Friday, March 9, 2007

My hometown

Hey yo.

Its been over 20 years since I lived in New Jersey, and a fair bit longer since I lived in my old hometown. I grew up in Northern New Jersey - in Bloomfield. That's part of the 'pizza triangle' including Belleville and Nutley. How Italian is Bloomfield? Enough to say that Saturday Night Fever was a documentary.

Bloomfield is the kind of town that rarely makes the news - until now.

BLOOMFIELD, New Jersey (AP) -- The producers of "The Sopranos" were denied a permit to film in this North Jersey town because the mayor and some City Council members say the acclaimed HBO series negatively depicts Italian-Americans.

The owners of an old-fashioned ice cream parlor selected for the series' final scene, however, said such "personal feelings" shouldn't stand in the way.

"He should do what's good for the town," Chris Carley, co-owner of Holsten's Brookdale Confectionary, said of Bloomfield Mayor Raymond McCarthy.

Permits were approved last week. But after complaints, the council voted again on Monday and rejected them. Officials have agreed to reconsider the issue for a third time next week.




I really don't see what all the fuss is about. The Sopranos, after all, is just a drama. How many mob bosses do you really think see a shrink? I know that a lot of Garden Staters get a kick of seeing their neighborhood on the show.

This Sopranos ban is unthinkable. The New Jersey I remember is one that reveled in its tawdriness. Now New Jersey is getting all sensitive, like my adopted state of California. What's up with that? I say, let the Sopranos come to Bloomfield. Fuggehedabudit.

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