My James Gandolfini Story
Vincent Pastore's death this past weekend¹ reminded me of a story that happened, as it turns out, 20 years ago this month. I was sitting at a bar called Gaslight Lounge in Greenwich Village. It was 2:15 a.m. on a Monday morning. I had two friends in town who made the seemingly fun, but always terrible decision to just "stay out" the night before a 6:30 a.m. flight. (A decision that is still fun around 1 a.m. and not as fun around 3:30 a.m.)
¹I have found myself watching a lot of Pastore's scenes on YouTube. It's kind of crazy he was only on the first two seasons, but was so good his presence was felt until literally the last scene of the series.
My friends, both named Steve, just to make this story as confusing as possible, were huge fans of The Sopranos. This was 2006, everyone was a huge fan of The Sopranos. At this point in time, the first half of Season 6 had just aired and cast members were being spotted all over town by our mutual friends, because filming for the second half of Season 6 was taking place. Both Steves were a little disappointed they hadn't happened to see a Sopranos cast member in person during their trip. (In fact, they had managed to go without any celebrity sighting of note, other than Angels pitcher Jared Weaver.)
As the three of us sat there at Gaslight, having this exact discussion, one of the Steves is looking past me. He gestures my direction, looking a little shocked, "I'm pretty sure the guy sitting next to Mike is on The Sopranos." I thought he was kidding. Or it would be some guy who looks like he should be on The Sopranos. After all, it is 2:15 am on a Monday morning. I turn around and look at the guy sitting right next to me. At this exact moment the bartender happens to say to another bartender, "That goes on Gandolfini's tab..."
(The Hard Pass only exists because of paying subscribers and I do need to have posts just for them. If you decide to become a paying subscriber today, there is plenty left to this story, plus a lot more like the story I was told about Tom Cruise that is now my favorite Tom Cruise story, approaching Philip Seymour Hoffman to ask him about Along Came Polly, and the time Larry King called me a "freak" and asked if I was "a nerd.")
