defend the indefensible: new jersey

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.