DRIVING JERSEY: HAMMONTON
DRIVING JERSEY: THE PINE BARRENS
DRIVING JERSEY: GINO VALENTI
DRIVING JERSEY: TATTOO GURU
What we discovered is that tattoo, despite all the sound and fury in much of the imagery, is actually a delicate walk, an introspect into permanence and representation and ultimately, a very intimate brief encounter with someone who marks you for life.
The Pines Barrens, the cradle of the Piney culture is an anomaly in the Eastern part of the United States. It is the largest untouched wilderness east of the Mississippi. In the late 1970s, fears of urban sprawl prompted Congress to pass an Act to protect the Pines and today the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve contains approximately 1,100,000 acres of land, and occupies 22% of New Jersey's land area.
These simple farmers knew a thing or two about the immensity of life because they too created it, from the seed to the soil to the sun and they were humble before the power of existence and we believe there is no higher intention, no better reason for religion, for faith and no finer practice of both than being in awe together.
It's something about the under-dog, the believer, the dreamer in him that connects him to the state for me. He is a lifer. He has never given up on his fantasy and he has tasted it from time to time, enough anyway, that at 76 years old he is still reaching for it.
DRIVING JERSEY: LORD WHIMSY
Whimsy introduced himself as Allen, Allen Crawford and Lady Pinkwater as Susan. When our AD Ryan Bott walked in and said "hey, Lord Whimsy, I'm Ryan," He smirked charmingly and said, "you can call me Allen." He is indeed as noble looking in person as he is in photographs, yet in the flesh he comes off more as a cross between Wallace Shawn and Kermit the Frog.
The boardwalk culture of Seaside has always intrigued me for its innocence and indulgence. There is no denying that the boards and beaming neon, the games and food, the bars and beaches invite families and fools for love and lust, alike.
DRIVING JERSEY: SEASIDE HEIGHTS
For over a decade Helbing has been leading a weekly weekend hike of 15 to 20 miles around the state. He welcomes all hikers. Participants come from as far south as Delaware and far north as Vermont. The day we caught up with Helbing, there were some 25 others along for the adventure. And he gets paid nothing for this.
DRIVING JERSEY: MIKE HELBING
Who isn't fascinated by gypsy culture and bellydance? It's the mystery stuff of childhood stories and legends. It's a romantic vision of life. It's ancient and biblical. It's a free and freewheeling rambling culture and art. Anyone who has ever paused on the way to the office or to school or even to home and heard the faint sounds of distant music and smelled the sweet scent of lilacs or incense in the air, and thought to deviate, to follow and investigate, knows the lure of the lore of this sort of "freedom."
DRIVING JERSEY: TRIBAL DANCE
ARTS
The Barnegat Inlet has been the scene of many wrecks and mishaps through out the centuries and even today. The work of a towboat team can surely be treacherous, but there is a flipside...on this beautiful, clear uneventful September day we were treated to that other angle, the long, sometimes monotonous hours shared between a captain and mate.
DRIVING JERSEY: THE BALLAD OF LIGHT BLUE AND BURGANDY
DRIVING JERSEY: JAKE IN WINTER
We ran into D’Arcangelo at the docks, as he was preparing to go out fishing and trolling the water around the bay jetties for shrimp. It was below freezing with winds gusting to 30 mph, D’Arcangelo laughed when I suggested it might be too cold for him to wade waist deep in the chop around the lighthouse. He muttered something about appreciating life through experiencing all earth’s conditions and jumped in.
DRIVING JERSEY: COWTOWN
RODEO
When the idea came up to travel down to Pilesgrove, to take in the Rodeo, I took the opportunity...as much to re-imagine how the West fit into my childhood, as it was to find out how it fits into New Jersey today.
Driving Jersey has been visiting school kids and school teachers, not to discuss budget cuts and slings and arrows, but to appreciate the institution and wonder of learning. DRIVING JERSEY: LESSONS LEARNED is a conversation of that celebration.
DRIVING JERSEY: LESSONS LEARNED PREVIEW
"Born To Run" had come out two years earlier and Bruce had already had his face on the cover of Newsweek and Time Magazine in the same week, but there was still something of the rising star, the local-boy makes-good about him. The best kept secret was already being shouted from the rooftops, but the locals were still holding on. The stories that were later told about "that night" in Red Bank are part of the pantheon of Jersey rock history.
DRIVING JERSEY: BRUCE
In Jersey we have an almost tragic love affair with summer. Despite the disturbance and delays it causes, Jerseyans embrace the summer enthusiastically and madly love it until the bitter days of September when karma catches up again, and snatches it from us for all the complaining we’ve done about summer’s children, tourists, shoebies. We can and will spend the next three seasons regretting, looking forward to and talking about...summer...our greatest love...the one we can’t live with or without. Driving Jersey thought we could all use a reminder of the good times we've all shared with our old love SUMMER. This is a treat to help you through, a preview of our upcoming episode Driving Jersey: Summer.
Photography by DJ Contributor: Marc Steiner
DRIVING JERSEY: MOUNT ZION
Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Eatontown was built between 1845 and 1846. James K. Polk was President. Abraham Lincoln was just setting up his law practice. It is the oldest church in Eatontown. Prior to the construction of the church, outdoor prayer meetings were held in the area, which for many years was called "Little Africa" or "Negro Hill."
Used to be wives and girlfriends stood on the sidelines while their men swung clubs, rackets or bats. Their concern then was for the bruises, broken bones and injured egos of their men, today, because of a resurgence in the popularity of the sport of Roller Derby, the shoe is on the other foot...because she’s the one wearing skates...and a helmet and shoulder and knee pads. She’s the one with the bruises and the broken bones.
Created and popularized some seventy years ago, Roller Derby went through a long period of lull largely because of fan fatigue over the scripted antics that dominated the sport at the time. In the contemporary form, games, or bouts, as they are called in derby, are displays of grace and athleticism where skill, timing and strategy decide the outcome. And the new form of derby has created a bit of a seachange in small town sports. Teams have sprung up all over the state and it’s mom who needs time to practice and to hang out with her friends.
In Red Bank a wife and mother decided she wanted to roll, but because of an already busy schedule, the only way to fit it in was to start from scratch and to start her own team, so she could design practice schedules to suit hers. Stacie
Rivera formed the Red Bank Roller Vixens. When she discovered that her husband, fire fighter Jeff Rivera, had old school skating skills from his days of 1980’s street hockey, she invited him to join the fun. He quickly became the team’s coach and mentor. Today, this husband and wife form the nucleus of one of Jersey’s newest derby teams.
Driving Jersey spent some time with the Vixens and also got to know the players from another derby league, the Jersey Shore Roller Girls. Both stories will be part of Driving Jersey’s upcoming, first season on public television. Enjoy this sneak peak and stay tuned for the full episode.
DRIVING JERSEY: THE HOLIDAY DRIVE was shot in Union City, Weehawken, Hoboken, Princeton, Middletown, Red Bank, Long Beach Island, Eatontown and Tinton Falls.
SANTA CLAUS from DRIVING JERSEY: THE HOLIDAY DRIVE was inspired by DJ Director Steve Rogers’ daughter’s discovery of the reality of Santa Claus. When asked by his daughter why we lie to kids about something as magnificent as St. Nick, Rogers turned the question on the public and discovered a variety of responses to the difficult question. “The whole notion of a huge let-down from belief in something so trusted reminded me,” Rogers said, “of the sense of disillusionment that pervades in our society today. Finding words of wisdom to crystallize good intentions, that would also soothe my child’s sorrow, and preserve her sense of wonder was on my mind through out. There is inspiration and encouragement in the idea that the magic was and is always with and within us and not in the North Pole or on Wall Street.”
Enjoy SANTA CLAUS and ask yourself what if there were no Santa Claus and all the gifts to kids simply represented an expression of love from the giver.
This holiday season we at Driving Jersey decided to travel the state to connect with as many people as we could, to ask them seasonal questions, but there’s no escaping the fact that many Jerseyans and Americans are living through difficult times and the holidays would therefore be different.
The theme, then, of our questions were of WANT and NEED. Our intention was to find out what people wanted and what they needed, and if there is a difference. The responses we got proved overwhelming, both in the distinction of want and need and also in the emotionality of our subject’s desires and plans for the holidays. Presents of possessions were low on lists and quiet together time with family and friends was the order of the day. This year it appears many people are having themselves a merry LITTLE Christmas with hopes that next year all our troubles will, indeed, be miles away.
HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE was written over 150 years ago by Stephen Foster and as Driving Jersey contributor Jon Francis notes, "it could've been written today...it could've been written two thousand years ago." Its lament has been shared over the centuries by the downtrodden...and all who hear its intention surely wish that hard times would indeed come again no more, but there is also something hopeful in it...listen for it...it's the empowerment even unto the sad and lowly that there is some hopeful power still present within that can turn away tragedy and despair simply by saying it...it is what keeps us going.
HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE, in Foster's words, is "a sigh...a wail...a dirge” beckoning the haves to consider the have-nots and these days...at this time of year it is a holiday carol that should be on the mind, if not on the lips of all.
Enjoy Jon Francis’ rendition of this carol and consider the thoughts of the many who still seek mirth and beauty despite hard times.
The Cinnamon Snail, the brainchild, fathered by Adam Sobel first hit the road in February of 2010 and has been serving healthy, socially conscious gourmet meals and deserts around New Jersey ever since. Sobel, himself, is a character ripe for recounting. He is something of a mixed media artist, what used to be referred to as a renaissance man.
DRIVING JERSEY: CINNAMON SNAIL
