Imagine for a moment if Tony Soprano lived not in NJ but in da Bay. This is exactly what Bay Area resident, YouTube member, and local hip-hop artist EmceeT visualized before he went out and shot and edited (directed by ZTY Media) the inspired above video clip, spoofing the intro to the popular, and sadly defunct, HBO series The Sopranos. In the "Yay" version Emcee T (aka The Chinese King of the Bay)  winds his way through various parts of the Bay Area in his whip with cigar (or blunt?) in mouth, and capturing along the way shots of such familar sights as the Bay Bridge and its toll-booth, the Caldecott tunnel, that big ole bow-and-arrow sculpture & the palm trees along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, the Martinez Oil refineries, the Showgirls Strip Club, Casino San Pablo, Oakland Port, the infamous Mac Dre mural (off Harrison Street in SF), SFPD patrol cars, Lake Merritt mural, and at the end (in true Tony Soprano style), Emcee T's own house. Click here for more of Emcee T's videos, here for his MySpace, and for general info on "the real emcee" Emcee T, visit his website.

And in case you want to compare it with the original shot in New Jersey, it's below for your viewing pleasure. By the way, the song used in the Sopranos intro is by the group A3 and is titled (not too surprisingly) "Woke Up This Morning." The full version, which is available on the Sopranos soundtrack (look for it at Amoeba Music) is a really great song with a nice slow build-up and then towards the end it goes into a rap, clocking in at about five plus minutes compared to the television show intro version which is a bit under two minutes.  

Last Thursday night I watched the second episode of Mad Men -- the engaging and very stylish new TV drama on (of all places) AMC about the business and home/family lives of young, upwardly mobile American ad men in the very beginning of the sixties. The show, which was created by former Sopranos * writer//producer Matthew Weiner, perfectly nails the whole style and feel of that era in American history when things were radically different from today, both socially and culturally. It was a time when everyone seemed to smoke cigarettes, often chain-smoke, and also happily knocked back cocktails during as well as after work every day. And did it sans any guilt or conscience whatsoever. Different times indeed!

As the show reminds us, it was time when people weren't all caught up in safety issues. A different time for sure when one didn't fuss with such silly distractions as putting on seat belts while driving. As last week's episode showed, neither mom nor her kids in the back of the car had seat belts on when she had a little crash. And speaking of mom, this was before the idea of women's rights was a common concept across America. Men were cads, or at least could act that way towards women. (Although you can tell in this well written script that their dominant ways will not go unchallenged by all women for too long.) As well as getting away with being cads, men also got all the good jobs. Women, it seems, were either wives who stayed home or else single women who became secretaries in offices like the Madison Avenue one in Mad Men where they're likely to be subjected to harassement -- except this was eons before the concept of sexual harassment really existed.