Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Chef Kevin Kohler of Ramsey's Cafe Panache in "Coffee with the Chef"
If it were up to Café Panache chef and owner Kevin Kohler, his popular Ramsey restaurant would offer only three appetizers and three entrées each night, and the selection would depend entirely on what the freshest fish or best cut of meat was that day.
Although the 56-year-old Mahwah resident and father of four has had to expand the offerings during his 29-year tenure at the eclectic BYOB restaurant, he focuses on creating specials and says he enjoys "changing dishes frequently."
Here, Kohler, who has worked at the Four Seasons in Manhattan, speaks his mind about reality cooking shows, the $10,000-plus meal he once cooked and why he absolutely hates Chilean sea bass.
The most difficult dish to make at my restaurant: Nothing really scares me. It’s like playing music: If you play long enough, you can play everything after a while. Nothing is harder than anything else.
Best part about cooking in this area: It’s close to home. I used to commute to New York, and for 29 years I haven’t had to.
Favorite local restaurant: Arturo’s Restaurant in Midland Park.
My pet peeve: Not cleaning up after yourself. Don’t make a mess, keep it clean.
The most expensive meal I’ve ever had: At Alain Ducasse’s restaurant in Monte Carlo. It was foie gras, black truffles, caviar, wild mushrooms, and zucchini flowers with lobster mousse. It was so expensive that my comment to my wife was that I should trade my car for the check. It was delicious and it was never worth it; there’s not a meal anywhere worth more than $200 a person.
Most expensive meal I’ve ever made: In 1979 I was working at the Palace Restaurant, which was the most expensive in New York City at the time. We cooked a dinner for an oil guy from the Middle East that was in the Guinness Book of World Records because it cost north of $10,000.
It was, like, 12 courses, and it was weird — he wanted things like a birdcage made of spaghetti, that held a quail wrapped in gold.
What I’d never pay for at a restaurant: Expensive cocktails, because I know what a rip-off they are.
Strangest request from a diner: One guy asked for 1 pound of salad with no dressing. And he knew what a pound looked like, so we had to weigh it on the scale, and then put the salad onto a plate. That’s got my record.
My guilty pleasure: Mousse foie gras. It’s buttery and creamy, and really, really good. I love slopping that on bread when I’m cooking. You have that with wine, and it’ll make you happy.
Most overrated food fad: Chilean sea bass. It’s garbage. It’s frozen when it comes over and it’s greasy ... and it smells; you put that next to a good striped or sea bass, and it’s night and day.
Best place to grocery shop in North Jersey: Steve’s Market in Ramsey. Steve always has beautiful vegetables and great meat, and he’s always there making sure the quality is good.
What cooking show I’d like to be on: I really don’t like cooking shows; I think they’re stupid. I don’t think food should ever be a competition. It’s a profession, something that none of us should want to race or make a show out of. It’s pathetic. I like shows that are more culinary, where you get to see great chefs prepare food accurately.
The next food fad: Classic French dishes are going to make a move. They’re due to come back, and I think they’re the ones that have been forgotten and misunderstood. It’s still the mother of all cooking, though, and if you understand French cooking, you can cook anything.
Info: Café Panache, 130 E. Main St, Ramsey 201-934-0030; cafepanachenj.com.
--
http://www.northjersey.com/food-and-dining-news/chef-kevin-kohler-of-ramsey-s-cafe-panache-on-reality-cooking-shows-the-10-000-plus-meal-he-cooked-and-why-he-detests-chilean-sea-bass-1.745490
Although the 56-year-old Mahwah resident and father of four has had to expand the offerings during his 29-year tenure at the eclectic BYOB restaurant, he focuses on creating specials and says he enjoys "changing dishes frequently."
Here, Kohler, who has worked at the Four Seasons in Manhattan, speaks his mind about reality cooking shows, the $10,000-plus meal he once cooked and why he absolutely hates Chilean sea bass.
The most difficult dish to make at my restaurant: Nothing really scares me. It’s like playing music: If you play long enough, you can play everything after a while. Nothing is harder than anything else.
Best part about cooking in this area: It’s close to home. I used to commute to New York, and for 29 years I haven’t had to.
Favorite local restaurant: Arturo’s Restaurant in Midland Park.
My pet peeve: Not cleaning up after yourself. Don’t make a mess, keep it clean.
The most expensive meal I’ve ever had: At Alain Ducasse’s restaurant in Monte Carlo. It was foie gras, black truffles, caviar, wild mushrooms, and zucchini flowers with lobster mousse. It was so expensive that my comment to my wife was that I should trade my car for the check. It was delicious and it was never worth it; there’s not a meal anywhere worth more than $200 a person.
Most expensive meal I’ve ever made: In 1979 I was working at the Palace Restaurant, which was the most expensive in New York City at the time. We cooked a dinner for an oil guy from the Middle East that was in the Guinness Book of World Records because it cost north of $10,000.
It was, like, 12 courses, and it was weird — he wanted things like a birdcage made of spaghetti, that held a quail wrapped in gold.
What I’d never pay for at a restaurant: Expensive cocktails, because I know what a rip-off they are.
Strangest request from a diner: One guy asked for 1 pound of salad with no dressing. And he knew what a pound looked like, so we had to weigh it on the scale, and then put the salad onto a plate. That’s got my record.
My guilty pleasure: Mousse foie gras. It’s buttery and creamy, and really, really good. I love slopping that on bread when I’m cooking. You have that with wine, and it’ll make you happy.
Most overrated food fad: Chilean sea bass. It’s garbage. It’s frozen when it comes over and it’s greasy ... and it smells; you put that next to a good striped or sea bass, and it’s night and day.
Best place to grocery shop in North Jersey: Steve’s Market in Ramsey. Steve always has beautiful vegetables and great meat, and he’s always there making sure the quality is good.
What cooking show I’d like to be on: I really don’t like cooking shows; I think they’re stupid. I don’t think food should ever be a competition. It’s a profession, something that none of us should want to race or make a show out of. It’s pathetic. I like shows that are more culinary, where you get to see great chefs prepare food accurately.
The next food fad: Classic French dishes are going to make a move. They’re due to come back, and I think they’re the ones that have been forgotten and misunderstood. It’s still the mother of all cooking, though, and if you understand French cooking, you can cook anything.
Info: Café Panache, 130 E. Main St, Ramsey 201-934-0030; cafepanachenj.com.
--
http://www.northjersey.com/food-and-dining-news/chef-kevin-kohler-of-ramsey-s-cafe-panache-on-reality-cooking-shows-the-10-000-plus-meal-he-cooked-and-why-he-detests-chilean-sea-bass-1.745490
Friday, April 18, 2014
Shemekia Copeland: A blues singer with an impressive pedigree
Shemekia Copeland has come a long way from being the frightened 8-year-old who was prodded onstage at Harlem’s legendary Cotton Club by her famous blues guitarist father, Johnny Copeland.
Up to that point, she’d only sang "under beds and behind curtains," and even though her dad gave her a false name to hide her identity and calm her nerves, she was still upset with him for making her do it.
Years later and she strides across that same stage with such ease that one might be tempted to call it the 34-year-old singer’s second home.
"It’s my favorite part," she said, "but that came with age — the more comfortable you are with yourself, the easier it is to be up there."
It’s that ease and flair that the Teaneck High School graduate and two-time Grammy nominee will bring to the Ringwood Public Library on Sunday, April 6 as a part of the library’s New Legacy concert series.
"We’re gonna’ do our show," she said. "We’ve never done that gig before, so we’re looking forward to it."
She’ll be playing selections from both her blues-soaked backlog and her newest album, 2012’s "33 1/3," which expanded on her love of bringing new, funky musical ingredients back into a genre that’s often pigeonholed as being about a lone guitar player playing old standards.
Her songs use bluesy melodies, funk-driven guitar riffs, and rock-and-roll gruffness to tell the stories she wants to tell, and her lyrics address topics like the plight of the poor and the horrors of domestic violence.
"I take elements from everything," she said. "I love to try and put it all in there, all the voices, all the styles… just because it’s the blues doesn’t mean it should be limited. That’s how it moves and grows."
As experimental as her albums might be, however, Copeland herself exudes the feeling that she always knows what she wants. She spoke bluntly about how the blues is born into a person, and she "wouldn’t give up my pedigree for all the fame and fortune in the world."
She plays guitar badly, she said, but doesn’t really care because "there’s certainly enough" guitarists in the world and the instrument itself is "so clichéd."
And even though being nominated for two of music’s most prestigious awards was "amazing," she doesn’t need the Recording Academy to "tell me I made a great record."
No, she said, she’s proud of what she does no matter what.
Few would dare say that pride is misguided, and as Copeland’s career progresses, her honor roll continues to grow. She has opened for the Rolling Stones, headlined the Chicago Blues Festival, and played at the White House for President Obama and the First Lady alongside blues legends Buddy Guy and B.B. King.
That might have been one of her more remarkable gigs, she said, not least because she overheard the 77-year-old Guy marvel in disbelief about how he’d gone "from the cotton fields to the White House."
But no matter how high she climbs, she steadfastly adheres to the idea that the blues is about singing your song, and hoping that it helps someone else through their own troubles.
"It’s about affecting people," she said. "It’s about you telling your story. And if your story can affect somebody in some sort of way, then you’re doing good."
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
--
http://www.northjersey.com/arts-and-entertainment/music/she-s-a-blues-singer-with-an-impressive-pedigree-1.840233#sthash.LygFPOrj.dpuf
Up to that point, she’d only sang "under beds and behind curtains," and even though her dad gave her a false name to hide her identity and calm her nerves, she was still upset with him for making her do it.
Years later and she strides across that same stage with such ease that one might be tempted to call it the 34-year-old singer’s second home.
"It’s my favorite part," she said, "but that came with age — the more comfortable you are with yourself, the easier it is to be up there."
It’s that ease and flair that the Teaneck High School graduate and two-time Grammy nominee will bring to the Ringwood Public Library on Sunday, April 6 as a part of the library’s New Legacy concert series.
"We’re gonna’ do our show," she said. "We’ve never done that gig before, so we’re looking forward to it."
She’ll be playing selections from both her blues-soaked backlog and her newest album, 2012’s "33 1/3," which expanded on her love of bringing new, funky musical ingredients back into a genre that’s often pigeonholed as being about a lone guitar player playing old standards.
Her songs use bluesy melodies, funk-driven guitar riffs, and rock-and-roll gruffness to tell the stories she wants to tell, and her lyrics address topics like the plight of the poor and the horrors of domestic violence.
"I take elements from everything," she said. "I love to try and put it all in there, all the voices, all the styles… just because it’s the blues doesn’t mean it should be limited. That’s how it moves and grows."
As experimental as her albums might be, however, Copeland herself exudes the feeling that she always knows what she wants. She spoke bluntly about how the blues is born into a person, and she "wouldn’t give up my pedigree for all the fame and fortune in the world."
She plays guitar badly, she said, but doesn’t really care because "there’s certainly enough" guitarists in the world and the instrument itself is "so clichéd."
And even though being nominated for two of music’s most prestigious awards was "amazing," she doesn’t need the Recording Academy to "tell me I made a great record."
No, she said, she’s proud of what she does no matter what.
Few would dare say that pride is misguided, and as Copeland’s career progresses, her honor roll continues to grow. She has opened for the Rolling Stones, headlined the Chicago Blues Festival, and played at the White House for President Obama and the First Lady alongside blues legends Buddy Guy and B.B. King.
That might have been one of her more remarkable gigs, she said, not least because she overheard the 77-year-old Guy marvel in disbelief about how he’d gone "from the cotton fields to the White House."
But no matter how high she climbs, she steadfastly adheres to the idea that the blues is about singing your song, and hoping that it helps someone else through their own troubles.
"It’s about affecting people," she said. "It’s about you telling your story. And if your story can affect somebody in some sort of way, then you’re doing good."
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
--
http://www.northjersey.com/arts-and-entertainment/music/she-s-a-blues-singer-with-an-impressive-pedigree-1.840233#sthash.LygFPOrj.dpuf
Broken your New Year's resolution already? You're hardly alone
We all know the drill: another January, another broken resolution.
This will be the year, we tell ourselves at the start, that we're going to quit smoking, eat healthier, get back into yoga, start weightlifting, and lose that stubborn ring of fat around our midsections.
Although it starts off with the best of intentions, the fervor often ends as abruptly as it began, and just a few weeks into February, the gym floors empty out as the "resolutioners" retire to the couch once more.
That's what happened to 47-year-old Wayne resident Karen Esa – except she didn't quite make it that far. She decided in the last week of December that she wanted to drop a few pounds and tone up before a February vacation. Her new diet and exercise routine would
be in place for New Year's, and she had no doubt that after two months, she'd reach her goal
"I was really 100 percent serious about this," she said. "I believed it."
Two days later, she was done.
"I never lost a pound," she said with a guilty laugh.
What is it about the turning of the calendar that makes us want to make such massive changes? And more important, how come they don't ever seem to stick?
The answer to why we do it, said River Edge-based author and psychotherapist Jay P. Granat, is a bit complicated, but stems from the fact that New Year's is often viewed as the opening of a new chapter in one's life. (Granat's website: stayinthezone.com.)
After all, another year has passed and, he said, we reflect on our mortality, and "think, 'I'm getting on in the years, maybe I better make some shifts,' " he said.
No wonder those resolutions are often health-related; losing weight and quitting smoking tend to top the resolution list.
Unfortunately, many of us don't keep their Jan. 1 resolutions, especially the one to lose weight, Granat said; about 95 percent of people will fail. And it's that four-to-six week mark where they quit most often.
But even if you're stuck in that February rut, Granat said, all is not lost. Getting back on the wagon, even after falling off, shows resiliency, which is crucial for making progress over the long haul.
"Many resolutions are not sprints; they're marathons," he said. "You might turn an ankle or stumble, but you keep going … it's a journey."
Gary Imhoff, the director of marketing and membership at the Ridgewood YMCA, agreed, and said that his organization ran a "Resolution Revolution" program that offered a free week at the gym, and helped members keep track of their progress, sending out notes of encouragement.
"We try to maintain the momentum, and that's been really successful for a lot of people," he said.
A number of those who signed up for the program are still working out, he said; there hasn't been a marked February dropoff. Some of this might be due to the advice the YMCA gives to new members: make your goals attainable, and don't overdo it.
"A lot of people set their standards too high, and those are the ones who tend to drop out," he said. "But even if they're doing the minimal amount of exercise, it's certainly better than not doing anything."
After all, as Granat said, there's still 46 weeks left in the year to make good on that resolution. And those like Esa remain determined as ever to lose that weight.
"I'm going to start going to the gym again," she said. "I want that. I really do."
--
http://www.northjersey.com/news/broken-your-new-year-s-resolution-already-you-re-hardly-alone-1.644691?page=all#sthash.RholWZXV.dpuf
This will be the year, we tell ourselves at the start, that we're going to quit smoking, eat healthier, get back into yoga, start weightlifting, and lose that stubborn ring of fat around our midsections.
Although it starts off with the best of intentions, the fervor often ends as abruptly as it began, and just a few weeks into February, the gym floors empty out as the "resolutioners" retire to the couch once more.
That's what happened to 47-year-old Wayne resident Karen Esa – except she didn't quite make it that far. She decided in the last week of December that she wanted to drop a few pounds and tone up before a February vacation. Her new diet and exercise routine would
be in place for New Year's, and she had no doubt that after two months, she'd reach her goal
"I was really 100 percent serious about this," she said. "I believed it."
Two days later, she was done.
"I never lost a pound," she said with a guilty laugh.
What is it about the turning of the calendar that makes us want to make such massive changes? And more important, how come they don't ever seem to stick?
The answer to why we do it, said River Edge-based author and psychotherapist Jay P. Granat, is a bit complicated, but stems from the fact that New Year's is often viewed as the opening of a new chapter in one's life. (Granat's website: stayinthezone.com.)
After all, another year has passed and, he said, we reflect on our mortality, and "think, 'I'm getting on in the years, maybe I better make some shifts,' " he said.
No wonder those resolutions are often health-related; losing weight and quitting smoking tend to top the resolution list.
Unfortunately, many of us don't keep their Jan. 1 resolutions, especially the one to lose weight, Granat said; about 95 percent of people will fail. And it's that four-to-six week mark where they quit most often.
But even if you're stuck in that February rut, Granat said, all is not lost. Getting back on the wagon, even after falling off, shows resiliency, which is crucial for making progress over the long haul.
"Many resolutions are not sprints; they're marathons," he said. "You might turn an ankle or stumble, but you keep going … it's a journey."
Gary Imhoff, the director of marketing and membership at the Ridgewood YMCA, agreed, and said that his organization ran a "Resolution Revolution" program that offered a free week at the gym, and helped members keep track of their progress, sending out notes of encouragement.
"We try to maintain the momentum, and that's been really successful for a lot of people," he said.
A number of those who signed up for the program are still working out, he said; there hasn't been a marked February dropoff. Some of this might be due to the advice the YMCA gives to new members: make your goals attainable, and don't overdo it.
"A lot of people set their standards too high, and those are the ones who tend to drop out," he said. "But even if they're doing the minimal amount of exercise, it's certainly better than not doing anything."
After all, as Granat said, there's still 46 weeks left in the year to make good on that resolution. And those like Esa remain determined as ever to lose that weight.
"I'm going to start going to the gym again," she said. "I want that. I really do."
--
http://www.northjersey.com/news/broken-your-new-year-s-resolution-already-you-re-hardly-alone-1.644691?page=all#sthash.RholWZXV.dpuf
Bobby Gunn's fighting family comes full circle
A fighter’s eyes will tell you everything: how he came up, where he’s from, what style he’ll use in the ring. In older boxers you’ll catch glimpses of battles long since passed and see if they still got the sand to get up off the canvas, just once more, even though their vision is twisted and the heavy chains of fatigue have wrapped themselves around their lungs.
Bobby Gunn Jr., though, is a little bit different. Look into his eyes, and you’ll see that sanguine cheeriness we all have at 18 years old when we’re young and bold and the world is our oyster. The pale-skinned, brown-haired kid from Hackensack is warm and affable, quick to laugh, and humble to a fault.
Don’t mistake it for weakness though. He’s a fighter, through and through. It’s been bred into him, he said, and it’s all he’s ever known. It makes sense, of course, because as the son of former cruiserweight champ Bobby Gunn Sr., he’s been in boxing gyms his entire life. He can’t remember the first time he put on a pair of gloves, but even as a kindergartner he would spend hours shadowboxing in front of a mirror, emulating his dad.
Even though his father tried to dissuade him, he decided at 13 that he would someday turn pro, and over the last five years, he’s honed the necessary skills under his dad’s watchful eye. The work’s paid off, and there’s nary an ounce of fat on his 5-foot, 10-inch, 154-pound frame. But don’t let that lean facade fool you. Watch him hit a heavy bag, and you’re stunned at the amount of force he can create.
The sport is his sanctuary and his escape, he said, his way out not from the streets of a New Jersey ghetto, but from a lifetime of being "just another guy."
"Boxing, for me, is where I could be something," he said. "Where I could be extraordinary. And that’s what’s going to set me [apart] from everyone else."
Bobby Sr.’s face lights up any time he speaks of his son, who he often refers to as "my boy." The two are eerily similar and share not only the same looks, but identical demeanors and even Bobby Sr.’s voice and accent, that odd mix of Canadian and Irish gypsy that gives away their Traveler roots.
At 40 years old, he’s a broad house of a man with a face sculpted from scar tissue and accented by healed cuts. But over his own 24-year career, he was always more Jim Braddock than Joe Louis: a working-class hero who’d haul shingles onto roofs all day before making his way to the gym at night to train for bouts.
His "never-say-die" style earned him a cult following, but he lost many of his biggest fights and always seemed just one step away from the top. He called it quits last year after a particularly tough loss and now focuses solely on his son’s career. There’s something different about the kid, though, Bobby Sr. said. Something impressive. Something special.
He showed flashes of it on March 15, when he won his pro debut by spectacular knockout just 40 seconds into the first round — no small feat in a sport known for humbling newcomers who are taking their first cautious steps out of the headgear-clad world of the amateur ranks.
But even though it’s his left hook that opponents quickly come to fear, his dad thinks it’s his composure in the ring, his unshakeable coolness, that is his greatest strength.
"My boy," he said, "is already a better fighter than I ever was. He’s very experienced for a young man. … When you see him fight, it’s how relaxed and calm he is … as if he was a veteran already."
And even though the father-son team hits the occasional rough patch, both love each other dearly, and Bobby Sr. is determined to be there to keep his son away from the underworld leeches that lurk on boxing’s periphery — the same ones that tortured and extorted him during his own career.
"I thank God for what I went through, and I would go through it again and again and again to have my son not go through it," he said. "My son, he has a clean slate. He will never be around that."
It’s no secret that Bobby Jr. has been groomed to be North Jersey’s next big boxing sensation, and living up to his father’s sometimes larger-than-life presence can feed personal fears of "not living up to the hype." But when the bell rings, all that goes out the window, and it’s just him, once more, doing what he does. What he’s always done.
Because, as he said, there’s poodles in this world, and there’s pitbulls. Neither is better than the other, but one can be just a little bit meaner.
You can see it in their eyes.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
Bobby Gunn Jr., though, is a little bit different. Look into his eyes, and you’ll see that sanguine cheeriness we all have at 18 years old when we’re young and bold and the world is our oyster. The pale-skinned, brown-haired kid from Hackensack is warm and affable, quick to laugh, and humble to a fault.
Don’t mistake it for weakness though. He’s a fighter, through and through. It’s been bred into him, he said, and it’s all he’s ever known. It makes sense, of course, because as the son of former cruiserweight champ Bobby Gunn Sr., he’s been in boxing gyms his entire life. He can’t remember the first time he put on a pair of gloves, but even as a kindergartner he would spend hours shadowboxing in front of a mirror, emulating his dad.
Even though his father tried to dissuade him, he decided at 13 that he would someday turn pro, and over the last five years, he’s honed the necessary skills under his dad’s watchful eye. The work’s paid off, and there’s nary an ounce of fat on his 5-foot, 10-inch, 154-pound frame. But don’t let that lean facade fool you. Watch him hit a heavy bag, and you’re stunned at the amount of force he can create.
The sport is his sanctuary and his escape, he said, his way out not from the streets of a New Jersey ghetto, but from a lifetime of being "just another guy."
"Boxing, for me, is where I could be something," he said. "Where I could be extraordinary. And that’s what’s going to set me [apart] from everyone else."
Bobby Sr.’s face lights up any time he speaks of his son, who he often refers to as "my boy." The two are eerily similar and share not only the same looks, but identical demeanors and even Bobby Sr.’s voice and accent, that odd mix of Canadian and Irish gypsy that gives away their Traveler roots.
At 40 years old, he’s a broad house of a man with a face sculpted from scar tissue and accented by healed cuts. But over his own 24-year career, he was always more Jim Braddock than Joe Louis: a working-class hero who’d haul shingles onto roofs all day before making his way to the gym at night to train for bouts.
His "never-say-die" style earned him a cult following, but he lost many of his biggest fights and always seemed just one step away from the top. He called it quits last year after a particularly tough loss and now focuses solely on his son’s career. There’s something different about the kid, though, Bobby Sr. said. Something impressive. Something special.
He showed flashes of it on March 15, when he won his pro debut by spectacular knockout just 40 seconds into the first round — no small feat in a sport known for humbling newcomers who are taking their first cautious steps out of the headgear-clad world of the amateur ranks.
But even though it’s his left hook that opponents quickly come to fear, his dad thinks it’s his composure in the ring, his unshakeable coolness, that is his greatest strength.
"My boy," he said, "is already a better fighter than I ever was. He’s very experienced for a young man. … When you see him fight, it’s how relaxed and calm he is … as if he was a veteran already."
And even though the father-son team hits the occasional rough patch, both love each other dearly, and Bobby Sr. is determined to be there to keep his son away from the underworld leeches that lurk on boxing’s periphery — the same ones that tortured and extorted him during his own career.
"I thank God for what I went through, and I would go through it again and again and again to have my son not go through it," he said. "My son, he has a clean slate. He will never be around that."
It’s no secret that Bobby Jr. has been groomed to be North Jersey’s next big boxing sensation, and living up to his father’s sometimes larger-than-life presence can feed personal fears of "not living up to the hype." But when the bell rings, all that goes out the window, and it’s just him, once more, doing what he does. What he’s always done.
Because, as he said, there’s poodles in this world, and there’s pitbulls. Neither is better than the other, but one can be just a little bit meaner.
You can see it in their eyes.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
--
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/boxing/a-fighting-family-comes-full-circle-1.751716
Ex-boxer's hands hold the fate of a nation
Perhaps it’s inevitable that we in America idolize sports figures the way we do. We know we shouldn’t, because when you idolize someone you don’t actually know, you’re asking for heartbreak when you inevitably find out they’re a wife-beater or a drunk or addicted to painkillers.
But we do it anyway — I’m no exception — even though the idea of grown men worshipping other grown men and viciously defending their reputations just because they throw a ball hard or run fast is, well, ridiculous.
It’s in our nature, that feeling of wanting to belong to something, especially in this modern era when our small tribes have scattered and our warriors have disappeared.
So we separate. I’m Boston, you’re New York. I like the Giants, you like the Cowboys. I think Ali was the greatest, you think Tyson would have killed him. We don’t know ’em. We never will. But we love ’em anyway.
Then someone like Vitali Klitschko comes along.
If you don’t follow sports, you’re probably not familiar with him, although if you’re vaguely aware of boxing you might recognize him as "that huge Eastern European dude who reminds me of Drago from ‘Rocky IV.’"
And huge he is, standing at 6-foot, 7-inches tall and weighing in at a lean 243 pounds — but that’s where the similarities to Rocky’s nemesis end.
When he emerged as one of the top heavyweights in the world 10 years ago, it was an immediate and welcome departure from the maelstrom of drama that wreaked havoc on the boxing world during the Tyson years. Klitschko, after all, has a PhD in sports science, speaks four languages, enjoys chess, and often works with UNESCO.
Inside the ring, "Dr. Ironfist" was all we could ever want: a tough, hardworking assassin who loved to fight and always went for the knockout when blood was in the water. His only losses were stoppages due to injury, and over the course of 16 years, he was never knocked down.
When he retired in December of 2013, it was assumed to be more out of boredom than old age. No one had given him a run for his money in years, and what good is the warrior without a war?
But there was a bigger battle looming that many of us in the America were ignorant of, and I had no idea that when he said that he wanted to focus on politics in his home nation of Ukraine, that path would lead him into far greater danger than he ever met in the squared circle.
Now, one look at any news channel tells us all we need to know. Kiev burns through the night as Ukrainians, desperate to free themselves of the yoke of Russian influence, engage in running streetfights with police who represent a government intent on breaking the will of its people.
The violence has reached levels not seen since the breakup of the Soviet Union, and thousands have camped out in Kiev’s aptly named Independence Square, the epicenter of what looks more like civil war than civil strife.
And who is in the middle of it all but Vitali Klitschko, the man who has all the money and all the fame he could ever ask for, but has put himself squarely in the crosshairs anyway.
Elected to the Ukrainian parliament in 2012, he has led the opposition to President Viktor Yanukovich’s regime and proven himself an effective leader, calling for restraint from police and protestors both when it would prevent inevitable bloodshed.
But like any good fighter, he knows when the hands that can sign peace accords must ball into a fist. And as the pictures stream in from a ravaged Kiev, it appears now is that time.
"We will not go anywhere from here," he told a crowd of 20,000 who gathered in the square last Wednesday. "This is an island of freedom, and we will defend it."
Two dozen had died defending it the day before. Scores more would die at the hands of government snipers the day after. The future of a country hangs in the balance. The doctor is in and seeks to save a patient of unprecedented importance.
If you’re looking for a man who truly warrants admiration, look no further.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
--
http://www.northjersey.com/news/ex-boxer-s-hands-hold-the-fate-of-a-nation-1.731742
The Ballad of Victor Ortiz
Right now, the world should be at Victor Ortiz's feet. It was, after all, just a few short years ago that this young, talented fighter, propelled by HBO and led by a cadre of world-class trainers, was rising to heights that only a fraction of boxers ever get a chance to see.
He'd come from the worst possible background - the son of illegal immigrants in a nation that deplores them, the product of a mother who abandoned the family and a violent father who drank too much before leaving himself - but the steep slope of his climb only made his ascension that much more impressive.
He was a good-looking kid in a land of crushed-nose brawlers, and that, along with his affable nature, seemed to signify the emergence of a new star birthed from boxing's dark world of whispering con-men and weekday club fights.
Five years later and it's all gone, courtesy, some might say, of the most vicious right hook that Luis Collazo has ever landed. But in truth, it began much earlier than that; after all, the fractures that cause us to crumble as adults are often scored out when we're children - young, innocent, and striving for affection and attention and understanding.
I suspect that Ortiz didn't get much of any of those things during his hard-knock upbringing, and his life since then has been one long journey in figuring out how to deal with abandonment issues that few of us can comprehend. That's all speculation, of course, and I am only guessing as to what goes on inside the man's head. But there is one undeniable truth: if your foundation is cracked, no amount of mortar can keep the walls from collapsing.
By now, Ortiz's foundation, if ever there was one, is destroyed, and all the athleticism and natural talent, all the boxing acumen he's soaked up over the years, can't make up for that.
We've known where this was headed for a long time. There were hints of his eventual fate in the statements he made after he quit in the ring during his 2009 bout with Marcos Maidana. During the post-fight interview, he did something that fighters rarely do: question whether or not the pugilistic path was one that he really wanted to explore any further.
"I have a lot of thinking to do," he told Max Kellerman.
But then he rebounded and won five of his next six fights, including the remarkable bout with Andre Berto that saw him get off the deck twice en route to a unanimous decision victory. I have to wonder though...maybe something happened to him on that April night in Connecticut. Maybe Berto's sledgehammer right hand did just a little bit too much damage, and broke whatever fragile weld was still holding things together.
After all, the rest of this story is well-documented: the Mayweather debacle, the Lopez fight, and finally last Thursday's bout with Collazo, which made little sense in the first place because if you're at a career crossroads in boxing, the last place you want to be is in the ring with the vicious streetfighter who's arrived at that same intersection.
And now it is over, and Ortiz, even if he doesn't retire right away, will fade off into that same night sky he once blazed through so brilliantly as he becomes yet another blinking footnote in the great tragic novel that is "Boxing."
But even though the cameras have turned off and the world will forget about him, the man will still exist. What is to become of him? Will anyone care? I don't know. Maybe he doesn't either. But I do hope that he doesn't spend the next 50 years wandering through this life, desperately fleeing the merciless demons that must haunt his every waking moment.
Eventually, a man's got to find peace. Sometimes, he's got to step away from the thing he loves in order to do that.
It's time for Victor Ortiz to step away.
--
http://www.badlefthook.com/2014/2/4/5378762/the-ballad-of-victor-ortiz
He'd come from the worst possible background - the son of illegal immigrants in a nation that deplores them, the product of a mother who abandoned the family and a violent father who drank too much before leaving himself - but the steep slope of his climb only made his ascension that much more impressive.
He was a good-looking kid in a land of crushed-nose brawlers, and that, along with his affable nature, seemed to signify the emergence of a new star birthed from boxing's dark world of whispering con-men and weekday club fights.
Five years later and it's all gone, courtesy, some might say, of the most vicious right hook that Luis Collazo has ever landed. But in truth, it began much earlier than that; after all, the fractures that cause us to crumble as adults are often scored out when we're children - young, innocent, and striving for affection and attention and understanding.
I suspect that Ortiz didn't get much of any of those things during his hard-knock upbringing, and his life since then has been one long journey in figuring out how to deal with abandonment issues that few of us can comprehend. That's all speculation, of course, and I am only guessing as to what goes on inside the man's head. But there is one undeniable truth: if your foundation is cracked, no amount of mortar can keep the walls from collapsing.
By now, Ortiz's foundation, if ever there was one, is destroyed, and all the athleticism and natural talent, all the boxing acumen he's soaked up over the years, can't make up for that.
We've known where this was headed for a long time. There were hints of his eventual fate in the statements he made after he quit in the ring during his 2009 bout with Marcos Maidana. During the post-fight interview, he did something that fighters rarely do: question whether or not the pugilistic path was one that he really wanted to explore any further.
"I have a lot of thinking to do," he told Max Kellerman.
But then he rebounded and won five of his next six fights, including the remarkable bout with Andre Berto that saw him get off the deck twice en route to a unanimous decision victory. I have to wonder though...maybe something happened to him on that April night in Connecticut. Maybe Berto's sledgehammer right hand did just a little bit too much damage, and broke whatever fragile weld was still holding things together.
After all, the rest of this story is well-documented: the Mayweather debacle, the Lopez fight, and finally last Thursday's bout with Collazo, which made little sense in the first place because if you're at a career crossroads in boxing, the last place you want to be is in the ring with the vicious streetfighter who's arrived at that same intersection.
And now it is over, and Ortiz, even if he doesn't retire right away, will fade off into that same night sky he once blazed through so brilliantly as he becomes yet another blinking footnote in the great tragic novel that is "Boxing."
But even though the cameras have turned off and the world will forget about him, the man will still exist. What is to become of him? Will anyone care? I don't know. Maybe he doesn't either. But I do hope that he doesn't spend the next 50 years wandering through this life, desperately fleeing the merciless demons that must haunt his every waking moment.
Eventually, a man's got to find peace. Sometimes, he's got to step away from the thing he loves in order to do that.
It's time for Victor Ortiz to step away.
--
http://www.badlefthook.com/2014/2/4/5378762/the-ballad-of-victor-ortiz
Philip Seymour Hoffman: Another tragic end for another rare talent
 |
I might have been late to the party in recognizing his talent, but as someone who doesn’t watch many movies and forgets an actor’s name within minutes of hearing it, the fact that his performance stood out the way it did says something.
He was, in that movie and in so many others, perhaps the perfect character actor, commanding the scenes he was supposed to command and blending in perfectly during the others, all with effortless grace. It was a flawless exhibition of a talent that only the finest supporting actors have: inherently knowing when it’s their turn, and when it is not.
And while I would not quite say that I was a devoted fan of his, I admit that seeing his deeply lined, stubbly face in a given trailer would lend the film instant credence. After all, if he was in it, there had to be some sort of depth, some redeeming quality, to be found, no matter how ridiculous the movie looked.
Consequentially, the news that the 46-year-old actor was found dead in his New York City apartment (reportedly due to a heroin overdose) isn’t so much "heartbreaking" as it is disappointing.
We all know the story of the "cursed" writer/actor/playwright/musician/etc. It’s far from new, and it’s a script that’s been acted out with tragic results in many a hotel bathroom. Each time it is sad, each time shocking, and Hoffman’s death is no different — just another famous man overflowing with talent who could not keep it together.
There was a time when I actually fell into the trap of believing that "doomed artist" myth. Writers and poets who died young, like Byron and Keats and Villon, had captured my imagination and tricked me into believing that living (and writing) with passion meant that you had to flame out early, or else you somehow weren’t doing it right.
Meanwhile, I looked with near-disdain on those like Yeats, who lived longer, more sober lives. If you’re around for so many years that you end up writing about how you’ve run out of things to write about, I thought, what’s the point of it all?
Looking back, I see that it was the foolishness of youth that made me think these things. There is no glory in dying before one’s time, and there is no beauty in hastening life’s end. And that’s why deaths like Hoffman’s are so absolutely frustrating: because they were avoidable.
I know that addiction is a disease, a savage battle that doesn’t end until the last breath leaves the body, and I know that we all have demons — some that nip at our heels a bit more closely than others.
But let’s not lie to each other here: absolving the drug-doer, the drunk, or the addict from any responsibility for their actions, or suggesting that their death wasn’t their fault, is disingenuous and dangerous.
This legendary actor wasn’t "taken from us," as so many Facebook and Twitter posts would have you believe. He quit. He threw in the towel. And what’s worse, after 23 years of sobriety, he knew that he was quitting, but went ahead and did it anyway.
There’s no honor in that, no Romantic notion of an accursed man who, as was once written about Jim Morrison, "felt life too intensely to bear living it."
Nah. That’s a copout, and a weak one at that, meant to justify the actions of selfish men who desert everyone who loves them.
What’s left behind — the shattered families, the regretful parents, the destroyed children — that’s the real tragedy. And it’s one that we’d do well not to forget.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/arts-and-entertainment/celebrities/philip-seymour-hoffman-another-tragic-end-for-another-rare-talent-1.710424
Why newspapers are too important to fail
Writing is a weapon and it's more powerful than a fist could ever be. - Denzel Washington as Rubin Carter in "The Hurricane"
It's no secret that over the past decade, newspapers have fallen on hard times. A storm of brutal factors have combined to lay low this once mighty and seemingly-indispensable industry, and the recovery, if it can be called that at all, has been slow and halting.
Some who never liked us to begin with have said this is a good thing. They say the slow death of the "mainstream media" is a result of our liberal bias, and laugh to each other that we're finally getting what's been coming to us for a long, long time.
Others lament the loss, and shake their heads when you tell them you work at a paper, saying, "Oh isn't it a shame what's going on? The Internet is just killing them." But they never quite care enough to lend their support - or their dollars - to the cause.
But if nothing else, The Record's recent breaking of a story that turned just another Fort Lee traffic jam into a scandal that might bring down one of the nation's most popular governors is proof positive that newspapers must continue to exist in one form or another, and if they disappear, it will be to the detriment of democracy.
To be frank, only a newspaper could have dragged this lovely New Jersey story of retribution and (possibly) corruption out into the daylight. No citizen blogger, even if he or she had the time and inclination, would likely have the resources that would enable them to dig up the necessary information without being brushed aside by state officials.
Yes, it's sad to say, but it takes a big, fearsome organization, one with enough artillery to hold fast no matter the threat, to counter another big, fearsome organization, and putting a lone blogger in that firing line is like giving a man a toy gun and pushing him off onto Omaha Beach.
It sounds like hyperbole. It is most certainly not.
I am not sure what the future holds for this industry, and the outlook, for now, remains grim.
But one thing is certain: saying, "Well, we didn't need you anyway" is not only callous, but ignorant as well.
This country needs writers who will act, like Steinbeck said, as "watchdogs for society" to make sure that the people at the top aren't trampling the people on the bottom.
Words always have more power than we think they do, and there's more than a little pride in knowing that a news organization - a real one, without talking heads and scrolling tickers - still has the ability to throw an iron bar in the works and stop up the whole machine if it's necessary.
I think by now, Chris Christie (or at least his staff) has learned that lesson well. Whether or not the public catches on...that remains to be seen.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/last-call-jan-22-2014-why-newspapers-are-too-important-to-fail-1.652191
It's no secret that over the past decade, newspapers have fallen on hard times. A storm of brutal factors have combined to lay low this once mighty and seemingly-indispensable industry, and the recovery, if it can be called that at all, has been slow and halting.
Some who never liked us to begin with have said this is a good thing. They say the slow death of the "mainstream media" is a result of our liberal bias, and laugh to each other that we're finally getting what's been coming to us for a long, long time.
Others lament the loss, and shake their heads when you tell them you work at a paper, saying, "Oh isn't it a shame what's going on? The Internet is just killing them." But they never quite care enough to lend their support - or their dollars - to the cause.
But if nothing else, The Record's recent breaking of a story that turned just another Fort Lee traffic jam into a scandal that might bring down one of the nation's most popular governors is proof positive that newspapers must continue to exist in one form or another, and if they disappear, it will be to the detriment of democracy.
To be frank, only a newspaper could have dragged this lovely New Jersey story of retribution and (possibly) corruption out into the daylight. No citizen blogger, even if he or she had the time and inclination, would likely have the resources that would enable them to dig up the necessary information without being brushed aside by state officials.
Yes, it's sad to say, but it takes a big, fearsome organization, one with enough artillery to hold fast no matter the threat, to counter another big, fearsome organization, and putting a lone blogger in that firing line is like giving a man a toy gun and pushing him off onto Omaha Beach.
It sounds like hyperbole. It is most certainly not.
I am not sure what the future holds for this industry, and the outlook, for now, remains grim.
But one thing is certain: saying, "Well, we didn't need you anyway" is not only callous, but ignorant as well.
This country needs writers who will act, like Steinbeck said, as "watchdogs for society" to make sure that the people at the top aren't trampling the people on the bottom.
Words always have more power than we think they do, and there's more than a little pride in knowing that a news organization - a real one, without talking heads and scrolling tickers - still has the ability to throw an iron bar in the works and stop up the whole machine if it's necessary.
I think by now, Chris Christie (or at least his staff) has learned that lesson well. Whether or not the public catches on...that remains to be seen.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/last-call-jan-22-2014-why-newspapers-are-too-important-to-fail-1.652191
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)