Can't say I'm a fan of our governor, and I honestly don't know anything about the record of his judicial nominee Sohail Mohammed, but there's nothing I can do but applaud Gov. Christie's defense of the man against attacks based on his religion. Check out this video, as Christie restrains himself from straight-out saying, "Seriously? Why are you wasting my time with this bullshit?":
Last night, Kathy & I went to a screening of the east coast premiere of Tim Sullivan's horror-comedy 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams. Tim's a Metuchen guy, and he came back to him hometown (and the Forum Theatre) to debut his most recent gorefest.
And a festival it is: The town of Pleasant Valley, Georgia, holds an annual "Guts 'n' Glory Jamboree" in which northerners are duped into their little town and are murdered and eaten as payback for the slaughter of 2001 town residents during the Civil War. (Oops, sorry, the War Between the States. Please don't eat me, cannibal Confederates.) But this year, when the sheriff decides not to allow the Jamboree to continue, the band of creepy hicks and inbreds (led by The Devil's Regects' Bill Moseley and Lin Shaye from There's Something About Mary, who plays the deliciously overt-the-top Granny) decides to take its slaughtershow on the road. Which is how they encounter the cast and crew of Road Rascals, a thinly veiled mockup of Paris Hilton & Nicole Ritchie's The Simple Life, stuck in Iowa with two flat tires.
After circling the crew of Yankees (though as one guy points out, they're really from California) like sharks for a while, the Maniacs start killing them one by one, and then, eventually, in packs. I like a horror movie with a large cast -- there's plenty of people that can die, instead of killing the same poor schlubs over and over.
One thing about this movie: Leave any sense of racial and gender sensitivity at the door. I mean, it's a horror movie, so human dignity really isn't on the agenda. Everyone here, Maniac and Hollywood creep alike, is a stereotype, or is treated as one by the Maniacs. Part of that is just the obviousness of the writing (horror isn't a genre that rewards subtlety), and part is because Sullivan clearly enjoys poking a finger where it hurts. Some of this is eye-rolling; other parts are quite a bit more unsettling. When a black man participates in a carnival-style lynching of a black woman -- not because she's black, but because she's a northerner, though when someone says "northerner," they're cautioned not to use the "N-word" -- you know that Sullivan is deliberately crossing as many lines as he can, just to see what he can get away with. And all the while, you're watching thinking "he's not really going to do this, is he? He can't do that!" And for a moment you think Sullivan has pulled away from it at the last minute, and you realize that the reprieve doesn't make it better. And then...
Good day today; we got my bike back in shape (air in tires, oil on chain), rode our bikes into town to pick up some stuff from the hardware store and get some iced coffee (and to remind me how easy it is), and then rode around a little cemetery in Metuchen with an awesome gravestone. I'll try to get a photo soon. Then came home (I made it up the hill pretty well, considering I haven't ridden my bike in a year -- straight and relatively speedy, but once I got into the driveway I was a panting, sweating mess.).
Since then, I've cleaned off the grill and put the screen doors in. And bought a few new parts for the grill, since the heat shield is literally being heled together by rust and ash. I picked it up to clean it, and part of it crumbled in my hand.
But: BBQ pork chops tonight! Let the deliciousness begin!
Rob
Just got back from a screening of The White Ribbon, a film by Michael Haneke about a small village in Germany in the early 1910s. Strange, malicious events are happening in the town -- a horse trips on some invisible wire strung across a road, injuring its rider; a barn burns down; a child is tortured -- and no one knows who's doing these things, or why. The events of the movie seem like they're part of a whodunnit, but there's something else going on. Haneke exploits our natural curiosity about who would do such things, and instead seems to be saying that anyone might have. Some blame is laid at the feet of the town's children, but which ones? Could it be all of them?
Never have I heard a "Hallelujah" sound so ugly.
We were in the overflow room of the NJ State Senate in Trenton, waiting for the vote on the marriage equality act, which would have given same-sex couples the right to marry. We'd listened to a number of speeches about the bill, some of them excellent. We'd spent the morning in the cold, holding up signs and singing. The afternoon we spent tracking one particular senator in the hope that she could be persuaded to have the courage and foresight to buck her party affiliation and vote yes (like her colleague, Bill Baroni). And then, there we were, listening to speech after speech, explaining why the senators were voting for the bill (Baroni gave an excellent one, as did Senators Ray Lesniak, Nia Gill, M. Teresa Ruiz, and my senator Barbara Buono) or against it (these speeches were uniformly wrongheaded, but the standout was Sean Kean's craven "I love the gays, everyone should have some in their neighborhoods because they really spruce them up, but I won't let them marry, and stop calling me a bigot or afraid of a primary challenge" speech, that at times had the coherence of a reading of a Scrabble board.).
As the senators for equality spoke, there were regular explosions of applause... but short bursts, as the crowd wanted to hear what was said next. There were more frequent -- and much smaller -- bursts of applause for the anti-equality Senators, from an enthusiastic contingent on the other side of the room from us. (Applauding more often wasn't a problem; there weren't enough of them to drown out the speeches they liked.)
Then came the vote. I'd been expecting a voice vote, like the white-knuckle experience I'd had watching CNN at 1 in the morning a few weeks ago to see the U.S. Senate pass healthcare reform. Instead, the vote was represented in scoreboard form. 14 to 19 in favor of the antis... and then a 20th vote against. The equality bill was defeated.
And then, upon hearing it declared that her fellow citizens would not be allowed to marry the people they love, some woman across the room shouted, "Hallelujah."
I can picture her, years from now, looking back with regret on her joy at this moment. Sitting with her grandchildren, all of whom have grown up knowing married, same-sex couples and their children. Kids who have grown up with marriage equality as the fact that it soon will be, no matter the cowardice of the senators who abstained, no matter the calculations of those who weighed their own political careers against securing rights for their fellow citizens. All of that will have faded into the past, and women and men will have long been free to marry each other, and the world will have kept turning. Change will have come, and brought countless couples into each other's arms.
And she'll think of this day, way back in 2010, when she was foolish enough to praise God for standing in the way of love.
Rob
Over at Center of NJ Life, Sharon writes why she is going to Trenton tomorrow. Geoff at Gay in Public eloquently, and regularly, expresses why he is going to Trenton tomorrow.
The nuts and bolts of it is here: The NJ State Senate is voting on marriage equality tomorrow, and we're going to show our numbers and to speak to legislators before the vote, to urge them to vote for an equal right to marriage.
And I've been thinking of saying why I'm going to Trenton tomorrow, but I can't narrow it down to one reason. So here's a handful of them. It'll probably come as no surprise that a few of them are selfish.
1. I like weddings, and I don't want to wait until my nieces and nephews and my friends' kids are grown to go to more of them. But most of my straight friends are already married.
2. I don't like exclusive, segregated clubs. And as a spouse, I belong to one: The Married People of America. It's not a club I'm willing to quit, so it's on me to help open the doors for everyone. (Luckily, they've already started opening, and momentum is on our side.)
3. I want to see my friends happy, and treated equally under the law.
4. I want to see people I don't even know happy, and treated equally under the law.
5. I want to see my enemies miserable, and treated equally under the law.
6. I'm an American, and believe that each of us was created equal. Any law, any regulation, and any tradition that doesn't recognize that equality is unacceptable. We can do better.
And tomorrow, we will.
See you in Trenton.
Rob
I found this link on my friend Geoff's Gay in Public blog: a calling tool which finds and connects you with your state senator, so you can tell them how you feel about marriage equality. I just called the office of my senator, Barbara Buono, and urged her to support S1967, which would legalize same-sex marriage in New Jersey. With Christie on his way in as governor, Thursday's vote might be the last serious chance to pass this bill and get it approved for a few years. And people shouldn't have to wait that long to get married.
As for the Courage Campaign's calling tool, it's excellent. Before I called, I looked around, trying to find info on where Sen. Buono stood on the issue. I could have saved myself the trouble, since before placing the call, it a) confirmed that Sen. Buono is my district's senator, and b) told me that her position on the issue is "unknown." Hopefully, my call (and yours, and yours) will help convince her to take a stand for equality, on the right side of history. (I should also note that before the call connected with her office, there was a recording from the courage campaign with some brief coaching on how to approach the call. It's all easy as pie.)
So call today. And call tomorrow. Even if you're not gay, this is important. None of us are free until we all are free.
Update: The vote's been postponed. Fingers crossed.
Rob
Well, the NJ governor's race is over, and look who we got. Needless to say, I'm disappointed. It wasn't so much that I wanted Corzine to win; what I wanted was for Christie to lose. But a lack of enthusiasm for Corzine pretty much inevitable translated into a Christie win.
So we'll likely have four more years of Republicans trying their solutions to the budget and economic crisis, most likely causing an even bigger mess for the next Dem in office. Good luck to him, but I don't expect much good to come of this.
Anyway, I'm trying to look at the upside, and the main one I see is this: Political blogging could suddenly become a lot more fun for me again.
I was gonna vote for Corzine for gov, and I'm still planning to, but I just got a call that started out as a regular poll, but then became an excuse to list a bunch of unpleasant things about Chris Christie. (They didn't mention his 2002 ticketless accident for driving the wrong way down a one-way street, where he was not only not charged, but given a lift to his office as U.S. Attorney, but that's possibly because in the middle of the list, I said "If you're gonna ask about the traffic accident thing, I'm strongly opposed to that too.") From what I could tell, they're all true, and most of them were about policy issues, but I had the distinct impression that my answers weren't nearly as important to them as my listening to their questions.
There's not a chance I'd vote for Christie anyway, but I can't say this is a tactic I'm fond of.
Rob
Hey, remember a few years ago, when I was excited about a local production of a theatrical version of A Clockwork Orange? Something derailed the production then, but now it's back, set for mid-October at Middlesex County College (in conjunction with Metuchen booksellers & cultural hub The Raconteur). Auditions are scheduled for next Monday and Tuesday, Sept 14 & 15. Details are here.
Rob
Well, first of all, actually it was a groundhog. But I'd been calling it the hedgehog for an hour or two before I realized that, so I've decided to name him Hedgehog the Groundhog.
Anyway, here's how the speedy little bugger got into our downstairs bathroom.
As part of a burst of much-needed housecleaning in the event we were having some friends over, Kathy was taking some recyclables out to the recyclable can. There were a few items left, so I gathered up the beer bottle, peanut butter jar, marinara sauce container and diet coke can and elbowed the screen door open to follow her.
The moment I had that door open, suddenly something low and fuzzy streaked by me at my feet, brushing past my legs and slamming heavily into the screen door. It ricocheted off the door just like a pool ball might, taking the angle of least resistance and making a beeline into the house, all to a loud chorus of "What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?" Seriously, if you'd been in our driveway at that moment, you'd have thought you'd pulled up to the International House of What the Fuck.
Now, the little guy was just as freaked out as Kathy and I, and probably terrified, to boot. He was standing on his hind legs in the corner behind the toilet, his front paws against the wall, like he was expecting to be patted down and read his Miranda rights. I closed the door for a moment; I didn't want him going anywhere until I figured out what to do.
Luckily, a solution was at hand. We have a foldable gate that we use to keep the ferrets away from the screen door during the spring and summer when we keep it open. I unfolded the gate to its full length, and it turned out to be just the right size to funnel our squat intruder from the bathroom to the back door, and back into nature (which, incidentally, is the World Under Our Deck).
Having set up the gate, I opened the bathroom door. But Hedgehog wasn't going anywhere.
Rather than wait for him to decide the coast was clear and he could leave, I got a long broom-handle that we use to screw into paint rollers and went back into the bathroom. I poked him with it, gently, but that just seemed to send him even further into the corner. Undeterred, I poked indirectly around the other side of the toilet -- sliding the knocked-over toilet brush that was back there into him. Now, with something coming at him from the corner, the groundhog spooked once more, and bolted for the great outdoors. Or maybe he was just grossed out. It was a toilet brush, after all.
Since our brush with nature, the bathroom has been very avidly cleaned by Kathy, and I have learned to look both ways before leaving my house.
Rob
A local bookstore whose name I have a hard time spelling, The Raconteur, is presenting a live performance of The Maltese Falcon as a radio play tonight at 8. Which is awesome in and of itself, but complementary wine seals the deal.
Rob
I'm not sure what you've got going on tonight, but if you're in the Princeton area, I'd suggest heading to Looking Glass Pond at 7:30 to see the Epiphany Project. EP is the duo of Bet Williams and John Hodian, and I've long been a fan of their music. And to be honest, I have their newest album, Hin Dagh, and have been meaning to write about it for a while now. But time's slipped away from me while I was collecting my thoughts, and suddenly they're in town tomorrow. (They're also at Drom in NYC on Friday the 21 and the Tin Angel in Philly on the 23rd.)
(You can hear samples of the tracks here, by the way. Listen, you'll be enveloped.)
At any rate, my job hunt/freelancing got away from me today, or else you'd see a review of the album in this space. But I wanted to give a heads-up in case you're able to make it to one of these shows. You won't regret it. As good as they sound on disc, in person Epiphany Project is jaw-dropping.
Rob
At some point during the evening, I decided I’d go home Saturday night. I missed Kathy. I missed the ferrets. And heck, I admit it... I missed crawfish.
This weekend was also the 19th annual Crawfish Fest at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in NJ, and we’d planned to go since before I knew when Wizard World was. Kathy and our pals Jay and Nicole considered going Saturday, but the forecast called for Hell’s Own Hailstorm, so they postponed till Sunday—leaving me the opening to join them.
Sunday was gorgeous—sunny, but with enough breeze to keep somewhat cool (although around 2-4, I did feel myself baking a little). There was great music there, and delicious food. Let’s cover the food first: jambalaya, crawfish bread, boiled crawfish (here’s me sucking the head of a mudbug), po-boys (I had a flat-out magnificent fried catfish po-boy), black-bottom pecan pie, bread pudding with praline sauce, pheasant/duck/andouille gumbo, and even some stuff that we didn’t try. Oh, the eating was good. And plentiful.
And the music! When we arrived, Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners were tearing it up. Then there was Bonerama, a brass funk band that erects a wall of sound from their 4 trombones, tuba and rhythm section. And when they play Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” or Led Zeppelin’s “Ocean” (as they did yesterday), you realize that brass really IS a heavy metal.
There was Railroad Earth, kind of a folky/blues jam band. Really accomplished musicians, and great to listen to. I took off for the shade while they were on, but my ears still got a treat even when I couldn’t see the stage.
Finally, there was Allen Toussaint. The man is a miracle, a genius, a national treasure. Between performing, writing and producing, he’s put more hits on the charts than I can count, from long before I was born. He’s the Will Eisner of pop music: so much of its DNA is his creation, and what he didn’t create, he perfected. And seeing him play piano, you realize it is as natural to him as breathing. I can’t imagine the hours of effort it must have taken to make it seem so effortless. Kathy and I were up near the stage, dancing all the while. At one point he played a medley of “A Certain Girl,” “Mother-In-Law,”* “Working in a Coal Mine” and “The Fortune Teller,” which he could easily have titled “Four Reasons Why You Love Me.” He's way too classy for that, though, so I'm doing it for him.
All in all, pretty much the definition of a good weekend.
Rob
*Have I told the story of how I met Ernie K-Doe here? I'll do that, and see if I can find the photo I have of him, his wife Antoinette, and a 12-years(!)-younger me.
As I was riding the elevator the other day, the little news screen had the headline: 11-year-old Critical After Shooting. "Of course I'm critical!" he said. "I was freakin' shot. Get off your asses and catch the guy!"
The other day I saw a guy doing pull-ups on some of NYC's ubiquitous scaffolding. I wasn't impressed with his strength so much as his willingness to touch the crossbar with his bare hands in sub-zero weather.
Later on that day, I was driving home from the train station and was stopped by an apartment complex. I could see into one of the apartments, and at first I thought the people inside were playing ping-pong. Then I got a better look: One guy was had a cricket bat and the other guy was bowling to him. If they move cricket indoors, you know it's cold.
Tonight we stopped at a pet store, and I noticed in the shopping center a liquor store: Wine Country/Liquor City. Good they they didn't switch that geography around, eh?
Rob
One thing I forgot to mention. Not long after Kathy and I settled into our beach chairs yesterday, a seagull flew by and crapped right on my cheek and shoulder. It felt like a hot glob of sunscreen. I couldn’t see it, so I’ve no idea what it looked like.
I handled this with my usual aplomb, shouting “Ugh! I’ve been shat on!” then trying to do a preliminary wipe of my face with sand before making a mad dash into the ocean. I don’t think I’ve ever gone from dry to submerged so fast.
Bleah.
Rob
As I mentioned, I was planning to be away for a few days. And I have been, although not entirely as I expected.
Kathy and I had planned to spend Wednesday through Saturday in Sea Isle City with my family, and had managed to get enough work out of the way to make that possible. But then Kathy’s grandmother fell ill. She passed away on Monday.
I don’t have as much to say about her as I should. She was a nice lady, and one whom I wish I knew better than I did. Mostly I know her from the love that Kathy and her family have for her, and the stories they tell about her.
Kathy, of course, had a really hard week of it. We originally planned to go to the shore anyway, and come back when arrangements were made, but come Tuesday night, Kathy couldn’t bring herself to go, and I couldn’t blame her. She told me to go anyway, but I wasn’t going to leave her feeling so bad. So we stayed in and I tried to keep her mind off things by watching 50 First Dates*, the Drew Barrymore/Adam Sandler romantic comedy. I decided I would go into work on Wednesday and use my vacation day for another time. (By this point we knew there’d be viewings Thursday afternoon and evening, and then a funeral Friday morning.)
But come Wednesday, as I was showering for work, I couldn’t see the point in going in. I’d specifically taken care of things so I wouldn’t have to be at work, so why go? Plus, as much as this pains me to say, I missed my family. So I checked with sleeping Kathy to see if she’d like to go to the beach just for the day, and she said no. So—after she assured me several times that it was fine with her if I went—I headed south.
And had a great day at the beach with most of my brothers, my sister, various bro-and-sis-in-laws, and my nephews and niece. I got to bring my superhero-loving nephews a complete set of the 1991 Marvel Super Hero trading cards, so the boys were holding up cards of the Mandarin’s Rings and saying “What does this do?” Plus, I spent a lot of time in the ocean riding waves with my brothers, and some more playing in shallower waves with my oldest nephew. Top it off with crab cakes and grilled corn on the cob, and it was a really nice day. I got home at around midnight (not much traffic on the parkway late Wednesday night), and Kathy seemed better off for her time alone, too. I’m afraid that at times like these, sometimes I’m not good for much more than distraction (hello Mr. Sandler) and a shoulder to cry on.
Thursday and Friday were the services, and I’d rather not talk too much about them; they’re really not my story to tell. Although I should note that Kathy’s grandmother, named Grace, sure got name-checked a lot in the ceremony. Sometimes it was difficult knowing whether the priest meant big-G Grace or little-g grace. (Or does little-g grace take a big G when it's the Big G's Grace, after all? God is a copy editor's nightmare, believe you me.) Later, Kathy and I talked about having a kid and naming him “Amen” – or even better, “Please B. Seated.” That’d be an active service.
When all was said and done, Kathy really wanted to go to the beach. So on Saturday, we headed down to Seaside and had what pretty much qualifies as a prefect day down there. We spent a wonderful afternoon on the beach and in the ocean, tackling enormous—ENORMOUS!—waves that were breaking way too close to shore, and letting them fire us into the sand like bullets. Sometimes the waves broke one after another with such force they could knock a person down who’d up until a moment before been standing shin-deep in water. It happened to both of us, knocking us over and then dragging us across the sand.
Afterward, a walk down the Seaside boardwalk yielded a dozen oysters, pizza, Midway steaks, and even crepes. And I had a couple of great games of video Deal or No Deal—a brilliant idea!—at one of the arcades, winning a ton of tickets and having a blast doing it. And the trip home had very little traffic, even for a Saturday night. Kathy & I sang along with the Monkees' greatest hits to keep ourselves awake.
It was an amazing day, and one we both really needed.
Rob
*My sister thinks this movie had one of the saddest endings she’s ever seen. I thought it was the absolute happiest ending the story could allow – really positive and joyful.
Briefly noted: If you're going to wear a shirt that proclaims, "Yes, I know I have a great ass," then you really ought to be able to--how shall I put this?--"back that up."
Just because the tee-shirt fits, doesn't mean the tee-shirt fits.
Rob
I’m sure they’ll fix this on the main site, so I’m pasting a bit of it here for posterity. In the middle of Erica Harbatkin's coverage of the Edison election results in the Home News Tribune (mayor Jun Choi’s handpicked slate of newcomers won), something strange happens. Take a look:
EDISON — Mayor Jun Choi's slate of candidates won the Democratic council primary on Tuesday, giving the mayor control of the township's divided Democratic party.HUH?
Choi's Edison Democratic Party slate, which was full of political newcomers handpicked by the mayor, beat out the incumbents on the council and a third ticket headed by former Councilman Bill Stephens for the Democratic Party line in the November General Election.
The winning slate is composed of Washington Elementary School Principal AnnMarie Griffin-Ussak; former Edison boys baseball coach Wayne Mascola; Edison Township Education Foundation founder and President Melissa Perilstein; and Sudhanshu Prasad, an internal-medicine specialist and former chairman of JFK Medical Center's Department of Medicine.
Official numbers were not available Tuesday night because District 26 had a zero tally sheet, but results without those numbers had Griffin-Ussak with 3,607 votes, Perilstein with 3,486, Prasad with 3,500 and Mascola with 3,389.
"We started this movement two years ago and onto the diamond for the top of the sixth. But Randolph, which was down to its final strike in the sectional semifinal on May 29 and came-from-behind to win the sectional final, turned four hits, including a triple and two doubles, two walks and an Edison error into six runs.
Senior catcher Rob Kral, who homered four times in Friday's sectional final, hit a grand slam in the top of the seventh for Randolph (23-7) to conclude the scoring. Winning pitcher Steve Zavala (13-1) homered in the first at bat of the game and went 3-for-4 with four runs and three RBIs to help fuel the Morris County school's 14-hit attack…
I'm sorry to hear that the production of A Clockwork Orange I mentioned here has been postponed. I'm not sure what happened; the mailing list I'm on said the production was dealt a "sudden and temporarily debilitating blow." I have high hopes that the show will go on in mid to late winter.
Rob
