What led me to my earlier entry about Long Island was the HBO program, Family Bonds. It got me started wondering about what other people think about Long Island. Do people think of Amy Fisher when they think of Long Island? Do people believe that shows like Family Bonds reflect Long Island? Obviously, in one sense Family Bonds does reflect Long Island. The Evangelista family is part of Long Island. But in another sense they are caricatures of Long Island, reflecting only one sample of Long Islanders.
If you haven't seen the show, then you have missed an entertaining although odd program. The show is about the Evangelista family, who live in Medford. Tom Evangelista is a bail bondsmen and the show in part is about his business and his occasional hunting down of bail jumpers. What makes the show truly entertaining, however, is the family. HBO describes them this way, "the most outrageous, fun-loving, and wild (yet somehow functional) real-life family on TV". Tom's family is made up of his wife, his married daughter, his two sons, nephew, and various in-laws.
One of my favorite scenes involves Tom's mother who has a sick dog. The vet tells Tom that he needs to get a stool sample from the dog so he tells his mom to get it. She says, "I'm not going to get it. You get." Tom says, "I'm not getting it." The scene ends without any resolution. As the credits finish, we see Tom in his mom's backyard with a flashlight hunting for a stool sample. What a good son!
Anyway, if you think the Evangelistas represent Long Island then you right and you are wrong. Long Island is a big place with almost 3 million residents and one family can not represent life on Long Island. But they are Long Islanders.
2 comments:
A big howdy from Texas. What do you think of when you think of Texas? We're just pluggers down here, too. Taking it day by day.
Happy holidays from sleepwalker.
I've been to Texas so maybe this isn't fair. What I usually think of is boot stores the size of a Home Depot! Actually the only part of Texas I visited was Dallas and that was at least 15 years ago. What amazed me was how quickly things moved from urban to suburban to rural. It almost seemed like skyscrapers were across the street from cattle ranches. Maybe the impression is magnified because there are no natural boundaries like a river separating the different regions. I also found that everyone I ran into was from someplace other than Texas. So my impression is that Texas is a big, flat, empty place with occasional spots of urban development populated by ex-New Yorkers. ;)
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