Don't Quote Me: Anti-Gay Violence isn't funny, capiche?

At one time or another we’ve all found ourselves in the uncomfortable position of telling someone we like and respect that they’ve done something incredibly stupid. Sometimes sharing that information is easy, like when a good friend drinks too much and sticks his hand in a fan. Stupid. No fingers; no argument.

But at other times, when there’s no alcohol or bloodshed for example, or, to the point of this column, when a self-described “great supporter of the gay community” decides that it’s a good idea to joke about — and profit off of — violence against gays, it’s not so simple.

As most of us know by now, Joe Gannascoli, the affable actor who played Vito the gay mobster on The Sopranos, recently teamed up with Rockwell Billiards to sell a pool stick branded with Vito’s ‘signature’ and the phrase “A Cue to Die For.” To Die For, for those unfamiliar, is Gannascoli’s clever marketing slogan for his themed line of products that include a book titled, “A Meal to Die For,” “A Cigar to Die For,” “A Sauce to Die For,”' and “An Olive Oil to Die For.”

The collaboration of Gannascoli and the Oregon-based, 4-employee strong Rockwell Billiards would be just another marriage made in gimmick heaven if it weren’t for one horrible detail: Vito met his death by being beaten and then sodomized with a pool stick at the hands of his homophobic paisans.

An idea that should never have entered Joe’s mind, instead escaped the filter of his better judgment, crashed through a hole in his reason, demolished his internal edit function, and then slid out of his mouth in the form of a pitch to Rockwell Billiards.

Obliterating the notion that two heads are better than one, Jake Rockwell, owner of Rockwell Billiards, didn’t tell Gannascoli to file his horrible idea in the nearest trash can; instead, he thought it stellar.

Recalling a meeting he had with the actor in Baltimore earlier this year, Rockwell told southern Oregon’s Mail Tribune on August 1, “Every five minutes, when we were with him, we were getting interrupted by people whether we were walking, eating or whatever. Obviously it works out good for us. It gives us a whole marketing plan, press for us and that type of thing.’’ Those folks must be the 45 people that, according a report in The Oregonian on Aug. 17, have actually bought the cue since January.