Perhaps you have seen the ads hanging off a dump of a building, maybe you've seen them in the PATH system or maybe, just maybe you were unfortunate enough to walk by the huge placards for 'The Oakman", a new unnecessary pile of bricks and sticks on First St.
What an ad it is too! Just look at these images, can they get any more white people in it doing douchey poses? Hey, they're ALL excited about the Oakman and who can blame them. It looks like fine luxury living for white people. Oh sure, they may bitch and whine and snivel once this story goes live and hits the Twitter but ya know what? The Oakman should step up, be responsible and stand behind their advertising. This is the face they WANT to show Jersey City. This is, after all, their introduction to you as a city. And what an introduction eh? Have minorities or people of color ever been dismissed out of hand any quicker or subliminally told to keep walking you're not welcome here?
Either the people behind The Oakman (The Joke Man) spent time on marketing and figuring out their potential markets downtown in Jersey City before they built a multi-million dollar building OR they simply pasted shit on a sign with no thought at all behind it. These are their available explanations. Any other explanation is implausible.
The Jokeman (Johnny added the thought bubbles such as they are):
He'll be at the opening of the new Goya HQ, Goya as you'll recall announced they were moving their HQ to Jersey City a couple years ago.
Let's see what we can't to to make Gov. Asshat feel really unwelcome because frankly, he's not welcome in Jersey City. Oh he's free to come here, but we're not gonna hold doors for him either.
The JCPD were involved in a disturbing incident the other day near Journal Square. They were performing a traffic stop and a citizen, well within his rights began filming the encounter. A JCPD officer saw the man recording and walked over to him and demanded he stop filming and threatened to take away his cell phone/camera. He then detained the man and called his sergeant.
No. This is not right. For the 100th time, you CAN film police, regardless of what they say is long as you do not interfere with their business. Standing at a safe distance filming is your RIGHT given to you by the United Staes Constitution. Police anywhere in America cannot order you to stop filming (well they can but you do not have to) and cannot take your camera away.
Johnny chanced across an incident a couple years ago, some losers had broken into a warehouse downtown and were sunning themselves on the roof. Police came by and as they were trying to get the people down off the roof a JCPD officer noticed Johnny filming the event from across the street. He told Johnny to stop. Johnny told him in no uncertain terms NO. The cops seemed confused at first and repeated his "request". Johnny again said NO . In fact he told the cop your problem is not with me, it's behind you across the street on that roof over there. The cop walked away.
It's strange, never in American history has a police department ever spoken out against putting in more cameras on street corners of places like Journal Square or the Grove Street Square or on PATH trains or on MTA trains or in stations or around sports stadiums. Cops love their dashcams that capture bad guys fleeing or in the act. It would seem the ONLY people the police do not want on camera is.....police. This will not stand.
Mr. Mayor, we know JC is rolling out body cams for some police. We need them on every cop to protect both us and them. We'll need STRONG laws against turning those cameras off except to use the restroom or eat. We'll also need you to remind you Director of Public Safety and JCPD that citizens are constitutionally allowed to film police.
What a treat we have kicking things off tonight. The special 7 minute uncut version of Billy Idol's 'To Be a Lover' but this, no this is the Mother of Mercy remix of this song, somewhat of a cult classic. If you're gonna play it around kids use the headphones or better yet go tell them to hang outside city hall and smoke. Hey's it's Billy Idol, not Paul Anka folks, Rebel Yell and all that.
Know who's a national treasure? Ry Cooder. Oh yeah. His music is fabulous. It's at another level from most artists, let's get that out there. That's a bold statement. Johnny's going to let the music back it up. Here's a cut, actually two together, from a soundtrack of a movie called Johnny Handsome. Ry Cooder's amazing guitar, the strings, the horns, his incredible musical vision, it's all on display here. The track is 'I Can't Walk This Time/The Prestige' and you should dim the lights or turn them out. Headphones are preferable but not mandatory.
See your speaker volume lever or knob? See how it's at a low and respectable setting? C'mon, turn it higher. Make that volume go up. Sure you may have neighbors but it's only this one time, right? If you're home alone this is a push the furniture to the outer ring of the room kind of song.
One of Hoboken's signature events, the event that tops even their constantly changing working paper on what St. Patrick's Day is for family fun, the Hoboken Earth Day Tire Fire and Bar-B-Q is being held along Sinatra Drive. With Boy Scout troops from Jersey City, Newark, Bayonne, Union City, Secaucus all out collecting tires from their towns to add to this year's tire fire promises to be the Mile Square City's best evah!
Other events are planned of course today all over Hoboken including a burning tire roll down First St., The Hoboken Conservatory of Science will have a special booth set up for kids called "So you wanna light your first tire..." full of tips on safe ways to handle gasoline and matches. The Cake Boss will deliver a special cake in the shape of burning smoking tires to Mayor Dawn Zimmer before the annual pushing of the burning tire pyres out into the Hudson River.
Sooty the Clown will be on hand (He clears his calendar for this event) to make balloon animals from balloons with lead paint. Sooty will also lead the children's chorus in the singing of "Smoke on the Water" which they're hoping to bring in under twelve minutes this year.
So come on out to FuHo today, bring the kids and tell the neighbors as this wonderful piece of Americana steps off once again. Free admission if you bring a tire.
The long-delayed construction of an elevator at the Grove St. PATH Station is set to finally begin. The elevator will be located at the south side of the entrance at Columbus and Marin Blvd.
It only took a lawsuit to get the Port Authority to do the right thing. This lawsuit was filed back in 2005 and in 2011 a judge agreed that the Grove St. station must abide by the Americans with Disabilities Act and here we are ten years later and the Port Authority will now spend (are you sitting down?) $4 million of our dollars for an elevator. The Port Authority thinks that what these things cost and since nobody in Trenton is ever going to hold their feet to the fire elevators now cost $4 million dollars.
With the new elevator, which we're guessing will be out of order at least as often at PATH escalators, will ensure all PATH stops have an elevator (Harrison is building a new station).
We wonder if any of the City Panning Coco Puffs made their way to the PA this morning...
An emailer Tellus3 sent this to Johnny via the emails yesterday and it was so topical it's a shame Johnny didn't see it until after he'd put this place to bed last night. Red and Kitty from that 70's show asking on 4/20 if Johnny was high.
And in this case Johnny loves the Hamilton Inn. He has spoken before about their fantastic steak and eggs breakfast with that darned fine coffee they serve. Well, somebody noticed and as of today the Hamilton Inn has been voted one of the Top 100 places to get brunch in the good old US of A.
Well done Hamilton Inn. We're a little bittersweet about this announcement as it means longer Sunday morning lines for Johnny but it's great for Jersey City!
Oh it's a mess. No flood watches or warnings but his is an awful lot of water coming down and being blown onshore.
On the good side, this wind is really pushing the rain and it finally came in the right direction so as to wash away a stupid bird poop stain on an upper window Johnny couldn't access that had been there for a while. Nice going wind!
Have you resisted the temptation to check out the all four episodes that leaked? Johnny's taking it one week at a time. Did you peek? Did you have a chance to peek and didn't? Let us know in comments.
"It's a great life. You risk you're skin catching killers and the juries turn them loose so they can come back and shoot at you again. If you're honest, you're poor your whole life. And in the end, you wind up dying all alone on some dusty street. For what? For nothing. For a tin star."
-- Lon Chaney Jr., "High Noon"
Johnny does not care if you sing the lyrics loud wherever you may be or if you just chip in with a few doo-langs doo-langs but don't just sit there and do no nothing. it's Friday night. Johnny thinks you'll get out of Friday night what you put into it. If you put a lot of alcohol in it you have two days to recover.
The Chiffons with George Harrison listening intently and 'He's So Fine'
That weather out there, it's spring-like and that calls for us here sending you there out the door tonight with some pep in that step. From 1957 Johnny thinks this'll do the trick. Fats Domino with 'I'm Walkin'.' Johnny once heard an oldies station deejay way back when mistakenly refer to Fats Domino as 'The Immortal Fats Domino' which while nice to think about simply ain't true.
Keeping an eye out on Kennedy Boulevard to alert troops in Journal Square should Union City invade one day. We salute your service Mr. White Castle Army man!
Time for Jersey City, After Dark
Johnny is pissed off after is walk through PADNA this morning.
City Planning, friends, if you've ever needed more proof these people get to work, eat Coco Puffs for about an hour and then do, well, nothing. When they allowed Mill Creek, Toll Brothers, Pavarini McGovern, Trump and Shuster to get plans passed (once City Planning failed to list PADNA as a historic District by the allotted time -- funny how THAT worked) so overwhelmingly friendly on terms to the builders downtown residents are now dealing with City Planning not asking the right questions. Did city planners ask since the roads are so small where you're working if they had any kind of pick up and drop off plan for deliveries? You'll see in the images below this question was never asked. How will the trucks impact those bombed out narrow roads? This question sure doesn't look like it was asked. Did City Planning gift the builders with some kind of "Just park in the streets residents be damned" rider?
So now friends your car, legally parked, is at the mercy of delivery trucks downtown (When the construction bros don't sneak into a legal spot without a city tag). Trucks line the streets, streets supposed to be able to handle street traffic have been closed, narrowed further, bombed out and their plastic they use to cover the delivery loads simply finds a home in a tree or a power line (Mill Creek are ESPECIALLY BAD about understanding they make a mess and it needs to be cleaned the hell up).
So City Planning, let's ask if you planned for these builders to give you some kind of plan to move supplies in and out that don't require trucks to sit for UP TO THREE HOURS on city streets? You allowed Toll to close off an entire city block. You allowed Mill Creek to close off an entire city block. Why can't these trucks wait in the VAST amount of property the builders are now taking up? C'mon City Planning, you allowed this swaths of land to be taken and now they STILL want to inconvenience residents.
Somewhere, somehow someone at City Planning in Jersey City will read this screed. And they'll head right back to the kitchen for more Coco Puffs.
All the trucks you'll see have been parked this morning for at least one hour, some much longer.
I go down to Speaker's Corner I'm thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong...
-- Dire Straits, Industrial Disease
And make it snappy and flash some cash if need be. Only 28 more Late Show episodes to go and if you follow this link you'll se a pretty amazing guest list over this last month.
Johnny saw the Letterman show and took a train from Ann Arbor to do it. February 14, 1992. NYC had just been hit with a huge snowstorm. Dave's mom was on with an update from the Lillehammer Olympics that were just kicking off. The Valentine's Top Ten was read by Fabio. Oh what you remember.
Get away from your televisions and computers until after the sun goes down. This is the day and pretty much the weekend we've waited for since October.
The matchups are finally set for the first round of the NHL playoffs next week. The #1 Rangers will play #8 Pittsburgh and Crybaby Cindy Crosby whom the MSG fans will no doubt make feel right at home. The Islanders will face Washington with the old barn, the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, hosting one last playoff series. More on the matchups later this week.
Normally Johnny doesn't start the Music Series off with a slow song unless of course that song is as goddamned smooth as this one, like glass it is, because Motown. The strings in the background of this song are SO hypnotic. 'Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)' and you scoring along at home can feel free to sing along or if you're in the room with your lover, well, you're welcome.
Well would you look at that? The temperature warmed up outside, Johnny opened his windows and the mid 1970's blew in. The Steve Miller Band and one of Johnny's favorite songs by them, 'Serenade'
24 straight years for Johnny's Red Wings in the playoffs. Incredible a team can be that good this long. San Jose this season lost the second longest streak at 10 years to put the Red Wings' run in context.
I wanna get a job naming kitchen appliances. Seems like the easiest job ever. You know, refrigerator, toaster, blender... You just say what the thing does and then you add '-er'. Kitchen Appliance Naming Institute. "What's this do?" "It keeps shit fresh." "Well, that's a 'fresher'. I'm going on break."
-- Mitch Hedberg
Our friends at NorthJersey.com took a look at a Rutgers University study on Jersey City's new paid sick leave law and it's implementation. Here is the definition of the new law up front:
The ordinance, which took effect in January 2014, requires local businesses with 10 or more employees to offer five paid sick days a year. Companies with fewer employees have to give them five unpaid sick days.
The New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, who are usually so hostile to workers gaining any benefit by law, say the study comes far too soon. They also said they didn't trust those performing the study that shows the new law being adapted quickly and well with little acrimony, because it's the Chamber of Commerce who are hostile to anything that doesn't report exactly what they tell it to say.
Yankees, Mets and this one Tigers fan always feel that opening day is indeed the harbinger of true Spring. The smell of hot dogs, people congregating in big numbers outside all shaking off the winter's chill. Play Ball!
Let Tigers' announcing legend, Ernie Harwell, welcome Spring as he did every opening day with a short poem, 'The Voice of the Turtle'
Should there be any more springtime religious festivals we may be forgetting throw them into the list here. Have a wonderful day and get out and enjoy friends, family and our fair city.
Uh, Johnny, would we be having an Final Four open thread if Michigan State wasn't in it?
Nope. Next question.
Here we go college basketball fans and fans of all things good and pure like MSU, the Final Four. Feel free to use our little old hangout as your place to talk smack and anything else as we get what should be two pretty good games from three and a half mighty programs (looking at you Bucky). In your comments if you should happen to mention the fact MSU finished in the top five in NCAA football the last two seasons and is playing in the Final Four and no other school comes close to that, then you get to pick a song for next Friday's Music Series.
So Sparty On and yes, On Wisconsin to our B1G paesans!
Sure Johnny could have played the Honeydrippers' version of this song. Or Danny Gatton's or a number of other great versions but Johnny's guessing you've never heard Roy Brown and what better song to hear him go man go for the first time than on this timeless classic, 'Good Rockin' At Midnight' to kick things off on the Music Series this week.
Easter time in Johnny's house didn't come with a lot of 'Freedom of Choice' at all. One had to go to church, one had to dress up and one had to drive out to Byron for dinner with the grandparents. So for all the kids who also had or have no freedom of choice on Easter, Devo has a song for you.
Funny how your brain associates songs with places and people and what not. This song is always going to remind Johnny of Kalamazoo. It just is. So a shout out to west Michigan tonight with 'Love Plus One' by a band not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Haircut 100.
A lot of people are safer and NOBODY died. Funny how when you talk with someone what you find out about them. Shit, the USA isn't perfect, look at some of our idiotic decisions lately. It's a flawed world but at least for one day two old enemies can at least try to start a real discussion and again, and Johnny can't stress this enough, nobody had to die.
Well sadly a lawyer has opened his mouth in the case of the landlord who most likely had some illegal and shoddy work done on gas pipes to divert gas and save money is saying that landlord, well she's just too humble and small town girl to do that:
Sadly we can expect more, much more of this CYA from everyone involved from the landlord to COn Ed to the city. Get ready to hear nobody was responsible for the deaths of two people and the injuries to dozens.
If you're going to park in front of a hydrant like there's nothing wrong with that, and you get caught doing it (not by the POLICE OFFICER standing nearby but more on that in a minute) and when you get caught doing it engaging in an argument and acting like a complete tool like this goofball from Eglentowicz, well then you're a special kind of stupid. The name of the company that pays you is on the side of your vehicle. Derp.
OK, let's set the scene. Johnny out walking his dog when he comes across Marin at 2nd and sees a total clusterfuck of traffic. People trying to get to Marin from Second St., people dropping off daycare kids at the Waldo Lofts, and nobody directing traffic (though a Jersey City cop was, again, standing nearby doing jack shit like they always do on these traffic details. Mayor Fulop said he was going to end those. I guess the JCPD told him he was wrong. Actually try and get help at these intersections with cops, they hide in their vehicles all day mostly). What does Johnny notice amid the driving chaos? A truck for contractor Eglentowicz blocking a hydrant. Blocking. Blocking a hydrant across from a day care. Blocking as in such a way that YOU would have gotten a ticket and been towed. Johnny would have been issued a ticket and then would have been towed. But that's the problem when cops take money from these developers to stand around isn't it? They don't do the right thing, they do what's expedient for those PAYING THEM.
So, Johnny starts snapping pics of an Eglentowicz truck being ALLOWED to block a hydrant. Perhaps the only worker with common sense told the Eglentowicz driver someone was taking pictures of him blocking a hydrant.
Note the JCPD officer acting like Sgt. Schultz on Hogan's Heroes, "I know nothiiiiinnnnnnggggg"
So friends, here come the pictures and the video of this assclown. After posing for the camera and daring Johnny to send this to the city (Don't worry asshat, it already has been sent to the city AND your bosses) and then devolving into calling Johnny an asshole and what not. Do you actually want to know what the first words out of this guy's mouth were? "I've lived here my whole life, how long have you lived here?" As you can hear Johnnys reply, what difference does that make when you're BLOCKING A FIRE HYDRANT. It doesn't matter how long you've lived somewhere you moron. It matters you're blocking a hydrant. There is no law that says if you've lived here your whole life (as if that wasn't painfully apparent) you park where you like. There's LOTS of parking in downtown Jersey City shithead, the problem is is that you and your idiot construction buddies would need to pay for it instead of parking in front of hydrants and on sidewalks. (We'll call him Jimmy di Vagina)
So now Jimmy di gets into his truck and he's still not done talking so that's when Johnny busts out the video recorder. Why shouldn't Johnny videotape his threats, his foul language and a dare for the city of Jersey City to do anything about him. Well Johnny is doing his part and the video and pics have already been sent along and here now, for all times, Eglentowicz can now have an internet presence due to this article.
Wanna screw with Johnny again, shithead? Thought not...
