Coast clear (so far)

With no attacks before, during or after the holiday, I’m going to proceed cautiously. The blog will remain, but I’ll have to keep a close watch ….

I’m probably gonna have to take down this blog….

First, some chump hacked into my email account — and sent me a message mocking me, saying there was nothing i could do about it.

Now he’s into my blog, posting stuff that doesn’t even make sense. It looks like he’s raided everything I’d written to this point and then did a mashup of words.

So if you’ll excuse me a moment:

When I find you, and I will, you are gonna be sorry you were ever born, wise guy. Count on it.

Dad-in-waiting Steve Earle channels Townes Van Zandt uptown

A very pregnant Allison Moorer joined Steve Earle for a few songs during her husband’s two-hour acoustic show Friday night at the Society for Ethical Culture off Central Park West, a block from Lincoln Center.

The gig came during a brief respite back in their adoptive hometown, between legs of a tour promoting Earle’s new album of compositions by his hero, the late Townes Van Zandt, whose songs he’s now teaching to legions of new cultists.

Arguably America’s greatest living songwriter laughed as he noted that “Townes” has become one of his best sellers, “which in a way is discouraging cause I didn’t write any of the songs on it.”

The first song he recorded for the collection in his and Moorer’s downtown apartment off Houston Street was probably the greatest of Van Zandt’s mini-masterpieces, the classic “Pancho and Lefty.”

Earle equated it to his first day in prison (he spent a few months behind bars on a drug conviction), when he walked up to “the biggest guy in the yard” and knocked him out so he could keep his radio, “among other things.”

The “short list” of tunes he was ready to lay down numbered 35, but he got it down to 15 by following the advice of a prolific guitar maker who once told him he was able to produce a certain number of instruments by “throwing out anything that doesn’t look like a guitar.

“I guess it worked” he told the crowd in the church-like amphitheater, which has pews instead of seats, a large semi-circular stage and terrific acoustics in its catherdral-like atrium.

“I’ve always wanted to play here,” the Virginia-born, San Antonio-raised, anti-Nashville renegade said, looking up at the balcony.

Earle told stories of how Van Zandt at first intimidated him when he was starting out. Townes was one of only six or so people in a club in Houston one night, so he stage down front with his feet on the stage, wearing moccassins, heckling Earle — who had actually booked himself there in the hopes of meeting his hero.

They soon became fast friends. “My teacher,” Earle said, adding that he immediately bought his own pair of mocs. Their mini-cult of following eventually included Guy Clark, Lucinda Williams and others.

Zandt, an alcoholic and manic-depressive whose excesses somehow could never be severed from his art, had come all the way to Nashville from Texas unannounced one day when Earle came home one day, arms tattooed by needle tracks, to find him waiting.

His “teacher” then sang “Marie,” a song he’d written as an intervention for Earle.

It was easy for Earle to remember when he wrote one of his own, “(Can’t Remember If We Said) Goodbye.”

It was 15 years ago, when he finally kicked cheap street drugs, like Dilaudid and skanky heroin, he said. He cradled the song as he always does, a special treasure amid a chestful of lyrical brilliance that Springsteen himself will tell you no modern songwriter — not even Dylan — has been able to match. CONTINUED….


EXTRA: For photos and videos, go to CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM

Dead to me

Hey, Victor:

You attack the paper for violating the time-held standards of journalism, yet you trample on two of the most important: Fairness and balance.

Sorry, bud. I’d really held out hope that your soul could be salvaged, that you could look at things humanely rather than ranting like a drunk clutching his leg in an alleyway.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s tried to help keep you from being sued, which would make your situation ever worse. But you don’t seem to care.

You think I wrote what I did to try and get even with anyone? Was just trying to provide you some cover.

What’s next? Standing on Squirrelwood Road, yelling at passing journalists?

You’re on your own now, bud. Just do me a big favor and leave me out of it.

November 13, 2009 5:15 PM

 

Eye on Victor

Victor Sasson’s “Eye on the Record” seemed an amusing diversion at first.

It also gave some of us a vicarious thrill, as the Vicster lay bare the failings of a company that actually had the wherewithal to help itself but lacked the balls — or the brains — to respond when that passing fad, the Internet, took a sledgehammer to its monopoly.

One thing the Route 80 Rag has refused to do throughout the “downsizing crisis” is take responsibility for its own demise. Denial of the fullest, really. It also has made  a practice of stripping its institutional knowledge: Younger, after all,  is cheaper.

For you young’uns, Victor was a brilliant reporter in his day. As persnickety a copy editor as you’d ever find, he somehow thought the job description also gave him the right to exercise his opinions on stories — sometimes in the very headlines he wrote — instead of pushing commas. When the music stopped at his particular unit, he was without a chair. So after clearing out his work station, he filed his complaints, got a real nice food blog going, then apparently decided to stalk his former employer online.

Alas, the cranky fucker’s 401k didn’t include a sense of humor.

At first, “Eye on The Record” was dead-on. But pithy observations quickly turned into pissy complaints. “They suck. They suck. They suck.” I tried warning him early, but it was already too late: He’d transformed into the old guy in the window: “Hey you kids. Get away from that car!!!”

I know you’re broken and you been hurt, my friend. Show me somebody who ain’t. But at some point, dinner buddies let your calls go to voicemail if all they can expect is a retelling of what a douchebag your ex wife was. At the very least, give the paper props when deserved — it gets you some cred. And if you’re gonna redline the thing, go down to the library and read copies; don’t brag about your ex-employee’s discount and then bitch when some tired guy with a day job shortarms the morning fling and your single-bagged paper ends up in a fuckin’ puddle.

You smacked the paper for going big on the Yanks’ World Series win. Why? It’s good business, Crankopotamus. I’m a Mets fan and I think the paper nailed it.  After all, collectors’ editions don’t all have to be from the days after the Kennedy and King killings, or 911. A newspaper is not a public trust; it’s a private enterprise. If it doesn’t cover the area you live in and it doesn’t do so in the manner you wish it would, then don’t read it.  Wanna find out what’s going on out there, do what I do: TALK TO PEOPLE.

The worst, by far, is this unfair, vicious treatment of line staff who truly are trying their best to excel. Do everyone a favor, Victor Victorian: Stop pissin’ on good people, before someone ends up takin’ a Joe Ax to your Van Dusen. If I were launching my own newspaper today, they are two guys I’d fall over myself to start with (Actually, if I were launching a newspaper today, I would hope someone would dial 911 and have me involuntarily committed).

And for Christ’s sake, Victor, lay the fuck off the woman who has to create food content from scratch. Focus on the Box of Rocks lifer in the corner office — who only got HER job cause her dad worked in the print shop for, like, a thousand years — for putting the kid in that position, on her own, to begin with.

Picking on the prols serves no good purpose — especially  when you have overpaid, undereducated editors who are such easy targets.

Who didn’t tire of those Post anecdotes after the first few weeks? I swear, I’ve got more things to do in Denver when I’m dead than Andy Garcia.  If it was so great there, “Pull It, Sir” Pete, why don’tcha go back? You’ve got more years HERE now. Why not talk up the good work THESE people do, you girlie-laughin’, nubile-stalkin’ prick?

I once accompanied the skullcap-in-a-suit to a conference in Atlantic City, where someone I greatly respect and admire thought it would be a good idea to have him give a presentation to a group of prosecutors and police chiefs who gathered there essentially to get hammered, hit on chicks and ride a hard eight at the craps table. So what does Mr. Carpal Thumbs do? He shows slides of Colombine (Toward what end, I still don’t know. Neither did any of the LEOs I later spoke to). Then he shuts off the laptop and, with the big screen white behind him,  TALKS MORE ABOUT DENVER.

The grumbling actually began in the back. Like “the wave,” it made its way forward, until Sparky got the hint. Trouble was: He couldn’t get the disc out of the laptop. He asked for help, and, at one point, had the then-State Attorney General, the then-head of the FBI branch in Newark and an area prosecutor holding the laptop upside down, poking at the drawer button, quizzically looking at one another.

“You’re a computer guy, Jer,” Standthere said. “Do something.”

So I waited for them to turn their backs . Then I powered up the notebook, popped out the disc, and turned it off again. I quietly slipped the disc to Jellyfish on the side like I was handing him a bag o’ weed, then I was off like a shot for the casino bar, where I spent the rest of my night watching a bunch of cops from other parts of the state try and pick up hookers. At the end of the bar was the prosecutor of a county that shall go unnamed (let’s just say it’s south of Elizabeth). Several ladies each took a crack at him, and each time he looked up to find me still down the other end, poundin’ Crown Royal.

“You know, you’re costin’ me business,” one said to me as she fetched a roll of quarters from the bartender.

Finally, around 3 a.m., Mr. Prosecutor threw in the napkin. He walked all the way around the bar, then slapped me on the shoulder.

“Not tonight, my friend,” he says. “No story here.” Then he was gone.

See Victor? You can make your point while telling a story. You can keep readers engaged, give them a nice, soft Tootsie Roll instead of a  bucket o’ bile. Otherwise, you end up like my 3-year-old in front of the bowl — piss flyin’ everywhere (the tank, the cabinets, the floor, my leg). Little bastid thinks it a riot, but I ain’t exactly entertained, if y’know what I mean.

You can start by leavin’ the kids alone. Zero in on the unimaginative mouth breather who spends meetings wiping crumbs off the front of his shirt. Show succinctly how Chief Sitting Bullshit forgot what it means to help people (after too many years sitting inches away, I got tales that could make your head spin). And don’t forget to give the Borglings all they can handle. It is their submarine, after all.

You had the perfect anecdote when you told the story of how Corey Feldman introduced himself to most of the company employees by showing a picture of his house — only you left out the part when he said he likes to read women’s magazines cause they have lots of pictures and words he can understand.

Continue to do that and I, for one, will continue to read your blog, you crazy bastid. Find the humor in the absolute cluelessness of people paid to know what’s really going on. THEN show us how these yokels are driving that Beverly Hillbillies truck they call a newspaper right into the cee-ment pond.

Otherwise, you’re just giving everyone reason to ignore you — while granting me inside post position to tell TRUE stories of how decisions were made in the sandbox.

Trust me, my friend. I’ve got a few lulus.

Yours in unlawful termination,
jd

From rink to clink: Jailbirds say Nicole Bobek was cool

She caught a major beef when cops collared her on charges of selling meth, but ice queen Nicole Bobek gave a North Jersey pokey four stars — and even made tube tops for fellow jaibirds, a published report says.

Inmates and employees at the Kearny clink described the former figure skating champ as a model prisoner in her three days there, before her momma sprung her on $100,000 bail. Keep reading….

Family man, good friend, Mafia Wars teammate: Bye, bye, Johnny

By REGINA DeMARCO GAFFNEY

Getting into work this morning, I did my usual routine of checking emails and Facebook messages. The last thing I expected to read was that a dear friend had passed away. I knew that he was recently ill and hospitalized; however, you always think “It can’t be so bad. He’ll be fine.”

The next thing you know…he’s gone.

“Johnny-Boy” Sposato was one of those folks who I became friends with when I was five or six years old, running around the old neighborhood in North Bergen. He was a couple of years older than me and was one of those guys that was just really damn nice.

I remember how many pre-teen girls (myself included) had major crushes on him back in those

innocent days when you didn’t even really know what it meant to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. In our teenage years, I remember Johnny-Boy not being around as much, once he began driving, leaving the younger kiddies to wait until it was our turn to become cool and independent.

As people do, I lost touch with him after the high school years. Even so, there is a certain group of friends that will always remain like family in my heart, no matter how much time or distance is between us. John S. was one of those people.

Through the magic of Facebook, I was able to reconnect with him. I quickly learned that he was still the sweet, warm-hearted person from our childhood days. I also learned what a loving husband and father he was. Anyone who spoke with him, read his profile, or looked at his pictures could immediately tell that his family was his world. No one could question that his first priority was family…good Italian Catholic boy that he was.

He won’t be remembered in a service held at a huge stadium and won’t have reporters hounding his family for a picture or an interview. That’s fine, though. He will be honored and remembered by people who genuinely gave a damn about him. He will be remembered with dignity and respect.

No one ever wants to lose a loved one, family member, or cherished friend, especially a young man of 44 years who had so much to give to those around him. I will deeply miss my childhood friend, my buddy, my Mafia Wars teammate. The tears will eventually subside, but my heart will continue to ache for the loss experienced by his family.

God bless your beautiful family that they find strength in one another.

Johnny-Boy, I’ll miss you.

Moonwalking off this mortal coil

Dunno ’bout you, but I’ve taken more blurry photos than I’ve cared to count. For every gorgeous red rocket glare that I captured exploding over the Hudson this weekend, there are 10 or more fizzles or unsteady streaks of intermittent color. I deleted those rejects faster than you can say Macauley Culkin.

Not so the person who held onto a blurry picture of Michael Jackson with one foot in the grave and the other unable to do that little point-and-twist move anymore (unless a playful coroner on the overnight already has done it when no one was looking).

In this case, the British tabloid “OK!” bought itself priceless publicity by snatching up that blurry pic, while lightening its wallet by $500,000. What did it get? Why, a point-and….shoot, you shouldn’t have exceeded the boundaries of good taste and printed that, you bushwackers!

My side literally hurts as I laugh at the hypocrisy of “the media” telling this little player what it should and shouldn’t do. I LOVE how they question its taste and talk about drawing lines and considering families.

Do you REALLY want me to call each and every one of you out for some of the slimier things you’ve done?

Must I point out instances of reporters posing as students, or even as medical personnel, in order to get close to a subject? Or helicopters flying too close to the ground for the lastest celeb wedding?

Someone — likely an EMT — had the presence of mind to pull out a cellphone and snap away as the King of Pop lost his carbonation.  A tabloid with a pair of stones (and I don’t mean Fred and Wilma) was then willing to push a half-mil to the middle of the table and see what it could collect.

So pay up, suckaz: Buy this mag or they’ll shoot another photo.

Plenty of people bought plenty of tickets for the freak show when Michael was alive. His head blazing like a matchstick during the making of a soda commercial was deemed the Golden Fleece — not only for Enquirer types but the “traditional” media, as well.

Now that he’s 10 toes up they want to suddenly reverse course and treat him differently. Which, of course, creates a dichotomy: If you treat him as human,  you must take into account his transgressions. I remember one day, in particular, when I would have loved to grab those skinny ankles of his and hung him out the window, with nothing but a towel between his Missing Johnson and the rest of the gawkers below. Ain’t no balcony high enough.

We saw pics of Dead Elvis, his royal King of Chicken Wings stuffed into a XXX coffin after his heart — clogged with fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches — literally toppled him from his throne. Truth be told, I was hoping for a shot of MJ in a hospital bed, or on a coroner’s slab, not being dumped into the back of a meat wagon with a mask over his face (ironic, eh?).

Which brings us to the true joke of this entire episode: Let “the family” have some peace.

Come again?  (Not you, Michael.) You mean the family that makes the Osbournes look like the Huxtables? The family that stages dueling press conferences, wardrobe malfunctions and countless other sleazy, slimy, stupid gimmicks to bring attention to itself? The family that leeched onto those Sgt. Pepper’s coattails and never let go? (Ten gets you thirty that the monkey is one of the pallbearers.)

Show the family respect after they essentially pissed on the public? Give them room to grieve? Stay away from the Massive Christian Burial at the Staples Center (which most definitely was NOT named for Mavis, Pops or the rest of that exemplary family) and watch it on TV?

Here’s an idea: Why not cart his dead bony ass around the country for a month, like Nancy Reagan did with Ronnie Ray Guns? Record every second of it and produce a documentary: “Never Can Say Goodbye.” Think of the merch you could sell on that coast-to-coast procession! T-shirts! Bobblehands! Michael’s last words recorded and sold on CD: “Hey, I can’t….. (thump).” Everlasting gloves — two for the price of one…. Dramatic stuff here.

Then you could cryogenically freeze MJ and bring out the glass box — oh, 18 or so months from now — and do it again. Badder and deader than ever.

These tears you see aren’t from sorrow. It’s just that if I laugh any harder, I swear, I’ll split a gut.

Tito, bring me some tissue.

Hudson hues and views: Macy’s fireworks spectacular

It’s been nearly a decade since New Jersey witnessed a spectacle like tonight’s Macy’s fireworks display, which drew tens of thousands to the riverfront and countless more atop the Palisades

Countless spectators had front-row seats on the balconies of condos and apartment complexes facing Manhattan, where once piers blighted the waterfront.

Others, meanwhile, began staking out vantage points as early as 8 a.m., from Fort Lee to Jersey City.

The moon offered a soft backdrop above midtown, as the Macy’s barges slowly floating south, sending off brilliantly colored rockets oe’r the land of the free and the home of the hearty, who toted coolers, tripods, blankets, boxes lunches and radios down to the riverside.

Security teams in brightly colored shirts kept watch, along with local police. But it was no different than a holiday parade, as strangers in lawn chairs became fast friends, sharing home-cooked meals, scooting over to make room for others, and turning a warm afternoon with high clouds and low humidity into a day at the beach.

The best seats in the house belonged to those in West New York, Weehawken and Hoboken, as the barges quickly drifted south after the first launch at 9:40, Coast Guard and NYPD patrol boats clearing the way.

After all of the shows along the East River, Jersey welcomed its turn — and didn’t waste any time claiming vantage points. It was like New Years’s at Times Square — only with bikinis and croks replacing hoodies and parkas.

In our complex, the languages gave way to smiles and warm greetings, as Germans, Middle Easterns, Asians, and even local New Jerseyans gathered on the terrace facing the Intrepid as if at an outdoor festival. Even the security guards got a home-cooked meal, courtesy of one of the condo owners.

(Photos by Jerry DeMarco. Use by permission only.)

High-priced hookers hit the Heights

A nondescript, cereal box of a building in Jersey City’s Heights served as a call center for customers who paid up to $3,500 an hour for hookers they selected online, authorities said, in shutting down the operation.

Joseph Ruis, 43, took in roughly $250,000 a month operating World Party Girls from the three-story Sherman Avenue building, where he also sold cocaine to some of his hundreds of listed customers, said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio.

Most of them paid with credit cards after selecting the woman of their choice from a web site (photo left), the prosecutor said. Keep reading→