defend the indefensible: new jersey

Except Newark. Newark can go fuck its hat.

I've been asked for a cigarette by five different people in the last 20 minutes.

We are also a bizarre state filled with mysteries to a degree that makes most other states boring. Please visit http://www.weirdnj.com/ for starters.

I live in Brooklyn now, which I love, but I intend on moving back there eventually.

haha when chris saw harold and kumar out in california, an audience member exclaimed "i didn't know new jersey had trees!"

If you see the movie Garden State, which is interesting, not a great film, a bit sentimental/melodramatic but pretty entertaining, it's pretty OTM as far as Jersey is concerned. The giant cavern they visited? There was something like that right near my house. They had started to dig it out for construction but it was too rocky and they had to strand the cranes at the bottom of this pit. I used to play on them.

I was born and raised in West Orange, NJ. Home of Thomas Edison and the House of Music recording studios, where much of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band and Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell were recorded.

i go to school in new york and i love it here to death, but "indefensible?" any state that contains the godlike and glorious MAGIC GRILL (in garwood, nj) is way more worthy of defense than, say...actually, no, i'm not stooping to the "trash a state i've never been to" level. and yeah, fuck you to the people who judge nj from the vantage point of the turnpike/GS parkway alone (and i love the GS parkway, FWIW).

(this sounded a bit more jingoistic than i'd intended, but really. nj's a fine state.)

this was my l-school in newark experience, only it was for 3 years -- and made bearable by the fact that had i gone to camden instead, i woulda been shot for refusing to give a cigarette to a panhandler.

and where Uncle Floyd started ... don't forget Uncle Floyd!!! (or you lose yer jersey license!)

Adding to the contradictions that is NJ, disregarding the request to not discuss proximity to NYC, yes, while a portion of NJ is a suburb of NYC, another portion is a suburb of Philadelphia, and people who live in south Jersey do not in any way identify with north Jersey or NYC, despite it not being that long a drive. My family was split in two, my cousins were all in Cherry Hill.

also...Ruts Hut to thread, world-famous "ripper" hot dogs.

John Berryman, Ralph Ellison, James Garner, Paul Harvey, Ron Howard, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Moyers, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Tony Randall, Will Rogers, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Bill Blass, James Dean, Theodore Dreiser, Virgil Grissom, David Letterman, Eli Lilly, Carole Lombard, Andrew J. Moywer, Cole Porter, James Whitcomb Riley, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Wilbur Wright, Ralph Abernathy, Tallulah Bankhead, Nat "King" Cole, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, Emmylou Harris, Helen Keller, Coretta Scott King, Harper Lee, Jesse Owens, and Rosa Parks in being illiterate and uncultured slobs shocker.

i.e., Hurting, your obscenely narrow-minded world view appalls me. It is my hope that you're just a glorified trollbeing, but it is my fear that you truly believe the unenlightened bullshit you spew.

(This could also apply to the original thread topic challenge, I think.)

Relax. I thought it was pretty clear that I was being somewhat facetious.

(You want someone to "defend the indefensible", region-wise? I'm [mostly] your girl.)

Other reasons to love NJ:

Because of my Joisey accent, my best friend thought I grew up in Marstown until he flew out to NJ with me for a short vacation and we got off 287 at Morristown. He's from Virginia, where they don't skip syllables.

Incredible bakeries.

You had to get on a highway & back off one exit later to reach the closest place to buy milk from my parents old house. However, the store, was really only 1/4 mile away- just on the wrong side of the highway, without which, you could have walked over to it.

DINERS. I can't believe the rest of the country hasn't caught onto how to do these right.

Holy shit, Dan Selzer, are you sure you're not related to me? My brother has not one, but TWO Ruts Hut t-shirts. My dad used to take my mom there for dinner when they were dating. Hot, eh? I love that place, damnit.

I was born in Passaic County and raised in Bergen County, home of the most malls per sq. mile. I love Jersey. It will always be home.

Yes! I went to school in Morris County, and you could walk all over town, and also catch buses or trains to either nearby towns or the city. Now I live in a suburb where you have to drive EVERYWHERE, yuck.

I have never been to the Princeton Record Exchange.

Adding to the contradictions that is NJ, disregarding the request to not discuss proximity to NYC, yes, while a portion of NJ is a suburb of NYC, another portion is a suburb of Philadelphia, and people who live in south Jersey do not in any way identify with north Jersey or NYC, despite it not being that long a drive. My family was split in two, my cousins were all in Cherry Hill.

this was a good summary of my undergrad days, when i met students from north jersey. north jersey might have been the northside of mars!

this book is kinda cool, one of my local libraries has it

That's about it...

isn't that enough?

YES

i'm not even from new jersey and i love it.

First: All the italians who made NY pizza what it was when it became an institution and all the jews who made NY bagels what they were when they became an institution almost all live in Jersey and Conneticut now, which is why you have to go to Livingston to get REAL bagels.

Second: Also in Livingston, there were these weird fenced off areas of the woods with empty fields on them heavily guarded for most of the 60s/70s/80s etc. Only later did I realize what they were...missile silos! To protect NYC...

they have crazy sandwiches called 'fat moons' that have chips, burgers and mozzarella stix fillings.

I like old dead creepy seaside places. I guess thats why I like St Kilda too (or well - St Kilda how it was before the damn yuppies moved in and tarted up all the old dirty charm).

there are many!

ihttp://plainparade.org/thesis/NJ-01.jpg

Really, I do.

"Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen -- who really enjoys this overproduced crappy glop?

yeah the sopranos accent exists, but what i hear most of is a slightly jewishy northeasty variant on a standard american accent -- the way jon stewart speaks is exactly like most of my jersey friends speak.

More recently: it turns out to have surprisingly great places to go salsa dancing.

A lot of what Dan says is on the money.

I would seriously consider moving there.

x-post: Is there a Philly-Suburban accent? I wonder if I have it. I've moved around enough that I have a mixed accent, though it's clearly Philadelphia-centric, without necessarily being Philadelphian. I guess. I slip in and out of a real Philadelphia accent though.

i think they're pretty nice! but then i'm used to brooklyn beaches.

princeton and trenton are roughly the dividing lines betwixt north and south jersey, for what it's worth. there are more than a few iggles fans in and around princeton.

newark's bark may be worse than its bite, but its bite can still be pretty bad. though REAL jerseyans know that newark ain't shit compared to camden -- camden is HARDCORE bad-ass.

...The World Takes!

the times DOES have this odd fascination with the place, don't they? at least once a year, they have some piece (in the Metro section) about what a hopeless hellhole it is. and it IS bad.

Maybe the desolation fills a craving for authenticity that New Yorkers have now that they've gentrified everything from the sewers up.

Sorry.

FIGHT

1) PATH Train
2) ?????
3) Profit?

Dude, we should do a an ILX PREX trip!

Ok, like I don't even know where to take the PATH

But if you want to come to the next Jersey City FAP (if there ever is one), the PATH is really easy to get to. If you live along the L, you just take it to 14th and 6th Ave, and the PATH is right there in the station. Takes like 10 minutes to get here from there.

JC is ok - it looks kind of like parts of Brooklyn. The area I live in (which is the "desirable" area now) is a mix of Cuban restaurants, Pakistani groceries, and gentry-fried cafes and clothing boutiques.

There's no music venue or bookstore or record shop to speak of, which sucks. Hoboken (also on the PATH) is right next door and has Tunes for records (which is somewhat meh) and Maxwell's, and there's a couple of book shops. It's already pretty much maxed out as far as redevelopment goes. I kind of hope Jersey City will be able to maintain more of a balance, if that's possible.

:(

there's a shuttle that goes to ikea from the port authority, no?

http://static.flickr.com/24/52316727_2656c5c864.jpg?v=0

xposts

if it's the one that i'm thinking of, it used to be owned by one of the dudes in the smithereens.

http://igetrvng.com/shop_mx4.html

I remember R. Stevie Moore and his hat. I remember the Montclair Book Center, still the best book store I've ever been to, shame they got rid of the comic book dept though.

My sister lives in Jersey City and sells CDs to Tunes.

My first job was in Morristown, at Trukmann's Reprographics or something.

The Byrds - Notorious Byrd Brothers
Beach Boys - Surf's Up
Orchestral Maneovres in the Dark - s/t (US Version)
Muzsikas - Blues for Transylvania
Pet Shop Boys - Actually
Kraftwerk - Radio-Activity

i meant besides you, dan. ;-)

micawber's also rocks -- esp. since they did the extension. back in the day, the used section was the ENTIRE store.

princeton isn't hard to get to at ALL -- just take NJ transit from penn station to princeton junction, then take the "dinky train" from there into town. two hours at most (if that) from penn station.

Yeah, I heart Macawber's as well. I don't understand the love for PJ's, but I only went there once. Maybe I just got a bad batch or something.

I also think Small World Coffee is some of the best coffee I've had.

It'd also be fun to picnic at Grounds for Sculpture if it weren't getting colder now (and also I don't know if they're still open this late in the year).

and Cafe Soundz! How many times to I have to mention it? That's how I met Morgan Geist and James Plotkin. And it's still there.

The Hollow, right near Headquaters mall.

I'm flying home to NJ for 2 days tomorrow; I can't wait to stop & get some real bagels for breakfast, and then drive to the next strip mall for some Dunkin Donuts coffee. And take my 2.5 year old neice to a diner for lunch! She already understands that you only ever order breakfast food and the toast has to arrive soaked in butter and it's important to sit around & talk for a few hours. She's a big chatterbox, so she's down with it. I think we're probably going to the Chester diner.

(disco fries was my name on friendster!)

I never really liked this place, although it was the go-to "indie" store in the area. Did you ever go to The Flip Side in Pompton Lakes, Dan? That was my source for thrash and hardcore cassettes in the late 80's.

Best NJ record store not yet mentioned on this thread is Vintage Vinyl on Rt. 1 near Edison. Used to have a ton of cheap vinyl in the back, these days the stock is not as impressive but it's still a good store.

Did anyone ever go to the converted diner in New Brunswick (on French St) that was a record store? It was only vinyl--the place was a mess and the owner was pretty eccentric. Good finds in there, though. I have no idea if it's there anymore, I doubt it.

I never liked Vintage Vinyl all that much, mostly just because I got a weird vibe from the people there like I wasn't buying the "right" kind of music. There was also Curmudgeon off Route 27, which is now gone as well.

Last christmas when I was back in Jersey visiting family, I got to introduce my wife and my parents to disco fries -- an overwhelming success!

Never went to Flipside.

Nobody's mentioned Planet X yet, a techno store in New Brunswick during the early days of techno stores.

It's freezing out here tonight! I think it's in the lower 40s outside the house right now.

also, i'm not going to bother with this thread bt fuck anyone who didn't stick up for the home of both nervous and redman

i'm down for that, but it depends when. late december is better for me too.

http://s46.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=06TDVYG96WUR2XPFLIG7Z8F7M

http://nypress.com/18/47/listings/music.cfm

(I too was a NJ teen Bruce hater in the author's era)

Anyway, if Springsteen is guilty of some kind of false populism, the populace sure doesn't seem to see through it.

And also, fuck the NYPress.

no trip to princeton is complete without a visit to the annex.

also, RIP PIZZA COLORE.

last wednesday on WFMU they played every single variation of this song (as performed by the chordblenders, natch). eventually they just stopped after the third line where they mention the city, figuring everyone got the idea after about 20 listens of the same song. it was glorious.

i miss princeton. sandwiches at hoagie haven are U+K if jerseyFAP '05 ('06?) gets off the ground.

-- Forksclovetofu (forksclovetof...), November 30th, 2005.

El Oaxaqueno in New Brunswick is pretty good if you're looking for something "authentic". They make a mean mole sauce, and there are lots of items in Spanish only on their menu that I'm not sure what they are (one of them is grasshopper tacos).

i kid.

As usual; not dissimilar from why NJ went big for Reagan in '84 with Born in the USA blaring out of every car.

And where IS Bruce's put-on accent from? Nebraska?

so basically i'm totally down to go

It just dawned on me that the "defend the indefensible: new jersey" thread has become the default thread for New Jersey, and how fitting that is.

yeah, it's Bruce's fault that Reagan carried 49 states (including Massachusetts), and that he carried Jersey by nearly the exact same percentage he carried Connecticut, Delaware, Ohio and Maine. it had nothing to do with the fact that Reagan came from the Depression generation and sold a populist Republicanism and militaristic cold war.

it's also Springsteen's fault that NJ voted for Reagan in '80, Bush in '88, Ford in '76, and Nixon twice. it was your hated Billy the C who turned it blue.

morbius, stick to making yer grand pronunciamentos in the film threads.

If we do New Brunswick, it'll be a tough call between Oaxaqueno and Efes (the best cheap Turkish I've ever had)

i used to like picken chicken!

if this is done towards the end of this year or on a weekend in january, i am very down for ths, btw.

Weirdly, Oaxaqueno originally had two locations as well -- El Oaxaqueno #2 and El Oaxaqueno #5 (don't ask what happend to 1, 3, and 4). One was on French St. and the other right off Suydam. I think only the Suydam one remains.

Anyone been bearhunting?

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/06/nyregion/06bear.large1.jpg

I plan on heading over to New Brunswick to check out the Rutgers campus. Anybody have suggestions of cool things to see in NB?

1) The Court Tavern is a great shitty place to see great shitty bands.

2) Basement shows are always fun.

3) Do yourself a favor and eat at Efes on Easton Ave.

4) Do your arteries a disservice and get a grease truck sandwich.

5) There's actually a neat little historic colonial house that I think you can tour on Sundays -- it's on Easton Ave in Bucheluch Park.

http://www.pinkchampagnemotel.net/

anyway: what are the most wonderful towns of nj?

Pizza World!
Van Saun Park (as a kid)
Van Saun Park (w/ girlfriend as teenager)
Jobs at the Mall (Garden State/Willowbrook/Paramus Park)

Dan - Cafe Soundz! Whoa. My friend Myke Hideous worked next door at Tu Tone and I'd stop by for a chat then head over to CS. Crazy.

Grease Trucks! Easton Ave. had/has a Mexican place that made great deep fried tacos. Though I wouldn't consider eating one of those nowadays.

Planet X still there? Spike, the owner, was a good guy.

PLUS I know that Rwood residents start claiming curb space for the 4th of July parade a WHOLE DAY before the event, and the sight of well fed, well kept, perfectly capable people jockeying to set up their folding chairs a little closer than their neighbors...the poverty of spirit just brings me down.

I grew up in Red Bank/Long Branch, and there's not enough Monmouth County love on this thread - Jack's Music Shop, Brighton Bar, Monster Magnet, Kevin Smith, etc.

I also lived for years in the Pine Barrens area - scary fucking place. One town I lived in had no garbage pickup and no mail delivery.

A funny thing about NJ is that the border of South Jersey is relative to where you live. If you live in Jersey City, anything below Perth Amboy is South Jersey. If you live in Monmouth County, South Jersey is anything below Toms River. If you live in Cape May, anything below the Mullica River is South Jersey.

Damnit, a grease truck gyro and a Snapple sounds AWESOME. No grease trucks in LA.

http://www.roadsidepeek.com/rpeekeast/moteleast/wildwoodmotel/edenrocwildnj.jpg

chrisquartztelecom and i stayed at the starlux a few new yearses ago:

http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/cns/2002-06-10/images/wildwoodweb.jpg

it was the only wildwood hotel that was actually operating in the winter season. eerie, but in a really cool way. the boardwalk was DEAD.

this is the second summer running that i haven't made it out to the boardwalk (a term which usually signifies seaside heights, for me - trashcan that it is, i still have a lot of affection for it)

http://www.landingnewjersey.com/bertrand.htm

These guys remind me of fairly typical Jersey white kids: argumentative, profanity-loving, race-conscious, with an almost hyperactive respect for psychotic violence.

This wednesday, Glenn Mercer, co-lead guitarist/singer/songwriter of the Feelies will be performing a solo set with Wild Carnation opening up. Wild Carnation features Brenda Sauter, who was the bass player for the Feelies in the 80s as well as Speed the Plough and the beautiful and amazing Trypes. Meanwhile, Glenn is backed by a few of the Feelies original percussionists, Vinny DeNunzio and Dave Weckerman, the later we love for his early 80s DIY single Shore Leave and his Feelies spin-off Yung Wu.

It's hard to sum up their history...the Feelies began in the early/mid 70s in New Jersey with a more angsty, more aggressive Modern Lovers sound. They played CBGB's with all the NYC punk greats and over the years refined and re-defined their sound, so by the time their first record, Crazy Rhythms, was released in 1980, they were able to present something unique. The closest comparison might be the Talking Heads, but the Feelies focused more on rhythm and a Velvet Underground meets Krautrock experimentation. Through the 80s, the Feelies would release 3 more albums, sometimes veering towards a more subtle, folksy, yet no less angsty sound that was even more beautiful. In the meantime, there were countless line-up changes, spin-off bands, pseudonym bands, all quite wonderful.

Here's a clip of the Feelies performing Crazy Rhythms at CBs in the 70s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ammeQSyUF00

Here they are 10 or so years later on David Letterman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vddceSol5k

Here's a great Feelies website:
http://www.geocities.com/thefeeliesweb/

Glenn's myspace page for his new solo project:
http://www.myspace.com/glennmercer

and the Wild Carnation page:
http://www.myspace.com/wildcarnation

You can hear Glenn's great new songs at his myspace page, and hear what has always been true, that through the years, Glenn's songwriting and playing has consistently been wonderful and consistently been his. You can not mistake these songs for anything other then yet more wonderful stuff from one of the guys behind the Feelies.

The line-up that's playing at Maxwell's wedneday played an outdoor festival in Hoboken a few months ago that's all over youtube and along with the new material they played some Feelies classics and some classics the Feelies have been known to cover, so maybe we'll get some oldies wednesday.

Maxwells is the famous club in Hoboken NJ best known for being where The Boss's "Glory Days" video was shot. It's also been the home to many legendary Feelies and Yo La Tengo shows.

http://www.maxwellsnj.com/
1039 Washington Street
Hoboken NJ
201-653-1703

Wed. 9/6
Glenn Mercer
Wild Carnation

8:30 pm
8$

see you there,

Dan

i have never been to ridgewood, sorry. and i've lived in north jersey for almost 8 years now.

-- Jay Vee's Return (milkis...), August 29th, 2006.

Hmm, I wonder if you're talking about the (now defunct) Hungry Eye, which was in fact run by a Greek couple, although you could certainly think they were Middle Eastern. I never had baklava or mint tea there, but they generally tended to make special things not on the regular grease truck menu. They also put up literary quotes all over their truck - I think they had been English teachers. Really nice folks - I was sorry to see them go.

Livingston Mall is 1/1000th a mall as Short Hills, but Livingston Mall is like, where I grew up. I stole all my comic books from Heroes World when my friend Mike worked there, I bought my first CDs at Alwick, when they used to sell boomboxes in the front, and spent many hours in the arcade there playing Star Wars. Their arcade wasn't only closer, but many degrees safer then the one in the Willowbrook Mall. Other fond memories include Bambergers (later Macy's) electronics dept, trying out the Apple Lisa there, and later the Macintosh (drawing a brick wall then spraypainting my name on MacPaint 1.0. And of course, using my red-box to make thousands of illegal telephone calls from a payphone while sitting at a bench there. Those were the days.

i'm not from NJ, but i had a red box. ah, the days of Phrack and 2600.

drilled a hole in a quarter in shop class w/ string for use at my local arcade. the weight must have been off because out of 150 machines it only worked on Root Beer Tapper. damn!

The Ramones
NRBQ
Bon Jovi
Chubby Checker
Cyndi Lauper
Eddie Money
Blue Öyster Cult
David Johansen (also known as Buster Poindexter)
The Misfits
The Smithereens
Jan & Dean
Agnostic Front
Dramarama
Squeeze
Aztec Two-Step
Thor (the singer/bodybuilder)
TV Toy
WKGB
Humans From Earth
The John Earl Walker Band
Blotto
Gary U.S. Bonds
Rachel Sweet
The Rattlers
The Feelies
Shrapnel
The Bongos
U.S.Ape
Fats Deacon & the Dumbwaiters
R. Stevie Moore
The Buttermilk Mountain Revue,
The Plastics (also known as Plastics)
Zoogz Rift
Crash Course In Science
The Stickmen
Z'ev
Rebecca Williams
The Phones (also known as The Responsible Teenagers)
The Brains
Rupert Holmes
Dave Edmunds
Rick Derringer
The Marshall Tucker Band
Peter Tork and Davy Jones of The Monkees (separately)
Steel Pulse
The Lords of the New Church
Johnny Science
The Dead Boys
Pussy Galore
The Payolas
Joan Armatrading
Tiny Tim
The Fiendz
Noble Gas

"One-third of all currently operating diners in the world are located in New Jersey, though many of these have been remodeled. New Jersey has approximately 600 operational diners."

New Jersey and Citibank - perfect together?

LOL @ governor who used to run Goldman Sachs.

Wow, i just read this whole thread and it totally took me back. I grew up around the corner from Two Tone in Passaic, and I used to walk there as a teenager to get vinyl and Ramones t-shirts. I'd also get rides to Montclair and hang out in Cafe Soundz. In college (Rutgers, natch) I didn't have a favorite grease truck, but they did supply me with coffee. Cheap Thrills, Vintage Vinyl, PREX, Tunes, and taping CDs from WRSU for my music, going to Cafe 52 (long gone...) awesome times.

Yeah. I'm w/ you, Miryam. This thread is nostalgia-city for me, too.

Is Oakland the Jersey of SF?

llamasfur, did you spend any time in Sommerville? The mid-century modern antique shops at 1/1000th the price of NYC, and neat-o-rama/twonkyvision or whatever? What a strange scene that was/is. There's less mid-century stuff, but there's a new store there now, AMAZING collection of periodicals, books, sci-fi stuff, subversive stuff, but of course the vinyl is all way over-priced as it always is at those places.

hell yeah -- i grew up a town away from somerville. i left that part of the state for good almost 10 years ago, though (just when the antiques stores and other stuff were just getting off the ground). my mom, though, is big-time into antiques so she tells me all the time about all the stuff she snags there (she still goes to lambertville, which is also Antique Central).

Cafe 52

Shit, yeah! That place was great!

I sort of miss Jersey, but sort of don't. I've gotten kind of used to moving every 2 - 5 years, so any feeling of nostalgia really exists for the people who are still there.

And the grease trucks. Damnit, I could go for a total junk food gyro. Or falafel.

im in jersey right now

Me, too. And the weather makes it feel like Zagreb in Winter (blechh).

im sick as a dog.

I'm still in Jersey... Jersey City now. Sadly, I've been too busy to get out to the record stores. Guess that comes with not being a student anymore. I do love JC tho.

Is anything being built/already built on the Cafe 52 site yet? I spent many nights there playing speed chess with regulars and Alexei's weird brothers/cousins or pretending to read. Then I met the woman who became my wife and pretty much stopped going there.

wildwood 4ever!

I'm reading Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao right now which has a section about Wildwood (as well as parts about Paterson and Rutgers New Brunswick, among other places)

Crazy. In the book that Oscar Wao character goes to my high school (Don Bosco Tech) and university (Rutgers) at the same time I was there! I wonder if I've ever met the author, Junot Diaz. He must've known some guys from my high school or something.

Díaz was born in Villa Juana, a barrio in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.[1] He was the third child in a family of five. Throughout most of his early childhood he lived with his mother and grandparents while his father worked in the United States. Díaz immigrated to Parlin, New Jersey in December, 1974, where he was re-united with his father.

He attended Madison Park Elementary and was a voracious reader, often walking four miles in order to borrow books from his public library. His father, Rafael, abandoned the family in the mid-80s; within months Diaz's oldest brother was diagnosed with leukemia and the family was plunged into a period of severe poverty. In this time Díaz became fascinated with apocalyptic films and books, especially the work of John Christopher, the original Planet of the Apes films and the BBC mini-series Edge of Darkness. Díaz graduated from Cedar Ridge High School in Old Bridge, New Jersey, in 1987.

He attended Kean College in Union, New Jersey for one year before transferring and ultimately completing his BA at Rutgers College in 1992, majoring in English; there he was involved in a creative-writing living-learning residence hall and in various student organizations and was exposed to the authors who would motivate him into becoming a writer: Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros. He worked his way through college: delivering pool tables, washing dishes, pumping gas and working at Raritan River Steel.

He was at RU when I and folks from my hs were there so...possible...

How's the book, btw?

I like it so far - about 1/3 of the way through. It's very heavy on "voice" narration which I don't always like, and there are a few too many seemingly-unnecessary allusions, especially to comic books.

I gave it to my sis for Xmas since she wanted to read it. Now I expect her to come to me with the comic book questions as I am fairly expert in such nerdery.

haha, I think the narrator also uses the word "nerdery"

dirty jerz

where much murder occurz

Not that anyone cares but I read this as having a new jersey (i.e. jumper).

wow, the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair is now a legit concert venue (Yo La T & Feelies on New Years Eve):

http://www.wellmonttheatre.com/

wow indeed! Montclair?!

I think I saw one film there ... Moonraker, maybe?

Still great for corruption absurdities!:

The mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus, a state assemblyman and dozens of others were rounded up early Thursday as the F.B.I. swept across four counties in New Jersey as part of a two-year corruption and money-laundering investigation that ranged from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn and has even reached into the State House in Trenton.

Agents raided the home of Joseph V. Doria Jr., commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs, who also is the former mayor of Bayonne, an official confirmed Thursday morning.

Among the roughly 30 people arrested by mid-morning were Hoboken Mayor Peter J. Cammarano III and Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, both Democrats, and Assemblyman Daniel M. Van Pelt, a Republican from Forked River, in Ocean County. Mr. Cammarano, who turned 32 on Wednesday, was elected mayor June 9 and sworn in July 1, after serving as councilman-at-large since 2005.

Also brought to the Newark office of the F.B.I. were the president of the city council in Jersey City, Mariano Vega, and that city’s deputy mayor, Leona Beldini.

Federal prosecutors said the arrests included several rabbis from enclaves of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn and from Deal and Elberon, communities along the Jersey Shore in Ocean County.

The Asbury Park Press reported that the investigation involved the Deal Yeshiva, a religious school which teaches children in the Sephardic Jewish tradition. The United States Attorney’s office in Newark scheduled a noon news conference.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who has fought corruption in New Jersey’s largest city, told The Star-Ledger it’s "an unbelievable morning so far."

Formal complaint against the Hoboken dude. Among other details:

"...when we get elected, we put our friends on the boards so we know we get the -- don't listen to these morons who say put this environmentalist on, but they're, they're all fucking kooks."

As a recent NJ immigrant I must say I'm enjoying the inability to pump my own gas, the bizarre hangups about making turns both left ("jughandles" wtf) and right (I have seen more "no right on red" signs in the last few months than I did in my entire pre-Jersey life), and the local police's willingness to fuck with people with out-of-state plates on the flimsiest pretenses.

And it really chaps my ass that I pay the same for a studio apartment that my ex-roommate (now in FL) pays for a three-bedroom apt with washer, dryer, gym access and garage. GARAGE for fuck's sake!

this is a weird ass state for sure.

Just another day in Jersey government:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/23/nyregion/23jersey2-500.jpg

Weysan Dun, the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Newark office, said the rabbis arrested — including the grand rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in the United States, Saul Kassin of Brooklyn — were part of a vast money-laundering conspiracy with tentacles in Israel and Switzerland. Another person, Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, was accused of enticing vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 and then selling the organ for $160,000.

The timing of the investigation dovetails with the timing of bank fraud charges against Solomon Dwek, son of the founders of the Deal Yeshiva, a religious school that teaches children in the Sephardic Jewish tradition. Mr. Dwek passed a $25 million bad check at a PNC Bank branch in 2006, according to The Asbury Park Press.

In the investigation that yielded the arrests Thursday, the cooperating witness posed as a real estate developer looking to build in one city after another, repeatedly engaging politicians in illegal conduct through a variety of middlemen, prosecutors said.

In Hoboken, for example, prosecutors charge in their complaint, Mr. Cammarano eagerly agreed in a meeting at a diner earlier this year to help the fake developer with his projects in exchange for cash. Prosecutors said that when the man asked for assurances that his requests would be expedited by the Hoboken City Council, Mr. Cammarano replied, “I promise you,” adding, “You’re going to be, you’re going to be treated like a friend.”

The fake developer responded that he would give a middleman $5,000 in cash for Mr. Cammarano and another $5,000 after his election as mayor.

“O.K.,” Mr. Cammarano replied, according to the complaint. “Beautiful.”

And Mr. Cammarano expressed confidence that he would be elected no matter what, according to the complaint. “Right now, the Italians, the Hispanics, the seniors are locked down,” he is quoted as saying. “Nothing can change that now.”

“I could be, uh, indicted,” he continued, “and I’m still going to win 85 to 95 percent of those populations.”

But just to step back a bit -- $25 million! Yeah I'd be careful with a check like that.

"I have seen more "no right on red" signs..."

Just go across the river to NY, it's illegal to do that there. the no pumping of gas thing is stupid, I agree.

lol when i first moved here i was driving around NYC making right turns on red and getting pulled over by the police. they laughed at my CA plates and gave me a warning. i had no idea.

the no-pumping-your-own-gas is a thing of beauty

once in college i took a trip out to the beach w/ two friends from oregon and it took us like 20 minutes to fill up the gas tank the first time

i have seen nj peeps doing this while in upstate NY.

"the no-pumping-your-own-gas is a thing of beauty"

Lots of people agree, i just find it frustrating to wait most of the time. At least gas in NJ is pretty cheap, compared to the rest of the country.

tentacles

!

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/churchill/interactive/_html/_items/wc0213.jpg

O_O

Yeah, I know. Can folks just find some other word in situations like that? CC'd: Matt Taibbi

http://www.wpix.com/news/local/wpix-turkey-terrorizing-nj-neighborhood,0,4669745.story

TENAFLY, N.J. (WPIX) - A wild turkey is taking charge and running amok on a block in a northern New Jersey neighborhood, residents say.

The terrorizing turkey is apparently bullying the residents of Hillside Avenue in Tenafly, where neighbors claim that it has chased them down the street, pecked at the tires of a postal service truck, and even has engaged in standoffs with cars attempting to pull out of driveways.

Resident Gary Zamchick said one encounter with the 4-foot tall bird left him fleeing for his life.

"I was attempting to put a garage sale sign up on the spot where the turkey was standing," Zamchick said, recounting his meeting with the turkey to PIX News. "He then started walking toward me and then he started chasing me. I ran as fast as I could back to my house."

Later in the day, Zamchick got in his car, drove to the same spot and successfully posted his garage sale sign.

According to residents, the first time anyone ever heard about the wild turkey in town was when the animal had a run-in with the neighborhood mailman.

A couple of weeks ago, Zamchick said he was approached by the visibly upset mailman who launched into his story, claiming the turkey chased him down Hillside Avenue, and prevented him from delivering mail. The mail carrier told residents, the bird also targeted his postage truck by pecking at its tires.

A number of neighbors have experienced similar encounters with the animal, but none of them ended in injuries.

"We see raccoons, some skunks and sometimes opossums but it is unusual to have such a very large bird on our block," Zamchick said. "I actually love the fact the turkey is on our block, I'm not concerned about it at all."

Since an attack by the turkey has yet to be reported, Bergen County animal control has not gotten involved in the case. However, a spokesperson for the Tenafly Nature Center is urging residents not to feed the animal because it is clearly associating food with humans, which is sparking the ongoing chases in the neighborhood. If residents come face to face with the bird, they are advised to clap, stomp, and yell to scare it away.

oh, hudsoncountypaws.

Love me some Jerz.

in case anyone wondered why the sopranos was set in north jersey.

Cammarano is a slimy piece of shit -- i knew him (casually) from law school (though i didn't go to the same law school), he was a douchebag then and he's an (indicted) douchebag now.

also, Corzine is pretty much boned right now ... time to get used to saying Governor Christie.

Well at least you have time to practice.

Well at least you have time to practice.

indeed ... Christie made his name prosecuting other NJ political crooks (like sharpe james). not to mention that Corzine got into politics by dropping tons of his Goldman Sachs cash on North Jersey Dem leaders (like who got busted today) and constantly kissing up to them. i'm not saying that Corzine has any connection to today's events (though i wouldn't be surprised if he did), but even before today he was behind in the polls to Christie.

i also imagine that former gov. Jim Florio (a previous Corzine victim) is privately laughing up his sleeve at Corzine's problems right now.

LOLZ, we're so scummy out here

The corruption scandal is being reported in the papers today thus:

"'Organ trafficking': Rabbis arrested over massive crime ring"

Uh... lol?

I'm finding this all a bit confusing -- was the organ trafficking somehow linked to the money laundering and/or the bribe-taking mayors? Or was it just a bunch of different corrupt stuff that this one guy led the authorities to.

more about the early years of my city's (now arrested) mayor. very soap-operesque and gossipy (and not usually my thing), but i link it to show what an utter douchebag cammarano is.

Corzine is absolutely toast at this point. He's been totally ineffective as gov. Not so fun fact: he lives in Hoboken, commutes to Trenton. No way this chump Cammarano got elected without the sign of the cross from Corz.

Peter Cammarano, ready for a night on the town:

http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates_impact/2009/07/large_peter%20cammarano%20fed%20court.JPG

Wearing white pants during your perp walk, C or D?

What a fucking loser.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=6931297

was the organ trafficking somehow linked to the money laundering and/or the bribe-taking mayors?

ha, I keep trying to find more details about this, because it actually sounds as if one of the money-laundering connections was just, like, "hey, so long as you're here, you know anyone who needs some kidneys? cuz I can get some kidneys"

The NYTimes article from today makes it sound like they were completely separate things and this guy just happened to know about both.

"And while you're at it, there's the dude at the deli not putting enough mustard on my sandwiches without a payoff."

I stand corrected: so it was an informant who was like "hey, so long as we're doing this, you wanna take down some organ traffickers? cause I can find you some organ traffickers"

The Real Teenagers of New Jersey

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2009/07/super-sweet.html

Yeah, that was pretty confusing.

One of the 44 arrested found dead

another example of one of our homegrown finest (courtesy of njguido.com, where else?!?)

http://nj-guido.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/guid8.jpg

> also, Corzine is pretty much boned right now ... time to get used to saying Governor Christie.

― some sick fuck with a bow and arrow killing roos and koalas (Eisbaer), Thursday, July 23, 2009 9:30 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark

cant believe we have a fat governor

now no one will respect new jersey politics

"now no one will respect new jersey politics"

hahahaha, that's hilarious

This is where I'm originally from:

http://www.njn.net/about/pressroom/highlandsrediscovered/

Up north in West Milford.

Also, if anyone has seen The Station Agent... there.

pretty

Thanks :)

after being here for like 5 years i'm finally down to defend new jersey.

Where do you live? I live in Morristown. Its like every other state, there are good and bad places. Morristown is nice. I work in Saddle River, that's REAL nice.

had nothing against jersey before I moved to nyc

jersey license plate in manhattan has a amazingly high correlation to asshole driver

hawthorne xp

reason i was thinking about this is because we may be moving to Astoria, Queens. which is nice but not jersey

I moved from Astoria to JC and preferred Astoria a lot. But here I am anyway.

have some good friends in JC and have spent a lot of time there lately. i dig it,much love for Downtown Taqueria especially

Taqueria is like a Tuesday tradition. See also: John's Pizzeria, More, Soul Flavors, Grand Sichuan

I'm going to see if I can move to Philadelphia sometime in fall/winter and make arrangements to do my awful phone work networked in from home, even though it means subletting my current apartment (and probably finding a roommate)- I've gotten sick of being tantalizingly close to cities with actual shit to do but having so little opportunity to actually take advantage of them. I've definitely gotten over the "holy shit I'm not in Alabama anymore wheeee" honeymoon phase of NJ residency.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70H5YR20110118

wow.

Camden broke shocker

this guy eh

http://blog.tstc.org/2011/04/29/feds-new-jersey-on-hook-for-full-271m-arc-tunnel-bill/

and

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/nyregion/deal-reached-to-expand-xanadu-mall-project-in-nj.html

i tried to go to barcade on saturday night around 11.30 and there was a LINE
a line to go into a BAR
IN JERSEY SHITTY

God help America if this is true ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/nyregion/report-disputes-christies-reason-for-halting-tunnel-project-in-2010.html

controversial viral map

http://i.imgur.com/Pwnf4.jpg

parents live in the 'farms and army bases' belt which is probably pretty true

Can't believe I've never contributed to this thread - lifelong NJ resident (born in Livingston Hospital, grew up in Westfield, lived in Elizabeth the last 20 years). On the map I live in "The Melting Pot," while my mom currently lives in the "Hill People" section (house on the edge of a state park, she's actually had bears in her driveway).

grew up in vast wilderness of rednecks section. my hometown looked like being on set at a taping of my name is earl.

"middle-class raritan valley line commuters" is not wholly inaccurate

誤訳侮辱 i grew up right next door to you (cranford)

yay i'm a poor minority

Oops, so am I; I misread the map and Elizabeth is filed under "Poor Minorities" (which honestly I don't know about—sure, half the store signs are in Spanish, but I'm definitely noticing some gentrification lately; a lot of people around town these days who look like they decided it was a cheap alternative to Brooklyn).

JC now has a four-star New York Magazine restaurant two blocks from my house, suck it minorities

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/05/top-shelf_scheme_authorities_r.html

i'm never drinking at a tgifridays ever again

PATH train completely sputtered out for an hour between 6 and 7 pm last night

I follow PATH on Twitter and that seems to be happening an awful lot lately.

it's drastically overworked. even on off hours it's WAY crowded

Grove Street PATH at 6 AM used to be 75 klicks to nowhere & now it's packed w/ dapper savages (calling in the airstrike any day now).

(keeping my eye on u forks)

not creepy at all

Follow up on Operation Swill:

"At one bar, a mixture that included rubbing alcohol and caramel coloring was sold as scotch. In another, premium liquor bottles were refilled with water — and apparently not even clean water at that."

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/05/23/us/ap-us-operation-swill.html?hp

not creepy at all

joeks, mang. lurking in NYC's foul water-warped basement f/ nearly twenty years has been economic but perhaps ill-suited to sanguine sentiment (I blame the rubbing alcohol tbh).

lol, it's cool. I just don't remember ever having seen you post before so the first time I'm heard from you was all "TEH CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE TEH HOUSE"

i love new jersey. and the new PATH trains... they are so clean and sleek. i don't use them to commute or anything though. new jersey has the grounds for sculpture, the princeton record exchange, and me. obviously the best state.

also walt whitman is here, even though he is a corpse now. that counts for something.

Also has the Joyce Kilmer rest stop, which counts for...negative something.

don't know much about joyce kilmer but that rest stop has a starbucks iirc so it isn't bad as far as turnpike service areas go

Molly Pitcher

i tried to read a book about the misfits in the library today while i was waiting for someone and the first two pages was just ragging on new jersey, saying that it was the only place that could produce a band so fucked up and disaffected as the misfits. i think they even said that new jersey was a "misfit" among states. i didn't like this angle.

fuck. new jersey is getting too cool man. i gotta get out of here.

i am in wildwood, new jersey

it is very rainy and grey. i've only just arrived, but it seems like kind of a cool place tbh

googie architecture is fun.

i like turtles

New Jersey seems less defensible every day I live here. And yet I am still defensive of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/nyregion/new-owner-of-meadowlands-xanadu-site-plans-revival-work-soon.html

I heard the WNYC news bit on this today and lol'd at "Xanadu"

xanadu is old lolz in jersey brah get with it

first time i went to wildwood there were so many jellyfish in the water that it was basically un-swimmable

Meadowlands is getting a skating rink?

I'm predicting that before xanadu is completed, there will be another mini real estate and economic crisis and the project will stall again. bookmark the thread

I had that experience at Wildwood too.

First time I went was when I started dating my girlfriend and I hadn't been to the beach in like 10 years. I got so sunburned I missed 2 days of work.

you should take a day trip to Cape May, if you haven't planned to do so already.

STOP FUCKING RAINING ALREADY

^

^

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/business/media/senator-seeks-fcc-review-of-wwor-tvs-license.html?hpw

no news? really?

Portions of the shore, particular towns, and beauty of the nature near my hometown are to always be defended.

i'm in North Jersey near Newark and it's hard finding things to defend. it's like a combination of the worst of the suburbs and the worst of urban environments. there's nothing to do, you have to drive in dense, perpetual traffic on shitty roads just to buy a thing of milk which ends up taking a half an hour, etc. commuting to work takes over an hour to go about 11 miles daily. everything's barely a notch below NYC in affordability.

it's probably OK if you have a family, but woe be to any young single adult living here. the more rural areas can be nice, though. the town i grew up in had some pretty nature and old architecture that gave it a sorta idyllic Northeast American feel in some parts, though you'd get pulled out of that pretty quickly with the redneck bigots who populated the area. honestly, most of the defensible for me comes from being so close to NYC (heresy!!)

Northeast Jersey other than Jersey City and maybe Hoboken is particularly bad -- expensive, dense, mostly pretty uncharming.

And then again

http://gawker.com/passenger-records-nj-bus-driver-jerking-off-on-the-job-754944696

I grew up north-west of the Sopranos-zone where all the shitty jokes about smelly NJ are born. Up there it's all hills, mountains, woods, creeks, railroads... very pretty. Newark is shit and so is Jersey City mostly. I live in Hoboken and the best of culture is almost completely drained yet it is still safe and quaint looking.

Where are you spectrum? That's sounds about the opposite if my experience growing up and of everyone I know still out there or whove moved out there. Queens and Brooklyn transplants to lovely places like Maplewood, South Orange, Montclair etc. All "near Newark".

the town i live in is absolutely beautiful but it sucks

But yeah spectrum. Didn't notice the second part. Why would any young single person live anywhere that isn't a major city i'll never know.

I moved outta "near Newark" (Passaic counts, right?) 21 years ago, don't miss it.

I live in Hoboken and the best of culture is almost completely drained yet it is still safe and quaint looking.

tru dat.

i was born & raised around Princeton ... what countryside is left (i.e. hasn't been turned into miles of McMansions and strip malls) is still pretty nice and bucolic.

Center of town is pretty there!

xp eisebar that is also where i am from, and live currently (cranbury). i am in the princeton public library right now.

Hey Hurting: you up for some fast pro bono advice? Or know someone who does Jersey residential law? My lease has gone month to month for quite some time now and my new landlord (last one died, this is his brother who inherited the space) is evicting me in September. I'm going to go in any case but I'd like to know how much leeway I have over him for negotiating purposes. How much does the law support the renter?

I know a lawyer that specializes in that but he is $$$

Btw Spectrum if you settle somewhere a bit west or north-west of where you are you can find much more defensible environments. Why be so close to Newark?

forks I don't know anything about jersey landlord tenant and I don't want to commit legal malpractice. Anything I told you would just be from the internet anyway.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/13/dont_vote_for_cory_booker/

yay

lucky me, they're doing polling at a school right outside my apartment. i'm going to vote for rush holt. booker's the wrong kind-of democrat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/realestate/meanwhile-in-jersey-city.html
it's all downhill from here

Or maybe the nytimes means Queens?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/realestate/costly-rents-push-brooklynites-to-queens.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Next week it'll be yonkers.

Can't believe they used that photo! That statue is like the funniest in-joke in Jersey City. I used to take people to see it b/c they didn't believe me.

that statue is in appallingly bad taste.

NYCers, please stay out.

i have mixed feelings about that statue -- glad it exists, but it is bizarre.

p. sure JC's charter expressly forbids ~entertaining nite lyfe~

this article is basically because fulop has connections i think

probably right but couple of things are starting to percolate around here over the past year

yeah but JC's perennial pending resurgence has been noted so many times that its dormant potential has become its defining narrative (the city's been cheap and accessible and unpretentious for so long precisely b/c its residents have insistently declined attempts to establish ~NYC culture~ that would essentially destroy it's raison d'etre even while raising its pulse above torpid). (11,000 new housing units in the pipeline obv suggest cultural upheaval via market forces, but I've also seen a fair amount of these new multi-unit monstrosities almost pitch black at night).

xp

higher prices are inevitable given NYC's real estate trajectory, but I'm not sold on the stale gloss being hustled again.

i'm looking for an apartment out here and a nice, grown up 1bedroom at 1750 is nowhere to be found

I've had four apartments in the downtown area, but I haven't looked for a rental f/ years. (prices f/ property tho have been stagnant since the RE bubble popped, but I have noticed some of the larger buildings tenaciously clinging to their prices despite numerous empty units). $1750 admittedly seems high f/ a one-bedroom but it obv depends on yr criteria f/ ~nice and grown up~ (also JC's currency is p. cyclical compared to the more rigid arcs of NYC, maybe yr caught in a temporary upswing? idk).

i think that post-sandy everyone wants to rent and no one wants to own. There are about six for sale signs on each block out here. condos near public transit start at 2k+ for a 1br

no yr right, iirc NYC is experiencing the same upward pressure on rental prices. (I'm just curmudgeonly waving away JC's played cultural renaissance pitch, nothing to see here, move along).

i'm not arguing it's played; i heard the same schtick when i moved here a decade ago. but damned if it don't look like it's kinda taking root finally. not that i'm pleased exactly.

i moved to Hoboken in 1998, and talk about JC's resurgence was rife back then too (as well as "evidence" that it wasn't just some will o' the wisp/typical realtor bullshit). so i'll believe when i see it (to wit: when it's too late to jump in and make a mint)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/realestate/24hunt.html
^five years old now.
i'm friends with these guys, their great dane died unfortunately. sweet dog.

oh no i agree like everything feels a bit 'nicer' each year but its so gradual you barely notice. but there are these storefronts that seem to keep trying to get ahead of the curve, and have a succession of things like 8$ organic juices that just are not going to cut it, and eventually either they become another pizza and wings shop or office space. worst 'old jersey is going away' moment for me lately was europa deli having to close up.

Didn't they reopen? I thought they just renovated? Totally agree on the dipshittery of eight buck juice places. Plus they are generally poorly managed! My ex calls jersy city "the and of the half assed idea".

they renovated and reopened and then one day there was an eviction notice up and now they're gone entirely. at one point before they folded, they started smoking their own salmon on occasion. it was the freshest smoked salmon i've had.

yeah forks I don't think you're ~rong~ or w/e, I mean, sure, there's Barcade and the bike shop and a handful of new restaurants and the goddamn family circus obstacle course at the Grove Street PATH entrance and how can I forget Lucky 7 next door which proudly hosts the worst garage rock in the Tri-State, but it's just a hodgepodge of misc. venues w/o any real traction. (waiting to see if JC will do anything interesting with the ~Powerhouse Arts District~ or will look to emulate WALDO's heroic transformation from thriving art community to noxious condo cluster).

that sucks about europa, i rarely pass by there but i was happy they were there.
we need a music venue very badly. one appears to be coming soon.

RIP Uncle Joe's

Didn't Uncle Joe's close years ago?

Anyway, came to post this, which my friends make:

http://www.drivingjersey.com/drivingjersey.com/Home.html

It seems the real Bridgegate story may be in Hoboken

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/mayor-christie-camp-held-sandy-money-hostage

i'm starting to smell prison

Governor Chris Christie today announced that New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox will transition back to the private sector by the end of the month, when NJDOT Deputy Commissioner Joseph Bertoni will take over as Acting Commissioner.

A prominent Democrat who worked for both former Governor James McGreevey and former Senator Bob Torricelli, Fox worked as a lobbyist for United Airlines prior to going to the Christie Administration, and prior to the resignation of a United Airlines CEO amid a federal probe of the Bridgegate scandal.

WNYC’s Matt Katz reported earlier this week that while a lobbyist, “Fox tried to influence Democrats in the Legislature to back off from its investigation of the mysterious lane closures at the George Washington Bridge in the fall of 2013, according to three sources from the Legislature and Port Authority close to the investigation.”

http://politickernj.com/2015/10/christie-fox-done-as-dot-commissioner/

Cory Booker's cutesy pandering to HRC crowd at today's rally makes me want to fwow up on him weal bad

@KattyKayBBC
Cory Booker - Teddy Roosevelt was wrong it's not a man we need in the arena, it's a woman.

@dick_nixon
The Navy has a name for this sort of thing.

Jennifer Epstein‏@jeneps
Cory Booker: "I hate to contradict Bon Jovi but, dear God, Hillary Clinton you give love a good name"

@pareene
Ppl shouldn't get rich as the country falls into crisis, I agree with the failed Newark mayor who became a millionaire thru a sham startup

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/07/christie_pictured_at_island_beach_state_park_durin.html#incart_river_home

People hoping to visit Island Beach State Park this holiday weekend were not allowed in because of the state government shutdown Gov. Chris Christie ordered amid the state budget standoff in Trenton.

But there was one family there: Christie's. They are using the summer beach house provided by the state for a weekend down the Shore.

And here are exclusive aerial photos by NJ Advance Media showing Christie surrounded by wife Mary Pat and others.

It was taken early Sunday afternoon before the governor headed to Trenton to hold another news conference about the shutdown.

it's not often that you get a shot of the governor looking up at the helicopter camera

Christie's money quote this weekend was "You're lookin' at Mr. Reasonable."

He must be trying to sink his approval ratings as low as possible. #embracethedisgrace

"as saltwater taffy shortages continue across the state a life-sized taffy sculpture of the governor's wife was wheeled into his mansion"

— slackbot (@pareene) July 2, 2017

Chris Christie: From Here to Eternity pic.twitter.com/Rxf6uZhjLW

— Nell Scovell (@NellSco) July 3, 2017

Normandy Beach #NeverForget pic.twitter.com/dRx4HJoRpk

— Edel Rodriguez (@edelstudio) July 3, 2017

And here I was thinking that purposefully creating traffic on the GWB was the height of douchebaggery...

ICYMI

In bombshell testimony that’s likely to dog the Christie administration in its final months, NJ Transit’s fired chief compliance officer said Friday he was forced out with little explanation after his repeated attempts to raise questions about systemic issues at the troubled agency, which he called a “runaway train.”...

Particularly troublesome to lawmakers were the issues of patronage hiring, which they have been looking at closely since last year. NJ Transit has been unable to provide resumes for numerous top staffers and officials could not explain why it had been unable to locate any such records.

http://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2017/08/25/fired-nj-transit-executive-says-agency-is-runaway-train-114153

https://explorepartsunknown.com/new-jersey/bourdains-field-notes-new-jersey/

thanks,going to watch that one again tonight!

:(

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/trenton-arts-festival-mass-shooting-leaves-20-injured.html

Today, I signed historic legislation to protect reproductive freedom in New Jersey – codifying the right to choose into state law and expanding contraception coverage.

In New Jersey, we trust each individual person to make their reproductive choices for themselves. pic.twitter.com/5fOb6azXIa

— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) January 13, 2022