Though I’m a woman, I loved the Sopranos, bought the entire set of DVDs and watched it again and again. Super TV show.
Do not want to meet real gangsters though. Came rather close as a teen. Went to very $$$ private Catholic girls’ high school two hundred miles from home. Girl who had just graduated was Anette Giancana. Was always sorry I didn’t get to meet her. In her class photos she looked nice.
Why is that a problem?
I once read a story about a tourist who went to a pizza shop to order pizza. It was filled with men playing cards and cribbage and such, but no customers that he could see.
The tourist sat down and somebody asked him why he was there. He told them he wanted a plate of lasagna. They made him the best lasagna he ever tasted. When he was done, they told him it was on the house but he should get going.
It was only afterwards that he figured out that it was a business that laundered money.
It WAS a superior show.
And it has aged well.
I think many Italian-Americans in the area of NY/NJ where the series took place had brushes with them or knew of them. So while the series glorified crime, so to speak, it was also a cultural thing.
[And its not “capicola”. Its “ gabagool or gabagoal”] :]
Long ago I took a job for a company that I later found out was mob connected. The idiot who owned the place was a young kid who’s daddy bought him the business.
I met his father and soon figured out the connection. In all honesty, these were some of the stupidest most inbred people I’ve ever known. Complete morons.
I didn’t stick around too long, especially once I figured out that both partners were embezzling from each other.