Based on the fact that it garnered no comments, I’m thinking not many people bothered to read this little ditty from yesterday — probably because there wasn’t a whole lot of substance to it in and of itself, I’ll admit. (The Ron Morris column it was based on was much better.)
But if you didn’t read it, you probably didn’t follow the link back to this older (and marginally more substantial) posting, and that would be a shame. Because when I looked at that older posting, I noticed I had failed to provide an explanatory link for the phrase, un’ uomo di rispetto, and so I went out surfing and found one. And I thought it was pretty cool, so I write this to draw your attention to it.
Of course, you’re not going to like it unless you’re a Godfather fan. I particularly liked it because it was so much like one of my many get-rich-quick schemes that I’ve never followed up on (probably because I don’t want badly enough to be rich). It came out of an idle conversation one day with a colleague while we were riding in a car and had the time to be idle. The idea was to do a self-help book that would actually sell to guys, rather than just to the Bridget Jones types out there. It would have been lessons for life gleaned from Mario Puzo‘s masterpiece — both the book and the movie. The title could have been something like, "Listen to Your Godfather." Or whatever.
Anyway, the lessons would be based on such pearls as, "Never tell anybody outside the family what you’re thinking," and "Spend time with your family… a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man."
Basically, every other page would have elaborated for a few paragraphs on one of the aphorisms, with an appropriate still from the movie on the facing page — assuming we could get the rights. I think it was thinking about going through the hassle of dealing with all of those pezzonovantes in Hollywood and New York trying to get the rights that put me off the project.
I never figured out what to do with the most oft-repeated saying from the movie: "This is business, not personal." It probably would have required an introductory essay at the beginning of the book explaining that the reason you need to buy the book is that you might think you understand the significance of that phrase, but you really don’t. See, the movie actually failed on one level. The point of the book, revealed in a soliloquy by Michael just before he goes off to kill Sollozzo and Capt. McCluskey, is that all the things that people say are "business, not personal" are actually personal. He explained that understanding that, and living his life accordingly, was the secret of his father’s "greatness."
This is a major theme for Puzo, which he explored more transparently in The Fourth K, which is about a president who, because of a personal tragedy — the murder of his daughter by terrorists — uses the power of his position to launch a worldwide War on Terror that is in reality a personal vendetta. And no, all you antiwar folks out there, the president’s name wasn’t "Bush." It was "Kennedy."
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Brad, The GFather trilogy had a lot of great lines in it:
Make him an offer he can’t refuse.
You’re out. You’re not family (not blood).
Never ask me about the business, ever. (Now that’s a great line for the husband to tell the wife, but it doesn’t work for me).
How about – Get out of here you Guinea, wop, dago, greaseball expletive.. (Puzo pulled from experience on that one.
Anyway, I had read Morris’ column and your post. Remember these minor league outfits come and go like the seasons. Entering into a contract with one of these is not good planning. The city and USC will foot the bill in the end. For me, I would prefer to see the stadium built with NO public tax monies. Don’t ask me how but it has been done in many locales. Here is one quote right from Puzo that may be relevant, at least for all the bloggers..
Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.