Jersey Shore Blog

What “The Wrestler” Movie Means To Asbury Park

“Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon...everything's different.”  Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes

 

I saw the movie The Wrestler this weekend starring Mickey Rourke.  Several things drew me to it.

 

First, I’ve always been a Mickey Rourke fan.  It’s a guy thing.  And The Pope of Greenwich Village was the best movie…I don’t know…ever.

 

Mickey Rourke has a certain affinity for our area.  Part of Pope of Greenwich Village was filmed at Monmouth Park.  Twenty years ago he starred in “Homeboy,” much of it filmed in Asbury Park.  I recall standing at Bam Bam Bigelow’s wedding in Ocean Township and some of the media were rushing off to get pictures of Rourke shooting in AP.

 

So I figured some of the Wrestler would be shot in Asbury Park.  Sure enough there she was on the big screen.  This time though, there was something different about Asbury Park in the movies.

 

Before I tell you what it was, let me give some history first about Asbury Park’s beachfront and the arts.

 

Something compels artsy people to abandoned, beat up buildings.  Every up-and-coming band seems to think that if they take their picture in a rough looking place they can gain instant street-cred.  So, with its deep musical history and abundance of ruined buildings, Asbury Park has seen expensive cars show up from rich suburbs and empty out a bunch of young musicians with self-torn new clothes to take CD cover photos in front of cracked and peeled facades, only to leave and head off to Fromagerie in Rumson for steak and lobster to celebrate a job well done.  Real tough guys, eh?

 

One version of the video game Grand Theft Auto, the theme of which is crooks taking over the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country, has scenes in Asbury Park.  Apparently even cartoons were afraid to come here. 

 

Photographers shoot rotting AP buildings like it’s a public service or something.

 

The movie industry has had the same idea about Asbury Park. When some rough looking slum was needed, Hollywood could save a little dough by shooting in AP instead of building a set.

 

When Robert DeNiro shot City By the Sea here years back, the producers actually made Asbury Park look even worse than it was back then.  I remember rolling on the boardwalk laughing when I read a sign left by the production company promising to “return the boardwalk to the condition we found it.”  “No thanks,” I laughed.  “We’re not using it anyway.”

 

A couple years back there was some buzz around Asbury Park that there were suddenly gang signs painted on the old Power Plant that suggested MS-13, a nasty as hell Salvadoran gang, was here.  It turned out Hillary Duff was filming at the boardwalk, and if Asbury Park was going to be in a movie, she was going to look like a badass.  Thanks for the scare, Hillary.

 

So you get the idea – if Asbury Park was in the arts, as pretty as she is, artsy folks were going to make her look awful.  Think Charlize Theron in The Monster.

 

The producers of The Wrestler must have had some surprise when they showed up in Asbury Park, because the boardwalk between Convention Hall and the Casino looks great.  There was apparently no way for even movie magic to make it look bad.

 

To show a beat up beachfront, Rourke and his co-star playing his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) had to shoot a scene in the yet to be developed area north of Convention Hall, and at the other end of the boardwalk in the yet to be finished Casino.  They had to skip the 5 blocks in the middle that are pretty now.  The shots facing out from inside Casino showing those 5 blocks were subjected to a little trick photography – the area was washed out with light so you couldn’t see how nice it is now.

 

While others in the theater were lost in the story of Ram the Wrestler reliving an old memory with his daughter, I was thinking that Asbury Park reached another milestone in her comeback.  She’s pretty again.

 

The word must be out in Hollywood that Asbury Park is no longer the place of Art-Wrecko architecture. Soon we’ll see movies shot here with storylines set in crowded beaches with fun, sun, music and surfboards.

 

I think I hear Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon singing.

New Jersey Screwed By Stimulus

As usual.

New Jerseyans typically rank about 6th in revenue raised for Federal taxes, and we usually rank 50th in federal funds returning to us.

The Stimulus is going to be no different.

It is estimated that out of the $500 billion that is allocated toward spending in the Stimulus, New Jersey will see about $10 billion, or 2%.

Yet when it is time to pay back the Chinese and Japanese purchasers of T-Bills the $500 Billion plus interest, New Jerseyans will be asked to raise about 4.5% of the tab.

Sure America - just keep hopping right there on our backs - we'll carry you.

Good grief.

Will Be Live-Blogging CPAC 2009 From D.C. This Week! (Will Share Room)

This Thursday through Saturday is the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC.

It's the biggest gathering of grass roots conservative from around America.

The guests as always are renowned conservative champs like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ann Coulter, Mike Huckabee, John Bolton and many others. 

I'm going to be there live-blogging the event and issuing reports, photos and videos that will appear both here and over at The Fox Forum at www.FoxNews.com.

Hope you can get down there and if you can't, check in here at www.JustifiedRight.com for updates!

Will Be on FoxNews.Com's "The Strategy Room" Monday 10 AM

  I'll be on with host Heather Nauert:  

Go to www.FoxNews.Com and click on the link just below the first few headlines.

You can pick "Download Viewer" or "Watch in your browser."  The second choice is easier.

Bad Economy Cutting Your Partying?

According to Reuters, the bad economy is leaving us with less fun money.  Festivals large and small are being cancelled.

Don't let them take that from us.

After work today find a local happy hour and stimulate your economy.

Serving Wench!  Bring me Grog!

Fairness Doctrine? Bring it On!!!

Let the government insist that when I speak a liberal gets to speak next to me.  Oh how I relish the idea of having my conservative views lined up side by side next to dopey liberal views.  Let the world see how much better conservatism is.

I understand the constitutional concerns of my brethren conservatives, but the Supreme Court already ruled in 1969 that due to the public airwaves being a limited resource, this regulation of speech content doesn’t violate First Amendment Free Speech rights (because the rights of the listeners trump the rights of the broadcasters). I’m not saying I dig the logic, but it’s res judicata (its been decided).  The decision was 8-0.

Look, if conservatives really want to challenge the Fairness Doctrine, I suggest using a different (but no less important) section of the 1^st Amendment – Freedom of Association.  The Court didn’t address that in 1969, and that section has grown in importance over the years, keeping the Boy Scouts and the Hibernians from having to rub against Gays against their will.

We can make the argument that we shouldn’t have to associate with the likes of Al Franken and Bill Ayers against our will.

But on the other hand, why miss the opportunity this can bring us to go mano a mano with Dummycrats every chance we can get?

Some people see their opinions as fragile bubbles being gently blown by children in the breeze, and they act like children should someone pop their bubble.  As for me, I see opinions like birds in a cockfight.  Send mine out there to do battle to the death – if I have the better bird in the fight, I’ll win.  That’s how opinions should be measured – in battle.  Bring on the libs!

We Conservatives have always complained that the vast majority of media is left leaning.  If that’s true and we weren’t just blowing smoke, then we should be able to use the Fairness Doctrine to our great advantage.

Extend it to television and Internet.  Imagine – multitudes of conservatives like avenging angels swarming the castles of liberalism – HuffPo, CBS, ABC, NBC or Olbermann (who never has a guest disagree with him).  We can petition the Bankruptcy Court for time on Air America.  I’ll personally move Matt Lauer’s skinny rear-end out of his chair when I catch him hiding left-wing shenanigans behind a façade of centrism. 

We can use the opportunity to finally wipe out straw-man fake conservatives that liberal shows employ as useful idiots – like Andrew Sullivan.

Fairness Doctrine?  Bring it on!!!

Stimulus Package Insulting to Italian-Americans

Of all the bad things the stimulus package contains, one being overlooked is the insult to Italians.  Thanks to the stereotype Italians receive from pop culture, it’s not surprising the insult goes unnoticed.

 

Tucked in the 1,100-page Stimulus bill President Obama will sign today is Senator Harry Reid’s plan to funnel $50 million of your tax dollars to construct what is billed as a “Mob Museum” in his home state of Nevada.

 

This won’t be an historic learning experience.  It will be a Las Vegas show for kitschy tourists glorifying violence with false images of Italian Americans as the lone perpetrators of mayhem, not by real examples, but using fictional characters of Hollywood.

 

For years Hollywood has projected the worst images of killing, thievery and unholy greed onto Italians through “Mob” movies.  That’s a pretty bad rap against people who brought us telescopes, electric batteries and radio communication.

 

These fictional movies are why the Italian aesthetic in the public consciousness has gone from real people like Da Vinci and Botticelli to fake people like Corleone and Soprano.

 

It started with the movie The Godfather.  Before that, real-life organized crime had many ethnicities: Dutch Shultz, Bugsy Segal and Meyer Lansky were Jews. Dion O’Bannion and Bugs Moran were Irish. Of the Midwest Crime wave including John Dillanger, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson, “Ma” Barker, Bonnie & Clyde and “Machine Gun” Kelly, none were Italian. Yet because the Godfather was so acclaimed, since then more than 400 feature films have been made showing mobsters as JUST Italian, despite the historical inaccuracy.

 

Add to that video games for kids, television shows about Italian mobsters and an endless stream of commercials with caricatures of Italians in bad suits mangling the English language and Italian becomes synonymous with crime instead of creativity.

 

The problem for Italians is this stereotype is “OK” in pop culture. Other stereotypes exist, but no other ethnicity suffers theirs being politically correct. Imagine an HBO series today about a fictional Step ‘n Fetchit Black family, a drunken Irish family, cheap Jews or dumb Poles. Those wrong stereotypes haven’t been wiped out, but they are universally reviled and controlled by making a pariah of anyone who uses them. See as examples Don Imus, Mel Gibson, Isaiah Washington and Michael Richards.

 

Yet portraying Italians as murderous, awful, immoral criminals will get you showered with Emmy awards.  James Gandolfini is the Step n Fetchit of the 21^st Century.

 

Why is the US Government paying to continue a stereotype? One would think a Democrat like Harry Reid whose party claims diversity and multiculturalism would renounce racism, not give it $50 million of tax money to flourish. 

 

This “Mob Museum” will be complete with opportunities to view Tony Soprano’s tee- shits and have your picture taken with paper cutouts of him and Vito Corleone.  I wonder how Senator Reid would feel about spending tax dollars on a museum where one can pose, thumbs up and smiling, next to paper cutouts of Sambo.

 

Worse yet, the Mob Museum is already admitting they are going to fabricate stories.  Michael Green, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada is researching exhibits for the museum. In admitting the museum will tout fake stories as real, he said, “…you have to do a lot of reconstructing, inferring and implying. There's a lot of winking we're going to have to do."

 

A history professor making up history.  Scratch College of Southern Nevada off my list of schools to send my kids.

 

Glorifying a character like Soprano indoctrinates young Italians into the idea that a life of crime is sexy, causing them to embrace the stereotype. Italians who perpetuate this lie for romanticism don’t realize they hurt the rest of us.

 

The worst of it is when people claim, “I knew guys just like Tony Soprano back in the old neighborhood.”  No you didn’t.  That’s a lie.  You don’t know anyone who kills once a week, including his cousin and nephew.  People claiming fiction as fact is how stereotypes are born and grow.

 

The City of Chicago rejected such a museum a few years back.  They knew it would insult Italian Americans. Dorothy Coyle, director of the Chicago Office of Tourism said, “Anything that glorifies violence we are not interested in"

 

The harm caused by saturation of false images isn’t going to affect Italian-American stars like Scalia, Giuliani or Cuomo, nor the Italian American community as a whole. I worry about the individual.

 

Twenty years ago when I was in law school, three students were in the next booth at a campus restaurant. One said, “In criminal law we’re studying a case were all the defendants had these long Italian names…they were sooooo guilty!” See the math?  Italian name = guilty, not Mayor, Governor or Supreme Court Justice. I often wonder where that law student is today – a judge? A prosecutor maybe? Worse yet – a juror?

 

Wouldn’t America be better served with a museum highlighting Italians such as Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone, the only enlisted marine in World War II to win the Medal of Honor, The Navy Cross and a Purple Heart for holding off 3000 Japanese troops at Guadalcanal after all but 3 of his unit was wiped out?  He was killed at Iwo Jima.

 

I’d rather support a museum about Enrico Fermi, Galileo, John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci.  Our country was named after that last fellow.

 

What support will I give Harry Reid’s Mob Museum should it open in 2010?  “Senator? You can have my answer now, if you like. My final offer is this: nothing.”

 

Where Is Lonegan's Urban Policy for New Jersey?

Last week I wrote about Chris Christie’s lack of an Urban Policy in his campaign and how that could ruin Republican chances of electing a Governor in November.

While I hate the Fairness Doctrine, I am a fan of equal time for candidates.  So today let’s talk about Steve Lonegan and Urban Policy.

 

Last night I saw both men speak at the Monmouth County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner. Both speeches were great.  So much so I can say I’m REALLY excited about this election.  That wasn’t the case in the last couple of gubernatorial elections.  Our candidates didn’t move me – Christie and Lonegan do.

 

Now, I’ll admit that a Monmouth County Republican dinner is not the best place to flout your Urban Policy.  It should be, because Republican failures to have an Urban policy cost us the Freeholder Board and it will cost us this election too if we don’t get busy in the cities.

 

However, the hot topic right now in Monmouth is bashing COAH housing requirements, which is suburban policy.  Both Christie and Lonegan received their loudest applause lines by beating up COAH.  The crowd wasn’t hungry for a talk about vertical housing in our Cities.  Well, maybe Neptune, Long Branch and Asbury Park folks wanted to hear it, but not others.

 

Whoever wants to be Governor had better be able to announce a policy that excites both the suburbs and the cities.  There is no worse feeling on a close election night than when the numbers start coming in from the other guy's favored districts and you say to yourself, "Right now I wish I had done something there to minimize the margin."

 

So did Lonegan talk Urban policy last night?  No, he didn’t.  There was a quick mention of school vouchers, which is Urban Policy, but those words came not from Lonegan but Hank Butehorn while he was introducing Lonegan.

 

Christie got big applause for saying he would handle COAH, and so did Lonegan when he went further and said he would eliminate COAH.

 

I don’t have any problem with that.  I’m a free market guy too.

 

But I have to ask you Steve Lonegan, are you going to eliminate zoning laws like 10-acre minimum lots for housing too?  Are you going to ban all open space spending?

 

Those things are contrary to the free market ideal too.  They just protect a different set of people.

 

I have a problem with suburbs looking to the Cities and saying, “Why do you guys need government help?  Why can’t you just deal in the free market and let it take its course?”  and then in the same breath using hundreds of millions of tax dollars to take land off the market with open space legislation and using government to close down the Free Market with 10 acre zoning lots for houses.  It’s hypocritical.

 

Understand I don’t propose getting rid of 10-acre minimum lots in the suburbs, nor am I suggesting that either candidate's platform should at this time claim they will stop buying open spaces.

 

I am saying that if we are going to have those anti-market government interferences that protect the suburbs, we have to pay some attention to the Urban housing in the Cities.  Otherwise, New Jersey will become as segregated as the antebellum South (we're getting there).

 

Maybe the better choice is to do nothing for each side.  That would be the ultimate Free Market statement.  Not even the most committed conservative-free market candidate would have the fortitude to suggest that.  Since even conservatives are going to regulate the economy, we have to regulate it even-handedly.

 

I like Christie and I like Lonegan. 

 

Both are dreamers if they think they can get elected with no Urban policy. 

Will be on FoxNews.com's The Strategy Room Today at 2:00 PM

Go to www.FoxNews.com and look for the link under the first few headlines.  Will probably say The Stratagy Room.

You can watch right in your browser.

Monmouth Republicans To Hold Lincoln Dinner Somewhere Way The Hell Up North Tonight

Once again the Monmouth Republicans will have the biggest party of the year some place I have to drive a half hour to find.

That puts a damper on my drinking plans.

If only there were someone warning them that by continually ignoring the southern part of the County, the Urban districts might pull so far ahead that Democrats could one day take control of the Freeholder board.

Good grief.

Call me should you guys every wish to cross Colts Neck and spend some time in southern Monmouth.

I'll send you a map so you don't get lost.

Once again the Monmouth Republicans will have the biggest party of the year some place I have to drive a half hour to find.

That puts a damper on my drinking plans.

If only there were someone warning them that by continually ignoring the southern part of the County, the Urban districts might pull so far ahead that Democrats could one day take control of the Freeholder board.

Good grief.

Call me should you guys every wish to cross Colts Neck and spend some time in southern Monmouth.

I'll send you a map so you don't get lost.