Not just jug handles and Jon Bon...

I have heard the jokes…
Q: Why are New Yorkers so depressed?
A: Because the light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey.

I have read the remarks…
“New Jersey is like a beer barrel, tapped at both ends, with all the live beer running into Philadelphia and New York.” –American everyman Ben Franklin

I have even withstood the blasphemy from statemates…
“New Jersey is a great place to be born in, but it’s best to get out of here before you die,” a balding Garden State bartender once advised me, as if we lived in a hospital that was about to burn down.

Whether in Manhattan for a night out, in Virginia during college or in Europe during a semester abroad, it’s hard to ignore how everyone seems quick with a zinger about exit-oriented New Jersey. 135 off of the Parkway, if you must know, wise guy.

At first I laughed along. Then I started to defend our women and fine coastline, like a good tourist bureau chief husbanded to his state. Now I smile, nod and ignore. New Jersey is much more than jug handles, Jon Bon and a balding mobster named Tony, and it’s about time someone challenged the Garden State haters with compelling truths, not gelled-hair fits of rage. Prepare to be educated, BFrank.

MISCONCEPTION: New Jersey breeds unmotivated bums.
TRUTH: Inventor Thomas Edison, underground railroad leader Harriet Tubman, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, writer Toni Morrison, actor Jack Nicholson, coach Vince Lombardi, superstar Shaquille O’Neal, legend Yogi Berra, crooner Frank Sinatra and rock star Bruce Springsteen were all born in New Jersey. I dare you to find a more dynamic cast.

MISCONCEPTION: Successful people flee New Jersey as soon as they can.
TRUTH: More millionaires live in The Garden State than in any other state in the nation, according to a 2008 story by the Associated Press. Call it Hollywood East.

MISCONCEPTION: New Jersey is home to mostly bitter, callous cynics.
TRUTH: According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, New Jersey residents have the lowest rate of depression in the United States. It makes you want to reconsider that vacation to Honolulu, doesn’t it?

MISCONCEPTION: New Jersey sports fans mooch off of the NYC sports scene.
TRUTH: The first recorded baseball game was played in Hoboken, N.J., and the first college football game was played in New Brunswick, N.J. Also, the New York Giants and New York Jets hike their footballs in East Rutherford, N.J. Who is mooching off of whom here?

You might think that I’ve developed a state inferiority complex and that I’m harping on this topic to self-medicate. Untrue. When you see someone at the JFK Airport in New York with a “Friends don’t let friends live in New Jersey” T-shirt, you know that it’s time to play defense. For few good reasons, The Garden State has become the butt of state jokes, the can’t-miss punch line for bombing comedians and mediocre Founding Fathers. It’s about time people knew the truth.

Can you "ace" the bar?

For those spooning with Ben & Jerry and not the other half this February 14, kudos to you for beating back the advances of the temptresses Hallmark, Godiva and all those hypothetical dates. As it turns out, being single takes a lot of work. Those couples have it easy.

Looking back, college was a summer camp, a hub for all things social, where a party was a phone call away and a date was a few fun conversations away. Little do you know that when handed the diploma, you are given a passport to uncharted waters with Facebook, co-ed intramurals, bars and E-harmony (for the desperate) there to keep you afloat.

Plenty of fish in these waters, eh?

For those in years 0 to 3 of a post-college job, you are most likely on the dirt level of the totem pole. Work is heaped on you, some of which can be cranked out by a sixth-grader. But you eagerly pull extra hours and dutifully salute your boss because you’re a soldier and you want a top-notch performance review. So where does that position you in the dating world, great warrior of the workplace?

The options seem limited…

- The bar: a jungle of bodies, mixed drinks and Eighties power ballads. Are some bars fun? Absolutely. At times, however, it feels like you’re searching for something amidst "Journey" and tonics that will never be found.
- The office: Water cooler conversations and ‘working under the same roof’ pride could spark something, but once the embers go chilly, the fallout can be tricky.
- Facebook/E-harmony: ‘I really like you, so I’m going to click my mouse and 'poke' you with a 2-d rose or a pixelated box of chocolates.’ [Cue sarcasm] Nothing seems more chivalrous. And if you’re a knight of the online world, plunk down the dough, Romeo, and discover your soul mate, a.k.a a 60-year-old man posing as an attractive kindergarten teacher, through an Internet dating service. Does that indirectly make Al “I created the Web” Gore your wingman?

The millennial crowd seems to favor text messaging over talking, Facebook ‘group-forming’ over dinner parties and ear buds over eye contact. How are you supposed to date with all that distance? Should you couple up right after college like your parents to avoid the hassle? Or delay until self-discovery is complete and the loans are paid off?

For most of us who take bachelorette/bachelorhood into the “real world”, there is that struggle to enjoy the single life while craving something deeper, especially with engagement announcements and wedding invites making out in front of our faces.

The wait is surely all worth it in the end. But in the meantime, any tips, Mr. Gore?

The shop teacher sage

“You can’t make a fuss if you don’t become a part of it,” said 86-year-old retired shop teacher Don Van Blake as we walked through the streets of Plainfield, N.J., canvassing for Barack Obama.

Five years ago, the only reason I would have watched C-SPAN was if I had trouble falling asleep. Recently, however, I have been following the political scene as closely as the sports page. And one presidential candidate’s challenge to hope and maximize potential has captured my attention.

So I called up “Obama for New Jersey” and volunteered my services on “Super Tuesday,” hyped as the most explosive day in politics since the Burr-Hamilton duel. I wanted to see what this “movement” was all about.

I was assigned to Plainfield and was paired with Mr. Van Blake, a good-humored man who inspired me with his eagerness to climb front steps and engage people at his advanced age. It was an unlikely pairing: an 86-year-old black man going door-to-door alongside a twenty-something white guy in a town that is 60 percent black. Mr. Van Blake reminisced about his work on the 1948 presidential campaign of Henry Wallace, who advocated giving full voting rights to blacks.

What I will take away from Mr. Van Blake was his insistence that he was making a difference. “Never get old,” he kept telling me as he clutched his cane, though his age – or any other supposed impediment – hadn’t seemed to deter him so far.

The rainy weather could have left him saying when he climbed out of bed, ‘I’ll let the next guy handle it,’ but his attitude seemed to be, ‘I am the next guy.’

In my first taste of political activism, Mr. Van Blake showed me that passion and persistence toward a cause trumps any personal uncertainty, uneasiness or doubt. And at a time when few things seem certain, shunning the doubt and insisting on being ‘that next guy’ just might get you through it all. Mr. Van Blake has been through it 86 years and counting...

Not so much...

The college degree is advertised as the elixir to the naiveté and hardship of youth, the golden ticket to life’s amusement park, the key to all those doors that will be swinging open. After commencement, everything’s a cakewalk, right?

After all, you’re a suave communicator capable of wooing any job interviewer, who will immediately unroll a carpet stitched with Benjamins, right? And also a masterful doctor of dating with charm outdone only by the size of your big black book, right?

Not so much…

If only that degree bought you the ideal first job, the charm to rope in The One and the luxury to live anywhere and have anything you want. But it doesn’t. And that’s a jarring truth.

The script to date has been finding that prom date, choosing that college, deciding on that major and landing that first job. The rest - as I'm finding out - is improvisation. Sure there are your goals and aspirations that fuel your days, but this script is less defined and more complicated than ever.

Now I am a decent jazz improviser on my tenor saxophone, but the irony is that I still haven’t mastered how to improvise to the chord changes of life.

It’s unsettling, it’s exciting, it’s frustrating, it’s interesting.

I hope to channel some of the interesting stuff on this blog, without sounding angst-ridden or Saved-by-the-Bell schmaltzy. So for all it's worth, cheers to enjoying the ride…