By Steve Janoski
“Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony…you can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!” - Monty Python and the Holy Grail
There’s a lot of things about Great Britain that I, try as I might, simply don’t understand: their hatred of guns, their apparent comfort with “Big Brother’s” cameras watching them from every stoplight and street corner, or those girly accents that do well to conceal the fact that they once had the largest empire in the history of the world.
However, on this Friday afternoon, as that country basks in the glow of its post-royal-wedding bliss, I can say that the one facet that totally boggles my mind is the obsession with “royalty” and a “royal family” still matters.
Like most of us in this country, I am a follower of and true believer in classic liberalism. I vote in every election I can, even the ones where I have to write in Bill Parcells’ name (again) because I hate all the candidates, and the Virginia state motto, “Sic Semper Tyrannis” (“Thus always to tyrants”) has always appealed to a certain part of my nature.
I guess its this inherently independent, positively “American” streak that makes me wonder how any man can, in these early years of the 21st century, be willing to call any other man his “king,” even if that title is only in relation to a powerless figurehead like Prince William will one day be.
One colleague of mine referenced the Kennedys as a type of “American royalty” to prove that no country is impervious to this infatuation with people we think are better than us.
He’s right— there is some mystique to that clan, and it’s been furthered by the cursed Irish luck that befalls them every so often.
But the Kennedys became famous, above all, because they were movers— John F. Kennedy was one of the most influential Presidents of the last century while Ted Kennedy became, over his 138-year stint in the Senate, an intensely powerful man who took part in passing countless pieces of law. Who knows how much Robert F. Kennedy could have accomplished had he been given a chance to lead.
That family is famous for much more than just….well, being famous.
Furthermore, Joe Kennedy made his money the American way— from the ground up through the selling of realty, the importation of liquor, and the implementation of Wall Street practices that would likely be illegal today.
This is in sharp contrast to The Royal Family, whose wealth is derived from “hereditary title,” which means, more or less, through the accumulated results of blood and oppression over the centuries.
The Queen’s third great grandfather was actually America’s favorite king, George III. He’s the one who so generously gave all the royal property to the government— effectively ensuring that the public would always be on the hook to maintain them.
Even now, the Queen is supported by the British people— a recent CNBC article pointed out that she receives just under $84 million per year from the nation’s citizens in return for…I don’t know. Something.
Maintaining this expensive monarchy when they do so little is like making the payments on a Ferrari that’s got no engine block; most of the year, the family exists as little more than tabloid fodder— hardly worth the $84 million.
But of course, during this grand spectacle of “The Royal Wedding,” all of Britain stands up and cheers wildly whenever the couple kiss, and will sing their de facto national anthem of “God Save the Queen.”
This will last but a few months until those same tabloids begin plastering their front page with rumors about how the Queen is having an affair with an Elvis incarnate or how the King’s (inevitable) hairpiece gets up and ambles away during meetings.
And this will occur until one of them dies, at which point the nation will revert to its solemn, stiff-upper lipped ideal of how they should be acting in regards to “royalty.”
Bizarre.
Thomas Paine had it right when he said that, “Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”
How this lesson escaped the enamored masses of Britons amazes me.
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
Friday, April 29, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
South’s Civil War hounds refuse to heel
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
She was a middle aged woman, blonde as I recall, who wore too much makeup as if trying to hide her true age. She stood behind a desk at the Visitor's Center at whichever battlefield I, a 10 year old kid, had found on a map while on a trip through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
"Who won this battle?" I asked her.
"Oh, we did," she said with a beautiful southern drawl.
Not, "The South won," and not "The Confederates won."
No, it was, "We won"— we the South, as opposed to "YOU," the North — that's what she said. I never forgot the innocence with which she said it, or the devious meaning that lies beneath those two words.
There's no denying that there's something special about the Civil War that draws the American public to it.
I've been reading voraciously about this war since I was little and I'm not the only one; the Civil War section is undoubtedly one of the largest in the bookstore, especially impressive considering that the war lasted only four years.
Whether it was the "brother against brother" dynamic or that it was one of the few wars fought underneath our feet as opposed to on some faraway European plain, we are continually enamored with the story of this great, noble catastrophe that freed the enslaved and solidified the strength of what would become the world's only superpower.
Last week was the 150th anniversary of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and the Civil War fever has become white hot as the media turns its attention again toward that piece of the past.
Countless articles have been printed looking back at the war's legacy, and all of them have taken their own slant on what happened and why; what they say varies greatly depending on where the writer is from.
TIME magazine's April 18 issue had Abraham Lincoln's tear-streaked face emblazoned on its cover along with the caption, "Why we're still fighting the Civil War"— six days before it was published, Confederate re-enactors shot off shell-less mortar rounds towards Fort Sumter to commemorate the first shots.
It is an odd thing. In most countries, the people don't want to even remember the wars they fought — in America, we dress up like the soldiers and fight them again, but this time "for fun."
Not that the spectacles aren't fascinating, because they are, but the question of why so many feel that this old war is so intensely relevant remains.
On his show "Real Time," Bill Maher undoubtedly spoke for many a northerner when he said that nobody in California ever thinks about the Civil War. I think that's likewise for many people in New Jersey or New York or Massachusetts.
But go down to Virginia, boy…and it's "We won this battle."
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group for men who can trace a direct line back to a rebel vet, has 30,000 members. The Sons of Union Veterans? Just 6,000, even though twice the number of Northerners served.
Confederate colors still fly from trucks and flagpoles, and some southerners still argue that it wasn't slavery that started the war at all, but "state's rights" (the people who believe this are either willfully ignorant or outright stupid.)
The more backward of this bunch might even call it the War of Northern Aggression — even though the South fired the first shots; no other piece of American history has been revised and re-revised so extensively in a vain attempt to soften the blow of knowing that half the country fought to preserve slavery.
But many of these people forget that it matters little, because no matter what the "legacy," the Old South is as dead as the men who fought for it.
Texas has a burgeoning Hispanic population, while parts of Florida have become "Little Havanas" because of the Cuban refugees who have made their homes there.
Northern Virginia is becoming one large block of suburban condo associations, the battlefields of Tennessee are being paved over, and all the while the elderly are moving south to avoid snow and taxes.
The wheels of progress are grinding away our bloody past, as they always have, and those whose identity is defined by their white-knuckle grip on that past have already been left behind.
There are some silent reminders of our old division — the electoral map of 2000, for instance, was nearly identical to the secession map of 1861, and racial tensions still grow fierce on occasion — but never close to the previous tribulations.
Commemorating the Civil War is important, but it must always be remembered that it is unequivocally over.
The start of the war should not be "celebrated," because celebrating this war would be no different than celebrating the slaughter at Verdun or the firebombing of Dresden.
It must be remembered, marked, and looked upon solemnly as exactly what it is: a terrible tragedy that very nearly destroyed the world's greatest nation.
And in the end we must, as writer Allan Gurganus said, fold up those battle flags and put them behind glass — and they should never be unfurled again.
http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/more_history_news/120333749_South_s_Civil_War_hounds_refuse_to_heel_.html
BY STEVE JANOSKI
She was a middle aged woman, blonde as I recall, who wore too much makeup as if trying to hide her true age. She stood behind a desk at the Visitor's Center at whichever battlefield I, a 10 year old kid, had found on a map while on a trip through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
"Who won this battle?" I asked her.
"Oh, we did," she said with a beautiful southern drawl.
Not, "The South won," and not "The Confederates won."
No, it was, "We won"— we the South, as opposed to "YOU," the North — that's what she said. I never forgot the innocence with which she said it, or the devious meaning that lies beneath those two words.
There's no denying that there's something special about the Civil War that draws the American public to it.
I've been reading voraciously about this war since I was little and I'm not the only one; the Civil War section is undoubtedly one of the largest in the bookstore, especially impressive considering that the war lasted only four years.
Whether it was the "brother against brother" dynamic or that it was one of the few wars fought underneath our feet as opposed to on some faraway European plain, we are continually enamored with the story of this great, noble catastrophe that freed the enslaved and solidified the strength of what would become the world's only superpower.
Last week was the 150th anniversary of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and the Civil War fever has become white hot as the media turns its attention again toward that piece of the past.
Countless articles have been printed looking back at the war's legacy, and all of them have taken their own slant on what happened and why; what they say varies greatly depending on where the writer is from.
TIME magazine's April 18 issue had Abraham Lincoln's tear-streaked face emblazoned on its cover along with the caption, "Why we're still fighting the Civil War"— six days before it was published, Confederate re-enactors shot off shell-less mortar rounds towards Fort Sumter to commemorate the first shots.
It is an odd thing. In most countries, the people don't want to even remember the wars they fought — in America, we dress up like the soldiers and fight them again, but this time "for fun."
Not that the spectacles aren't fascinating, because they are, but the question of why so many feel that this old war is so intensely relevant remains.
On his show "Real Time," Bill Maher undoubtedly spoke for many a northerner when he said that nobody in California ever thinks about the Civil War. I think that's likewise for many people in New Jersey or New York or Massachusetts.
But go down to Virginia, boy…and it's "We won this battle."
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group for men who can trace a direct line back to a rebel vet, has 30,000 members. The Sons of Union Veterans? Just 6,000, even though twice the number of Northerners served.
Confederate colors still fly from trucks and flagpoles, and some southerners still argue that it wasn't slavery that started the war at all, but "state's rights" (the people who believe this are either willfully ignorant or outright stupid.)
The more backward of this bunch might even call it the War of Northern Aggression — even though the South fired the first shots; no other piece of American history has been revised and re-revised so extensively in a vain attempt to soften the blow of knowing that half the country fought to preserve slavery.
But many of these people forget that it matters little, because no matter what the "legacy," the Old South is as dead as the men who fought for it.
Texas has a burgeoning Hispanic population, while parts of Florida have become "Little Havanas" because of the Cuban refugees who have made their homes there.
Northern Virginia is becoming one large block of suburban condo associations, the battlefields of Tennessee are being paved over, and all the while the elderly are moving south to avoid snow and taxes.
The wheels of progress are grinding away our bloody past, as they always have, and those whose identity is defined by their white-knuckle grip on that past have already been left behind.
There are some silent reminders of our old division — the electoral map of 2000, for instance, was nearly identical to the secession map of 1861, and racial tensions still grow fierce on occasion — but never close to the previous tribulations.
Commemorating the Civil War is important, but it must always be remembered that it is unequivocally over.
The start of the war should not be "celebrated," because celebrating this war would be no different than celebrating the slaughter at Verdun or the firebombing of Dresden.
It must be remembered, marked, and looked upon solemnly as exactly what it is: a terrible tragedy that very nearly destroyed the world's greatest nation.
And in the end we must, as writer Allan Gurganus said, fold up those battle flags and put them behind glass — and they should never be unfurled again.
http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/more_history_news/120333749_South_s_Civil_War_hounds_refuse_to_heel_.html
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Butler waiting to hear of grant program's fate
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
BUTLER- Budget cuts in Washington might be trickling down to Butler's streets a little sooner than anticipated as the federally funded Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is on the congressional chopping block — and what's become a regular source of grant money to improve the borough's infrastructure may soon be eliminated.
The program has been very kind to Butler over the past decade. Since 2000, the borough has received 10 grants totaling $985,000.
These grants have gone to provide funding for a variety of infrastructure projects such as the 2002 installation of the Main Street water main and 2007's $80,000 replacement of the Carey Avenue firehouse roof.
The money's not free — the borough often puts up a percentage of the projects' final price tags — but it has been consistent.
At the Borough Council's March 15 meeting, however, Administrator Jim Lampmann told the governing body that the federal faucet might be dry and that funding for the program might disappear entirely in 2011.
'These are not superfluous projects'
Sabine Von Aulock, the director of the Morris County Division of Community Development, said that in 2010, Morris County received $2,453,876 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the CDBG program.
What the 2011 number will be will vary drastically depending on what budget Congress passes, and several proposals are currently being batted around the Capitol.
The grants are awarded in four categories: improvements (for municipal infrastructure), services (which fund adult daycares, battered women's programs, etc.), facilities (such as public health facilities), and housing (which funds the county's Homeowner Rehab Program, among other things).
Von Aulock said that the 2010 monies ended up funding 31 projects: 12 were for municipalities, while 19 were for nonprofits.
However, the House of Representatives has, in its zeal to cut the budget, taken aim at the CDBG, which is required to serve low- and moderate-income areas, and proposed a 66-percent funding cut.
It's likely that in this scenario, Morris County would receive just under $835,000. Of last year's projects, only 11 would have been able to be funded with that money.
Ironically, N.J. Congressman Scott Garrett (R-5) has proposed eliminating the funding outright, which is the doomsday scenario for Von Aulock.
The U.S. Senate has made its own proposal, however, that would only cut funding 12 percent and would likely leave the county with close to $2.15 million to dole out.
"There's all kinds of speculation, and I cannot pin my hopes anywhere. But these are not superfluous projects," Von Aulock said. "It's water mains and roads, and towns are relying on these."
"(The funding cut) may be a deal-breaker for them," she said.
'The work needs to be done'
Lampmann said that he, along with Borough Engineer Paul Darmofalski, made a presentation on March 7 at the Morris County Division of Community Development in the hopes of securing nearly $80,000 in grants, but that this was before he knew the funding might vanish.
"We don't know where that stands," he told the council, "(but) the hope is that our presentation wasn't wasted for a program that's going to go away."
The grants, if the borough receives them, would go toward relining the very old (and now leaking) brick manholes in the neighborhood of Arch and Main streets; the project is important, he told Suburban Trends, because sealing off the manholes stops fresh water from infiltrating into the sewer system.
"Any groundwater that leaks into the system is fresh water, and you're paying to treat that," he said. "If you can stop that (leakage), that's money down the road you're saving."
That is, of course, if the borough can afford to fix it.
Although the council has long talked about the project, other issues have been more pressing. Last year, $80,000 in CDBG money went toward replacing the water main on Bartholdi Avenue, a project that took precedence because Butler's century-old water lines continually cause water pressure issues.
Lampmann said that the federal cuts will directly impact Butler taxpayers. Officials over recent years have rued the decisions of prior councils to not keep up on infrastructure improvements, and they don't plan to follow suit.
"This (money) will have to be raised through a bond, and that's the route that we'll go. The work needs to be done, and it will have an impact on taxes," he said. "You don't want to continue going along without making (infrastructure) improvements."
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
BY STEVE JANOSKI
BUTLER- Budget cuts in Washington might be trickling down to Butler's streets a little sooner than anticipated as the federally funded Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is on the congressional chopping block — and what's become a regular source of grant money to improve the borough's infrastructure may soon be eliminated.
The program has been very kind to Butler over the past decade. Since 2000, the borough has received 10 grants totaling $985,000.
These grants have gone to provide funding for a variety of infrastructure projects such as the 2002 installation of the Main Street water main and 2007's $80,000 replacement of the Carey Avenue firehouse roof.
The money's not free — the borough often puts up a percentage of the projects' final price tags — but it has been consistent.
At the Borough Council's March 15 meeting, however, Administrator Jim Lampmann told the governing body that the federal faucet might be dry and that funding for the program might disappear entirely in 2011.
'These are not superfluous projects'
Sabine Von Aulock, the director of the Morris County Division of Community Development, said that in 2010, Morris County received $2,453,876 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the CDBG program.
What the 2011 number will be will vary drastically depending on what budget Congress passes, and several proposals are currently being batted around the Capitol.
The grants are awarded in four categories: improvements (for municipal infrastructure), services (which fund adult daycares, battered women's programs, etc.), facilities (such as public health facilities), and housing (which funds the county's Homeowner Rehab Program, among other things).
Von Aulock said that the 2010 monies ended up funding 31 projects: 12 were for municipalities, while 19 were for nonprofits.
However, the House of Representatives has, in its zeal to cut the budget, taken aim at the CDBG, which is required to serve low- and moderate-income areas, and proposed a 66-percent funding cut.
It's likely that in this scenario, Morris County would receive just under $835,000. Of last year's projects, only 11 would have been able to be funded with that money.
Ironically, N.J. Congressman Scott Garrett (R-5) has proposed eliminating the funding outright, which is the doomsday scenario for Von Aulock.
The U.S. Senate has made its own proposal, however, that would only cut funding 12 percent and would likely leave the county with close to $2.15 million to dole out.
"There's all kinds of speculation, and I cannot pin my hopes anywhere. But these are not superfluous projects," Von Aulock said. "It's water mains and roads, and towns are relying on these."
"(The funding cut) may be a deal-breaker for them," she said.
'The work needs to be done'
Lampmann said that he, along with Borough Engineer Paul Darmofalski, made a presentation on March 7 at the Morris County Division of Community Development in the hopes of securing nearly $80,000 in grants, but that this was before he knew the funding might vanish.
"We don't know where that stands," he told the council, "(but) the hope is that our presentation wasn't wasted for a program that's going to go away."
The grants, if the borough receives them, would go toward relining the very old (and now leaking) brick manholes in the neighborhood of Arch and Main streets; the project is important, he told Suburban Trends, because sealing off the manholes stops fresh water from infiltrating into the sewer system.
"Any groundwater that leaks into the system is fresh water, and you're paying to treat that," he said. "If you can stop that (leakage), that's money down the road you're saving."
That is, of course, if the borough can afford to fix it.
Although the council has long talked about the project, other issues have been more pressing. Last year, $80,000 in CDBG money went toward replacing the water main on Bartholdi Avenue, a project that took precedence because Butler's century-old water lines continually cause water pressure issues.
Lampmann said that the federal cuts will directly impact Butler taxpayers. Officials over recent years have rued the decisions of prior councils to not keep up on infrastructure improvements, and they don't plan to follow suit.
"This (money) will have to be raised through a bond, and that's the route that we'll go. The work needs to be done, and it will have an impact on taxes," he said. "You don't want to continue going along without making (infrastructure) improvements."
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
Sonya Kitchell to play West Milford
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
WEST MILFORD — When Sonya Kitchell brings her traveling show to West Milford's Music at the Mission in Union Valley Road on Saturday, April 16, she'll be bringing her string quartet with her.
That's right. A string quartet.
The 22 year-old Massachusetts native said that she enjoys playing with the "Brooklyn Strings" because they give her "more space" during her songs.
"When you have loud drums, guitar, bass…the notes all kind of mesh into each other and there isn't a lot of space," she said. "I think it's more melodic (with the quartet)…and it's a pleasure to work with them."
During the show, Kitchell will be playing electric guitar and piano, as well as singing the lyrics that she's written that are quickly earning her comparisons to the best in the business, such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.
It might be surprising to hear the depth that lies in her words, which remain simple and concise — Kitchell's seem to speak to jagged experience that is unexpected from someone who's barely in the her third decade of life.
Of course, to her, it's not unusual — she points out that when the aforementioned singers were in what she called their "first prime," they were both young.
"Certain people are insightful and notice things in life perhaps in a different way," she said. "I've always really enjoyed taking stock of human interactions and emotions and things that happen in life and the poetry in it."
Being as she wrote her first songs at age 12, she's also come into the peculiar situation of having to grow into her own lyrics.
"When I was 12 I had no idea what I was writing about…they were (things) that I didn't understand, but I felt like I could imagine it if someone was going through it," she said. "As I've gotten older, I've started to understand my songs more, and I'm singing something five or six years later and I'm finally able to relate to them."
Kitchell started honing her craft at the tender age of 7, when she asked her mother if she could take voice lessons and learn to sing.
Her parents, both of whom are visual artists, supported her decision to go the music route, and she was soon immersing herself in both singing and jazz while learning guitar from her mentor, June Milllington.
"I was really lucky that I grew up in a place where I was surrounded by talented and encouraging people," she said of her youth. "I had a lot of great influences."
The singer, who now lives in Brooklyn, still looks to her Western Massachusetts roots for guidance, especially when writing songs.
"I grew up in the country, and it has had a huge impact on who I am as a person and what I seek in life," she said.
Far from friends and without a TV as a child, Kitchell said that she spent a lot of time in the woods by herself, and that provided her the refuge from which to write.
"That's the space that was there for me to start writing and playing and singing….and to this day, I seek that quiet, and that space. It gives me the platform to be a strong artist," she said.
She takes little credit for some of her deepest songs — haunting ballads like "Soldier's Lament," which was featured during the ending of the season four finale of "The Unit," came from somewhere else, she said.
"I swear that song was written in 15 minutes," she said. "I didn't write it…some songs just come through you, and that's one of those that I don't have any personal experience with whatsoever (but) it needed to come through."
Kitchell said that she believes as a musician, she is something of an open vessel to whatever is around.
"Almost any great musician would never take credit entirely for their ability or the material that they write…they can't create without these things that are in the atmosphere, so to speak," she said.
The same can be said of her voice, which drips of painful years that she hasn't yet seen and sounds far older than it should.
"I think it's always been there," she said. "Some people believe in old souls, some don't…I do, and that's part of it, I think."
Next Saturday, she'll be playing songs from her 2010 EP "Convict of Conviction," which is full of material written over the course of the winter of 2009 when she spent time alone in the country.
She'll also be playing newer tracks that haven't come out yet, as well as favorites from her older albums.
When asked what she wanted from her next album to be, she had a simple answer— "the most awesome."
For tickets or more information about her April 16 show, go to MusicattheMission.org.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Vanilla Fudge guitarist to play Butler's "Fusion Cafe"
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
BUTLER — It's been 45 years since Vinny Martell first started burning up the stage with the psychedelic acid-rockers Vanilla Fudge — and all these years later, he's still at it, bringing his guitar chops to the Butler Church of the Nazarene's "Fusion Café" on Kiel Avenue on April 9.
Martell, 65, will be playing the band's old favorites like "You Keep Me Hangin' On" while mixing in some classics from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and the Mamas and the Papas while backed by Peg Pearl on keyboard, Russ T. Blades on drums, and Vanilla Fudge bassist Pete Bremy of West Milford as well.
The Butler performance will be the latest in a string for the very active Martell, who has been touring with the original lineup of Vanilla Fudge (minus bassist Tim Bogert) on what started out as a "Farewell Tour" but has ended up becoming quite the event.
The band has been playing gigs at venues like the legendary Stone Pony in Asbury Park and B.B. King Blues Club and Grill in NYC, and has sold out a number of them. On March 28, a performance of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" put the band back in the national spotlight.
For the ever-humble Martell, though, the best part of the show was meeting another celebrity that night — UFC superstar Brock Lesnar, who was also appearing on Fallon's show that night.
"He's a nice cat," said Martell "I told'em I really dig watchin' him fight."
Martell even got a picture with the 6-foot-3-inch tall, 280 lb. Lesnar, who he said was "very big" but "very cool."
The performance went off without a hitch — a quick search on the Internet will reveal that the band tore up the stage with as much fury and flare as they did back when they played "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1968.
Martell said that one thing had changed since those days however — his waistline.
"It looks like I gotta' go on my diet and lose about 25 pounds," he joked. "Whenever I go on TV it puts 20 pounds on me, I swear."
The band is supporting their 2010 offering "Box of Fudge," which is made up of two albums and two live performances, including a New Year's Eve 1968 performance at the Fillmore West that the band didn't even remember had been recorded.
The tour has been going well, and, for once in the band's rollercoaster history in regards to friendships, everyone has been getting along.
"Everybody wants to make this happen, so we're taking it easy on each other, and we're being receptive to each other," he said.
They've also been playing their first album in its entirety, a thing they've never done, in a tribute to the fans who have followed them for so long — Martell said that fans have been coming from literally all over the world to see the band with original vocalist and keyboardist Marc Stein and Carmine Appice on drums.
Martell said a few people from Germany had flown to New Jersey to see the performance at the Stone Pony, and then gone to the B.B. King Blues Club show as well.
Another loyal fan flew over from Italy — he'd seen the band on TV in 1968, and finally made his way to the U.S. to see them live.
"It's tremendous to get that reception," Martell said. "We have some super-duper fans, and we got fans from Europe that blow our minds."
This is why the band makes such a point to sign every autograph and take every picture with the fans that they can; it's the bands way of saying "thanks" after all these years.
"We applaud you," he said.
The guitarist has been involved with a range of other things in his free time, and, as a veteran of the U.S. Navy, he is extremely active in veterans' affairs.
He often plays benefits to help homeless veterans, and said that the subject is one that strikes near to his heart; he was even born on Nov. 11.
"I want to bring attention to that," he said. "There should be no homeless vets— they signed that (line) to give their life for this country."
That's this guitarist's creed, one might say — keep on playing, for any cause, big or small, whether it's doing a show at the VA hospital in Wilmington, DE, or playing music at his mother's nursing home.
And in between, of course, there's the big stuff. Like Vanilla Fudge.
Martell said that he hopes the tour keeps going, because "we're having a lot of fun out there."
But, if it has to end, as all things do, Martell said he believes that his band left a lasting impact on the music industry as the "pioneers of heavy metal."
"We were the first guys to come out with the big amps, and our idea was that whenever we went out on stage, it was like a war….you wanted to be as emotional, and get as much feeling out of it, as you could," he said. "You wanted to blow the walls out of that place."
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Veterans of the "Great War" deserve better
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
STEVE JANOSKI
Americans have never been too good at remembering our history. From the condos that decorate some of the Civil War's major battlefields to the callous disregard given to historic buildings that lie in the way of "progress," we've always been a nation that's looked more toward the future than the past.Although that philosophy might be part of the reason that we've risen (as a country) to the heights we have in a relatively short period, there are also certain instances where this can lead to neglecting portions of our past that should have been honored more appropriately.
Unfortunately, when Corporal Frank Buckles passed away on Feb. 27, we lost our chance to show the last American veteran of World War I that our neglect was in fact a mistake, and that we would fix it as soon as we could by making a monument to those who fought in what is becoming a forgotten war.
World War I is abstract in the minds of many — a long-ago war fought on European soil that that is permanently overshadowed in the pages of the history books by its much larger sister war, fought just 21 years later.
The people who fought in it, though, were real people — like my great-grandfather who, although he died long before I was born, was part of the artillery corps in France.
When I look at the rolls of his regiment or the yellowed letters he sent home from the European front, that war becomes tangible — no longer dry pages in a history book, but something that really happened, that somebody had to live through.
The war, however, was always real for Buckles. He had gone to France as an ambulance driver at just 16 years-old, and saw first hand the devastation that the "War to end all wars" wreaked on men.
Before his death, Buckles had been a proponent of creating a national monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and was the honorary chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation.
Edwin Fountain, who sits on the board of directors for the Foundation, said that although a memorial exists in Washington to the "Great War," when it was originally dedicated in 1931, it was only meant to commemorate the 499 residents of that city who became casualties — not for the plethora of other Americans who died in the green fields of France.
Over time, as other war monuments were erected to honor the following wars of the 20th century, the WWI monument was neglected, and fell into disrepair — a terrible sin that has disrespected every one of the 5 million men who served in the war, and the 116,000 who never saw home again because of it.
Buckles called not only for the restoration of the D.C. monument, but also that it be rededicated as a national memorial. As the last members of the "Lost Generation" began to pass into history, he finally got some attention,
In 2009, he spoke to lawmakers in Congress about the need for a memorial — at the time, he was 108 — and for once, Congress listened.
Since then, Fountain said, about $7 million in stimulus money was secured in order to restore the monument in a way that will be tastefully done.
"We don't want to detract at all from the existing monument, because it's very peaceful, and it's been tucked off in the trees," he said. "It has a very different feel than the other (monuments.)"
"We want to add statues that will give it a national component, but would still be deferential to the original (purpose)," he said.
Restoration is currently underway, but Fountain said that only half the mission is completed, as the site still must be rededicated to recognize it as a national memorial.
Legislation is slowly making its way through Congress that would accomplish this, and Senate Bill No. 253 is a bipartisan effort that would authorize the establishment of this national memorial.
In the House of Representatives, the act is called, appropriately, the Frank Buckles WWI Memorial Act.
Fountain asks that citizens call their senators and congressmen and ask that they support the bill, which would finally give these brave men the posthumous honors that they all deserved to see with their own eyes.
I have to agree with him… it's only 93 years late.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/more_history_news/119377349_Veterans_of_the__Great_War__deserve_better.html?page=all
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