"COLD STONES" CREAMERY
"The Sopranos," now in its sixth season on HBO, does not display the titles of its episodes onscreen, but each episode does have a title and one can find the titles on HBO's website. This past Sunday's episode, which I finally saw tonight, was entitled "Cold Stones." The title is susceptible of multiple meanings, I suppose.
I've never had the opportunity (or desire) to say the following cheap phrase in a post before, but here goes: SPOILER ALERT: Read no further if you have been living under a rock for the last three months and are a Sopranos fan and yet know absolulely no details about any of the sixth season's episodes (apparently quite a few people live under such rocks, if only to avoid paying for HBO, as they wait a year or more to purchase a whole season's worth of episodes on DVD. I don't know what they're missing).
"Cold Stones" seemingly brought to a head, and resolved, several plot threads that had stitched themselves across the Season 6 landscape. Tony and Carmela's walking lump of shit of a son, AJ, appears to have finally been forced into accepting reality, courtesy of his father "getting" him a job that, to be trite, AJ was told by his father he couldn't really refuse (he wouldn't be killed if he refused; just thrown out on the street; for this useless wasteoid and human money vacuum, however, being thrown out on the street pretty much is a fate worse than death).
The other Soprano child, Meadow (who completes the serpent's tooth, so to speak, except that both of the parents' teeth are sharper than sharper than a serpent's tooth), has decided to go to California to live with Cro-Magnon boyfriend Finn. What she sees in him - once she gets past wretching at the sight of him - I do not know. What he sees in her - after he gets over the image of her father's fat, engorged fist in his face - is also a mystery. Have no fear, Finn. Should you marry Meadow and ever get on Tony's bad side, and should he then beat you to a pulp, your face will not change much. You already look like you have been beaten to the point of being unrecognizable, and all of the ugly sticks from all of the redwoods in California, if applied in unison to your body, could not make you any more frightening looking.
But lately, much of the show - and this year's love it or hate it plotline - has centered around one formerly fringe character - Vito Spatafore. Vito - who lost over 100 pounds and who still looked like a giant walking clogged toilet, was previously known for having committed the great achievement of whacking Jackie April, Jr. Last season (over two years ago), Finn, working the same "construction" job AJ now will be consumed with, inadvetently caught Vito fellating another man in a port-a-potty. (Talk about getting your shit together!)
He told Meadow about this. Meadow couldn't believe it. "Vito is a married man," she bleated. Yeah, and Catholic priests aren't perverts. Vito, the next time he saw Finn, presented Finn with a ticket to a Yankees game, with an implied threat that if Finn did not meet him at the game, Finn would regret it. Finn told Meadow about the threat and instead of going, announced his intention to marry Meadow, feeling that engagement would bring him safety.
This season started off with Tony in a coma (he was shot by his uncle in a seeming fit of dementia). Vito and various other thugs paid Tony a visit as he was unconscious; Meadow and Finn did as well. Finn ran in to Vito again. Vito stared him down, but did not get the chance to do anything. Later in the season, two mobsters went to shake down a leather bar and found Vito in S&M gear lustily dancing with another man. They pass this knowledge along the grapevine. Tony and his crew eventually hear it; Meadow eventually hears it; she blurts something out to Carmela about what Finn told her; Finn is summoned to an interrogation, conducted by Tony, about what he saw in the port-a-potty, and the dark truth about Vito is revealed: he is gay.
By the time the revelation is made, Vito has fled to New Hampshire, where he is out of reach. Meanwhile, the macho straight mobsters who now know that Vito has been making frequent pit stops along the "Hershey Highway" all affect an attitude of disgust toward the fact that Vito is gay (these were the same guys, that for a whole episode, could do nothing other than talk about the possibility of whether he was gay, interrogate other people as to whether he was gay, speculate as to whether there were any "clues" Vito left behind that would suggest he was gay, etc.) Gayness, these proud Catholic Italians who cheated and beated their spouses said, was a sin, blah, blah blah, Vito should be shot, he has brought shame to me even though I am not related to him, and I will avenge myself upon him because he forced himself upon someone else so that I can prove I am a man because naturally, when someone else is discovered to be gay, my masculinity is tainted so I must do something manly.
The one character who gets his knickers up - to the point of hysterical obsesssio - about Vito's being gay - is the boss of the New York crime family, the reptilian whiner with a giant gob of gel-terrorized hair, Phil Leotardo. You see, Phil's cousin is Vito's wife (Vito has a wife and two children). Vito broke the sacrament, Phil says, by being gay, so Vito must be killed as a result so that Phil's cousin's honor is protected (never mind what she actually thinks; Phil's childishly myopic patriarchal attitude is the same type of hypocrisy that the Anthony Hopkins character displayed in Howards End, and illustrates, as did that film, that people with different backgrounds - especially when one of them hates because he beleives his religion tells him be must - never really can communicate with each other).
Vito, while in New Hampshire, meets a man, and falls in love. But, boredom sets in, and he returns to New Jersey for a piece of the action. He makes an overture to Tony, asking to be let back in. Tony initially is receptive to the idea. But Phil simply will have none of it. You know, his cousin was betrayed and all. One of Phil's goons runs into Vito, and in short order, Phil's goons promptly beat Vito to death with pool cues. When the police arrive, they find a pool cue rammed up Vito's rectum (remember, though, these guys despise homosexuals). Phil is there during the attack, and literally comes out of a closet, watching the attack with what can charitably described as great interest. Of course, mobsters in general display a great amount of interest in how their fellows dress, what their fellows eat, and how their fellows are killed, robbed, stabbed, and beaten to death. They are always touching and kissing and hugging each other, and going on about how much they love each other, and so on.
But, of course, no one dare say any of this behavior is gay. I am not saying it is. But this behavior is not any more or any less outwardly gay than Vito's behavior was. And Vito's fellow bleaters' smutty curiosity in the details of his sex life - the constant jokes about his cock and his rectum, and the speculation about what organ is pounded into one, and by another, is, if not gay, well, pretty sick. But no one is allowed to say this either. Why? Because people with power and popularity in life define what is repulsive, while exempting themselves from the definition, that's why. Hypocrisy is the fuel on which life runs.
Of course, when Vito is killed, his wife (who does not know who did it), says, basically, "Nothing - not being gay (she does not say "not EVEN being gay") justifies what was done to him." Phil goes on about how what Vito did was a sin, blah, blah, but the wife, naturally, can only think about how a fellow human being is now gone, and how she had the misfortune to realize that he was a person, not an X-mark. "Vengeance is mine," God said in the Bible. Of course, no one reads that part. People claim to believe in God, but those who quote the bible selectively not only quote only the denunciatory parts, but take it upon themselves to do the denunciation that God clearly indicates is his dominion.
And what does Tony think of all of this? A member of his "family" - a made man - was killed. He is upset - the anger is compounded by the fact that Tony has already grudgingly admitted that gays "have the right" to do what they want in the privacy of their own homes, and by the fact that he simply does not believe someone should be put to death because he is gay. Tony tries to comfort himself by saying that Phil had Vito killed not because Vito was gay, but to merely send Tony a message that Phil could kill one of Tony's men without repercussion. Tony also rationalizes the death by saying, "If Vito had only stayed wherever the fuck he was, this never would have happened! (Vito never would had to have gone there in the first place if not for his associates' peculiar way of thinking, though)." People spend more time trying to rationalize nonsense than they ever do thinking. Sure, the latter is harder for them - but that's because they've made it so by cluttering up their minds with religious bunk, hypocritical codswallop, doubletalk, and hatred.
A mind is a terrile thing to....use.
I've never had the opportunity (or desire) to say the following cheap phrase in a post before, but here goes: SPOILER ALERT: Read no further if you have been living under a rock for the last three months and are a Sopranos fan and yet know absolulely no details about any of the sixth season's episodes (apparently quite a few people live under such rocks, if only to avoid paying for HBO, as they wait a year or more to purchase a whole season's worth of episodes on DVD. I don't know what they're missing).
"Cold Stones" seemingly brought to a head, and resolved, several plot threads that had stitched themselves across the Season 6 landscape. Tony and Carmela's walking lump of shit of a son, AJ, appears to have finally been forced into accepting reality, courtesy of his father "getting" him a job that, to be trite, AJ was told by his father he couldn't really refuse (he wouldn't be killed if he refused; just thrown out on the street; for this useless wasteoid and human money vacuum, however, being thrown out on the street pretty much is a fate worse than death).
The other Soprano child, Meadow (who completes the serpent's tooth, so to speak, except that both of the parents' teeth are sharper than sharper than a serpent's tooth), has decided to go to California to live with Cro-Magnon boyfriend Finn. What she sees in him - once she gets past wretching at the sight of him - I do not know. What he sees in her - after he gets over the image of her father's fat, engorged fist in his face - is also a mystery. Have no fear, Finn. Should you marry Meadow and ever get on Tony's bad side, and should he then beat you to a pulp, your face will not change much. You already look like you have been beaten to the point of being unrecognizable, and all of the ugly sticks from all of the redwoods in California, if applied in unison to your body, could not make you any more frightening looking.
But lately, much of the show - and this year's love it or hate it plotline - has centered around one formerly fringe character - Vito Spatafore. Vito - who lost over 100 pounds and who still looked like a giant walking clogged toilet, was previously known for having committed the great achievement of whacking Jackie April, Jr. Last season (over two years ago), Finn, working the same "construction" job AJ now will be consumed with, inadvetently caught Vito fellating another man in a port-a-potty. (Talk about getting your shit together!)
He told Meadow about this. Meadow couldn't believe it. "Vito is a married man," she bleated. Yeah, and Catholic priests aren't perverts. Vito, the next time he saw Finn, presented Finn with a ticket to a Yankees game, with an implied threat that if Finn did not meet him at the game, Finn would regret it. Finn told Meadow about the threat and instead of going, announced his intention to marry Meadow, feeling that engagement would bring him safety.
This season started off with Tony in a coma (he was shot by his uncle in a seeming fit of dementia). Vito and various other thugs paid Tony a visit as he was unconscious; Meadow and Finn did as well. Finn ran in to Vito again. Vito stared him down, but did not get the chance to do anything. Later in the season, two mobsters went to shake down a leather bar and found Vito in S&M gear lustily dancing with another man. They pass this knowledge along the grapevine. Tony and his crew eventually hear it; Meadow eventually hears it; she blurts something out to Carmela about what Finn told her; Finn is summoned to an interrogation, conducted by Tony, about what he saw in the port-a-potty, and the dark truth about Vito is revealed: he is gay.
By the time the revelation is made, Vito has fled to New Hampshire, where he is out of reach. Meanwhile, the macho straight mobsters who now know that Vito has been making frequent pit stops along the "Hershey Highway" all affect an attitude of disgust toward the fact that Vito is gay (these were the same guys, that for a whole episode, could do nothing other than talk about the possibility of whether he was gay, interrogate other people as to whether he was gay, speculate as to whether there were any "clues" Vito left behind that would suggest he was gay, etc.) Gayness, these proud Catholic Italians who cheated and beated their spouses said, was a sin, blah, blah blah, Vito should be shot, he has brought shame to me even though I am not related to him, and I will avenge myself upon him because he forced himself upon someone else so that I can prove I am a man because naturally, when someone else is discovered to be gay, my masculinity is tainted so I must do something manly.
The one character who gets his knickers up - to the point of hysterical obsesssio - about Vito's being gay - is the boss of the New York crime family, the reptilian whiner with a giant gob of gel-terrorized hair, Phil Leotardo. You see, Phil's cousin is Vito's wife (Vito has a wife and two children). Vito broke the sacrament, Phil says, by being gay, so Vito must be killed as a result so that Phil's cousin's honor is protected (never mind what she actually thinks; Phil's childishly myopic patriarchal attitude is the same type of hypocrisy that the Anthony Hopkins character displayed in Howards End, and illustrates, as did that film, that people with different backgrounds - especially when one of them hates because he beleives his religion tells him be must - never really can communicate with each other).
Vito, while in New Hampshire, meets a man, and falls in love. But, boredom sets in, and he returns to New Jersey for a piece of the action. He makes an overture to Tony, asking to be let back in. Tony initially is receptive to the idea. But Phil simply will have none of it. You know, his cousin was betrayed and all. One of Phil's goons runs into Vito, and in short order, Phil's goons promptly beat Vito to death with pool cues. When the police arrive, they find a pool cue rammed up Vito's rectum (remember, though, these guys despise homosexuals). Phil is there during the attack, and literally comes out of a closet, watching the attack with what can charitably described as great interest. Of course, mobsters in general display a great amount of interest in how their fellows dress, what their fellows eat, and how their fellows are killed, robbed, stabbed, and beaten to death. They are always touching and kissing and hugging each other, and going on about how much they love each other, and so on.
But, of course, no one dare say any of this behavior is gay. I am not saying it is. But this behavior is not any more or any less outwardly gay than Vito's behavior was. And Vito's fellow bleaters' smutty curiosity in the details of his sex life - the constant jokes about his cock and his rectum, and the speculation about what organ is pounded into one, and by another, is, if not gay, well, pretty sick. But no one is allowed to say this either. Why? Because people with power and popularity in life define what is repulsive, while exempting themselves from the definition, that's why. Hypocrisy is the fuel on which life runs.
Of course, when Vito is killed, his wife (who does not know who did it), says, basically, "Nothing - not being gay (she does not say "not EVEN being gay") justifies what was done to him." Phil goes on about how what Vito did was a sin, blah, blah, but the wife, naturally, can only think about how a fellow human being is now gone, and how she had the misfortune to realize that he was a person, not an X-mark. "Vengeance is mine," God said in the Bible. Of course, no one reads that part. People claim to believe in God, but those who quote the bible selectively not only quote only the denunciatory parts, but take it upon themselves to do the denunciation that God clearly indicates is his dominion.
And what does Tony think of all of this? A member of his "family" - a made man - was killed. He is upset - the anger is compounded by the fact that Tony has already grudgingly admitted that gays "have the right" to do what they want in the privacy of their own homes, and by the fact that he simply does not believe someone should be put to death because he is gay. Tony tries to comfort himself by saying that Phil had Vito killed not because Vito was gay, but to merely send Tony a message that Phil could kill one of Tony's men without repercussion. Tony also rationalizes the death by saying, "If Vito had only stayed wherever the fuck he was, this never would have happened! (Vito never would had to have gone there in the first place if not for his associates' peculiar way of thinking, though)." People spend more time trying to rationalize nonsense than they ever do thinking. Sure, the latter is harder for them - but that's because they've made it so by cluttering up their minds with religious bunk, hypocritical codswallop, doubletalk, and hatred.
A mind is a terrile thing to....use.
posted by EnterCenter at 10:48 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home