NEW JERSEY: THE ONLY PLACE WORSE THAT LONG ISLAND

When I was really young my mother, being the good parent that she was, took my brother and I on day trips all over the tristate area to museums, parks or whatever else grabbed our respective 4 and 6 year old fancies. As soon as we crossed the George Washington Bridge we knew that we were in New Jersey. It wasn’t because of our keen senses of geography or direction; it was that smell, that God awful smell that permeates your closed windows and seeps through your car vents and shouts out “You have arrived in New Jersey! Home to Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, Giants Stadium, a slew or factories and power plants and nothing else!”

“Stinky Jersey! Stinky Jersey!” my slightly older brother would yell and we laughed at that sad state, mocking it cruelly. We were New Yorkers. We were better then New Jersey. Pssshh, New Jersey, the right armpit of New York as a friend once wisely said, adding that our home, Long Island, was the left. But New Jersey has since gotten its sweet revenge on me more times then I can count. I had my first debilitating migraine in New Jersey, the type when you can’t think or see and your whole right side goes numb like a stroke victim. I witnessed my first bloody male-macho-supremacy fight in Giants Stadium over a snow ball fight that ended in blood splattering in front of my 8-year-old eyes. I went to my first and only wedding in Jersey where I was hired to babysit my best friend, Kate’s, cousins’ friends kids while she watched her friend exchange vows. Something so confusingly removed that we assumed we were just going to watch the kids in the hotel while the wedding and reception took place, much to our sport short, torn Clash t-shirt wearing chagrin, that resulted in a very embarrassing meeting with the bride at church and screaming children in the back pew. And that dreaded Jersey Turnpike has stolen more hours of my life in traffic and more E-Z pass credits each time I got off and reentered it then is really quite fair. But the most vengeful act that Jersey has ever pulled on my New Yorker soul, was the Warped Tour.

I think I was fifteen or sixteen when I went to my first and only Warped Tour, that summer festival that travels around the country with a slew of punk or ska bands and a half pipe primmed for professional skaters and bikers in tow. What more could a skate punk such as myself want? Kate, and a friend of ours, Steubing, were away at basketball camp the week that the Warped Tour came to Long Island, so we opted to buy tickets to the date in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where Springsteen played at the famed Stone Pony, and the carnival sea side resorts had disintegrated into disarray.

We took the train in. The Long Island Rail Road to Penn to New Jersey Transit which, in theory, would let us off by Asbury Park where a free shuttle would take us to the festivities. None of us had ever been on Jersey Transit or to Asbury. Our treks to New Jersey sea side resorts were limited, but we weren't nervous about the trip, especially when we discovered fellow travelers.

We were sitting comfortably in our LIRR leather seats, enjoying the air conditioning on a day that was already reaching the high 80's and resting our feet rebelliously on the seats in front of us when we heard the group of guys behind us talking about their favorite punk bands.

“No man, their guitars are way weak. Too slow. What happened to Ramones style?” one of them said about the headlining act of the night.

“You don't know what you're talking about,” his friend argued. They were going to the show as well, how convenient. We turned around to see our fellow punks only to discover three men in their late thirties, possibly forties downing beers at 9 in the morning. These fellas were probably having the same argument in '77 when it was all new, not the rebellious youths that we had expected at all. They ended up sitting behind us on Jersey Transit as well, still slugging down beers and debating the finer pints of musicology.

By the time we stepped off of the train they were several beers in. So perhaps it wasn't the brightest move to follow these now inebriated aging punks, but after waiting for the supposedly free shuttle that never came and having no idea how to get to the parking lot that housed the Warped Tour, it seemed like the only logical option. Don't all 40 year old men have a keen sense of direction after all? And if not, won't they cover it up by refusing to ask for directions?

Apparently we weren't the only mislead youths to assume this, for as the three men began to walk away from the train station a slew of punk kids followed them. It must have been a sight to see – three men in their late 30's, early 40's, some balding, all dressed in casual khaki shorts and plain t-shirts, followed by a virtual parade of decked out, dyed haired, mohawked, spiked and plaid clad delinquents making their way down the mean streets of New Jersey. We followed those older gents with pride. These were our fore bearers. This was what we would become when we all wised up and got real jobs that wouldn't allow all of our oh-so-unique self expression. These were our people.

That is until they decided to sober up and cool off with an iced coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts, leaving us to find our own way. Sell outs. They waved us to keep going. There was a Dunkachinno with their names on it and nothing was more punk rock then bougie frappe drinks.

Without our wise elders we were forced to continue the epic journey to Asbury on our own. It was in the 90's now, excruciatingly hot, and we had no idea of where to go. Somehow we found our way, following behind other punk rockers and hoping that the boardwalk would be our yellow brick road. The sun was excruciating so we all took refuge in the sprinklers that were attempting to save yellowing lawns. Punks and the odd rude boy ska kid jumping in sprinklers, blue spray in and wash out hair dye running down the faces of those not dedicated enough to the cause. I could feel my pale Irish skin burning, Steubing's German skin, turning a similar hue, but we were almost there. We could hear faint music in the distance, power chords and yelling vocals. Closer. Closer. Louder. Louder. Nearer to our subcultural mecca.

As we turned the corner away from the boardwalk we saw it. No, not the Warped Tour, but the massive line that wrapped around it and an ingeniously placed old folks home. Those poor old people didn’t stand a chance. They sat on their porch in their rocking chairs and just stared at us.

Kate, Steubing and I waited on that line for two hours. By the time we got in, after our long walk and slow orderly shuffled line wait, we had missed most of the bands that we wanted to see. We were scorched with sunburn and sweating profusely with no hope of escaping UV rays anytime soon seeing as how the blacktop parking lot that the festival was in had absolutely no shade. Dehydration was setting in as well. Our home brought Poland Springs were taken at the gate and new ones inside the venue cost $5 a pop.

In short, we were miserable.

How quickly our utopian day of punk rock and skateboarding had turned into a dystopia of capitalism and heat stroke.

We tried to find shade beside a tent and to get cooler by de-accessorizing. I removed a chocker from my neck only to hear Kate and Steubing laugh at the sunburn lines that it left, a reminder of that dreadful day for weeks after.

“Fuck this,” I said from beneath a t-shirt that I was trying to cover my face in.

“Seriously,” came the resounding agreement from Steubing and Kate. So, after only seeing 2 bands we abandoned the Warped Tour despite the $30 tickets and horrendous journey.

We wanted to go home.

New Jersey had broken us.

The walk back was just as hot and awful and our fellowship had been drastically cut from a parade of kids to three individuals desperate to get home. We walked in silence, looking at our feet, willing them to go faster.

Steubing started throwing up from heat stroke, her face tomato red. It would have probably been much more Sid Vicious to keep puking on the street as we walked, but we pitied the poor girl and ducked into the same Dunkin’ Donuts that our aging punks had vanished into. We were a pitiful sight to see, defeated, wilted, wet with sweat, red with sun poison, puke covered and frowning – apparently a marker for punk rock.

“You girls from that rock concert going on?” an Asbury local came up to us.

“Is it that obvious?” I asked.

He didn’t answer my question. “Say no to drugs, say yes to your momma,” was his only reply.

“What?” Kate said incredulously.

But he was on his way out the door. “No to drugs! Yes to momma!” he yelled behind him.

We got on the first train we could and got the hell out of New Jersey.

Of course we told all of our friends that we met Rancid and had a fantastic time.

And I always say yes to my momma.

PUNK ROCK MAN!: THE RED JEAN JACKET AND IKEA

It all started when I fell in love with Johnny Rotten. Plaid. Lots of plaid. Red plaid pants rolled up in the middle of winter with shit kicking boots. Zippers that unzipped to nothingness. Chains. Safety pins through the ears. Anarchic marker sprawled on every open space proclaiming political declarations and lyrics. Blue hair. Green hair. Red Hair.

I was fifteen and I was a punk.

This was before stores like Hot Topic really took over mass production of the alternative; before pop punk and emo became mainstream staples that even parents knew about. You had to create your own punk clothes. You had to work to find them. It took dedication and determination.

Despite the fact that Johnny Rotten was in his late 40's and I was in my mid teens, and perhaps even the slightly more pressing matter that we had never technically met, I believed that he was my soul mate. I must have read his autobiography at least five times and bought any magazine that contained even one sentence about him. My locker was plastered with his pictures, his meningitis influenced glare staring endearingly at me. He was my idol. I worshiped everything that he said as dogma for all disenchanted youths, yet while I preached about individuality and thinking for one’s self, I conveniently cut myself out of John’s ideology of avoiding the cliche punk mold of dress and style.

I was the only punk in my high school and damn proud of it. There were the new metal kids, the goth kids, the hardcore kids, the pseudo hippies, and even one skin head that I can recall, not the national front type of head but the Fred Perry, mod off shoot type. But mostly those dreaded halls of adolescence contained Abercrombie clad teenagers, Britney Spears advocates and sycophantic beauty queens.

I had two best friends – one who wore only college sports sweatshirts, the other who favored clothing from the same store as Joey Potter, in retrospect much more riotous statements then anything that I was doing. The punk, the prep and the collegiate. A trio that only Dali could come up with. They never questioned my punk clothes. They, rather loyally, just went along with it, even when it reached ridiculous heights.

It was sitting on my bed when I came home from school one day. The most unholy thing that a teenager can find laid out for them, displayed by their mom with a smile – clothing that you did not ask for, did not pick out and without a doubt do not want but will, unfortunately have to wear.

“Do you like it? I saw it at Macy’s and automatically thought of you?” my mother said, holding out her arm like a “Price is Right” model displaying what she hoped I would fawn over.

It was A. RED. JEAN. JACKET.

Bright red and cut into the most matronly fit that I had ever seen.

I wanted to ask her if she knew me at all, if she had taken a glance at anything that I had adorned myself in for the past few years. I wanted to tell her to return it, that it was hideous and that I would never let that dreaded, unnatural fabric touch my skin. Instead I put it on and showed her how it looked. She was delighted. And I was doomed to wear it.

I put it in my closet and wanted nothing to do with it.

She asked for it everyday.

I took it out of the closet and stared at it on its hanger. It stared back at me mockingly with its red hue and white, yes I kid you not, white snap buttons.

What was I to do? I had to wear it eventually to please my mother but I couldn’t even face myself in the mirror as it hung on my shoulders. So I did what all punk kids would do. I took out all of my punk tools. I sewed on pre-bought band patches and I made new ones out of old scraps of fabric and paint. I attached pins that I had picked up at shows and various sized safety pins randomly all over the lapels. I took out my trusty sharpie markers and wrote whatever came to mind before putting it back on it’s hanger and examining it again. It needed more. If I was going to wear this bastard of a jacket I was really going to wear it.

I shuffled through my jewelry boxes and draws filled with office supplies, combining binder clips with ball chained necklaces that hung down from assorted parts of the jacket, connecting the front pockets or button holes. And then it was complete. There was no rhyme or reason for any of it, but it was punk rock man! It was beautiful.

I wore it to school the next day. No one knew what to make of it. There were of course the odd stares, the inquisitive teachers or students who felt the need to read everything out loud and question it, and even the “sweet jacket” comments from my fellow alternas. It took everything that I had, every D.I.Y tactic that I could think of, but I loved that hideous red jean jacket. I flaunted it through the halls and only reluctantly took it off for gym class, but only after serious contemplation of what a stereotypical angry gym teacher would think if I chose to keep it on.
After school I did what all teenage punks do when decked out in their best punk attire – I went to Ikea with my mom. She was slightly distressed by what had happened to her chain store purchase of a few weeks ago, but overall just happy to see me wear it. We shopped for our Swedish self-assembly furniture and wiled away the hours at the food court where hopeful shoppers can indulge in $1 ice creams or pretzels. I chose instead, a punk rock cup of coffee. I was quite content with myself as I left the store, fresh cup of hot coffee in hand, and red jean jacket showing off who I was on the inside on the outside.

And then a bird shit on my head.

And my red jean jacket.

I stopped dead in my tracks. “Don’t just stand there. Carry the bags to the car,” my mom said.

“Mother, a bird just shat on me.”

She turned around and laughed. “Well I don’t have anything to clean it up. You’ll just have to wait until we get home.”

And so I did. I drove the 20 minute ride home covered in bird feces, looking out the window and wondering how a mother, a member of the genre of people known for constantly carrying around tissues and napkins in their oversized purses, could possibly not have anything to clean off bird shit from their child’s head? I looked out the window, scowled at the eight year old kid who laughed and pointed at me, and then caught my reflection in the glass. I was ridiculous. I was covered in bird crap and wearing the most insane jacket imaginable.

I stopped dressing like a punk after that.

My shit kicking boots could not get rid of the stench that bird shit had figuratively and literally left on my punk rock wardrobe.

Being a punk was always a matter of the mind, not choices of clothing. I knew this and I hypocritically preached it to others while wearing the uniform myself. It just took a mass market Scandinavian furniture store and excrement from the sky to make me realize the error of cliche alternative dressing.

Four years later in college, dressed in a plain black t-shirt and brown corduroy jeans, mismatching still obviously my thing, the boy I was smitten with introduced me to his friends as the most punk rock person he knew. I just smiled. He was no Johnny Rotten but he’d do.