The story of how a one of a kind soap opera character made an unexpected impact on my life.
Art by Pete Whitehead
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Story performed by: Aaron Calafato
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Original Art: Pete Whitehead
Podcast Coordinator: Cori Birce
Creative Consultant: Anthony Vorndran
TRANSCRIPT
SonnyCorinthosORSonnywithachanceofAaron.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
Hey, everybody, it's Aaron, how you doing? I hope you're good. In fact, I hope you're very good. Listen, make sure to stay tuned all the way through the end of the story, because at the end, I have a special announcement to tell you and you're not going to want to miss it. I can give you a quick hint. Maybe you can think about it as the story's going. It has something to do with what you're about to hear, but that's it for now. So stay tuned till the end. This episode is a retelling and a remastered version of one of our most popular stories titled Sonny Corinthos. I hope you enjoy it.
Do you know who Sonny Corinthos is? Sonny Corinthos? Does that ring a bell? If you do, you're going to love this. If you don't, I got to tell you this story. So Sonny Corinthos is a fictional character. He's a mob boss and a entrepreneur type. He's played beautifully by this actor named Maurice Benard on a soap opera called General Hospital. Now, how do I know all of this? Well, because I love General Hospital and I'm not afraid to admit that. Look, I love the drama, the affairs, the romance, the deceit, the action, the cliffhangers. I'm a storytelling addict and it's just good television, great stories. But more than that, not just Sonny Cortinthos, but the actor Maurice Benard would end up playing a role in my life that I could not have predicted. And it all started back in junior high.
So, in junior high, like most of us, I was having a hard time just getting through it. I mean, junior high sucks. Maybe there's some people that like junior high, but like for me, it was a terrible time period. And I think it is for a lot of people because it's a weird transitional time. And so here was my thing: I was five feet tall, 80 pounds. I want to say it again. I'm five feet tall, in eighth grade, 80 pounds. So in my brain, I had all of these new ideas. I was coming into manhood. I was on the cusp of a romantic relationship or ships with many women. But on the outside, I looked like a five year old. Which presented some issues with the ladies, which presented some self-esteem issues and some teenage angst and all that stuff that lasted from junior high all the way through high school. But besides that stuff, sincerely, you know, I knew who I was. I love myself, but I was looking for, and I think most young men do this, they look for archetypes of older men that they admire, that they want to aspire to be.
Now, I had some great examples. Luckily, I had my dad. I had my grandfather, who I was really close to on the Italian side of my family. And I've talked about him in this podcast before. I mean, we watched all the gangster movies, me and my grandfather. And so I remember besides those movies being movies, a lot of the guys were like that on that side of my family. They were cool. There was so much to draw from. The masculinity was so strong. But the thing I couldn't relate to was that a lot of them didn't want to talk about stuff emotionally. Whereas I had an impulse to do that. Like I was distinctly masculine, but I had this other part of me that was...wanted to have conversations and talk about feelings, and all that kind of stuff, and that didn't really work. And so as I'm growing up, I'm trying to find out who that archetype is going to be.
What kind of guy out there isn't just one thing, because I think as young men, we're told that we have to be one thing, either really smart and nerdy. Or really, you know, emotional and feminine. Or, really strong and emotionally stunted. But I'm not just one thing and I don't think most people are. So who is that person that I could, you know, find myself in? And one day I think I did.
I remember that day like it was yesterday. I'm in junior high. I get off the bus after school. And of course, I forgot my key. So I had to break into my own house from the outside. But luckily, I was a tiny dude. I was 80 pounds, remember? So I cracked open the window with a stick I found. I slithered into my house. I found a snack in the fridge and I go to the TV room and I'm about to turn on our color TV. Now, I say color TV like I'm from the 1940s. But you have to understand, my mom, she was very frugal. She was like a hippie. And we had this 1980s Hitachi color TV, you had to pull the little lever out and we got four channels, if we were lucky with an antenna. Never had cable my whole life. We had three, five, eight and nineteen. That's NBC, ABC, Fox and CBS. And right around three o'clock I happened to turn on ABC. And the introduction for this show called General Hospital comes on. And the song is unbelievable (attempts to sing) Great song. And all the actors are looking up very dramatically. And the first scene that comes on is with this actor named Maurice Benard, and he's playing this guy named Sunny Corinthos. And first thing I noticed was he looked a lot like the men on the Italian side of my family. Like I didn't know what his ethnicity was, the character or the actor Maurice. But his look, the dark hair, the slicked back, you know, look, the the way he was dressed, I recognized it. He had swag. But the more and more I started watching the episode, I started noticing the way Maurice portrayed Sonny Corinthos was very complex. And then the character was complex in that way. Regardless of the whole mobster thing. Right?
See, Sonny Corinthos is a distinctly masculine person. But at the same time, he had dimensions of passion. He was protective of all the women in his life. He loved fiercely. He dealt with mental health issues. He had vulnerability. He had a moral compass. And he was always in this Hamlet-like conflict with the different elements of his persona. And so I'm hooked, right. Not only from the acting of Maurice Benard, by the way, when I first saw him, it was like watching an alien. It was like so engaging, jumped off the screen at you. Right? But besides that, I'm watching this religiously because I find this weird connection to the way Sonny Corinthos is portrayed. And I thought to myself, after years and years and years of watching this every single day. Up to, I watched it all the way through high school, General Hospital. I followed Sonny's storyline for years. And I said to myself, you know, this character minus the whole mobster thing, right? Reminds me of me. That thing I'm looking to find myself in, you know what I mean? Like, he's different. He's a hybrid. He's not one dimensional. And it meant a lot to me as a young man growing up to see a man and a character portrayed like that.
Story gets even crazier. Flash-forward, I'm in my 30s and I'm starting my relationship with Cori, my now fiancée, and she says these words to me, she says, "you know, you look at me so intensely. Is that because you're part Italian?"
I'm like, "well, you know, that intensity is probably because I'm part Italian also, that I'm so emotionally deep." And then I stopped and I thought about it and I'm like, oh, my God. Maybe it's because I've also stolen and have lifted some of Sonny Corinthos' moves from all of those years watching him on General Hospital. And I told Cori, and she starts laughing and she's like, "I love Sonny Corinthos." He was one of my first crushes.
I'm like, "I love the guy. I idolize the character and the actor that played them." We bonded. And she's like, "we should celebrate. Let's watch a rerun of General Hospital." And we did. And then Cori goes, "look, even the way he's touching that girl's face, it's like the way you touch my face." I'm like, "Oh, my God, have I taken this too far? I know I'm Aaron, but am I Sonny? But I like Aaron?" And we laugh so hard about this. We created this inside joke. Any time I looked at her intensely or tried to flirt with her, she would say, "Are you trying to Corinthos me?
So, this past August on Corey's birthday, I wanted to do something special. And I find out about this cameo app with personalities and celebrities. I'm scrolling through it and I find him. There's Maurice Benard, a.k.a. Sonny Corinthos. I sent a request in. I'm like, "oh, he's not going to he's not going to respond."
And he does. And he responds with an amazing message and he sings Happy Birthday. And you can imagine how surreal this was for me as I'm reviewing the video of Maurice Benard singing Happy Birthday to the girl I'm about to marry.
And I remember writing in the text as I sent it to Cori I said, "baby, I love ya. You just got Corinthosed."
All right, special announcement time first, I hope you enjoyed this story. You know, when we first originally released Sonny Corinthos, the story. When Maurice Benard, the person who plays the character, heard it, he really liked it and he shared it with the social media. And then he and I started going back and forth on social and I started watching a YouTube show he does called State of Mind, great show about mental health. And we just kept going back and forth and supporting each other on social and texting and all that kind of stuff. And I thought to myself, you know, the ending of what you just heard is really great. Right? But why should the story in there? So, I reached out to Maurice and I asked him to be a special guest on 7 Minute Stories. And he was gracious and he said, "Sure, man."
And so we recorded an interview, and in fact, we talked so much we couldn't fit it in just 7 minutes. So, next week you're going to hear Part 1of my (and it's still surreal for me, by the way) Part 1 of my interview with Maurice Benard next week on 7 Minute Stories and the following will be Part 2. And I can't wait for you to hear it.
We'll talk to you soon. Bye!
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