Sunday at Frankie Santucci's

The following is an account of a pizza Sunday with Frankie Santucci and his boys - no exaggeration, no joke:

Having woken up in what my friends and I like to refer to as "bonus time" post a night that began early and ended, well, early - around 5AM, Mallary Santucci and I piled into her mother's oversized, white, early '90s Isuzu Trooper, the juxtaposition of the tiny 4'9" lady and the giant vehicle always putting a smirk on my face. She sits in the large, fake white fur covered bucket seat, her tiny legs reaching for the gas pedal, as she starts it up to get our caravan mobilized heading North from Narragansett to Cranston, where we were informed by Frankie (her father) that the boys "Ray, Edmund, Joey, Mikey. They're all here and the first calzone's already in the oven."

After about an hour, four raw pizza doughs, some girl scout cookies, and iced coffees, our three car caravan pulled up in a small suburban neighborhood to a quaint little house with five or six cars strewn about the driveway and roadside. Mal, being the family member and most comfortable with the situation, entered the screen door first. Inside, the house had a nostalgic feeling of a blue collar classic rock video, probably by John Cougar Mellencamp, back when he still was the Cougar and before a cougar was a nickname for an older lady (which will come up again later in this story). The panelling on the walls, the long carpeting and mismatched furniture. There were four large Italian men squished into a small living room, crowded around an older large monitored television showing the Bay Hill Invitational Golf Tournament, yelling at each other and into the kitchen about some apparent long-running golf game they have.
"You guys havin' a team pow-wow over there? Tryin to get a strategy togethah?"
"It's only April and you're already bustin me about this?"
"You know you're not allowed to have a golf magazine in your bathroom, tryin' to gain an upperhand in the bathroom"
"Happy Bay Hill weekend!"
And so on.

Frankie was in the tiny galley kitchen manipulating a two pound pizza dough on the counter, with one Margherita pizza already sliced on the table and a chicken sausage and broccoli rabe calzone next to it. "I been cookin' for three days straight for this. I started cookin' Thursday for this weekend, Mal" After the hugs and introductions, Frankie offers us a drink."We got some red, followed by some red. Then some red" He says while he pulls out bottle after bottle of red wine. And in a traditional Italian fashion, he immediately offers us all the food he's currently got. The pizza, the calzone and some soup."You guys want some soup? Who wants soup. It's the healthiest thing you'll eat all day, everything else is garbage. Here, have some soup." He handed everyone a bowl without anyone having a chance to answer. It didn't matter if you didn't want soup, you were eating soup, and to not do so would be disrespectful.

He opened up his oven, put the dough onto his pizza stone and started creating as Joey, his brother called it, his next 'za. Olive oil drizzled all over, sauteed garlic spinach, caramelized onions, chipotle maple chicken, applewood smoked bacon. My mouth was watering at the idea of it. "That's what's happening" Joey kept reminding us as Frankie gave us a lesson on pizza making.

Caleb, sitting in the corner, was offered a Miller High Life, which after the night of drinking we'd had before, he took his time on. "What? You gonna take two hours on that thing? Want me to put a nipple on it? Waiting for it to get to 98.6 degrees before you drink it?" All the men berated him until it was gone. "Kahlib? What kind of a name is Kahlim? Calem? Kahleeb? Is it Hebrew?" The questions continued until they all just shrugged off his name and started calling him "buddy".

"Hey Edmund" (Who I should just interject was larger than a normal sized doorway both in stature and girth) "You want some soup? It's the healthiest think you'll eat all day." Mal just looks at us and shakes her head. Apparently it's just another day at Frankie Santucci's.

Wine continues flowing, mostly into my glass as others had to drive home later, and the glasses of the older gentlemen. Apparently Bobby wanted to come get his pizza to go, so he can watch the golf tournament in HD to which Frankie and Joey respond repeatedly, "Welcome to Analog Pizza. We don't delivah." The pizza comes out, cools and is cut and I take a bite of the most delicious, crispy, perfectly cooked pizza I've ever had. There is no exaggeration there, it has ruined pizza for me forever because nothing will ever be as perfect as that slice was. I had had two slices of the other one, and this third piece filled me up but I couldn't help but eat two and a half more slices.

"Hey, Ray" Frankie yells, "Ray, have you had any soup? You want some soup? It's the healthiest thing you'll eat all day. Everything else is garbage. Here, have some soup."

David Nardalillo, owner of a funeral home in Rhode Island and lifetime friend of Frankie Santucci (and apparently everyone else in the room), rolls, almost literally by the size of him, into the party having just come from a funeral, dressed in a suit, removes his jacket and I immediately notice a spattering of blood on the bottom of his white button down shirt.
"What's the blood from Colonel" (Apparently Mr. Nardalillo's nickname).
"Don't you worry about that Frankie"
He says seriously, then looks at Marcy, Caleb and myself "I bury people for a living, and sometimes they're dead." He says to us and we all sort of just nod at him, not asking for any further clarification. He then bursts out laughing, pulls out a 750 ml bottle of Veuve Clicquot, and pours champagne for all of us kids, making sure his glass gets just a little bit more than anyone else. He sits down and proceeds to regale us with tales of his adventures with the Santucci family and the other boys in the room. They're trip to Florida, they're trips snowmobiling, how he broke his leg, how it snapped and hung and needed to be rebuilt."

"Hey Dave, Colonel, you want some soup? Healthiest thing you'll eat all day. Let me get you some soup." The colonel just laughs, and we giggle with him.
"Analog Pizza. We don't delivah" Joey chimed in.
"We don't delivah." Says Mikey.

David Nardalillo decides that we are now family and tells me that if I have anyone I need taken care of, I should just let him know and don't ask any questions. Then he tells us stories about a friend of his called Uncle Roland. Uncle Roland used to be a sniper, worked in law enforcement his whole life, is a trained killer and can shoot out your eye from 500 yards away. David called him up with a problem once, and Uncle Roland showed up with 5 guys in a matter of minutes to "take care" of the colonel's "problem".
"What's your name?" David asks Caleb
"Caleb"
"Calem?"
"Caleb, with a b"
"Ok. Paul. You're name is Paul now. You want to hear Uncle Roland's voice?" David called up Uncle Roland and passed the phone around the table while we all listened to his voicemail. The phone was passed to me, I put it up to my ear and on the other end was a man who sounded like an angrier version of Brad Garrett (Everybody Love's Raymond's brother) and said "...leave me a brief message..." and I handed the phone back to David. He starts speaking into the phone, "Hey asshole. It's the colonel. I got a problem, I need you to take care of. Call me back."

"Hey Mikey, did you have some soup? Want some soup? Healthiest thing you'll eat all day"
"Analog Pizza, we don't deliver.""
Hey Paul, you need another beer? Or you still nursin' that first one?"
"We got some more red, anyone need more red?"
Uncle Roland calls David back, talks briefly to Paul, talks briefly to Mallary (who he informs should call 911 before he gets there because he's going to kill anyone who needs to be taken care of) and then again to David. The Colonel tries to tell him he was just screwing around and that he should come over for a drink, but apparently he's made Uncle Roland upset. You're not supposed to joke about having problems fixed.

Mikey decides its time to drive home, at the question of his ability to drive his response is "I'm moderate, I'm moderate. It's ok, I'm moderate" He didn't look moderate. He looked drunk, but away he went with a promise to call once he got home.

David has Edmund, who he refers to as his bodyguard, drive him to the liquor store around 6pm after making Paul promise him that we wouldn't leave until after he got back. After his departure Frankie informs us that the liquor store closes at 4pm so he'd be out of luck and back in no time. Two or three more pizzas have come out of the oven at this point, but after the perfection of the chipotle-maple chicken one, I can't even fathom putting a different one in my mouth and don't partake in eating anything else, although the bottom of my wine glass does stay wet with some red for the entirety of our visit.

Someone pulls into the driveway and from the living room someone announces that Uncle Roland's here. Marcy looks out the window, and whirls around to Paul and myself. "He looks like Dog the Bounty Hunter without the mullet!!" We all sit awkwardly facing away from the door as Uncle Roland makes his way in. David isn't here to intervene if this man is actually coming to kill people and I worry mostly for Paul's life as he, unlike the other 50 year old men in the room, hasn't spent his life in Cranston and will probably stick out like a sore thumb. Luckily for him, David walked in with Edmund before Uncle Roland was introduced to us. David came in with another bottle of champagne, Andre this time, a bit more our style as it runs $4.99 per bottle but he quickly informed us that it wasn't for us, that he'd met a woman at the liquor store (which was supposed to be closed) and she was on her way over, after she dropped her kids off at home. In his gravelly voice, Uncle Roland berates David for getting him all riled up for a fight, "then you invite over some dizzy bitch and you expect me to just hang out?"
"Don't you call her a dizzy bitch. She was like someone right out of a magazine, gorgeous and breasts out to here" He says making an exaggerated motion with his hands. Uncle Roland decides to stay, have a couple fingers of Gentleman Jack and pull up a chair next to Marcy.
"Can I sit here? Are you with someone? When the dizzy bitch gets here, you're going to be my wife, OK Joanne?" Poor Marcy. We couldn't have saved her if we wanted to. This terrifying man was a trained killer.

"Hey Uncle Roland, you want some soup? I got some delicious soup here? Who doesn't like soup? What kinda person doesn't like soup? It's the healthiest thing you'll eat all day, everything else is garbage, have some soup." Uncle Roland didn't want any soup.

After some crude comments about what Uncle Roland plans on doing to the dizzy bitch upon her arrival, one involving the phrase "rented mule" which was a favorite of Uncle Roland's, someone asked David if the liquor store was closed when he got there.
"They said they were closed, but I told them they weren't." When we all laughed at him, he responded, "What? I paid in cash."

Uncle Roland stood up, had Mallary sit down next to Paul, who was next to me, who was next to Joanne, said "Now I want you all to know, that I'm a 51 year old man. Ok?" We nod. "Now what do you think of this..." he says as he proceeds to turn and pull his pants down to his knees. While I didn't see my comrades reactions, I can guarantee they were much like mine in that both hands flew up over our eyes, our jaws dropped and screeches and groans of terror poured out, while Uncle Roland burst out laughing, pulled his pants back up and took his seat back next to his wife, Joanne.

A truck rolled up and parked outside, as David and Edmund had stepped out to guide the magazine lady to the house. I peeked out the kitchen window and saw someone who looked as though she originally was black, but has self-tanned her way to a shade of florescent orange radiating off her dark skin. Her hair was many shades of blonde and gold (and upon closer inspection was quite obviously a wig) and she walked up to the house, made her way inside and comfortably introduced herself as Michelle. Now, there isn't any proof of the following presumption, but if I had to go out on a limb, I'd go ahead and say that "Michelle" was really once a man and is post-op or in really good drag because homegirl was impressive. She has a seat next to Uncle Roland, who introduces her to his wife Joanne and encourages Joanne to tell Michelle about her goose pie recipes.

"Hey Michelle, you want some soup? I got a great soup for ya if you like soup. David, get Michelle some soup."

I sat next to Paul, my jaw agape, baffled at what was happening in our lives and wondering why I didn't have my notebook to keep track of all of the specifics of the characters at hand, the things they said and how they moved and I apologize to my readers for my uncharacteristic lack of detail but between the wine and sheer bafflement of what was happening around me, I don't have as many specifics as I would have liked.

Somehow, Joanne was able to get herself out of there, after Michelle asked for her number so she could get her goose pies into a store in Cranston, we said our goodbye's to the men, Uncle Roland kissed me on the mouth, David Nardalillo gave me a hug (and asked Paul if he was a "Stem Gobbler" or a "Pickle Pusher" despite the fact that we were clearly together) and we all made our way outside where we said goodbye to Mal as she's on her way to South Korea for a year.

I also left out, as it happened somewhere between being mooned and goose pies, that Uncle Roland also did his best Silence of the Lambs Buffalo Bill tuck, pulled up his shirt and pulled down his pants and did a little dance, which got, from all of us under 50 year olds yet another terrified reaction.

We pulled out of there, trying to get back to Boston, all speechless and baffled, all of us repeating "Oh my God, Oh my God. I can't believe that was just our real life. I can't believe the past 6 hours were real."

I needed to share, despite the fact that nobody will appreciate the chaos of Frankie Santucci's pizza Sundays until they experience it themselves, but it made me so happy, the food was so delicious, the company was so...interesting and while I'm only a quarter so, it made me happy to be Italian.

A Reflection on Religion as a Detriment to the Progress of Humanity

   I recently saw Bill Maher's Religulous which was directed by Larry Charles who also directed Borat: Cultural Learnings of America to Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and seems to enjoy mocking the masses of America, which is all right with me.  While many people saw Borat and thought about what the sad state our country is in culturally, I saw it, laughed at the jokes about our society and appreciated that someone else was there to point out how absurdly hilarous and unintelligent a large portion of Americans are. Religulous has a similar mocking tone to it, as Bill Maher questions organized religion, namely the three major Western religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and their devout, passionate followers but he isn't quite as degrading as Sasha Baron Cohen pretended to be as Borat.  

    Maher begins his documentry at Megiddo, Israel, the town below Armageddon, where Christians believe that Jesus Christ will come down from Heaven and save the Believers at the end of the world as Maher makes a statement regarding his distaste for prophecy only second to his distate for self-fulfilling prophecy because when that prophecy was made, only God could end the world, but man was able to figure out nuclear weapons before he was able to figure out world peace and acceptance. Clearly, Maher had a very specific audience in mind when he went about creating this film. It certainly wasn't anyone who believes the Bible as a non-fiction work, anyone who attends Church, or Temple or Mosque services, it is instead the 16% of Americans who consider themselves unaffiliated with any religion, and are more than content to keep it that way.  He shows, via a very technically impressive bar graph that the 16% of Americans in that category make up a larger percentage of the population than Jewish people, Black people, homosexuals or members of the NRA and it's at this point that his purpose of the film becomes clear. He's not creating the film just to mock, berate and belittle those who have faith in Faith, but instead as a call to arms for those of us who don't. Maher wants us to "grow up or die" in that we shouldn't believe in Santa, or talking snakes, or a man living for three days inside a large tuna and reminds us that the majority of the people leading our country do believe (except in Santa, because that's just ridiculous)...and those are just the Christians. 

   One of the questions Maher asks which really resonated with me, put into words how I feel regarding religion, was at a truck stop church in North Carolina when he asked the very helpful men there "Why is Faith a good thing? Why is believing something without any evidence a good thing?" in an attempt to apply reason to religion and while he comes off as ever so condescending he's really just trying to challenge something that so many people accept without hesitation. And to me while its disturbing that people believe in a supernatural man who can hear all their thoughts, it's far more disturbing that people believe in believing in God  - as in, without question, hesitation or thought, people believe in their religion because that's what they're supposed to do. 

  He discusses the fact that America has become synonymous with Christianity as "good Christians" believe in America and those of us who aren't good Christians have no patriotism. John McCain (you may remember him as throwing the Republican ticket out the window in the past election) said "The Constitution established America as a Christian nation" which Maher refutes with a series of quotes from founding fathers Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson who all felt that this country would be better off without Christianity influencing it's decisions.  Thomas Jefferson actually went so far as to take the New Testament of the bible, seperate out the dogma and produce the Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth which according to Jefferson is "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man." And while I haven't read Jefferson's version of how man should act, I do believe it's evidence enough that the seperation of church and state should be upheld far more voraciously than it is.

  I'm not going to disect the movie scene by scene for you, but it is clearly edited for amusement purposes, adding appropriately placed clips of Charleton Heston as Moses, sardonic voiceovers and subtitles. Maher tries to make it obvious that religion and intelligence are mutually exclusive and while he makes a fair argument for those of us who already are leaning in that direction, he closes the movie with an uber serious address to the 16% of the population he's targeting with a bit too much alarmist hysteria for my liking. He seems to desire us anti-religious folk to try and shut down the major religions of the world because otherwise those who do believe will lead us directly to Armageddon. He may have forgotten that we do only make up 16% of the US Population and only 14% of the population worldwide and the chances that in our sarcastic, patronizing, sneeringly outsider way we're going to convince the rest of the world that their faith in faith is what's driving the world to its end are essentially non-existant. Besides, my lack of faith makes it easier for me to accept the end of the world whenever it may come, my lack of ability to change it, and my ability to sit back and enjoy the ride because I won't double down on religion just to save my ass when the end is upon us.