Trenton Makes The World Takes

Poor Righteous Teachers

2009-06-20T00:16:00.000-07:00

I am a musician and I have been playing guitar for 32 years now. I first took lessons at a music store on Broad and Liberty from a guy who was named, I think, Frank Siciliano. I know his first name was Frank. At first I rented a cheap acoustic guitar from him and played that for a while, but I got the fever and my grandfather co-signed a thousand dollar loan for me from the bank on Market and Broad, and I bought a Rickenbacker from Frank that was once his. I got that and a cheapo amp. I didn't know much. I wouldn't want to say here in public that I bought a quarter pound of pot with some of that money 31 years ago because I am a secretive sort of person.

Though I have always loved music and had (and have) a very open mind about it, I didn't "get" hip hop music when I was younger. I didn't really start to get into it until around 2002. Somebody who I met in Sedona, AZ, who was from Philly, suggested I listen to The Roots. I did, and I liked their music a lot and started frequenting the OkayPlayer boards, particularly the Freestyle Board. I wrote poetry on there and got turned on to tons of good music: Common, Dilated Peoples, Talib Kweli, and other OKP artists first of all.

Then I did my homework and listened to just about everything and now I know the voice of all the great emcees, and many of those that don't quite fall into that category. My favorite emcees are Big Daddy Kane, Ghostface, Raekwon, RZA (yes RZA, I don't like GZA, too wooden), Method Man, KRS One, Chuck D, Andre 3000 and Big Boi, Black Thought, Common, Kweli, Mos Def...I respect others that I don't like quite as much. KRS-One is in a special class as a dude, but his emceeing doesn't always blow me away. I like Guru, Rakim, Biggie, Jay-Z...I really don't like Tupac much at all to be honest. I've always liked CL Smooth a lot. I can get into Dead Prez for much of their message. Eminem is more like pop music to me, but he has skills. I like Aesop Rock and other Def Jux at times.

Producers I think are especially good are Pete Rock, RZA, J Dilla, Timbaland, MF Doom, Madlib, RJD2, Hi-Tek, and Premier.

I know I may be leaving people out and I don't purport to be the ultimate expert, but that's where I'm at right now. Some names you don't see are people I just don't like that others think are great (like Kanye West).

But the punchline is that because I was a dumb-ass earlier on, I slept on my homeboys the Poor Righteous Teachers. I love everything I've heard by them, and I'm proud to know I come from the same town that they do. They did something really special and understood very deep things very early on. Check out East Star. Totally completely Ill.

The Soho, A Trenton Business Past

2008-12-07T13:54:00.000-08:00

One of the best friends that I have ever had is a guy who lived in Trenton for most of his life by the name of Charlie Weinhofer, and he worked for many years at a Trenton bar and restaurant that was located in Chambersburg called The Soho. It was a cool place that filled a niche perfectly, casual dining that was quality but inexpensive with a "Soho" kind of New York flair in terms of attitude and decor.

The Soho was originally started up by a guy named Bill Rednor (I think that is spelled right) and another fellow named Tom, and I don't remember Tom's last name. Tom moved on after a few years and started his own restaurant downtown that I never had the opportunity to visit, but the Soho persisted for a good number of years after Tom's departure.

I actually worked there myself one summer before moving to Boulder, Colorado to take some courses at Naropa Institute. They had some good beers on tap, like Dab, and some rather eclectic menu choices. It was a cut above the blue collar bar and a cut below the fine dining experience, a nice little cafe in the 'burg.

Old Trenton Theaters

2008-12-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

My memory is a little spotty on this, but I can remember when I was a little kid there being some old theaters that were still showing movies in downtown Trenton. I can recall the Trent, and the Mayfair, I believe, and the Lincoln. Since I was born in 1960 and they closed in the early seventies or thereabouts, they played what they call the "blacksploitation" films like Shaft and Superfly, and I think they also had Kung-Fu films, Bruce Lee and such. The theaters must have been really special places back in the day before everyone had television. I can imagine that my mom would remember them differently than I do.

I like old theaters and they were one of the things that made a typical American town a typical American town before everything became homogenized and malls destroyed downtown shopping districts and took the movies with them.

Trenton Entertainment: Frank Pinto

2008-11-29T16:39:00.000-08:00

It may sound strange to some, but I was very much inspired to learn how to play music by Trenton local musicians as much as I was by big rock stars and the like. The local guys seemed just like me, and it was like, if they can do it, I see no reason why I can't do it.

Frank Pinto was a fine songwriter and singer who performed locally when I was coming up in Trenton, and he played an astonishing array of covers as well. He would sometimes distribute a few sheets stapled together of all of the covers that he knew in case you wanted to request something, and he really knew a lot of songs. I always thought that he had a truly good voice, kind of gravelly, soulful, "Springsteenian" if you will. The first time I ever played in front of an audience was sitting in with Frank, who was gracious enough to let a dumb ass like me have the time of my life one night.

Thanks to Frank for the great music and the inspiration.

Notre Dame Reunion

2008-11-29T13:44:00.000-08:00

I didn't actually graduate from Notre Dame because I had some problems with the junior varsity basketball coach and I changed schools (though in retrospect that really didn't help my basketball career--there couldn't have been politics involved now, could there?) Anyway, I have made the commitment not to write anything negative about anybody back in Trenton on this blog, so I won't get into the specifics of why I left Notre Dame.

I was a kid and I didn't value some of the things that are really important enough back then, and one of those things is having friends and teammates that you are tight with. I had some of those at Notre Dame, and though I am not one to harbor many regrets, leaving ND was a mistake.

Somehow I'm in the loop of ND alum of my class, and I was invited to the 30th reunion that is happening right around now. Though I live in Las Vegas, I wanted to attend, but circumstances are such that I'm not going to be able to make it.

My heart will be there though, and I hope everyone has a good time. Maybe I'll make the next one!

Pitching

2008-06-19T12:37:00.000-07:00

When I played Little League baseball in south Trenton the league I was in was called the 6-11 league, and I don't know why. It was for kids 10-12 I think. That will have to remain a mystery, but I was always big for my age, and when I came out for the team as an 11 year old, the manager, who was named Bob Rahl, put me at first base. There I remained for that year and the next.

My team did not have very good pitching, and we lost more than we won. Since I was the biggest kid I could throw the ball pretty fast, but I had zero control. Still, I was always bugging Bob Rahl to give me a chance to pitch. We usually lost anyway, so what could it hurt?

The last game I played as a 12 year old was a blowout. We were getting shelled by the best team in the league, and in the last inning our pitcher was getting hit around. There were runners on first and second and nobody out The other team had the meat of their order coming up.

Much to my surprise, Mr. Rahl called time and came out to the mound. He looked my way and motioned me over. He handed me the ball.

I warmed up and got ready to face the first batter, who was one of the better hitters in the league. His name was Mike Susko. I threw as hard as I could and he took the first pitch, which was a called strike. He swung through the second pitch, and he swung at a pitch that was around his eyes on the third and couldn't catch up with it.

The next batter was the best player on the league, Paul Tweedley. He had hit a couple of home runs in the game as I recall (I know he hit at least one). I reared back and threw as hard as I could. The pitch was heading straight for his head.

He ducked. The ball flew to the backstop, and the runners took off. Strangely, the ball hit one of the posts holding up the backstop on the fly, and it bounced directly back to the catcher, Steve Zsenak. He threw to third and the third baseman tagged out the runner who was trying to advance, then threw to second and we got the guy trying to go from first to second as well.

I threw four pitches and got three outs, and that was the first, last, and only time I stood on a mound in earnest.

Bernie's Eagle's Nest

2008-02-07T06:24:00.000-08:00

When I was in my later years of high school, I used to hang around an area around St. Anthony's church and grammar school that was called "The Lot" with a bunch of kids that were friends and acquaintances. There wasn't really a lot, it was just the corner of an alley and a street near a funeral home, but they called it "The Lot." The truth is, we would often drink some beers in the alleys around there because if the cops came, you had a lot of ways to run down different sections of different alleys and jump fences and cut through yards onto other streets and whatnot so, I guess, no cops would want to go through all of that to catch somebody for the crime of drinking a Gennesse Cream Ale at sixteen or seventeen.

This was all well and good for three seasons of the year, but during the winter, it was mighty cold out there. When I was sixteen, a friend, who shall remain nameless, and myself decided to try to get served in the bar on the corner of Olden and I think it was Liberty called Bernie's Eagle's Nest, largely due to the fact that we were freezing our butts off outside. We did indeed get served and started to hang out there regularly, and we were of course the envy of the underage, frigid lotsters all winter long.

Trenton Entertainment: Richie Cole and Alto Madness

2008-01-30T06:18:00.000-08:00

Synchronicities abound if you are paying attention, and I listen to a radio station here in Las Vegas called KUNV that plays nothing but jazz during the week, uninterrupted by commercials. I was considering a topic to write about on Trenton Makes The World Takes when I heard Richie Cole's voice coming across the airwaves touting the station.

Richie Cole is perhaps the greatest musician to come out of Trenton. He is an internationally renowned bebop jazz alto man, and he currently tours with The Alto Madness Orchestra. Richie is a prolific writer and arranger, and to give you an idea of the type of respect he has earned worldwide, the University of Madrid in Spain has been offering its students an Alto Madness Orchestra course for several year running. He's listed in Who's Who in America, and he draws enthusiastic crowds wherever he plays.

He was educated at the Berklee School of Music in Boston through a Downbeat Magazine scholarship, so his special talent was recognizable even as a very young man. He has recorded more than four dozen CD's and albums, and he appears to have many more in store for us.

As a person who grew up in Trenton, I have always been proud to be able to say that the great Richie Cole is from Trenton as well. If you have never heard his work, you are in for a treat.

(Image and Info culled from RichieCole.com)

Trenton Business: Gould's Auto Parts

2008-01-27T15:18:00.000-08:00

My grandparents owned a small restaurant called the Court House Luncheonette that was located at 309 Market Street, right next door to what is now Joe's Mill Hill Saloon. When I was a little kid, the property that is now Joe's was a drug store, and it was subsequently vacant for a while before Joe remodeled it, and the fact is that he did a lot of the work himself. He was really hands on in the actual building process.

Some of my grandparents' regular customers for many years were the Goulds, Sheldon and Wally, who owned Gould's Auto Parts on South Broad Street and in Levittown. Occasionally, other members of their family and folks who worked for them would eat in my grandparents' place as well.

I walked past Gould's countless times when I was going out to play ball or hang out with my friends in South Trenton, and I actually worked for them for a while delivering auto parts and I found it to be a tolerable, if not very lucrative, job. I am grateful that they gave me a job as a young guy and it got me through a summer.

Smitty's Kix

2008-01-23T18:33:00.000-08:00

Another great business that once existed in Trenton is Smitty's Kix, which was a bar on Greenwood Ave. (?), if my memory serves me, that was a lively meeting spot back in the 1980's. The reason why it was called "Kix," and I think that is how he spelled it, is because the owner was the great Bobby Smith, who played on the New York Cosmos professional soccer team alongside the legendary Pele. Bob was actually inducted into the national Soccer Hall of Fame this past August along with Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy. He now runs the Bob Smith Soccer Academy in Robbinsville.

The place was a lot of fun and it was hopping. Toby Hankins was a regular bartender, and you would run into people that you knew that you hadn't seen in a while as well as the people you knew you would see. I remember that they had a really tight jazz fusion band that would play there on Thursday nights and I tried to be there every Thursday because they were quite talented and inspiring. They jammed hard.

Smitty's was a lot of fun, I don't know what I would have done without it.
(Image: Big Apple Soccer)

More Trenton Business: Rossi's Burgers

2008-01-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it still exists, but when I was growing up in Trenton in the seventies and as a young man in the '80's there was one thing that you needed to know if you knew nothing else, and that was if you wanted a real burger and a nice cold beer and hand cut french fries, you needed to go to Rossi's. They had burgers that were huge and juicy, a half pound of meat I believe, on great rolls with one-of-a-kind fries. They were unbelievable and my mouth is watering know when I think about it. We would sit at the bar and knock back a few while pigging out and it was one of the simple pleasures of life in Trenton.

I know that many of the great seminal culinary spots in Trenton have fallen by the wayside, but since I have left I realize how valuable these slices of life are. I ventured west to get some breathing room, and some space is nice, but the little things are lacking, and I really miss the cultural integrity, character, and a sense of roots, for want of a better word, that places like Rossi's provided.

Corporate offices of restaurant chains spend copious amounts of money on advertising campaigns intended to convince people that small portions of low quality prepared and served up by 16 year old kids who don't care about it at all are desirable. Rossi's, on the other hand, spent good money on high quality and hefty portions, and they cared about their customers. They wanted you to enjoy, sincerely. They took pride in it, they reveled in the look on your face when you saw that burger or those pork chops being placed in front of you. And those positive intentions resulted in a lot of success.

Trenton Businesses: Kramer's Bagels

2008-01-18T22:30:00.000-08:00

There were certain things about Trenton that were unflappable truths when I was growing up there, and I will write about those that I remember. One of them is that if you wanted bagels, you go to Kramer's. Period.

What is good about America is not Walmart. Its not war, and its not weapons. Its not wealth; its not greed, and its not power. It is people. People are what a country is made of, and it is people that make a country great.

When people do what they are good at doing, the community benefits, and Kramer's bagels were something special. In today's world of mega-chains with no soul and no love and no real interest in people, who pay teenagers or a pittance to carelessly throw together cheap crap, you lose sight of what makes life worth living. Its the little things that matter the most. When you went to Kramer's and came out with a dozen steaming hot bagels that melted the butter and cradled the cream cheese, and you bit into it, you were tasting love. And that is hard to come by.

Joe Zook and Blues Deluxe

2008-01-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up in Trenton, before I was old enough to get into the bars, I remember seeing the name Joe Zook as playing around town in the entertainment pages of the Trentonian. When I got old enough to go out on the town, I used to go see Joe at a number of places. He had a regular gig somewhere on Thursday nights I think and the place used to be packed ... I can't remember its name right now, but I will (I just remembered, it was Billy D's Rum Runner if I'm not mistaken). Joe turned his talent and commitment to the art into a means to make a living in the music business, and that is the goal of most musicians.

Watching Joe Zook and Blues Deluxe was one of the major inspirations that I was exposed to that led me to develop an interest in playing guitar in my own right. I actually took lessons from Joe, albeit for a brief time, and I learned some things from him that became my foundation as a musician. He is a great blues guitarist and singer, and he is a Handy Award winner. From my perspective he is a Trenton legend and should be thought of as nothing less than that.

Paul Plumeri

2008-01-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

After I saw Joe Zook a bunch of times I heard that if I like Joe, I should definitely check out Paul Plumeri. One time I was walking down Broad Street at night in the summer, and as I approached the corner of Hudson and Broad I could hear live music blaring into the street. As I got closer I realized that it was some wailing blues, and it was really, really, really loud, and this is from the perspective of someone in their late teens.

I went into the bar and it turned out to be the Paul Plumeri Blues Band. I guess there is just something about Trenton that brings out the blues in a man. Paul is another example of a Trentonian who has been able to succeed in the music business. Give this a listen.

40 West

2008-01-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

Way back in the day, or kind of way back in the day because there are people who go back even further than me, I guess, even though I am mega-old at 47, there was a place for a while called 40 West. As I recall that was because it was located at 40 West State Street, and it was owned by my old friend Rich Tonti's brother Pete. They had a restaurant during the day, and it was a nightclub after dark, but I think that it was only open as a nightspot on the weekends. I had a couple of fun nights there when I was about 18, which would have been 1978. Does anyone remember 40 West? It wasn't there that long, but it was a blast that is now in the past.

Packaged Goods

2008-01-13T20:28:00.000-08:00

I have lived out west for quite a while, and you can buy beer just about anywhere. I'm not talking about just Las Vegas, where of course anything goes, I mean all over the west you can buy beer in convenience stores and grocery stores, with the exception of Utah, I guess, and I think that they may even sell 3.2 beer in convenience stores. Back in Trenton when I was growing up you had to go to a bar to buy beer, which they called "packaged goods," or to a liquor store. I guess this is a result of the Catholic church on every corner thing. I like the freedom to buy beer everywhere actually, and it would probably be a culture shock for me to live under those kinds of restrictions. It's not so much the beer itself, but the principle. Restrictions aside, however, I must admit that I somehow managed to imbibe my share of the libation when I was a Trenton resident.

Washington Crossing Park

2008-01-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up in Trenton it was of course a totally urban existence, and my family wasn't much for getting out into the country. As I got into my teenage years and people that I knew got licenses and cars I had the opportunity to go out to Washington Crossing Park pretty frequently and throw around the Frisbee and just enjoy the expanses of green grass and the proximity to the river. There is also a cool attraction there called Bowman's Hill Tower that is a stone tower that was an observation tower back in the day, and you can climb the steps up the narrow passageway and get a fantastic view of the river and the valley below. It is only about a half hour out of Trenton and it was a nice little escape.

Prosciutto

2008-01-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

Growing up in Trenton you have the opportunity to sample a lot of great food, and in Chambersburg, Italian food specifically. Some of my Italian friends educated me on the way that you pronounce certain words, and for the longest time I didn't know what the hell they meant when they talked about "brizhoot." It was apparently something that you ate on a sandwich judging from the context in which they would use the term. Finally I asked somebody to spell it for me, and then it came together. I like the way they say it better that the phonetic enunciation, and it is certainly tasty on a nice hoagie.

(Flickr image)

George and Ken Mauss

2008-01-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

I made a good number of friends when I was growing up in Trenton, and a couple of really good guys that I knew and hung out with from time to time were George Mauss, and his brother, Ken. They were in fact twins, and a lot of people couldn't tell them apart, but I had no difficulty doing so once I got to know them pretty well. George actually payed me a visit when I lived in Boulder, Colorado, and I heard that he moved to Ohio to stay on with General Motors after the Trenton plant closed down, but I heard that about ten years ago. I love these guys and hope that they are doing well.

The Vet

2008-01-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

It's great that the Phillies have a brand new stadium, and I look forward to having a chance to visit it someday. When I was growing up in Trenton the Phils played at Veteran's Stadium, and I went to quite a few games there, though not as many as I would have liked since I love the Phillies. Another thing that I like about living in Trenton was that you could watch a lot of Phillies games on television and actually listen to every single one on the radio, and as a kid I would prefer listening to the Phils on the radio to watching anything that was on television. That was in the day of Richie Ashburn, Harry Kalas, and Andy Musser. I couldn't stand Musser, he didn't know the game of baseball. By Saam was actually on the announcing team when I first started listening to the Phillies, before Musser and Kalas. A lot has changed for me over the years, but loving the Phillies is something that has stayed constant.

Philadelphia

2008-01-03T01:14:00.000-08:00

When you grow up in Trenton you are in close proximity to Philadelphia so you have the opportunity to do a lot of things in the City of Brotherly Love that you can't do in Trenton.

I saw a lot of concerts in Philadelphia, and I grew up in the era of classic rock so a lot of people would probably have like to have seen some of the shows that I was able to attend. I saw Fleetwood Mac on the Rumours tour, Pink Floyd supporting Animals, Bruce Springsteen, Jethro Tull, Bowie, Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead, Santana, The Doobie Brothers, Bob Seger, Joni Mitchel with Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius on the Mingus tour, Genesis and Peter Gabriel, all in Philadelphia.

I also went to a really cool interactive museum of sorts called the Franklin Institute a few times, and of course I visited the Philadelphia Zoo. I got to go to a bunch of Phillies games and went down to party on South Street a few times.

Proximity to Philadelphia was one of the good things about growing up in Trenton, and road improvements have made it easier than ever to get to Philly from Trenton these days.

Accents

2007-12-27T13:14:00.001-08:00

When you grow up in New Jersey and you move to the west, a lot of people with no knowledge of the region assume that you are an outcropping of New York, but people in Trenton are much closer to Philadelphia and though New York is readily accessible, our accents are more akin to the Philadelphia accent than the New York accent, which is kind of interesting. The distance between New York and Philadelphia is 100 miles, yet you have totally different speech patterns. Drawing the geographical line where the lingo changes would be an interesting exercise, and measuring if it is gradual (which I think it is) or sudden. People who have spoken English over a couple of generations in San Francisco and Los Angeles speak about the same. People in upstate New York speak very differently than those from The City. People in New England have a tongue all their own as well. Either it is a very interesting phenomena, or I am easily amused (or both).

Greetings From...

2007-12-23T20:27:00.000-08:00

I was fortunate enough to be in my teens when New Jersey icon Bruce Springsteen was in his heyday, and I could really relate to the scenes that he depicted in his music. I went to Asbury Park now and then when I became old enough to drive and had a car and when my friends had cars. It was fun to walk the boardwalk and see the same "Madame Marie's" that Bruce wrote and sang about. We also went to the Stone Pony where Bruce played I guess when the band was still local, and he was known to drop in there and sit in with whoever was playing that night. I had some good times venturing from Trenton to Asbury Park, and I saw some good concerts at the Convention Center there.

Notre Dame

2007-12-21T08:40:00.001-08:00

The first high school that I went to after graduating from Sacred Heart grammar school in Trenton was Notre Dame, and the fact is, I made a very big mistake by leaving there. My mother should share some of the blame for the mistake for reasons that I won't get into here, but it was the best environment for me in retrospect and I wish that I had just stayed there throughout my high school years. I had some good friends and some good coaches and teachers, like Don Hess who is now the basketball coach at Hightstown High and has been for many years. We had a good freshman basketball team that went 25-3 with me, Donnie Schuler, John Castaldo, Ed Fireall, and Art Harrell as the starters, with Joe Wyers as the coach. It was a good year except that I sprained my ankle really badly in a game against Princeton High and I was never the same after that.

Kenny Nicholson

2007-12-21T08:15:00.000-08:00

My cousin Fran Pinchot was one of the greatest high school basketball coaches in the history of the state of New Jersey, and he coached Trenton High. During the summer, he was the director of the Trenton Summer League at Cadawalder Park, and my grandparents sponsored a team one year and I was on it. Kenny Nicholson was on the team,and Arzaga Dillard, who was the brother of a great Trenton player named Marco Dillard. I was a guy sitting on the end of the bench; Kenny Nicholson was great, a natural, a tall guard with a great shot, strength, and speed, and he was good looking and cool in every way. I got into a game at the end of the first half and he directed traffic and motioned me to get on the low post. I did, and he got me the ball, a bounce pass. I was amazed that he would even acknowledge my presence, but even though he was only about sixteen and a tough inner-city black kid, he had a heart and he wanted the shy white kid on the end of the bench to touch the rock. Mike Ellis, who was six-five, collapsed on me, but I spun to the basket and faked, and he bought it, and when he was in the air I forced contact and I got the whistle and I made both foul shots.

I'll never forget that, and I will never forget sweet Kenny Nicholson, God rest his soul in peace.