Gary, there's a great hot dog place in Larchmont, NY called Walter's. The best! Not sure if you've ever been. If you get the chance, it's well worth the trip to the burbs.

I'm not sure about sour cream on hot dogs though. Does that come with a difibrillator?

As for the ending to the Sopranos, my first reaction was that I wanted to sue David Chase for that crappy ending. But then I thought some more about it. And the first thought that came to mind was do you think there is really any one ending that would have pleased everyone? I mean, if the camera just faded to black as they sat in the diner enjoying their meal, everybody would be bitching that it was the most stupid and nonsensical ending in the history of television. They'd say, "what the hell is the signficance of showing them eating their meal in a diner? What does that mean? What happened? It makes no sense." Alternatively, if they showed Tony getting whacked in the diner, then people would be bitching about how they killed off this beloved sociopath. They would also wonder why he was killed and by whom. And they'd be pissed about not having the answers to these questions because now the damn show is over. Forever!

Then I realized what I've already known all along and that is that David Chase is an absolute genius and this ending was a testament to his brilliance. Allow me to explain.

One of the reasons why we love the Sopranos so much is because it is simultaneously amusing, frightening, suspensful, dull, ironic, identifiable, annoying, vague, hilarious and sad. Does this combination of emotions remind you of anything? Life, perhaps? Why of course. That's why we love the Sopranos. It depicts life. It's realistic. All along, David Chase has just been trying to portray real life. Think about it. All of us experience happiness, fear, trepidation, pain, boredom and you name it. The list goes on. And all of us have problems that come up in our lives that seem like a big deal and we worry about these things for whatever reason. Often times, these problems just kind of resolve themselves without a whole lot of fanfare. They just fade away gradually until the next round of trouble arises.

And then there are the more concrete resolutions to our problems - ones where you can put your finger down and say "oh yeah, that problem was resolved in such and such way." This is exactly what David Chase has been giving us all along. Some probems on the show never seemed resolved (still wondering what ever happened to the Russians in season 4?) Others were resolved quite well. In fact, every time someone got killed, a problem was likely being resolved. And often times, a whole new set of problems arose as a result. 

The point is, the show represented real life (albeit the real life of a fictional mafia family) and not everything in life  ends with a nice neat bow on it. Life cannot be portrayed in a 60 minute episode, or twelve 60 minute episodes, or even 8 years worth of 60 minute episodes. Life goes on and on.

Jim Kerr, a dee jay at Q104.3 in New York, pointed out on Monday morning that there may be some significance to the song that was playing at the end - Don't Stop Believing by Journey. There's a line in that song that goes something like "oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and  on." That's the point. The movie that never ends is called life. So while you and I and the other 12 million people who tuned in to watch the finale may not like it, it is what it is. It is life. Think about it.