Hairspray & You - Perfect Together

Ah, sweet summertime in New Jersey!

Mayor, In Newsletter, Offends Tourists -

"As the Staten Island girl was pummeling the Boonton girl's face, she used the hand she was still holding her drink glass in," the mayor wrote. "Now, we're not sure if the glass was stuck to her hand cause of all the hair spray or if this is a technique Staten Island girls learn in Brownies ... "

Well done, sir. The mayor of Route 34 Pumpkin-Picking Places could take a lesson from you. If it take insults to keep them out, so be it. Although I must say, you really should reconsider your disparagement of hairspray.

Groups Want Belmar Mayor to Visit Staten Island

"Two groups want Belmar Mayor Ken Pringle to visit the borough, or else . Pringle has said he's sorry for disparaging comments he made in the town's July 4 newsletter, which played on stereotypes featuring "Staten Island girls," "blondes" and Italian-Americans as "Guidos (They're always tanned to the color of coconut shells and easily identified by their plumage: ... The call of the Guido is bellowing, and frequently slurred, invariably starting with the sound, 'Yo'....)"

Ok - blondes? You didn't say you insulted both blondes and hairspray. I'm having a hard time giving you my full endorsement now, but for purely humanitarian reasons I feel that I have to advise you: Honey, don't go. No good can come of it.

Further proving the point that New Yorkers don't know from the Jersey Shore, the NY Post refers to Belmar as "a two-bit Jersey beach town" and quotes a clue-impaired 25-year-old SI firefighter "If it weren't for Staten Islanders, there probably wouldn't be a Belmar". As if.

Belmar is famously known for swarms of college-age kids on the beaches, in the rentals, on the streets, in the bars and staggering all over the streets, sidewalks and private lawns. In fact, this is nothing new. In 2007, the town designated certain rentals as official "Animal Houses":

"These are properties that have had two or more proven quality of life violations in any 12-month period over the past 4 years. Even if your rental receives just one violation this summer and you have never been involved in previous violations, YOU MAY BE LIABLE FOR ENHANCED ANIMAL HOUSE PENALTIES AS A RESULT. If so, we will post a uniformed Sheriff's Officer outside your rental on each Friday and Saturday night for the rest of the summer. We charge your landlord $1,000 per weekend for that officer. Most landlords hold their tenants liable for that cost, so check your lease."

The town even banned BeerPong  in a too-little-too-late effort to cut back on public nuisances. If every Staten Islander, New Yorker, Queens Queen and Up-Stater never set foot into Belmar again, the space would be taken up by people of the same ilk from other locations: self-centered alcohol-soaked youths looking for a good time in a known party town where none of their relatives live. It's not just Belmar - poor old Belmar just happens to be one of the first shore towns you hit as you make you way south along the coast - only 50 miles from Staten Island.

For your further reading pleasure: At the Jersey Shore, Guidos Are Pumped for the Prime of Their Lives  "Guidos belong to summer, and summer belongs to the guidos..."

Read it and (a) understand, (b) be afraid, and (c) be glad you don't live anywhere near this, let alone own one of these properties.

Comments

[Keith]

Well, you've certainly changed how I'll react to many Billy Joel songs from this point forward.

[Erica]

My gigantically histrionic eye roll...can you feel it? Guidos and coozhines are a strictly Brooklyn (specifically Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst &Sheepshead Bay) concept that simply "branched out" to Jersey in the past 20+ years. I've no actual proof to back up my theory.

[Jim - PRS]

I was going to write about the ongoing combat between Jersey peeps and Staten Islanders, who I understand are known as "Stat Rats." Now I don't have to.

By birth and by virtue of having spent countless vacations Down the Shore, I side with the Garden Staters. However, knowing that the locals even refer to non-local Garden Staters as "Bennies," I can't muster vigorous support.

[bob]

A few years ago I wandered into Belmar during Black Frat weekend. The hip fashion accessory that year was to have a live snake draped around one's neck. I swear on my grandmother's delicious corn fritters! & what made it so hilarious was that the guys didn't seem to think it was hilarious. I felt so sorry for those harmless snakes knowing they'd all eventually be starved to death or tossed out car windows.

BTW, few of those benny-loathing a-holes grew up at the shore or could tell you the difference between a Herring Gull & Laughing Gull even if you told them the "laughing" is a giveaway.

[The Proprietor]

As someone who spent every summer == all summer -- at the shore from age 0 until finishing college, in owner housing rather than rental and who later on owned a house there myself for 10 years, I could never figure out if I was a Bennie or not.

Rather than exercise rancor, there is much to be said for sitting on one's front porch on a Sunday evening, watching the sun-burned traffic on Rt 35 head home while you crack open a beer, enjoying the ensuing silence. (Except for the gulls, laughing or otherwise.)