Steven Van Zandt teams up with Yankees adviser for TV show

The view from his sixth-floor Greenwich Village studio offers a rich view of lower Manhattan, with tourists and New Yorkers clogging the Sixth Avenue sidewalks below on this Friday, an azure sky stretching west and beyond.

Steven Van Zandt, dressed in a lime green and purple tie-dye shirt, jeans and his requisite scarf snug around the top of his head, affixed just above the eyebrows, is 48 hours removed from a trip to Italy but shows no signs of jet lag. The E Street Band guitarist is eager to jump into his latest project — a TV pilot called “Tio Papi” in which he is the executive producer and partnered with Yankees community adviser, Ray Negron, a co-creator of the project.

“At some point, I focus on one thing and get that done, when I can,” says Van Zandt, who showed his acting chops as mob character Silvio Dante on the hit HBO show “The Sopranos.”

Van Zandt says he met Negron through a mutual friend, New York actor Joey Dedio, who played the lead role, Ray Ray, in the indie movie version of “Tio Papi,” in which a single man has to care for his six nieces and nephews. Dedio will reprise the role for the TV series, and the title character is based upon Negron and his life.

“I’ve got this one (TV project) that is going to be months more in development, if it ever happens,” says Van Zandt. “I was like, ‘I’d like to do something right now.’ We’ve got a little bit of an in-between thing with Bruce (Springsteen) and the E Street Band. That’s kind of an unknown at the moment. It’s kind of always an unknown, unless we’re actually on the road. It’s a good moment right now. I was kind of looking around for something. (Negron and Dedio) mentioned they were trying to develop the film for a TV show. I thought, ‘You know what? That’s interesting.’ ”

While Negron’s back story has been well-documented — as a teenager, he was nabbed by George Steinbrenner outside the old Yankee Stadium in 1973 for spray painting graffiti on its walls, only to have The Boss take Negron under his wing and steer him on a path away from trouble — Van Zandt was deeply moved by the story of the years-long friendship that developed between Steinbrenner and Negron.

“That whole thing is such a good example of what can happen. One person can make a difference in somebody’s life. A good teacher is going to do that. A good coach is going to do that. It could be an art teacher, or an English teacher, a sports figure,” says Van Zandt. “Just making that contact — like Ray made with George Steinbrenner was really special, really important. Very hip of George Steinbrenner to take that approach, which he didn’t have to do. Who has time for some kid committing a crime, in this case a rather minor crime? And (Steinbrenner) was a rather busy guy. He says, ‘I’m going to deal with this.’ We need that to happen 100,000 more times today, you know what I mean?”

Van Zandt, Negron and Dedio say that they envision the show to be a modern-day “Brady Bunch,” one that will tackle current issues, but will straddle comedy and drama. Van Zandt says he plans to be involved in everything from (no spoiler alert here) the musical elements of the show, including the score, to the script development to yes, perhaps even a cameo or two by the E Street Band guitarist, playing none other than The Boss — but not that Boss.

“We’ll see about that,” Van Zandt jokes, referring to taking on the role of the late Yankee owner, something Larry David did with great fanfare on “Seinfeld.”

Adds Negron: “I told (Van Zandt) that my production company is called ‘Boss Studios,’ and Steven was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know if that will work with my Boss.’ ”

Growing up in New Jersey in the late ’50s and ’60s — he was born in Boston on this date (Nov. 22) in 1950 — Van Zandt says that although he wasn’t an avid sports fan, he appreciated the sports icons of his era — Muhammad Ali and Broadway Joe Namath were two such figures he revered — and the impact they had on the landscape then: the civil rights movement, Vietnam, Cold War tensions, the war on poverty, the evolution of rock ‘n’ roll.

“I really wasn’t that into (sports). I was into rock ‘n’ roll. That was a full-time obsession. As I got older, of course, I just didn’t have the time to watch somebody else do something for three hours,” says Van Zandt. “You’re a fan. You want the home team to win in that sense.”

Van Zandt says he clashed with his father over Ali’s activism during the ’60s and ’70s, even though Van Zandt adds that the Vietnam War “didn’t make a lot of sense to a lot of people,” including Van Zandt’s dad.

“Ali was big. He was No. 1. He was the greatest, everybody’s hero. There was an awkward moment —because my father was an ex-Marine, a Goldwater Republican, so you can imagine us growing up together,” Van Zandt says, laughing. “We were the generation gap. I remember him not digging Muhammad Ali changing his name and not fighting in the (Vietnam War). My father was World War II generation, and he was in the military during Korea. Vietnam never made sense to a lot of people, even the conservatives.

“Anyway, Ali was really something. Really a hero to us kids in a lot of ways. He had that attitude. The other big one I remember growing up was Joe Namath,” Van Zandt continues. “Joe Namath was the first rock ‘n’ roll sports guy. I can’t think of too many others that stood out for me. You were kind of engaged to some extent with what was going on at the time. I remember the Knicks — Walt Frazier, and (Bill) Bradley, Willis Reed. That team stood out. They were unreal, so much fun to watch. They were like the Harlem Globetrotters. They were poetry in motion.”

While Steinbrenner served as one of Negron’s early mentors, Van Zandt says a librarian during his high school days made an early impact and impression on the budding musician.

“I had a librarian in my high school who was very hip. She said, ‘You like Bob Dylan?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ She said, ‘You know where he comes from?’ I said, ‘No.’ He was from outer space. He was completely unique at the time, bringing important lyrics into popular music was a whole new idea,” says Van Zandt. “No one had ever done it — bringing poetry and politics and social concerns, as well as sarcasm and irony and metaphor and symbolism — all of that came with Bob Dylan. (The librarian) gave me a book by Allen Ginsberg. All of the sudden, I learned about Allen Ginsberg and Beat poetry. I learned about (Walt) Whitman and I learned about Buddhism, which I had never heard of. And then George Harrison of course is teaching me about Hinduism with the Beatles. I learned from rock ‘n’ roll.”

Those lessons have served him throughout his life and career, and Van Zandt has never been shy about standing up for a cause or voicing his opinion. He is dismayed with the direction the world is taking, particularly the Paris terrorist attacks, which occurred while Van Zandt was traveling in Italy. With “Tio Papi,” Van Zandt says he hopes he and his producing and creative partners can create a throwback show that not only harkens back to “The Brady Bunch,” but other seminal shows like “Sanford and Son,” “Chico and the Man” and “The Jeffersons,” which addressed important societal issues and which connected with TV viewers.

“The world — it’s a whole different world, oh my God. It’s changing every day and not for the better I’m afraid,” says Van Zandt. “If those shows came out today, they’d probably be hits again. In a frightening way it’s timeless. Nothing’s changed on that working-class level. I think there are some truths there that we can talk about, because I don’t see that many people doing it.

“People could use it because, I tell you what, if things keep going the way they’re going, the TV industry is only going to get bigger because ain’t nobody going to be leaving the house. It’s terrible to say that, but it’s getting really weird. You’ve just got to hope this insanity stops. That aside, I think people can always use a little inspiration and entertainment. I liked the (“Tio Papi”) film.

“But my orientation has not been family-oriented. It’s just the way my life has gone. So I thought to myself, ‘That’d be a new kind of challenge, trying to do something on the family side of things,’ rather than the other extreme, which is where I live,” adds Van Zandt, laughing. “Which is the adult subscription world, where there can’t be enough violence and sex. Let’s see how the other half lives.”

Negron and Dedio both say Van Zandt is the undisputed “leader” of the “Tio Papi” project, even if the music icon prefers to keep his name and profile under the radar. Negron says he plans to reach out to Alex Rodriguez to appear on the pilot, or one of the future episodes, and other stars are clamoring to get a part now that Van Zandt is attached. Negron says Fankie Valli, once he heard about Little Steven’s involvement, told Negron, “Get me on the show.” Hank Steinbrenner, George’s eldest son, has also supported Negron’s efforts.

Van Zandt says he gets more and more frustrated with the “bean counters and lawyers” who stall the creative process of any artistic project, and that he is excited for the opportunity and platform that “Tio Papi” will present.

“It’s hard to hold my interest unless there’s some substance there. That’s part of the challenge — we’re trying to teach kids, inspire them, motivate them, while being entertaining at the same time,” says Van Zandt. “When kids ask me for advice, on any level, I’ve only got one piece of advice: If you’re going to do something, do it right. That sounds obvious. You look around, people ain’t doing things right anymore. They do it halfway. They do it without passion. I’m like, ‘Do it right.’ When my name’s on something, you can pretty much depend on it. That’s how I grew up, with those high standards. We’re no longer in an era that rewards greatness or hardly recognizes it. There’s no place for greatness in our society anymore, in terms of the mainstream. And I miss that. I’ll never accept that.”

Baseball – NY Daily News

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