Monday, January 28, 2008

I Went To New Jersey and Lived to Tell


by Diego

Oh, the metal structures, the outlet malls, the vast stretches of asphalt, the Versailles-esque gardens. You just gotta love the place Jersey occupies in America's collective unconscious. So I just had to go there and see it for myself. This is the premise: spoiled Manhattan boy who had never ventured out of the civilized borough decides to visit infamous New Jersey. It was the post-colonial bottom in me lusting after some fresh blue collar meat. So I called my friend Brian, a Jersey native, to show me around. If the guys weren't that hot, at least they would be less plastic than Manhattan queens -- and the whole thing would make it for a memorable anthropological survey. Like field work.

Brian decided to take me to Feathers, the most happening bar west of the Meatpacking District, apparently. The minute we left the city the cultural differences became apparent in Jersey's architecture: it's all long stretches of highway with huge department stores and gas stations sprinkled along the way. Did you know it's illegal to pump your own gas in Jersey? You can marry a fag but you can't pump your own gas.


Anyway, they have a lot of asphalt in Jersey, and nothingness. But it's a peaceful kind of nothingness, surrounded by trucks, dogs and big homes that would cost 10 grand a month in Manhattan but probably rent for $200 in Hackensack or whatever. The size can be very alluring. Coming from my $5,000-a-month tiny loft in TriBeCa and staring at so much couch space makes one wonder if it's worth leaving the first world to save a few thousand dollars a month. "Don't even think about it", says my hag.

But Jersey is much more than spacious duplexes and all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants. It does have an amazing view of Manhattan. But who needs a view of paradise if you can actually live inside of it?

Feathers, however, was a big disappointment. Think Wisconsin lesbian bar meets Utah mining furnace meets Iowa outhouse. Where have all the hot brick-layer tops gone? I was imagining inked-up truck drivers with killer bods and cigarette breath calling me babydoll and professional movers with coarse hands begging to feel up the Manhattan princess. That's definitely not what I got . That and they don't carry Smirnoff Ice -- it hasn't arrived there yet.

Not that I didn't blow some nasty old fuck in the bathroom, just to get my 4-dollars of cover charge worth. But still, I was hoping to come back married, or at least engaged. I guess there's always Queens.