The best game by an RB in Giants Stadium this year?

Could have been the performance by Ramsey high school's senior halfback Zach Donnarumma, who had 25 carries for 266 yards and 4 TDs in Ramsey's win over River Dell in last night's North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 state championship which was held at Giants Stadium. I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't ran out to Sonic around 11:30pm last night, and heard a bunch of ecstatic kids celebrating some sort of victory. Out of curiosity, I checked out NJ.com when I got home to find out what all the excitement was about. Here's the Record's highlight clip from the game:

Ramsey beats River Dell to win North 1 Group 2 NJ HS football final

High-end chef adapts to new economy

Hat tip to Cheryl for this article from NJ.com about how Craig Shelton, the chef/owner¹ of what was once New Jersey's most expensive (and one of its best reviewed²) restaurants, The Ryland Inn, is now working in a diner. About nine years ago occasional commenter Y./TheRivers, who had won a $150-off coupon to the restaurant, treated me to dinner there for my birthday. If memory serves, he ended up paying $350+ out of pocket, even after getting the $150 off -- and we had ordered the less expensive of the two wine pairings offered for the tasting menu. We did get a couple of free cigars from the chef though, when he found out that Y. and him belonged to the same secret society/fraternal organization. From the NJ.com article,

The Skylark Fine Diner and Lounge on Route 1, with its 60s airport lounge-meets-the-Jetsons interior — flying saucer-shaped lights, retro tables and chairs, and clocks showing the time in Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, London and elsewhere — is one of the more striking diners in a state that boasts more than any other.

But still, a top chef in a Jersey diner? What’s he going to do, offer $25 patty melts?

Far from it.

Shelton, the Skylark’s guest chef, has added dozens of eclectic, globe-spanning, reasonably-priced dishes to the diner’s menu since early September. Constantine Katsifis, the Skylark’s owner, says he and Shelton are "inventing a new category of diner."

"The restaurant business across America is a horror show — down 60 percent, down 40 percent," Shelton said.

The thought of working in a diner makes Shelton laugh heartily.

"But it’s a good idea for any chef ... to have a more diversified portfolio."

After a water line break shut down the Ryland Inn in early 2007, Shelton was working on his high-end coffee line and ideas for food-related TV projects when Katsifis invited him to a restaurant trade show in Chicago.

I remember Shelton's high-end coffee line, from articles about it a couple of years ago. He was offering two types of coffee, actually: one allegedly blended and roasted for enjoyment on yachts and the other for stables. $20 per lb. for each, I believe. Back to the article,

Over dinner, Katsifis outlined a plan for the Skylark that was still evolving in his own mind.

"(There are) 20 chefs as accomplished as he is in the country," Katsifis said. "We came back from that meeting and decided to take the Skylark to the next level."

A commenter on at NJ.com wrote,

This is a welcome change. The French have bistros, the Italians trattorie and we have - diners.

NJ diners prove that anyone with a deep fryer, a can opener and a griddle can go into the business.

Well, not exactly. The most successful diners have loyal clientele who will only eat mediocre food from their favorite diner's deep fryer.

Edison is a little bit of a haul from here, but we'll have to head down there and check out the new Skylark diner.


¹A commenter on NJ.com writes that Shelton is no longer the owner of the Ryland Inn, having lost it to bankruptcy. I don't know if that's the case or not.

²From that link to the New York Times review:

Did I say words fail me? I seem to have gone on for five paragraphs about a tomato salad -- a dish you probably won't get to eat, by the way, for 9 or 10 months, the season having passed. But this is what it's like to eat at the Ryland Inn. You lose yourself in this food -- its colors, its textures, the way it works with the wine and the way the flavors seem to change and broaden with each mouthful.

[...]

Amid such riches it's easy to forget your surroundings. The 200-year-old inn, once a stagecoach stop on the road from New Brunswick to Easton, Pa., is a fine white clapboard building with Gothic touches and a green awning. The garden, open for strolling, occupies 2 of the inn's 50 acres; the rest is rolling pasture shaded by ancient trees. On a clear weekend afternoon in the fall, watching hot-air balloons drift over the forested hills of Hunterdon County, you can imagine yourself in France.

Hunterdon County is old money horse country (unlike hardscrabble Sussex County, where this pony lives).

Running Against Wall Street

In post back in June ("Lessons from the European Parliament Elections") I wrote,

A third area where (some) Republicans may be able to draw a favorable contrast with Democrats, if they are willing to do so, is by running against Wall Street, or more accurately, running against the incestuous relationship between some major Wall Street firms and Washington. I suspect New Jersey's GOP gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie will try a version of this while running against our incumbent governor, former Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine.

Today I got an e-mail from the Christie campaign which included this video:

Today's NJ Corruption Arrests

From the AP, "3 NJ mayors, lawmakers arrested in corruption case":

By DAVID PORTER, Associated Press Writer David Porter, Associated Press Writer – 2 mins ago

NEWARK, N.J. – An investigation into the sale of black-market kidneys and fake Gucci handbags evolved into a sweeping probe of political corruption in New Jersey, ensnaring more than 40 people Thursday, including three mayors, two state lawmakers and several rabbis.

Even for a state with a rich history of graft, the scale of wrongdoing alleged was breathtaking. An FBI official called corruption "a cancer that is destroying the core values of this state."

Federal prosecutors said the investigation initially focused on a money laundering network that operated between Brooklyn, N.Y.; Deal, N.J.; and Israel. The network is alleged to have laundered tens of millions of dollars through Jewish charities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey.

Prosecutors then used an informant in that investigation to help them go after corrupt politicians. The informant — a real estate developer charged with bank fraud three years ago — posed as a crooked businessman and paid a string of public officials tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to get approvals for buildings and other projects in New Jersey, authorities said.

Among the 44 people arrested were the mayors of Hoboken, Ridgefield and Secaucus, Jersey City's deputy mayor, and two state assemblymen. A member of the governor's cabinet resigned after agents searched his home, though he was not arrested. All but one of the officeholders are Democrats.

Also, five rabbis from New York and New Jersey — two of whom lead congregations in Deal — were accused of laundering millions of dollars, some of it from the sale of counterfeit goods and bankruptcy fraud, authorities said.

In rounding up the defendants, FBI and IRS agents raided a synagogue Thursday morning in Deal, a wealthy oceanfront city of Mediterranean-style mansions, with a large population of Syrian Jews.

A couple of thoughts on this:

Aside from these arrests being good news in the civic hygiene sense, this is obviously good news for Chris Christie's campaign to unseat Governor Jon Corzine, given that four of the five public officials arrested were Democrats, that one of Corzine's staff members is a suspect and was forced to resign, and that these arrests will remind voters of Christie's successful track record of prosecuting corruption as a U.S. Attorney in NJ. It will be interesting to see how many tens of millions of dollars the former Goldman Sachs chief Corzine will pour into his reelection campaign now.

The Syrian Jewish community mentioned in the AP article above was profiled a couple of years ago by Zev Chafets in a New York Times Magazine article, "The Sy Empire". That article focused mainly on this community's strict ban on intermarriage. It mentioned that fraudster Eddie Antar ("Crazy Eddie") was a member of the community, and that the community was affluent from its business dealings, but it didn't mention anything about the kidney business. Those of you of a certain age from the New York area will remember the original Crazy Eddie's commercials, but here's a clip of one of them from YouTube for the rest of you. The fellow who posted this video on YouTube noted that the man in the commercial isn't Crazy Eddie himself, but an actor named Jerry Carroll.

Sonic Discord in Northern New Jersey

In a post a few months ago, I mentioned that one business that seemed to be bucking the recession locally was Food Network chef Bobby Flay's, burger place, Bobby's Burger Palace. A few weeks ago, the first Sonic drive-in opened in Northern New Jersey, on Rt. 17, one of the two main commercial highways cutting through densely populated Bergen County¹. Since then, the place has been jammed. There have been traffic cops on foot directing traffic into the lot, and waiving off cars when the lot is full. We have a lot of people in NJ who love to eat, but we also have, arguably, the most aggressive and most dangerous drivers in the country². Last night, that combination led to one of the traffic cops getting sandwiched between two cars. From the Record:

Several teenagers in their cars at the drive-in heard the crash and ran to the scene, on Route 17 north. They saw a Honda Civic with its front end smashed, facing north, and up against an Acura SUV facing south, both vehicles pinned against the center median in the northbound lane.

They said they saw the officer pinned between the two cars. “The officer wasn’t moving … his eyes were closed,” said Ryan Conlon, 17, of Allendale.

“We heard, like, a screech, and then a loud thud … it sounded like somebody hit something heavy,” said Conlon, who was at the drive-in with two friends, Brandon Neuburger, 18, of Allendale, and Nicole Piazza, 18, of Ho-Ho-Kus³.

[...]

One customer, P.J. Montevirgen, 29, of Hackensack said he had to circle up and down the highway to try and get a spot, and saw an Acura SUV trying to get a spot and a police officer telling the driver the lot was full. The Acura driver suddenly floored his vehicle in front of the officer, jerked to the left, and disappeared behind some car. Moments later, Montevirgen said, he heard a crash.

“It’s a real popular spot. … I’ve been hearing about it [the drive-in],” said a 50-year-old Ramsey resident who declined to give her name. She said she had circled on the highway five times before she pulled into the drive-in. “People jockey to get position in the right lane to get in.”

As she pulled in, she spotted two police officers directing traffic and blurted to herself about the position of one of them, “That cop is going to get killed.” Five minutes later, she said, she saw all the commotion.

I dedicate the footnotes below to the memory of David Foster Wallace.

¹According to Wikipedia, there are about 900,000 of us tucked into the little corner of Northeastern NJ comprised by Bergen County. In contrast, Sussex County, which is situated in the Northwestern corner of NJ and covers twice the land area of Bergen County, has only about 150,000 residents. My mother owns a small horse farm in Sussex County, and when we drive there Cheryl and I pass the "Welcome to Sussex County" sign, which features that county's slogan, "People and Nature Together". We've joked that the slogan for Bergen County ought to be "People at each other's throats".

²I say this based my experience driving in a number of different parts of this country. Los Angeles, for example, has lots of traffic, but when I've driven there, I've never seen the kind of nonsense I see here. I don't see it driving in Manhattan, for that matter either (with the possible exception of the taxi drivers).

³As densely populated as Bergen County is, the northern end of it includes some scenic, rural parts. Ho-Ho-Kus is up in that area. One bit of trivia: Ho-Ho-Kus was mentioned in an episode of Sex and the City ("Sex and the Country"), when Carrie Bradshaw drives into NJ from her boyfriend's cabin in New York state to get a burger. According to IMDB, this scene was actually shot somewhere in Long Island though.

Arturo "Thunder" Gatti, RIP

Commenter Stan B broke the news to me that Arturo "Thunder" Gatti had passed away. From the AP via the Los Angeles Times website ("Arturo Gatti, former boxing champion, found dead in hotel"):

Associated Press
4:10 PM PDT, July 11, 2009

SAO PAULO -- Former boxing champion Arturo Gatti, whose epic trilogy with Micky Ward branded him one of the most exciting fighters of his generation, was found dead in a hotel room in the posh seaside resort of Porto de Galihnas early Saturday.

Police investigator Edilson Alves told the Associated Press that the body of the former junior welterweight champ was discovered in his room at the tourist resort, where Gatti had arrived on Friday with his Brazilian wife Amanda and 1-year-old son.

Alves said police were investigating and it was unclear how the 37-year-old Canadian died.

"It is still too early to say anything concrete, although it is all very strange," Alves said. He declined to provide any additional details.

A spokeswoman for the state public safety department said Gatti's wife and son were unhurt. The woman declined to give a name in keeping with department policy.

"There were no bullet or stab wounds on his body, but police did find blood stains on the floor," she said.

Brazilian boxer and four-time world champion Acelino "Popo" Freitas told the G1 website of Brazil's largest TV network Globo that he was a close friend of Gatti and his wife, and that he "knew they were having some sort of problem and were about to separate."

[...]

"I never saw a crowd show so much love for someone like the way that the crowds flocked to Arturo's fights in Atlantic City," said referee Randy Neumann, who officiated Gatti's last fight against Alfonso Gomez two years ago. "I mean, they were so into him and the crowds were electric. He just fought his heart out every fight."

A quick aside: I've had the pleasure of meeting Randy Neumann on a few occasions. He was a heavyweight contender in the 1970s, and now, in addition to being a professional referee, runs his own financial planning practice in Paramus, NJ. According to a recent article in our local paper, the Record, Neumann's son, a former college football prospect, is now starting his own pro career, managed by his father. I had planned on blogging on that, but hadn't gotten around to it. The AP article quotes Neumann again,

Gatti attempted a comeback in July 2007, getting knocked out in seven rounds by Gomez. Afterward, with his legion of fans cheering for him in the arena, Gatti announced his retirement in the dressing room at Boardwalk Hall.

Neumann said it was tough for him to end that fight, simply because of Gatti's incredible ability to come back in fights.

"I couldn't stop that fight, simply because he was Arturo Gatti," Neumann said. "He was much more dignified to go out that way. He had to be counted out. When he fought, you never knew if he could come back. He looked beaten and still came back."

Neumann is a great referee. Sometimes you've got to let a fighter get counted out, and sometimes you have stop it before it gets to that, and it takes a great referee to make that call¹.

I was never a fan of Gatti -- I was pulling for the other guy in most of his fights -- but I always respected his courage. You had to -- how could you not respect the courage of a man who would keep fighting with a broken hand? May he rest in peace.

Below is a video of the 9th round of the first of three fights between Gatti and "Irish" Mickey Ward. This was probably the best round in the best fight of the trilogy, and this fight was one of the best I've ever seen. Ward, incidentally, if memory serves, was still driving a steam roller for a living in Massachusetts at the time of this fight. He got some nice paydays in the next two fights though, I think.

Mickey Ward vs Arturo Gatti I Round 9


¹I once complimented Neumann on stopping the Klitschko v. Mercer fight when he did. Mercer, the old U.S. Army champion, was "like a Sherman tank" according to Neumann. Letting him eat more of Klitschko's straight rights would have been pointless at that stage of the fight.

A Colombian Tradition Comes to NJ

An article earlier this week in the Record of Northern NJ ("Stupidity on Wheels") mentioned that Bergen County police pulled over a multicolored bus after they saw debris being thrown out the windows of the bus, causing drivers of other cars to swerve. The bus, it turned out, was outfitted with a dance floor, deejay booth, and bar, and was full of high school students for Morristown partying after their prom. A Record column today by Mike Kelly explains the origin of this tradition:

The bus, owned by La Chiva Way, is a “chiva” – a term that describes rolling party buses that are common in rural Columbia. The firm’s website advertises itself as the “best party on wheels.”

Kelly also notes an immigration angle to this story:

A few hours later, the phone range at the home of Diana Mejia, a Morristown-based immigration advocate. The caller was one of the students on the bus – and here the story takes an intriguing turn.

Mejia says the student – and others who called later — were not so much concerned about the penalty for underage drinking, though Mejia adds that the students said they did not drink. Rather, Mejia said the students worried that the attention from the prom bus might lead police to discover that some of their relatives in Morristown were illegal immigrants.

Many of the students, were from Morristown’s burgeoning Latino community, said Mejia, who works the American Friends Service Committee and the Wind of the Spirit immigration group.

“Some of the kids may be documented,” said Mejia, using a term that refers to a person’s immigration status. “But their parents may not be. Remember, these are mixed families.”

The photo above, of disc jockey Ricardo Silva, left, of Jackson Heights, N.Y., and party bus promoter Jean Balcazar of College Point, N.Y., waiting to be called in municipal court in Hackensack, accompanied Mike Kelly's column online and is credited to Elizabeth Lara of the Record. The two men were smiling in the photo of them that accompanied Kelly's column in the dead tree edition of the paper today.

How to Suppress Voter Turnout in School Board Elections

Simple: don't hold them at the same time as other elections. New Jersey will have its primary elections in June, including a Republican primary to nominate either former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie or former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan to challenge former Goldman Sachs chief and current Governor Jon Corzine for the governorship. Scheduling local school board elections for the same day would have increased turnout. Instead, they were held earlier this month here in Hackensack. According to the Hackensack Chronicle's unofficial results, the city's $85,207,090 school budget was approved by a 880-515 vote: in a city of about 50,000 residents, an $85 million tax and spending decision was made by a ~3% minority of zealous voters. I'm sure that's just the way the city's education establishment prefers it.

Madoff Made Off With My State Senator's Money

Hat tip to Cheryl for forwarding me this article from Yahoo! Finance, "NJ state senator loses $1.3M life savings". Excerpts from the article:

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- New Jersey Sen. Loretta Weinberg's nest egg had grown to about $1.3 million before investments with disgraced Wall Street investor Bernard Madoff wiped her out.

The 73-year-old grandmother believed she was financially secure until recently, when an accountant phoned a relative to say the Weinberg family's investments -- including the senator's and those of many in her family -- were now worth nothing.

[...]

"I was shocked first of all," said Weinberg, a Democrat representing Bergen County. "I had never heard of Bernie Madoff. My money was invested, along with many extended family members, with a financial adviser in Los Angeles."

The Weinbergs' money manager, Stanley Chais, had invested his clients' IRAs, 401Ks and other funds with Madoff.

[...]

Despite losing her life savings, Weinberg, who makes $49,000 a year as a state legislator, isn't moping.

The liberal lawmaker said she still has the work that she loves and the ability to pay her mortgage.

"I'm really better off than a lot of people around us in our society today," she said. "I may be better off than some of the people who got ripped off in this scandal."

Weinberg's even come up with laugh lines about her predicament.

For example, she's been joking with friends that she's going to earn money by starting a new franchise: Granny's Pizza Delivery. The deliverers will use walkers that have been retrofitted with pizza-warming trays. She laughingly predicts that those grannies, including her, could pull in big tips.

I can't say I've ever voted for the lady, who has been called the most liberal politician in New Jersey (although my father volunteered for her when she was an assemblywoman), but I give her credit for holding onto her sense of humor in the face of this disaster.

The photo above, of Senator Weinberg with President-elect Obama, is from Senator Weinberg's website.

Another Side of the State

Yesterday we headed out to a rural part of NJ to help out at my mother's small horse farm there. My mother went to a show with a couple of her students, so Cheryl and I had make sure the horses left behind had water and hay. Here are some photos we took while we were out in Sussex County, NJ. The photo of the horse was taken from my mother's farm; a couple were taken in downtown Newton, the county seat; and the other two were taken at points in between.

TV Recommendation: Startup.com

If you want to see an entertaining documentary about the rise and fall of a dot-com (GovWorks.com), and you have Showtime, set your DVR to record Startup.com tomorrow at 9:45am on Showtime's Showcase channel. I first saw the film a few years ago, and I'm looking forward to watching the whole thing again. One (out out of many) entertaining moments occurs when the GovWorks principals walk out of a meeting with Kleiner Perkins -- the storied venture capital firm that backed Google and Genentech among other companies -- and one of the twenty-something GovWorks employees says of the Kleiner Perkins partner they just met, "That guy just doesn't get it".

The GovWorks story reminds me of Aaron Edelheit's point in a post last month ("Thinking of Investing in China?") that "Sometimes large economic trends do not make great investments". The GovWorks founders were clearly ahead of the curve on a trend: the trend of individuals paying parking tickets and otherwise interacting with local governments online. The question they may not have considered was why the local governments would need to rely on the private sector to provide this sort of service for them. Here in the wilds of New Jersey, for example, the state has its own website where you can pay parking tickets online.