Tramps like us, baby we were born to run

She Said: With the premier of Jersey Shore, let's honor the blowout, get our fist pump on, eat some frickles and make it a chicken cutlet night.  Kick back after a long day of GTL and have our in-house Jersey boy answer this:  What does a Jersey boy far away from home miss the most about the Garden State?

G Said: I have a California driver's license and a job that really can't be done on the same level anywhere else...I'm here for good.  That being said, as much fun as the west coast is, there are some facets of life that are just better in Jerz.  I'll do my best to prevent this post from becoming a rant, but I'm not making any promises.  So nuke your pork roll, call your ma, and get a tan for chrissake.  Here's some culture for you...

1.  The food.  Joe Pantoliano (seated at left table) said "You know you've spent too much time in California when the food starts tasting good," and frankly, I couldn't agree more.  If your a friend of the blog, then you're already aware of my stance on west coast pizza.  No sense in beating a dead horse there.  But really, someone show me an honest-to-God butcher out here!  Just for kicks, here are Google search results for NJ butcher and CA butcher....look at all the locations!  And California doesn't even have enough to show the little map-thing!  All I want is someone who knows how to use a knife that gives a shit, and instead I've gotta wait on line at Save Mart and hope that the guy behind the counter can give me the right kind of tasty, tasty animal.  The same goes for deli's.  While Californians seem to be catching on (perhaps they consider them to be a "hip trend"), their efforts are slightly...off the mark (though well-intentioned).  Let's go back to the grocery store line, only now we've walked 10 yards or so and we're standing before a glass counter of pre-packaged lunchmeat.  You like pastrami?  Great!  Me, too.  Let's get some.  There's your standard sandwich-slice (pictured ever so beautifully), or you can get it thinner.  I tend to stick to slightly thicker out here because whenever I say "thin," those with the slicers hear "shredded."  Fail.  And if you want proschoot (or prosciutto, for those unfamiliar with the NJ-Italian dialect), forget about it...that's exactly what I want...shredded ham for $20 a pound.

2.  The Shore.  The Jersey shore is like Vegas, but with more attitude and none of that wedding nonsense thrown in.  Most of the attractions date from the '30s or '40s, and my father would tell me stories about when he and my aunt used to go down the shore to the exact same spots my sister and I would hit.  While a little more built-up, their identities are essentially the same.  Though crowded, the shore provided something for everyone...families, college kids, grandparents looking to read a book, or even people looking for trouble.  But the beautiful thing about these towns/sociological case-studies is that all factions seamlessly co-exist.  There might be some rifts within (like tourists or bennys), but on a greater level, they recognize the necessity of other groups to complete the shore-ecosystem.

But what do I miss?  Seeing The Boss at the Stone Pony.  Disco fries.  Boardwalk fights (which consist of a guy and twenty of his friends against another guy and twenty of his friends).  Asbury Park at dusk.  The Sinatra House.  Wildwood--all of it.  DJais.  Iconic places.  Seaside Heights after the prom.  And yes, even AC.

3.  Winter.  And I'm not talking about "the rainy season," but actual snow and ice.  The area where I live now can be categorized by two distinct climactic phases--hot and dry, and cold and wet.  Right around April (though it seems to get later and later every year), the rain magically stops and we're in for a nice long growing season (great if you're in the wine business)!  The summer weather is also FAR more reliable here than where I grew up, and even I have a tendency to take outdoor plans for granted.  Some words that are heard extremely rarely in California:  hurricane, rain delay, humidity, sausage and peppers (oops, that's not weather-related).

But back to winter.  I enjoy shoveling snow, which is sick but true.  I went back to Jersey for Christmas last year and was up at 4 am so that I could shovel my parents' driveway (for those interested, I volunteered).  Hell, I even like that twisted-yet-excited game created by swarms of cars on icy roads.  You might be thinking that if I really miss these experiences, then I could always go to Tahoe or something.  They have snow there, and I could always get my fix.  And while that theory looks good on paper, it lacks one essential core principle:  I like it when snow comes to me, not when I have to go to it.  I smirk to myself when I see people plop down hundreds of dollars on a January weekend to live like my parents...like NJ Fantasy Camp.  However, come Sunday night they can all fire up their Priuses and return with cameras full of memories to their snowless homes.  Idealized and sweet, yes, but what they lack is the lifestyle created by winter --experiences that I will never take for granted.