BY STEVE JANOSKI
It was in the English dystopia depicted in the 2005 movie "V for Vendetta" that I first saw the ideals enumerated in Orwell's "1984" come to life, as agents of a repressive government rode around in vans monitoring private citizens' phone conversations while "fingermen" patrolled the streets at night looking for those who violated curfew.
Being what one might call a vicious civil libertarian who sees the threat of the iron heel's descent behind every governmental policy, I was always terrified at the prospect that such a thing might occur, and that movie's depiction of how, and why, it could happen, were ringing all too true at the time.
But, just a few short years after the film was made, Americans, in their infinite wisdom, have already made roving vans and telescreens not only unnecessary, but magnificently obsolete by incorporating Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and a plethora of other oddly-named Internet sites into their daily lives.
Now, the government doesn't have to spy on its citizens, because people are so willing to voice every feeling about every mundane event that even the most stringent monitor at the Ministry of Love would say, "Jesus, shut up already, I just don't care."
I too am guilty of having a Facebook, although I am extraordinarily difficult to track down and use it for little more than posting Iron Maiden videos or Bill Murray quotes. But still, I'm on it, and I must admit that it's entertaining and has its uses.
However, what frightens me is that our willingness to share our thoughts has come at a price, and that's been illuminated by a recent Associated Press article on what is becoming an increasingly common practice of employers: demanding prospective employees' Facebook logins during interviews in order to further "vet" candidates.
According to the article, the practice occurs more frequently when applying for jobs in fields like law enforcement, but it's expanding to the private sector as well.
Sears, for example, uses a "third-party application to draw information from the profile, such as friends lists," as a way to stay "updated on the applicant's work history."
While this might be enough to convince some applicants (like me) to walk out and tell Sears what they can do with their friend request and third-party applications, in an economy that remains somewhat rocky, not everyone is in a position to turn down jobs that provide a near-living wage.
Inevitably, some will say that this is what we get for being a part of the digital age. Facebook is an Internet site, one which is neither secure or private, and what's done there is akin to leaving your bedroom blinds open all the time...along with the windows open. After sending binoculars to all of your neighbors.
But regardless, that does not give government agencies or private companies the right to get around the privacy settings that we are able to set up.
These are frightening legal questions that are straying into new territory, and it's likely that it will take lawsuits, decisions, appeals, and more decisions before a clear line is drawn on what exactly is public and what is not in regards to social networking sites.
The American public must have some say in this. Now is the time that the citizenry, which is so prone to overreact on the mundane and so willfully ignorant about the important, must overreact in the sharpest way to this kind of invasion of privacy in order to stop it where it stands.
We have seen what can happen when all care or want of privacy ceases to be a concern - a quick look at the citizens of Great Britain, a kingdom already under Big Brother's watchful eye, provides the starkest illustration.
And as a nation that values personal freedom and self-reliance (even if we rarely practice the latter), we do not want to head in that direction.
Once, being "off the grid" meant that that you lived in a cabin, drank rain water from barrels, and burned candles instead of light bulbs. Now, it's claiming that you don't have a Facebook and admitting that you have no idea how to clearly read a Twitter feed.
Consider me "off the grid."
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/144915765_Get_out_of_my_Facebook.html?c=y&page=1
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
For the blood of the Irish
"Your soldier's heart almost stood still as he watched those sons of Erin fearlessly rush to their death. The brilliant assault on Marye's Heights of their Irish Brigade was beyond description. Why, my darling, we forgot they were fighting us, and cheer after cheer at their fearlessness went up all along our lines." - General George Pickett in a letter to his fiancée
It was on one of those terrifically hot, motionless country days that only happen in places like southern Pennsylvania that I came upon the striking monument.
Formed of a mass of bronze carved into a towering Celtic cross, it sits on a boulder of a granite that gives it an imposing height.
A shamrock is set in the heart of the cross; below it, three circles with the numbers "63," "69," and "88" inside to represent each of the brigade's regiments. A shield and harp are embossed closer the bottom, and at the base, a bronzed Irish wolfhound lay.
Not far from that spot, almost exactly 148 years before, the 532 surviving members of the Army of the Potomac's legendary Irish Brigade received orders to move forward to support a crumbling salient in the Union army line. To a man, they knew what that meant.
They'd numbered 2,200 when first formed two years earlier in New York City by the Irish Republican Thomas Meagher, and it was he who had led them through some of the most brutal battles in American history.
The unit had distinguished itself accordingly - always, when other men had faltered, the Irish had advanced, gallantly marching forward under rippling emerald flags as if unaware of the hail of bullets combing the air around them.
But that gallantry had come with a price.
They'd lost 1,400 men in a single day during the ghastly assault on Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg seven months earlier, and it was there that Robert E. Lee coined the phrase "Fighting 69th" as he watched that regiment break upon the stone wall manned by his southerners.
Just three months prior to that at Antietam, at a place known now as "Bloody Lane," they'd stormed a sunken road by charging into a withering fire that would kill two out of three men in two regiments.
By Gettysburg, less than a quarter of the original number remained, and every man, from brigade commander Colonel Patrick Kelly to the lowest infantryman, had taken part in every northern offensive that had been guaranteed to keep the reaper occupied.
And on that equally hot, motionless summer day in July of 1863, as the Irishmen waited to cross into immortality in one of the great battles in history, the unit chaplain, Father William Corby, mounted a large boulder to begin a ceremony that one Union officer later called "awe-inspiring."
Other soldiers watched as the entire brigade dropped to its knees and, to a menacing soundtrack of rifle fire and booming cannons, Corby gave the general absolution to the all-Catholic brigade (at that time, still a rarity.)
"Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat," he began, and as the soldiers made the sign of the cross on themselves, many knew that those were their last moments on Earth. For a unit of those who'd been called "lions in any fight, be it on the battlefield or in the barroom," it must have been some comfort.
"No doubt many a prayer from men of Protestant faith who could conscientiously not bow the knee went up to God in that impressive moment," a Pennsylvania soldier later wrote of the spectacle.
And like men, when the absolution was over, they rose up off their knees and charged headlong into war's gruesome maelstrom once more - and stopped the Confederate advance cold.
As always, they paid dearly for their temerity; over half would never leave that place, which is now referred to as simply "The Wheatfield."
148 years later, all is quiet on the green fields of Gettysburg, and all that remains of the Irish Brigade is that one magnificent cross that looms in mute witness to the intrepid bravery of those "fearless sons of Erin."
But though the rest of the brigade is gone, the "Fighting 69th" has somehow endured. The regiment fondly known as "Mrs. Meagher's Own" marched forward to the strains of the Garryowen not only in the Civil War, but also at the Second Battle of the Marne and the Battle of Chateau-Thierry in World War I, at Saipan and Okinawa in World War II.
They were among the first military units to respond to the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, and were later deployed to Iraq, where they suffered a hundred casualties during "Operation Wolfhound" - so named for their mascot.
And this Saturday, in the greatest city in the world, the soldiers of the Fighting 69th will march proudly, wolfhounds in tow, down Fifth Avenue to lead off the St. Patrick's Day Parade as they have always done.
I hope that somehow, somewhere, those old souls, those "bravest of the brave," can tip their spectral hats and know that over the centuries, the Gaelic motto inscribed on the bottom of their old green flag still rings true: "Riamh Nar Dhruid O Spairn Iann" - "Those who never retreated from the clash of spears."
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Why the flag should never be lowered to half mast for Whitney Houston
By Steve Janoski
“Crack is cheap…I make too much money to ever smoke crack.”
Yes, we all remember what Whitney Houston said in her now-infamous 2002 TV interview with Diane Sawyer.
At that time, there was suspicion about the famous singer’s drug abuse, but over the years, her battles with drug-addiction became well-chronicled, and many people (such as me) suspect that her demise two weeks ago had everything to do with it.
But in New Jersey, stuff like that doesn’t matter, especially to Governor Chris Christie, who officially decreed last Friday that, by executive order, the American flag would be lowered to half-staff in commemoration of the Newark native’s mysterious death.
Christie has come under intense criticism for this, but, according to Suburban Trends’ sister paper The Record, he’s defended his position by saying that Houston was a “cultural icon” that belongs in the same category in NJ music history as Frank Sinatra or Bruce Springsteen.
Her accomplishments, he said, are “a great source of pride for the people of the state.”
He did the same thing when Bruce Springsteen’s saxophone player Clarence Clemons died last June, but that move didn’t generate the same fire, perhaps because Clemons was never known for the erratic behavior and drug abuse that Houston became synonymous with over the past decade.
Now, it’s possible that ole’ Chris has some sort of affinity for Houston’s music — maybe one of her songs was his wedding song, or he just enjoys karaoke-ing to “I Wanna’ Dance With Somebody” at his neighborhood bar on a Saturday night.
But regardless of where his love for Whitney comes from, the fact that he doesn’t understand that lowering the flag for a musician — any musician at all — cheapens and degrades the significance of that momentous accolade, is a shame.
The American flag is no mere piece of rag — it is the emblem of a nation born out of the greatest ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and forged in the furnaces of war. Every piece of it drips in symbolism, and for many a man over the course of the past 250 years, that fluttering banner was the last thing they saw before their lives escaped them.
To lower that flag to half-mast is to say that collectively, this nation is giving a heartfelt tipping of the hat, a fond adieu, to one of its greatest citizens, to someone who idealizes what it means to be an American.
It’s an honor that is nearly unparalleled, and should be reserved for soldiers, cops, and former or current politicians who gave either their lives, or a part of them, in the service of this country and its people.
The flag is not a toy or prop to be lowered every time someone with a modicum of talent passes away, especially when that someone was a drug-addled diva that set the worst possible example for those who admired her, and appears to have squandered whatever talent she had left before departing in true celebrity fashion — alone in a hotel room amongst bottles of prescription drugs.
To treat it as such is to do the greatest of disservices to those brave men and women that have, as Lincoln said, “laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”
And personally, I would rather see that flag stay at half-mast until every single World War II veteran is dead than ever see it lowered again for someone like Whitney Houston.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/140104843_Lowering_the_flag_for_Houston__We_have_a_problem___.html
“Crack is cheap…I make too much money to ever smoke crack.”
Yes, we all remember what Whitney Houston said in her now-infamous 2002 TV interview with Diane Sawyer.
At that time, there was suspicion about the famous singer’s drug abuse, but over the years, her battles with drug-addiction became well-chronicled, and many people (such as me) suspect that her demise two weeks ago had everything to do with it.
But in New Jersey, stuff like that doesn’t matter, especially to Governor Chris Christie, who officially decreed last Friday that, by executive order, the American flag would be lowered to half-staff in commemoration of the Newark native’s mysterious death.
Christie has come under intense criticism for this, but, according to Suburban Trends’ sister paper The Record, he’s defended his position by saying that Houston was a “cultural icon” that belongs in the same category in NJ music history as Frank Sinatra or Bruce Springsteen.
Her accomplishments, he said, are “a great source of pride for the people of the state.”
He did the same thing when Bruce Springsteen’s saxophone player Clarence Clemons died last June, but that move didn’t generate the same fire, perhaps because Clemons was never known for the erratic behavior and drug abuse that Houston became synonymous with over the past decade.
Now, it’s possible that ole’ Chris has some sort of affinity for Houston’s music — maybe one of her songs was his wedding song, or he just enjoys karaoke-ing to “I Wanna’ Dance With Somebody” at his neighborhood bar on a Saturday night.
But regardless of where his love for Whitney comes from, the fact that he doesn’t understand that lowering the flag for a musician — any musician at all — cheapens and degrades the significance of that momentous accolade, is a shame.
The American flag is no mere piece of rag — it is the emblem of a nation born out of the greatest ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and forged in the furnaces of war. Every piece of it drips in symbolism, and for many a man over the course of the past 250 years, that fluttering banner was the last thing they saw before their lives escaped them.
To lower that flag to half-mast is to say that collectively, this nation is giving a heartfelt tipping of the hat, a fond adieu, to one of its greatest citizens, to someone who idealizes what it means to be an American.
It’s an honor that is nearly unparalleled, and should be reserved for soldiers, cops, and former or current politicians who gave either their lives, or a part of them, in the service of this country and its people.
The flag is not a toy or prop to be lowered every time someone with a modicum of talent passes away, especially when that someone was a drug-addled diva that set the worst possible example for those who admired her, and appears to have squandered whatever talent she had left before departing in true celebrity fashion — alone in a hotel room amongst bottles of prescription drugs.
To treat it as such is to do the greatest of disservices to those brave men and women that have, as Lincoln said, “laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”
And personally, I would rather see that flag stay at half-mast until every single World War II veteran is dead than ever see it lowered again for someone like Whitney Houston.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/140104843_Lowering_the_flag_for_Houston__We_have_a_problem___.html
What's more important - a game or your girl
By Steve Janoski
Growing up, I was probably one of the biggest sports fans I knew… and I knew a lot of them.
Everything was all about the games. You were judged in school by what football team you liked, and how they played on Sunday was a direct measure of the abuse you might or might not have to endure the following day.
We had all the jerseys and knew all the stats — we knew whether or not Emmitt Smith’s shoulder had dislocated in practice or Michael Irvin had been arrested over the weekend — and how it was all going to affect the next game.
And, after bleeding by your TV every Sunday for four months, getting to watch your team win the Super Bowl was a triumph of immense proportions that you knew was going to give you bragging rights over all of your friends (especially the Cowboys fans) until at least the following September.
We lived and died by the game, and it truly meant something to us.
As time progressed, however, it changed for me. No longer personally involved in football (or any sport) after high school, I found it hard to find that same fire on Sundays, and as I matured, I realized this might not be a bad thing.
Looking back I realized that for all those years, I had taken the whole thing too seriously. I got too upset when the Giants would take a beating or the Red Sox would blow a ninth-inning lead in typical Red Sox fashion, and the step back might have been a necessary one for my own sanity.
I still love watching the games, of course, and cursing a blue streak when a save is blown or a touchdown is scored against is still a common occurrence for me.
But that overwhelming stress is gone, and that empty feeling after a playoff loss or a season-ending skid has faded out along with the appeal of wearing another man’s name on the back of my shirt.
It’s important to remember that in the end, these games mean nothing in the overarching novels of our lives.
We live a short enough time as it is, and to put so much emphasis on something that we can’t control in the least is dangerous. I recently read an awe-inspiring statistic that 15 percent of men would miss the birth of their first child if their team was in the Super Bowl and they had the chance to go.
There’s nothing wrong with being a fan, of course, and even I am not jaded enough to miss the inherent beauty of certain remarkable happenings in sports such as the 2007 Super Bowl or the 2004 Red Sox-Yankees series.
But then having become more involved with boxing over the last five years and becoming more of an “active” participant in my sport of choice has also made the notion of sitting on a couch drinking beer while referring to the team I’m watching as “we” seem even more ludicrous.
I am reminded of the scene in Good Will Hunting when Robin Williams is trying to explain to Matt Damon why he gave up the chance to see Game 6 of the 1975 World Series (one of the great games in Red Sox history) for the chance to talk to a beautiful woman at a bar who would later become his wife.
“I just slid my ticket across the table and I said, ‘Sorry guys, I gotta’ see about a girl,’ Williams said.
He had his priorities straight.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/139227504_What_s_more_important_-a_game_or_your_girl_.html
Growing up, I was probably one of the biggest sports fans I knew… and I knew a lot of them.
Everything was all about the games. You were judged in school by what football team you liked, and how they played on Sunday was a direct measure of the abuse you might or might not have to endure the following day.
We had all the jerseys and knew all the stats — we knew whether or not Emmitt Smith’s shoulder had dislocated in practice or Michael Irvin had been arrested over the weekend — and how it was all going to affect the next game.
And, after bleeding by your TV every Sunday for four months, getting to watch your team win the Super Bowl was a triumph of immense proportions that you knew was going to give you bragging rights over all of your friends (especially the Cowboys fans) until at least the following September.
We lived and died by the game, and it truly meant something to us.
As time progressed, however, it changed for me. No longer personally involved in football (or any sport) after high school, I found it hard to find that same fire on Sundays, and as I matured, I realized this might not be a bad thing.
Looking back I realized that for all those years, I had taken the whole thing too seriously. I got too upset when the Giants would take a beating or the Red Sox would blow a ninth-inning lead in typical Red Sox fashion, and the step back might have been a necessary one for my own sanity.
I still love watching the games, of course, and cursing a blue streak when a save is blown or a touchdown is scored against is still a common occurrence for me.
But that overwhelming stress is gone, and that empty feeling after a playoff loss or a season-ending skid has faded out along with the appeal of wearing another man’s name on the back of my shirt.
It’s important to remember that in the end, these games mean nothing in the overarching novels of our lives.
We live a short enough time as it is, and to put so much emphasis on something that we can’t control in the least is dangerous. I recently read an awe-inspiring statistic that 15 percent of men would miss the birth of their first child if their team was in the Super Bowl and they had the chance to go.
There’s nothing wrong with being a fan, of course, and even I am not jaded enough to miss the inherent beauty of certain remarkable happenings in sports such as the 2007 Super Bowl or the 2004 Red Sox-Yankees series.
But then having become more involved with boxing over the last five years and becoming more of an “active” participant in my sport of choice has also made the notion of sitting on a couch drinking beer while referring to the team I’m watching as “we” seem even more ludicrous.
I am reminded of the scene in Good Will Hunting when Robin Williams is trying to explain to Matt Damon why he gave up the chance to see Game 6 of the 1975 World Series (one of the great games in Red Sox history) for the chance to talk to a beautiful woman at a bar who would later become his wife.
“I just slid my ticket across the table and I said, ‘Sorry guys, I gotta’ see about a girl,’ Williams said.
He had his priorities straight.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/139227504_What_s_more_important_-a_game_or_your_girl_.html
The death knell of the simple existence
By Steve Janoski
A man, however well educated, who has once sampled extreme simplicity of existence will seldom return to the artificial life of civilization. The burden of it is not realized until it has been laid aside.
- English explorer Percy Fawcett
When I first wrote the initial draft of this column, it was by candlelight, on paper, in the earliest part of the night.
This wasn’t by choice, of course — it was during one of those rolling blackouts that struck every few days in the early fall when the wind would blow too hard and PSE&G’s infrastructure would shatter again.
These frustrating instances quickly exposed once again that society’s reliance on electricity is immeasurable at this point; it does indeed seem that we’ve forgotten how dark the night truly is when there’s no burning bulb to show us the way.
But as someone who divides his time between the gym and reading (neither of which require much light), I can honestly say that in small increments, power outages don’t bother me.
Yes, I was without an iPod or TV, but I am no great watcher of television in the first place; the cable could be out for six weeks and there isn’t a show I can say I’d actually miss.
I’d be lying if I said that I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time online, though, and my job would be drastically different.
Of course, I’m not sure how different, because I have only a vague awareness of how newspapers used to be printed in the days when phrases like “setting type” and “upper case” had real, tangible meanings.
But then really, isn’t that the problem?
Most of us don’t look at setting type as a necessary skill, but at one time, it was as prized as any other in the industry.
And the same thing has happened to other basic skills, like carving a piece of wood, using a forge, or even remembering a phone number — they have fallen by the wayside in the computer age.
Before electricity, candles were the “sine qua non” of life at night; now, they are for mere aesthetics. People who have not yet traded in pocketknives for cell phones are looked on with amusement, as are those who cram a road map into their glove box instead of a GPS.
Call me a luddite (most do), but this worries me.
I cannot help but wonder if, in our zeal to make our survival easier, we are turning into one very fat, very lazy race that’s working so hard at improving the intelligence of our computers that we’re sacrificing our own.
Even the simplest of skills — navigation, fire-building, purifying water — are the culmination of thousands upon thousands of years of human experimentation, and their dismissal as quaint reminders of a time long past is a grave mistake.
The advancements made by computers are certainly a remarkable achievement, one that will bring great benefit to the human race…but with that comes a great danger.
We no longer “turn off.” We no longer “unwind.” Smart phones, Facebook, email, text messaging, they haunt us, swirling around us just inches away from our collective fingertips and inundating our minds with a constant swarm of useless information that we’ll forget in the next instant.
The sun has set on the days of our self-educated forebears reading the classic works of literature by firelight in the cabins that they built themselves. No longer do we think that a man’s business is his own, or that anything can be solved by the labor of our hands or the power in our fists…the sun has set on “rugged individualism.”
When I was very young, my grandparents were close with a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania. I don’t recall much about them, except that their children often ran barefoot through the hand-plowed fields and their wall clock had Roman numerals instead of Arabic ones.
But there was one man in that family, I remember, who made his own furniture — utterly beautiful works of art that would rival the best to be found in any store, and last decades longer.
There was no doubt, looking at every finished piece, every hand-carved loveseat or chair, that he’d let a piece of his soul soak into it.
At the end of my writing the draft of this column, I noticed that I had black ink on my right palm.
It’s been so long since I’ve had ink on my hands.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
A man, however well educated, who has once sampled extreme simplicity of existence will seldom return to the artificial life of civilization. The burden of it is not realized until it has been laid aside.
- English explorer Percy Fawcett
When I first wrote the initial draft of this column, it was by candlelight, on paper, in the earliest part of the night.
This wasn’t by choice, of course — it was during one of those rolling blackouts that struck every few days in the early fall when the wind would blow too hard and PSE&G’s infrastructure would shatter again.
These frustrating instances quickly exposed once again that society’s reliance on electricity is immeasurable at this point; it does indeed seem that we’ve forgotten how dark the night truly is when there’s no burning bulb to show us the way.
But as someone who divides his time between the gym and reading (neither of which require much light), I can honestly say that in small increments, power outages don’t bother me.
Yes, I was without an iPod or TV, but I am no great watcher of television in the first place; the cable could be out for six weeks and there isn’t a show I can say I’d actually miss.
I’d be lying if I said that I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time online, though, and my job would be drastically different.
Of course, I’m not sure how different, because I have only a vague awareness of how newspapers used to be printed in the days when phrases like “setting type” and “upper case” had real, tangible meanings.
But then really, isn’t that the problem?
Most of us don’t look at setting type as a necessary skill, but at one time, it was as prized as any other in the industry.
And the same thing has happened to other basic skills, like carving a piece of wood, using a forge, or even remembering a phone number — they have fallen by the wayside in the computer age.
Before electricity, candles were the “sine qua non” of life at night; now, they are for mere aesthetics. People who have not yet traded in pocketknives for cell phones are looked on with amusement, as are those who cram a road map into their glove box instead of a GPS.
Call me a luddite (most do), but this worries me.
I cannot help but wonder if, in our zeal to make our survival easier, we are turning into one very fat, very lazy race that’s working so hard at improving the intelligence of our computers that we’re sacrificing our own.
Even the simplest of skills — navigation, fire-building, purifying water — are the culmination of thousands upon thousands of years of human experimentation, and their dismissal as quaint reminders of a time long past is a grave mistake.
The advancements made by computers are certainly a remarkable achievement, one that will bring great benefit to the human race…but with that comes a great danger.
We no longer “turn off.” We no longer “unwind.” Smart phones, Facebook, email, text messaging, they haunt us, swirling around us just inches away from our collective fingertips and inundating our minds with a constant swarm of useless information that we’ll forget in the next instant.
The sun has set on the days of our self-educated forebears reading the classic works of literature by firelight in the cabins that they built themselves. No longer do we think that a man’s business is his own, or that anything can be solved by the labor of our hands or the power in our fists…the sun has set on “rugged individualism.”
When I was very young, my grandparents were close with a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania. I don’t recall much about them, except that their children often ran barefoot through the hand-plowed fields and their wall clock had Roman numerals instead of Arabic ones.
But there was one man in that family, I remember, who made his own furniture — utterly beautiful works of art that would rival the best to be found in any store, and last decades longer.
There was no doubt, looking at every finished piece, every hand-carved loveseat or chair, that he’d let a piece of his soul soak into it.
At the end of my writing the draft of this column, I noticed that I had black ink on my right palm.
It’s been so long since I’ve had ink on my hands.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
Monday, January 23, 2012
Barber shops are still making the cut
BY STEVE JANOSKI
NORTH JERSEY — To some, the very idea of a "corner barbershop" might seem like an anachronistic throwback to the 1950s, a reminder of a bygone golden age that was once here but has now vanished into mythical Americana alongside the shoemaker or the local hardware store.
At one time, though, they were renowned as a prominent staple of every town, a place where a man could let his guard down and converse with other men about work or politics, complain about his woman or his car, and, quite simply, be a man. All the while, of course, catching a haircut or a fresh shave with a straight razor.
Often, in the eyes of the regulars, they became more than just a place to get a haircut.
Over the years, however, barbershops have disappeared from the public eye. They’ve been replaced, it seems, by crude chains of cheap unisex haircutting establishments that draw in wandering souls who don’t know where else to go but always walk out a weed-whacked mess.
Quietly, however, real barbershops have not only persevered, but taken off, and many barbers are finding that men are itching for a place to go where they can once again sit back, have some good conversation, share some inappropriate jokes, and take a break from the daily grind.
Sho’Tyme Barber Shop
Just over the bridge leading onto Main Street in Butler sits the brightly painted plate glass façade of the Sho’Tyme Barber Shop, which is proving every day that there is indeed a warm middle-ground for both old-school men looking for a traditional cut and new-school kids looking for the flashiest buzzer work.
One step through the door and Sho’Tyme’s colors daze the eyes — mustard tile floors contrast sharply with blue and white walls, while black and white chairs for waiting customers are lined up in alternating chessboard fashion.
The shop’s owner, 32-year-old Lenny Then, is lean with long black hair and a thin goatee. He says that he created Sho’Tyme for that very purpose, and every day when he opens the door and the line starts forming, he looks over and knows he’s on the right track.
"I’ll have somebody in the chair that’s got gray hair, he’s retired, and then right after him I’ll have a kid that just came from high school," he says. "It’s kind neat just having all types of age groups…. Here, everyone just meets at one door."
Then, who lives in Butler, has owned the shop for eight years, and although his youth is evident, so is his knowledge of not only the barber business, but also whom he’s looking to attract.
"We’re young, but I don’t run it like we’re in the ’hood, cause we’re not in the ’hood," he says. "I like the kids, and the middle age, and the older guys to feel comfortable."
"You see my signs on the walls?" he asks, pointing to several old-school signs painted into the décor. "Those are for the old guys, let ’em know, ‘We didn’t forget about you.’"
Then has been on this track for a long time. As a child, his aunts owned salons, and he first picked up the clippers on his own in the sixth grade, using an upside-down spackle bucket as his first barber’s chair and his younger brother as his first client.
"He was my guinea pig," Then says with a laugh.
Around 12, he realized he had an eye for the trade, and in college, he used it to make money on the side before finally deciding to go to cosmetology school — an ironic state requirement for barbers that Then says is contributing directly to the lack of barbershops.
"All these barbers in the city — and I can show you thousands — none of them have licenses, because no one is going to go to cosmetology school like I did to learn women’s hair, just to do men’s hair," he says.
After graduating, Then worked for other barbers to learn the trade first-hand before opening his own place. He takes pride in his skill with both buzzers and scissors. Nowadays, he says, proficiency with both tools is a rarity.
"It’s a lost craft," he says.
But maybe the most important piece of what he does has nothing to do with his hands.
"Conversation is 100 percent, most important," he says. "This is where a man comes and unwinds, he speaks his mind. He tells you how his day went, he tells you something new that he learned."
At Sho’Tyme, however, there is an "anything goes" philosophy. Then warns that "once you step into a barbershop, all the gloves are off."
"It’s like the movie ‘Barbershop,’" he said, alluding to the 2002 film about a shop on the South Side of Chicago. "If you can’t be straight-up real in a barbershop, where else can you be real?"
When a woman comes in, Then laughs to himself as he watches the men’s attitudes slip back into the conservative realm.
"Everyone zips that mouth and gives that look like, ‘Guys, we gotta’ fall back right now,’" he says. "It’s the funniest thing."
Some girls, especially the ones who grew up with brothers, will announce that it’s all right, they understand about the conversation and where it goes. Soon, things will relax again.
Sometimes, he ends up playing the role of de facto psychologist for guys who might not speak about their troubles anywhere else. Steering them in the right direction when they ask for his advice is one thing they don’t teach you in school, he says.
"You gotta’ really sit there and analyze them and really put your heart and soul into that man’s life, and if you steer them the right way, they’re gonna’ be grateful not just because of the haircut," he says.
"I care about each and every person that comes in here."
Tom's Barber Shop
Norman Greenbaum’s "Spirit in the Sky" plays in the background as a man sits in the leather seat of Tom’s Barber Shop in Pompton Lakes on a Friday morning.
Photos of New York Yankee legends mingle on the walls with Marine Corps memorabilia, old newspaper articles, and a cork-board laced with pictures of clients and their children.
"Nobody does a flat-top like Tom," the man says as he gets up, a smile on his face.
The man pays in a cash before owner Tom Fiorilla, a large 67-year-old man with black hair and an infectious grin, turns and starts giving the history of every piece that hangs from the walls.
One picture is particularly special and has a prominent place in the middle of the shop: a black-and-white photo from 1937 showing his father in the Fiorilla family’s original shop in Hawthorne.
It was from his father that Fiorilla learned the trade — a prospect that he had no say in because his father knew that in good times or bad, people still need their hair cut.
"(My father) said, ‘I survived the Depression making good money, and you’ll never starve, no matter how bad the economy is, you’ll always make a living,’" says Fiorilla. "And he was right, especially the past three or four years. He was very right."
Fiorilla got his barber’s license in 1961. Like Then, he shakes his head at the idea that barbers must attend cosmetology school. In the past, barber school or a simple apprenticeship was enough.
"The best place to learn barbering is in a barber shop, not in a classroom, not working on mannequins, but actually being in a barber shop," he says. "That’s how I learned."
Fiorilla has taken many of his father’s lessons to heart over the years and maintains many of the same policies: work the hours that people can come in (including mornings and evenings), always go to work no matter the weather, and never, ever treat your customers like a number.
Take an interest in their lives and treat them well, he says, and they’ll remember it.
"Interest is the key word," he says. "They’re not just a customer. Take an interest in the individual, in their families and their life. If you treat customers just like a number, forget about it."
That attitude has paid off. He’s had three shops in 50 years: one in Hawthorne, one in Wanaque, and now, his place in Pompton Lakes, and his customers have loyally followed him each time.
That’s why Fiorilla does things like go to nursing homes or people’s houses if they’re down on their luck or can’t make it in. Sometimes, he travels to funeral parlors to give long-time customers their final cut.
He gets invited to his clients’ weddings, their bat mitzvahs, their gatherings, and he’s cut four generations of hair for some families.
They consider him their extended family, and that, to Fiorilla, is everything.
"I love what I do. I love seeing people and old friends and families and listening to their stories," he says. "This is more than barbering."
Jimmy the Barber
His real name is Jimmy Thurstans, but in West Milford, you’ll find him by just looking for the man called "Jimmy the Barber."
He’s been at the same spot on Marshall Hill Road for 21 years and in business since 1966. Like the others, barbering appears to just be in his blood.
Thurstans, 63, says that his English grandparents had owned a wig-making and hairdressing shop in the Old Country before coming to America.
He decided to follow that road himself at the age of 17 after an ill-fated "rock and roll road trip" where he and a friend decided to seek their fame and fortune out on the road.
Unfortunately, they only got as far as about Washington, D.C., before they were arrested as "fugitives" who ran away from home.
"That turned in to a whole ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ discussion," he says. "So I said, ‘I’ll go to barber school.’"
Years later, it turned out to be a pretty good choice. His place caters to everyone, from senior citizens to "young dudes" and average guys from across the economic spectrum.
The difference between his place and the more generic unisex salons is the "no frills" that leaves out the selling of products in favor of a haircut, a shave, and a loyal customer base. Thurstans says that 95 percent of his customers are regulars.
Lately he’s seen a resurgence in the number of barber shops, which he attributes to women cutting back on their own services because of the downed economy.
Haircutters are trying to capture the men’s crowd, he says, who spend less but are more regular in their habits.
No matter what they do or who opens around him, though, his place keeps rolling and has turned into a something of a landmark in the town.
"I always hear people say that I should be the mayor because I know everybody," he says with a laugh. "That’s where you get an average haircutter who can be more successful that a very good haircutter. It’s based on personality."
Not that Thurstans is an average haircutter, of course. His 45 years of experience speak for themselves.
In his place, he strives to keep a light atmosphere that’s filled with jokes and fun, and no appointments are needed, ever. In fact, Thurstans laughs at the very idea of them.
"Nobody does appointments…. It doesn’t work here. An appointment is calling to say, ‘I’ll be there in 15 minutes,’" he says.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/134442098_Barber_shops_are_still_making_the_cut.html?c=y&page=1
STAFF WRITER
NORTH JERSEY — To some, the very idea of a "corner barbershop" might seem like an anachronistic throwback to the 1950s, a reminder of a bygone golden age that was once here but has now vanished into mythical Americana alongside the shoemaker or the local hardware store.
At one time, though, they were renowned as a prominent staple of every town, a place where a man could let his guard down and converse with other men about work or politics, complain about his woman or his car, and, quite simply, be a man. All the while, of course, catching a haircut or a fresh shave with a straight razor.
Often, in the eyes of the regulars, they became more than just a place to get a haircut.
Over the years, however, barbershops have disappeared from the public eye. They’ve been replaced, it seems, by crude chains of cheap unisex haircutting establishments that draw in wandering souls who don’t know where else to go but always walk out a weed-whacked mess.
Quietly, however, real barbershops have not only persevered, but taken off, and many barbers are finding that men are itching for a place to go where they can once again sit back, have some good conversation, share some inappropriate jokes, and take a break from the daily grind.
Sho’Tyme Barber Shop
Just over the bridge leading onto Main Street in Butler sits the brightly painted plate glass façade of the Sho’Tyme Barber Shop, which is proving every day that there is indeed a warm middle-ground for both old-school men looking for a traditional cut and new-school kids looking for the flashiest buzzer work.
One step through the door and Sho’Tyme’s colors daze the eyes — mustard tile floors contrast sharply with blue and white walls, while black and white chairs for waiting customers are lined up in alternating chessboard fashion.
The shop’s owner, 32-year-old Lenny Then, is lean with long black hair and a thin goatee. He says that he created Sho’Tyme for that very purpose, and every day when he opens the door and the line starts forming, he looks over and knows he’s on the right track.
"I’ll have somebody in the chair that’s got gray hair, he’s retired, and then right after him I’ll have a kid that just came from high school," he says. "It’s kind neat just having all types of age groups…. Here, everyone just meets at one door."
Then, who lives in Butler, has owned the shop for eight years, and although his youth is evident, so is his knowledge of not only the barber business, but also whom he’s looking to attract.
"We’re young, but I don’t run it like we’re in the ’hood, cause we’re not in the ’hood," he says. "I like the kids, and the middle age, and the older guys to feel comfortable."
"You see my signs on the walls?" he asks, pointing to several old-school signs painted into the décor. "Those are for the old guys, let ’em know, ‘We didn’t forget about you.’"
Then has been on this track for a long time. As a child, his aunts owned salons, and he first picked up the clippers on his own in the sixth grade, using an upside-down spackle bucket as his first barber’s chair and his younger brother as his first client.
"He was my guinea pig," Then says with a laugh.
Around 12, he realized he had an eye for the trade, and in college, he used it to make money on the side before finally deciding to go to cosmetology school — an ironic state requirement for barbers that Then says is contributing directly to the lack of barbershops.
"All these barbers in the city — and I can show you thousands — none of them have licenses, because no one is going to go to cosmetology school like I did to learn women’s hair, just to do men’s hair," he says.
After graduating, Then worked for other barbers to learn the trade first-hand before opening his own place. He takes pride in his skill with both buzzers and scissors. Nowadays, he says, proficiency with both tools is a rarity.
"It’s a lost craft," he says.
But maybe the most important piece of what he does has nothing to do with his hands.
"Conversation is 100 percent, most important," he says. "This is where a man comes and unwinds, he speaks his mind. He tells you how his day went, he tells you something new that he learned."
At Sho’Tyme, however, there is an "anything goes" philosophy. Then warns that "once you step into a barbershop, all the gloves are off."
"It’s like the movie ‘Barbershop,’" he said, alluding to the 2002 film about a shop on the South Side of Chicago. "If you can’t be straight-up real in a barbershop, where else can you be real?"
When a woman comes in, Then laughs to himself as he watches the men’s attitudes slip back into the conservative realm.
"Everyone zips that mouth and gives that look like, ‘Guys, we gotta’ fall back right now,’" he says. "It’s the funniest thing."
Some girls, especially the ones who grew up with brothers, will announce that it’s all right, they understand about the conversation and where it goes. Soon, things will relax again.
Sometimes, he ends up playing the role of de facto psychologist for guys who might not speak about their troubles anywhere else. Steering them in the right direction when they ask for his advice is one thing they don’t teach you in school, he says.
"You gotta’ really sit there and analyze them and really put your heart and soul into that man’s life, and if you steer them the right way, they’re gonna’ be grateful not just because of the haircut," he says.
"I care about each and every person that comes in here."
Tom's Barber Shop
Norman Greenbaum’s "Spirit in the Sky" plays in the background as a man sits in the leather seat of Tom’s Barber Shop in Pompton Lakes on a Friday morning.
Photos of New York Yankee legends mingle on the walls with Marine Corps memorabilia, old newspaper articles, and a cork-board laced with pictures of clients and their children.
"Nobody does a flat-top like Tom," the man says as he gets up, a smile on his face.
The man pays in a cash before owner Tom Fiorilla, a large 67-year-old man with black hair and an infectious grin, turns and starts giving the history of every piece that hangs from the walls.
One picture is particularly special and has a prominent place in the middle of the shop: a black-and-white photo from 1937 showing his father in the Fiorilla family’s original shop in Hawthorne.
It was from his father that Fiorilla learned the trade — a prospect that he had no say in because his father knew that in good times or bad, people still need their hair cut.
"(My father) said, ‘I survived the Depression making good money, and you’ll never starve, no matter how bad the economy is, you’ll always make a living,’" says Fiorilla. "And he was right, especially the past three or four years. He was very right."
Fiorilla got his barber’s license in 1961. Like Then, he shakes his head at the idea that barbers must attend cosmetology school. In the past, barber school or a simple apprenticeship was enough.
"The best place to learn barbering is in a barber shop, not in a classroom, not working on mannequins, but actually being in a barber shop," he says. "That’s how I learned."
Fiorilla has taken many of his father’s lessons to heart over the years and maintains many of the same policies: work the hours that people can come in (including mornings and evenings), always go to work no matter the weather, and never, ever treat your customers like a number.
Take an interest in their lives and treat them well, he says, and they’ll remember it.
"Interest is the key word," he says. "They’re not just a customer. Take an interest in the individual, in their families and their life. If you treat customers just like a number, forget about it."
That attitude has paid off. He’s had three shops in 50 years: one in Hawthorne, one in Wanaque, and now, his place in Pompton Lakes, and his customers have loyally followed him each time.
That’s why Fiorilla does things like go to nursing homes or people’s houses if they’re down on their luck or can’t make it in. Sometimes, he travels to funeral parlors to give long-time customers their final cut.
He gets invited to his clients’ weddings, their bat mitzvahs, their gatherings, and he’s cut four generations of hair for some families.
They consider him their extended family, and that, to Fiorilla, is everything.
"I love what I do. I love seeing people and old friends and families and listening to their stories," he says. "This is more than barbering."
Jimmy the Barber
His real name is Jimmy Thurstans, but in West Milford, you’ll find him by just looking for the man called "Jimmy the Barber."
He’s been at the same spot on Marshall Hill Road for 21 years and in business since 1966. Like the others, barbering appears to just be in his blood.
Thurstans, 63, says that his English grandparents had owned a wig-making and hairdressing shop in the Old Country before coming to America.
He decided to follow that road himself at the age of 17 after an ill-fated "rock and roll road trip" where he and a friend decided to seek their fame and fortune out on the road.
Unfortunately, they only got as far as about Washington, D.C., before they were arrested as "fugitives" who ran away from home.
"That turned in to a whole ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ discussion," he says. "So I said, ‘I’ll go to barber school.’"
Years later, it turned out to be a pretty good choice. His place caters to everyone, from senior citizens to "young dudes" and average guys from across the economic spectrum.
The difference between his place and the more generic unisex salons is the "no frills" that leaves out the selling of products in favor of a haircut, a shave, and a loyal customer base. Thurstans says that 95 percent of his customers are regulars.
Lately he’s seen a resurgence in the number of barber shops, which he attributes to women cutting back on their own services because of the downed economy.
Haircutters are trying to capture the men’s crowd, he says, who spend less but are more regular in their habits.
No matter what they do or who opens around him, though, his place keeps rolling and has turned into a something of a landmark in the town.
"I always hear people say that I should be the mayor because I know everybody," he says with a laugh. "That’s where you get an average haircutter who can be more successful that a very good haircutter. It’s based on personality."
Not that Thurstans is an average haircutter, of course. His 45 years of experience speak for themselves.
In his place, he strives to keep a light atmosphere that’s filled with jokes and fun, and no appointments are needed, ever. In fact, Thurstans laughs at the very idea of them.
"Nobody does appointments…. It doesn’t work here. An appointment is calling to say, ‘I’ll be there in 15 minutes,’" he says.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/134442098_Barber_shops_are_still_making_the_cut.html?c=y&page=1
Tearing out the NFL's violent heart
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2012
‘At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.’
As with most awful things, it started slowly: a rule change here, an increase in the penalty yardage there.
Sure, there were reasons for some; as players began mutating from normal men to the behemoths that take the field now, the hits got harder, the injuries, more vicious and frequent.
But it seems like in the 1990s, some great movement began to occur in the NFL that started moving football away from its blue collar roots of leather helmets and open playing fields and into the white collar arena where the number of luxury boxes became far more important than who could afford the games.
More domes began to appear, sheltering players and fans alike from the elements, and a huge wildcard — the weather — was eliminated.
And the rules began to change as well to mirror this transition and, eager to protect the million-dollar players who no longer need jobs in the off-season to support their families, the NFL began instituting rules that are slowly robbing the game of the things that made it great.
Rules have been introduced stripping defensive players of their ability to go anywhere near certain offensive players, such as the infamous "roughing the passer" rule, which declares that even the slightest touch from a defensive player could shatter a fragile quarterback, a la the liquid-nitrogen frozen T-1000 in the 1991 classic "Terminator 2."
Players must watch when and where they hit, horse-collar tackles are banned (for what reason?), and four-man wedges on a kickoff are no longer allowed. Fines for plays deemed out of line are as common as a Miami rainstorm.
At this point, the league should look to rename itself the National For the Love of God Don’t Hit Me League.
Again, I understand why these things are done. They slant the game toward more explosive offenses, which is good to attract fans, and protects prized players that earn mountains of cash for the league through their endorsements and the like.
But this year, the league has taken it one step too far, and has truly thrown down the gauntlet with their "defenseless player" rules, which state that a foul is committed if a player "initiates unnecessary contact against a player who is in a defenseless posture."
I’ve seen this penalty called a number of times this year, mostly on defensive backs or linebackers who level some poor receiver sent over the middle on a route that he generally knows will likely have a painful ending if the ball comes his way.
As a former receiver in my younger days, I realize the genesis of this rule. Some of the hits taken while going over the middle, even in practice, were some of the most obscenely brutal because inevitably, you were looking for the ball and not the linebacker coming to lay you down.
But in that way, it was also a mark of honor. If someone said that you were "willing to go over the middle," it meant that you had stones, you could take a hit, and that most importantly, you weren’t scared. You were tough.
This rule totally nullifies the need for that toughness, and soon I expect to see all manners of players shying away from laying big hits for fear of seeing that cursed yellow rag fly through the air afterwards.
Football has always been amongst the hardest games because of the pure physicality needed to survive it; that’s what’s drawn many of us fans to it, and what keeps us watching.
At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.
There was always the chance that sometimes you’d get whacked so hard that you’d see double for a couple of minutes, or your head would hurt for a couple days, but that, simply put, was the price of admission.
Don’t like it?
Find another game where there was no hitting. There were plenty of sports for the weaker of heart.
By the time a man reaches the NFL, though, those with no heart have been weeded out already, and those that step onto that field are as hard as coffin nails.
But if this is the direction that the NFL is truly headed, where they sacrifice the integrity of the game in order to protect their investments and people’s fantasy football players, they may as well ban tackling altogether give the guys pillows to hit each other with.
Sure, they may attract a different audience then… but they’ll probably make more money. And for the NFL execs, that’ll be reason enough.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/136716073_Tearing_out_the_NFL_s_violent_heart_.html?c=y&page=1
BY STEVE JANOSKI
‘At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.’
As with most awful things, it started slowly: a rule change here, an increase in the penalty yardage there.
Sure, there were reasons for some; as players began mutating from normal men to the behemoths that take the field now, the hits got harder, the injuries, more vicious and frequent.
But it seems like in the 1990s, some great movement began to occur in the NFL that started moving football away from its blue collar roots of leather helmets and open playing fields and into the white collar arena where the number of luxury boxes became far more important than who could afford the games.
More domes began to appear, sheltering players and fans alike from the elements, and a huge wildcard — the weather — was eliminated.
And the rules began to change as well to mirror this transition and, eager to protect the million-dollar players who no longer need jobs in the off-season to support their families, the NFL began instituting rules that are slowly robbing the game of the things that made it great.
Rules have been introduced stripping defensive players of their ability to go anywhere near certain offensive players, such as the infamous "roughing the passer" rule, which declares that even the slightest touch from a defensive player could shatter a fragile quarterback, a la the liquid-nitrogen frozen T-1000 in the 1991 classic "Terminator 2."
Players must watch when and where they hit, horse-collar tackles are banned (for what reason?), and four-man wedges on a kickoff are no longer allowed. Fines for plays deemed out of line are as common as a Miami rainstorm.
At this point, the league should look to rename itself the National For the Love of God Don’t Hit Me League.
Again, I understand why these things are done. They slant the game toward more explosive offenses, which is good to attract fans, and protects prized players that earn mountains of cash for the league through their endorsements and the like.
But this year, the league has taken it one step too far, and has truly thrown down the gauntlet with their "defenseless player" rules, which state that a foul is committed if a player "initiates unnecessary contact against a player who is in a defenseless posture."
I’ve seen this penalty called a number of times this year, mostly on defensive backs or linebackers who level some poor receiver sent over the middle on a route that he generally knows will likely have a painful ending if the ball comes his way.
As a former receiver in my younger days, I realize the genesis of this rule. Some of the hits taken while going over the middle, even in practice, were some of the most obscenely brutal because inevitably, you were looking for the ball and not the linebacker coming to lay you down.
But in that way, it was also a mark of honor. If someone said that you were "willing to go over the middle," it meant that you had stones, you could take a hit, and that most importantly, you weren’t scared. You were tough.
This rule totally nullifies the need for that toughness, and soon I expect to see all manners of players shying away from laying big hits for fear of seeing that cursed yellow rag fly through the air afterwards.
Football has always been amongst the hardest games because of the pure physicality needed to survive it; that’s what’s drawn many of us fans to it, and what keeps us watching.
At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.
There was always the chance that sometimes you’d get whacked so hard that you’d see double for a couple of minutes, or your head would hurt for a couple days, but that, simply put, was the price of admission.
Don’t like it?
Find another game where there was no hitting. There were plenty of sports for the weaker of heart.
By the time a man reaches the NFL, though, those with no heart have been weeded out already, and those that step onto that field are as hard as coffin nails.
But if this is the direction that the NFL is truly headed, where they sacrifice the integrity of the game in order to protect their investments and people’s fantasy football players, they may as well ban tackling altogether give the guys pillows to hit each other with.
Sure, they may attract a different audience then… but they’ll probably make more money. And for the NFL execs, that’ll be reason enough.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/136716073_Tearing_out_the_NFL_s_violent_heart_.html?c=y&page=1
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