Denny has set up our evening for some classic New York cool at the Carnegie Club on 56^th Street. I’ve wanted to go there forever though I just never seemed to make it, but my buddy makes it his stomping ground each time into the city, so I tagged along for the night… and wow am I so glad that I did.

For you cigar lovers in the audience, the Carnegie Club is a swank throwback to the forties and fifties, a time when men were kings of the castle… a time when you could groove on music of the era, enjoy a nice pour of whisky, good conversation, and of course, your favorite cigar. Thank God that the tyrannical Mayor Bloomberg has somehow grandfathered this place, allowing cigar smoking to continue in the tradition of old New York. The club itself is elegant, stylish, with a nostalgic feel that transports you to a time and place of decades past. The look and feel is plush – small couches and leather chairs, along with a well stocked bar and humidor. There are 18^th century hand-carved wooden bookcases filled with leather-bound classics, a stone fireplace, funky art deco wall covering, and a more private mezzanine above. And best of all, the patrons are wonderfully friendly, well dressed, and all there for the same reason – to enjoy life the way it was truly meant to be.

While the club was just what I needed, the best part was yet to come. Denny happens to be good friends with Mr. Steven Maglio – and Steven Maglio just happens to sing the world’s finest renditions of Frank Sinatra – a performance so fabulous that even old blue eyes himself does a double take from the great beyond each time Stevie sings. And the best part is that Maglio does two Sinatra sets each and every Saturday night at the Carnegie Club.

Now admittedly, I’ve grown up on a steady diet of Zepplin, Queen, Judas Priest, Metallica and Alice In Chains – and Sinatra was never really my bag. It’s not that I didn’t like him or appreciate what he did, I just never really got into that scene. But I have to tell you, Steve Maglio blew my doors off with his voice and style and I have walked into a new world of cool and sophistication that I never, ever thought I would embrace. Now he’s not an impersonator – to me impersonators are so karaoke.  Steve’s voice is flawless and his charisma lights up the room, and in his own words, “I do it my way.” Hey plays in front of a live eleven-piece band, the Stan Rubin Orchestra and goddamn, they get the place jumping, starting with some classic swing era faves, then straight into the Frankie serenade. Steve does two completely different sets at 8:30 and 11:30 pm, and the place is packed (or shall I say, Rat Packed) with old fans, and new fans, just like myself.

So picture hanging at the swanky bar with a group of ultra cool cats – including boxing legend, Renaldo Snipes (what a gentleman) singing, smoking premium hand-rolds, sipping single malt, and listening to music that was from a time when the politically correct weren’t trying to protect us all from ourselves (and least I not forget – enough fine tail to get any man just a little bit crazy.) The term “It don’t get any better than this” certainly applies, my friends. I had such an amazing time and simply can’t wait to go back. Hopefully, I’m hooking up with Denny and Steve later in the week, and fun will continue on! It’s up to you. New York, New York.

-ZMan

You Got a Problem Wit Dat?

Yeah, I do. It’s sucks. It’s boring. And I’m really pissed because nobody’s gettin’ whacked. I was a Sopranos junkie… and for those of you who have never watched or followed the show, this is what life is now like for those of us who lived for the monumental series. On June 11, 2007, HBO aired the final episode of it’s all-time biggest hit, The Sopranos, and ever since then, Sunday nights without Tony, Carmela, Chris, Paulie, and Silvio just ain’t right.

Maybe you don’t like violence? Maybe you deplore gangsters. Maybe you’re the effeminate type and dig Desperate Houswives? Or maybe you’re just a cheap f@#k who won’t spend the coin for HBO? Whatever the reason, you’ve missed out on some of the finest acting and storylines the television world has ever known. The HBO series, which first aired in January of 1999, has become the most prolific drama in the history of television. In TV Guide’s list of the 50 Greatest Shows All-time, The Sopranos ranks number five, behind four legendary comedies: 1. Seinfeld, 2. Lucy, 3. The Honeymooners, and 4. All in the Family. It’s the highest rated cable series ever, and the only cable-show to win the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.

For some weirdo reason, perfectly nice everyday honest hard-working citizens were romantically addicted to the exploits of this brutal and violent crime family. Wonderful, law-abiding citizens worldwide were simply enamoured with Tony Soprano and his cast of goombas.“How in God’s name can you like that show?” I have been often asked. “Those people are are thieves, bullies, thugs, con men, philanderers, drug dealers, and ruthless, murdering psychopaths… yet, you love them? WTF?”

Again, for those of you who have never watched the series, for some unexplainable and disturbing reason …we could relate to them. SAY WHAT?! I know that sounds bizarre, but listen to me. The reason that regular everyday folks could relate to these people was because Tony and his family let you into their home and personal family lives. They didn’t live behind iron gates like the Corleones – they lived in suburban northern New Jersey, where mob boss Tony himself strolled down his driveway each and every morning to pick up the Newark Star Ledger. And that is where the brilliance of show creator David Chase comes in. He made them real people with real foibles and phobias. They may be Mafioso by day, but by night they return to their true families and face everyday issues like running a home, raising their kids, investing, paying taxes, dealing with prejudice, and caring for their health. In the past, mobsters were bigger than life as they gunned down their enemies in a blaze of bullets and fire on the silver screen. Tony Soprano visits his son’s guidance counselor, hosts family barbeques, protects his loved ones from a recurring black bear, and drives his daughter to visit a quaint New England college. (But of course while Meadow is visiting the campus, he crosses paths with an ex-mobster in the witness protection program – a guy who ratted – and Tony brutally strangles him with his bare hands. Gotta kill time somehow.)

There’s no denying whatsoever that the Sopranos are an abomination – a psychologically disturbed, ethically bankrupt, spiritually void gene pool. But, fans like myself are obsessed with their lives, and we love them unconditionally – as if they were of our own flesh and blood. When nine o’clock struck on Sunday nights and that magical, hypnotic theme song by the band A3 began to play… Bum, ba bum, bum, bum, wa wa wa…”Woke up this morning and got your self a gun…” like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I’d prop up in front of the TV in a semi-lathered state as Tony drove through the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel, lighting his cigar, pulling the Turnpike ticket from the booth, cruising past, Pizzaland, Satriale’s Pork Store, and the rows of refinery tanks in lovely Newark. For the next 60 minutes, you couldn’t help but become are a blood sworn Soprano.

And now…Sunday nights are a bore. No pre-show pasta and canolis. No cigars with red wine. No hearing the F-word sixty-some odd times within an hour. Nobody getting shot, strangled, beaten, flogged, shoveled, maimed or curbed. No dead go-go dancers, burned up racehorses, pony-tailed assassins, or severed heads in a bowling ball bag… nothin’. Just boring ol’ Sunday night, sitting around with the loved ones.

How uncivilized.

- Zman

This is in my hometown and I’ve driven it many times… but NEVER EVER at night…

I am telling you straight out that Seth MacFarlane is a goddamned modern day genius, and at age 35, he is the highest paid screen writer in the history of television, receiving a whopping 100 million dollars from 20th Century FOX. He presently has three series on FOX, has won two Emmy awards, and the world must look like one great big son of a bitch of an oyster to the man.

In 1999 he gave birth to the most insane, brilliant, bizarre, show that has ever aired, the infamous Family Guy. If you’re a fan, then you know how brutally weird the humor is. It speaks to a very wide demographic of generations – from teens to retirees, which has been a massive recipe for success. Oddly enough, the show has been canceled twice, but a huge backlash from the fans and record setting DVD sales forced the people at FOX to reconsider. And now the show has been contracted through 2012 and is a certified billion-dollar franchise.

MacFarlane has a personal list of great shows and actors that he idolized as a kid – Jackie Gleason, Woody Allen, All in the Family, and not surprisingly, The Simpsons – and you can see a little bit of each in his characters, who are all certifiably nuts. This New England based dysfunctional family has more issues than Playboy Magazine and the things they say and do each week continue to astound and push the comic envelope way beyond the breaking point.

Peter Griffin, the dad and main character is probably one or two degrees more retarded and infantile than Homer Simpson, and it is amazing that he can somewhat function in the human race. In one episode he sees his doctor for a proctologist exam and when the doc slips on the rubber gloves and prods the Hershey Highway, Peter flips out and sues his physician on rape charges. He tells his wife in a state of terror, “He raped me…he did bad things to me…he took away my innocence.”

One of the stranger characters that has ever graced the tube (which is no longer a tube, btw) is the Griffin’s baby, Stewie – a football shaped headed infant who talks like a cultured socialite and has a recurring desire to kill his mother and take over the world. You know, typical baby stuff. It seems that only the family dog, Brian can hear and understand Stewie, but all these years, no one is really sure. In one of the funniest scenes I have ever watched in television, Stewie becomes a bookie and takes a $50 wager from Brian (who talks and walks upright) on a boxing match between Mike Tyson and the ancient performer Carol Channing. Of course, Brian picks Tyson – and of course, Channing wins the fight. When Brian steps out of the shower, Stewie is there – inquiring about his money. When Brian gives him a BS story and tries to blow him off, baby Griffin gets medieval on the pooch’s ass – smashing a glass of orange juice into his eye, slamming his head into the toilet, and breaking the towel rod off the wall, beating him within and inch of his canine life. I laughed so hard that I almost coughed up a lung.  In another episode, his mother Lois forgets to get Stewie from his crib, where in turn the psycho baby replies, “This isn’t some Tommy Lee pool party.

I used to watch a massive amount of television as a kid, but with today’s gathering of pablum puke ridden, un-intellectual, reality driven pap, I find very little to enjoy other than a ball game or a movie once in a while. I’ll still watch the Simpsons when in the mood, Two and a Half men is a very well written comedy, Heroes is pretty cool so far, but I’d have to say that Family Guy keeps me riveted to the screen and I’ll watch four straight repeat episodes in a row on cable. Wondering what these out of bounds characters will say next is what keeps me coming back for more. And I watch faithfully with my 14 year old son as we both howl like giddy morons and high-five during the good parts. Am I setting a good example? Don’t ask me serious questions when I’m in a Family Guy state of mind. Have some consideration.

Ok, are you ready for the most bizarre and jaw dropping fact of all about Seth MacFarlane? I will quote direct from Wikipedia because I couldn’t write this any better or different myself… On the morning of the September 11, 2001 attacks, MacFarlane was scheduled to return to Los Angeles on American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston, Massachusetts, after delivering a keynote speech at his alma mater. MacFarlane has stated his travel agent gave him an incorrect departure time (8:15 a.m. instead of 7:45 a.m.) and that he was suffering from a hangover from the previous night’s celebrations. As a result, he arrived at Logan International Airport sometime around 7:30 and was unable to board the flight. Fifteen minutes after departure, American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked, and at 8:46 a.m. was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, with no survivors

There is obviously a reason why the good man upstairs spared Mr. MacFarlane a tragic fate on the most tragic day in US history. And it looks like his fate was to continue on as the Family Guy for quite some time. “I really can’t let it affect me because I’m a comedy writer,” claims Seth. “I have to put that in the back of my head.”

- Z

What’s your Dream Job? Making beer wouldn’t be so bad, eh?

Meet Egotv.com, a terrific website for us guys and new bestest buddies with PlanetZman! The site has all kinds of useful manly man stuff, including it’s own dedicated online mini-shows that are a hell lot of fun – and my new favorite is Tom Arnold Dream Jobs.

I’ve always really liked Tom Arnold’s humor, he’s a funny, down to earth guy and the perfect person to host this new show. In this episode, Tom visits Gordon Biersch, a Microbrewery in Burbank, California, that makes real German beer-garden style beers! It’s a true learning experience for all of us as the Head Brew Master shows us everything that goes into crafting a microbrewed beer.

Did you know that the complete cycle is five weeks to go from grain to glass? Hops, barley, water, and yeast is all you need to make a kick-ass brew and you’ll have fun seeing how it’s done – up close and personal! Damn it, guys, I wanna make some beer, too!

So click the link, watch the show, learn and enjoy!

CLICK HERE> Tom Arnold’s Dream Jobs – Microbrewing episode

- ZMAN