You"Gotti" Be Kidding

The Sixties brought us "Leave it to Beaver", Donna Reed and Ozzie and Harriet. The old joke here being the first reference to sex was when June said to Ward,” Don’t you think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night”?

The Seventies of course brought us “The Brady Bunch” and “All in The Family.” Archie and the gang were, to the say the least, a departure from the norm.

We move through time to the “Jetsons” and the “Simpsons.” I see the ‘Homer’ in me more and more.

And today we have?

I was walking our dogs the other day and was amazed and saddened to see the number of beer bottles that had been tossed and broken on the street and sidewalks. I remember being a kid and drinking beer in the back of a buddy’s car and then finding some place to the toss the empties so our folks would never find them. Tossing them on neighborhood streets never really seemed an option.

I wondered where the anger comes from to be that malicious.

Then I watched “Growing up Gotti.” Have you seen this POS on the A&E network? This is not your parent’s Donna Reed. The show is a chronicle of the lives of John Gotti’s daughter and her children. John Gotti, a.k.a.”The Dapper Don,” was a convicted mob leader from New York. (See the following link: http://www.crimelibrary.com/john/johnmain.htm)

Take a moment, much more will induce a coma, to watch this show and see for yourself the meaning of rich, white trash. You couldn’t create these characters in a ‘B’ movie and have anyone believe them….from the mother, who by herself is something you could only make up, to her three lovely boys. These three would need to work UP to the term “punks”. They live in a mansion on Long Island and they party in the Hamptons. (It adds a whole new twist to East Coast liberal, elitist snobs.)

The premise of the show seems solely based on the fact that these are the offspring of a Mafioso. Thank God, Charlie Manson didn’t have any kids.

That being said let us review three choices we have based loosely on the “Family Sitcom” of the 60’s:

1) The aforementioned “Growing up Gotti” on the ever sinking A&E Network.

2) MTV offers up the heart warming Osbournes. Different Ozzie here and if there is a Harriet, she is probably shooting up in the guesthouse with son Jack. This show needs to be on HBO or Showtime. I can’t follow most of the dialogue with all that “@)^&*&$” beeping going on. Don’t get me wrong…I’m a big Black Sabbath fan here, but I don’t need to watch the spiral of stupidity that goes on in this fun family home.

Jack and Kelly, the charming kids of Ozzie and Sharon, (the oldest daughter wanted nothing to do with the show, can only assume she is adopted) could clearly hang out with the Gotti moots in the Hamptons. The big question here for me here is, where did Sharon (who is American) get that accent from?

3) The final family based program is on Showtime. “Family Business” is a weekly series based on a dude named Adam, his Mom, his son, and his Cousin Steve. Adam is a single dad who truly does care a great deal about his son and clearly puts his son’s welfare above everything else. He owns his own business in LA and both Cousin Steve and Mom work for him. Adam is also known in the entertainment world as “Seymour Butts”. Yep, there is the show’s draw. Adam makes and distributes porn. And of course much of the show is based on watching Adam at work, as it were.

Of the three shows, oddly enough “Family Business” actually gets you to like these folks and admire the energy and love Adam shows for his son and entire family.

So there you have it, I’m thinking the Gotti and Osbourne kids drove through my neighborhood drinking beer and tossing the dead soldiers out the window of the Beamer. It couldn’t be the local youths. After all, church is on Sunday and would they be out drinking the night before?

I think not.