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 The Profaci Game
or, John Fiore, Super(subtle)star!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with watching hours of television every day.
The only danger comes when you are no longer able to separate what you see on TV from what exists in real life. Even the news is filtered, processed, tweaked and edited by dozens of people who all have a separate agenda, so you must be a discerning consumer of information. There are lots of things that are wrong with TV, and most of the programming is not only totally empty, but destructive in its impact.
Maybe I am overreacting, but let me tell you something about this country. There are huge numbers of people whose only contact with intelligent, well-dressed people who possess a full set of teeth is through the TV. These people not only cannot process the information they are exposed to, they actually believe that the TV is providing them with a real and incontrovertible truth. There are thousands of people who think Heather Locklear is a bitch, Cigarette Smoking Man is part of a cabal of New York jews who have struck a bargain with malevolent aliens to sell out humanity, and that Rosie O’Donnell is a sweet, caring heterosexual. Bizarre, right? I’ve seen literally dozens of stars who have told stories about how the general public reacts to seeing them in the flesh. Poor Susan Lucci not only suffers the humiliation of repeated Daytime Emmy rejections, but every time she travels outside the confines of her mansion she finds that “the people” actively hate her, because they have no ability to distinguish between a fictional bitchy character on TV and a terrible actress who is a midget.
I think that as we as a people move away from each other physically, we want to be near other people in other ways. This, to me, explains the explosive growth of the internet, the popularity of party lines and the huge amount of money spent on porno. We may really hate each other, but we love to check our e-mail, voice mail and pagers. I think that because of the way society is evolving, the only real community we have left is on television. We, as a people, look to TV to give us information, entertainment, and of course, a glimpse into the lives of our neighbors. I guess it’s sad that we refuse to talk to our neighbors but will gladly watch them reveal their darkest secrets on Jerry Springer. I know why I don’t talk to my neighbors. The guy that lives next door is a chupacabra who would suck the life out of me as soon as look at me. The guy next door to him is a freaky minister who has accosted me, my wife, or both of us, and brought us into his freaky, smelly apartment for bizarre lectures on all the conspiracies going on in the building. There is no one in this entire city of more than eight million souls who has a spare set of keys for my apartment. I only know the names of two other people in my building and those are the ones I have written about in letters of complaint to the building’s management.
There aren’t that many TV shows that I watch regularly and you may have guessed that I can think of more shows I hate than shows I like. If you did guess that, congratulations, I’m proud of you! You have looked at the available evidence and drawn a reasonable and accurate conclusion. There may be hope for you yet!
I really like The X-Files, and I think, for the most part, they have handled many different Fortean phenomena with a seriousness that isn’t seen nearly enough on TV. If you don’t know what I mean by Fortean, go buy Fortean Times magazine or check out the web site (www.forteantimes.com). The show has also created its own mythology and even invented some cool paranormal events of their very own. I feel like no one has ever voiced the criticism I have of the show, so here it is, kids. First of all, I think the opening sequence, while creepy in places, comes across as extremely dated and very cheesy. I don’t mind the hand with the glowing red section or the screaming man torn apart by a video-effects machine. But the text that comes by is not only stupid, it’s embarrassing. In the beginning, I understood the need to have the words, “Paranormal Activity” and “Government Denies Knowledge” fly by. But that time is long past.
In addition, almost all of the footage of the stars comes from the first three episodes, before they had a style of their own. I think it is way past the time for them to update it with something more recent. In addition, I think many of the plots start out with an interesting premise and then fall into the old, “let’s go kill the monster before we understand a thing about it” plotlines. Some of the most interesting episodes that had the most impact were those where some new idea was presented, it was handled in a way that not only explained the possible interpretations of the event, but also, at the end, gave a definitive answer.
For example, in the episode “Home,” there is a family of inbred freaks who have children with their mother. In the end, not only is it clear that they are just genetic mutants, but they are allowed to escape. Even though the atmosphere was spread with a ladel and the references to The Andy Griffith Show were a little too obvious, it was a thoroughly freaky episode. In “Quagmire,” our heroes are sent to Georgia to investigate Big Blue, a sea monster thought to be responsible for a series of unsolved lakeside murders. After a lot of interesting twists and the loss of Scully’s dog, it is revealed that there is no monster, just a large alligator, which is killed when it attacks Mulder. Then, just as they are wrapping things up and leaving, you see that there is a real monster still out there, as it breaks the surface just behind our FBI friends. That was an awesome ending because it showed that not only are the agents fallible, but that not every case is going to be signed, sealed and delivered. It is presumed that the monster will continue killing, and those killings may yet go unsolved, which is very cool with me. The more hillbillies eaten by monsters, the better, if you ask me.
I also really dig the way the episodes are titled and how the name is integrated into the episode, but I tell ya, for the past dozen episodes, instead of being an interesting exploration of some topic, it turns into a bunch of guys in suits, sitting in a dark room, yelling at each other.
If you purchased any of The X-Files tapes you will no doubt have enjoyed listening to Chris Carter’s explanation of each episode. I know that when I watched, I was shocked at how inarticulate and dumb he seems. He says “uh,” “um” and “ah” all the time, he can’t seem to focus, and his theories are incredibly convoluted. It amazes me that he has such a high opinion of himself. If you watch the credits and pay attention, you’ll realize that Chris Carter is, more than any other writer on the show, responsible for the most stilted, archaic, pretentious and meaningless prose ever uttered on the show. But Frank Spotnitz, Glen Morgan and James Wong are the geniuses behind so many of the really scary, daring and funny episodes while Chris Carter is the man behind so many of Mulder’s most ridiculous speeches about conspiracies and “the truth.” I mean, the whole show is a fiction, so all this talk of “the truth” is silly, right?
I remember last spring when talks with Jerry Seinfeld were ongoing about the final season of his show. He said, in print, that he would continue doing the show as long as people still liked it and wanted more. I totally believe that he wanted to end the show on a high note, because it was important for him, both personally and financially, that the show remain in high regard. This last season was one of the best ever and I think it will go down in history as one of the best shows ever, with the final season being the culmination of years of hard work. But at the beginning of the last season, a bunch of assholes (I only hope you weren’t among them) began to loudly criticize the show. I think the morons at TV Guide should stick to listing what’s on and keep their stupid fucking opinions to themselves. They had an article on how Seinfeld was losing steam and had run out of ideas.
Then Entertainment Weekly did a poll of some critics where they all said that the quality so far had been spotty. Then, one of the local NYC shit rags took a poll where they asked total dicks what they thought of the show, and those polled overwhelmingly said it wasn’t as good as it had been in previous seasons. So Jerry said that they were about to have a few new ones in a row that were going to be outstanding and he was dead right. The backwards episode, the one where Kramer returns to work at H & H Bagels and the one where George goes to work for Kruger Industrial Smoothing were all instant classics. It didn’t matter. The people were complaining that the show was slipping, and, the way I see it, Jerry took it very personally. Because a few dumb motherfuckers had to go and bitch about it, the show is no more. I personally think that this last season was amazing and every week I got a little angrier at the American public for being such assholes. I hope you’re happy, because now you’ll have another space on the schedule for dreck like Suddenly Susan and Caroline in the City. A bad night of Seinfeld is a million times better than the best episode ever of The Naked Truth. I don’t know that I will ever forgive you. Remember when Puddy wore that fur? Or when he was working in the car dealership and wanted to high-five everyone? Goddammit! Even the reruns are funny.
Let me also give everyone fair warning about The Simpsons. I don’t give a fuck what you think about The Simpsons, I know that it is in the top five funniest shows on the air during the 97-98 season and I watch and tape every single week. I know a few people who used to watch and for whatever reason, they’ve given up on the show. If you don’t like it, just stop watching, but keep your fucking mouth shut. If I ever see your name on articles about how The Simpsons has lost its edge, or is no longer funny, I promise to savage you, personally, for the rest of my natural life. I may even put out a call for your home address and then print it. Or perhaps I should have a contest and have my readers send in photos of their dumps in the toilet and I’ll choose the one that most looks like your face and then run it next to your home address every single issue, you know, make it a regular feature. Don’t fuck with me on this topic. Keep your goddamn worthless comments to yourself and we can stay friends forever, okay?
Dennis Miller is one of the funniest comedians ever to grace the stage, but sadly for all of us, he knows it. As a result, he’s also one of the most obnoxious, self-absorbed and pretentious assholes to ever lose a talk show. But he’s smart and I always admire smart people who don’t hide their intelligence. I watch and tape his HBO show every single week and think it’s one of the best things on television, but I know most of the best jokes are not his—they belong to his writers. Just once I’d like him to invite his writers out to be guests on the show, because without them, he wouldn’t seem so funny or move so many books, I’m sure.
The reason I’m mentioning him is because I intend to send him this zine with the pointless hope that I can change him. I know he could be more successful if he could just stop doing a few things. He has a number of annoying affectations and habits that always stick out when I see them. For example, when he refers to someone famous, he always insists on calling them a nickname that they never use. If he was talking about Jerry Seinfeld, he would say, “Who are you kidding, Jerome?” Or he will refer to Charlton Heston as “Chuckie” and think he is being terribly clever. He also insists on doing a little Johnny Carson thing by either touching the side of his nose or running his fingers through his hair during a joke, to give it emphasis. There’s no need, Den-den! Just be yourself and find your own style, okay? And just once, thank someone besides yourself for the material because we all know you couldn’t have done it all by yourself.
For whatever reason, he frequently uses the word “jagoff” which DOES NOT FUCKING EXIST. Either “jerkoff” or “jackoff” is appropriate, please. He also is the king of obscure references and let me tell you, oh Denny-boy, this is precisely why your talk show failed. I am a fucking rocket scientist and at least 20% of your references are lost on me. There is no one in your audience who gets all your references except you. You are putting on a show for us. We are your audience, so make a show for us, okay, Dr. Dentenheimer?
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The best crime drama ever made for TV is Homicide: Life on the Street and it features the best actor on television, Andre Braugher, as Det. Frank Pembleton. Sadly, this past season was his last, which will be a huge loss for the show. He has such an intensity and seriousness that all he has to do is enter the room and everyone is on notice. He recently won the best actor Emmy over ugly dwarf Dennis Franz, and it is both a tragedy and an insult that Andre hasn’t won it for the past four years and that those fuckwit showboat retards from NYPD Blue are in the same category. They gnaw gnu dick compared to Andre, who is the man.
The producers and writers of Homicide handle routine TV drama subject matter with a gravity that is almost totally absent from the hysterical, showy bullshit of lamer fare like ER (fuck you, Michael Congo Crichton!), NYPD Blue, Brooklyn South (fuck you, Bochco!) or The Practice (fuck you for Ally McBeal you pandering piece of shit, David E. Kelley!). For example, on Homicide, there was an episode about a kid getting shot in a mall by accident. Most normal TV shows would engage in hysterical hand-wringing about our troubled youth or turn the show into a screed about declining values or worse, a morality play on the dangers of guns. On Homicide, it turned into Pembleton and Bayliss (the cute and talented Kyle Secor) going to the hospital to talk to the victim’s parents, who have the poor kid on a respirator. There’s another kid who is also dying in the hospital due to the failure of one of his organs. One set of parents want to keep their kid alive by taking the organ from the victim in the shooting. The agony of that episode was conveyed without dialogue, it was all in the gestures and expressions of those involved, from the doctors to the cops. Solving the crime, once the kid dies and it becomes a murder, is secondary to the story. If it made me think, imagine what it might do to a regular person like you. Luckily for you, they’re making some of the episodes available on tape. Just call 1-800-NBC-7600 or go to the web site at www.nbc.com. If you’re cheap and still interested, Lifetime, television for women who like to watch other women get their asses kicked, has syndication rights, though you should check your listings because they can never decide when to air it.
Before Homicide, there was another great crime drama: Law & Order. Back in 1990 when executive producer Dick Wolf first got this show on the air, it had a novel hook. Each episode would be divided into two parts: half an hour of the crime and police investigation followed by half an hour of the prosecution of that crime. In addition, the producers promised that many stories would be “ripped from the headlines,” meaning that viewers could read about a crime and a few months later they might see a dramatic interpretation of that crime.
Some of the most chilling episodes took what we knew of real events and made them even more disturbing. In an episode modeled after the Joel Steinberg case (freaky lawyer adopts kids through less than honorable channels, abuses kids, and his young daughter dies as a result of the abuse) the fictional version went even further. They made the man a shrink instead of a lawyer and ended up nailing him because of his drug abuse. But unlike the real case, the TV Steinberg was training his abused wife to be his servant, and worse, she was helping him train their little daughter to serve him as well. It was implied that mommy was teaching the little girl some sexual stuff to please daddy, and that kind of thing is usually way too hardcore for prime time. It was handled well, with great drama, superb performances and a cathartic conviction. It was also cool that quite often the criminals were able to get an acquittal, due to better lawyers, mistakes on the part of the cops or the DAs or just dumb luck, and the audience shared in the shock with the prosecutors.
They have also been a fertile training ground for many unknown and talented actors, including guys like Samuel L. Jackson, who had a small role as an attorney in season one and made something memorable out of it.
The original cast consisted of George Dzundza and Chris Noth (rhymes with “both” according to an interview I read) as the cops and Michael Moriarity and Richard Brooks as the prosecutors. Back then it was Lurky’s absolute favorite show, and he made up his own lyrics to go with the opening credit sequence. You might expect it to be creative, but it was beyond pathetic. When the opening started, he would chant, “La-la-la-la-Law-and-Order,” and then, as the first name came up he would continue, “Wu-wu-wu-wu-with George Dz-dzundza!” I always agreed with Lurky that Dzundza was not meant for the job. He looked like a cop, sure, most fat guys do, but he seemed to be acting like a cop, not being a cop.
Chris Noth was always the soul of the show. He wore a little American flag pin, always pushed the right people around and could always make a convincing case for his position using his own miserable childhood as a parable. From what I remember, Dzundza signed on with the assumption that the show would be filmed in LA. Even though much of what I’ve read about Dick Wolf makes him seem like an asshole and the one time I saw him interviewed he came across as a pompous prick, he did do one thing right. He fought the network to film the show entirely on location in New York City. Back then there were almost no shows being filmed in New York, but see, in Law & Order, the city itself is a character and plays a part in every episode. It’s critical that the show be filmed here in NYC because that’s what the fucking show is about. You may think I’m using this story as an attack on Steven Bochco’s empty, LA-based NYPD Blue, and you’re only partially right. I mean, Seinfeld didn’t have to be filmed here, but it would have been nice. When it comes to gritty realism, you can’t beat NYC. And if that’s what your show is going to be about, film it here, assthroat.
Once the show began production, Dzundza had to split his time between his family in LA and filming in New York. You could tell it was getting to him and after a season, Dzundza wisely bailed and was replaced by Paul Sorvino. On the show, Det. Greevey, Dzundza’s character, was killed by a mob guy in order to get him not to testify in another case. The show where Chris Noth started to flip out because his partner had been murdered was intense, moving, and introduced another character, Dr. Elizabeth Olivet. Because Det. Mike Logan (Noth’s character) was handling the loss of his partner so badly, he was ordered to see the police shrink to help him cope. The scene where Logan not only confronts Greevey’s killer but puts a gun to his head and threatens to mete out his own justice was great not just for the character development, but because it showed the legal ramifications of Logan’s taking justice into his own hands.
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Instead of the episode just being about coping with loss, or solving the murder of a cop, it went beyond that, showing the police as real people, with real feelings, who are damaged as a result of the work they do. In general, I like the idea of the police, but when it comes to specific cops that I meet, I think they all suck. Especially in New York, where most of them are stupid, arrogant yahoos who act like powermad hall monitors. They run lights, harass people, cause a shitload of traffic, and, from what I understand, are not exactly kind to my foreign-born or dark-skinned brothers.
I remember seeing Sorvino doing the rounds on the talk shows to promote the show. He never stopped saying how happy he was to have regular work, to be back in New York, and to be working with such talented people. Unfortunately, the writers didn’t seem to know what to do with him. Instead of a complex person, he became a standard issue TV cop. A fat Italian who likes food, has a wife who is never seen and lovely daughters who admire him. Bo-ring. At least Logan had some motivation for becoming a cop. At least he took to his job with gusto and dedication. It was pretty obvious by mid-season that Sorvino wasn’t into it anymore. Soon thereafter, he, too, exited the show by way of a bullet, and people began to notice that the show couldn’t seem to hang on to cast members. Jerry Orbach replaced him (he played a defense attorney in Sorvino’s last season and must have impressed someone) and he’s done a fine job as Lennie Briscoe. Every time I see him I remember his foul-mouthed character from F/X and laugh.
Richard Brooks and Michael Moriarity always made an excellent team as ADAs. Brooks, playing the younger, more impetuous role, would wince and frown appropriately. Moriarity, as ADA Benjamin Stone, was always a bit of enigma. When he did share details of his personal life, they were always compelling but never overly illustrative of anything specific. It seemed like the weight of thousands of disappointments was wearing on his soul and he was doing everything he could not to shout at people. One of the greatest contributions his character has made to my life is his use of the word “sir” as a derogatory term. While cross-examining a recalcitrant witness who is attempting to defend himself against murder charges, Stone would pause often and shake his head in disbelief. A typical exchange might go like this: Stone: “So, what you would have us believe is that this woman, of her own free will, fell on your knife more than a dozen times, landing not only on her face, but her back, legs and torso as well?” Killer: “Yeah. The bitch was crazy like that.” Stone: “Sir, need I remind you that you are under oath?” Killer: “I know. But I already told you how it happened.” Stone: “No, sir, you told me a version of events that you know to be a lie.” The condescending way he said “sir” has seeped into my life, so whenever people are telling me things that I clearly don’t give a shit about, I will reply, “No problem, sir.” At my last job I must have called my boss “sir” about a million times, but every single time I would say it as sarcastically as possible. I say it to my wife all the time, but its meaning has come full circle. Now it’s a private term of endearment with us, because I can mean it for real (to her) or mean it sarcastically (to everyone else) and it is taken the same both ways. One of my favorite uses of “sir” by Stone came when someone asked him why he was feeling guilty about prosecuting someone so hard and he replied, with resignation in his voice, “I’m a Catholic, sir; I can feel guilty about anything.”
Toward the end of that season, the asshole producers decided that there were too many men on the show and they needed to break up the boys’ club. I always think it is a terrible idea to change a show to suit popular opinion, because opinions change so quickly. I’ve been to the police station a few times (just visiting, I assure you) and most of the cops are men, so the show was accurate. It was at this point, to me, that the show stopped being real and started being a TV show. In order to bring in some new women, they ditched the always excellent Dann Florek as Capt. Cragen and got rid of Richard Brooks as Paul Robinette. [Cragen is reprising his role as Capt. Cragen on the Law & Order spinoff series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which totally sucks dick.]
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Brooks was replaced by ultrafox Jill Hennessy, who, while not exactly a great actress, has one of the most attractive necks I have ever seen. They dressed her poorly, as if having a gratuitously hot chick on the show could be muted by having her dress like an accountant. No such luck. Also joining the cast, and replacing Dann Florek, was S. Epatha Merkerson, a black woman, which goes to show that even if affirmative action doesn’t work in real life, on TV, it makes everything just rosy. Ms. Merkerson had been on the show once before, in the first season, as the mother of an infant shooting victim. I guess they thought she handled the “OMIGOD, MY BABY’S DEAD!” speech better than most. While she is a fine actress, and I personally have enjoyed her work (especially the episode where she shot a would-be robber at an ATM), one can’t help but wonder if the producers chose her because of what she is instead of how good she was for the role. Dann has since returned to the show, as both an actor and a director, which means he’s got talent.
The show hummed along quite well for a while, though I got the impression that the producers tried way too hard to establish the new characters as complex people. It was like they were trying to play catch-up with the other, established characters. The plots were still quite good, and there were a few episodes that stand out in my memory. There was one where Reed Diamond (who later joined the cast of Homicide as Det. Mike Kellerman) and his wife did this elaborate blackmail against an executive, using their unborn baby as a pawn. It was so fucking wacky, complex and sick that it was amazing. My other favorite episode also featured a future Homicide cast member, Zeljko Ivanek, who is, in my opinion, one of the greatest actors on television. He played the retard Roland in an X-Files episode of the same name, a homicidal swindler on Law & Order and now plays Ed Danvers, the DA on Homicide. In this L&O he played a convicted felon who learns that there is new evidence that clears him of the crime. It turned out that it was all part of his elaborate plan to prevent a jury from convicting him, but it didn’t work. He ended up suing Stone, the state and the DA’s office for wrongful prosecution. He appealed his conviction and did some really fucked up shit to Stone on a personal level. Stone, of course, dismisses him at the end, as Ivanek’s character is taken to jail, by saying, “We are not colleagues, sir.”
Some time later that manly cunt Janet Reno started shrieking about how violence on TV needed to be curtailed in order to save the universe from itself. While many people saw some flaws in her logic, almost every actor on an offending show was brought before the committee to explain why it is that cop shops sometimes need to show violence. Hello? As Stone might say to Reno himself, “Sir, are you aware that you are wearing a dress? You know, sir, we try to portray life accurately, and as far as I know, there are police in every major city who have to solve violent crimes all the time. Perhaps if you cleaned up the world, we could show your new utopia on TV. Until then, keep your dick in your pants, sir.”
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After testifying that he thought it was ludicrous to be testifying, Moriarity went to a number of media outlets blasting the inquiry and calling it a return to McCarthyism. NBC, being brave free-speech activists in the business of open expression, balked at Moriarity’s actions and told him to get the fuck out. He was replaced by Sam Waterston, and then, soon after, in a move that stunned fans of the show, they let Noth go, without even trying to negotiate a contract. Wolf said that the character had become stale and in this belief, I’m sure he was totally alone. As far as I’m concerned, Chris Noth was the only consistently original thing on the whole fucking show and I still think that everyone responsible for this decision sucks dick and should die.
Anyway, they replaced Noth with another token ethnic type (using the presumed-to-be-jewish Benjamin Bratt to play Peruvian/Hispanic Rey Curtis). Bratt had previously appeared as a cop in the short-lived Nasty Boys with Dennis Franz. This, to me, marked the beginning of the end. The show became an exploitation of the headlines of the day, rather than an exploration of themes close to the lives of real police and prosecutors. It was no surprise when Jill Hennessy decided to leave. Soon after she made the insipid Most Wanted, which also featured Paul Sorvino as yet another chubby bureaucrat with an attitude.
I understand that there are plans underway to bring back Mike Logan (Noth’s character) in a TV movie called Exiled! The movie finds Logan working the street, but trying to return to Manhattan from Staten Island. If you’re not familiar with NYC, let me just say that Staten Island is borough of NYC, but a part that no one in their right mind would ever acknowledge. You know why it exists? The Fresh Kills Landfill (what a fucking ghoulish name!), which is the world’s largest landfill. It keeps the people of Staten Island humble knowing their claim to fame is that they have possession of the garbage and solid waste of the greatest place on Earth, Manhattan. [The TV movie that I wrote about here has since aired twice and it was beyond heinous. I am going to write about it shortly because even though we finally got to see Profaci’s home and his wife, it was a travesty.]
It looks like the show is headed for the toilet and I can’t say that I’m sad about it. They won an Emmy last year for Best Drama and I’m not alone in thinking it was a few years too late. They’re no longer cutting-edge or innovative and they haven’t been for some time. I think the producers have lost their way because this past season they hired a former Bond girl to play a lawyer and this season she’s been replaced by a girl who used to be on Baywatch Nights. Well, it was nice while it lasted and there are still a few episodes that I’ve never seen, so the reruns will have to be enough to keep me happy.
Many people have noted that the only person to remain a constant on the show is Steven Hill, who plays DA Adam Schiff. He wasn’t in the 1988 pilot, it was Roy Thinnes as DA Adam Wentworth, who later went on to star in The X-Files as Jeremiah Smith, the mysterious healer from “Talitha Cumi” and “Herrenvolk.” The dumb people that think Hill is the only original cast member are dead fucking wrong and guilty of insulting the only thing that has never let me down about Law & Order: Tony Profaci (Pro-Fah-Chi). I fucking love Profaci, who is played by the understated, brilliant and very wonderful John Fiore. You probably don’t know who he is. You may even have been a fan of the show since its inception and still not even know who the character is. Tony Profaci is not a showy cop, nor is he a man who is trying to be a star.
Profaci’s a caring guy (married to the never seen but always loved Shirley) who does the work that has to be done without trying to be a showoff or a star.
Mr. Fiore has appeared in a few films, including the ultragay Mystic Pizza and the teen comedy One Crazy Summer. John Fiore plays such a great cop that he has even done time on a competing cop show, NYPD Blue. And even more amazing than that, according to the Internet Movie Database, he has secured himself a part in the upcoming DreamWorks movie called Blue Vision as, you guessed it, a cop! [He also played Gigi on the Sopranos for a few episodes before he died on the can trying to squeeze out Thanksgiving dinner. It was sad but memorable.]
So, what’s the Profaci Game? you ask. Well, few things in life give me more pleasure than openly mocking people that are self-righteous. Oftentimes I will find myself watching an episode of Law & Order, bored, frustrated and tired of being hit over the head with some obvious political point. Right then, Tony Profaci will enter the picture and for one brief, shining moment, all is right with the world! In order to celebrate the moment when the balloons of pretension are popped, I feel the need to imbibe. Whether that means taking a hit off the pipe, having a swig of beer or cracking open half a dozen whippets, Profaci means “party” in my house. If you want to join the fun, check your local listings for Law & Order reruns on A&E. In addition, the Chris Noth TV movie, Exiled, will feature Tony Profaci, because Tony’s the man.
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Otherwise, reruns of the show are on a few times a day and any episode before Sam Waterston will do just fine. I would say it would be appropriate to imbibe whenever you see Profaci or even hear him mentioned by another one of the cops. In order to keep the party rolling during the second half, you should also imbibe again when Ben Stone calls someone “sir,” Jill Hennessy looks hot, Sam Waterston has a drink, they eat Chinese food or Richard Brooks winces, and that should be enough to get you wasted. If you have a drug problem or need to continue ingesting liquor and/or drugs, perhaps you should mainline some heroin at every commercial break because it’s so cool to do heroin!
The reason it’s best to play the Profaci Game with episodes featuring Moriarity is because later episodes tended to focus on the personal perils of the cops or the attorneys, which is really fucking boring. The people aren’t interesting, their work is. And the wonderful thing about Tony Profaci is that his very existence always reminds us that the people that endure in this world are those who simply go about the work of their lives and not the grandstanding and histrionics favored by people with the worst birth defect of all: having no fucking soul. Let us sing, “Ho!” for the life of Profaci. Three cheers for Profaci, a man for all seasons, a man with all reasons, the man with the plan, and if the damn cops can’t do it, Profaci always can!
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