Steven Van Zandt its 500th show in front of a sold out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of "The Sopranos" and "Boardwalk Empire"; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from "The Sopranos"; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named "Underground Garage", has the same philosophy
The Sopranos of the New York City Columbus Day Parade won an injunction preventing Mayor Michael Bloomberg from inviting cast members of "The Sopranos" to participate in the parade. Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind conducted a national survey in August 2001 which polled 800 people. 37% said that they watched the show regularly, and 65% of this group (192 people, or 24% of the total) disagreed that the show portrayed Italian Americans in a negative way. Professor William Roberts was associated with the poll, and is the author of several books on modern Italian history; he commented that: "The show's inflated image of