The Sopranos?

Well.. everybody is all excited because woo hoo The Sopranos are coming back Sunday night... and for me... it means more hoopla about a show I don't watch. I haven’t had HBO for at least 10 or 15 years... so aside from the one episode I saw off a buddy's dvd a couple of years ago, I really don’t know too much about the show. I liked the episode.. but not enough to run right to the cable company to order it.

Well a couple of weeks ago, Trophy Wife was complaining to me about how annoying it was to have dial up... and I was complaining to her about how high our phone bill is. To be honest she has a point.. dial up can't handle all the graphics that adorn websites and it was a royal pain in the neck to sit and wait an hour to upload and then download my 8 minute podcast interview with Walter "Its Hard Out Here For a Pump" Nagel. (Listen to my last pod cast to understand that reference! Kudos to my buddy Craig for coming up with that knee-slapper)

I called the local cable company and lo and behold... we could kill the proverbial two birds with one stone... (a phrase one should never use when talking to people from The Audubon Society). The cable company has a promotion for a cable modem AND phone service for a fee much cheaper than the phone bill had been... And, added the overzealouos salesman.. HBO is included!

Well we got the cable modem hooked up and its a breeze... and I'm thrilled beyond belief that we won't be getting these big phone bills anymore.. but alas... HBO is not included...as my eager beaver salesman over promised and under delivered. However, the cable company nicely agreed to throw it in for a month.. which is fair enough because I tend to watch too many bad movies already. The other night I sat through 2 hours of this horrible Alec Baldwin movie... (and by the way I liked "The Marrying Man"!) called The Last Shot about this bizarro plot to stage a fake movie filming just to lure in some mobsters in a sting. It was a pretty lame-o movie with maybe one or two chuckles along the way. I must admit I liked Toni Collette in this role and shes come quite a long way since Muriel’s Wedding!! However, this whole cable thing might be a moot point, because if the cable company drops GSN to add the new Mets channel as other systems have done.. its gonna be adios cable and helloooo satellite dish!

But why is that we glorify the mob and criminals? I just don't get it. Back in my radio days, a man whose young son had been murdered told me he couldn’t understand why people watch "Murder She Wrote".... because it glorifies murder. I always kept that grieving father's comments in the back of my mind when I thought about buying into The Sopranos frenzy.

And what is with this fixation with prisoners? How is it that one of the Menendez brothers found a wife.. while my single buddies continue to troll the singles scene and peck away at their computers trying to meet chickies on JDate?? And they still can't find anyone?

Granted, some shows have a way of showing a gray area when it comes to the good guys/bad guys battle. Many shows have created situations where you actually have to root for the bad guy because his bad has some asterisks. CSI-NY (which is becoming the best of the CSIs) had an episode last week where a guy killed a woman who had extorted him once before and was about to do it again. (He was a restaurant owner who lost his 1st restaurant and his family left him when a woman scammed him with a food poisoning accusation, and he killed her after catching her red-handed in his new restaurant trying to do it a 2nd time). 24 also does this all the time too. Speaking of which, I'm dreading Monday's episode with the Edgar post mortem. And since they are in the sealed room does that mean Edgar's body is just going to lie there for the next few episodes. Y'think Bill Buchanan will throw himself at Chloe to console her? I think he used to be with Michelle and her character also died on the same day. Hmm...

Getting back to the topic of organized crime, if I was the program director of WABC.. .this is the first thing I would do. FIRE RON KUBY. He doesn't deserve to be co-hosting the morning drive show with Curtis Sliwa. His testimony on the witness stand in the Gotti trial this week shows that there are no words in the English language to define how low he has sunk. In his pre-WABC days, Kuby was a relative nobody.. .he used to be the late William Kunstlter's little sidekick.,.. and all he really did was clip Kunstler's eyebrows. By the way, Kunstler’s widow Margaret Ratner later had a little feud with Kuby about legal files that her late husband left behind.

Kuby... a defense lawyer by trade has put a black mark on other defense lawyers with his antics over the years. I mentioned this in a prior column that constitutionally, every accused criminal deserves the right to a solid defense. No question about it. But some people take cases for the wrong reasons.. to further their own agenda. From a radio entertainment persepective, Kuby has 2 things going for him .. he is a bleeding heart liberal and he has charm. But he can shmooze his way only so much when he opens his big mouth and takes on a cause just to draw attention to himself. That is not the purpose of a defense attorney.

And in reality.. If Kuby didn’t get the gig with Curtis Sliwa, he would probably be a talking head on MSNBC with Rita Cosby...(doesn't that Daily News reporter who interviewed that Littlejohn guy bear an uncanny resemblance to Rita?) and the other hosts on the all news stations.. like that annoying lawyer from FL with the long dark hair and lipgloss who is an inspiration to thank God every day that I'm married since she reminds me of the awful women I used to meet back when I was single. But these liberals are a dime a dozen and Kuby knows it. Although I may not agree 100% with Curtis Sliwa.. he is the heart and soul of the show.... and Kuby would have a lot less shekels in the bank if it werent for the fact that he rode Curtis Sliwa's coattails. Actually Kuby wouldn’t have shekels because he is a self hating Jew...

So what does Kuby do? He testifies in the Gotti Jr. trial. Gotti Jr. was on trial for hiring the hitman who tried to kill Curtis Sliwa several years ago by ambushing him in a taxi. Sliwa only escaped by climbing out of the taxicab window. Let me tell you my viewpoint on this whole Gotti issue. I assume the Gottis are plumbing salesman. That's what they say. Who am I to question? I like their old lawyer Bruce Cutler who pronounced the word mafia as Ma - feye-a as he said he wasn’t familiar with the word or its pronunciation. I lead the naïve driven life when it comes to these things, so I dont know much about organized crime, because that alleged lifestyle doesnt fascinate me. I don’t watch the Sopranos…. And I have never seen the Godfather… although it has been suggested that that be the next movie series I see after I finish up with Star Wars.

In his trial, Gotti Jr. needed to prove that he has been out of the alleged family business since '99 to avoid being found guilty due to the expiring of the statute of limitations. And what does Kuby do? He goes on the stand to testify that Gotti Jr. told him in '99 that he wanted to live the straight life, thereby sticking it to his meal ticket, and digging the knife deeper into Curtis’s back. Kuby’s agenda? Look at his past history.

Curtis feels that Gotti Jr. is guilty. Do you think he is going to live in fear now that there has been a second mistrial? Why should Curtis have to live with that fear because of a man whose success he is almost 100% responsible for? I think WABC should just cut him loose and find any from the many other liberals that walk our streets to replace him on the lefty vs. righty show. I would even nominate Alberich who writes DAS Blog as an excellent candidate for the position. Based on his blogs, he fit’s the bill perfectly, and he also bears an uncanny resemblance to my former Rabbi.

Now if you will excuse me I must set my vcr to The Sopranos. You don’t think I’m going to miss Desperate Housewives and The Family Guy??