Artie's actions reflect someone on the inevitable downward slide in life. He off as pathetic because he was a relatively honest man who wanted to serve others. When surrounded by sociopaths who only want to serve themselves, it's a recipe for disaster.

But he also made choices that contributed to his troubles. He was stuck with an emasculating wife and in a dead end job. Yes, he owned his own restaurant, but it was essentially at its peak. Charmaine wouldn't let him expand the business, and Vesuvio was stale - the menu hadn't changed, and the service was slipping. After 20+ years of playing things straight, he's still scraping to get by. High-end restaurants are a fickle thing, and it doesn't take much to ruin it - a fire, a strong competitor, a recession, whatever.

His lifelong friends screwed him over - the fire, Tony ran up huge tabs and was slow to pay, the crew always mocked the restaurant and victimized him with scams, and even Scatino tried bumming money off him.

And it doesn't help when he tries to be bold, it always turns to shit, from his loaning money to the Frenchman to the Columbus Day protest to his attempt to market his pasta sauce.