Johnny's Jersey City Stories Volume 1: They Did What Now?

Johnny's going to be using his remaining time in Jersey City to spin some yarns, tell some tales out of school and favor you with things he's heard on his way out the door to Oscoda.

Today's Jersey City Story is back when, in fall 2008 Johnny and Mrs. Johnny were getting ready to move east. Mrs. Johnny had been moving up the ranks at the old Borders Books & Music and around 2007 she was named Director of Borders' digital strategy. She could pretty plainly and clearly see that above her position, NOBODY at Borders had any good idea about what a digital strategy was, or how one was going to be implemented. Mrs. Johnny could clearly see the Titanic heading for the iceberg in Ann Arbor. So, when Amazon's digital audio book company, Audible headhunted her, it as an easy choice to leave. Within a year Borders was gone.

Enough backstory, now it was time to find a place out east to live. Since we hadn't yet made our "fortune" as it were, NYC was out of the price range. The search was on and Johnny had read all kinds of awful and bad things about Newark, back then when it was known as the 'home of carjacking' Johnny wasn't going to choose Newark, right or wrong. He certainly wasn't going to live in a town Bugs Bunny made fun of so Hoboken was out. So, Johnny started reading up on Jersey City.

The very first thing Johnny laid eyes on about the town he was going to call home? A Star-Ledger article on Ward C Councilman Steven Lipski, peeing on concert-goers in Washington D.C.. Yep, the first thing he saw was an article by Carly Rothman on the whole disgraceful sordid affair. That's quite a first thing to see. But the article went on: The Mayor there does what now? The mayor gets drunk and nekkid and fights police? Wow.

What the fuck is in the water in this Jersey City?

But the article still had more. In trying to play off the urination, one Willie Flood didn't sound like she wanted to deal with it at all saying she'd need more information. OK, so the police report and arrest documents weren't enough. OK, this is how it is in Jersey City.

It was there, and then at that moment Johnny first saw the name Councilman Steve Fulop. Fulop, interviewed for the article said actions like those of Healy and Lipski were embarrassing would lead investors to "question the leadership" of Jersey City.

"It is very humiliating," he said.

Wow, Johnny thought, this Steve Fulop seems like an honest guy who would always stand up for taxpayers and the good people of this new town.

Yikes.

So, here you go, Johnny's first impressions of learning about his new home-to-be.