fucking head.<br />
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Dream 3: He was in a therapy session with Dr. Melfi and told her about Dream 2 shooting Paulie Walnuts in the head. All of a sudden it was Annalisa from Italy sitting with him. He woke up and ran off to the toilet to blast a mud avalanche in the toiler.<br />
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Dream 4: Tony was riding shotgun in a red funny car with Furio, Chris, and Andriana (who was driving). Furio handed him toilet paper. He woke up and blasted another nasty wet fart.<br />
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Dream 5 (Tony fell asleep on the shitter): He wore a wifebeater to his therapy with Dr. Melfi. She asked him if Big Pussy was his friend because he was carried off by the ducks. At that point, Tony realized he was having a dream. He started bickering with Dr. Melfi showing a huge erection. They started going at it on her desk. He got woken up by his doctor neighbor, who informed Tony that he had E. Coli.<br />
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Dream 6: Tony was shopping for fish and Big Pussy appeared as an eight pound talking fish that was only $4 per pound. Big Pussy the fish admitted to Tony that he's been working for the Feds because he was passed over for a promotion. Tony knocked over the fish table after Big Pussy referenced <i>The Godfather</i> and sleeping with the fishes.<br />
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Dream 7 (in Silvio's car): <i>Free Fallin'</i> by Tom Petty played on the car radio but also on in the background of his dream at chez Soprano for a family dinner where Meadow revealed she's attending Columbia for college. </blockquote>
Meanwhile, in the real world that's not Tony's subconscious... Tony and Silvio showed up at Big Pussy's house. While Tony pretended to
be on the shitter, he snooped around Big Pussy's bedroom and found a
wire and tapes hidden in a cigar box. Tony told Pussy he wanted to show
him his new boat... On the boat, Tony, Paulie, and Silvio whacked Big Pussy for being a rat. They let him
drink a few shots of tequila before they shot him and then tossed his carcass
overboard... Mama Soprano and her sister got pinched at the airport for using stolen plane tickets (Brokedick Scatino bought a slew of tix with his store's credit). The FBI used the stolen plane tix as a reason to arrest Tony. On the eve of Meadow's graduation, the Feds showed up at his house and hauled him off as a horribly embarrassed Meadow and her friends walked through the front door... CATTY CARMELA: Bathing in more hypocritical tears, she was wetter than Niagara Falls when Tony showed up with a mink coat... In a post-jail therapy session, Tony referred to his mother as a "Fucking demented old bat!" Dr. Melfi brought up the fact that Moma Soprano tried to have him killed a year earlier so Tony told her he fucked her in his fever dream and she liked it. He then walked out... Tony posted bail in time to attend Meadow's high school graduation at Verbum Dei (Latin for the "word of God"... see my high school Latin finally paid off)... Tony told Chris good news: he was gonna become a made man... The episode and Season 2 ended with the Stones' <i>Thru and Thru</i> and a montage of Meadow's graduation party intercut with all the illegal operations (waste management, boiler room, porn theatre, phone cards, Big Poker Game, and the no-tell motel run by the Hasidic Jews) that funded the Soprano empire.<br />
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Season 2 is dunzo. Here's binge-recaps from <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2015/03/binge-watching-sopranos-season-1.html" target="_blank">The Sopranos Season 1</a>.Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-89051885294920098782015-03-06T16:20:00.000-05:002015-03-08T13:57:18.428-04:00Binge Watching: Sopranos, Season 1<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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After a brief email exchange with <a href="http://www.twitter.com/BenjoDiMeo" target="_blank">Benjo</a> over the weekend, I attempted narrow down a list of the all-time best episodes of <i>The Sopranos</i>. Years before Benjo translated my book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0557500079?ie=UTF8&tag=taoofpoker-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0557500079" target="_blank">Lost Vegas</a> into French, he used to translate episodes of <i>The Sopranos</i> for French fans of the series. When I first met Benjo in Monte Carlo in 2007, we talked exclusively about our shared affinity for <i>The Sopranos</i>. Anyway, with Benjo's advice, I compiled a rough list of the best of the best episodes... but there were so many high-quality episodes that missed the cut. My memory was fuzzy on a few episode titles, so I figured I'd absorb as much as the show as I could this week whenever insomnia struck (or the neighbor's baby woke me up) or needed a break from the writing grind.<br />
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Here are some half-baked thoughts on the first season of <i>The Sopranos</i>. If you are like the only person in the world who never saw <i>The Sopranos</i>, this is a courtesy disclaimer about plotline spoilers...<br />
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<b>Episode 1: Pilot</b>... Tony chased and beating down on degen gambler, but why is that fool running? Everyone knows that bookies don't kill customers because it's bad for business. Sure, they rough up the delinquent broke dicks to keep everyone in line, but Tony was never going to whack the mook... The introduction of the ducks were a tranquil moment between a hardened wiseguy and Mother Nature. The ducks were a moment of serenity in a tumultuous world of the underworld. The Ducks were an integral theme that continued throughout the entire series.<br />
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<b>Episode 2: 46 Long</b>... The cold open featured the gang in the back of titty bar counting money and typical wiseguy banter like clones and whether or not Princess Di was whacked by the Queen... Chris and his tweaker pal boosted Uncle Junior's trucks with DVD players and fancy suits... Tony's senile mom set her kitchen on fire while cooking shrooms then drove over her friend with the car, which ultimately landed her into an old folks home... Marty Scorsese made a cameo and Chris gave him a "Kundun!" shoutout.<br />
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<b>Episode 3: Denial, Anger, Acceptance</b>.... Paulie Walnuts beat down a Hasidic Jewish hotel manager with the front desk bell, then Tony threatened to cut off his pecker. Meanwhile, Tony shook down the old Jew for 25% of his no-tell motel, only to be called a "golem" which is Yiddish for Frankenschmuck... CATTY CARMELA: Some Northern New Jersey "real housewives" pettiness and pedantry between Artie Bucco's wife and Carmela... Meadow's singing solo majestically intercut with Brendan getting whacked (shot in the eye) in the bathtub by Uncle Junior's henchman Mikey and Chris shitting himself during a mock execution by the Ruskies.<br />
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<b>Episode 4: Meadowland</b>s... Tony almost got caught visiting Dr. Melfi for a therapy session... Chris, stricken with paranoia after getting out of the hospital, thought he'd get clipped in the lobby.... Meadow riddled with Northern New Jersey suburban angst and blurted out the emo anthem -- "I hate my life!"... Tony visited his senile mother in the old folks home and Mama Soprano is nothing but a bundle of joy: "grown men soiling themselves... and mothers throwing their babies out of skyscraper windows."... BEATDOWN of the EPISODE: Tony whooped Mikey a.k.a. Junior's henchman in the middle of the street.... The degen gambling detective swapped favors (as Tony's personal P.I.) for reduced juice and no vig after dropping 2 dimes on the Knicks... AJ rumbled with one of his frenemies in the hallway. They set up a rematch at the "Pit" afterschool. It's funny because this was back in 1999 before every kid had a cell phone. Today, the hallway skirmishes would instantly get posted on YouTube. AJ won the Pit match by default because the kid wouldn't fight him out of fear of Tony whacking his old man. Sadly, clueless AJ was unaware of how much faux-power he actually wielded... Meadow went to the internet to show AJ a mafia site that revealed the truth: Jackie Aprile was the mob boss of New Jersey and Tony is indeed a wiseguy... Jackie Aprile finally died after losing his battle with cancer. The old King is dead with Tony and Junior were vying for control of the kingdom. Instead of all-out war, Tony acquiesced power to Uncle Junior and figured the Feds would target Junior instead of him while he flew under the radar.<br />
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<b>Episode 5: College</b>... The episode that hooked everyone who was on the fence with the show... Excellent dichotomy of Tony, a hard-nosed father wanting the best for his daughter and a pricey education to buy her legitimacy, but that blood money was earned via gambling, titties, and boosting trucks... Meadow finally got Tony to reveal the truth about the "waste management business"... I had an basketball coach who used to say "He who hesitates is lost." Well, that witness protection schnook missed his chance to clip Tony at the motel but didn't pull the trigger when he saw Meadow. Tony eventually strangled the snitch and instantly saw a flock of ducks flying in V-formation. V for victory. V for tranquility... The Nathaniel Hawthorne quote (about multiple faces of man confusing himself) Tony saw at the college was a punch to the nuts... CATTY CARMELA: Caremla went mental when she discovered Dr. Melfi is a
female. The act of Tony opening up to another woman tilted the fuck
outta her. Then again, she used a Catholic priest as a free shrink and
surrogate gay BFF.<br />
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<b>Episode 6: Pax Soprano</b>... Dr. Melfi finally figured out she's a surrogate mother for Tony. He just wanted to be loved by a motherly authority figure. Is that so wrong?.... Yes, Tony peed with the seat down in his dreams. He wanted his Ruskie side piece to start dressing like Dr. Melfi... Junior wielded his new power as NoJer BOSS and unfairly taxed Hesh's shylock/bookie business. Brooklyn under boss Johnny Sack stepped in to negotiate a lower tax... Tony had his ducks and Hesh has his horses. Tony secretly wanted to be Hesh's horses. Tony wanted the power and respect as the crime boss, but he hated the grunt work and headaches... Tony's astute take on therapy: "This psychiatry shit... apparently what you're feeling is not what you're feeling, and what you're not feeling is your real agenda."... CATTY CARMELA: She wanted to be the sole female that Tony confided in. She let the side pieces slide but got uber-bitchy about the therapy sessions? If Tony was seeing a Dr. Ira Rosenberg, then she wouldn't fret.<br />
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<b>Episode 7: Down Neck</b>... AJ hijinks. He stole wine from church rectory and got caught being shitfaced in gym class after one of his buddies blew chunks on the gym teacher's Adidas. I used to swipe swigs of wine and unblessed hosts when I was an altar boy, but we never got caught... Much to the chagrin of Tony, during Sunday dinner both Mama Soprano and Uncle Junior revealed to AJ that Tony was a notorious childhood delinquent who stole a car at age 10 and hustled stolen lobsters... FLASHBACK: cue White Rabbit. It's 1967 when lil Tony missed the bus and on his way to school, he saw his old man and Uncle Junior beat down a mook named Rocco. That's when Tony first learned the truth about his father being a wiseguy. Would love to see a prequel about Tony's old man and Uncle Junior taking place in the 1960s.... During multiple flashback scenes, it's very obvious that Tony's mother always
had a couple of cans short of a six-pack. She threatened to smother her
kids if Tony's dad moved out to Reno to get into the casino business with a partner (which would have been insanely profitable)... AJ told Mama Soprano about Tony saw a shrink and she got pissy because she's convinced Tony will be complaining about her craziness. It's her understanding that people go to psychiatrists to find someone to blame for their problems... Dr. Melfi brought up the ducks dream (the ducks flying away with Tony's penis).<br />
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<b>Episode 8: The Legend of Tennessee Moltisani</b>... Cold open: Chris' dream about a guy he whacked, but it's really just an existentialist dilemma... The Feds were closing in with indictments and the crew was on edge. Tony and Carmela had to re-stash all the bundles of cash they had stashed everywhere in the house... Chris, using a hot laptop, went on mega-tilt because his 19-page screenplay got eaten in Final Draft. Adriana saved the day with her tech troubleshooting. She called him "My Tennessee William." Bring the LULZ... Deep into his spiral, Chris shot the bakery kid in the foot just like Spider in <i>Goodfellas</i>... In a heart-to-heart chat with Paulie Walnuts, Paulie referenced Hemingway (the guy who wrote about bullfights who blew his head off) and then suggested getting their cocks sucked would cure Chris' writer's block... Also, scripts should be 90 pages and not 120! ... Chris was reading way too many self-help screenwriting books. He wondered what his "arc" is in life... When Chris attempted to reach out to Tony about his emo-phase and existentialist angst, he was shot down. "I wipe my ass with your feelings," said Tony... All Chris wanted was recognition. When he spotted his name in the paper, he got a hard-on. Reminded me of the scene in <i>The Jerk</i>, when Steve Martin finally got his name in the phonebook. "Look, I am somebody!"... Mama Soprano always stirring shit up. She ratted out Tony and told Junior that he was seeing a shrink.<br />
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<b>Episode 9: Boca</b>... Silvio went on soccer ref tilt during Meadow's game. She's the goalie and her nickname is Brick Wall... After the soccer coach takes a job in Rhode Island, the crew tried to persuade the coach to stay in NJ... Meadow got pissy because she knows the truth about the coach robbing the cradle. One of Meadow's friends was presented as an emo-cutter who tried to slit her wrists on a swing, but we find out in Act 3 the cause of her unhappiness: she's heartbroken and her coach was deep dicking her after practices... Artie Bucco and Silvio want to whack the coach, but Tony called it off at the last second. Instead, he let the police handle the matter... Junior flew his side piece, Bobbi, down to Boca Raton. He got pissed that she revealed bedroom secrets (everyone knows he likes to chow box) so he broke up with her and shoved a pie in her face... Junior's henchman tailed Tony and got intel that Tony visited a med office twice a week. He deduced that Tony talking to the Feds. Junior knows it's a shrink but he considered clipping Tony anyway for being a disrespectful punk (he loathed the pussy chomping jokes) and spilling Omerta secrets in his therapy sessions.<br />
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<b>Episode 10: A Hit Is a Hit</b>... Mega rapper and wanna-be gangster Massive Genius befriended Chris because he wanted $400K in back royalties from Hesh, who owned a record label back in the day (and Tony's dad was the muscle who helped facilitate payola to DJs). Hesh and the rest of the music biz ripped off tons of musical acts including Lil Jimmie Willis, one of Massive G's relatives, who ended up a junkie. During a sit down, Hesh balked at paying Massive G shakedown money. Hesh retaliated and sued Massive G for sampling his songs... Adriana convinced Chris that they should get into the music biz; she would become producer if he bankrolled the operation. He put up cash for a demo for Adriana's ex-boyfriend's new band. The lead singer Vito is a little weird after getting electrocuted trying to fry a fish. He dropped the hair metal act (a butt-rocking band called Defiler) and re-branded themselves as a whiny indie rock band, Visiting Day... The new musical direction is craptaculalry awful. <span data-dobid="hdw">The three-day demo session sucked ass after 62 shitty
takes of one song. The sound engineer was not impressed with the trainwreck, so
Chris beat the shit out of the rocker with his own guitar... </span>Hesh thought the band's demo was "not good" and uttered a line that was the episode's title. Massive G was only interested in the whiny rock demo because he wanted to <span data-dobid="hdw">shtup Andriana... </span>Tony hooked up his doctor neighbor with a box of Cuban cigars that fell off the back of a truck. The doc invited Tony to play golf with his One-percenter friends, but all those rich douches wanted to hear were wild stories about gangsters. Tony played up to the crowd and made up a bullshit story about Gotti and an ice cream truck... Carmela got a profitable stock tip on American Biotics from one of the Real Housewives of NoJer.<br />
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<b>Episode 11: Nobody Knows Anything</b>... The FBI raided Jimmy's pool hall and found a cache of guns Big Pussy tried to run away and got caught... Tony's cop friend and inside guy tipped off that Big Pussy has been wearing a wire... Silvio did a lil digging around and found out that the degen cop owed Big Pussy over 30K in gambling debts (20K for football alone... what a donk!), so perhaps the wire tip was bullshit and he wanted Big Pussy whacked to alleviate a monster debt, which is the reason he ratted out Big Pussy... The cop committed suicide before he prove the wire with a police report... Tony felt guilty that he sent his cop friend over the edge, but he could not believe one of his best friends could be a rat. Tony thought that maybe the cop got Pussy and Jimmy confused because they were both fat goombas. Tony suspected that Jimmy was the rat with the wire when he got out of jail and showed up at chez Soprano and asked peculiar questions.... Tony sent Paulie to keep an eye on Big Pussy and take him out if he found any proof of a wire, but he never saw anything and Big Pussy conveniently disappeared... Mama Soprano told Junior that all of the Capos (plus Johnny Sack) put their mothers in the same nursing home so they can hold secret meetings whenever they visit. Junior, convinced they are making a move against him, ordered his henchman to whack Tony.<br />
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<b>Episode 12: Isabella</b>... The penultimate episode of the season... Tony was deep into his Emo-binge moping around in bed and sitting in the shower with his robe on. He fantasized over the Cusamanos' sizzling hot Italian maid (who was just a hallucination, albeit a sultry one) and the breastfeeding vision was as Freudian as you can get... Dr. Melfi increased Tony's dosage of happy pills, but she freaked out when he revealed his hallucinatory side effects... Uncle Junior's henchman Mikey subcontracted the hit on Tony, who in turn hired a couple of guys to take out Tony at his local newsstand. On the day of the hit, Chris randomly blocked the hitmen's car and spoiled the potential assassination. When the subcontractor promised the botched job would get done the next day, he made an inadvertent crack that even Tony's momma wanted him whacked (which he was just joking about, but it ended up true), so Mikey decided to whack the subcontractor... T'was Tony's lucky day once again. Both hitmen were inept and terrible shots (who misses from that close?). One of the guman shot Tony's orange juice -- a direct nod to the scene in the <i>Godfather </i>when Vito Corleone was holding oranges during his assassination attempt. Tony thwarted the attack (that looked like a carjacking) and killed one of the assassins, but ended up in the hospital after he crashed his SUV... Special Agent Harris showed up in the hospital to cut a deal because Tony's "assassination problem will not go away", but Tony told the Feds to fuck off.... Even AJ didn't buy the carjacking story. The media dubbed it a "gangland shooting gone awry"... Moma Soprano and Uncle Junior were shitting bricks when they saw the botched hit on the news because they both knew that Tony would think it was Junior who ordered the hit. They showed up to see Tony anyway like fucking scared shitless dogs. Moma Soprano acted extra senile (pretending to not know who Meadow was) to throw off Tony's scent, who bought the sketchy act... When Junior confronted Moma Soprano about her so-called senile performance, she played the crazy card again... <i>I Feel Free</i> by Cream was the end credits music.<br />
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<b>Episode 13: I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano</b>... Final episode of the season... Junior okayed a hit on Jimmy after he asked too many questions in a Capo meeting. Tony was convinced that Jimmy is the rat wearing the wire, so Silvio and Chris whacked Jimmy in a Manhattan hotel. His body is found with a rat stuffed in his mouth... Senile Moma Soprano wandered up to Tony's house to bolster her so-called Alzheimer's... Dr. Melfi suggested that Moma Soprano ordered a hit on Tony, and he flipped the fuck out on her... The Feds were sweating Tony hard and he wouldn't play ball even after they played him the recorded conversation in which his mother and Uncle Junior were implicated in the attempted hit... Paulie suggested that Tony should be worried that Junior is going to finish what he started, so Tony and the crew went on the offensive. They whacked one of Junior's guys Chucky on a boat after Tony hid a gun in the mouth of a big fish. Mikey, Junior's henchman, was next to get clipped. Paulie and Chris whacked Mikey while he was out jogging and Paulie was wicked pissed he caught poison ivy... Tony realized his riff with Junior and seeing Dr. Melfi nearly cost him his life: "Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this!"... CATTY CARMELO: Carmelo is super jealous that the widow Rosalie Aprile is getting a lot of attention from Father Phil. She cooked him ziti and then dumped it in the trash when she saw him eating pasta that Rosalie brought him... The Feds finally indicted Uncle Junior and a couple of Capos on racketeering charges (yet Tony was not indicted). With Junior in jail, Tony's main concern was that the guys in custody were gonna flip... The Feds told Junior their real target is the New York crew like Johnnie Sack and the guys above him, so all Junior has to do is rat everyone and admit that Tony is the de facto boss. That notion -- that Tony is in charge -- infuriated Junior and he stubbornly rejected a deal.... Moma Soprano continued to stir the pot. The crazy old bird
told Artie Bucco that Tony burned down his old restaurant for the
insurance money. Artie wigged out and pulled a rifle on Tony, but he
claimed he was not involved in arson and talked Artie out of shooting
him by claiming that his mother is batshit crazy. Then again, Tony looked serious when he told Artie to go ahead and shoot him. Bluff? Or semi-bluff with suicidal tendencies?... Tony was gonna smother Moma Soprano with a pillow, but she had a stoke before he could seek out his revenge. Tony was convinced she faked the stroke so he let her know that Junior is in jail and he knows what's up... BEATDOWN of the EPISODE: random paramedic that was wheeling Moma Soprano to an ambulance. Tony called him "George Clooney" then beat his ass... The episode and season one ended in the middle of a nasty storm that killed power and knocked down trees, but everyone had an intimate candle lit family meal at Artie Bucco's restaurant. Despite an internal and literal storm, and the Soprano family shared a brief moment of tranquility. Tony survived an assassination attempted, faded indictments from the Feds, but he has become the new king of New Jersey. Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-28336241766427549652015-02-20T16:20:00.000-05:002015-02-20T17:05:55.104-05:00Ten Years Later: HST RIP<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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Ten years flies by. I cannot believe it's the 10th anniversary of the death of Hunter Thompson. <a href="http://mcgrupp.blogspot.com/2005/02/rip-hunter-hunter-s.html" target="_blank">I attempted to write something in 2005</a> about what the tragic news meant to me at the time.<br />
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Even though I have ten years behind me... I'm still at a loss for words. In 2005 I was mostly overcome by shock, whereas today, I'm overcome by sadness.<br />
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When the words flow easy, writing is the best drug in the world. When the words are not, writing becomes an excruciating and humiliating task... sort of like having constipation, finally ripping a fart, then shitting yourself.<br />
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Suicide is a prickly topic. There's zero heroism in the deed... but the older I get, the more I can understand the "why"... because when you're that troubled and drowning in your own misery, you have a clouded perspective, so death is the most plausible option. <br />
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The photo above inspires me.<br />
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In 1961, Hunter Thompson lived in Big Sur, CA. Hell of a writing space if you ask me. If I didn't tell you the guy in the pic was Hunter, then it could have been some other writer... maybe one of the beats. Doesn't really matter, because the image represents commitment. But I also know it's Hunter and he's working on his craft and perfecting the voice that we've become accustomed to reading. On the surface, this photo tells you that all you need is a typewriter, pot of coffee, a pipe, and something to say... because in that scene, it seems like the words will flow gracefully. <br />
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Every time I see this picture, I also tell myself: "You only have a short time here... on Earth... in life. Say what you gotta say before it's too late."<br />
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Ten years later... I'm still at a loss for words. RIP Hunter.Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-83200927680109290022015-01-12T11:11:00.000-05:002015-01-12T14:51:17.253-05:00Four Towns<i>Los Angeles, CA</i><br />
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Four weeks. Four cities. A little same, a whole lot different. I only spent a couple of days in SoCal in December, whereas I divided my time between New Orleans, Miami, and the bulk of the Christmas holidays in NYC. The constant movement is a good thing. It jogs the brain. The constant dissonance between new and old can be an ultimate mind fuck... if you let it. Or it can be a lazy afternoon basking in the soothing warmth of yesteryear.<br />
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Los Angeles. The ubiquitous sunshine makes the holidaze seems more fake than a relgiious holiday that got hijacked to sell shit we really don't need. Nothing says I love you more than a pair of socks, or a new sweater, or a piece of electronic equipment that will become obsolete in six months if it doesn't break first. I was never really into Christmas trees (i.e. utter waste of money) until I moved to LA because I need something to make it feel like Christmas. The constant sunshine doesn't mesh well with Christmas... and the weak ass attempt with palm trees and Christmas lights is more laughable than applaudable as the denizens of Southern California desperately try to get in the Christmas spirit. Nicky knows no other holiday season (SoCal Xmas) because she is one of the rare citizens of the City of Angels who actually grew up in LA and has no other childhood point of perspective of waking up to an actual White Christmas. Me? Wasn't jungle bells written about last minute holiday shopping in New York City? In the urban decay of Gotham in the 1970s, the only thing that didn't smell like urine and rotting garbage was the rare scent of Christmas trees that invaded almost every major street corner. It's a sense memory that has been imprinted on my brain along with a numb face. It's supposed to be cold as fuck at Christmas and your nose gets numb because you spend a lot of time wandering around the streets while shopping for gifts (in the pre-Amazonian era), or spending late evenings staggering around shitfaced drunk admiring the foggy gasps of breath that roar out of everyone's mouths while hopping from Christmas/holiday party to party to party either company parties (ranging from low-end to baller bankster) to friends' tiny apartments to the odd, random party you randomly crashed in a bar somewhere. In the modern era, the LA holiday party is drenched in artisan, gluten-free hipsterfied chow and ironic blinking lights and superficial guests that are silently judging you but more worried that they'll look "pasty" in their next batch of selfies because everyone is sweating their asses off in a rare public display of their winter wardrobe. No one walks anywhere unless it's to the valet, so any sensible party people are making a cameo before Ubering to the next party up in the hills before all the medium-passable quality of drugs are inhaled by dilettantes and all the hardened dope fiends are haggling over a couple of frail lines of shitty-ass baby laxative, which you paid dearly for in actual time and mental anguish by listening to the same douchenozzle with shitty blow prattle on about his latest script conference with someone you're supposed to be impressed with and all you keep wondering is if your Uber driver knows a better coke connection.<br />
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New Orleans. Shit got crazy. Either I'm getting old, or I forgot about the darkness that oozes underneath Bourbon Street. Maybe it's a little of both. Liquor is a a true pestilence upon this land. Too much of liquid anything makes everyone's eyes look mean. I felt a little safety being with my brother, who still resides in the Bronx, and hanging with two medical doctors, a lawyer, and Iraq War vet. Just in case shit got too crazy, we had a small, yet elite crew of professional party people. When you're running AlCantHang with the bulls down Bourbon Street, the last thing you want to have to do is pull someone out of a potential all-out street brawl. Testosterone and liquor can always be tempered with cool heads, but it only takes one idiot to incite an ass-whooping. Yeah, it sounds a lot worse than the reality that everyone was safe as long as we stuck together and didn't do anything too stupid like wander off solo in the wrong direction where the shadow people can jump your schwasted ass and snatch your valuables before they haul ass back into the shadowy side streets. Partying always comes at a cost, but without a high risk, you don't get that big payoff. It's sort of like going on an animal safari and praying you don't get trampled by a stampede of irate giraffes. But New Orleans was rough without the usually indulgences of food and liquor because I had some minor dental surgery a few days before the trip and I couldn't drink heavily with the prescribed meds (it felt strangely uncomfortable actually waiting in line to acquire pharmaceutical products for a real pharmacy) and could barely eat at all because my mouth hurt too much. The first bit of solid food I had in days occurred as soon as I arrived in the French Quarter and Otis handed me something wrapped up in a napkin. Fried chicken. Damn fine-ass fried chicken. I tore into it like a vulture picking apart the dead carcass of some unlucky roadkill. Maybe the abundant dark energy was so prevalent because I spent three nights extremely sober, which was the most coherent trip I had ever taken to New Orleans in 20+ years.<br />
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NYC. Can you ever really go home again? My favorite time of the year is also the most stressful. I equally love/loathe Christmas in NYC because... well... you know... family shit. It's never easy, but we all have to deal with it somehow. I've lost my patience the last few years. It's the product of a near-death-experience when you come out the other side not giving a fuck anymore and you come to a moment of clarity like, "Why am I wasting my time with people who will never change?" But it's the city that really brings me back. The ghosts. The memories. The forgotten memories are the best presents... just taking a wrong turn and walking down a street you had not walked down in two decades is enough to trigger an avalanche of memories. The mind is a masterful magical kingdom... and you can truly bend time and space by accessing your memory banks, but sometimes you lose too much time like I do, wandering streets that I had not wandered down in years... both physically and mentally. An old friend once said our childhood rooms are like museums to our own self, usually curated by whatever parent or family member still lives there. My childhood room is barely recognizable, but there's plenty of memories in boxes and cluttered inside a gigantic closet. I could spent a month in that room getting lost in forty years of living. But too much navel gazing is a bad thing, but too little insight into your past is also a dangerous thing. You need a healthy balance, which is the key to self-awareness. Never forget where you came from, but never forget it will never truly define where you're going because you're the one driving the bus. Or something like that.<br />
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Miami. A whole other country/city/nation state. Miami will someday sink into the ocean. Might take 500 years or 5,000 but someday most of Florida will be all underwater and delegated to a series of island chains off the coast of the US of A. Call the city water you want... New Cuba, or North Cuba, or Los Miami, or whatever... it's definitely not America anymore. I spent a lot of time covering the Latin America Poker Tour, so my time in Miami felt more like being on the road in a foreign country than visiting the southern most city in America. Miami has always been driven by its own unique rhythm, but the confluence of international travelers, ubiquitous sunshine and cheap drugs makes Miami one of the rowdiest destinations on the planet. But like any of those party-centric small cities whose magical reputation turned its legacy into a much larger city than actually exists. Miami is not so much a city as it is a state of mind. Miami... the constant flow... it's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. If anything, I got to end the year by spending a semi-romantic week in a tropical paradise with my girlfriend, who desperately needed a real vacation after a rigorous work schedule. Plus I got the added bonus of seeing old friends from college... the coolest type of friends who don't guilt trip you or make it awkward to reconnect. Oh, and one of <a href="http://phishcoventry.blogspot.com/2015/01/phish-miami-run-recap-sunshine-supermen.html" target="_blank">my favorite bands played four concerts</a> so life ain't too bad when you have all the elements for a guaranteed fun time.<br />
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Four towns. Four weeks. Last year ended like most years... on the road and hopeful for a new year.Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-50259627069304717642015-01-08T11:11:00.000-05:002015-01-10T14:43:22.734-05:00The Richard Linklater Nudge<i>Miami, FL</i><br />
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When I was 20, I was heavily influenced by two films by Richard Linklater -- <i>Slacker</i> and <i>Dazed and Confused</i>. I saw Dazed in the movie theatre about 15 times in college. We'd all get blazed to the tits in the parking lot and sit through the film, which was set in 1976. That was unheard of because period pieces on the 1970s were few and far between in the early 1990s.<br />
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Linklater is more important to me than you think. He inspired me to embark on a creative path and make movies. If this were Bob Evans talking, "When I was a kid, I really really really wanted to work in the pictures."<br />
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When I graduated college, I had aspirations of becoming a director. A true pipe dream. Right around the same time, I saw <i>Reservoir Dogs</i> by Tarrantino and <i>Clerks</i> by Kevin Smith. Those three filmmakers -- Smith, Tarrantino, and Linklater -- inspired me to apply to film school even thought I was a longshot and way behind the curve. I studied more film theory in college (I had a minor in Film Studies, but I was a double major in Political Science and Philosophy) than the actual nuts and bolts of film making. As a result, without any student films to boast of, I was rejected from NYU Film School. Not once, but twice. I eventually got into a film school in Vancouver, British Colombia only because it was sorta open admissions. If I had the money at the time, I would have gone. Or I should say, if I had a family that shared in my vision, I could have borrowed the money from them, but they thought I was crazy. They were really miffed when I quit a job on Wall Street (I was in a bond trader training program, but utterly miserable and thought I'd do the job for a couple of years to save up to buy equipment and fund film school) to pursue the creative arts. They thought I was wasting a college degree on a hopeless venture. I'm glad I never listened to my family because I never would have gotten to where I am today by listening to their poor advice, like the one time an uncle told me to take the NYPD exam because it paid overtime and had good benefits.<br />
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Alas, film school was never meant to be. I stayed in NYC and continued the path I was on... humping shitty job after shitty job and using whatever money I made (or won from gambling) to fund travel adventures (some of which included Phish tours and Jazz Fest). I often think about what would have happened if I went to film school in Vancouver, but that fork in the road happened twenty years ago, so it's impossible to figure out what would have happened.<br />
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I was aiming for one direction but I ended up in another. Simply put, I started writing screenplays because I was broke and could not afford camera equipment. These days everyone has a video camera on their phone, but in the early 90s, you had to have some cash (or at least a credit card) to buy a camera and film. Oh, yeah... film was expensive. Not to mention other equipment like lighting... because lighting is everything. Without the financial means to become an auteur film maker, I focused on the writing aspect and dug deep into screenwriting and humping shitty day jobs with the hopes of some day buying a camera. Well, somewhere along the way, I lost sight of the initial goal and ended up writing full time. Screenwriting was pushed aside for other mediums. Funny how life works out like that. You aim at one target and end up hitting the bulls-eye in another.<br />
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Today's guest on <a href="http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_566_-_richard_linklater" target="_blank">WTF Podcast is Richard Linklater</a>. Marc Maron conducted a great interview with one of my favorite film makers... and one of the holy trinity of directors that helped give me the nudge in the right direction. Maron asked Linklater about his most recent film <i>Boyhood</i>, which was shot over 12 years using the same cast. That ambitious and arduous effort alone is worthy of an Oscar for best director. Linklater will get a nomination, but I doubt he actually wins because Hollywood is rigged and those fancy awards are bought/paid for behind the scenes. Linklater has never been one of those Hollyweird insiders and those fuckers like to take care of their own, which is why if <i>Boyhood</i> wins anything... it will truly be an upset. But hey, I love a underdog.<br />
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A great interview unveils a few hidden gems, and this one had a bunch. I never knew Linklater had earned a baseball scholarship... so now the re-make of <i>Bad News Bears</i> makes a little more sense (I still have not forgiven him for that... the original is in my all-time Top 10 films). He also had an coincidental six degrees of separation with Matthew McConaughey... because both of their fathers knew each and played college football as teammates at Houston in the 1950s. <br />
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<a href="http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_566_-_richard_linklater" target="_blank">Link to the WTF Pod with Linklater</a>.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">* * * * </div><b>UPDATE....</b><br />
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Here's Linklater's interview with Vice about the making of <i>Boyhood</i>...<br />
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<center><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ofKeAi7W8NA?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center>Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3535834.post-75166404530530405052015-01-06T16:20:00.000-05:002015-01-07T23:04:10.482-05:00Greasy Spoon Civil War<i>Miami, FL</i><br />
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All I wanted was a cheeseburger.<br />
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I incited a near riot in the kitchen. I mean, it really wasn't my fault per se, but I sort of put them over the edge. There's always tension between the front of the house and the kitchen staff. Doesn't matter if it's a greasy spoon diner or a Michelin star restaurant in Paris. But I showed up for breakfast at the wrong time. The kitchen staff had been feuding all morning and the waitstaff were having their own issues with all the fuck ups in the back. So it was a problem that had been festering all morning. It just so happened I was the schmuck who knocked over the bees nest.<br />
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"Breakfast or lunch?"<br />
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That was the million dollar question. I could have gone either way. Nicky opted for breakfast and got one of the diner's original specials. It originally opened in the late 1930s in a part of town called Little Havana. It was a throwback for sure to the late 1970s with movie posters on the walls... a mix of spaghetti westerns and the Godfather franchise.<br />
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I ordered the lunch. A burger named after the original owner. It was supposedly a bigger burger than usual, but it's a diner... and how can a diner fuck up a simple burger?<br />
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If our waitress was a car, she was closing in on 220K miles. She had the face like a catcher's glove. Her hair was blonde, obvious dyed because her white roots were clearly visible. She looked like she could have been a real looker three ex-husbands ago and back was JFK was still president. But in the Obama years, she's humping a morning shift on New Year's Day slinging hash to a bunch of hungover tourists with more cash in their pockets that she'll make in 5 months.<br />
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"Our waitress must be snorting Xanax in the back," I joked with Nicky when she was unable to complete more than one task at a time. Like she forgot to take our order, then didn't know what kind of toast to bring Nicky (who ordered wheat with butter, and she brought out cold, dry white). The couple next to us arrived ten minutes after us and got their order fairly quickly. The Xannied-up waitress was complaining about the cooks. They were all Haitians in the back, but the only line cook who spoke English was not working that day, so there was a huge communication gap. When our food never appeared by the 30 minute mark when the owner, a feisty Cuban woman in her 50s, checked up on our situation. She was visibly irked and embarrassed when screams were spilling out from the kitchen. Like loud as fuck, you better call the cops because someone is gonna die loud. The Xannied waitress told me that they were short on staff so the cook brought in his wife to help out on the line, but those too were bickering all morning like most married couples do, but their home issues spilled over into the workplace, so it was a total shitshow in the back with a husband and wife at each others throats during the morning rush.<br />
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At the forty minute mark the owner ran into the back to break up another fracas. Sounded like pots were being thrown around. She had to tell everyone to shut the fuck up and start working like a team or they were all fired. Tons of tension. Everywhere. The kitchen staff hated each other. The wait staff hated the kitchen staff. The owners hated the kitchen staff. I hated everyone.<br />
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Cubans and Haitians don't like each other. Never did. Some of those century-long feuds spilled over onto the streets of Miami, where both cultures frequently clash. And there was a serious class war going on as well... well-to-do Cubans living the American dream while the Haitians were humping a min-wage job. The proletariat vs. the bourgeois.<br />
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I was in the middle of a class war, and a domestic dispute, and clashing of economic policies. And all I wanted was a spicy cheeseburger.<br />
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We finally got our meal a good fifty minutes after we order (or at least forty minutes later than everyone else). The Xannied waitress brought Nicky a second batch of toast. It was warm, but no butter and it was white. I got my spicy jumbo burger but I inspected it closely for saliva or blood droplets. With my luck one of them spit in my burger or some blood spilled onto my plate when the line cooks shanked each other. I gobbled down my burger, paid the bill (minus a 20$ discount from the owner), and rushed out of there before someone got their face slashed.<br />
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"Happy Easter!" said the waitress to Nicky, as we quickly made an exit.Paulyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09020689398161655082noreply@blogger.com0