I may be the only person in America who didn't watch "The Sopranos." I don't have HBO, because I am already spending the GDP of a small third-world country every month on digital cable.

But I always felt I sort of placed out of "The Sopranos" for two reasons: I grew up in Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia in the '70s, when mob hits were more regular than trash pickup.

Also, I was born in New Jersey. Exit 151, if you must know.

(I'm not showing you my birth certificate because I'm trying to get Fox to start a rumor I was born in Canada so I can become prime minister and drop the puck at hockey games.)

We moved to Pennsylvania when I was 2, but lingering in my blood are the heavy metals of the Garden State.

This heritage sometimes drives me to defend New Jersey against the lazy, childish, outmoded, stereotype-based insults that … are completely inadequate compared with what has apparently been going on there in the past couple of years.

The story hit the New York Times on July 23, with this opening paragraph:

"A two-year corruption and international money-laundering investigation stretching from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn to Israel and Switzerland culminated in charges against 44 people on Thursday, including three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis, the authorities said."

I bet you think I added the rabbis. For comic effect, right? Like, "wire cutters, burglary tools, a 9-inch hunting knife and a partridge in a pear tree."

No, the rabbis are not mine. If I want to add another item to a list as a punch line, I typically go for a duck. I learned this technique from Dave Barry, who carries a supply of ducks with him for just that purpose.

According to The Times, the thread investigators started pulling out in this tapestry of nefariousness was bank fraud. Charges were brought against someone in a seaside Syrian Jewish enclave -- but that guy turned informant and posed as a bribe-dangling real estate developer.

And then it got weird.

Mayors dealing in diners. Black market kidneys. A box of Apple Jacks worth $97,000.

Hoboken and Secaucus both had their mayors arrested in this kerfuffle, and if those cities are at all typical, it's a wonder there isn't a town in New Jersey called Kerfuffle.

The Times quoted a political scientist from Seton Hall University who said, "This is … just going to reinforce the stereotype of New Jersey politics and corruption."

Ya think? Some stereotypes contain a grain or two of truth.

Anyway, the authorities got a real bargain in their one informant, because he gave them a twofer: Two tawdry, depressing scandals on the same shore, the money-laundering, kidney-peddling rabbis and the bribe-taking public officials.

Alleged, obviously. Alleged. Nothing's gone to trial yet, and it could all be a big misunderstanding. The mayors may actually have been selling candy bars for their kids.

And in another shameless ripoff/homage to Dave Barry, I can't resist pointing out that Kidney-Peddling Rabbis would be a great name for a band.

The trials should drag on a very long time and further besmirch the escutcheon, or just the Metuchen, of my natal state. It's all very disappointing.

I've given up trying to argue with the Jersey-bashers. The only defense I have is that these new scandals never got anywhere near me. They were closer to exits 102 and 153A.