What's Italian? The Olive Garden? Chef Boy-r-dee? Everyone loves pizza, pasta and The Godfather. Maybe everyone's part Italian, but there's more to it than that, shidrool.
Here's an interview with professor Fred Gardaphé, director of Italian-American Studies at Stoney Brook. His books include Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative; Moustache Pete is Dead!; Leaving Little Italy; and From Wiseguys to Wise Men: The Gangster and Italian American Masculinities.
Here Gardaphè comments on America's favorite Italian-Americans, The Sopranos.
On International Workers' Day, we salute West Coast dockworkers protesting the Iraq war. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union said more than 25,000 members in 29 ports stayed off the job today. “Longshore workers are standing down on the job and standing up for America,” Bob McEllrath, the union’s president, was quoted in the New York Times. “We’re supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time to end the war in Iraq.”
Little Steven Van Zandt sings "I Am a Patriot!"
A great song, a snippet of the lyric was used out of context on the PBS television show "Carrier," a ten part series focusing on the shipmates and their deployment aboard the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier. They only used the first part, "I am a patriot, and I love my country..." Yes, that's part of the song. Here's the rest, along with an incendiary introduction from Little Steven.
Like "Born in the USA," by bandmate Bruce Springsteen, this song was misunderstood by the simple minded. It should be obvious, but it bears repeating that there is more to patriotism than blind obedience and waving flags. You can love your country and still believe in peace and justice, and still speak out against the war, and still oppose a president who after all is not a king but an elected official.
Steven Van Zandt is an actor, a guitar player, and a fantastic rock and roll deejay. His underground garage show makes the rest of rock radio seem canned, corporate, and dull as dishwater. He plays "back-to-basics guitar, bass, and drums, with a little attitude, and a direct connection to the sixties, before the machines took over."
What a mug on this guy. If he looks familiar, you may know him as Little Steven, or Miami Steve, playing guitar in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. Or you may know him as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos, Tony's well-coiffed consigliere.
Born Steven Lento in 1950, he grew up in an Italian American home in New Jersey, and started playing guitar as a teenager in the bar scene on the Jersey Shore. Van Zandt (he took his stepfather's name) was a founding member of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and played in several early Springsteen bands, though he didn't officially join the E Streeters until the mid-1970s. Check out "Hammersmith Odeon 1975" on DVD to see Steven in all his pimped-out glory. Hear him on the new Springsteen album, "Magic." But whatever you do, check out the radio show.
Let's flirt with stereotypes and ask America's favorite EYE-talian family about their favorite food.
* * * * * * A related scene from the Sopranos; Paulie Walnuts and Big Pussy at a Starbucks.
Paulie Walnuts: How did we miss out on this? Big Pussy: What? Paulie Walnuts: F****n' expresso, cappuccino. We invented this s**t and all these other c*********s are gettin' rich off it. Big Pussy: Yeah, isn't it amazing? Paulie Walnuts: And it's not just the money. It's a pride thing. All our food: pizza, calzone, buffalo moozarell', olive oil. These f***s had nothin'. They ate pootsie before we gave them the gift of our cuisine. But this, this is the worst. This espresso s**t. Big Pussy: Take it easy.
What's Italian? The Olive Garden? Chef Boy-r-dee? Everyone loves pizza, pasta and The Godfather. Maybe everyone's part Italian, but there's more to it than that, shidrool.
