The Chrysler Building

The Washington Arch eagle

A summer day in NYC

New York City Boxing - 2012

Renewal

New York City boxing

Freedom Tower from Hoboken

Hoboken is decadent and depraved

By Steve Janoski

It’s on River Street that Hoboken’s past and present converge in a restless tidal pool of characters sauntering past one another in the steam bath air of a July night.

I had been covering amateur fights at one of the city’s most opulent hotels before finding myself out on the streets afterward fumbling with a new camera that I had yet to get the hang of.

Looking toward Manhattan, it’s no wonder this is referred to as the “Gold Coast” — New York Harbor yawns out from the shores, and the eruption of lights from that city of islands and towers creates an oppressive presence even from across the river.

But while I’ve always loved New York, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Hoboken. The nights I’ve spent in its finer (and not-so-fine) drinking establishments never ended early enough, and the preponderance of yuppies and aging frat boys makes my stomach turn.

Still, there’s always a drama playing out against the draping backdrop of row houses and storefronts, and I love this city as I love all cities, mostly because of their peculiar ability to be the axis around which not only history, but “right now,” revolves.

It was in Weehawken Cove that Henry Hudson anchored the Halve Maen (Half Moon) in 1609 before going on to explore the river that now bears his name. And, just a mile or so away, is Sybil’s Cave, which houses a natural spring whose waters were once sold because it was said they had medicinal powers; an 1841 murder there would become the inspiration for Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Mystery of Marie Roget.”

And then there’s the middle of the twentieth century, that golden age of Terry Malloy’s rough-and-tumble waterfront dominated by the Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants that had come swarming off the boats during the 1920s and 1930s.

Being born in 1984, I remember Hoboken only at the very tail end of its hardscrabble existence, just before gentrification came in and gouged out its violent heart.

But the grit is still there. It’s harder to find, like a roach that’s scampered away from Washington Street’s glittering lights and crawled into the shadowy nooks of the boulevards — but it survives.

I walk down Frank Sinatra Drive, catching bits and pieces of the conversations as I snaked through the soul of the city while stories en media res were written around me.

“Stop, stop, JUST STOP! There’s no one like you,” a young, perplexed-looking man with glasses and a blue polo tells his cross-armed girlfriend before he realizes how loud he’s being and drops his tone. She’s breaking up with him, I think.

On one bench, a college-age girl in New Balances talks on her cell phone about how a guy she met looked so much older than he really was; on another, two young, attractive women talk about what sounds like a boyfriend’s drinking problem.

Definitely Hoboken.

Right behind them though, an older black man with naked feet and a bald spot the size of a half-dollar on the crown of his head lays sprawled out on a cold concrete slab, all his belongings stuffed into bags next to him. Across the street, the plate-glass windows of a bar reveal young guys wearing plaid-shirts and khaki shorts drinking beer and watching sports on wall-mounted flat-screens.

Down on Pier A, the lawn is crowded with those escaping stuffy apartments, and a group of shirtless black men sit on the ledges, bursting with laughter before exploding into curses. The situation, for a second, grows tense.

 “You disrespect me? I don’t want to hear you!” one man yells in a thick island accent into the face of another, the striations in his muscles showing sharply under the lights. “I don’t want to hear you!”

Further down, an ample middle-aged white woman wearing baggy jeans and a billowing white t-shirt walks by, talking loudly into her cell phone and assuring her man that she’s not coming back to him.

“Yo, you lost me, yo. You lost me foreva! I’m puttin’ a restrainin’ order on yo’ ass,” she says.

Other itinerants gather under a pavilion near the water’s edge, their shopping cart lives now sheltered from rain.

And all the while, a willowy blonde wanders up and down the pier clad in an extraordinarily sheer yellow summer dress — with very little underneath — stopping at intervals to pose for an imaginary photographer, her haunting, dilated pupils boring into the darkness.

The city’s still here. Sometimes closer than we think.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

First volley in the war on obesity

BY STEVE JANOSKI

I've got to give New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg credit: the man's got…nerve.

I'm sure he knew the firestorm was coming last week when he announced his plan to combat obesity by banning the selling of sweetened drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces at places like restaurants, movie theaters, and fast food places, and he went ahead with it anyway.

And, as was expected, the naysayers have sprung from the woodwork with a glut of "reasons" why this is an awful idea. It won't help, they claim, because people will buy the same amount of soda, just in smaller containers.

They say it's "Nanny Bloomberg" once again overstepping his bounds, and call it a restriction on personal choice, on freedom itself!

Relax. It's nothing of the sort.

Make no mistake about it: Bloomberg is doing nothing that's going keep you freedom-loving Americans from guzzling gallons of soda, thereby retaining that inalienable right to die slowly and painfully as a result of diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and all the other illnesses associated with obesity.

What it is, however, is a public health initiative that's going to accomplish the same goal that his ban on smoking in bars, restaurants, and public parks has done over the past 10 years: make it exceedingly hard to ingest a thing that is truly, truly awful for you.

According to a recent New York Times report, a spokesman for the New York City Beverage Association — an arm of the soda industry's national trade group — criticized the city proposal, calling it a product of the NYC health department's "unhealthy obsession with attacking soft drinks."

"It's time for serious health professionals to move on and seek solutions that are going to actually curb obesity," said spokesman Stefan Friedman in the piece.

Right. Serious health professionals…you know, unlike the city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, who blames sweetened drinks for up to half of the increase in obesity rates over the last three decades.

According to the article, the city reports that obesity rates are higher in neighborhoods where soda consumption is more common; this must be simply a coincidence, eh Mr. Friedman?

The brutal reality — which is a place where industry lobbyists for things like Big Tobacco and now Big Soda don't operate — is that over half of the adults in the Big Apple are either overweight or obese already.

But if you were a spokesman for an industry that sells sugary poison, why would you give any credence to that?

Let us be real about this: obesity is the greatest problem facing this country right now. You can live without a job, you can live without being able to read, you can live without knowing algebra, but you cannot live without your health.

This has nothing to do with vanity, and nothing to do with self-esteem: as one writer once put it, "Diabetes doesn't give a (expletive) about your self-esteem."

The health problems that fat people have (I often refuse to use that softening sobriquet "overweight") are amongst the most vicious, and when they come to fruition, they toss their weight onto the already-strained healthcare system, costing untold millions every year.

Obesity reduces life expectancy, and is one of the leading causes of preventable death worldwide. Yes, you read that right: eating too much and moving too little is a major, major problem for the entire world, and it's every bit as serious as addictions to tobacco, alcohol, or heroin.

And what do good governments do when citizens are massively addicted to such things? They take steps to curb that addiction. If half the population of NYC were out-of-control drinkers, there would be an outcry followed by proposals on how to fix it.

Back in 1965, the smoking rate in the U.S. was about 42 percent. As the decades went by, however, many governments (especially New York City's) began placing heavy taxes and restrictions on cigarettes and smoking. Miraculously, the rate began to drop.

Now, the smoking rate in New York is just 14 percent, 6 percent lower than the national average. In West Virginia, where few limits are placed on the habit, the rate is 26 percent. Clearly, America needs that same kind of societal shift in the way it views obesity, and needs to be aggressive in fighting it.

So don't think of this proposal as a case of the government overstepping its bounds… think of it as the government trying to be something of a good shepherd.

A shepherd that watches large cows instead of sheep… and is watching them eat, and eat, and eat until they vomit, only to keep eating after that, to the detriment of themselves and everything around them, until they literally drop dead.

And whether you agree with the exact tenet of the law or not, credit must be given to Bloomberg for moving on it. He is one of the few politicians willing to take a tough, unpopular stance on an issue that is affecting more and more Americans every day.

Maybe, when this law succeeds and eventually spreads to the rest of the country (as so many NYC health initiatives have), you can write him a letter and thank him because you were able to watch a whole movie without needing an insulin shot.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/news/157690925_First_volley_in_the_war_on_obesity_.html?page=all

Pulling Aces from a crowded deck

BY STEVE JANOSKI

For Joe Zabry, the "Fight Night" he’s hosting on Friday at the Boonton Elks’ Club is more than just an amateur boxing show — it’s a light at the end of a long, winding tunnel that will signal a triumph in the wake of several years of broken business deals and countless setbacks.

His story is not unique in the boxing world, which is second only to politics in viciousness and rarely has room for good men.

But as he sits in his office, its walls crowded with pictures of famous fighters, past and present, surrounding an expansive aerial shot of New York City’s Flat Iron Building, he has the look of man who finally has a clear purpose.

Zabry, a youthful-looking 36-year-old, has a spiral of tattoos winding down his left arm and is rarely seen without a baseball cap and a whistle around his neck. He’s a vigorous talker, a mover, bursting at the seams with energy and ideas and optimism reminiscent of Kerouac’s Dean Moriarty.

Boxing has been in his blood since the start: both his father and uncle worked as mechanics during the day and part-time trainers at night. He started at an early age and, between boxing, MMA, has had well over 100 fights.

He left at 18 for the Air Force; 11 years later, he returned to New Jersey, and continued to fight while at the same time becoming involved in several gyms that left him with something of a bad taste in his mouth.

Now though, on the third floor of an old brick building on Main Street in Boonton, he seems to have found a permanent home for Aces Boxing Club.

The gym, like Zabry, is a mixture of old-school and new-school. Freshly painted gray sheetrock contrasts sharply with where the red brick peeks through, and brand-new heavy bags are wrapped with peeling duct tape around their midsections.

A black boxing ring sits in the corner of the gym. Someone is always using it.

Zabry has moved within walking distance of the gym; now, he says, there are times that he doesn’t drive for two weeks at a time. He buys lunch from the deli downstairs, and eats it in his office, which looks out over the training area. He always answers the phone.

And slowly, in a trickle that has turned into a stream, they’ve come, walking down bustling Main Street, through the gray metal doors, up the two flights of wooden steps to the chorus of slaps and thuds that accompany all boxing gyms.

Friday night will be the amateur debut for five out of the six boxers from Aces, and they, along with Zabry, will see exactly how much their work has paid off. The fights are as important to the coach as they are to the fighters.

"I always tell these guys – your wins are my wins, your losses are my losses, your lessons in the ring are my lessons in the ring," he said.

If they lose, he says, he wants them to use it as motivation to have a better showing in eight weeks, when he’s planning his next card – to show a fighter’s heart, even in the face of defeat.

This is difficult, and he knows it; Zabry is well aware of the psychological aspects of fighting, and that’s one of the reasons he’s built Aces as he has – more "club," less "gym."

He speaks on things like the "circle of life in a boxing gym," where younger fighters look up to the older ones, more experienced ones, and the more experienced ones look up to the Golden Gloves — and maybe, one day, Olympic – champs.

But it all starts with Friday, with the fight itself. May 25 is D-Day, and nothing, he says, sharpens the mind and the body like preparing for a fight.

Even if they never fight again, they will remember that night for the rest of their lives.

"(The fights) give all of our boys the option of being a local, hometown hero," he says. "Even if they go nowhere with this….we’re going to make them feel like a rock star for that night in front of all their friends and family."

And regardless of wins and losses, boxing has given many of them the experience that adulthood often lacks: the feeling of being a part of something greater than one’s self, of knowing what it’s like to truly spill blood and sweat next to someone else in the pursuit of a common goal.

It’s these bonds, forged by the hours of physical misery in preparation for a fight — be it in a ring in Boonton or the mountains of Afghanistan — that are often the strongest.

It is also a way of reaching back to a more gritty time and pulling the idea of hard lessons, of earning your pride, out from the past.

Boxing has always been an inner-city, immigrant sport, Zabry says, but as the families prospered and left the tenements of Paterson and Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth, there became little reason to try and earn money with one’s fists.

For many a suburbanite kid that walks through his doors, Dad wasn’t the boxer — Grandpa was, and putting on the gloves reignites the connection that so many families have with fighting.

And the fighter’s story, he says, is eternal.

"If you like history, you like boxing. If you like love stories, you like boxing. If you like rags to riches, you like boxing. Boxing is about stories, fighting is about stories," he says.

These are the stories he see every day, walking up his stairs, dropping their backpacks, putting on the gloves and the headgear, and proving to themselves that they are, in fact, men. That they’re not scared.

"There’s a lot of lessons in that ring that you learn that apply to life… a whole level of self-awareness, responsibility, and accountability," he says. "The boys that don’t understand it, don’t get it, they normally drop out."

The ones that do end up having the stories worth telling.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/153427975_Pulling_Aces_from_a_crowded_deck.html?page=all

Spilt champagne from occupied Wall Street

BY STEVE JANOSKI

I was not paying attention, I admit it. But then again, neither was the rest of the media.

It's not on the New York Times home page, it hasn't been plastered across television screens, and nobody seems to want to speak on it - but it's happening, whether we all want to report on it or not.

These protestors who have been “occupying” Wall Street for the past three weeks, I'm not even sure who they are. The lone common thread appears to be that they are all young, liberal, and… well, that's it.

The few news outlets paying the protest any serious attention have said that some are protesting corporate greed, while others are protesting the undue influence that Wall Street holds over our politicians; recent statements released by the group have added such concerns as police brutality, union busting, and the economy to the list.

Chants have risen up in the concrete valleys of New York, with the refrain of “We are the 99 percent” and “They got bailed out, we got sold out,” and it's clear that the protestors are drawing inspiration from the freedom protests born of the Arab Spring.

For a while, they were easy to dismiss as a few hundred radical hippies trying to make something out of nothing, but as liberal celebrities like Michael Moore and Cornel West joined the fight, it began to garner more attention through, of course, social media outlets.

One particularly inflammatory video on YouTube shows Wall Street's elite dressed in their Sunday finest, drinking champagne and laughing dismissively while watching the protestors; Hunter S. Thompson himself could not have written that script any better.

And so this week, that rag-tag bunch of kids will be joined by the real heavyweights as several prominent unions embrace their cause, and endorsements from the AFL-CIO, the Transport Workers Union Local 100 (representing 38,000 New York city transit workers), and the United Federation of Teachers (amongst others) have come rolling in.

It is a safe bet that other labor organizations will follow their lead. People in other cities certainly have - protests in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington, D.C. either have occurred or are being planned.

What this odd combination of old hippies, young hippies, union workers, and anyone else who is out of work and angry about it seems to be tapping into is the silent rage that those of us in the middle class hold because our prospects for the future were left for dead in the ashen wreckage of the “financial crisis.”

They're not socialists, but they don't want every government safety net torn from under them, and don't want corporations to be deregulated to the point of no return.

They're the ones who realize that while American manufacturing lies in hazy ruin, union membership - which helped create the vaunted middle class - has fallen to record lows, and the prodigious wealth disparity is growing every day.

They're the ones who are angry that, unless you're a CEO, there are no jobs, no money, and no raises - not now and, from news reports, it seems not ever.

This is not the first time this happened; a dozen years ago, there was a fight in the streets of Seattle that caught the world by surprise when the nascent anti-globalization movement announced its arrival by bringing tens of thousands into the streets to protest the World Trade Organization and the unbridled power that the massive, multi-national corporations were gathering.

The attacks of September 11 effectively undercut that movement, and the foreign wars of retribution that followed it made citizens focus more on the external threats than the internal.

But now, as those perils begin to fade and America stares down the barrel of yet another recession, it seems that Americans are finally beginning to cast their gaze inward and wonder what happened to the nation that they once knew.

It seems like it was a lifetime ago, but it's only been nine months ago since the now-legendary Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire in the middle of the street in Sidi Bouzid.

His final words before committing that single act of defiance that ignited revolution across the Middle East?

“How do you expect me to make a living?”

Well, give Wall Streeters enough champagne, and I bet they'll come up with an answer for you.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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

Washed up meatheads are cringing

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

BY STEVE JANOSKI

We see you through the glass windows of the gym, and we are cringing. We're the people that are in the gym early on New Year's Eve, after work on Christmas Eve, and all the days in between. As washed-up meatheads, we've put a lot into lifting over the years, having started because our football or wrestling coaches made us.

But we caught the bug, got addicted to the iron, and became enamored with the simple act of lifting something heavy off the ground. For some of us, it's the utter simplicity of it — as Henry Rollins once said, "200 pounds is always 200 pounds."

Life's problems fade away, for there are no dead-end jobs, whining girlfriends, or problems of any sort while in the gym. It's just a simple 200 pounds that needs to be lifted, and we're there to do it. It is our release, and our haven from the outside world.

But every year, in the first weeks of January, we get inundated with "The Resolutioners," those of you who have decided to get in shape for the new year, and pack the bench presses and Nautilus machines in your pursuit. Our workout takes an hour longer because the gym is so crowded; one can hardly take a step without tripping over dumbbell left out by someone who doesn't know gym mores.

For a month, we are driven crazy, and our schedules and programs are destroyed until you all retreat back to your couches sometime in early February, shaking your head and saying, "Well, I tried."

Does it sound elitist? It sort of is. And there's lifters out there, some of the biggest guys you'll meet, who are far more vulgar than I when talking about the Resolutioner phenomenon. But one thing that you might not believe is that there are plenty of us who don't want you to fail. We don't want you to go home, and we don't want you to be a sloth any more than you do.

See, we are always looking for people to join us in our pursuit of being stronger — we just don't want pretenders. We don't want people who talk on their cell phones in between sets on the bench press, all the while telling us they're "almost done" with the machine.

We don't want those that dress up to go to the gym, and treat it as if it's an underground club in New York City. We don't want the people that are there to get in the way.

We want people that are deadly serious, and willing to put in the work and sweat and blood in order to better themselves. We want people that will find the simple joy of lifting and working out, as we have, and to enjoy the feeling of looking at a bar that has three 45-pound plates on each side and thinking, "I just lifted that, even though four months ago I never thought I'd be able to."

And we certainly love to talk about theories and programs and nutrition, and to support those that are entering into athletic competitions or powerlifting meets.

Remember that, when you're walking around the gym this week, confused about what to do and where to start. Remember that if you're serious about learning, you can walk up to any big guy or in-shape woman who looks like they know what they're doing and say, "Hey, can you help me out for a second?"

The odds are that they will be more than happy to help you out. Once they see you in the gym consistently, don't be surprised if they end up dropping little hints and tips that took them years to learn.

The Resolutioners should not be intimidated — realize that everyone started out where you were once, and everyone simply put in the work to change.

It can be done, and it has been done by countless Americans who were just fed up with how they felt. And also remember that we are pulling for you, even if we won't tell you.

Good luck.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/health/fitness/81418282_Washed-up_meatheads_are_cringing.html

It's finally here. Slainte.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

By Steve Janoski

What's one of the quickest ways to irritate your friends? Ask them the same question, all year long.

"Hey man, you know what's coming?"

They'll get a confused look on their faces. What could you possibly be talking about?

"No…. what?"

"Saint Paddy's Day!" I say elatedly.

They shake their heads, and say over their shoulder as they're walking away, "dude, it's July."

Generally people look at my Italian features, or my Polish last name, and wonder where this affinity for such an ethnic holiday came from.

I tell them, as I have so many times over the years, that ethnicity is more than a matter of how you look or what name you've got— it's about what lies in your heart.

Growing up, I was taught by my grandmother that St. Patrick's Day was a day of celebration, infused with a historical sense of pride at being both Irish and Catholic, and each year, we'd go into New York City to watch the parade and honor that pride.

She'd tell me never to wear orange "because it's the Protestant color," and point to the green line painted down Fifth Avenue to mark the parade route, saying how in the early days the Protestants would come douse it in orange paint, enraging the Catholics.

We would watch from near St. Patrick's Cathedral as the U.S. Army's "Fighting 69th" New York regiment led the parade off, as solemn and fierce looking as the men who made the unit famous long ago by making some of the most brutal but gloriously valiant charges of the Civil War.

Their flag, famous for its deep green background and golden harp, is still carried throughout the parade, with the regiment's motto inscribed on the bottom of it: "Riam nar druid o sbarin lann"— "Those who never retreat from the clash of spears."

We'd see the Irish wolfhounds trudge by, along with hundreds of bagpipers of various societies, and the wails of "Scotland the Brave" would flood the great boulevards.

Eventually we'd eat at an Irish pub of some sort, with a young me catching my first glimpse of the densely packed bar crowd that I'd eventually join— and after turning 21, I did so with gusto.

Of course, many St. Paddy's Days since then have turned into a Mulligan stew of rowdiness that I can't write about until I'm entirely sure that the statute of limitations has expired, but even looking at the holiday through the amber bottom of a Jameson-filled pint glass, I've tried to remember what this holiday is really for… and it's not drinking.

It's for every son of Erin who came over to this strange new land during the Great Famine, covered in fleas and dying of starvation, and built this country up by the labor of their hands and the force of their will, carving out their own little corner of the American Experiment.

It's for those who stepped off the ships and straight into the Civil War, and fought to end a form of slavery that mirrored their own brutal oppression in the Old Country.

It's for my great-grandfather, James Lynch, who left his comfortable home in Jersey City to load up on the big boats and fight in the Great War, sitting in sodden trenches in France working the artillery, unsure if he would ever see the shores of home again.

It's for Jack Dempsey and JFK and Whitey Bulger, for the Molly Maguires and Micky Ward and every O' or Mc' who ever wore a patrolman's shield in any city. It's for Brendan Behan and Paddy Murphy and the Easter Rising, for Yeats and the Dead Rabbits and the IRA.

It's for every Irish firefighter who ran into those buildings on 9/11, and whose only remains were found in the form of the countless claddagh rings found in the rubble.

It's a day for best and the worst of us, whether we came here long ago or just yesterday, who share the blood of that tough little island that defeated one empire and helped to build another, and have made the "Irish experience" in America worthy of the annals of history.

To all of you, to all of us— Slainte. Enjoy.

http://www.northjersey.com/food_dining/87304097_It_s_finally_here__Slainte_.html?page=all