THE BELL CURVE:Gray ‘Sopranos’ ending is un-American

Even though it will provide fodder to Steve Smith in his program to remove television from all our lives, I have to admit that, after watching the final episode of “The Sopranos” Sunday night, I was thinking along those same lines.

Like a few zillion other people, I set myself up for this manipulation. Right now, I’m looking for someone besides myself to blame. And I don’t have to look far. His name is David Chase, and he was the guy who planned and executed the heist that picked so many pockets Sunday night.

Outraged reactions across the country help explain our gullibility and vulnerability to such head massaging on much more serious issues when the right buttons are pushed.

I don’t think Chase planned such a psychedelic response to his ending. I think he just cut and ran when he found himself facing an insurmountable creative barrier. And he isn’t being tarred and feathered for that cowardly act because the pointy-headed critics can never buy into an explanation that simple and direct involving the behavior of an incipient genius they have created.

For those of you who didn’t see the final episode (after eight years) of “The Sopranos” or don’t give a darn about what happened to Tony Soprano but would like to know why its conclusion became such a cause celebre, the reason is that Americans want to see beginnings and endings, justice or redemption. We don’t want creativity to blur our blacks-and-whites, and “The Sopranos” ended in a distinct wrapping of gray.

In the middle of a serving of onion rings to Tony Soprano, his wife and two grown children in a nondescript restaurant, the screen went dark, and then the credits started to roll. And this only after we were teased with the arrival in the restaurant of a series of what could have been entirely innocent customers but were made to appear as suspect assassins by allowing the camera to linger on them through innocuous actions once inside.

“The Sopranos” lived in such grays right from its original premise that mafia hit men had the same mundane problems as the rest of us in coping with the ordinary challenges of our society. Their employment just happened to be managing organized crime and occasionally disposing of associates who didn’t follow the rules. I tried it at the beginning, didn’t like it, gave it up, and then got hooked again a few years ago. My outrage at the ending is softened considerably by my admiration for somebody who can get away with it and will be lathered with money for a repeat performance. Isn’t that the American way?

JUST THE FACTS

The Los Angeles Times ran a story Monday that all of us should cut out and save for the months ahead when the candidates’ positions are going to get fuzzy as the polls come and go, and a lot of non-issues like gay marriage will begin to affect the importance of real issues. That’s when you should crack out the Times story, “Candidates fault lines on issues emerge,” that pictured the three leading candidates of each party along with their very specific views on taxes, the Iraq war, healthcare and Guantanamo Bay.

Possibly never again in this campaign will we be given a road map that so clearly defines the distance between the views of our two political parties on the issues that will determine what is ahead, as Americans, for our children and grandchildren — and for whatever of our own time is left to us.

The positions offered are clear and unambiguous. They chart courses so opposite that we are clearly offered a choice. And there is no mention of homosexuality or abortion among these major issues.

New Yorker CHATTER

Another item from last week that has generated talk after the baseball scores are chewed over is the cover of the May 28 New Yorker magazine. It recreates the famous photograph of the raising of the American flag over Iwo Jima, as portrayed so well in two movies directed by Clint Eastwood last year. But the New Yorker cover has one enormous departure from that familiar photo: the flag being raised is at half-mast.

This normally signifies a death. In this instance, of what? And what is significant about the wheels shown in the bottom of the picture? Take along a copy of this issue to your next party. Then if things get slow, crack it out.

KUDOS TO UCI

Finally, congratulations to the UC Irvine baseball team in winning its way to the College World Series just three years after literally rising from the dead. Now, if only some of this fairy dust could rub off on the UCI basketball team that has yet to make it to the big show, the March Madness of college basketball, after five decades of trying.