New Jersey Is The World

Some things in this state are perfectly named. We should stop messing with them. Some other things desperately need new names. We have suggestions for those new names. This episode is kinda nuts but also pretty great. Brought to you by David LaMorte, one of our favorite artists! Check out his work at End of Elm in Morristown now through the end of July! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for m...

In this episode we ask the very simple question: What are the seven deadly sins of New Jersey? Are the same old ones like sloth and lust and all that nonsense? Or are there Jersey specific behaviors/ideas/ethics that cross a red line we don't accept in these parts? This episode is brought to you by one of our favorite artists, David LaMorte. You can see Dave's work on display at End of Elm in Morr...

We're here today having a dream conversation with Star-Ledger legend Jerry Izenberg, largely about his new book "Baseball, Nazis, and Nedick's Hot Dogs: Growing Up Jewish in the 1930s in Newark". Jerry is an absolute gem: at 92 years old, he's full of nearly a century's worth of amazing stories about Newark. I've long admired him and it was an honor to sit back and listen to him spin some of his i...

In this episode, Mike D poses a simple but important question: what rules are out there in New Jersey deserve to be broken? From unspoken rules to laws targeting specific groups to traffic laws, we all know some rules shouldn't be honored as written 100% of the time. I also want to cop to the fact that I, Chris Gethard, got a little extreme during this one. Enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...

New series alert! In this new show we talk to the great New Jersey comedian Nick Fierro about his upbringing in the small Passaic County town of Totowa. While many North Jersey people might know Totowa as "that town you pass through quickly on Route 46" or "isn't that where Midgetville is?", this episode makes a solid argument that Totowa, NJ may have the highest concentration of North Jersey weir...

In this special Mothers' Day episode of NJITW, we discuss NJ moms: what unique qualities do they have? What might one expect from a Jersey specific mom? What makes them so badass? This is a fun one. Happy Mothers' Day! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello all! YES WE HAVE HEARD ABOUT THE PASTA IN THE WOODS. Now that that's out of the way, today we're combining two of my longstanding passions in life: New Jersey and Sadness. After a recent trip to a famous New Jersey park that I realized was a lot sadder than I ever realized, I posed the question to the WOTown boys - what's the saddest place in this entire state? Some great answers sprung up i...

In this stunning turn of events, Chris is the one who had the food in this month's JDRJF. And he's using his knowledge to try to make Don jealous. You see, Chris has had a longstanding nervousness surrounding the idea of fine dining, and yet he recently took his wife Hallie on a date to Heirloom Kitchen in Old Bridge, oft cited by those in the know as the best fine dining in the Garden State. Was...

Mike D made the acquaintance of one Aaron Levine, who is behind LG Insurance in West Long Branch. We realized - what an interesting lens to look at New Jersey through. From homes and climate to cars on notoriously insane roads, Aaron has a part of his brain that's constantly processing New Jersey life very differently from all of us. We ask him about how he sees New Jersey from those angles, and a...

We've broken down a number of aspects of Jersey life and listed how they were in 1977 versus how they are today. And we're deciding which lifestyle was better? Was our state better 45 years ago? Or are we in a golden age today by comparison? Only one thing is certain - I have no idea how this episode ends. You'll soon find out why that is. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informatio...

Guys, this is really weird, but the state government came to us and said this summer they're starting a new version of the Olympics that revolves around New Jersey and takes place in New Jersey and they need US to brainstorm all the events for it. You'd think they'd have a whole team in place to figure this out but no, they need me and Mike D and Bonadooch to sort it all out. LET'S PITCH SOME BITS...

You might know Joanna Angel as a woman who revolutionized the porn industry. I knew her many years ago as Joanna, the punk rock girl who worked at Brower Commons when we were both students at Rutgers University. In this wide ranging interview, she and I talk about how being on the periphery of New Brunswick's legendary music scene helped inform both our careers, which bands back then had members w...

Jersey is a driving state. Listen to any Springsteen song and you'll remember this state romanticizes cars. We spend a lot of time in them. And we spend a lot of time listening to our precious robots, the GPS. But here at NJITW, we are firm believers that we mustn't let man succumb to the evil machines! And we happen to have a secret weapon, our own Bonadooch, who has worked many early mornings in...

On today's episode we interview Jackson Pines, a South Jersey band. But not just any South Jersey band - a band that's chronicling the folk music that's come out of the Pine Barrens for many decades with their new album Pine Barrens Volume 1. They're combining all the DIY ethics and methods Jersey bands are known for with a fierce devotion to making sure songs that have existed for centuries in th...

March Madness is upon us! And Jersey cares about basketball. Jersey style basketball also directly reflects the state and its attitude. In this episode, Chris talks with Jerry Carino from the Asbury Park Press, who knows more about Jersey basketball than maybe anyone else on earth. They talk about where things are at right now, as well as the bigger picture of how this sport and the state's relati...

There's certain qualities that we all like to think of as "Jersey". And in the Garden State, we think of many great representatives of this state who demonstrate that grit, tenacity, and attitude. We love celebrating the people who embody "Jersey" as an adjective. But it does beg the question - when we're done celebrating NJ natives that nail it in a good way... who are the least Jersey Jersey peo...

Hello fine people of New Jersey! Today on NJITW, Andrea and I are talking to Jim Brown, a professor at Rutgers Camden involved pretty heavily with unionization efforts at our state university. Not sure if you've heard about this, but things aren't going great on this front. In fact, there's a pending strike on the horizon at my (and many of yours') alma mater. Jim walks us through what professors...

Old friend Jeremy Schneider returns to the show and this time he's brought his NJ.com editor Bobby Olivier with him. These two psychos spent a long time publishing articles detailing why New Jersey is better than every single other state. They went one by one. 49 articles, a compendium of which can be found here.   We talked about what it's like to troll 49/50ths of the United States, which s...

Hey you! Tomorrow's Valentine's Day. Did you forget? It's cool, we got your back. It's well known that Jersey has produced an embarrassment of riches when it comes to music. From pop to punk to hip hop to r&b, our small state has produced a ridiculous amount of good music relative to its size. This episode builds a perfect Valentine's Day playlist consisting solely of songs with a New Jersey c...

Months back we stumbled into the knowledge that baseball legend and Newark native Rick Cerone released a song in 1981 called "A Long Way Home". We made it a stated goal to someday talk to this Jersey sports icon about this strange blip in his history. Huge thanks to listener Erin, who was able to put us in touch with Mr. Cerone, and huge thanks to Rick himself, who is a charming ass dude with many...

Our series focusing on New Jersey's largest city continues, this time featuring an interview with one of the most badass people I've ever had the pleasure of talking to: Maria Lopez-Nunez of the Ironbound Community Corporation. She's done an amazing amount of work focusing on environmentalism in Newark. I've thought long and hard about the relationship between Newark and its suburbs (like the one...

Today we continue our spotlight on small businesses around the Garden State, or more accurately, "Small businesses in or near Asbury Park", which I swear is not intentional but for some reason a lot of the coolest stuff happening focuses on that area! This episode features an interview with Michelle from Cat's Luck Vegan, who I think might be the coolest person in New Jersey? From accidentally stu...

Hello all! Enjoy this episode of Garden State Gagootz, in which we listen to your voicemails and react to them. If you want to leave a voicemail about anything Jersey related, feel free to do so at 973-780-4660. We'd love to feature you on the show sometime! Gagootz is usually a Patreon exclusive, but we decided to pull it out from behind the paywall this month. If you'd like more episodes of peop...

In this very special episode, Chris interviews legendary NJ born and bred comedian Rich Vos about legends of New Jersey comedy. From the Peppermint Lounge in East Orange to almost getting murdered in Denville to the people long forgotten from the NJ scene to the relationship NJ comedy has always had with NYC, Rich has been doing this for a long time and has seen and done literally everything one c...

This episode breaks our usual format(s) in a big way, but that's because certain things in New Jersey are just that important. For example, if you've spent much time in the vicinity of Atlantic City, you know that one of the most legendary local icons is a big ass elephant in Margate City that used to be a hotel but mostly now people just go to look at and say, "Huh. That's a big ass elephant." Re...