In 1998, The Truman Show was a major motion picture box office and critical success.  It was the story of a young man living what appeared to be a normal life in his hometown of Seahaven, a tiny seaside village that was actually a complete television set built under a giant arcological dome.   [...]

“One picture paints a thousand words.” While that statement is generally accepted as factual, it also hints at the symbiotic and yet distinctive relationships between art forms.  As time-honored representational art bowed to Expressionism, photography began to emerge as an artistic genre in its own right.  Since its inception and throughout its evolution, photography has [...]

I suppose you have heard of Mr. Bojangles, who danced his way throughout the American South.  Bojangles was immortalized in song by artists including Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  Our story concerns another famous music man, a local boy made good, known as Banjo Joe.  I first made his acquaintance [...]

At the turn of the 20th century, America opened her doors to throngs of immigrants from Western Europe.  To the New World, each group brought their unique language and culture, creating ethnic neighborhoods nestled side by side in metropolises such as New York and Chicago.  Eventually, the neighborhoods bled into each other.  People opened to [...]

How many times have you met people bearing nicknames bound to haunt them for the rest of their lives?  This story is about one such person. Like Forrest Gump’s mysterious box of chocolates, Roy Riegels had no inkling, in childhood, as to what life would hold in store for him.  Other than the fact that Roy was [...]

We grew up in a neighborhood in South Philadelphia, bounded by Snyder Avenue to the north and the Philadelphia Navy Yard to the south and from Broad Street east to 7th Street.  It was an ethnically mixed neighborhood.  I lived in the 2400 block of Hutchinson Street, and he lived in the 2300 block.  As [...]

“Some men are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”   When Shakespeare wrote that line, he failed to mention women as well as those who pursue greatness with a single-minded purpose.  But we must forgive him, for not even The Bard could have seen Janet Evanovich coming.  A [...]

It is an honor for WriteOnNewJersey to have communicated with Mark Chernoff, Vice President of Sports Programming, CBS Radio and Operations Manager of WFAN, past and current home to some of sports talk radio’s most distinguished luminaries in the genre’s pantheon.   He has graciously answered questions about his career in the medium, including his background [...]

Trying to find a good film nowadays is akin to hunting for good music on the radio.  Like a hit-and-run driver, commercialism runs unchecked on the silver screen.  Brokered by gratuitous violence, characters ripped from the pages of comic books, and of course, sex, Hollywood promotes young, improbably gorgeous actors in an effort to make [...]

Had James Dean ventured into the realm of music instead of film, he might have been Bruce Springsteen.   And had he lived through that fatal car crash, the actor might have evolved into the man that the Jersey boy would become.   Charismatic and deeply committed to their art, both men catapulted into the public’s [...]