I'm Just an Ordinary Average Guy

An interesting little tidbit made it into the NYT today.

Apparently, man of the people Al Gore had to be traveling on the day that the last Sopranos was shown.  He called and pleaded to a bigshot at Paramount for an advance copy and was able to come up with the goods.

Why didn't I think of that?

But after a night of tossing and turning, Mr. Grey had a change of heart. On the Sunday of the finale, he had a Halliburton-made steel case, containing a copy of the episode, delivered to the tarmac where Mr. Gore’s plane sat in Chicago. The case was locked with a code (some might call it a “lockbox”). Mr. Gore could not open it until the plane was in the air, when he was instructed to call Mr. Grey’s office for the numeric code. Mr. Gore sent Mr. Grey a photo of himself trying to pry open the case, which Mr. Grey now keeps on his desk.

Freudian Analysis of the New Clinton Campaign Ad

By now, my hip readers (both of them!) are familiar with the new Hillary Clinton campaign ad that takes off on the last scene of the Sopranos finale in which Hillary refuses to give Bill any onion rings, and offers him carrot sticks instead.

Althouse has it all figured out...through a Freudian lens...

Bill says "No onion rings?" and Hillary responds "I'm looking out for ya." Now, the script says onion rings, because that's what the Sopranos were eating in that final scene, but I doubt if any blogger will disagree with my assertion that, coming from Bill Clinton, the "O" of an onion ring is a vagina symbol. Hillary says no to that, driving the symbolism home. She's "looking out" all right, vigilant over her husband, denying him the sustenance he craves. What does she have for him? Carrot sticks! The one closest to the camera has a rather disgusting greasy sheen to it. Here, Bill, in retaliation for all of your excessive "O" consumption, you may have a large bowl of phallic symbols! When we hear him say "No onion rings?," the camera is on her, and Bill is off-screen, but at the bottom of the screen we see the carrot/phallus he's holding toward her. Oh, yes, I know that Hillary supplying carrots is supposed to remind that Hillary will provide us with health care, that she's "looking out for" us, but come on, they're carrots! Everyone knows carrots are phallic symbols. But they're cut up into little carrot sticks, you say? Just listen to yourself! I'm not going to point out everything.

Ann Althouse

Streaming Sopranos Episodes

I came across something sort of cool...although I have no comment on the legality of such a site, Mr. McDonnell... ;-)

These guys have streaming episodes of some seasons of the Sopranos up.  It's not all seasons and the video is not exactly Blue-Ray quality, but if you need a fix, sometimes you'll resort to desperate measures.

Lazy

I've been lazy with posting the last few days....

While I have not yet rewatched it on On Demand yet (maybe tonight?), the longer I have to let it sink in, the more I love the ending Senor Chase gave us the other night.

Speaking of being lazy, I'll link up Althouse again. She tends to agree with me, that an unsatisfying ending can be satisfying...but that American audiences are being trained to be lazy.

You go, girl.

On the way in this morning, I had on the Sirius 80s station and by chance, Journey's "Don't Stop" came on. The song will forever be attached to that Jersey diner in my head.

Do They All Die of Clogged Arteries?

Nice ending, David Chase.

You win.

By the way, I broke down and scanned for spoilers early today.  This SOB had it pretty much balls on.

I have The Answers ***MAJOR SPOILERS***
by FrancisBegbie Jun 6th, 2007
05:01:52 PM
Well some of them. I saw a promotional copy of the last episode and while it did not include the last minute I saw enough so here we go. No joke. - AJ's car catches on fire while he is hooking up with his new girl. Very symbolic if you remember how they got that car. - Tony gets AJ a job in the entertainment industry because AJ was going to join the army to fight terrorism. - Tony goes to Junior and Junior has no idea who Tony is.This is after Janice goes to him to try and get after his money. - Phil Leotardo gets hit. He is killed by Benny at a gas station and then gets his head run over by the car he was in. - They find Phil because the FBI agent that Tony has been helping tells him where Phil is. - While Phil is away Tony has a sit down with New York and they agree to lay off and also say they would not mind if Phil is gone. The last scene they are sitting in a diner with Dont Stop Believing by Journey playing. REALLY REALLY intense and right when the conclusion is about to play out my copy ended. Come back Sunday night and call me a liar but no one will need to....

Sopranos Predictions

While we all know that The Sopranos, like the myth of an American Mafia, is a work of fiction, the bloggers are going crazy about tomorrow's series finale episode, Made in America.

Finally found someone over at HBO who agreed with my adopted theory...that Furio will come back in some way, perhaps being made and taking over the New Jersey family?

The best one, though, comes from someone over at The New Republic.  Paulie gets his own show, premiering in March 2009 and entitled "'Nuts."

Either way, I've got the chicken parm ingredients ready to go for a barn burner tomorrow night.  Screw the  Cav's game.  I might even treat myself to a sweet from Presti's.

Interesting Theory on the Final Sopranos Episode

We at Musings lament to note that this Sunday will be the last new episode of the Sopranos.  The name of this installment is "Made in America."

On Howard Stern's Wrap-Up Show on Tuesday, a caller had a reasonable-sounding guess on how the series concludes.

Furio somehow makes it back from Italy and, through whatever chain of events, ends up taking over the family.

Made in America.

Will he also finally get to bed Carmela?

You read it here first, if you hadn't already heard it on Howard.

Good Blogging on "The Blue Comet"

God, I am so ticked this show is going away!

Here's more on NJ.com. Great random commentary on the bottom, including the significance of white shoes and an open question on who the hell would have a life-sized cutout of Sylvio in their house!

Phil Leotardo and the Pygmies in New Jersey

Once again, Frank Vincent got one of the best lines in last night's Sopranos.

Since I've been reading some of these mafia books lately, one little thing jumped out at me that made me snicker.

When he was putting out the order on Tony's head, he talked about how the Jersey family makes everyone, they don't do the initiation rites correctly and "they have no respect for this thing."

"This thing" was not a lazy use of language, but rather something kind of specific. La Cosa Nostra (LCN) translates to "this thing of ours."

The Mafia is also called the Syndicate, the Mob, and the Cosa Nostra (Our Thing).

Answers.com

I'm not breaking any ground here, uncovering a hidden truth, but it just kind of proved again how carefully David Chase writes this show.

Kennedy and Heidi

This is a late post, but after Steven Van Zandt was on Stern the other day and this came up, I had to do a bit more research.

The episode in which Christopher dies is named, "Kennedy and Heidi" which I didn't give too much thought to, but now find really interesting.

I won't rehash everything this fine blogger puts out there, but a very nice analysis of the reasons these names may have been chosen...for the two teen drivers who swerve around Christopher right before he dies.

Phil Leotardo/Leonardo

This past Sunday, Frank Vincent's character, Phil Leotardo, on The Sopranos, offered us the funniest exchange from the series ever and from TV in general in some time.

Giving a speech to the children in his family, at what would have been his brother's birtday, he explains how his family's original name was Leonardo, but had been changed to Leotardo at Ellis Island.

paraphrasing:

"Why was that," a little girl asked him.

"Because they're jealous and stupid. That's why! Now we're named after a ballet costume."

One of the girls corrects him. "No, you have that confused with modern dance. In ballet they were a tutu."

Anyway, maybe you had to be there, but when I can track down a good transcript, I will post it here.

Rest assured that if you are not following this last mini-season, you are missing out.