The Sopranos: It's Over

This afternoon while driving to Madison, New Jersey for a family gathering, I was stuck in traffic approaching the Pulaski Skyway when I glanced to my left and saw this big idiot in a white 1996 Ford Taurus station wagon smoking a big fucking cigar.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: You ain't Tony Soprano. This goes for ALL guys that think it's cool to smoke cigars in your car. Just because Tony Soprano, a fictitious character on a fictitious, defunct television program, smokes a cigar in his car during the opening credits, it doesn't make it cool to do it yourself.

Even if Tony were a real character, he was uncouth and unsophisticated and was prone to panic attacks. But he probably smoked some decent Cohibas. Stop smoking cigars in the car and while I'm on the subject, stop wearing those ridiculous bowling shirts to look like him. Maybe morbid obesity will catch on too. If you smoke cigars in the car, who is to say that you don't do other despicable things like cheating on your wife, having people whacked and shoving sushi into your mouths with your hands like a cavone? Tony Soprano is not a character to emulate.

Like a lot of people, I enjoy a good cigar now and then too, but there is no reason to smoke one while driving. I smoke cigarettes in my car, but I'm addicted to them. No one that I know of is addicted to cigars. The smell ruins the car, especially the cheapies these fools probably smoke.

The Sopranos, as good as it was, opened to the door for all these guido, low-level gangster wannabes to go around dressing and acting like idiots. The cigars are just the tip of this dangerous iceberg. You shouldn't talk about "the old neighborhood" when you grew up in Parsippany in the 70s and you shouldn't talk about hanging out at strip clubs and eating soppresata all the time. It's enough already. That affected accent ain't fooling no one eitha. Get rid of it and go back to the way you spoke in 1997, before the Sopranos first aired.

As a 100% Italian-American, I take offense to all of you guidos out there trying to act like Tony Soprano and Paulie Walnuts. You people give us a bad name. There are a lot of Italians that are educated, worldly, well-dressed and make an honest living for themselves. Some of those people enjoy cigars too...when it's appropriate.

The show is over. Put the fucking cigar down.