But it wasn't just the miles he's wandered or his knowledge of the Garden State that interested us about Mike Helbing. It was also his unique nature, call it eccentricity or originality, whatever it is, Helbing has a wonderfully refreshing view of life and the world around him. He has gone hiking with a group dressed all in Shop Rite uniforms. Asking everyone they met along the way if they knew where the Shop Rite Orientation Meeting was being held. He encourages spontaneity of all sorts on his hikes. He is willing to stop the hike for any possible indulgence or observation. We paused in our trek to buy chocolate milk at a roadside shop. We stopped for a hilarious foot race up a shale hill. We ate lunch alongside a river and watched Helbing walk out and stand in the middle with the water rushing around him and his arms out-stretched. Mike Helbing is addicted to the finest thing in life, life itself, experience. He is an unabashed junkie for the stuff and an advocate to all, to enjoy ALL life offers.

Finally, he is also an unapologetic singer of all sorts of music. On our hike, at full voice, we were serenaded with a soundtrack that included "Besame Mucho," "We're Not Alone" by Rita Coolidge, "Wanderlust" by Paul McCartney and "You've Lost that Loving Feeling."

Enjoy our vision of Mike Helbing and then join his hike for your own experience...your spirit will be glad you did.

You can connect with Mike Helbing through his website: www.sneezehorse.com.

Music for “Driving Jersey - Mike Helbing” was written and produced by Ryan Bott.

and perceived.  And even though it was always our intention to create a film series about New Jersey that included people and places we met and went to by chance, I can’t deny that their need for authenticity hasn’t played a part in directing our work.  The content is simply those who were there, where ever, when ever, no formulas or casting to portray a stereotype. 

It’s no wonder then that we chose Seaside Heights, the Jersey Shore, as the subject of the first installment of our series.  In short, Seaside is one of the most misrepresented and misunderstood meccas of Jersey, by tourists, TV and even locals. 

The boardwalk culture of Seaside has always intrigued me for its innocence and indulgence.  There is no denying that the boards and beaming neon, the games and food, the bars and beaches invite families and fools for love and lust, alike.  For me, as a child, it was a forbidden city for what it was or what it was perceived to be.  As an adult, I have come to think of Seaside as a place that isn’t that bad and, yet, isn’t that good either.  Just like life, it has a dark side.  It is a spectacle of the shore in all its excesses.  And yet, without them and those visions what would it be?  Would it still be the place that draws the attention and draws a crowd?  Would it interest us as much? 

You can’t deny that most who work and live and vacation at Seaside are much more than “the” stereotype.  Even the stereotypes are deeper than their tans, aren’t they?  TV’s sin is not in reinforcing the stereotype, but in NOT representing the whole.  In this age of reality TV, is there a place for reality?  TV execs consider the audience the way Jersey business owners consider tourists to the shore.  Producers and presidents need eyeballs on TVs, just like arcades need quarters.  We may not agree with everything on TV, just like we may not agree with everything on the boardwalk.  A twelve year old can shoot paintballs at a faceless grown man who clutches his crotch and dances around awkwardly.  Is that responsible?  But we accept most unacceptable things in life, as part of life. 

And like most stereotypes, like it or not, like THEM or not, they exist for a reason.  They are REAL, as real as those who believe, support and ARE them. 

Driving Jersey, the series, was not and is not about disproving the stereotypes, but reinforcing the realities of the Garden State, the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful.  We don’t hate.  We celebrate.  And that’s our suggestion, our direction for the people of Jersey and the Jersey Shore, speak your mind, of course (it’s what Jersey does best), but don’t make a bunch of noise about the stereotypes, denying they exist at all, accept them and then be yourself, be proud and loud about what makes Jersey more than the stereotypes.  It’s kinda like what Nietzsche said, embrace the dark night of the soul and howl the eternal YES.  

Music for “Driving Jersey - Seaside Heights” was written and produced by Ryan Bott and The Following and mixed by PJ Goodwin.

Driving Jersey: Lord Whimsy: New Egypt, NJ

I received an email that suggested if I was interested in meeting the "gentlemen protector of the Pine Barrens," I should check out a man named Lord Whimsy, central Jersey's resident arbiter and author of all things dandy. I was intrigued. And I said as much when I wrote back to the anonymous emailer. I asked what the emailer's connection was to Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy. The response was as simple and as intriguing as the first letter. It read:

"I first met him while studying marine biology. He also appeared in my art classes. He wooed me, and I became his wife. Regards, Lady Pinkwater."

I ordered his book, The Affected Provincial's Companion, straight away. I visited the official Lord Whimsy website. Wearing fine suits and possessing a devilish handle-bar mustache, the man looked noble enough. His site was replete with dense and detailed information of the life and ways of Whimsy. Its language, sown together, it seemed, by

Shakespeare's American tailor, was pretty, but complicated. Its tone was playful but simultaneously exacting, with short chapters on the ways and means of proper and exquisite living, with admonishments for the common, the oaf, the dude.

Whimsy describes clipping flowers from his garden on warm summer nights to fasten to his lapel, to complete his ensemble, his look. He details the necessity of such, as well as proper boutonniere etiquette. Chance one displays an improper boutonnière on his lapel in the presence of Whimsy, it was clear, you may be met with much scorn and laughter. All I had on the lapel of my famous brown corduroy jacket was a coffee stain, flavored coffee, but still just a stain.

Reading, understanding and even, perhaps, applying his rigid attention to the delicate detail of more refined times was essential for me, I figured, in preparing to meet the lord. For starters his book came late. Rerouted from a bookseller in New Jersey, to New York, to Denver and back to New Jersey, the beautiful harlequin-green hard cover looked like it had been dragged from Colorado back east. Apparently there is no gentility in the service of the post.

I read the book. It was every bit the same in tone, language and theme as his site. "The book," Whimsy writes is a "distillation…of the notions and fancies born out of my daily life. It's a collection of fragments that together constitute an artifact: a sort of 'personal folklore,' if you will."

Whimsy describes himself and his aire as combining the qualities of the "naturalist, philomath, dandy and aesthete."

Whimsy and Lady Pinkwater live in New Egypt, a small farm town in south western Jersey. Old modest houses cluster tight together on the streets of his town. There are some little markets, a couple of restaurants, a shop or three and then woods and pick-your-own farms. "Look for the house with the lilac colored Whimsyshire flag," Pinkwater said.

Whimsy introduced himself as Allen, Allen Crawford and Pinkwater as Susan. When our AD Ryan Bott walked in and said "hey, Lord Whimsy, I'm Ryan," He smirked charmingly and said, "you can call me Allen." He is indeed as noble looking in person as he is in photographs, yet in the flesh he comes off more as a cross between Wallace Shawn and Kermit the Frog.

As Crawford was wired for the shoot, he admitted that he wasn't exactly looking forward to touring bookstores with his newly released book. "I hate them," he said of public appearances, not bookstores, "I'm not used to being in front of people. I'm getting better at it, but it still isn't the easiest thing." And I suddenly felt completely at ease with the interview, the conversation, the afternoon. I suppose I was psyched out by the Whimsy projection and happy to know that Allen as an artist, writer and auteur was accessible and humble, and maybe even a little timid. I always prefer my geniuses that way.

Driving Jersey: Tribal Dance Arts: Point Pleasant, NJ

Who isn't fascinated by gypsy culture and bellydance? It's the mystery stuff of childhood stories and legends. It's a romantic vision of life. It's ancient and biblical. It's a free and freewheeling rambling culture and art. Anyone who has ever paused on the way to the office or to school or even to home and heard the faint sounds of distant music and smelled the sweet scent of lilacs or incense in the air, and thought to deviate, to follow and investigate, knows the lure of the lore of this sort of "freedom."

The crew of Driving Jersey and I couldn't resist the invitation to experience bellydance in the Garden State. Enjoy the visions of the Tribal Dance Arts Spring Hafla, a bellydance and cultural performance and party. Tribal Dance Arts  is an American  tribal fusion bellydance  school  based  in Brick,  NJ.

Founded in 2004 by Julie Nuzzo, the schools unique style, fusing steps from ballet, jazz, flamenco, Afro-Cuban dance, medieval folk, bhangra, and Egyptian  cabaret,  has become the trademark of their  resident Daughters of Sophia tribal dance troupe. The Daughters of Sophia perform in annual shows with Alborada: Spanish Dance Theatre in The Sephardic Connection and The Feast of Sarah.

For information on Tribal Dance Arts classes and bellydance workshops visit:

www.tribaldancearts.com

In these two performance videos, Tribal Dance Arts Founder Julie "Ashtar" Nuzzo

and Special Guest Dancer, Vorona.

                                                                         ...try to look away...you just can't...

1st Mate Jake D’Arcangelo was also splitting time in Jersey, living in South Carolina in the colder months.  D’Arcangelo is also a member of the band, The Following.

When we caught up with them, there were only a few weeks to go before Lees traveled west.  Both men looked weathered, their skin red and brown. Their TowBoat USA ball caps look fused to their heads. They were barefoot. If Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn grew up in New Jersey, they would be Lees and D’Arcangelo.

The Barnegat Inlet has been the scene of many wrecks and mishaps through out the centuries and even today.  The work of a towboat team can surely be treacherous, but there is a flipside...on this beautiful, clear uneventful September day we were treated to that other angle, the long, sometimes monotonous hours shared between a captain and mate.

We asked them if they have too much time on their hands. Lees said they must be on-call should their services be necessary, but in the downtime the two surf a lot. D’Arcangelo says that on-board they fill up their time by talking and asking each other random probing questions.  But make no mistake, this job is not all long sun-drenched days with nothing to do.  When the call comes in, the crew of Towboat USA must act despite the weather or time of day.  Their work begins when the skies grow dark and tempestuous.  They are on the water when no ones wants to be or should be.

Following our day with them, D’Arcangelo decided to stay put in Barnegat Light and forgo his yearly migration.  Lees, however resolved to relocate completely to Oregon.  This short film of our time on the #9 captured Lees in the final days of his employ in the family business.  D’Arcangelo went on to become a captain in the towboat fleet.

This was the shoot that started it all.  This was our first shoot.  We met up with the team of Towboat USA, Barnegat Light, NJ.  Captain Jeremy Lees and 1st Mate Jake D’Arcangelo invited us along on the #9, to experience marine assistance and rescue in the Barnegat Bay Inlet. 

Towboat USA was started by Captain Lees grandfather and is now in the steady hands of his dad, Matt Lees.  Captain Lees admitted being a reluctant teenage mate in the service of marine rescue.  While many other kids were out surfing or working simple summer jobs, Lees was called upon to assist in the family business.  We asked him if he was afraid of the work then. "No,” he replied, “I just didn't wanna work. I wanted to hang out with my friends."  He claimed to enjoy the job as an adult, at least for the length of time he does it each year, enough anyway to bring him back spring after spring.  Each winter, when the high volume of seafarers drops off, Lees migrates to Portland, Oregon. 

The Ballad of Light Blue and Burgandy: Barnegat Light, NJ

Gino Valenti is one of those great Jersey characters.  I mean, Gino is a real person, thoroughly real, but he also represents a type of high-grain, deeply-saturated Jersey style that you hear and feel and know instantly when you meet him.  It's something about the under-dog, the believer, the dreamer in him that connects him to the state for me.  He is a lifer.  He has never given up on his fantasy and he has tasted it from time to time, enough anyway, that at 76 years old he is still reaching for it.

Valenti, whose gone by many other stage names including, Valentine, Valentino, Galant, Galante, etc., is a retired community bus driver.  I first heard about Gino from the English as a Second Language teachers in Ocean County, NJ.  He drove the many Spanish speaking families around the county to various classes and meetings, serenading them with Sinatra and Bennett songs. 

Driving Jersey: Gino Valenti: Beach Haven West, NJ

"I wouldn't be surprised," I was told by one of the teachers, "if these folks wound up learning as much english through his songs as they do in the classes."  The children on the bus were already able to sing along.  "It's the funniest thing," the teacher said, "most of these kids are from Mexico, but they all sing with this great North Jersey accent."

Valenti currently lives in Beach Haven West, a small coastal town, but he is originally from Jersey City.  He worked for part of his life, his younger life, his early family life for Westinghouse, involved in the manufacture of home appliances.  During his employ there, Valenti sang at various work events, until he quit the job and made singing, nightclubs, weddings and stage shows, his life. 

Sinatra was and still is Valenti’s inspiration, but one of the highlights of his career came because of Tony Bennett, or the absence of Tony Bennett actually. In the late 1950s Bennett was to appear at Roosevelt Stadium at Droyer’s Point in Jersey City.  When Bennett was unable to perform, Valenti was asked to fill in.  And though the crowd was expecting Bennett, Valenti, the native son, won them over and received a standing ovation at the close of the show.  He called it “one of the most exciting nights of my life.” 

“They used to call Bennett the Poor Man’s Frank Sinatra,” Valenti said, “and then they started calling me the Poor Man’s Tony Bennett and ya know what, that was fine by me...cause I liked it.”

Enjoy GINO VALENTI: THE WINNER, as we followed the crooner around on the day of his final big stage show.  Valenti retired following this performance.  Today, he only sings at local senior centers.  “Life,” he said, “steals an awful lot away from older folks, including their memories, but for some reason, the music never leaves them.  I can see it in their eyes when I start to sing.  They light up.  Suddenly they’re home again.  And because of that, I could never give it up.”                                        

                                                              Ladies and Gentlemen...Gino Valenti.

Special thanks to the Stafford Township Arts Center and staff, especially Mark Keeler of MK Productions.

Driving Jersey: Jake D’Arcangelo: Barnegat Light, NJ

Jake D’Arcangelo was the first person we interviewed when we started Driving Jersey.  He was part of the Barnegat Light tow boat team of Tow Boat USA, but he’s also a singer-songwriter, a fisherman, a waiter, a wanderer, a jester, a genius, a poet and a philosopher of blue collar wisdom or, at least, a wisdom all his own. 

We decided to catch up with our first subject again to see how life and the long, cold, Jersey Shore winter was treating him.  We ran into D’Arcangelo at the docks, as he was preparing to go out fishing and trolling the water around the bay jetties for shrimp.  It was below freezing with winds gusting to 30 mph, D’Arcangelo laughed when I suggested it might be too cold for him to wade waist deep in the chop around the lighthouse.  He muttered something about appreciating life through experiencing all earth’s conditions and jumped in.

After an hour of “experiencing” the unforgiving wind of the inlet, we retreated to the hull of the tow boat.  D’Arcangelo, who had escaped the Jersey winters for two years in South Carolina, philosophized there about enjoying instead of simply enduring the winter.  “A lot of folks down here, have June, July and August on their minds in the middle of January,” he said, “it’s their way of getting by, but that ain’t good enough for me.  That’d be like loving the one you’re not with.  I’m stoked to be using the winter, so it’s not abusing me.”

D’Arcangelo outlined for us his “certain rules for getting through the Jersey winter.”  They include:

1. Being comfortable with yourself.

2. 2.Finding a good group of people. - “If you’re going to be bored,” he said, “you might as well not be lonely.”  D’Arcangelo rents a room in a large, old beach house that is busy with life and family and friends and fisherman.  The matriarch of the household, who resides on the top floor, gave us a tour of the house, including her walk-in closet.  We never had so much fun in a walk-in closet before.  Three generations of one family live in the house and many others as well.   It’s clear the energy of the place is important to D’Arcangelo.  The night we were there, housemates all shared in preparing and eating dinner.  D’Arcangelo slow danced with his girlfriend to Bruce Springsteen on the radio singing for the lonely. 
   

3. 3.Staying busy. - D’Arcangelo has been using the winter to write, record and perform live as a member of the six man band, The Following.   They have also contributed music to this film series.  “We got a lot of people stoking on us,” he said, “We feel like we’re near to the point we always wanted to be back when we were in high school looking up at bands we respected.”
   

4. 4.NOT beating yourself up.
   

5. 5.NOT letting yourself get wrapped up in some kind of romantic turmoil.  “It’s a lot easier to get on with your girl when you’re frolicking in the warm summer spray, than it is after week eighteen of both of ya sitting in a room somewhere saying whadda-ya feel like doing?” he said.
   

Enjoy JAKE IN WINTER, and be sure to check out the fishing in Barnegat Light and The Following, where ever they play. 

Music for JAKE IN WINTER was written and produced by Ryan Bott.

Driving Jersey: Reverend James: Linden, NJ

Seems like these days there are as many tattoo shops (or “parlors” for those inclined toward the old vernacular) as there are banks or diners in Jersey.  Every town has at least one.  Seems like they started popping up all over the body of our great, old state at the same rate that they started appearing on all sorts of places on all sorts of people...on places and people you wouldn’t automatically assume they’d appear.  Tattoo is out of the shadowed alleys and dark parts of town and from under the collar and shirt sleeve.  In Jersey it’s in strip malls and on the small of the back of every other girl you see.  A recent study by the Harris Poll showed that “14% of ALL adult Americans have at least one tattoo.”  The other 86% want one, they just don’t know what to get.

We went to Linden on the recommendation of an artist who was teaching fine art technique to a tattoo dude who worked there.  We wanted to find out what modern ink was all about.  We were told Reverend James was the man to see and speak to about it.  To begin with Reverend James looks like what you might expect a tattoo artist to look like, but there is also some mercurial part to his character that satisfied our interest to know more from someone who lived it his way.  We asked James, why Reverend, he responded “because there are already too many “sailors,” a popular ink-name in the trade because of famed tattoo artist Sailor Jerry.  But while, he may not be your typical man-of-the-cloth, Reverend James does share some preacher properties, he does like to wax with a glory, glory in his tone and patois, whether you asked for it or not, and he navigates moment to moment with a spirit-sense about him.  He is zen in his deliberation and attitude.  Therefore, TATTOO GURU. 

On the way to Linden, Driving Jersey’s own sound master, PJ Goodwin decided he would get tattooed for our shoot.  The Reverend was agreeable.  We had no intention of making IT about a single tattoo.  We were going there to talk to the man.  If he happened to be working at the time, that would be a bonus.  An inked crew member wasn’t our goal, but just like most everything we do out on our drives, we ended up learning more and appreciating more by accepting the experiences our subjects yield.

After an hour and a half of talking about tattoo and THE tattoo that was about to happen, including developing a complex design that included a .WAV form of laughter emerging from an ocean wave, the human drama began.  The excited tone of the shop shifted seconds before the first lines would be etched, when Goodwin admitted reservations.  And while the rest of the crew and I looked on, another important, in fact, necessary, scene unfolded before our eyes and cameras, the development of the relationship between the  artist and the canvas.  Goodwin and the Reverend sat together, alone, and dialogued about apprehension and art.

And what we discovered is that tattoo, despite all the sound and fury in much of the imagery, is actually a delicate walk, an introspect into permanence and representation and ultimately, a very intimate brief encounter with someone who marks you for life. 

Oh yeah, Jersey tattoo, we got into that as well, but by the end of our time with the Reverend it mattered little what state we were in.  Tattoo is more a state of mind.

Enjoy TATTOO GURU and take some time to consider what is permanent in your life.

Music for TATTOO GURU was performed by Dan Sansig of The Following and produced by S. Amantus.

WHO WE ARE

ROAD TRIP MIX

        TRAILER

When I was a kid, my parents moved our family from a life on the Hudson in Northern New Jersey to one closer to the woods and the shore in the South.  In Ocean County we were quickly introduced to two new sub-cultures, the Clam Diggers on the coast and the Pineys inland.  As far as we knew, the term Piney was an insult for someone who lived a Red Neck Jersey lifestyle.  Indeed, to be called a Piney in those days was a put down.  It wasn't until I learned more about where they came from and how they lived that I appreciated who they were. Today, as most of the world and Jersey is being over-developed, urbanized and homogenized, the term “Piney” is something of a badge of honor, even as the true Piney culture fades away.

The Pines Barrens, the cradle of the Piney culture is an anomaly in the Eastern part of the United States.  It is the largest untouched wilderness east of the Mississippi.  In the late 1970s, fears of urban sprawl prompted Congress to pass an Act to protect the Pines and today the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve contains approximately 1,100,000 acres of land, and occupies 22% of New Jersey's land area.

In and out of the Pines it’s clear, there are two kinds of Piney, those people with a cultural association; with family roots in South Jersey, who live or lived within close proximity to the woods and have an appreciation for the customs and crafts of the area.  For these folks, it is said, they are “proud to be a Piney, from their head down to their hiney.”  Well, what else rhymes with Piney? 

The other sort probably doesn’t broadcast their Piney Power on their bumper stickers.  They don’t even really go around calling themselves Piney and yet, this other sort, those who still live and work and hunt and harvest in the Pines, are the true or the authentic Pineys. 

We spent some time in the Pines getting to know both.  At the yearly Pines Barrens Jamboree we met the good folks who keep the spirit of the woods alive and in the woods we met Bill Wasiowich, a life-long resident of the Pines.  Bill was even written about in the famed John McPhee book, The Pine Barrens, published in 1967. 

Bill grew up and has grown old in the Pine Barrens.  Living in and off of the woods around him is the only life he has ever known.  Though the world and even the Pines have changed, much of it now off-limits, protected by the state and local government, Bill endures.  His ways and means mean little to the rest of the world today.  Long ago he was an employee in the cranberry trade in the Pines.  But some 40 years ago he turned his back on the punch clock and set in to working by and for himself, harvesting the woods for pine cones, sphagnum moss and wild blueberries. The day we visited Bill he was busy making pine wood charcoal from the endless cords that rise up all over his property.  He admitted it made lousy charcoal because it burned too quickly, but he endeavored anyway, through the smoke, the cold and the hard work.

Making use of the things around him, collecting what he can, where he can, is what Bill Wasiowich is all about...creative survival.  He doesn't talk much.  He doesn't look you in the eye often.  His mind it seems is fixated on what's possible with what he has or what he can get his hands on, the next thing he must do in processing what to an outsider might actually seem like an exercise in futility. 

Glimpse the 12 foot high cords of wood, the shed with a room full of pine cones and charcoal and bails of moss.  Much of it collected over the last four to five years...all of it just silently waiting for someone to need it.  Chances are doubtful that anyone will or will find their way to Bill to get it these days, but Bill keeps at it just as he always has. 

"What will become of all of this?" I asked Bill of his mind-boggling surplus of harvested things.  "I don't know," he replied, "I suppose someone might want the stuff, if not, the way I took care of it...it'll keep. 

There is a sense, when you are with Bill, that you are getting a rare look into the past, that what you are witnessing is actually already gone.  The ability to live and make a living off the Pines is dwindling and yet the Pines is thriving because it’s being left alone.   But that’s only part of the irony of this tale of preservation.  New Jersey, despite its reputation for being the most over-developed and densely populated state in America, is holding on to one of the few environmental success stories of our times.

Music for PINEY was written and performed by Luke D’Arcangelo and S.Amantus.

   Driving Jersey:Hammonton

These days, it’s easy to be skeptical about about religion. Wars are waged in the name of god.  Extremists from all sides claim ownership of eternity and are willing to prove it by giving or taking life.  Even our elected officials use and abuse the “power of god” for the power they covet, as if they’re ready to throw virgins into volcanoes to appease their lust for being right. “God,” in the hands and hearts of man, is often misunderstood.  But not always.  Sometimes, as is the case in the little town of Hammonton, New Jersey, the people, the pilgrims march to a verse of thankfulness for simply being and being here.

In 1875 an Italian “pilgrim” named Antonio Capelli gathered a small group of his immigrant countrymen to his farm on Pine Road where they formed a procession and prayed before a painting of the Virgin Mary.  Their prayers were of thanksgiving for their safe journey to America, for a successful farming season and for the good fortune they found in their new home. 

These simple farmers knew a thing or two about the immensity of life because they too created it, from the seed to the soil to the sun and they were humble before the power of existence and we believe there is no higher intention, no better reason for religion, for faith and no finer practice of both than being in awe together.

The seed Capelli sowed that day continued to grow each year with more and more people joining the annual July 16th procession, which culminates the Feast of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel, a week long introspect and celebration of the patronage of Jesus’ mother, Mary.  The symbol of adoration, Capelli’s painting of Mary, was replaced with nearly-life-size statues of saints, which as they parade through the streets of Hammonton take on an eerily realistic, human quality, as if they are there, silently marching.

As we approached Hammonton on the day of  the Procession the sky turned a dark gray and lightning struck all around the church.  Huge, heavy drops of rain poured down and we retreated inside.  When we lamented about the weather with the folks attending mass there, they laughed it off and assured us that the sun would shine, that the Procession is, well, protected by the power of Heaven.  The Procession, apparently, has never been rained out.  When the mass concluded the rain did as well and the saints went marching in Hammonton. 

The story of the Procession is not simply one of an organized religious activity.  In fact, faith in god is only part of what it’s all about.  Search the sentiments of those we spoke to and discover faith in tradition and history and even each other.  And what’s better than that?

Enjoy DRIVING JERSEY: HAMMONTON and think about what you have faith in.  Music for

DRIVING JERSEY:HAMMONTON was composed by S.Amantus.  Additional music courtesy

of Hammonton High School Band and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Society Band, under the direction of Herb Roselle.

JERSEY DRIVES

coming soon

   Driving Jersey:CowTown U*S*A

I’m from New Jersey.  I grew up in New Jersey, but I spent my childhood wanting to be a cowboy and I reckon I’m not the only one.  There’s something about the western lifestyle that invites our imagination, no matter where you’re from.  TV and the movies surely have something to do with it...there’s an innate sense of adventure and freedom that signifies the image of the American cowboy, even if that image isn’t necessarily, entirely true.  Surely life out west was harder and more desperate than Hollywood has portrayed it to be. 

Riding into the sunset, into the west, the last great frontier...the cowboy represents the final American pioneer.  That’s if you don’t count Neal Armstrong.  And nothing is more American than adventure and freedom, even if it isn’t necessarily true...perception, the religion of America, is what is most important and I was devout in that as a kid.

But I’m from Jersey, so I only rode a horse a handful of times and buried my guns in the backyard and eventually moved to New York.  But I moved back and it was then that I realized that you can be just about anything in Jersey, even a cowboy, and you can find just about everything in Jersey, even a rodeo.  And if there’s one driving force behind Driving Jersey it is to discover and reflect diversity, like it or not, agree with it or not...and come to think of it, that’s what America was really about.

When the idea came up to travel down to Pilesgrove, to take in the Rodeo, I took the opportunity...as much to re-imagine how the West fit into my childhood, as it was to find out how it fits into New Jersey today.

CowTown Rodeo claims to be the “oldest weekly rodeo in the United States,” stretching back to 1929.  Even more amazing than their eight decade existence is that fact that it was and continues be run by a single family, The Harris Family. 

Grant Harris, the fourth generation to run the rodeo, said his family’s history with cattle in the region reaches all the way back to Valley Forge.  Harris’ own history includes a tale of a difficult decision, to ride and compete (Grant was very successful on the circuit as a young man) or to follow his family’s line, to own and produce the Rodeo instead.  He choose family, both his own new family and  the grand one.  Harris is father to two daughters, and producing the rodeo, instead of a riding in it, made better sense to him.  Katy Harris, Grant’s younger daughter, continues to work the “home ranch” in the line of her father.

CowTown Rodeo operates on Saturday nights from May to September.  If you visit CowTown, be advised that the moment you drive onto the grounds, until you pull back out onto Rt. 40, you will believe you have actually left the state of New Jersey.  Enjoy DRIVING JERSEY: COWTOWN U*S*A.  Music for DRIVING JERSEY: COWTOWN U*S*A was graciously provided by Lee D’Arcangelo (opening theme) and Tom Spingler and Northfield (The American Dream).