Singer/songwriter James Maddock to play Ringwood Public Library

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

BY STEVE JANOSKI

Ten years ago, the world seemed like it was at James Maddock's feet.

He was the frontman for the band Wood, who had just released their debut album "Songs from Stamford Hill." One song was even included on the first "Dawson's Creek" compilation album — something that, 10 years ago, nearly guaranteed success.
The band toured with Paula Cole and Train, and seemed poised to break out.

And then…they were never heard from again.

Ten years later, however, Maddock is back. He's formed a new band, and released his first solo album in 2010 called "Sunrise on Avenue C."

Now, 48 year-old self-described "melodic folky singer/songwriter guy" will be bringing his raspy vocals and catchy guitar licks to theRingwood Public Library as a part of their New Legacy concert series on Sunday, March 13, at 2 p.m.

'Out in the wilderness'

The past decade has been an eventful one for Maddock, even if he's been somewhat out of the public eye.

After a failed attempt at Wood's sophomore album, the band was dropped from Columbia records, who had put out their debut; what could be called a wandering period ensued.

Maddock moved from London to New York.

"I was bored of London," says Maddock. "All my friends got married and had kids and London was a dead place to me…everyone moved on, and I was writing and playing and singing still."

Maddock says that the city that never sleeps is an exciting place to be because, as opposed to other cities, there's the feeling of "being a part of a musical community" that stems from seeing the same people at different gigs and being able to form friendships with likeminded people.

"I never had that in London. I felt very isolated," he says.

When he figured out that he couldn't' afford to live in the city, he moved to Texas, where he found himself renovating a house in Austin while still writing and playing gigs where he could.

"I was kind of out in the wilderness a little bit," he says.

Eventually however, New York's magnetic pull reeled the musician back in.

He formed a band with former Spin Doctors drummer Aaron Comess, bassist Drew Mortali, keyboardist Oli Rockberger, and guitarist John Shannon, and says last year's "Sunrise on Avenue C" is a sort of collection of songs that have been written over the past eight years.

Although New York certainly seeps through the character of the songs, Maddock says that his music isn't geocentric, and the album is not a concept album; his self-deprecating humor shines when he states that he's "not clever enough" to write a decent song, then write another about the same subject.

But still, he admits that "every writer that comes to New York has to write about New York somehow," and the album's title track reflects the experience of moving to the city.

Even though he was raised in England and still has the accent to prove it, Maddock says that he's gravitated to more American sounds from the second he picked up his grandfather's ukulele at the age of 4, and lists guitarists like the Allman Brothers' Dicky Betts and Neil Young as his inspirations..

As far as songwriting goes, Maddock says that he's always looked at people like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen (who his gruff vocals are sometimes compared to) and Jackson Browne as heroes.

When he's asked if he enjoyed the writing process, however, he says that he thinks himself "pretty slow" at the craft, which he calls deceptively simple, and yet some of his songs take years upon years to complete.

"If you can play a few chords, sing a few melodies…it's very simple. But what's magical is to make something great, make something that lasts," he says.

"Like 'All you need is love,'" he says, referencing the famous Beatles track. "How'd they do it? I don't know… it's a fantastic mystery. There's no rhyme or reason."

That's the thing about being a songwriter, Maddock said — you have to "live it."

"It's not like a hobby. You have to be it. You are it. I've been it all my life, and I couldn't do anything else," he says. Even at its worst, though, songwriting isn't work — it's "avoiding work," he says with a chuckle.

New album in the works

Maddock has been hard at avoiding work all week, recording intensely at the legendary Sear Sound Recording Studio in Manhattan, which has hosted everyone from Paul McCartney to Steely Dan, in preparation for a new album which might be out in June.

The album is being paid for by a relatively new Pledgemusic.com, which allows fans to donate to their favorite artists to raise money for albums — gone are the days where a record label not only took most of the album's profits, but also owned the music.

"This affords (the artist) to pay the rent…instead of making five cents off each album, you're making six or seven dollars," he said.

This lets a career musician like Maddock keep on playing for as long as he can.

He's looking forward to bringing his show to Ringwood, and says that he can't stand when musicians don't give 100 percent when playing a smaller venue like the library.

"I give everything I've got, all the time, whether it's a big place or small place," he says.

For more information about the show, go to the library's website ringwoodlibrary.org or call 973-962-6256.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/117713568_The_sun_rises_for_acoustic_rocker.html?c=y&page=1

Some pansies for your "man cave"

Thursday, March 10, 2011

BY STEVE JANOSKI

Once, before sheetrock and plywood and cement and mortar, men lived in caves. It was probably miserable, but it did the job of protecting us from rain and snow and saber-toothed tigers.

We're fortunate now that we've learned to build our own structures out in the light, and if we don't build it, we buy it.

For some reason though, there seems to be some kind of movement to return to this primordial idea of living in a cave, and it's catching on like a wildfire among the males of this generation.

Consequentially, much is being written about the ever-more popular "man cave" where supposedly, men can go back to being men.

This cave, I guess, is where you put all the things your wife says aren't allowed upstairs, like a pool table, or a bar, or your... nevermind.

Websites have even formed around the idea - mancavesite.org says that it's been going since April of 2008, and its mission statement says that the site is meant to provide a "centralized location to showcase your man cave and share ideas with others who have a similar passion."

Pictures abound of proud men standing in poorly decorated rooms with sports posters, bars made of plywood, and couches that look they've been pulled off the curb after the rain.

I think they should rename the site, or at the very least, change it to something that's more reflective of what they're about.

How about: "We're a group of men who are so spineless that we've let our wives cast us off to the basement, where we vainly hope for respite in what looks like a mix of a 14 year-old's bedroom and the inside of a dive bar in Clifton."

I've long held the opinion that for at least the past 50 years, this country has been moving far too much to the soft side when it comes to men.

Gone is the image of our fathers - men who wouldn't let you cry, men who told you to walk it off, men who looked at your gaping wounds and said with squinted eyes, "Ah, that probably doesn't need stitches."

Now we're supposed to be sensitive. Understanding. It's OK to cry, it's ok to quit, it's ok to sue someone when they punch you instead of hitting them back harder.

We've outlawed dodge ball, tackle football, and peanut butter in the schools, and many kids have even embraced that sort of androgynous style of clothing that I thought died when Bowie's Ziggy Stardust phase ended.

"Testosterone" may as well be a four-letter word, and frankly, we've become a nation of emasculated she-men, whimpering in the corners and afraid of doing things that were once the norm.

But this "man" cave is the final straw; women might as well just nail that basement door shut.

Maybe it's my youth or the fact that I'm not married talking, but how about actually enjoying the whole of the house you live in, instead of leaving it to the wife to decorate while you take refuge in a basement that looks like the inside of a dorm room?

I don't have my own basement to take over, per se, but I have kind of taken over the basement of my parent's house.

There's no couches or college posters in it though - there's a heavy bag, a speed bag, a weight bench, a barbell, and stacks of plates that rival what the best jail in the country has to offer.

The linoleum floor has been broken up by deadlifting too much and the smell is less than appealing.

I don't want to spend more time down there than I have to, really; it's a punishing place, more of a dungeon than a cave. But, should I ever make enough money to own my own house, my new basement will probably look strikingly similar to my old one.

All of this doesn't mean that a man should try to take over his whole house at the expense of his wife, though.

All I'm saying is that should some unfortunate women find me fit to marry, I'd plan on having some kind of say in what the house looked like so I could enjoy the thing myself - and I sure as hell wouldn't plan on being pushed into the damned basement either, like some kind of incontinent animal that can't be trusted to sleep in the nicer rooms.

And by the way - if you're going to put a bar in your basement, at least sell some liquor and make some cash that thing, or bust it up and throw it out.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

Pequannock deals with flooding once again

 BY STEVE JANOSKI

PEQUANNOCK— On Friday afternoon, Adam Denman stood watching the floodwaters rise around his home for the second time in two years on Oakwood Avenue in the southern section of Pequannock, and compared the cutoff neighborhood to the movie "Castaway."

"I'm getting so sick of this," he said, smoking a cigarette just a few feet from the waterline, which extended out into Shady Street.

Denman, 27, worried about his 82-year-old father, who refused to leave the house. By noon, his home was no longer accessible except by boat.

"He's stubborn," Denman said of his father. "He doesn't care…he's got his power, his TV, his radio, and his dog, so he's good. But if it keeps getting worse…if I have to, I'll go through there and I'll pull him out."

As two other residents in waders loaded up gasoline onto a small skiff with an outboard motor, Denman echoed the statements that many of the shocked residents of Pequannock had uttered all day—first, that he couldn't believe it was happening for the second year in a row, and second, that he was tired of it.

Kerry Heck, a 54-year-old chemist who lives at the intersection of Shady andFairview, was marking the waterline with a stick stuck into the sodden ground; in 15 minutes, the line was a foot closer to his house.

Heck had moved into the neighborhood in 1984 ironically, and was cutting wood in order to board up his basement windows in the hopes of keeping the water to a "trickle."

The Fire Department had come knocking at 4:45 a.m., but Heck said he didn't plan to leave unless his basement had serious flooding.

Something is different from the '90s, he said—for 15 years after the '84 flood, he didn't even have a sump pump. Now, he's getting flooded every year.

Why?

"It's those freaking gates," he said, referencing the now infamous dam built on the Pompton Falls by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

A similar scene was found in the Village Area off of Jackson Avenue, which went for years without seeing serious flooding before storms inundated it in 2010 and now, in 2011.

PV Park, Woodland Lake, and the lake by McDonald's Beach had all merged into one huge mass, and water spilled into the streets from more than one direction; the situation was quickly worsening.

Rich Michaels, 51, stood on the corner of Village Road and Voorhis Place with Abby, his 14-month-old cocker spaniel, and watched the water creep ever closer to his house.

Michaels has been in the house for the past 24 years, and voiced his frustration at the inaction on the part of public officials when it comes to the floods.

"Every year it gets worse, and they do nothing about it," he said. "They come knocking on the doors to get elected, the councilmen, and after all the promises, this is what we get."

Water touched his house for the first time in 2010, and he said that if the water reached 1984 levels he might get a foot's worth in the house. He's still not leaving though, and said that it's not this flood that worries him— it's how much worse things will get in the future.

"What's it going to do next time? Is it going to take somebody dying down here for them to fix something?" he asked.

Michaels said that although his house is assessed at $422,000, he could never sell it for that much anymore.

"We're trapped," he said. "I can't sell this house. Who am I going to stick it with?"

Michaels said that maintaining the river might go a long way in controlling the flooding and that he'd like to see the river dredged behind the A&P on Route 23.

He admitted that he's having second thoughts about living in Pequannock, and that he wished he'd looked around more when he moved in 24 years ago.

Shortly afterward, swarms of news camera crews who'd been chasing the Pompton's spreading waters descended upon the small intersection, talking with residents and awaiting the arrival of Governor Christie, who spoke briefly at the site around 2 p.m.

Awaiting the governor were Pequannock Mayor Rich Phelan, Councilman Ed Engelbart, and Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Bobbi Jo Murphy, who said that in the end, Pequannock got crushed under 3.6 inches of rain.

Murphy said that both the township and the state were far more prepared for this storm, though a state of emergency was declared much earlier than it was in 2010, which allowed for the National Guard to offer its assistance by noon on Friday in the form of three "deuce and a half" trucks, 2 and a half ton monsters that can traverse nearly any flooded roadway.

Murphy said that this helped evacuate people who had ignored initial warnings, but then decided that sticking around in the flood zone might be a bad idea after all.

Roughly 1,200 residents were advised to evacuate, and a shelter was set up atPequannock Township High School.

The Fire Department said that about 300 people actually listened and left when the firemen appeared at their front doors telling them the water was coming, but Murphy said that in all reality, officials have no idea how many people like Denman's father are still in their homes.

She commended the state and local OEM, saying that they were "right on it" this year.

"We were ready for this," she said. "Last year it took us by surprise because nobody predicted it….but there was a lot of preparation (this year)."

Meanwhile, Mayor Phelan has been undergoing something of a trial by fire—in office for just over two months, he's already got his first disaster to take care of.

The hardest part, he said, will be the cleanup after everything is over.

"We can get people out of their houses, and we can get people into safe places, but it's the aftermath that's really heartbreaking," he said.

Phelan said that today, Christie had mentioned plans to begin putting money toward dredging the rivers, and he feels that the governor "truly wants to do something."

"I think he's sincere," he said.

The mayor isn't sure what the solution is, but said the dredging might help.

He was hesitant to blame the Pompton Lakes Dam though, and said that the flooding was here before the dam was put in place.

"Is the dam part of the problem? Possibly. I'm not an engineer by trade, but it's easy to point fingers at that particular dam," he said.

Cecelia Paul, 47, feels differently.

She's lived in Pequannock her whole life, and moved to Jackson Avenue about 11 years ago.

Last year, her finished basement was completely destroyed by four feet of water, and her house, which is slightly elevated, was surrounded by a nearby stream.

Her husband just finished completely renovating the basement in September. On Friday afternoon, she hoped that as long as her sump pump kept working, she wouldn't have a repeat of 2010.

"I think it's them messing with the gates," she said when asked what she thought was causing the troubles. "I'm very frustrated by that, and I really, truly believe that a lot of this could be avoidable."

When her son graduates from PTHS, Paul said that she's planning on moving.

"I would like to stay in the general vicinity, but just not flood," she said.

How many residents of the township are thinking the same thing remains to be seen.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com



http://www.northjersey.com/news/117915274_Residents_sick__tired_of_flooding_.html?c=y&page=1

Americans need to fan Bouazizi's flames

BY STEVE JANOSKI

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

                                                                                 - Thomas Paine


Many times when you ask your typical apathetic American about politics, they'll offer one of two answers: "I don't really pay attention…it doesn't affect me" is the first, and "I'm only one person, what does it really matter what I do?" is the second.

But, as the flames of revolution tear across the Middle East's desert sands, we must remember that the firestorm that engulfs the region was lit by the sparks that blew off of one lone man's scorched body.

Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor who made his living selling vegetables. Everything changed for him one day in mid-December when, according to a recent TIME magazine article, a policewoman confiscated his unlicensed produce cart, slapped him, spat in his face, and insulted his dead father.

Bouazizi went to the provincial headquarters to seek help from the local municipal officials- they ignored him.An hour later, he returned to the headquarters, doused himself in gasoline, and set himself ablaze in the ultimate form of protest. He died days later.

What even Bouazizi didn't know, however, was that his one strike of the match would ignite the rage of all of the oppressed who have long suffered under the harsh rule of their autocratic Middle Eastern dictators.

Tunisia fell first. Then, the protests began in Egypt - weeks later, their dictator of three decades, Hosni Mubarak, fled from Cairo.

Even more remarkably, the fervor has spread: protests have erupted in Libya and Yemen, Algeria and Bahrain, Syria and Iran, as the citizens take to the streets clamoring for the collapse of their governments.

Those governments, in response, have acted accordingly; as Jack London once wrote, "The Iron Heel is getting bold."The Black Hundreds have formed, and there are pitched battles on the boulevards as pro-government forces try to crush the rebellious with truncheon and tear gas, batons and bullets.

The New York Times reported on Friday that dozens have been killed in streetfights in Libya; in Bahrain, security forces launched an attack on sleeping protestors, on women and children, that left four dead and scores wounded.Still, the people chant, "You cannot keep us down!"

In Iran, the opposition figure who led the protests against the results of the 2009 "election", Mir Hussein Moussavi, has disappeared as protests reach a fevered pitch. Some fear he's been "detained," and there are hints that the nation may be on the eve of civil war.

For years I have scoffed at the idea that America could push democracy on another country. I've repeatedly quoted the old saying that if the idea of democracy is so good, you won't have to push it on people- they'll steal it.

However, it takes a steel spine to stand face-to-face with the point of a bayonet and demand it, and even I, ever the idealist, am shocked by the strength and passion being shown by these brave souls.

I have heard some say that the United States must be wary of these protests and their results because some of the outgoing regimes are friendly to America, and we don't know who will take over in the power vacuum.

While that may be true, that line of thinking is also why the rest of the world hates us so much- the fact that a brutal dictator was friendly to the United States doesn't mean that the blood of his murdered citizens washes off his hands any easier.

For once, Americans, look past the confines of our borders, and be, just for the moment, citizens of the world! Realize that what these people are doing is the very thing that our Founding Fathers, so revered by both left and right, did all those centuries ago: seizing power from the cruel and unjust and declaring that they'd rather die on their feet than live any longer on their knees.

Every soul that leaves a corpse on the glowering streets of any Middle Eastern capitol is joining the ranks of the greatest of the world's patriots, from those Frenchmen that stormed the Bastille in 1789 to the Germans who took sledgehammers to the Berlin Wall.

And with the living, the spirit of every American patriot, from Thomas Paine and Sam Adams to Thomas Jefferson and Washington himself, stands defiantly, called back to action once more.

Internet fame and falling in fountains

BY STEVE JANOSKI

One of the unintended consequences of the internet's rise is its power to turn regular, everyday citizens into super celebrities nearly overnight through the use of video hosting and social networking sites.

Do something stupid within range of an astute observer with a camera phone, and it could be your pleasant face plastered all over everyone's news feed on Facebook or the front page of YouTube.

It's kind of cool in a sick way, like you're constantly playing Russian roulette with your future- one wrong move could lead you to either internet fame or internet infamy.

I look at it the same way I look at the odds of a comet hitting the Earth- it's possible, I guess, but I'm not all that worried about it.

Of course, sometimes, we might deserve the infamy. Such is the case of Cathy Cruz Marrero.

Marrero, 49, is now nationally known as the “Fountain Lady” after being caught on a mall's security cameras doing a somersault into a decorative fountain after tripping over the ledge because she was texting while walking.

The clip features unseen people watching the video on a screen and laughing at the scene from two different angles. Marrero believes they are security guards.

An ABC News article said that Marrero's fall has attracted over a million and a half views on YouTube and has been shared frequently on both Facebook and Twitter as it skyrocketed to the top of the viral video rack, and of course, that's complicated things.

On a recent interview on “Good Morning America,” the troubled walker dropped hints that she may sue the mall, and the ABC article said that she's hired a lawyer to “explore whether someone should have come to her aid rather than posting her image on the Internet.”

That lawyer's name is James Polyak, and ABC quotes him as saying that they “intend to hold the responsible parties accountable; whether requesting or demanding an apology and requesting an explanation on why this happened and how it happened.”

I might be able to help him out with that because I'm pretty sure I know how this happened, but maybe I'll leave it to him. Maybe he'll get lucky and the answer will fall out of the back of an ambulance.

"I didn't get an apology, what I got was, 'At least nobody knows it was you,' " Marrero said. "But I knew it was me." Well, at least she's got one thing straight.

Unfortunately, she hasn't figured out that no security guard in any mall in any country has the responsibility to apologize to her for her own blatant stupidity.

If the case is ever brought in front of a judge, it would rival that of the lady that sued McDonald's for spilling hot coffee on herself in terms of someone being allowed to prosper due to their own unbridled idiocy.

Marrero should really just be happy the mall didn't completely put the screws to her and drain the fountain before she fell in it.

What makes this story even better is that the fall might have been some kind of karmatic retribution the universe is pushing on Marrero- as it turns out, she's got her own legal troubles.

ABC reported that she's been out on $7,500 bail for alleged theft stemming from some indiscretions with a former coworker's credit card. They also reported that court records show Marrero to have been convicted of retail theft four times, and had previously received 12 months of probation after being convicted of a hit-and-run charge in Berks County in 2009.

But at the end of Marrero's Good Morning America interview, she whines that no security guards came over to help her and that, “nobody took my feelings into consideration.”

As Don King might say, “Only in America.”

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

Remembering Jack Lalanne

BY STEVE JANOSKI

I first read about Jack Lalanne when I was 16 years old.

At the time I had been playing football for three years, and was just getting serious about weightlifting when I came across an article in Men's Health which featured freelance writer Joe Kita deciding to take Lalanne up on an open $10,000 work out challenge.

As I recall, the only thing Kita had to do was keep up with the legendary figure who was, at the time, 85 years-old. Even then, Lalanne smoked him, with Kita writing that Lalanne lifted at least 40 lbs. more on nearly every exercise.

I read that article so many times that I can quote pieces of it nearly verbatim over a decade later.

It was full of one-liners that only a character like Lalanne could say and not sound like an overblown salesman, and although many of his quotes sound comedic in their tone, there was gold in each - simple nuggets of eternal truth that were as solid as the iron he lifted.

Lalanne said that he spoke to his muscles during his daily two-hour workouts and felt that the berating scared them into working harder.

"C'mon you bastards!" Lalanne told them. "See? You gotta' talk to'em. These muscles are saying, 'I can't do it anymore.' The hell you can't! I won't feed you! You sons of bitches work for me!"

He told Kita that he woke up every morning "with an erection a cat can't scratch," and outlined in seven words his philosophy on nutrition - if man made it, don't eat it.

"Look at my corvette," he told Kita. "A '98 - one of the finest sports cars I've ever had. Would I put water in the gas tank? Well, think about the crap people put in their bodies - white flour, sugar, all this processed food. It's just like using water for fuel.

With that, nutrition, and the consequences of neglecting it, became crystal clear.

And that was Lalanne's talent: taking the complicated and breaking it down with an analogy that everyone could understand, and then using his words to inspire a change.

He grew up in California, a self-described sugar addict who had headaches and bulimia and dropped out of high school at 14.

At 15, however, he heard nutritionist Paul Bragg speak in what has become a mythical turning point in his life, and took up the mantle of healthy living.

He opened a gym in Oakland in 1936, and trained women and athletes with weights - ideas that were literally light years ahead of the curve at the time.

His TV show ran from the 50s to the 70s, and encouraged the average American to exercise in any way they could, even with water bottles and a chair; his remarkable feats of strength showed that he lead the life he preached.

At 43, he did 1,000 pushups in 23 minutes. At 60, he swam Alcatraz to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco while handcuffed, shackled, and towing a boat.

Six years later, he towed 10 boats carrying 77 people for over a mile in North Miami in less than an hour; four years later, at 70, he towed 70 rowboats a mile from the Queen's Way Bridge to the Queen Mary - another mile - while handcuffed, shackled, and fighting the ocean currents.

What Lalanne understood, what he espoused, and what he embodied, was the doctrine of pure, hard work. He wouldn't let you say that it was your job's fault you are fat, or society's, or your thyroid's - and even if it was, it was your job to right the ship.

And in America, where all the rough edges must be ground down so no one's fragile feelings get hurt, he was an old school reminder that hard work pays off, and that you're responsible for how you look and how you feel.

His life, which ended on Jan. 23 at the ripe age of 96, could be epitomized in one quote from his TV show pulled off of an old YouTube video.

"I like to think of life as a battlefield," Lalanne says, his thick arms protruding from his trademark blue jumpsuit as he sits on a backwards chair.

"Every morning when we open our eyes, we wake up, we have a battle on our hands. Either you're gonna' win the battle that day or you're gonna' lose it, you're gonna' have life working for you, or you're gonna' be working for life. What's it gonna' be?"

We always knew what your answer was to this question Jack. Thanks for the inspiration.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com