Happy Thanksgiving!
We’re Rated #1 in CRIME baby!
Can’t seem to think of something you are thankful for? Here’s an obvious one: YOU PROBABLY DON’T LIVE IN CAMDEN! Yesterday, in the ritzy “City Crime Rankings,” cqpress.com reported that Camden, NJ, has the highest crime rate in the country.
It’s a huge win for Camden since last year they were ranked #2! This year, Camden worked diligently and battled back to snag the #1 spot. At this point, New Jersey has so many feathers to put in their cap that I’m pretty sure that cap is going to fall off pretty soon. We have the most toxic waste, insane traffic, expensive tolls, unquestionably the most obnoxious people, the worst basketball team, and now we’re officially home to the most dangerous city in the U.S. You can grab the widget on the left at cqpress.com.
NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 28: Cold Hearts’ Secret Stash
I know what you’re thinking…again with Cold Hearts?!?! Well, first of all, this atrocious Twilight saga seems to have ripped off the 10 year old Cold Hearts, at least a little. But more importantly, how could I resist bringing it up again when the film depicts a group of over animated frat guys who hang out on the Jersey boardwalk? It’s ripe for ripping. Luckily, one of the guys just happened to have worn a Jersey appropriate t-shirt in one scene.
Danny (played by Cherry Hill born actor Stink Fisher), is clearly the muscle of the crew, and proudly wears a Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash T-Shirt. It’s not officially known whether this specific shirt was chosen because it was sheer enough to accentuate his ridiculously huge shoulders or it was just what they had lying around in wardrobe. Danny looks like he could have went the full duration of an Iron Man match with Hercules Hernandez. Note to Chaz’s Jersey vampire crew: Don’t f-ck with Danny. Another member of the group, Kevin, is played by writer and director of the film, Robert A. Masciantonio. He keeps with the Kevin Smith tribute and dons a View Askew Vulgarians hockey jersey in this scene.
The holiday shopping blitz will officially be underway in just a couple of days. It’s a great time to mention that The Secret Stash online store is having a Merry Christmas sale and you can get action figures, signed comics, DVDs, books, and of course T-SHIRTS! These are the latest editions of the Secret Stash shirts on sale for the Blunt-Light special price of $8 bucks! If you don’t want to order online, then just head to Red Bank, NJ and visit Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in person.
You can also purchase the Cold Hearts DVD here at this link.
Jersey’s Own Soda
I read about Jersey’s Own Soda‘s in a magazine almost a year ago. Since then, my purpose in life has been to taste every flavor. Almost a year has passed and I totally forgot about trying to get a hold of a few bottles. They are only available in a short list of stores in Jersey, so not seeing them in a local 7-11, and not being bombarded with advertisements caused me to easily forget them.
Recently, I remembered to visit the company’s website so I placed an order. Of course, I had to order every flavor they had available. The flavor offering doesn’t consist of the typical fare like Cola, or Orange, nope, all the names are Jersey related. It’s a cool gimmick for myself, and the 16 other people who read this blog, dig obscure beverages, and actually revere this state for some reason. Unfortunately, I was disappointed because these are just bottles of soda with the Jersey’s Own sticker slapped onto them.
After ordering a complete set of flavors, I waited close to 2 months to receive the shipment. The owner explained that there was a glitch in their system or something along those lines. Whatever, it didn’t matter since I was really excited to sample some new sodas. I was under the impression that they might be something special or different than other brands on the shelves. I was definitely wrong, except for one of the flavors, which I’ll get to shortly.
My main gripe with Jersey’s Own Soda is that they are plain old run of the mill sodas. The latest trend in soft drinks is that healthier is in. Many of the companies are touting their use of cane sugar and other natural ingredients in their drinks because of how satanic high fructose corn syrup is. I hear it actually causes you to piss out of your nipples and poop out your nose. What are they thinking using high fructose corn syrup? Shit, they might as well be a frigging store brand like Dr. Thunder or Mountain Lightning.
Here’s a breakdown of the flavors, all imported from New Jersey, and infused with all natural toxins:
Passaic River Punch – the only flavor that impressed me. At first glance, you’ll notice why the name is humorous. Passaic River Punch is a murky green color, almost as if you were gulping down handfuls of water from the polluted river, which is home to many a mutated fish. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this punch, because aside from the random trip to Taco Bell for a cool Baja Blast, I rarely drink soda. And that’s the nearest comparison I have for you. From what I gather, Baja Blast is made up of pineapple and lime flavors and that’s the only guess I have as to what this bold and refreshing mystery flavor consists of.
Route 46 Root Beer – One of the better tasting entries in the collection. This brew was bordering on being too sweet and had subtle hints of Vanilla, just like many of the great Root Beers out there, but I wanted it to be creamier.
Jersey Devil-Berry – The 2nd original flavor of the bunch pays tribute to the Jersey cryptid. I don’t understand why it’s blue though. I would have preferred a blood red soda to rep J.D, wouldn’t you think? Maybe it was cheaper to buy the banned blue food coloring? They should have just used a knock off of Mountain Dew Code Red or even a generic Fruit Punch Soda. Better yet, an angry, devilish soda that tastes like the Fireball candies. But nooooo, that would have been too perfect, right? If you’re thinking this tasted like Pepsi Blue, don’t, because it doesn’t taste anywhere near as good as that crap. Consider this a teeth rotting melange of Blueberry Windex and Raspberry Ajax.
Bada-Bing Black Cherry – A fun fact: In the Sopranos, none of the dancers at Bada Bing were cherries. Regardless, Bada-Bing Black Cherry works ridiculously better as a fun play on words or as the answer to a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune than it does a soda. Unlike hanging out for a night at Satin Dolls, this soda was just medicore.
South Orange – It seems like the soda namers at Jersey’s Own Beverages gave up on the naming process by this point. The home of Seton Hall University also serves as an appropriate name for Orange soda, except this one is the runt of the litter. Not sure if they were trying to go for a tangerine vibe or even a tangelo, I have no clue. The orange flavor was weak and so inaccurate. You are better off grabbing a can of Shop-Rite brand Orange soda.
Jersey’s Own Soda has the cliche phrase that is synonomous with Jersey, “How You Doin’,” printed on the label. I think it’s cool that we’re such a marketable state that we’ve got our very own soda, but for a higher quality soft drink experience, I recommend Boylan’s. They have the popular vote for being Jersey’s best soda, hands down. They’ve been doing it since 1891! Check them out at www.boylanbottling.com. Do yourself a favor and get your hands on a bottle of their renowned Creamy Red Birch Beer, it’s glorious.
F-ck Twilight, We’ve Got Cold Hearts!
Here’s my Cold Hearts “Twilight style” one sheet
Fast forwarding through a VHS tape was such an annoying chore. Depending on the speed of your fast forward feature, it was easy to go way passed your intended spot. It was much like when Lone Star and Barf went plaid in Spaceballs. Even though both rewinding and fast forwarding rarely took very long, they were both still a nuisance. In comparison, scanning through a DVD is a heavenly pleasure. In fact, I’m fairly certain that the scan feature on DVD’s was invented for movies like 1999’s vampire flick, Cold Hearts.
You know what that Twilight movie doesn’t have? THE MOTHERF-CKING PINK RANGER!!! Wouldn’t you think that combining the mighty and morphin’ Amy Jo Johnson with a completely weird and random cameo by Fred Norris of The Howard Stern Show would immediately spell runaway success? Well, it’s a topsy turvy world and by some strange anachronism, Cold Hearts will forever be known as a much lamer, low budget Lost Boys. At least Cold Hearts didn’t send Amy Jo Johnson’s career into the crapper, she went on to play Keri Russell’s best friend on Felicity, dropping her bloodsucking role like a bad habit.
IMDB states that Cold Hearts was filmed in Ocean City, NJ
With all the Twilight New Moon hoopla, now is a perfect time to discuss this Jersey vampire movie. In some small way, my entire purpose for blogging is to prove to the rest of the world that the state of New Jersey is more than just guidos, overweight whistling through their nose mafia types, and pork roll sandwiches. Occasionally, I have to temporarily abort my mission. There are times when even I, a hardcore fan and supporter of the state that I live in, cannot condone the atrocity that is Cold Hearts.
Many of you might say, why rip into Cold Hearts? Why kick the undervamps while they are down? I say, if you are an up and coming filmmaker like Robert Masciantonio, why not head into the biz with a film that you are proud of, not this piece of Jersey trash. With just a little ingenuity, and naturally a shitload more cash, this movie could have gained a huge cult following at the very least. I do support and give credit to those artists who put in a valiant effort, but in this case, my heart is stone. The film is dated, the dialogue is cheesy, and the acting is terrible. Several of the actors including Christian Campbell, who played John-Luke, deliver their lines as if they were nervously giving a speech in freshman public speaking class.
Viktoria, the constantly ruminating main character, seems ripe for a guest role on the CW’s Vampire Diaries. She’s dealing with a major life issue at how underwhelming it has been to live the vampire life: “I thought it’d be like Peter Pan, but ya know, with sharp teeth or something.” But Viktoria is facing a bigger problem, she’s a vampire and she’s all out of blood, she’s so lost without it. Plenty of contemplative shots of Viktoria (Marisa Ryan) make it painfully obvious that she likes to smoke cigarettes and think a lot, usually while wearing her sunglasses at inappropriate times, like at night. Corey Hart she is not, but her character does spell her name with a K for that extra dash of mysteriousness. In her time off of pondering her thoughts, and gazing into the ocean, Viktoria enjoys hanging out with her best friends on the boardwalk. One of them is the offensively token gay latino guy named Darius (Jon Huertas), and the other is Alicia played by the only actor in the film who is semi interesting to watch, Amy Jo Johnson.
The squeaky clean yet secretive, Seth, comes to town and leaves Viktoria smitten. Little does she know that her new crush has a vendetta against her angry ex-boyfriend Charles (Christopher Wiehl), who is basically the really poor mans Kiefer Sutherland, and I mean that man is really poor. They call him Chaz because he thinks he’s cool. Remember when Charles in Charge became his alter ego Chaz? Now HE was badass, unlike this particular Chaz who sets out to kill Viktoria.
We find out that Seth is actually a werewolf. It intends to be a huge reveal, but the surprise was let out more like a queef. If you watch this film and you don’t predict that Seth is a werewolf in the first 10 minutes of the film, then you need to go back for remedial horror classes for zero credit. There’s a bit of a showdown between werewolf Seth and vampire Charles. I’m beginning to think that Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight novels, had too many nights getting stoned, eating Cheez-Its, and watching her Special Edition DVD of the Best Feature Film winner at the ’99 Atlantic City Film Festival, Cold Hearts.
Robert Masciantonio, writer and director of this mess, touts his working relationship with Kevin Smith on his IMDB profile. In the immortal words of Christian Bale “Ohhhh GOOOOD for you…” I also learned that Masciantonio briefly worked for an indy wrestling company based out of New Jersey. After watching Cold Hearts I wonder if they’d be willing to give him his job back? I bet he missed his calling as the next great Grand Wizard of indy wrestling.
Fred Norris spouts sage-like advice and douchebag Seth misses Philly
The Philly born Masciantonio based his film in Atlantic City in order to stealthily aggravate the Jersey/Philly grudge. Some of the screw twisting involves a line from the clean cut, jeans model, and unsuspecting werewolf guy, Seth (Robert Floyd), who tells himself out loud that “all things being equal, I’d rather be in Philly.” Of course, the pot smoking vampire scumbags who hang out at the boardwalk are the Jersey guys and the Secret Stash T-Shirt wearing Silent Bob worshipping band of frat fools are the Philly guys. What’s worse is that Chaz’s band of thugs actually refer to themselves as “his horsemen,” while Seth’s new group of friends refer to them as “the lost boys back there.”
Check out “R.P” who frequently reminds us that he’s wearing goggles
Thanks to IMDB, I found four super lame tag lines that were used for this film:
1) Eternity’s a Bitch
2) Not everything is as it appears
3) Eternity Bites
4) We are all cold hearted sons of bitches
What’s that? You have a brain and you absolutely cannot believe that they actually used such asinine tag lines? I’m usually the one to rush to the defense of everything that secretes out of my disgusting state, but in this instance I’m throwing Cold Hearts to the werewolves.
NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 27: Hennessy Cognac
Nick from Trenton rocks his
New Jersey Jack Daniels & Hennessy mash up T-Shirt
Recently, I ran into Nick from Trenton, NJ who was wearing this cool New Jersey Hennessy Cognac t-shirt. The logo on the front of the shirt is a rip off of the iconic black label on Jack Daniels bottles. I did some Googling and couldn’t find any info on the existence of actual bottles of regional Hennessy Cognac. There is a good chance that this shirt might have been made simply as a parody or possibly to promote Hennessy’s work with Habitat for Humanity in various cities around the country. “Cognac for the Community” is an article that was printed in Brand Week last year and reports on the good work that Hennessy has done in Bergen County, NJ, among other places.
At Least We’ve Got Good Heroin!
According to this statistical breakdown I clipped from the pages of Playboy Magazine, New Jersey has the purest heroin out of the cities listed. You know…just in case you were wondering. Come to New Jersey where you can sit in traffic, nearly vomit as you inhale the Turnpike stench, and be sure to enjoy our high quality South American smack. Our shit is not only good, but cheap too! NJ: The Heroin State!
Starland Ballroom Food Drive ’09
This release was taken from the Starland Ballroom Newsletter:
The Middlesex County Food Organization and Outreach Distribution Services (M.C.F.O.O.D.S) is in desperate need of food donations, and Starland fans are asked to lend a hand by bringing a canned food item to any Starland show in November and December. And we’re not looking for decade old Sloppy Joe mix either: The present economic woes are affecting those in need harder than ever. Please help us help others this holiday season and bring a can to your next Starland show. For more info on how you can help M.C.F.O.O.D.S visit their official website: www.mciauth.com/mcfoods.htm
For more information on food donation centers throughout New Jersey, visit the Food Bank of New Jersey website: www.njfoodbank.org
Check out StarlandBallroom.com for their concert listing.
The Headbangers: Lazer Tag Champions!
This late night WWE program aired from 1997-1999
Unlike today, WWE had quite an array of tag teams in the late ’90s. One of those teams hailed from New Jersey and comprised Glen Ruth (Thrasher) of Camden and Charles Warrington (Mosh) of Cherry Hill. Before they were heavy metal punks, The Headbangers (Mosh and Thrasher) were first introduced as “The Flying Nuns” on WWE Shotgun Saturday Night. They lacked the cuteness of Sally Field so naturally that gimmick didn’t last.
Nowadays, for some reason, the WWE tries to pretend the former tag team champions never existed. I don’t see why. Maybe it was because they wore kilts and sports bras over their shirts? The Headbangers weren’t on par with say…The Hart Foundation in the ring or anything, but they had a great deal of presence and a cool gimmick in my book. It was good to see a couple of guys whose entire shtick was tailored to the fact that they were into metal and punk music. Whether they actually listened to Wayne Newton or Pantera on their own time was their business.
If you were a WWF/WWE fan up until that point you’d know that the company barely acknowledged any type of outside entertainment unless it was an artist or band that was appearing to sing the national anthem at Wrestlemania. It seemed to me as a young kid that the WWE writers took us all for shut in morons who didn’t know what was going on in the world around us. They came a long way from the Rock N Wrestling connection that was ushered in by Hulk Hogan, Cyndi Lauper, and Captain Lou. Thankfully, WWE realized their mistake and now uses music to their full advantage in advertising and in the wrestlers theme songs.
It just seemed like The Headbangers didn’t get a fair shake. If their gimmick was tweaked a bit they may have been taken more seriously. At least they’ll always have this kick ass Lazer Tag advertisement they starred in to hang on the wall in their dining room forever.
The Sexy Armpit is 5 Years Old!
This NJ cake, posted at New Jersey Scoop, was created by
the 4th grade students at JFK Elementary School in Raritan, NJ
The cake depicts all 21 counties and various points of interest in The Garden State
Yep, The Sexy Armpit has been around for 5 years! Recently, Geocities, the birthplace of The Sexy Armpit, was put out of its misery. I don’t think anyone was sad to see it go, but several of my earliest websites were made using Pagebuilder and published on my free Geocities account. I created all the graphics for the original incarnation and it didn’t appear to be your typical shabby free web page. The original Armpit looked like it came out of the intro of You Can’t Do That On Television, one of my favorite shows ever. Once I realized that Blogger was a better platform for me, I began transcribing my writing over to blogger. What you see in the first year of the archive is only a sampling of what was offered at the original Sexy Armpit site. I’ll continue to post some of the classic articles and reviews that appeared on the site. As always, I greatly appreciate you dropping in and reading about all the NJ pop culture minutiae that I delve into. You can be sure that The Sexy Armpit will be around to celebrate many more birthdays! Thanks again!