If This Is What Real Life Looks Like…

...then we're all screwed, blued, and tattooed.

I am a voracious consumer of television. I don’t know specifically when this bad habit started, I only know that television is a part of about half my normal day. I watch the news religiously (thank that non-existent deity for Fox) and The History Channel, and most sporting events (hockey and football) are about as close to a religious experience as I can manage.

My television viewing habits used to be quite selective, but this has changed since I have taken up residence with my new/old girlfriend. Her viewing habits are, shall we say, not quite as discerning as mine. This fact has led me to a whole slew of new viewing experiences that, quite frankly, cause me to fear for the future of the human species.

When Reality Television Hits Home...

From my local fishwrap vis-a-vis the new VH-1 'Reality Show' Mob Wives.

First off, I object to the term 'Italian-American Elite' for the following reasons;

a. We (those of us who think this show presents a seriously destructive view of Italians and Staten Islanders, and glorifies the Mafia Lifestyle) are not elitists; we're average people of moderate intelligence and taste who can still recognize a turd when we smell one,

b. The examples of this so-called 'Italian-American Elite' quoted in the article are no such thing. I didn't know these people even existed (except for the Borough President and the State Senator) before someone asked them for a quote. That's how influential and recognizable they are in the Staten Island Italian community specifically, and the New York City Italian community in general. As for the lady who was the head of the Island GOP, this is akin to being President of the AV Squad in junior high, given the dysfunctional nature of most New York State GOP establishments.

If New York democrats weren't such knuckle-dragging doofuses who fucked up by the numbers on a regular basis you couldn't pay enough people to vote republican in most local and state elections. It's usually only after some catastrophic performance (think David Dinkins) , or some great debacle (think Mario Cuomo) by a libtard that some Repubs even get a sniff at a chance to run successfully for office, right up until the NY GOP, predictably, shoots itself in the foot (see: Rick Lazio, Dede Scozzafazza, Carl Palladino, et. al. Oh, shit...they're all Italians!).

The point being that if you're going to designate people as an elite, there'd had better damn well be something elite about them. But I digress...

Secondly, this show, much like most of the drivel on television these days, has no redeeming qualities about it, whatsoever. In a day-and-age where we're treated to shows like 16 and Pregnant, The Real Housewives of_______, American Idol, Jersey Shore, Celebrity Rehab, and 1,000 Ways to Die, just how many more chances does Hollywood need to prove to us that, yes, the Entertainment Industry does believe that we're all mouth-breathing retards, and the more offensive and inane the fare proffered the more retarded we get, and the richer they get, at which point the cycle begins afresh, and society drops a few more precious IQ points?

If you must know, I did, indeed, watch about 10 minutes of this sorry spectacle on the replay  (not that I wanted to, but I can't keep running it down without at least knowing something more than what I read about it),and it made me physically ill. Primarily because THAT was almost every woman in my life flashing before my eyes on the screen; I grew up with that, I've dated that, I've been surrounded by it my entire life. I'm absolutely sick of it, and watching it on television only makes me want to seriously injure somebody, and causes my prostate to contract painfully -- as if it were digging a foxhole in my innards with which to shelter itself from the barrage of whiny, nasally, third-grade dialogue, all the fake tans, the cellulite and the image of  four cows in spandex and three-inches of slapped-on-with-a-trowel-Mabelline who think they're all the sexiest thing alive in the Solar System.

I find the thought of being violently ass-raped by a rutting moose with a bad case of halitosis infinitely more appealing, and far more intellectually stimulating, than watching these four broads with their unjustifiably-bordering-on-serious-mental-disease high opinions of themselves and their delusions of sophistication, coolness, sense of style or erroneous belief that they are some kind of trendsetters.

We don't have Trailer Trash in these parts, but if we did, that would be it's equivalent.

Often, I am accused by some readers of this page of having absolutely no respect for women; well, if you were raised in a swamp in which these four assholes are the best example of the prevailing female type, then you'd have little respect for women, too. Actually I DO have respect for women, but only the ones who actually DESERVE some. This type most certainly doesn't.

Civilization: Now Officially Over...

Re: the new VH-1 'reality show' entitled Mob Wives. I wrote about this piece of shit last week, before it previewed. Even without the benefit of being able to watch it, I knew it was complete and utter crap, ifonly because the sort of people who would actually show their faces in public and be willingly associated with it must be one or more of the following:

a) Stupid
b) Dumb
c) Unintelligent
d) Whores willing to do anything "to be famous", and
e) Dimwitted

It seems that I was right, as this review in the Staten Island Advance would lead one to believe, even though the review itself is hardly worth reading (really, the Advance actually paid someone to write this drivel, but won't give me the time of day on a freelance basis?).

But what really makes me laugh are the comments appended to the story. The Money Quote:

"...I now see why some men prefer prison..."


Now, what really makes me sad about  this whole thing is the discovery that these four scifoozas frequent my beloved Lee's Tavern, a Staten Island institution serving some of the best pizza you've ever had in your life. I will now stay away from Lee's as if the Health Department had declared it a deadly Dysentary Risk.


I will now have to eat more pizza at the Original Goodfella's, which may have a Mob-inspired name, but at least there's a very good chance that these four skanks won't be walking in to make us all sick to our stomachs.

Civilization: Now One Reality Show Closer To Total Oblivion...

It just had to come to this, didn't it? You just knew that after a slew of 'reality' shows about women with no intelligence, class, or discernible redeeming qualities and possessed of monumental piles of undeserved-and-mostly-earned/stolen-by-their-ex-husbands disposable income, it was only a short hop-skip-and-a-stiletto-heeled-and-silicone-enhanced-jump to a show about clueless broads with a financed-by-organized-crime lifestyle.

This is now entertainment; watching scifoozas romp in a wasteland of mindless conspicuous consumption bankrolled by murdering thugs.

We already get enough bad press in these parts, thank you, because of shows like Jersey Shore, and because our so-called political leadership has the same relative level of intelligence as your garden-variety Chihuahua. If it wasn't bad enough to be a Staten Islander, and an Italian, and have to be thought of by the general population as a guinea-tee-wearing-wife-beating-ignoramus because of association and shared background, this pretty much puts the proverbial nail in the proverbial coffin and seals the deal.

It's embarrassing. It's difficult to see how this class of person (and I'm being generous with my use of the terms 'class' and 'person' here) can be recognized as the descendants of Columbus, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Malphiggi, Augustus, Cicero and Marconi. It certainly makes the notion of Italian-Americans as decent, hard-working people who have no connection whatsoever to organized crime, difficult to defend.

The worst part: three of these broads are women you wouldn't screw with a stolen penis. At least two of them look as if they bought their last pair of shoes from a blacksmith. They answer the age-old question: why do mobsters have Goomahs (mistresses)? Probably because they get married to misshapen lumps of stupidity just for the lasagna and clean underwear.

You can practically smell the silicone, acrylic fingernails, and sausage and peppers from here.

Civilization just inched closer to total collapse the second some television producer decided this was something that America was just clamoring to see.

Some Thoughts on A Near-Death Experience...

I was almost killed yesterday.

It's a common occurrence here on the Isle of Thoughtless Douchebags. I'm surprised that it doesn't happen more often, honestly. But first, a little background.

The weather in these parts has been frightfully bad in recent weeks: two major snowstorms have been followed by an unrelenting rain, itself followed by some of the coldest winds of the season. I blame Al Gore. I was promised an unbearably hot and dry climate because of the internal combustion engine, but instead one must struggle through streets clogged with the remnants of a blizzard and a white Nor'easter, turned to ice, slush and frozen lakes by a 40-degree rainy day, followed by the near-zero blast of the Siberian Express.

This is absolutely awful if you're a pedestrian. The remaining snow (I promise you, it will still be here here in early May, but it will all have been turned black by then so that the little hillocks made by people who dug their cars and walkways out will resemble slag heaps) is made soft by the warmth and the rain. This causes a) flooding and b) the formation of deep -- often ankle deep -- layers of slush, where snow, warm water and the filth of the streets create a Slurpee-like semi-fluid mess that coats the sidewalks, and collects in pools at every crosswalk. No sooner does someone walk over it, then it refreezes, waiting for the next person to walk over it. The repeated cracking of the ice layer, welling up of the water beneath, and refreezing ensures that slush is even harder to get rid of, and avoid, than snow.

It also gets trapped in the potholes in the streets, and freezes over again, creating big patches of ice on the roads.

Conditions yesterday were such that movement by vehicle was an iffy proposition. I must have seen at least half-a-dozen vehicles, that having parked at slushy curbs, were then trapped by ice when their owners returned. For some reason, these folks find it necessary to continue to spin their wheels when trapped in the ice, which makes one of the most annoying sounds known to mankind; that of rapidly rotating rubber sliding on ice. Here's a hint -- it doesn't matter how much "gas' you give it -- you're stuck. All you're doing is digging the ruts deeper, ruining your tires and creating a noxious cloud of exhaust. That's why you always keep a good, metal snow shovel and a bag of sand or Halite in your trunk, Doofus.

Anyways, the conditions on the road were such that no one with half a brain should have been on them.

This is Staten Island, however, and the half-brained are all at work at their overpayed "City" jobs, leaving their quarter-brained offspring behind to ensure that background levels of stupidity do not fall below their natural intensity. The roads are busy, even in this frozen, sodden mess.

No one here ever takes the opportunity to stay at home when they really, really should. It's raining, and even colder weather is promised by the Asshole on Television; one must rush to the Supermarket for "essentials" because there will never, ever be any milk or bread again, should we survive the Ice Age that has descended upon us. Some of these folks might be excused; they're actually out there trying to do something -- like ensure their survival -- it's the other 90% of the drivers that should be pulled over and beaten within an inch of their lives that are the problem.

Because Heaven forbid someone should have to wait 10-15 seconds to make a left turn into a three-way intersection because there's a pedestrian in the crosswalk, and they're running late for something ridiculously unimportant.

This is a common problem in these parts, and I'm not certain what the root cause is. Perhaps people are just selfish. Maybe we've bred successive generations of morons. Perhaps they're not teaching people in driving school beyond the most basic "Red: Stop, Green: Go, Yellow: Haul Ass!" curriculum. People who drive around here regard a brake pedal like an enema: it's something slightly disgusting, and you should avoid it as often as possible. The concept of "Right of Way" has devolved into "I'll race you there". Traffic here is so bad that, often, if you miss your opportunity to make a turn when you "have the light", you might be stuck for as much as another 60 seconds waiting for your next opportunity. That's 60 seconds that your typical Staten Island Douchebag could be using to do really important things, like breathing, getting your mascara on right, or answering a text message.

Occasionally, you get someone with manners and courtesy, and they'll let you pass before they make their turn. Usually, what happens is the driver making the turn will either speed up and try to cut the turn fine so as to get through the intersection before you arrive, or, they make a wider turn to allow you to pass, but then gun the engine just as soon as they have sensed, let alone seen, an inch of daylight behind you. Either way, if you're a pedestrian on this island, you are likely to come within 12 inches or less of a rapidly moving vehicle to your front or rear at least three times a day. That means that at least three times a day, you're in danger of getting struck by a vehicle operated by a selfish twit in a rush to get to the next red light.

Crossing the street around here is much like being in one of those massive caribou migrations; you try to cross a raging river with tree trunks being swept downstream by floodwaters, like in one of those nature documentaries.

So, here I am, travelling across the dangerous landscape of a two-lane street at a three-way intersection. The street lights say I can cross; the little white man that's the universal symbol for "Walk" is lit up. I'm perhaps three steps into my treacherous journey when a blur of red passes before me.

Someone has decided to race me to the intersection. But the best laid plans of mice and men ofttimes go astray.

This driver of this little red Honda, not so much an automobile as it is a pregnant roller skate, misjudges the distance and timing, and instead of passing between me and the car stopped at the light, hits this stationary vehicle about 8 feet in front of me, and bounces backwards, whereupon it finds one of those icy patches on the road and does two full revolutions before coming to a stop against the well-used and twisted guardrail on the opposite side of the road. The silver SUV riding the red Honda's bumper decides this is an excellent opportunity to complete it's own turn, and so that driver guns his engine and dashes through the intersection, missing me, still in the crossswalk and now frozen by confusion, by perhaps two feet.

There is now a two car accident where there should have been none. The little Honda is facing the opposite lane of oncoming traffic at something like a 45-degree angle. There is steam rising from a ruptured radiator. Broken glass is now scattered on the slushy street. Somehow, I'm unscathed...and pissed off. The driver of the stationary vehicle now emerges from his car, and asks if I'm alright. Together, we rush across the intersection to check on the status of the moron who caused this accident in the first place.

We can't see the person at first; the car's airbag has deployed, and all you can see is a pair of arms flailing behind it. Eventually, the driver's door opens, and there SHE was.

I don't know why having the airbag in her face put her in a such a panic; She looks the type that should be well-accustomed to having her face buried in the pillows, if you catch my drift. She's a common type around here, almost the National Bird of Staten Island, that kind of neatly-manicured and perfectly cosmetic-ed, gum-snapping bimbo in designer everything, who probably awakes each morning to find a condom lodged in her vagina with no clue as to how it got there. Around here, she's known as Anna Putana (Putana = Italian for "Whore"), the 20-something, shallow, dumb-as-dogshit, Snooki-wannabe who's life revolves around nightclubs, Prada, and endless junior-high drama in which the main character is almost certain to be a knuckle-dragging Soprano's caricature named "Joey".

She is not to be mistaken for Staten Island's National Flower, The Morning After Spermburper, although the two are very often confused by the uninitiated.

So, Anna Putana gets out of her vehicle...and she's already on the cell phone. In fact, she was on the cell phone when she attempted the high-speed turn on slick streets with pedestrians in the crosswalk. The other driver and I ask if she's okay; she holds up her hand to silence us. You have got to be kidding. The Phone Call must continue:

Danielle, you won't believe what just fuckin' happened! Motherfucker! I'm gonna be late for my appointment.

It turns out this "appointment" is for...all together now...a mani-pedi. She was in a rush to have her nails done. Heaven forbid Anna should be forced to put her precious hooves into her Uggs without having them stripped of dead skin first, with her cuticles left untrimmed.

This ... I hesitate to call it a woman ... has just been in an automobile accident. One that she's caused. Her car is seriously damaged. She's almost killed one person, and wrecked someone else's car, and she can't put the fucking phone down. The Other Driver and I look at each other, dumbfounded. He shrugs, and whips out his own cell phone out and says he's going to call the cops.

This, naturally, Anna hears. It forces her to cut her own phone call short.

Danielle...I gotta call you back, this fuckin' asshole's callin' the cops!

Now begins the song-and-dance as this young scifuza (Ski-FOO-zah = also Italian for "Whore") tries to get the Other Driver to NOT call the Police. This is, it seems, the worst of all possibilities to her. She begs the guy not to call the cops, but he won't relent. She would have offered him oral sex, I'm certain, had there not been a third person (Me) within earshot. Then again, she looks like she's had two penises simultaneously at least once in her life. She tries to hop back into her car, presumably to make a getaway...only it won't move; the front end is flattened. So, she gets back on the cell phone:

Joey? Yeah, you have to come to (the scene of the accident), some guy is calling the cops on me.

Told you there was a Joey in there, somewhere.

I'm sticking around because a) I'm a witness, and b) I want that bitch in handcuffs. Besides, this is about to get good -- Joey has been called -- I know he'll arrive with the usual assortment of bozos.

They always do.

Now the argument starts. She's not at fault -- the other driver was sticking out into the intersection, she claims. Pure bullshit, of course. She tried to make a turn before I, the pedestrian, made her wait an extra 10-15 seconds, and cut it too fine. I saw it. She's offering to have the guy's car fixed, her boyfriend (Joey, naturally) does bodywork, and do we have to get a police report and get the insurance companies involved? The ambulance arrives first. No one has been hurt, but Anna suddenly feels light-headed and her neck hurts at the sight of an ambulance. I know her type: her neck is probably the strongest part of her body, after her mouth, so it's a transparent ploy for sympathy.

The Police arrive and take statements from Anna, The Other Driver and Myself, and begin to direct traffic around the accident. Suddenly, when there's an actual cop on the scene, every driver on this fucking rock remembers the rules of the road, and behaves themselves. A tow truck pulls up, and starts removing Anna's car, now looking like a beer can crushed against a frat boy's forehead. How the hell she managed to walk away from that is a fucking mystery to me; I had not realized the damage was that extensive, at first. Reminder to myself: never buy a fucking Honda.

Having had the ambulance folks check her out, and finding no sign of obvious injury, Anna is back on the cell phone. She's crying to someone, probably her father (it's a rule in the Gumsnapping Bimbo's Handbook : when in trouble, you call Joey first, your Father second) , that she is being arrested. The charges: reckless driving, driving without a license, driving without insurance, attempting to flee the scene of an accident, and using a cell phone while operating a motor vehicle. They should have added insult to injury and given her a ticket for being an asshole, too. The Police are going to escort Anna to the hospital for a more thorough physical examination before they send her to the hoosegow. She is being loaded into the ambulance when "Joey" finally arrives.

I know Joey. I've seen him in the museum in those "Family of Man" displays. He's usually somewhere between Homo Habillius and Neanderthal Man, or would be if either of those human ancestors wore Guinea Tees and reeked of Axe Body Spray. Joey must argue with the cops. Strictly speaking, he doesn't actually need to, but there's a rule in the Ultimate Guide to Goombahs that compels him to do so, or maybe it's a genetic defect, or the limited intellect contained within a tiny braincase. No matter. The Argument and attendant chest-beating is a biological compulsion. He has to argue over why his girlfriend is being arrested. He's not satisfied with the answer (i.e. she committed a crime and caused an accident). Out comes HIS cell phone. Naturally, he's talking to someone named "Vinny". Somehow, you knew there had to be a Vinny in there, somewhere. Whatever he's saying, I can't tell you. All I hear is "fuck, fuck, fuckin', fuck, this shit, fuck, fuckin', fuck, fuck".

That's almost poetry in this parish.

Anyways, I'm given information by the police officers about my role as a witness, and I'm asked if I have any charges to press. I figure Anna already has enough problems; she's a whore, she's shackled to Joey, and she can't drive for shit. Why pile on? Besides, the cops now have another problem on their hands; because another car arrives, and three more Ginzos hop out. None of them seems to have gotten the message that hair gel went out of fashion some time ago. They have parked their SUV in such a way as to restrict traffic from making right turns from the very place where Anna launched her tragic left. This is not surprising because they haven't come to see if anyone is hurt, they aren't there as concerned citizens to lend a hand to someone in need; they're there to help Joey beat the snot out of The Other Driver, obviously because Joey can't do it himself without messing up his own mani-pedi.

Joey, you see, talks a good game, but in reality he's a pussy. The ones who do the Tough Guy Routine usually are.

These guys came specifically to cause even more trouble. Don't ask me why they do this, because I can't really explain it. If I had to guess, it's so that they can add the distinction of a criminal record to their "reputation" without actually having committed a serious crime, or done real time. In the repeated, oft-embellished, retelling of the tale the arrestee will have beaten seven or eight cops to a bloody pulp before finally being tazered -- twice -- and taken into custody. In actuality, he will have been wrestled to the ground by a female cop, and meekly submitted to the subsequent handcuffing. He will have the satisfaction of hearing people who don't know the truth whisper to one another in the crowded beer-and-ecstasy mills-with-urine-all-over-the-floor that they congregate in, "don't fuck with that guy...he's done time".

Intelligence is not exactly at a premium in the cirlces these cretins move in.

Now the cops have their hands full. What was a routine traffic accident has now become a mini-riot because three dumbasses with more hormones than brains have decided that the only thing that can make this situation better is to attack an innocent guy. Of course, there is not going to be an actual beating; there are five or six cops on the scene. No, they have come to help Joey put on a mountain-gorilla display of empty machismo. There's something seriously wrong with this New Generation of Italian-American; they look like metrosexuals and have adopted the Urban Patois of African-Americans, right down to the exaggerated mannerisms, threats to violence, and gun-related innuendo. I can't tell you how many sideways-pointed gun gestures were made at The Other Driver each delivered with a chorus of "fuck you, Motherfuckah! I'll cap yo' ass, Bitch!"

I thought I was in a hip-hop video for a minute.

Of course, that's always shouted from behind the safety of a wall of cops. If they were real men, they'd just do it, and not just talk about it. If it were up to me, this sort of mental defective would be gassed, en masse.

Eventually, because this is also part of the process, someone else has to get arrested. It's unavoidable, like death, taxes, and Nancy Pelosi causing a severe Botox shortage on the day of a television appearance. Lou Ragu just can't put his testicles in neutral despite repeated warnings from a cop to knock it off, and he finds himself wearing stainless steel bracelets. He can't help himself, because he's somehow not "authentically Italian" in his circles if he doesn't (over-)act like a complete douche, create a problem where none exists, and piss a cop off in the process. As soon as someone gets arrested, the small riot magically disperses. The display has had it's intended effect: to convince anyone who's witnessed it that there's a strange genetic mutation running through the Italian community of Staten Island, New York.

It's fucking embarrassing.

Anyhow, sometime soon I expect a summons to court in the case of The People of New York State v. Roseanne Rosannadanna, Joey Baggadonuts, Salvatore Badabing, Nicky Potatosalad, et. al.

Of Shoes and Other Feet...

I can now add another subject to the list of Things That Get You Nasty E-mail When You Write Them; taking a crack at one's own!

In another blog post earlier this week, I made reference to "The Jersey Shore Italians", and "The Shanty Irish",and you would have thought I had slaughtered and dismembered a busload of kittens in someone's living room. The response was enormous, and most of the respondents were grossly offended by my use of "hateful stereotypes".

Which was fascinating, because in some cases, the uproar came from regular readers who have absolutely no truck with me when I'm having a go at Muslims, or Gays, saying things about Blacks that they know they all think, but lack the courage to put on the printed page for themselves. Somehow they can all find it within themselves to get all uppity and outraged when it's them, or their sacred cows, within the crosshairs.

I am nothing if not an equal-opportunity offender.

I'm sure that at some rate this is simply human nature at work, or more likely, it's a realization by a certain type of person that these stereotypes might, indeed, apply to them or someone they love, and they find the realization mortifying.

I make no claim to perfection, nor am I implying that I am a superior human being. It's just an observation, on my part, that I am surrounded by living proof that stereotypes a) exist, and b) are largely true, but that the people they most often apply to haven't a clue they exhibit this behavior. The intent is to get people to think, and then, perhaps, to change. To what degree or for what purpose any individual changes is largely a personal concern, because I'm not here to improve the human race, and even if I were granted that power, I don't think I would; why should I have to do everything for everyone else, and let's face it, I wouldn't even get a "Thank You" afterwards. That's just how people are.

The real object of that exercise was to show just what sort of doofus it requires to start a fight over a claim to a stupid parking space that one doesn't even own.

Then, there were other people who wrote in who weren't exactly certain what the terms"Jersey Shore Italians" and "Shanty Irish" really meant, and were asking for a clarification, uncertain as they were about whether or not they actually knew people like this. So, in the name of perfect clarity so that those in the dark may know thy enemy, and for the purposes of pissing off the offended one more time, I will teach you now how to identify these creatures at first glance.

You Know You're a Jersey Shore Italian If:

(Note: I'm Italian!)

1. You wear velour,and think it stylish or comfortable. Especially track suits. Velour went out of style in the 1970's, I believe, and it ain't, or at least shouldn't, ever come back into fashion. Velour is for automobile upholstery, cheap barstool coverings in topless joints, and cheesy Las Vegas nightclubs.

2. You are either unable, or simply refuse, to pronounce the, "er", "ur", "th" and "oi" sounds properly. I have been surrounded by people my entire life who "change dare earl in front o da choich at Turd Avenue and Turdy-turd street, and den go ta da terlet to wash up aftah."

3. If you live in a house with at least one garishly-decorated room, usually with a multitude of gilded mirrors and a great deal of marble or ceramic tile, that never gets used. No one is allowed into it, no occasion is an excuse to use it. It is simply for show, and is given the same treatment one would expect to be provided for an exhibit in the local museum. Additionally, if you have at least one bathroom like this in your house, you make the list.

Everything in your house is intended to convey an impression of class and taste, but only ends up convincing a visitor that you have neither -- unless they come from the same background as you do, in which case, it's a contest in one-upsmanship-in-vulgarity.

4. If your house is liberally-decorated with religious pictures, at least one stained-glass Passion scene in the foyer, a cheap-hotel-quality picture of the Sacred Heart, a back-lit Madonna and Child in a front-lawn artificial grotto, the collected prayer cards from a dozen funerals all over a decade old, then you fall into this category.

5. You can't stop tapping your inner Robert DeNiro or Joe Pesci, can't go at least one day without making reference to The Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino, Raging Bull, Analyze This, Frank, Dean and the rest of the Rat Pack, all of whom you regard as a minor pantheon of deities, and the movies the Mythology that surrounds them.

6. You name your children after saints, and send them to Catholic School so that they may receive all their sacraments, but only attend church on Easter, Ash Wednesday and Christmas Eve, or because someone has died or is getting married or christened, and then spend the rest of the year avoiding church like a $5 whore with a dinner-plate-sized cold sore. If so, then you certainly belong on this list.

7. When you go out to eat dinner, you go solely to Italian restaurants despite having all the pasta, cheese, olive oil, meatballs and tomato sauce you could ever hope to inhale at home. Your idea of international cuisine is either Northern Italian or Southern Italian.

You tend to eat long Sunday afternoon "dinners", with at least five courses, which begin punctually at 3:30, and end sometime after 8:00, just in time to sit on your fat ass and watch television for five minutes before you're fast asleep from overeating.

8. You are a moderate-to-heavy gambler, and regularly play the lottery, or make several pilgrimages to Atlantic City or Las Vegas every year. There is no office or bar pool that you won't cough up $10 bucks for.

9. You're the loud-mouthed asshole in the velour tracksuit at your kid's Little League game imploring him to perform acts upon an athletic field that would get him arrested in any other setting. Your kid may be a complete spaz, but he's going to pitch for the Yankees, or be the starting quarterback for the Giants. You can do absolutely nothing without making a tremendous racket, with a lot "Aaaaayyy!" and"Ooohhh!".

10. You believe the highest forms of culture ever devised all have Robert DeNiro in them, or are based upon an Organized Crime theme. To you, The Sopranos is either an over-the-top stereotype of Italian-Americans, or it's your life in microcosm, because everyone knows a Paulie Walnuts in real life, and has an ungrateful mother that's impossible to please who plays the martyr to the hilt. Your ambition in life is to own Bada-Bing, a place akin to Heavenly Paradise... only with tits.

You have forgotten that your ancient culture produced Michelangelo, Columbus, Polo, Malphiggi, Dante, DaVinci (unless you saw the movie, dipshit), Brunelleschi, Verdi, Marconi, and the legacy of the Roman Empire. That your Old Country was the epicenter of the Renaissance that created the Modern World, which allows you to sit around in your velour pajamas, upon your slip-cover-protected, faux-Louis-XIV-velour-covered furniture, and watch football on a flat-screen, while you stuff your fat face with imported sweet peppers and potato chips.

11. Your children begin to curse at around age six -- because you probably did, too -- and it's you who taught them how to do it properly. You then ineffectually yell at them to stop -- because it's "not nice" -- without imposing any real discipline or consequences upon them for straying from the straight-and-narrow. Short of brandishing a burning tree branch and threatening to beat your kids within an inch of their lives with it, there's hardly any discipline in your house, at all.

Your sons, unless they've been reined and shown the wages of sin in at an early age, become complete doofuses, consumed with hair gel, flashy cars and clothes, and bodybuilding, when they aren't trying to be (need I say it?) the next DeNiro, their True God. Picking up a book is considered "gay", and marks one as someone to be beaten up daily for his milk money. They are mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging morons incapable of a thought that doesn't originate with their stomach, their dick or their haircare regimen.

Your daughters are painstakingly trained -- by their mothers -- in the mysterious arts of the Madonna/Whore complex, and how to be an unconscionable pain in the ass, so that one day they may marry "a nice man". This somehow requires they acquire a nasally whine that could curdle milk, pile their hair upon their heads in a way that would defy gravity without Aqua Net, slather on enough make-up to camouflage a battleship, dress like hookers on a job interview, and snap their gum while they chew it in a bovine manner. Think Fran Drescher in The Nanny, only with the ability to make lasagne on a moment's notice.

It is in this way, people like "The Situation" and Snooki become de facto spokesdouches for the entire Italian-American race, and you celebrate them for it because they're "real", and resemble you.

If, by some quirk of fate, your daughter does manage to snare a husband, then the wedding will either be an exact replica of the wedding in The Godfather, or an amalgamation of all the cheap and disgusting excess one usually finds on Bravo or MTV.

12. Everything you do in life is vulgar, ostentatious, oversized, shallow and ultimately, on the cheap. Your SUV, Your Cigar, Your House, Your Swimming Pool, Your Christmas Light Display, all literally scream All Sizzle and No Steak. On anything approaching an intellectual debate, you bring the old saying "Three Italians, Four Opinions" a breath of new life with every guttural utterance, and the opinions you profess are invariably about YOU, and how everything revolves around YOU.

You Know You're Shanty Irish If:

1. You are an Italian wanna-be who can't go one week without corned beef, and who drinks his whiskey cut with water, because to do so without is considered "Scottish", and therefore, uncivilized. Besides, it helps the bottle last longer. You probably order pizza with fruit on it, when no one is looking. Your idea of tomato sauce is ketchup and water, suitably boiled until it's thick enough to waterproof a boot.

Your idea of fine dining is a night at the Outback Steakhouse, preferably with three-to-five drinks, interspersed between courses.

And by the way, it is NOT a stereotype to say the Irish drink heavily. I have, sadly, spent half my life in bars, and you can usually only find three sorts of people in there: losers, drunks and Irishmen.

2. You own a home you can barely afford, and have filled it with children you can barely afford, either. You have this many children because the Pope frowns upon condoms, and your Catholic School-bred wife won't do that other thing for you that the Italian or Spanish girls will. Unless you buy her something nice, first.

3. You, too, name your children after saints, except for the girls who somehow get compound names that make reference to the Virgin, and strangely, a European Monarch. At some point in her life every Mary-Elizabeth, Mary-Catherine, and Mary-Margaret manages to pick up a suggestive nickname, like "Juicy", "Cookie" or "Sunshine", as if they were hookers or topless dancers.

I will say this for Irish women, though; despite the rigors of multiple childbirths, they age way better than their Italian counterparts. Whereas Italian women often get fat and doughy, Irish women seem to retain their good looks (if they had any) well into their middle age...after which gravity and the ravages of time conspire to turn them into bags of opaque skin hanging from an ancient skeleton that flaps in every strong breeze.

4. You can't go more than ten minutes without talking about the Yankees, the New York Football Giants, or Notre Dame. The Boston Celtics are the ultimate expression of Irish Pride, even if it is "just a bunch of niggers in shorts".

Somehow, you find the nickname"The Fighting Irish" either complimentary, or offensive, and often both, depending on how many drinks you've had.

5. You can tut-tut at the Taliban, deplore their resort to senseless violence, and demand vengeange and justice for 9/11...right after you leave this month's IRA fundraiser. There's terrorism, and there's Terrorism, you see.

6. You're a fourth-generation Irish-American, and your debates about politics are dominated by the subjects of: No Irish Need Apply (still), John F. Kennedy, Gays in the St. Patrick's Day Parade, Bloody Sunday, the British Occupation, and the Potato Famine. No people on Earth have suffered like the Irish, as you're so fond of telling us all, in effect making yourselves out to be the Original Jews, Blacks, and American Indians.

The political legacy of the Irish in America largely consists of Kennedys (brain-dead, inbred, Hitler-lovers, and criminals), Nixons, Bidens, O'Neills, Dodds, Andrew Jackson (the First American Emperor), Daleys (inventors and perfectors of vote fraud), McCarthys (continuing right where the Spanish Inquisition left off), and McNamarras (men who send other men to war, but then won't let them fight...unless they can do so at a discount). Somehow, perhaps by accident, you managed a Reagan, and then largely trashed him for disavowing your Kennedy heritage.

These are your heroes. The Olympus of Irish-America, if you will. You defend their sainted memories like you would your own mother, and any reference to the massive tunnel in JFK's head is an invitation to a fistfight.

7. The culture which produced Cu Chulainn, Joyce, Yates, Shaw, illuminated manuscripts, Stoker, Boyle, and Tyndall is largely forgotten, and in place of those giants of intellect, Conan O'Brien and Bono have been installed. Much like the Italian-Americans have forgotten their past, the Irish-Americans have forgotten theirs...except for anything that involves the possibility of shooting at the English, a people many have never had direct contact with, on behalf of a country which isn't even theirs, and which after 800 years still hasn't been "recovered". In this regard, the Irish are the Arabs of Europe. The Irish-Americans wrapped up in the "troubles" of another continent are much like the home-grown-radicallized-jihadis we hear so much about, but never seem to catch until too late.

And yet, once a year, an entire day is set aside to celebrate that Irish Culture that few, if any, Irish-Americans actually have any direct knowledge of. On that day, it's suddenly, magically okay to speak of leprechauns, shillelaghs, shamrocks, and potato famines, without instigating a fistfight or starting someone off on yet another stream of complaints about how hard the Irish have had it just about everywhere.

It's too bad Constant Whining isn't an Olympic Sport, because the Irish would be the East German Women's swim team of such a competition.

Unfortunately, this holiday requires that everything be dyed a hideous shade of green within an inch of it's useful life. Green beer, green food, and ultimately, green vomit. The day is supposed to commemorate the feast of St. Patrick, Patron Saint and Billy-the-Exterminator of the Emerald Isle. You know something is wrong if your national holiday revolves around someone ridding your land of vermin, and then brainwashing you with a foreign religion.

8. You're a cop, fireman, or construction worker, because your Old Man was, too. These are all fine and honorable professions, but you are probably the only family on the block that can boast three or four generations of flatfoot, while neglecting that one of the primary tools of modern law-enforcement, the so-called Paddy Wagon, is named after your ethnic group -- and you can't decide if that's because Irish Cops rode to the rescue on it, or because there was a load of Irishmen being taken to jail inside of it.

Yes, I have painted with an overly-broad brush, but the point is well-and-truly made. If you can look at that list and say to yourself "Gee, I'm Italian/Irish and don't display any of those unattractive traits", then you're probably a goddamned liar.

It's people like you that give New York, in general, and Staten Island specifically, a bad name. It's terrible and embarassing to have people in New Jersey, of all places, remark about the rudeness, loudness, and lack of class shown by Staten Islanders, especially the two groups I've just verbally raped....and who were the targets of the original post. If the shoe fits...

And now all of you people who regularly complain that I'm unfair to Blacks, Mexicans and Muslims can shut the fuck up.

Update: Edited for spelling/grammar. Twice.

When Illegal Aliens Attack...

Predictably, the Hate Mail rolled in in response to this post.

An obviously-organized effort sprang into being to chastise me over the issue of my "inhumane" and "disgusting" views on the subjects of Illegal Immigration and Bi-lingual education, and I have to say that so far as organized efforts go, this one was pretty tame and I've gotten worse Hate Mail than this. Some of it (perhaps half) was actually quite civil, if full of misspellings (and isn't it peculiar that everyone made the same spelling and grammatical errors?).

Except for the three e-mails that had viruses attached (jackasses -- I scan my e-mail thoroughly, and I used to be a System's Programmer, so I know all the tricks!), the letters all made the same points (and isn't funny that all my correspondents made the same points in the same language, and in the same order?), most of it was boilerplate "you're a racist" sort of stuff that I see, oh, every other day. This is old hat; the only difference was the volume. I routinely get worse stuff from Anglo Libtards with their panties in a bunch over my obvious homophobia, blatant racism and pitiless disregard for the feelings and tribulations of transgendered pets, and the People Who Love Them.

The respondents all make the same arguments, and I'll summarize them here:

1. There are no"illegal human beings".

2. The "crime" of sneaking across the American border is not a crime, per se, but rather a "civil offense". It's not that big a deal, like getting a speeding ticket.

3. Illegal immigrants DO pay taxes, just not income taxes, and this is not their fault since they're being exploited by Big Business and unscrupulous Capitalists who all presumably studied the art of Business Management at the Simon LaGree Institute.

4. Appeals to "Fairness" and "The American Dream".

5. "It's for the children".

6. The United States "belongs" to Us (Mexicans, Indians, etc.) in the first place, and you Anglos "stole" it from Us.

Now, let's knock these perfectly infantile arguments down one at a time:

1. You're absolutely right. There is no such thing as an "illegal human being". However, that argument is a piece of pure Sophistry which might get you an "A" in Diversity Class, but which is otherwise meaningless. Perhaps because you are not so skilled in the use of the English Language, or more precisely, the subtleties of American Culture (and why should you be? It's not as if you're being encouraged to assimilate), it is not evident to you that we don't begrudge you your basic humanity, we only object to what you have done in order to get here, and what you do once you are here. The word "illegal" applies to the act, not the perpetrator.

I recognize every one of you as a Person, no different from me, except in some external and cultural ways. However, I didn't commit a crime and violate another Nation's Sovereignty just because I could, and with a reasonable assumption that I could then partake of all that Nation had to offer (because we're good people) without any corresponding responsibility to the people and government that provide it to me.

It's all about Respect and Gratitude. We expect you to Respect our laws, and then we expect you to show some Gratitude -- you don't need to thank me personally, but you could make an effort to help better the society that gives you much and asks for so little in return. It's called Civic Responsibility. You could start by trying to atone for your Original Sin and become citizens (that is to say, taxpayers), and then the least you could do is be contributing to the betterment of your adopted Nation.

2. A Civil Offense is still a crime; it's just not one that'll get you hung in the Village Square. And even "Civil Offenses" have consequences; if I get a speeding ticket, I still have points applied to my driver's license, or have it suspended or revoked, and then my insurance company may decide that I'm suddenly a reckless driver and raise my premiums. I have to show up in court and pay a fine. I have the offense entered into my "permanent record", and it will follow me forever, and that speeding ticket will be seen by every potential employer, every loan officer and every magistrate that I ever cross paths with.

It's not that a Speeding Ticket is a Capital Offense it's that if the act of speeding wasn't illegal, I would never have been charged with a Civil Offense in the first place! The differences between my ticket and your crossing the border are these: I didn't speed in order to get Food Stamps, a Free Education for my children, a housing subsidy, and a myriad of services paid for by other people for which I'm not expected to reciprocate, in any way, and which excuses even the worst behavior in the name of some made-up notions about "Diversity" and "Brotherhood". There certainly any Congresscritters, Mayors and City Councilmen clamoring to represent the "Speeder's Community" because of the votes, money and notoriety this might bring them, and there isn't a Business or Agricultural Lobby who views Speeders as source of cheap and infinitely-exploitable labor that bucks up their bottom line. There sure-as-hell isn't a bevy of "Advocacy Groups" working on behalf of Speeders because there's a shitload of Federal Money to be skimmed.

The difference between my Speeding Ticket and your "Civil Offense" is that your offense often costs far more than money, and does appreciably more damage to civil society.

The argument that there are laws which "don't really count" is a rather bad one. I may disagree with certain laws myself, but I can still respect them, and hopefully, try to get them changed through the legal processes of petition and elections. You want to get them changed on the basis of "there's too many of us here for you to adequately and humanely enforce this law, so why not just forget it", and then when that Legion of Lawbreakers becomes the majority, you'll be able to use legal means to justify and excuse your initially illegal act. That's plain wrong.

3. Paying Sales Taxes is unavoidable, and if given a choice, I'm certain you'd dodge these, as well. I know I would. That argument cuts no ice. The idea that Illegal Aliens pay Social Security taxes is laughable: those are, firstly, paid by your Employer (who is taking these out of your check before you ever get it, and who has every reason to lie about what he pays you because it was illegal to hire you in the first place), and because you don't have permission to work in the United States.

Which means you shouldn't have been hired in the first place. It would be against the law to do so.

If you were paying Social Security taxes as an Illegal Immigrant, then you would have a Social Security Card, which means the Government would know where you live, in which case, it's failing in it's duty to arrest and deport you.

In the case of Income Taxes, if I have to suffer that act outrageous theft, then so should you. The fact is that your immigration status being nebulous or questionable often shields you, to a large extent, from having to suffer that indignity. In the meantime, my money (as well as the money of millions of others who don't really have a choice in the matter) pays for perpetuating this most unfair, confiscatory and punishing system, and rewarding you for your outrageous --and illegal -- behavior.

4. As for "Fairness", when I can enter Mexico in violation of the Law, not get arrested and deported for it, and have the government there provide me with free hospitals, schools that will teach my children in English, a political system that's eager to cater to my every need at someone else's expense, doesn't punish me for breaking the law, and considers all that an act of charity, then perhaps then we can talk about what's "Fair".

Oh, and the reason why it's called The American Dream is because it's reserved for Americans. That means the people who play by the rules and who are actual citizens. You could probably have something similar in Mexico, China, India or Pakistan, but that would require effort on your part, I guess. If most of you showed half the industry and fortitude you apply in getting here to take advantage of the American Taxpayer to improve the conditions in your own countries, perhaps you wouldn't have to come here and live on the edges of Society, glomming off other people's success and industry, and then wondering why you're resented for it.

You certainly wouldn't be organizing a letter-writing campaign to an anonymous loudmouth with an opinion you don't like. For every letter I got that started with "I'm a hard-working individual..." I had to ask the questions: Then why weren't you working hard where you originally came from? and Why, then, do you need welfare? Yes, I know: the culture where you come from neither rewards nor encourages the virtue of work, nor does it provide the same freedoms, but it could, if only you took the opportunity to make it so. It's just easier to exploit a nation where conditions are different, isn't it?

5. I don't care about your children, in this respect; because YOU obviously don't care about them. Because the lesson you're teaching them is that it's within their rights to break the law as they see fit, and then it's perfectly acceptable to live like beggars on the edges of society, under-the-radar, and dependant upon the kindness (rather the extortion) of strangers. You're teaching them that they're entitled to all the benefits of American Society and the American Taxpayer, without having to accept the responsibilities of American citizenship. You're teaching them that it's perfectly alright for them to steal from others. Worse, that they're entitled and expected to steal from others. It's a Human Right, after all.

I don't wish to see children suffer, to go uneducated and without as wide a range of options for their tiny, little futures as possible. I do, however, don't believe they should be allowed to benefit from their parent's criminal activity.

6. I'm not an "Anglo". I'm a 4th-generation American. I was born here, the descendants of people who entered the country legally through Ellis Island (and some of them were quarantined -- basically imprisoned -- when they arrived on these shores, for months), and who didn't have an entire array of Government Services to exploit. My ancestors came here knowing little or no English, and there were no schools to teach it to them as a Second Language, and they were expected to a) suck it up, and b) assimilate. They did the same jobs many of the newer generation of immigrants do (sweeping streets, laying bricks, digging trenches), and their life was considerably harder because ethnic and religious hatreds weren't considered "bad form" by polite society; they were openly discriminated against, and there was no form of legal protection for them. The terms "Immigrant" and "Italian" didn't come with their own battalion of Lawyers, Senators, Aldermen, and Advocacy Groups to leap to their defense, excuse their criminal behavior, nor bend the culture and legal system to accommodate their every whim.

They (my forebears) assimilated, and became AMERICANS, and while they still loved the Mother Country and kept as many of their customs and culture as they could, they also realized that some aspects of those practices certainly weren't acceptable here, and so they conformed. Unlike the Hispanics I've seen around here who's children feel it's perfectly fine to urinate in the street -- and often make a communal game out of it, or who pick their noses and wipe snot on every convenient vertical surface, spit like camels everywhere they go,. or live 20 people to a two-bedroom apartment, and who have brought measles, tuberculosis, and other diseases that were once wiped out, back into the country.

Where's the quarantine for infected "immigrants"? Why is the Emergency Room of my local hospital full of people speaking strange languages and coughing up blood without insurance or the means to pay for the First-Class care they demand and expect to get? Why does the City of New York have to empower special panels to see to the "problems of bi-lingual education"? Even the terminology "problems of bi-lingual education" admits it; there's a problem. If it were a good thing, it wouldn't be a problem. But I digress.

As to who "owns" what -- get over it. Your ancestors, be they Mexican, Amerindian, Pakistani, or whatever, are the losers of history. If you were winners, you wouldn't have to steal from others. It's not my fault that your Stone Age forebears came up against Renaissance and Industrial Revolution technology, not to mention Smallpox, and lost out. I don't believe in the nostrum that all cultures are "equal and valid". If they were, there would be no immigration (illegal or otherwise), and you'd still be ripping the beating hearts out of your captives, shagging camels, eating your own feces and lice, and earning a good living doing it all in your own country.

I don't owe you anything. I'm perfectly willing to share what I have as a matter of being a good citizen, but not when the transaction is one-sided, and costs me far more than I get in return, and especially when the response to what I have given is not "Thank you", but rather "Fuck You...and gimme more!"

The Feast of the Seven Fishes...

I must prepare for the time honored tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a day I enjoy more than Thanksgiving, Halloween and the Stanley Cup Finals rolled up in one.

What, pray, is the Feast of the Seven Fishes? Why, it's only the greatest Italian Christmas tradition...EVAH! Unfortunately, it's not actually, authentically Italian, more like an Italian-American thing (because we don't have purple feet!), but it's roots certainly do go back to the old country. My own family hails from Sicily (my father's side) and Naples (my mother's side), which are, traditionally, some of the poorest places in Italy. When the peasantry escaped their poverty in Italy to come to America, they brought the beginnings of this tradition with them, suitably modified for a new life (and new realities) in America.

See, for Italians, Christmas Eve is the really more important night. That's when The Vigil (La Vigillia) occurred; the actual waiting for Baby Jesus to arrive. For Italians, anticipation is usually better than the event, I guess? Anyways, it's almost a backhanded homage to the whole concept of childbirth. A commemoration of the greatest weapon in the arsenal of the Italian Mother; they torment their children their entire lives with "I spent hours, and hours, and hours in painful, awful, terrible, bloody, excruciating labor to give birth to you, you ungrateful wretch!" (You think Jewish mothers have a corner on the market on guilt trips?). Therefore, the emphasis placed on the labor rather than the actual birth...by women, anyways. So, I guess it's a (strangely masochistic) celebration of motherhood, and Christmas, and an excuse to get stupid fat, all rolled up into one. So, for some strange reason they never really made to clear to us during 10 years of a Catholic School education, Italians 'fast' for Christmas...by stuffing themselves with vast quantities of seafood.

It would break the heart of the most ardent tree-hugger to think of how badly we denude the oceans for a Christmas Feast! I actually snicker at that thought.

Anyways, there's the Feast. Now, depending upon which part of Italy your forebears supposedly came from, the tradition becomes slightly different, but the same motif about the number seven (a lucky number!) continues, each of the seven fishes represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins, or the Seven Hills that Surround Rome, the Seven Sacraments of the Church, The Seven Days of Creation in Genesis. Perhaps it's because Italians are inveterate gamblers, or maybe that was the number of broads Frank Sinatra once bagged simultaneously. Who knows why it's seven; somehow, seven is supposed to be the greatest number of all, and every red-blooded Goombah always has a reverence for the number seven.

Anyhow...

The Feast itself usually begins at 3:00 in the afternoon; that's when the boiled shrimp gets served, cocktail style, a seafood salad (usually Scungilli Salad, conch), antipasti -- a variety of sliced meats, cheeses, and pickled vegetables --olives and olive-inspired canapes, fresh-roasted red peppers, hot Tusacn peppers in vinegar, and a host of hors d'oeuvres. We skip lunch so that we can partake of this pre-meal extravaganza. Wine gets passed around, too. Think of it as warm-up for the main event, which begins at 7:00. During this time, we sit around, stuff ourselves and reminisce about this, that and the other, and at some point it devolves into a round of good-natured ribbing that would appear vicious to the uninitiated, but if you're Italian you know what I mean. We laugh, we remember those who aren't here anymore, we talk about everything and anything, we tell the kids about 'the old days' before they get bored and go watch TV. It's Family Time.

Then the actual dinner starts, promptly at 7 P.M. (There's that number again!)

There's the fried shrimp, fried scrod, baked clams and mussels in tomato or Fra Diavlo sauce (a hot tomato sauce), Calamari (squid), lobster tails, scallops in the shell or in wine sauce -- all of which follows the traditional pasta course (usually lasagna, stuffed shells, manicotti or ravioli. Often more than one.). When my grandparents and great-aunts/uncles were still here, there was Baccala (salted cod, usually served in an olive oil and garlic sauce), but no one eats that anymore. It''s considered 'Old Timer' food. We weren't raised on it. And there is, as always, the freshest bread you've ever had in your life..

If that isn't enough for you, there's ham, and maybe even turkey. And these get served with your broccoli rabe (bitter broccoli, served with red pepper flakes...almost like Passover!), stuffed artichokes (blech!) and some sort of potatoes (never mashed!). By this time, you've been at the table for at least 3 hours, and have had two or three entire dinners.

There's a short rest for more wine and family chop-busting and camaraderie, the kids get to open (some) of their Christmas gifts, we take some photos...and then the desert trays come out.

There's cakes, pastries (connoli, Napoleon, pettit-fours), a selection of Italian cookies which always includes biscotti, pinioli (pine) nut cookies and anisette cookies (amongst others). Coffee time! There's fruits, nuts, candies, ice cream (always spumoni for the kids!), and any other desert you could possibly think of. Think of it as the Venetian Hour at your friend's wedding brought to your dining room table. Desert itself will last another laugh-filled 2 hours...at least.

By which time, you're ready for Midnight Mass. I don't go anymore, being an agnostic, and nowadays fewer in my family partake, but some still do. Those who don't, stay home and drink yet more wine and make sandwiches out of the leftovers.

Never was there a more disgusting, and yet thoroughly enjoyable, display of human gluttony! Nine hours at the table, broken up by endless ours of family conversation, celebration and fun. I'm not a big believer in the whole Christmas thing as celebration of the world's salvation, but I do believe that this one meal does more to cement families together than just about any other activity, save births, weddings and funerals.

This is, without a doubt, my favorite day of the year.

If you're not Italian, and you think you might like to try this wondrous tradition out next year (assuming we all have jobs and money, and that the Obama Administration hasn't begun that carefully-planned program of Street Executions against it's enemies, i.e. all of us) here's some background information to help you get started;

Seven Fishes Blog

Wikipedia

Italians R Us

Dream of Italy

Sicilian Culture.com

Merry Christmas to all!

Makes You Ashamed to Be Italian...

On the Jay Leno Show, the cast of "The Jersey Shore". The sad part is that I have known people like this my entire life, and they are, indeed, proof that stereotypes continue to exist because they are essentially true. That goes for everyone.

The two young men are what we refer to as "Guidos" or "Goombahs", the original metrosexuals made popular by Saturday Night Fever (see here), and the girl, Snooki (and what sort of Italian girl goes by a nickname like that, and you wonder exactly how she got it?) is what's known as a "Squaldrina" (harlot, trollop, strumpet or tart), but more commonly referred to as a "Scifooza" (Ski-foo-ZA); colloquial Italian for "whore".

It makes you sick to think that not only are these idiots the public face of Italians for the younger generation -- they're also the morons who will run the country in my old age.

(Note: I tried to upload the video, but it may be too big for Blogger. You can see it HERE).

We were once a proud race of people, possessed of an amazing cultural inheritance, but we've apparently given birth to an entire generation of mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging idiots who are too dumb or shameless to avoid putting their stupidity on public display.