JerseyMan Magazine V5 N5

PHILLY’S OWN NBA REF

JOE CRAWFORD

George Anastasia’s

MOB SCENE

Volume 5 - Number 5 •

$3.95

Where Have All the Rock Stars Gone? P. 26

MEDICAL CARE IN UNLIKELY PLACES It’s now more convenient than ever Q&A with a local product turned heavyweight CNN political insider

JAKE TAPPER

H H H H H H H H H H

CSN Philly Reporter

Dei Lynam

A Basketball Life ________________

Bill Lyon: THE AGONY OF TIGER

All-Jersey NFL Squad www.jerseymanmagazine com

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Peter J. Cordua, Managing Member at Cordua Pastore & Associates, LLC Named Corporate Chair for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light The Night Walk Urges Local Businesses Take the First Step – We Walk to Save Lives July 14, 2015 – The New Jersey Chapter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has announced Peter J. Cordua, Managing Member at Cordua Pastore & Associates, LLC, as Corporate Walk Chair of its 2015 Light The Night® Walk, LLS’s annual fundraising event held each fall to find cures and provide access to treatments for blood cancer patients.

Peter manages Cordua Pastore & Associates, LLC and stays active in a multitude of community projects. He has been involved with LLS for 12 years as a board member dedicating his time towards a variety of events and campaigns. Peter holds the LLS mission near to his heart with his own personal connection.

This year, the Sewell walk will be held on October 17, 2015 at Washington Lake Park.

www.lightthenight.org • www.corduapastore.com

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PUBLISHER

FROM JerseyMan Magazine THE VOLUME 5 • NUMBER 5 ____________________________________________________________________________________

BY KEN DUNEK

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EVERAL YEARS AGO, I wrote a book titled An Improbable Journey.

The book was a compilation of short stories regarding my interactions with many of the famous people I’ve met over the course of my life: people like Joe DiMaggio, Mike Tyson, Lawrence Taylor, Don Rickles, Vince Lombardi and many others.

Intertwined within the stories were pictures, and a tribute to my personal heroes. Those included my parents Jim and Marlene, brother Mike and his wife Anna, and my half sister Carrie.

I ended the book with a letter to my triplet daughters Alexandra, Taylor, and Jamie, who were about to enter high school at the time. (My oldest daughter Ashley was 20 and in college when I wrote this.) I am choosing to share it with you now.

The words flowed from my fingers. And I never wrote anything more sincere in my life.

Ken Dunek Publisher CONTRIBUTING EDITOR George Brinkerhoff ART DIRECTOR Steve Iannarelli CONTRIBUTING WRITERS George Anastasia, Jan L. Apple, Michael Bradley, George Brinkerhoff, Sam Carchidi, Alexandra Dunek, Ashley Dunek, Ken Dunek, Mark Eckel, Molly Golubcow, John Hopkins, Robert Kennedy, Sam Kraft, Bill Lyon, Anthony Mongeluzo, Daniel R. Morroni, Gervase Peterson, Don Russell, Andrew Ryan, Nick Santangelo, Dr. Rubina Tahir DC, T. Jordan Wompierski ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS Liz Boccolini Alexandra Dunek EVENTS COORDINATOR Ashley Dunek

As you enter high school and become young ladies, here are my wishes for your lives: Enjoy a relationship with God and talk to him often. He will get you through whatever difficult times may lay ahead. Even though I am not a devout attendee of Sunday services, I pray everyday for strength and guidance.

Advertising 856-912-4007 Printing 856-813-1153

Maximize your educational experience by studying and working hard, getting involved in as many school activities as you can. I know school can be boring, but education can be essential to financial success and becoming a worldly and well- rounded individual. It is not always the hard and fast rule. Your Mom is one of the greatest people I ever met and she didn’t go to college, but she wishes she did. You can be ANYTHING you want to be, so start setting those goals now.

Controller Rose M. Balcavage

Enjoy sports. It is not always about being a star. Sometimes it is great fun to be part of a team and enjoy new relationships. I think all three of you have the potential to shine in whatever sport you pick, but it takes WORK to stand out above others. I hope you choose to do that. As hard as it was for me to make a professional football team, I don’t remember the work, just the good times and achievements.

JerseyMan Advisory Board Peter Cordua. . . . . . Cordua, Pastore & Associates Joseph Devine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kennedy Health Ted Flocco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ernst & Young

Trust your conscience. It will tell you if something is right or wrong. Peer pressure can be one of the biggest challenges you will ever face. It takes a strong person to make the right choices, and even though I don’t expect you to be perfect, I do expect you to have the strength to try and do the right thing.

Appreciate your health, and work on keeping fit and strong. All the money in the world will not help you if you are not healthy enough to enjoy it.

Communicate with your Mom and Dad. We care for you more than anyone will ever care for you. And even though you may get on each other’s nerves, stick together as sisters. Your relationship with each other will last a lifetime.

So that’s it. As I was looking at you blossom into beautiful young ladies this weekend, I just figured it was time to write this all down.

I love you to the depth of my existence, and wish you the very best life has to offer.

Love, Dad 8

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Sales Associates Ashley Dunek, Terri Dunek, Chris Kazmarck, Corey Katzen, JP Lutz, Tinavalen Nguyen, Debbie Sarcone, Katie Stonaker

Bob Hoey joined Janney Montgomery Scott, LLC as First Vice PresidentWealth Management in January 2009.

He serves on the Executive Committee of the Rowan University Foundation and Rowan Venture Fund. He also serves as Vice Chairman of the Evergreens, and on the Board of Trustees for The Joseph Fund.

Bob Hoey. . . . . . . . Janney Montgomery Scott Jeffrey Jaskol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Jaskol Group Steven Kantor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . KEH Insurance Robert Kennedy. . . . . . . . The Kennedy Companies Anthony Mongeluzo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PCS Toni Pergolin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bancroft Mike Regina. . . . . . . . . . . . . Big Sky Construction Paul Tully . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eagle Wealth Strategies JerseyMan Magazine/PhillyMan Magazine, products of the partnership of Joe LaGrossa, Ken Dunek, and Alex Kazmarck, are published

by New Opportunity Publishing, LLC, with offices at 7025 Central Highway, Pennsauken, NJ, 08109. Copyright 2015.

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INSIDE

JerseyMan Magazine VOLUME 5 • NUMBER 5 Photo Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images/NBA

FEATURES

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COVER STORY

JAKE TAPPER Q&A AGONY OF TIGER 22 THE

BY BILL LYON

38 ACCESSORIZED

A BASKETBALL LIFE

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NBA REF JOE CRAWFORD

PHILLY GUY MAKING CALLS FOR 38 SEASONS

DISTRACTED DRIVING

PEDAL POWER 74

PHILLY’S INDEGO BIKE PROGRAM

82 MEDICAL CARE IN

UNLIKELY PLACES

84 NFL’S ALL-JERSEY TEAM

74 Photo Dan Dinsmore

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66 THE EPIDEMIC OF

TRICKED OUT CUSTOM CYCLES

42 SCULPTOR CHAD FISHER 50 DEI LYNAM

FATHER, LIKE SON 58 LIKE

GOLFERS TOM AND MICHAEL HYLAND

POPE FRANCIS IN PHILLY

COLUMNS 12 JOTTINGS • 20 GEORGE ANASTASIA’S MOB SCENE • 26 THE ENTHUSIAST • 28 THE CIGAR GUY 64 JOE SIXPACK • 76 THE ENTREPRENEUR COACH • 78 THE HEALTH REFEREE • 81 TECH TIME 86 WHAT WE WEAR • 88 GET FIT • 93 THE WINE MAN • 94 SAY GERV? BY GERVASE PETERSON

www.jerseymanmagazine.com

JOTTINGS

The New Jersey Constitution of 1776

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BY GEORGE BRINKERHOFF

New Jersey’s Political Hits and Misses

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HROUGHOUT ITS HISTORY, the people of New Jersey have weathered everything from royal governance as a colony from the Swedish and Dutch, and finally the English through to a front row seat for many battles at the crossroads of the Revolution; to being a de facto border state during the Civil War through the Prohibition era depicted in Boardwalk Empire; to the political scandals and corruption of the later 20th Century through to today. Along the way there were occasions that our forbearers, politically speaking, knocked it out of the park and things that they totally missed, exemplified by the following two instances.

When New Jersey got it right: New Jersey’s Constitution of 1776 allowed its citizens the right to vote without restriction as to gender or race. That this was 1776, and New Jersey was the only one of the thirteen original states that refused to employ these strictures, makes this achievement all the more remarkable. In fact, the only restrictions were as to age, a limited threshold of wealth and residence in New Jersey. This right was eloquently encapsulated in one sentence, which reads: “That all inhabitants of this Colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money, clear estate in the same, and have resided within the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for Representatives in Council and Assembly; and also for all other public officers, that shall be elected by the people of the county at large.” (The legislature amended the constitution in 1777, substituting “State” for “Colony.”)

In New Jersey’s 1797 voting law, the legislature further emphasized the voting rights for its “inhabitants” by introducing the words “he or she” when referring to the voters: “And be it enacted, That every voter shall openly, and in full view deliver his or her bal12

lot (which shall be a single written ticket, containing the names of the person or persons for whom he or she votes) to the said judge, or either of the inspectors, who, on receipt thereof, shall, with an audible voice, pronounce the name of such voter, and if no objection is made to the voter, put the ballot immediately into the election box, and the clerk of the election shall thereupon take down the name of such voter in a book or poll list, to be provided for the purpose.”

Sadly, by 1807, the New Jersey legislature found it expedient to rescind these rights for women and non-whites. It wasn’t until the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibited federal and state governments from denying the right to vote because of race, was ratified in 1870 that non-white men could vote again in New Jersey. (See page 14). And not until 1920, when New Jersey became the 29th state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution did women again get the right to vote.

Here’s one occasion where New Jersey “jumped the shark”: In the election of 1860, a foreshadowing of elections to come, New Jersey’s popular vote went to, yes, you guessed it, the Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, handing a defeat in the popular vote to Republican Abraham Lincoln.

This moment was immediately celebrated within the pages of the Democrat-leaning Daily True American, a portion of which we now reprint as a curious signpost for current and future generations of New Jersey voters.

“All Hail New Jersey!

By the most accurate returns which we have been able to obtain up to this time, it is positively certain that our glorious little State has, as usual, proved true to the Union! Amid the crumbling of neighboring States, with the “Empire” State on the one hand, and the “Keystone” on the other, bowing their necks to the yoke of Abolitionism and Disunion, New Jersey stands erect, true to the Constitution,

and faithful to the Union!

“It is with no small amount of pride and satisfaction that we record the facts to be found in our table of returns of the electoral vote, which, although not complete, show conclusively that the Rail-Splitter has been defeated in this State by a majority of about five thousand….

“Whatever disasters may result from the election of LINCOLN, which seems to be conceded on all hands, it will be a great consolation for the Democracy and Union men of this State to know, that they are not responsible.…”

Lincoln (herein derided as the Rail-Splitter), of course, despite these misgivings went on to preserve the Union, remained faithful to the cause of abolition and by all accounts was one of the best and brightest of the Presidents. (Though they did not have the benefit of hindsight, it’s still sad that we got things so wrong on this momentous decision when most of the other states got it right. Certainly it’s one of those moments that you think, c’mon New Jersey, really?) Even more distressing, New Jersey failed to cast a majority of the votes for Lincoln in the election of 1864. In fact, it was one of two states that went for Lincoln’s opponent, General George McClellan, and the only state which remained in the Union that failed to cast a majority for Lincoln in both national elections. Talk about being on the wrong side of history.

Perhaps if there’s one thing we can glean from this, it’s that, like most people, sometimes we are very forward thinking, smart and visionary. Other times not so much.

ONE TOUGH ASSIGNMENT

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ecently, we at JerseyMan received an invite to an exclusive dinner in Philadelphia featuring the introduction of a new IPA from Guinness. Hmm, tough assignment.

Guinness held the event at Vesper, a revamped supper club in Center City Philadelphia. In keeping with the speakeasy theme at Vesper, after explaining to the hostess why we were there, she informed me the password was “Guinness Nitro IPA,” and to pick up the black wall phone. Upon picking up the phone, the voice on the other end said, “Office.” I repeated the password, and we were lead behind a fake bookcase to a flight of stairs which descended to a grotto-like basement bar, where we were introduced to Domhnall— Guinness’ factory representative and beer ambassador—who had come all the way from Ireland to help with this introduction. Domhnall explained how the beer was developed, its ABV is 5.8% and it was specifically developed for the U.S. market.

He also explained about the nitrogen widget inside the can. Once the head formed after pouring, he then said to take a healthy slug of the product on the first sip (to get through the nitrogen head). Everyone together did as instructed, and murmured sounds of approval and nodding filled the room.

Guinness Nitro IPA is low on the bitterness scale and I found it much more palatable than some other IPA’s I’ve experienced. Since it was also designed specifically to be paired with food, we were then taken up to the third floor where we were served a sumptious dinner.

I thought the first Guinness Nitro IPA paired pleasingly with the beef filet but just to confirm it, I had two more. All in all, a very pleasant, fairly unusual introduction for an interesting new product hitting our shores soon. So if you’re a Guinness fan or an IPA fan, or just a fan of beer, you’ll certainly want to keep an eye out for it when it arrives later this month.

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The First African American to Vote in the United States after passage of the 15th Amendment was a JerseyMan! THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN MAN to vote in an election in the United States after the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted was Thomas Mundy Peterson of Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

He cast his vote March 31, 1870 at the Perth Amboy City hall during an election about the town’s charter, one day after the amendment’s adoption. (Despite this, New Jersey did not ratify this amendment until the following year.) His vote was in favor of revising the town charter and his side won. He was then appointed to sit on the committee of seven which undertook the revision. To honor him, in 1884 the citizens of Perth Amboy presented him with a gold medallion featuring his name and the name of the town on a bar with Abraham Lincoln in profile on the attached medallion. (According to historian Gordon Bond, Peterson thereafter never considered himself properly dressed without the medallion affixed to his coat.)

“ I’m told one half of the American people have never read a newspaper, and half have never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.”

– Gore Vidal

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“ The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”

– Frederick Douglass

On Saturday, November 21, mark your calendar to be a part of a city-wide event for charity. You can sample cuisine at over 200 restaurants and assist local charities at the same time. At the 1st Annual Philadelphia Food Fest, restaurants throughout the city will offer delicious samples, and craft beer and wine, while donating a portion of sales to charity. Their goal is to support and bring awareness to food related charities in Philly through restaurants opening their doors to an all-day event centered around sampling and philanthropy. You may also bring canned goods to food drop off locations in each neighborhood just before Thanksgiving. Food Fest 2015 offers two ticketing options, one complimentary and a second that includes a donation to charity. For tickets and more information go to www.foodfest.org.

Mind Your Business ADVERTISE WITH US

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Eagles Cheerleaders Release 2016 Calendar

The 2016 Eagles Cheerleaders Swimsuit Calendar was unveiled last month at a fashion show to kick off the NFL season, and is now available for purchase at www.PhiladelphiaEagles.com, Eagles Pro Shops and bookstores nationwide. A portion of the calendar’s proceeds will be donated to the Elmwood Park Zoo in support of their mission to promote wildlife and environmental conservation. Casey Baldwin, a sixth-year veteran of the squad, is on the cover this year.

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Phillies Public Address Announcer Dan Baker Honored – Bridgeton, NJ Eagles Players Visit Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

On Monday, September 21, Eagles WR Jordan Matthews and a few teammates spent their day off with children at CHOP in the Seacrest Studio, a multimedia room located in the hospital’s Colket Atrium. Patients were surprised with superhero Eagles capes, courtesy of the players in attendance.

Dogs Compete for the Crown at Rusty Nail’s 3rd Annual Doggie Pageant - Cape May, NJ

Ten pups battled it out in their quest to be named top dog at Beach Shack’s third annual Rusty Nail Doggie Pageant on Sunday September 13. These ten finalists were chosen out of more than 60 through facebook entries. The dogs walked the “doggie-pageant runway” and competed in three different categories for a chance at the title of “The Official Rusty Nail Dog Mascot 2016.” The fourlegged finalists were judged on best style (Mommy and or Daddy and me – matching costumes), tricks, and musical chairs. This year’s event was hosted by Jorge Bendersky (left), celebrity dog groomer, pet stylist and author.

The event was free, but donations were gladly accepted and all go towards the Animal Outreach of Cape May. In total, more than $3,200 was raised for the group.

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Dan Baker, Public Address Announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies the past 44 years was recently honored at the 49th annual Bridgeton Invitational Baseball Tournament held on Alden Field in Bridgeton, NJ. He was presented with a portrait painted by artist, George Perez as well as a sketch by Scott Weigner. His wife, Cathy was given a bouquet of flowers and Comcast SportsNet reporter, Jen Daniels assisted with the presentations.

Pictured Left to Right: Dave Hitchner, Events/Guests Chairperson of the BIT, Dan Baker, Cathy Baker and CSNPhilly Sports Anchor Jen Daniels.

The Jason Thompson Foundation Sends Kids Back To School In Style! – Camden, NJ

At the R.T. Cream School in Camden they started their first day of school with a welcomed visit from NBA player Jason Thompson (pictured) and the Jason Thompson Foundation.

Children from kindergarten to the 8th grade were happy recipients of donated Nike backpacks and various school supplies to help them get through thier academic year ahead.

The grateful students were also served a heart-healthy meal from our frieds at Hum Fresh to instill healthy eaiting habits to help support active lifestyles.

“ When ever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

– Mark Twain

TD Charitable Foundation Supports Gateway with Donation – Bridgeton, NJ

The TD Charitable Foundation, the charitable giving arm of TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank®, recently donated a total of $20,000 to Gateway Community Action Partnership as part of the foundation’s commitment to giving back to the community.

From left to right: Gregory Carlisle, Sr. Vice President, Regional Vice President – TD Bank; Albert B. Kelly, CCAP, President and CEO Gateway Community Action Partnership; Kevin Gibala, Vice President, Relationship Manager – TD Bank; LaKesha Walker, Vice President, Store Manager – TD Bank; Robert E. Curley III, South Jersey Market President – TD Bank.

Ravitz Family Markets ShopRite Stores Receive EPA Awards – Marlton, NJ

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized the Ravitz family and their ShopRite stores and associates for reducing food waste and increasing fresh food donations to local food banks.

During an awards ceremony Thursday at the ShopRite of Marlton, EPA officials presented the family’s ShopRite store directors with both regional and national honors for their “stellar” work in the EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge and WasteWise programs -- a nationwide effort to get more food to food banks and recycling and composting operations.

The family’s ShopRite stores donated 151 tons of food last year and their ShopRite supermarkets are on track this year to donate 250 tons of food.

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MOB SCENE

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BY GEORGE ANASTASIA

Mobster turned FBI Informant Whitey Bulger

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HEY CALLED HIM “WHITEY” because of the shock of light blonde hair he had as a kid growing up in South Boston.

But he preferred “Jimmy,” the name his parents had given him. He was raised in a tenement and rose to the top of his field.

A younger brother, Billy, was equally successful, although in a different line of work.

William Bulger was a lawyer who served as president of the Massachusetts State Senate for eighteen years and later was the president of the University of Massachusetts. His was a blue collar success story. Part of the American dream.

James “Whitey” Bulger’s life was more of a nightmare.

It was, however, even more memorable and significant than his brother’s.

Whitey Bulger was a gangster.

This is like saying that Joe DiMaggio was a baseball player. It’s factual, but there’s a lot more to the story.

Bulger’s life is currently on display in movie theaters across the country. Black Mass, based on a great book of the same name written by two Boston Globe reporters, tells the story of his rise and fall. Johnny Depp, who last worked these cinematic grounds portraying FBI undercover agent Donnie Brasco, nails the role of Whitey, offering a complicated protagonist who is alternately sinister, sincere and amoral.

One character in the movie refers to Bulger as a “professional criminal consultant.” It’s a great description and gets to the heart of the story. Bulger didn’t want to acknowledge that he was a cooperator. Being a “rat” was the lowest form of humanity in the world in which he grew up. So he and the FBI put a different spin on what he was doing. For most of his underworld run—from the mid 1970s until the mid 1990s—Bulger was an FBI informant.

What the Bureau refers to as a “high echelon” snitch.

Bulger, on the other hand, saw his “relationship” with the feds as a mutual cooperation pact. He used the FBI to eliminate his ri20

“ We’re all good guys here.

You’re the good good guys and we’re the bad good guys.” – James “Whitey” Bulger vals and the FBI shielded him from prosecution. For Whitey, it was a “win-win.”

During the twenty years he fed info to the feds, Bulger was a member and later the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, a Boston-area criminal organization that was involved in gambling, loansharking, extortion, drug dealing and murder.

Bulger had his hand in all of that. The book and the movie perfectly capture the game that he played.

The FBI made a deal with the devil, and the devil came out on top. Bulger and his top associate, Steve “The Rifleman” Flemmi, provided the FBI with information about the New England Mafia. The feds, on a crusade to taken down the “Eye-talians,” willingly looked the other way as Bulger expanded his criminal activities. What’s more, the agent supposedly “controlling” Bulger gave him information about other investigations being conducted by the State Police, the Boston Police Department and the DEA, all of whom had Bulger high on their list of criminals who ought to be taken down.

None of those investigations went anywhere. Informants ended up dead. Electronic surveillance proved fruitless. One classic example is the story of a listening device the DEA planted in Bulger’s car in 1985. Whitey was tipped off by the FBI, found the device and ripped it out.

Sheepishly, the DEA sent two agents to recover the equipment which was worth about $20,000. Bulger turned it over with a smile, adding with no small amount of bravado that he didn’t understand what was going on.

“We’re all good guys here,” he told the DEA agents who were trying to gather evidence about a massive cocaine ring he was running.

“You’re the good good guys and we’re the bad good guys.”

It’s a funny story. But you’re not likely to get much of a laugh if you tell it to the families of the men and women killed by Bulger while the FBI allowed him to run wild.

The FBI romance with Bulger came at a time when the Bureau was effectively eliminating Cosa Nostra in many major cities. But at what price? A similar scenario played out in New York with Colombo crime family capo Gregory Scarpa, who was also a high echelon informant. During an internecine power struggle, Scarpa’s rivals kept turning up dead.

There are those who believe the FBI was feeding Scarpa information that helped him and his faction stay on top in that mob war.

In Philadelphia, less egregious but just as illadvised, the FBI cut a deal in the late 1990s with then mob boss Ralph Natale. The feds fell in love with the idea of flipping a mob boss.

Natale, looking at a possible life sentence for drug dealing, was only too happy to cooperate.

Problem was his information and his testimony in a major racketeering trial was full of holes.

Natale talked a better game than he played, but the FBI bought into what he was selling.

Like Natale, Bulger used the FBI to his own benefit. Unlike Natale, Bulger was the real deal.

Black Mass, the book and the movie, make that abundantly clear.

he book was written fifteen years ago, long before the Bulger story played out.

Whitey, given a heads-up by his FBI agent, went on the run in 1995 just as an in-

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dictment charging him with racketeering was about to come down.

The agent, John Connolly, was later convicted of leaking information to Bulger and of second degree murder. He is currently serving a forty-year prison sentence.

Bulger spent sixteen years on the lam but was captured in 2011 living with his girlfriend in a rent-controlled apartment in Santa Monica. Police found weapons and more than $800,000 in cash in the apartment.

In 2013, Bulger was convicted of racketeering charges, including his involvement in eleven murders. He is currently serving a life sentence. At age 86 he will most certainly die in jail.

His story, now wonderfully depicted on film, is an underworld morality play that asks more questions than it can possibly answer.

Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, the Boston Globe reporters, raised those same questions in the introduction to their book. The Globe was the first to break the story of Bulger’s ties to the FBI, ties that the FBI denied for years.

“What if the FBI takes down the informant’s enemies and the informant rises to the top of the underworld?” they wrote in April 2000. “What if the FBI protects the informant by tipping him off to investigations conducted by other police agencies?

“What if murders pile up unsolved? If work-

ing folks are threatened and extorted, with no recourse? If a large scale cocaine ring, time and again, eludes investigators? If elaborate government bugging operations, costing taxpayers millions, are leaked and ruined?

“This could never happen, right, a deal between the FBI and a top echelon informant going this bad?

“But it did.”

Cinematically, Black Mass lacks the style and pacing of other gangland classics. It is not as good a movie as The Godfather or Goodfellas. But then what films are?

I would also rank it third behind two other Boston-based mob movies, the 1973 film The Friends of Eddie Coyle and Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece The Departed from 2006 in which Jack Nicholson plays a character based on Whitey Bulger. Among the memorable lines from that film is this description from a State Police sergeant about how other agencies should deal with the FBI: “My theory is…treat ’em like mushrooms,” said the sergeant, played by Mark Wahlberg.

“Feed ’em shit and keep ’em in the dark.”

For too long it was the FBI and Bulger who were keeping everyone else in the dark.

Black Mass brings the story into the light.

It is one of Johnny Depp’s finest performances. But it clearly was not the FBI’s finest hour. n

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BILL LYON

_____________________________________________________

Eldrick

At the Crossroads of Despair and Confusion

EMEMBER how he would stride so briskly, the bounce in his step bespeaking utter confidence, the galleries packed 10-deep and all but genuflecting. Here was a man who acted like he owned the joint… but then come to think of it, he did. For the better part of the last two decades, the player known as Eldrick was the alpha and omega of that part of the world concerned with trying to negotiate a dimpled ball into a tiny hole. The hills echoed with his name: T-I-G-E-R…T-I-G-E-R…T-I-G-E-R… But now the stride is halting and uncertain and he has the look of a perplexed man searching for something—he can’t quite put his finger on it—lost. Tiger Woods has arrived at the crossroads of Despair and Confusion, a condition that sooner or later confronts everyone: He has met his Mortality.

Before our rapt gaze he unravels, and is helpless to stem the tide. Golf is the cruelest, most humbling of our games, so Tiger is left to deal with his agonies on a world-wide stage.

There is no escape… and we watch with a mixture of empathy and sympathy, and a perverse curiosity.

It began, as it always does with the great ones, with betrayal… of the body. A twinge here, a minor annoyance there; then something that can be fixed in a week graduates into a month of rehab which in turn leads to the knife and now you’re looking at all summer. Tiger can recite the litany of agony by heart: Back… knee… wrist… back again… ankle… in short, anything to do with that violent slash that will propel a golf ball halfway to the moon.

It’s not sudden. Like age, it creeps up on you, a thief in the night, and soon the simple act of getting out of bed is fraught with pain, and you look forlornly at your body and inquire: “What new surprises do you have for me today?”

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Tiger’s woes came in fits and starts—when we weren’t looking he was shooting a 76 but that was dismissed as surely a typo. But then the unthinkable—he missed a cut. He withdrew from another. And here came a cart to retrieve him and he sat there impassively staring straight ahead, a man trying to look into the future and not liking what he saw.

And then came the clincher, when we knew that despite his protestations that everything would be OK—he unfurled ugly, most un-Tigerlike shots, the sort you and I are intimately familiar with, an assortment of… chunks, skulls, worm burners, a topped three-wood, and whatthe-hell-was that? Tiger looked almost human, a graphic reminder that nothing lasts forever.

Whatever your weakness, golf, merciless and unrelenting, will find it and leave you having conversations with the deity of your choosing, as in: “Me again, right, Lord?”

What must it feel like, this long, slow descent from being the best there ever was to…well, one or two steps short of “other notables”? It must feel like you’re sliding down an endless, rusty razor blade.

he Agony of Tiger is a shared experience and the pain is reflected in shrinking television ratings and pro shop sales.

Golf has been wondering for some time what life would be like without its cash cow, and now it is learning.

Without Tiger in the field the galleries shrivel and public interest wanes and there is a yearning: Send us another Tiger. And hurry, please.

Not a totally unrealistic wish, but then you’re talking about an athlete who is first in total wins and money earned and number two in majors won. (He will not be overtaking Jack Nicklaus, whose 18 to 14 advantage is unreachable.)

Ah, but who’s this, up there on the hill, twoiron in hand ready to blister one 287 yards dead

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The Agony of Tiger is a shared experience... to the pin? Why it’s that Spieth lad… Jordan, isn’t it, the one who has made such a splash, rousing that talk about the Grand Slam?

Well, he does have that look about him: chiseled jaw, a swing sweet as syrup and one that repeats, a putter of solid gold, and at 21, yipsproof nerves… in short, this looks to be the real deal. But then there’s no rush to find out. The game will let us know soon enough; he is, after all, only in his second year out there.

At the moment he’s at the head of the line of Tiger Hopefuls, contenders for the one who will save golf. It’s a fairly short list, which began with Rory Mcllroy, the appealing Opie with the thermonuclear driver. And Bubba Watson, the self-taught southpaw who owns the Masters. And Dustin Johnson, regarded as the most gifted of them all but flawed, so far, by a penchant for collapsing in the stretch.

They’ll get sorted out eventually, one by one, a tried and true process in which you can trace the lineage: From Bobby Jones to Ben Hogan to Sam Snead to Arnold Palmer to Jack Nicklaus to Tiger. And Tiger, hard as it is to believe, will one day be a fading memory.

He’s already easing into middle age. He has two children. Priorities change.

Wasn’t it just the other day when he owned the world and he was young and the future was without limit… wasn’t it just the other day…?

Wasn’t it? n

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THE ENTHUSIAST ______________________________________________________________________________________________

BY ANDREW RYAN

Where Have All the Rock Stars Gone?

I Illustration by Dan Dinsmore

f you’re one of the millions of Americans with a job, family, responsibilities or anything else in your life that would prevent you from sitting in front of the television for three and a half hours one hot Thursday night to watch beautiful twenty-somethings give themselves awards (Self-respect? A strong moral center?), you probably didn’t watch this year’s MTV Video Music Awards (or VMAs for short).

Good thing you’re speaking to one of those Americans who has none of those things. You lucky reader, you.

So what did you miss? Well, first there was the pre-VMA Nicki Minaj vs. MTV beef about race, which morphed into the Nicki Minaj vs.

Taylor Swift beef about women, then the Katy Perry vs. Taylor Swift beef about Nicki Minaj, which finally ended in a Nicki Minaj vs. Miley Cyrus beef about talking about Nicki Minaj.

Dante’s got nothing on that ring of Hell. Then of course there was Kanye West’s eleven minute acceptance speech rant in which he cov-

26

ered (a term I’m using lightly) getting booed at baseball games, Hennessy, contradictions, believing in himself, dying for the artist’s opinion (whatever that means), snatching the mic from Taylor Swift and finally his totally unexpected yet somehow wholly unsurprising 2020 presidential campaign announcement.

I’m sure by now you’re probably asking why I did this. What makes an otherwise reasonable adult watch an awards show that consists of sixty-percent smiling-celebrity-couple-inthe-audience cutaway footage, thirty-percent primary colors and ten-percent unintelligible nonsense? I did it for perspective. I did it for insight. In a way, I suppose I did it for America. But also my girlfriend made me watch. It doesn’t matter why, because I learned something about rock ‘n’ roll that night. As I sat there and watched artist after artist perform their chart-topping hits I saw something that terrified me. More accurately it was something I didn’t see that terrified me: guitars. Throughout the entire marathon that was this year’s VMAs I only remember seeing one guitar on

stage. And that guitar spent more time hanging from the singer’s hip than getting played, almost like a piano-key necktie or some other dated fashion accessory. All of which begged the question: What happened to the rock ‘n’ rollers? Why have they suddenly disappeared

Why isn’t rock ‘n’ roll better represented within pop-culture as it was only a decade ago? Because, for better or worse, rock ‘n’ roll has grown up.

from the pop-culture scene?

Those who are “hip “ to what the kids are up to these days consider the VMAs to be something of an institution within pop-culture, or at least that’s what MTV’s ratings department would desperately love for us to believe. But at its very core the VMAs are nothing more than a cultural crucible, placing every A- through C-list celebrity in one place at one time to observe how they interact together—which, maybe unsurprisingly, ends up looking less like an awards show and more like a cliquey highschool lunchroom. Jocks sit with jocks, geeks sit with geeks and all the while every beautiful, thin girl over five-foot-five desperately vies for a seat at the popular-girls table that is Taylor Swift’s blonde-tourage. Raging hormones and deep insecurity seem to permeate from underneath the thin veil of bravado, poorly timed punchlines and toothy grins. All of which made me consider the fact that just like their fans, at least on an emotional level, these celebrities really are still in high school. I’d go as far as to say their careers depend on it.

And here lies the answer to our question.

Why isn’t rock ‘n’ roll better represented within pop-culture as it was only a decade ago? Because, for better or worse, rock ‘n’ roll has grown up. The idea of the longhaired guitar-shredding wild man seems to be nothing more than an anachronism. Maybe, like many of us, the genre has graduated from its adolescence and traded in its leather pants and “f*** you and the rest of the world” mentality for health benefits, job security, a clean police record and a stuffy corner office. As I watched the superstars of hiphop and R&B take the stage one after another, delivering performances with all the spectacle and energy once reserved for only the loudest and greatest rock ‘n’ roll acts, I realized the artists of these somewhat newly mass-popularized genres are only now entering their angsty teen years, whereas rock ‘n’ roll has finally become the typical middle-aged dad we fought so hard to rebel against. It’s not that I believe rock ‘n’ roll has run its course, as there are still plenty of great bands out there. It’s more that with rock ‘n’ roll’s extensive and fully realized legacy, it’s easier to live in the past than in the future, so much so that it’s almost impossible not to compare newer acts with the hundreds (hell, thousands at this point) that have come before them.

The impression I get from hip-hop and R&B is the exact opposite. The artists of these genres appear to hold much less reverence for the artists who’ve come before them (except for their borderline Freudian love affair with Michael Jackson), instead focusing all their energy on capturing what’s next. If you don’t believe me, just listen to Kanye West’s brilliant (a term I’m not using lightly) album Yeezus. You’d be hard pressed to find a more future-forward approach to songwriting.

S

o what does this insight mean for our beloved genre? Is rock ’n’ roll dead? No, I don’t think so. Even though I’m finding it hard to do, I think it’s simply time to accept the fact that rock ‘n’ roll is no longer the most exciting and beloved genre of music in America. That title certainly goes to hiphop/R&B. In fact, rock barely places these days. There’s EDM (electronic dance music), bro-country (the music you’d be listening to if you got crushed by some southern college redneck’s pickup and got sent to country hell) and whatever genre you call annoying fedora-clad hipsters strumming acoustic guitars and hanging around Starbucks for four

hours every Tuesday and Thursday. It’s up to the bands of the future to begin to look forward once again. To stop living in the past and under the constant tyranny of old expectations and archetypal songwriting. To know when to respect the greats that came before them and when to tell them to screw off. In the end we have a choice: move forward and develop beyond what we’ve come to expect, or wither and die the lonely death of a forgotten idol. Maybe I’m just being optimistic, but I choose to hope for the former.

Because in my heart I still believe in rock ‘n’ roll, even if we won’t be sitting at the cool table anytime soon. n

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The Smoking Dog THE CIGAR GUY ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Sponsored by

BY SAM KRAFT

Island Jim #2 by Oscar Company: Leaf and Bean, Size: T6.25 x 54 Torpedo Vitola

I

SLAND JIM #2 IS A UNIQUE CIGAR for many reasons, the most obvious being the look of the cigar. Named after the #2 pencil, this cigar resembles just that. It has three different shades of wrappers that are visible to the smoker. One is a dark, oscuro-looking tip. The next is what looks like a Connecticut shade, followed by the body of the cigar, which is some sort of natural shade. Another unique aspect of this cigar, and the reason for all the wrapper speculation, is that Oscar has not disclosed what tobacco is in his most prized stick. All I could gather is that this cigar consists of both Nicaraguan and Honduran tobacco. Even on their website, leafbyoscarcigar.com, the company says its motives were to make the cigar mysterious “like a beautiful woman in a designer dress.” Strange as this is, their tactics only help to ignite additional buzz around their company, which is based out of Pittsburgh.

The Island Jim has an open foot that makes lighting this stogie almost as enjoyable as looking at it. The quick-light smokes up the filler tobacco, making the initial draw spicy and full of character. The first third introduces this cigar as a very straight forward stick. It tapers the

line of slightly complex without becoming what one would classify as a dynamic cigar.

As I smoke past the quick-light and into the wrapper, I get a medley of natural sweetness, toast and slight white pepper. The cigar also has a seasonal hint of oakiness that reminds me of fall leaves. The Island Jim is a Torpedo with an open cap, therefore the draw to this cigar is a bit tight without a cut. I’ve seen people smoke through it, but unless you prefer a tight Cuban-style roll, I recommend cutting the oscuro cap off and leaving most of the Connecticut shade showing.

The second third of the cigar intensifies in flavor, but not immensely.

Somehow there is an increase in spice alongside an increase in sweetness. Underneath the intensity, I taste notes of honey and white pepper.

I can’t remember previously smoking a cigar that evolved the way that this Island Jim has. It’s unique and I can’t help but enjoy myself.

The final third is when I become really impressed. The pepper turns into more of a mineral taste. This distinct flavor is usually due to growing tobacco in volcanic soil, such as the soil in Esteli, Nicaragua. The cigar also exhibits some nuttiness and becomes a bit more oily. It’s crazy that I can still taste the sweetness of this cigar even over the stronger flavors. All of this combined makes for one of the more interesting cigar finishes I have had.

Throughout the entire cigar, Island Jim #2 never gets stronger than a medium body. Just like the maker himself, Island Jim is full of mystery and fun. Averaging at $11 a stick, this complex and wacky stogie is well worth the buy.

Fun Fact!: Even though a certain cigar rep I know has a mountain of endless cigars, most of which he gets for free, this particular cigar is the only one I see him spend money on. n

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SPECIAL PHOTO SECTION Pope Francis and the Joy of the Pilgrims in Philadelphia

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ast month, a visit from the Holy Father and thousands of pilgrims to Philadelphia brought a sense of happiness, purpose and renewal to the region and the country, and was celebrated throughout the ranks of the faithful. The joy surrounding this entire magnificent event was palpable, and was demonstrated time and again during the course of the Pope’s special visit. We sent our own Dan Dinsmore amongst the followers, and the images he brought back evidence the shared spiritual essence.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAN DINSMORE

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Pope Francis in Philadelphia

Photos Dan Dinsmore

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Photos Dan Dinsmore

Pope Francis in Philadelphia

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“Unmasking the Legacy” Honoring Our Man & Woman of the Year Candidates Celebration Event

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JAKETAPPER

H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H

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H

e spent his formative years in our city.

He once dated Monica Lewinsky (once).

He hosts not one but two political shows on CNN. He moderated the September GOP debate.

He has used the word “zaftig” and the term “raison d’etre” in the same article.

He’s won three Merriman Smith Memorial Awards for journalism, an Emmy, and was part of a team that was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Award for his work on a documentary on Osama bin Laden.

He wrote a book that debuted on the NY Times bestseller list at #10.

He is married to Jennifer and has two kids he adores.

He is PhillyMan Jake Tapper. And I had the pleasure of asking him some questions regarding his fascinating life and career.

From Queen Village to Dartmouth to Washington, D.C., he is a well-traveled individual.

But success and excellence seem to be his constant companions.

Hope you enjoy our Q&A with a local product turned heavyweight political insider.

H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H

Q&A INTERVIEW BY KEN DUNEK

Q: W hat is your favorite memory of your time in Philadelphia?

A: There are too many to pinpoint a favorite, but some of the best involve walking around with my mom and little brother at Headhouse, riding bikes with my dad around Queen Village and Society Hill, running around Center City with my friends from The Philadelphia School, attending Dr. J’s last home Sixers game and soft pretzels smeared with hot mustard while hanging out near Independence Hall.

Q: Do you root for any of the Philly sports teams? If not, what teams do you root for?

A: I will be an Eagles, Phillies and Sixers fan forever. I was 11 when the Phils won the 1980 World Series, 13 when the Sixers won it all.

Q: Do you have any aspirations beyond your current job? Political? Author?

A: Writing THE OUTPOST: An Untold Story of American Valor, a true story of American troops under fire in Afghanistan, remains perhaps the most satisfying and long-lasting professional experience of my life, so I hope to write another book some time soon. hat qualities does it take to maintain a Q: W high profile journalistic position in such a competitive marketplace?

A: My advice for any young or aspiring journalist is to get used to rejection and negative feedback, because it is a huge part of the job—trying to explain controversial events, struggling to compete for viewers or readers, competing with ambitious rivals, all of it takes perseverance and a thick hide.

Q: Describe the preparation you put into the recent GOP debate.

A: For more than a month, my team and I solicited suggestions from the public and from wise political experts, honed our questions and even staged a few mock debates. I also reached out to members of the Reagan administration and Reagan family to see what they thought were important issues to ask about.

“ The debate brought forward some serious differences on policy and politics among the candidates, and we pushed them to actually debate. Obviously viewers agreed, given that ratings were higher than for any other CNN event in the history of the network.”

Q: How do you feel the night went overall?

Would you do anything different if you had the chance?

A: We’re all very pleased with how the night went. The debate brought forward some serious differences on policy and politics among the candidates, and we pushed them to actually debate. Obviously viewers agreed, given that ratings were higher than for any other CNN event in the history of the network. I’m not a perfect person and it wasn’t a perfect debate, so I could always go back and find things I could have done differently, but generally everyone was very excited about how it went.

Q: Which of the candidates do you feel purported themselves well during the debate?

A: The pundit (and public, according to polls) consensus seems to be that Fiorina, Rubio and Christie did well. But it’s tough for

me to truly assess given that I wasn’t able to really assess the performances with so many other things going on in my head during those five hours.

Q: How did you handle the criticism of the format of the debate by certain political and media critics?

A: I disagree with it. And thankfully so did 23 million American viewers.

Q: What is your favorite Philly food?

A: Four-way tie: soft pretzel with hot mustard, John’s Water Ice, Termini Brothers’ cannoli, Geno’s cheesesteak with provolone.

Q: I f you had to choose one famous Philadelphian that you admire, who is it and why?

A: Tie between Benjamin Franklin and Julius Erving, for obvious reasons. n 37

BY KURT SMITH

Steve Kehler, owner of Tricked Out Custom Cycles on one of his creations.

S

STEVE KEHLER ACCEPTS REALITY, even when it’s not reality.

The owner of Tricked Out Custom Cycles in Warminster, PA has enough of a reputation for building and customizing motorcycles that in 2007 he was featured on ESPN2’s “Metric Revolution: Motorcycle Build Off,” a reality show competition.

Kehler’s entry in the contest—the stunning Egyptian-themed “King Kawasaki” that is featured on the front page of Tricked Out’s website—took him four months to build. King Kawasaki took third place in the competition.

Which, as Kehler learned, was about the 38

best he was going to do.

“I was under the impression it was gonna be ‘let the best man win.’ The reality was brought to my attention very soon after the filming. I came in third on the sport bike side, only to find out that the first two people didn’t even build their bikes.

“They had us filming in Red Rock Canyon.

We were going up and down the same mile, changing camera angles, splashing water on our face. It was all propped, all fake. The builds weren’t, but when you find out other people didn’t do their builds, it was like, what kind of a competition are you doing?

“It by no means depicted what reality was behind the scenes. I bet if you talk to every one of those builders, they would all say the same thing. Some of them put in their whole heart and soul—and finances—to impress everybody, and came up shorthanded. I was told that whoever brought the most sponsorships was gonna win the show.”

Sour grapes? Not at all. Kehler is, after all, an entrepreneur. And being featured in a “reality” show competition is great publicity for a business.

“Listen, it’s entertaining,” he says. “The first thing they will tell you when you get

Accessorized IF YOU NEED YOUR BIKE TRICKED OUT, TAKE IT TO STEVE KEHLER.

K

involved in the TV show is, this is entertainment. It’s about ratings and if you don’t like it, don’t be involved in it. At the end of the day, being on TV, being in magazines, being in any type of media publication is great advertising.

I’ll take it all.

“I usually tell people I let my work speak for itself. If you like what I do and you would love for me to do something for you, I’m all ears. That’s reality.

“We don’t have to film it!” he says with a hearty laugh.

ehler laughs a lot these days. He is a cheerful, likable sort, clearly content in his chosen profession. To listen to his story, it’s as if he were born to customize bikes.

Especially when his outspoken personality clashed with car dealerships, where he was employed as a mechanic and service writer.

“I’ve always had a passion for motorcycles, and when I was younger I was building bikes out of my garage while working at the dealerships. It got to the point that, even in management, I was making more money out of my garage than I was in my full time job.

“Everyone has that persona about car dealerships: ‘If you take your car to the dealership, you’re gonna get ripped off.’ I wouldn’t say it’s ripping off, but the way they force you to make sales, to make your quota, to make your commission, you’re almost forced into overselling. If you need new wiper blades, they’re gonna sell you the wiper motor, the whole nine yards.

“That’s the kind of thing they made you do. I wanted no part of that. So I was the one questioning, why are you doing this? Why won’t you treat everyone like family? When I started making more money out of my garage, that’s how I wanted my business to be. Treat everybody like they’re family. Like we’re all in the same fight, which is just to keep your automobile or whatever up and running.”

His timing opening up his own shop, as it turned out, was perfect. “When I first started the business, the custom world was empty.

There was really nobody at that time doing anything significant in sport bikes. Everybody was doing Harleys; I was strictly doing sport bikes and doing stuff that people never thought of.

“So I kind of erupted onto the scene, and a lot of companies and manufacturers really paid notice. It started out with sport bikes, and now the Harley and Metric Cruiser world

is really blown away by what we’ve done. So we’ve opened our doors to that market. It’s really great to be able to transfer, like going from a smart car to a four-by-four truck. You’ve got a big range in between!”

T

ricked Out Custom Cycles is today a full motorcycle service and repair shop.

Parts sales, state inspections, and insurance estimates are among its services. But obviously, given the name on the shingle, they are best known for giving bikes a complete facelift, from powder coating and chrome plating to airbrushing and artwork, including on helmets. On a sunny day, any visitor to the shop can view over a dozen dazzling examples of motorcycle artistry.

“The biggest thing that sticks is our paint work,” Kehler points out. “That’s the first thing that people see and the last thing that they’re gonna remember about a bike.”

39

And the owner confidently states that what separates Tricked Out from the competition is the ability to do it all.

“We add a unique touch to it, because of our in-house coordinating with customers as far as what they’re interested in, and bringing that concept into reality. This is very hard for a lot of shops, because they’ll outsource so many things. We can take that bike from start to finish, from the front of the shop to the back of the shop, and have the bike come out completely transformed.

“We do use a lot of parts suppliers, but it’s really how you coordinate and put those things together. It’s like a recipe – you put a couple different ingredients in and it tastes completely different. So we try to put all the right stuff together.

“Some shops try to bite off more than they can chew, and fall short on all areas. We complete what we do 100% and what we can’t do 100%, we’re gonna point you to the person who can. The motorcycle community is pretty tight-knit, and if there’s something you don’t specialize in, you know someone that does and you can get them going in the right direction.”

‘‘

A

fter fifteen years of treating their customers like family, Tricked Out no longer operates out of Kehler’s garage. He and his crew have enjoyed enough success to expand into the 9,000-square-foot facility in the suburbs (because “taxes are cheaper in the suburbs,” Kehler asserts as if it doesn’t need to be said). Business is steady, he would say; part of his job is reading approximately 300 e-mails a day. He has no plans for expansion; his focus is to become better, not bigger.

“I’m not looking to franchise out or anything.

We are growing our art department, trying to venture out in a few different areas. But in any business, you have to evolve, and you have to stay on the edge, because what was popular five years ago isn’t popular now. In the custom world, you’ve gotta constantly be on your toes.

“My whole passion is to build. Once the build’s over I don’t go, oh, this is my masterpiece, because instead of adding more bikes to my collection—I have quite a bit of a collection—I’ve focused the last couple years on doing what my customer’s masterpiece is.

“Expanding is difficult, because it’s not like you’re going to play the same song over and over. It takes a lot of open-minded people and

When I first started the business, There was really nobody at that time doing anything significant in sport bikes. So I kind of erupted onto the scene, and a lot of companies and manufacturers really paid notice.”

Some stunning paint work from TOCC

40

they’re hard to come by, the ones that get it, and the ones that stay for you a while and keep getting it.”

So could Tricked Out be the subject of its own reality show, like “Orange County Choppers”?

“Oh, I think we absolutely could, but my show wouldn’t have to be propped. We are a very interesting group of guys here, we have fun.

“And people don’t want to be uptight. They want to feel comfortable, they want to feel relaxed and they want to joke around. Being a motorcyclist, and being around peers, my personality kind of fits the bill. I don’t sugarcoat a damn thing. I give people bad news like it’s the best news I could give them. Because I just let it out. And people respect me for that.

“I’m not gonna fake a new bike every week that took 500 hours and we got it done overnight, that’s just unrealistic. Real builders laugh at those shows.

“Fame to me is a healthy family and a happy family. And that’s what my focus is. All of my employees, we’re all family men here.

We’re not trying to be famous, we’re trying to provide, and we’re trying to enjoy what we do.

“And constantly getting better at it, I think, should be everybody’s goal.” n

41

PROFILE

W Chad Fisher

Photos provided by Fisher Sculpture

Carving a Unique Artistic Niche

Chad Fisher welding the Steve Sabol memorial in his studio.

42

BY JAN L. APPLE

W

Fisher’s Award-Winning Portrait Study of Bill Guarnere

hether Chad Fisher is creating a 36-inch bronze likeness of George H. Boker, a founder and first president of The Union League of Philadelphia, or a larger-than-life memorial of decorated World War II hero William “Wild Bill” Guarnere, his commitment to capturing a person’s essence through the fine art of sculpting remains unwavering.

According to the 32-year-old figurative artist, there’s a vast difference between replicating an image or portrait and bringing it to life through an intensely arduous yet creative process. “I am not an illustrator or duplicator,” explained Chad, who often spends 12 hours a day honing his craft from his 1,000-squarefoot studio near his home in a Harrisburg, PA, suburb, where he resides with his wife and daughters—ages nine years, seven years and five months.

The idea of grabbing a paintbrush and splashing paint on a big piece of paper is not authentic art, notes Chad, underscoring that no one has the talent of Michelangelo; but rather it’s about continually striving. “My work is that of a true artist, “ he said. “Every stage—from design to carving, to clay modeling, casting, chasing and patina—is performed by my hands alone.”

No wonder the award-winning sculptor has been making a name for himself in the region and beyond. It’s not every day an artist can transform his craft into a livelihood. For Chad, with his imposing bronze and stone creations coupled with stints teaching intensive workshops at Philadelphia’s Studio Incamminati, it

seems to be working.

“I think the face of the art world is changing,” said Chad, who has observed a “figurative arts Renaissance” and a resurgence of appreciation for the classical on both coasts of the United States. He cites cities such as Washington, D.C., New York and Philadelphia as having the information and education available for figurative artists to thrive.

A South Jersey native who spent much of his youth in Moorestown, Cherry Hill and East Hanover, NJ, his commissioned pieces run the gamut. His impressive résumé includes projects for the Moorestown Community House, Comcast Spectacor, NFL Films, the Wild Bill Guarnere Memorial Fund, The Union League of Philadelphia and Chicago Bears Football Club.

According to his father, Fran Fisher, a longtime Moorestown resident, technology professional and artist who has become his son’s project manager over the last two years: “Chad is one of only a few sought after figurative monument sculptors with museum quality work in fine art galleries [throughout the nation]. His international Seven Deadly Sins series has sold out of full editions.”

In 2013, Chad approached Moorestown

Community House board member Haynes Hendrickson about having an art show inside the building. Instead, the idea for a permanent sculpture was born. Moorestown Memories, a life-size piece depicting five children running, was erected outside the historic building. “The sculpture represents past, present and future generations,” explained Chad. “Moorestown is a wonderful town with a sincere interest in the arts.” And the town actually has some fun with the sculpture, adorning it with festive clothing like hats and scarves depending upon the holiday.

Creating sports-related monuments has recently evolved into a specialty niche for the artist who loves athletics: “In high school, I ran track, played football and swam,” said Chad. “I wasn’t a star; I was a contributor.”

Other highlights of his in the area include an eight-foot bronze memorial of co-founder Steve Sabol outside NFL Films in Mount Laurel, NJ, a statue of NHL legend Fred Shero in front of Philadelphia’s XFINITY Live and a larger-than-life piece just unveiled in August for the Chicago Bears Football Club of football pioneer, Hall of Famer and NFL co-founder George S. Halas.

Chad’s ability to capture a person’s essence has been evoking awe and admiration. According to John J. Meko, Jr., executive director of The Foundations of The Union League of Philadelphia: “We had been talking about a sculpture and looking for a way to commemorate the end of the Civil War and the opening of the building [both in 1865].” The 43

Photo Provided by Gene Guarnere

league was founded in 1862 to support the policies of President Abraham Lincoln and to win the Civil War, he explains. Special events for the 150th anniversary have been ongoing throughout the year.

“We like to find new artists,” continued Meko, adding that several League members were familiar with Chad’s work. He was commissioned by the Abraham Lincoln Founda-

Chad Fisher works on the George H. Boker sculpture.

Heritage Center of The Union League of Philadelphia The Heritage Center on the ground floor of the Union League is open to the public every Tuesday and Thursday from 3 to 6 p.m. and the second Saturday of the month from 1 to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

Chad Fisher’s sculpture of George H. Boker will be permanently located inside the Heritage Center.

The current exhibit, “1865: Triumph and Tragedy” will be open through February 2016. According to John J. Meko, Jr., executive director of The Foundations of The Union League of Philadelphia, the exhibit includes some of the most important artifacts from 1865, such as the sword used to command the ceasefire in the final battle of the Civil War, a piece of Lincoln’s shirt worn when he was assassinated and an actual piece of flesh of John Wilkes Booth, obtained during his autopsy.

The Union League was founded in 1862 to support the Union, the policies of President Abraham Lincoln and to win the Civil War. It was initially housed in temporary quarters on Chestnut Street. “The current location was completed in May 1865 and was to be dedicated by Abraham Lincoln,” said Meko.

Lincoln was assassinated on April 14 and died the following morning. He never visited the League’s permanent home at 140 South Broad Street.

Visit www.ulheritagecenter.org

44

Photo Abraham Lincoln Foundation of the Union League

Inside Chad Fisher’s studio, Gene Guarnere (right) and his daughter Debi Rafferty, stand next to a clay sculpture before it was bronzed of Bill Guarnere. Rafferty spearheaded the fundraising effort to memorialize her grandfather and Gene’s father.

tion to create a memorial of Boker. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful piece,” said Meko of the sculpture unveiled in April. “As a young artist, Chad seems to be getting better and better.” Meko was impressed with Chad’s interest in collaboration and his ability to capture the expression of this “fascinating personality.”

“Boker is looking up and forward,” said Meko, describing his gaze as celebratory at winning the war.

The piece will soon be permanently located on the ground floor—accessible to the public (see box)—next to a painting of the League and a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, renowned for creating the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Each commission holds a special significance for the sculptor. Yet, Chad shares that he is profoundly inspired by “those that have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.”

His respect for veterans led him to donate his labor (not materials) to the family of the late “Wild Bill” Guarnere, who passed away at 90 in March 2014. Gene Guarnere, 69, of Broomall, son of the South Philadelphia native who lost a leg on the battlefield while saving one of his best friends, is amazed at Chad’s unique ability. The eight-foot, three-inch bronze sculpture of his father standing on one leg, holding crutches was unveiled September 19 at the Delaware County Veterans Memorial

45

Fran Fisher, Chad Fisher and Gene Guarnere in front of the Fred Shero sculpture outside XFINITY Live in Philadelphia.

in Newtown Square.

As a teen, Chad learned of the war hero through the HBO series “Band of Brothers,” narrated by Tom Hanks. He often watched the series with his dad and brother. “It was a time for family bonding,” remembered Chad, adding that many family members served in the military, including his paternal grandfather, who fought in World War II. Chad met Gene in the spring of 2014, beginning a collaboration to memorialize the “Band of

46

Brothers” member of the 101st Airborne, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Easy Company.

Chad studied multiple photographs of Guarnere and prior to the sculpture completed a portrait study, which won an international award from the National Portrait Society. “It is among Chad’s finest portraits created,” said Fran.

According to Gene: “It looks just like him.

Chad captured his head tilted in just the right way and all the wrinkles in his face and on his coat. It’s like he’s in the room with me. It’s uncanny.”

Chad says he sought the best training available for the figurative arts. From 2003 to 2007, he was enrolled in a collaborative program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania. In 2007, he received a Certificate in Sculpture. He also attended the Schuylkill Academy of Fine Arts, numerous schools of art, specialty workshops, programs and private study/apprenticeships with accomplished sculptors. His greatest mentor was his former Pennsylvania Academy professor Gary Weisman, whom he describes as one of the leading figurative artists in the world. “I met the right person who taught me just about everything under the sun,” said Chad, who apprenticed with Weisman on and off from 2004 to 2012. “Seventy-five percent of what I know comes from him.”

Chad describes a true work of art as making an inanimate object animate. “It’s about taking all the information that’s been presented to you and then trying to create something.”

Whether it’s a portrait for a gallery or a large memorial, when Chad fashions a sculpture for

47

someone that reminds him/her of a loved one, the result is extremely gratifying. “It gives me a sense that I’ve done something.”

Chad credits his dad as a major influence.

Fran introduced Chad and his younger brother, Alex, to the arts. Chad recalls sculpting at age seven: “My brother and I would spend time with our dad drawing and sculpting.” And Chad knew from a very young age that he would one day become an artist. “Sculpting,” he explained, “is very important to me; it’s something I need to do to be centered in life.”

Although Fran studied illustration and fine arts—along with finance—in college and did some freelance work for newspapers and magazines, he said: “Chad had a higher intellectual curiosity.

Sculpture of George S. Halas outside Halas Hall, Chicago.

“I remember when he was about 19 or 20,” continued Fran. “We were in the car getting ready to return to Syracuse University for the fall semester. Chad asked me to turn the car off because he had something very important to discuss. He turned to me and said, ‘I want to be a sculptor.’” Chad did not return to Syracuse. From that day forward, Fran supported his son’s career pursuit, well aware of his talent. “His portraitures are number one; they’re as good as anyone in the world. Chad is one of the very few that does the entire process [of creating a sculpture] themselves. Most people have teams. Chad’s work has his fingerprints on it.” When you look closely, Fran explains, you can literally see Chad’s thumbprints in the clay. Likening this style to Rodin, Fran says that many today produce wax museum type replicas. At the time of the Renaissance, he adds, artists like Chad were revered; actually held in higher social regard than surgeons.

Gene Guarnere predicts that Chad will become a world-renowned sculptor. “One day in the future someone will lift up one of his [smaller] pieces and say: ‘Oh my God, this is a Chad Fisher.’” n Visit www.fishersculpture.com 48

Man & Woman of the Month JerseyMan/PhillyMan Magazine wants to recognize one man and woman in our region every issue for their extraordinary achievements in community service. At the end of the year, each of the 10 nominees (5 men, 5 women) will be recognized at a dinner in their honor, and the JerseyMan/PhillyMan Magazine Person of the Year from these 10 nominees will be announced.

MARCUS ALLEN Marcus Allen is the Chief Executive Officer of Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern Pennsylvania, the Greater Philadelphia region’s largest and most experienced youth mentoring organization.

In April of 2013, Allen became the first African American CEO in BBBS SEPA’s celebrated history. He has significantly grown the agency as measured by number of children served, revenue generation and visibility, for two consecutive years.

This impressive growth garnered BBBS SEPA a “Gold Standard Award” in 2013 and the coveted “Pinnacle Award” in 2014, given to only four affiliates of the 334 affiliated agencies across the country. As a result, Allen now manages the largest one-to-one mentoring program in the Commonwealth and the third-largest Big Brothers Big Sisters agency in the Nation.

Allen has received numerous awards, including the McDonald’s Anthony De Luz Black History Maker of Today Award (2014), Philadelphia Life Magazine’s Men of the Year (2013)and Philadelphia Tribune’s Top 10 list of Most Influential African Americans Under the Age of 40 (2013, 2010) He currently serves on the board of directors for United Way, the Philadelphia Association of Community, and was appointed to serve on the Mayor’s Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity oversight board.

TRACI JORDAN Traci Jordan has been the COO of Moorestown, N.J.-based PCS (formerly Pro Computer Service) since 2009 after joining the firm in 2007. PCS is a leading single source provider of managed IT services.

Jordan oversees and manages the operations of PCS, including client relations, technical support, business development, and administration. When she started, PCS operated in two states and employed five. She has helped grow the company to a point where it now operates in five states (though it has clients nationwide) and employs more than 80.

In 2007, PCS offered her the opportunity to have flexible hours, providing her with the ability to more easily manage her active family, while acclimating back to full-time employment. “Now a 70-hour work week is not uncommon,” she says. After learning all facets of the business, Jordan was promoted to COO in 2009 and in 2015 won the SmartCEO Management Excellence Award in recognition for outstanding operational business leadership and management of a fast-growing Philadelphia area company.

In addition to her professional duties, Traci coordinates all of PCS’s many nonprofit duties and contributions. She also finds time to offer counsel as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Legacy Foundation, which has a broad range of services including helping children with disabilities and providing crisis intervention services.

Traci holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Economics from Towson University. She lives in Medford, NJ, with her husband, Rich.

Her two sons, Rich and Will, are now grown. Rich is an Infantry Officer in the Marine Corps, and Will is a Midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Y

You’ve worked hard for a lifetime to make it to the top. And we want to recognize you for the success you have achieved for your company…and for yourself.

Welcome to the Club The Chairman’s Club from JerseyMan/PhillyMan Magazine is an elite fraternity. We are looking for a mastermind networking group of no more than 15 exceptionally gifted professionals who have made it to the head of their class and want to learn from and share with other members of this group.

Welcome to the rarified air of success…and to the Chairman’s Club!

JerseyMan

chairman’s club Contact ken@jerseymanmagazine.com or call (856) 912-4007 for more information

www.jerseymanmagazine.com 49

“

Dei Lynam

Photo Len Redkoles/CSN

From left: Dei Lynam with her father Jim, Charles Barkley and Allen Iverson

BY KEN DUNEK

He didn’t even know she was on the bench.

That was the laser focus St. Joseph’s University Head Basketball Coach Jimmy Lynam had the day his Hawks knocked off Ray Meyer and #1 DePaul in the 3rd round of the 1981 NCAA Basketball Tournament in Dayton, Ohio.

Skip Dillard, an 85% free throw shooter, misses both. Lonnie McFarlan, who according to sources never met a shot he didn’t like, took a pass in the corner from Bryan Warrick.

As the clock ticked 3… 2… 1 he found a wide open John Smith underneath for the lay-in that stunned the basketball world and put Lynam on the road to the NBA. And then it happened.

A hysterical and crying brunette with long hair and longer legs jumped the prancing Lynam as he waltzed the Flyers’ floor in a delirious pirouette.

In a game not usually known for its hugs, it is arguably the most famous one in college basketball history.

Dei Lynam had begged her way to the tournament by staying at her grandmother’s home 50

and then took the place of an injured Hawks player so she could have a front row seat. Her Dad, Jimmy, and Mom, Kay, weren’t going to let the kids go.

Aggressive as a full court press for sure. But that has always been her style.

The following year she was working the boom microphone for the Portland Trailblazers telecasts when she annoyed her Dad’s boss at the time, Head Coach Dr. Jack Ramsey.

When Ramsey repeatedly shoved the intruding mic away and shouted to the then 15-year old Deidre to keep it out of the huddle, her response was to stick it back in there and tell Ramsey, “You do your job and I’ll do mine.”

It is that type of tenacity that helped land her current position, where she shares the Comcast SportsNet stage with her father as they break down the Sixers as analysts for the network.

But, if you think her famous name helped her shimmy-shake into the position, think again.

Dancing may be a Lynam strong suit, but she earned her stripes the old fashioned way.

It wasn’t easy for Dei when her Dad decided to abandon his Philadelphia roots and leave to be an assistant in Portland, Oregon. Dei was just a sophomore in high school, and the transition could be termed as “challenging.”

fair basketball player in her day at Cardinal O’Hara (PA) High School, she had to prove herself as a player all over again in the great Northwest at Lakeridge High School in Oregon.

So she played the game, and worked the Portland sidelines in her spare time.

After a couple of Division II offers to play hoops, she decided to abandon that plan and head to UCLA to study psychology.

After graduation, she got into the broadcasting business. Not the glamour anchor job you might think a girl with a recognizable name would be handed, but on a production crew in L.A. She then went to work for super-agent and Philadelphia native Arn Tellem doing administrative work, and it was there she began to make her connections in the sports world that

A

I’ve never been one to let grass grow under my feet.

I’ve always been looking for the next challenge.” would eventually launch her on-air broadcasting career.

“I’ve never been one to let grass grow under my feet,” Lynam says. “I’ve always been looking for the next challenge.”

An anchor position with KCAL opened up, and she got the call from producer Joe Fowler. It happened to be the day that Loyola Marymount and Philadelphia native Hank Gathers died.

That story consumed much of her first day.

She went on to the NBA Network as an editor/producer in 1991, the same year she married Tim Riviere. (They now have two boys: Max, 9 and Beau, 7). In 1992 her marriage became commuter when she accepted a weekend sports anchor job in Madison, Wisconsin.

“Stu Jackson was the basketball coach, and Barry Alvarez was the football coach then. Despite the brutal cold it was a great time for me there,” she explains.

1994 brought another change as a main sports anchor in Cincinnati, Ohio for WCPO. But in 1997 she got the call from the fledgling Comcast Sportsnet asking her to be a general reporter and anchor. She jumped at the chance to be closer to her family and husband.

“Getting the chance to work with Dei at Comcast is really special,” Jimmy Lynam says.

“She knows her stuff and is a real pro.”

Lynam is very optimistic when asked about the current state of the Sixers.

“Sam Hinkie had to take a flyer on [Joel] Embiid and he did. Who else had that much potential?” she asks. “Okafor may be the best player in this draft. Noel is a great defender with a huge upside. If they get another good guard or two I can see a bright future for this team. The fans and the city deserve it.”

You’re right, Dei. Philly does deserve the success. And I can see a day in the not too distant future when there might be some dancing and hugging in the streets celebrating a championship season.

Dancing and hugging, you may remember, are traits all too familiar to Jimmy and Dei Lynam. n 51

SPORTS GUYS

Photo Jesse D. Garrabrant/Getty Images/NBA

JOE

Joe Crawford has been working NBA games for 38 seasons.

52

JOE CRAWFORD’S CHILDHOOD NEIGHBORHOOD IN HAVERTOWN, PA WAS BIG ON BASKETBALL, SO EVEN THOUGH HIS FATHER WAS A MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL UMPIRE, THERE WAS NO QUESTION WHAT CRAWFORD’S FAVORITE SPORT WAS. CRAWFORD CAUGHT THE “BASKETBALL BUG” AT AN EARLY AGE.

BY T. JORDAN WOMPIERSKI “I loved basketball as a kid,” Crawford, now a 64-year-old Newtown Square resident, said. “We played basketball constantly.”

When Crawford and his friends weren’t shooting hoops themselves, they spent their time watching the pros play, marveling at the incredible talent on display in the NBA. However, while his friends were mesmerized by the star players of the day like Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer and Jerry West, Crawford had his eye on the officials instead.

“I was honing in on the old-time referees back then, Mendy Rudolph and Jake O’Donnell and those guys, just watching them and what they did,” he said.

It wasn’t that Crawford didn’t enjoy the efforts of the players, but he had a special appreciation for the officials.

“I was interested in officiating because of my dad—my dad made the Major Leagues when I was six years old—so I gravitated towards officiating,” Crawford said. “When

had because they didn’t keep those records back then. I’ve been so lucky, honestly.”

Crawford may attribute the longevity of his career to luck, but it was his passion and drive that got him to the NBA in 1977 at just 25 years old.

“I wanted to be an NBA ref since I was 13 or 14 years old,” he said. “Weird, but that’s the truth.”

When Crawford would view NBA games on TV as a child or head to the Spectrum with his dad to see the Philadelphia 76ers play, he was always watching the officials.

He studied their actions closely, learning rules and intricacies of the game that many casual fans would never notice.

“I was ahead of the game, because nobody started that young back then,” Crawford said.

“Now, they start young, but back then they didn’t. I knew what everybody did. I knew the signals, I knew where the guys stood, so I stood out—especially as a young guy.”

CRAWFORD you’re in an officiating family—especially a pro officiating family, like I was—you know that you can make a living on it, and that’s all I ever wanted to do.”

Crawford’s early interest and dedication to refereeing paid off. This June, he officiated his 50th career NBA Finals game, the most among active NBA referees.

“I’m a very lucky man,” Crawford said, reflecting on the latest milestone of many in an NBA career that’s spanned 38 seasons. “I think I have more playoff games than anybody ever, and I think there’s only one guy that’s ever gotten to do more Finals games than me, Mendy Rudolph, and I don’t even think they can prove how many games he

NBA REF

Crawford started refereeing when he was 18 years old, and after honing his skills for a few years at the high school level, he earned his first professional opportunity.

“I got started with my first pro game down in the Baker League in Philly, when they played at McGonigle Hall,” Crawford said.

“Then I got my tryout in the old Eastern League when I was 22, and I got in the NBA at 25.”

In the fall of 1977, a 25-year-old Crawford attended his first NBA officials training camp, and that October, Crawford officially made his NBA debut at age 26. While he achieved his goal of officiating NBA games relatively quickly, there was still a tough road ahead 53

AN OFFICIATING FAMILY Crawford’s father, Henry Charles “Shag” Crawford, was a National League umpire for Major League Baseball for 20 seasons.

While Joe followed in his father’s officiating footsteps, he strayed from baseball to become an NBA referee. His brother Jerry Crawford followed their father more directly as an MLB umpire, reaching professional status in 1976, a year before Joe made the NBA in 1977.

Combined, Shag and sons Joe and Jerry have officiated over 10,000 professional games over the course of their careers.

54

get the crew on board for that night. Then, you eat lunch, catch a nap, go to the arena— you get there usually an hour and fifteen minutes, an hour and a half before the game—and then it starts in the locker room where you’re doing some preparation, doing your stretching, but you’re still talking officiating. You’re

“ When you’re working Game 7 of the NBA Finals, it’s the ultimate.”

Photo Noah Graham/Getty Images/NBA.

for Crawford. Just because he made the NBA didn’t mean he was going to stick there.

“It was hard, and I didn’t feel comfortable for at least five years,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a player, but you see the maturation of the players, and I think it’s similar for a ref. I didn’t feel comfortable at all coming into the league. I didn’t know how to travel, hotels, those kinds of things.”

Crawford credits the league’s veteran referees for showing him the way.

“I just hooked on to the older refs and I was so fortunate that those guys liked me— Joe Gushue and John Vanak and the Hubert Evans. Those guys, they really liked me and they taught me.”

Without their guidance, Crawford believes he would have had a much tougher time acclimating to the league.

“Today, you have instant feedback all the time,” he explained. “You’re getting plays every day, you can go on the computer and get your games, and you’re watching tape and you’re getting better. Back then, it was really hard because you really weren’t getting that much feedback on your performances and you really didn’t know what was going on. It was hard.”

Crawford feels much more comfortable these days, which is to be expected after spending more than half of his life working for the NBA, but those butterflies he got before the games he officiated as a 26-year-old rookie have never gone away.

“Oh my god, I’m nervous before every game,” he said, chuckling. “It’s that fear of failure, the fear of screwing up. And if you’re not nervous—if you don’t have that feeling— I’ll retire. You have to have that feeling. Once you throw that ball up, now you’re into the game, but that feeling starts the morning of the game.”

A normal game day for Crawford kicks off with a half-hour workout before an 11 a.m. meeting with his fellow officials.

“We go over tape and we go over our rules and things like that, trying to get prepared and

talking officiating the entire day.”

Crawford’s work day continues even after the final buzzer sounds.

“I’m a crew chief, so I have to put a game report in,” he said. “You’re putting in certain plays that happened in the game that you think you might have screwed up or the crew screwed up, and in a lot of cases, you’re going back and you’re watching some of the game back at the hotel—maybe a quarter, maybe two quarters depending on how the game went.”

Crawford typically officiates roughly 60 NBA regular season games each season, plus another dozen or so in the playoffs.

“It’s a constant,” he said. “Once the bell rings October 27 to open the season, you’re talking or doing something about officiating almost every day until your last playoff assignment. It never leaves you. Once that season starts, every day you’re thinking about something about officiating. You never really get away from it.”

THE CHAMPIONSHIP TRINITY While Crawford loves the exhilarating feeling of officiating an NBA Finals Game 7, he considers his most memorable games to be a series of finals matchups he worked before his time in the NBA. The feelings of pride and accomplishment than came with being selected to work so many of the area’s championship games left a lasting mark.

“The year before I got into the NBA, I worked the Catholic League Final in Philly, the Public League Final in Philly and the City Title Game, and for some reason that has always stayed with me,” Crawford said. “I remember that more than I remember a lot of my NBA games.

Those three games, for some reason, stayed with me my entire career.”

I

t would be understandable if he wanted a break from basketball on nights he wasn’t working, but Crawford can’t get enough of the action.

“I hate to say this, but during the basketball season, if the NBA is on, I watch it all the time,” he said. “I love the NBA game.”

“If I’m on the road, say it’s 4:00 in the afternoon and I’m in Portland, I could get on my computer, I could get a game that’s starting at 7:00 say in Cleveland, and I’ll sit and watch the game on the computer before I go to eat dinner,” Crawford said. “I’m constantly watching the pro game.”

In addition to the entertainment value of basketball, Crawford also uses his off night viewing to prepare for his upcoming assignments. He looks at the tendencies of teams he will be officiating and the calls that are being made or missed.

Crawford says the most embarrassing moment of career was his 2007 altercation with Tim Duncan. “I think I could have handled that better,” Crawford admitted.

“When I know the teams I’m doing, who’s shooting from where, what they’re doing, it prepares you for your game,” he explained.

“It just makes you better as a ref.”

Crawford’s dedication to the game doesn’t go unnoticed; there’s a reason the league chooses him to work so many postseason and NBA Finals games.

“I worked my first Finals game at age 34 and I’ve stayed in the Finals ever since,” he said. “As far as the basketball is concerned, you don’t remember many games, but I think those are the games that you do remember.”

In particular, Crawford cherishes the memories he has from the Game 7 matchups he officiated in the NBA Finals in 1994, 2005 and 2010.

“In the last 25 years, maybe the last 30 years, there’s been only four Game 7’s in the Finals, which is hard to believe,” Crawford said. “There’s only been four of them, and I’ve worked three. When you’re working

Game 7 of the NBA Finals, it’s the ultimate.”

Crawford can’t contain his enthusiasm, nor should he try to, when discussing those Game 7 assignments.

“It’s the ultimate stuff,” he reiterated, the excitement building in his voice. “The feeling when you go out there—‘It’s the last game!

It’s the last game!’” he shouts. “You want to be perfect. It’s a great feeling.”

Of course, there’s no such thing as a perfect referee.

“You never are perfect, believe me,” Crawford said. “I’ve never had a perfect quarter.

I’ve had numerous embarrassing things happen on the court. You’re not trying to make mistakes, but you do.”

rawford says the most embarrassing moment of career was his 2007 altercation with Tim Duncan. Crawford ejected Duncan from a game for laughing at and mocking the officials, while Duncan

C

ROOTING FOR THE REFS When Crawford watches basketball— or any sport for that matter—he does so with a different mindset than most fans. Instead of rooting for a team, he’s pulling for the referees.

“I’m a sports fan, but I’m an officials fan,” he said. “To this day, there’s not any game I turn on where I’m not rooting for those guys not to screw up. It’s just the nature of what you do. I don’t want the refs to screw up. It’s weird, but it’s the nature of what we do.”

55

“DOWN TO A T”

ON DEAF EARS

After 38 seasons in the NBA, it’s safe to say Crawford has refereeing “down to a T.” Of course, he’s also known for calling quite a few T’s, or technical fouls.

As does any athlete or official in the spotlight, Crawford has had his fair share of hecklers through the years, but he doesn’t let the insults bother him—largely because he can’t even hear them.

“I don’t know whether it’s good or it’s bad,” Crawford said, laughing about his reputation for technical fouls. “Everyone says that I call a lot of technical fouls. I don’t count them. I leave that up to the league.”

While he admits he calls a lot of technical fouls—some of which probably don’t need to be called—he believes he’s well within the league’s parameters, as he hasn’t been told to ease up with the whistle.

“I mean, the league is just like all of the teams now,” he said. “They have stats and stats and stats and stats. Do I call some technical fouls that probably shouldn’t be called? I’m sure. I’m sure I have. In fact, I know I have. But sometimes, you just do it, and I’ve done it a million times.”

Of those “millions” of technical fouls he’s called, Crawford doesn’t really remember them, even when the call sticks with a player.

“You know what’s funny? I’ll see a player who’s now a coach or an assistant coach, and they’ll walk up to you and say, ‘Joe, you know, you gave me my first T.’ Players and coaches remember that, but we don’t remember it. We really don’t. We’re just calling plays, and we go to the next game. It’s not that big of a deal to us.”

Although Crawford doesn’t dwell on the technical fouls he calls, he does admit when he’s made a bad call, and he’s sure to let the league know when that happens.

“I’ve done my report at the end of the night and said, ‘Hey, I overreacted, I screwed up.

Please don’t fine this guy.’ And the NBA doesn’t. We admit all the time when we make a mistake on a technical foul. It happens. Do you want to do it? Do you want to make the mistake? No, but sometimes it does happen.”

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“I tell fans this all the time, I say, ‘You know, we really don’t hear you,’ because they actually believe that when we’re out there, we can hear the fans,” Crawford said, laughing. claimed Crawford challenged him to a fight in the process of the ejection. The NBA suspended Crawford indefinitely, causing him to miss the remainder of the 2006-07 season and playoffs. As a result, Crawford’s streak of 20 straight years officiating in the NBA Finals was broken. Duncan didn’t escape unscathed, either—he was fined $25,000.

“I think I could have handled that better,” Crawford admitted. “It was embarrassing.

When you look back on my career, I could have handled that in a better way. I’m not really proud of that.”

He said the incident with Duncan impacted him immensely, and he worked with

Photo courtesy J.Crawford

LIFE ON THE ROAD Crawford estimates that he spends 20 to 25 days a month on the road, which can be a daunting proposition.

“The road is tough,” Crawford said.

“It’s probably the hardest thing about the job. The games, that’s what you’re trained for, that’s your job. But the actual job, the hard part, is the planes and the hotels. There’s nothing that really prepares you for that.”

a sports psychologist to control some of his anger issues.

“I try to do things differently now,” an older, wiser Crawford said. “When you look back at the situation, instead of confronting Tim Duncan, I could have went to his coach and asked him to intercede. Now, I try to do that a little more, go to the coach versus con-

fronting the player.”

While it was an unfortunate incident, Crawford is glad to have learned from it—just as he learns from every mistake he makes, no matter how big or small.

“When you screw up, that’s when you learn,” he said. “I learn all the time, every game. They’re the things that stay in your

head. For example, one night, I gave the ball to the wrong team to start the quarter, going the wrong way. To this day—and I must have did that 20 years ago—I check it, and check it, and check it and check it. When you make that mistake and you’re embarrassed by something, you try not to do it again, because it not only embarrasses you, it embarrasses your family, it embarrasses the league. It’s not what you want to do when you go out there.”

Considering the fact that Crawford has been called upon to officiate over 2,500 regular season and nearly 350 playoff games, it’s safe to say he’s doing something right.

“It’s been such a fabulous career,” Crawford acknowledged. “I’ve been so lucky.” n

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Like Father, Like Son

Tom and Michael Hyland share their passion and talent for the game

BY SAM CARCHIDI

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HE LIST OF FAMOUS fathers and sons is endless, and it includes Kirk and Michael Douglas; Jerry and Ben Stiller; Tug and Tim McGraw; and the Griffeys, Ken Sr. and Ken Jr. Tom and Michael Hyland aren’t on that national list, but around the South Jersey golf scene, they are clearly at the top.

Michael Hyland, 36, was part of a select group to qualify for the 115th U.S. Amateur in July. Later in the summer, his dad, Tom, 59, qualified for the U.S. Senior Amateur, held in Egg Harbor Township, NJ in late September.

According to the United States Golf Association, the Hylands were the first father-son duo to qualify for the events in the same year since 2012. The father-son feat has been accom58

plished about 25 times since both tournaments started being held in the same year in 1955, an association spokesman said.

Less than 48 hours after Tom Hyland earned a berth in the Senior Amateur, his son captured his first New Jersey Mid-Amateur title.

“An incredible week for Team Hyland,” the younger Hyland said after winning the 32nd NJSGA Mid-Amateur at Arcola Country Club in

Paramus, NJ on Sept. 10.

“As good a week as I can remember,” agreed Tom Hyland, who carries a one-handicap and has a remarkable 16 career hole-in-ones.

There were 8,000 golfers trying to qualify for the U.S. Amateur. Mike Hyland was one of 312 to make the cut. He played in two previous U.S. Amateurs, back in 1999 and 2000, “and I didn’t even come close to making it again until this year,” he said.

This time, Hyland qualified while playing at Forsgate Country Club in Monroe Township, NJ, where nearly 90 golfers vied for three Amateur spots. Thirty-six holes determined their fate.

Hyland shot a 72—including a hole in one, the sixth of his career, by acing a nine-iron on the 166-yard third hole—and a blistering 67 to finish third, avoiding a playoff by one shot.

“It was a LOT of stress,” he said.

Photos Golf Association of Philadelphia

Tom Hyland

‘‘

Michael Hyland

It’s a lot different being 36 versus 20.

The college kids hit it SO FAR nowadays.

It’s insane.” – Michael Hyland He tuned up for the qualifying rounds Aug. 11 by setting a course record with a personalbest 62 at his home course, Little Mill Country Club in Medford, NJ. That’s right. He shot a SIXTY-TWO. Not bad for someone who had to be talked into playing in the Amateur qualifier by his dad.

“He’s a huge influence on me,” Mike Hyland said. “I probably have the lowest self-esteem of

any golfer out there. Three years ago, I wanted to quit because I could not hit a drive.”

His dad built up his confidence. So did lessons from Mike Mack, the PGA pro at the Burlington Country Club in Westampton, NJ. “I really owe 100 percent of my summer [success] to Mike Mack,” Hyland said. “I was at a really low point in the last three years. I couldn’t hit a driver on the mat, and I went over to Mike Mack three days a week for three weeks, and he took so much time out of his schedule to help me out. We finally got it to be where it needed to be.”

Hyland played well in the U.S. Amateur qualifying rounds at Olympia Fields Country Club in suburban Chicago, shooting a 75 and 73. It was the first time he had been in the event in 15 years.

“It’s a lot different being 36 versus 20. A hell of a lot less pressure on you. You’re not expected to do good at all,” Hyland said. “The college kids hit it SO FAR nowadays. It’s insane. By the end of the week, I was happy [with my game].

I represented myself well and the Philadelphia area. I had two bad nines, two good nines.”

Playing alongside Antonio Murdaca for the 36 holes, Hyland shot a 148; the 64-player cut was at 143.

“One thing I can say, I played with the guy who won the Asian amateur and also played in the Masters this year, and I beat him head to head, which was pretty cool,” Hyland said of Murdaca, a 20-year-old who won the Asia-Pacific Amateur by seven shots last year. “I heard a lot of really neat stories from him about the Masters and what his plans are going forward.

He’s going to make a lot of money because he’s so good.”

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om Hyland introduced his son to golf at a young age.

“I started playing in tournaments when I was seven or eight years old,” Hyland said from his home in Medford, where he lives with his wife, Deirdre, and their two children, Mackenzie, nine, and Logan, eight. “I can’t thank him enough for how much money he spent… I traveled to South Carolina during weekends my senior year [at Holy Cross High] to play in tournaments over the winter break.”

When he began high school, Mike Hyland said, his father sent him to Burlington Country Club, where he received instruction from Mack. It worked. Hyland blossomed into one of the best golfers in South Jersey history, earning a golf scholarship to the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

At 19, he became one of the youngest players to ever win the New Jersey Amateur, taking the title in 1998.

The Hylands, long-time members of Little Mill and winners of several father-son tournaments over the years, have similar games.

“We’re not very good at the straight shot, but he taught me how to curve the ball both ways,” Michael Hyland said. “We can get out of trouble—and that had a lot to do with growing up at Little Mill because there were always a lot of trees and a lot of trouble. You learned how to work the ball really hard, left to right, and right to left. And he was a big influence on that.”

Tom Hyland, whose home sits on the second tee at Little Mill, says his son is giving him too much credit.

“It’s not so much what I taught him, but kind of a function of the course,” Tom Hyland said. “We were lucky enough to grow up at Lit59

Photo Golf Association of Philadelphia

Michael Hyland (right) caddying for his father Tom at the 2015 U.S. Senior Amateur at Hidden Creek Golf Club in Egg Harbor Township, NJ.

tle Mill. It’s a wonderful golf course, and it has woods on both sides of every hole, so you have to learn how to curve the ball to get it back into play. When I was a kid, the older guys showed me how to curve the ball, and then I showed Michael a little bit, but his main instructor is Mike Mack. He’s been his instructor since he was a teenager.”

s for the U.S. Amateur, Michael Hyland said it was his ninth USGA event. “I would say I’ve had eight heartbreakers,” he said. “It’s nice to make it, but it would be really nice to go far in it. That’s the monkey on my back; it separates the really good national players versus somebody like me whose name isn’t that well-known nationally because I can’t get through.”

But he gained a huge measure of satisfaction by winning his first New Jersey Mid-Amateur (for those 30 and over) championship on Sept.

10, becoming one of only a handful of golfers to capture both the New Jersey Amateur and the state Mid-Amateur.

“It’s pretty neat to be in that company,” said Hyland, who, along with his wife, works as a realtor for the Berkshire-Hathaway’s Bertsch Team in Medford.

He had lost in the semifinals in his previous two tries in the state Mid-Amateur. This time, Hyland had all the answers—he had six birdies, including a 60-foot putt on the first hole, in the

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last round—and won in match play.

“Played 90 holes in three days,” he said, smiling. “That’s a lot of golf for an old man like me.”

Despite his recent surge, Hyland won’t be challenging Jordan Spieth or Rory McIlroy any time soon. At 36, he has no aspirations of turning pro. When he was younger, he played in pro events from 2002-04.

“That’s past me,” he said. “My whole life is my kids and my family right now. I want to see them succeed at whatever they want to do.”

And he’ll be by their sides.

“My daughter is on a travel softball team,” Hyland said, “so her 60-game travel schedule next year will definitely take a toll on my golf game.” n Michael Hyland’s tournament scorecard with hole-in-one on 12th hole.

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JOE SIXPACK

_______________________________________________________________________________

BY DON RUSSELL

Glen Macnow From Sports Guy to Beer Geek

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sports beat at the Philadelphia Inquirer before setOME DAY, the guys at Contling down in front of a microphone. shohocken Brewing are going to As a newspaperman myself, I spent a good let Glen Macnow into the brewhouse—and not just because he’s portion of my travels to out-of-town assignments one of the owners of the 18-monthseeking out unusual brews across the country.

I wondered if Macnow did the same thing as a old Montgomery County brewery. sportswriter.

The company keeps the long“Well, sure I would drink whatever was local time Philly sports radio host around primarily as to where I was traveling,” he said. In Texas it was an investor and as the brewery’s celebrity front Lone Star, in Pittsburgh it was Iron City, in Florida man. He’s a writer and a talker, not a mash tun it was Jax. “Most of them were shite....” operator or even a keg washer.

But there was one, in California, that he re And so he acknowledges, “They don’t let me back there in the big boy room.” calls well: Anchor Steam. “I remember being im But the guy has some beer chops, as I’ve come pressed by that, that this was a whole different to appreciate after numerous stints with him on taste than what I was used to.”

Glen Macnow SportsRadio WIP and our own Bar Talk podcast.

Oddly, I remember another local broadcaster He loves his IPAs, and he’s coming around on Beltelling me exactly the same thing many years ago.

Andy Musser, the late Phillies announcer, would gians. He scouts brewpubs on vacations, and he’s “WE WENT THERE, go out of his way on road trips to San Francisco unafraid to try anything different.

PROBABLY TWO and San Diego to find restaurants serving the Well, almost anything. He nearly gagged when OR THREE TIMES A now-famous Anchor. Coincidentally, Musser also he heard about an infamous New Zealand beer WEEK, AND TRIED went on to invest in a local brewery, the old Dock made with stag semen.

TO WORK OUR WAY Street brewpub on Logan Square.

So, how did a sports guy become such a beer Beer might have remained just a passing ingeek?

THROUGH THE BEER “You’re kidding, right?” Macnow said. “Beer terest for Macnow had it not been for a quirk of ALPHABETICALLY. and sports? Whoever would have thought of such radio scheduling.

I THINK I GOT UP a concept? It’s the most natural, hand-in-glove About 10 years ago, he found himself on the TO SWITZERLAND, concept that you could ever have imagined, and 7-to-11 p.m. shift at WIP. It was summertime and WHICH WAS A it’s been two of my passions since I was probably many of his reliable listeners were tuned into the NOBLE GOAL.” under-aged.” resurgent Phillies.

Ah yes, those fresh, young days as a 13-year“I realized I had to hit a different market,” he old in the 1960s, hanging out in Buffalo with his said. “So I did stuff like the Movie Club for Men, buddy (“I’m not making this up, his name was Mark Tipple.”), stealing stuff that guys care about.” a sixpack from his pal’s big brother. “Miller Lite,” he said when I asked Food. him to name his first beer. “I didn’t like it at all, except amazingly I was “I found the most elemental thing I could, which was burgers, and drawn back to it. I remember drinking it, and thinking it was going to be I started talking: ‘What’s the best burger in town?’ On a slow summer like soda, because it was carbonated… Like everybody who tries beer night when the Phillies were playing at home, my lines lit up, and everyfor the first time, you don’t like it.” one had an opinion, everybody.

But that’s kid stuff. By the time he hit 18 (the legal drinking age back “I thought, ‘It’s incumbent upon me to sort out the myth from the then), he had graduated to Canadian beer; he describes the free beer he fact.’ I had to go out and eat these burgers.” drank at the end of a Molson brewery tour as “a defining moment for His off-the-cuff idea turned into an annual contest with celebrity judgme.” Then it was onto Boston University and Harvard Square’s famous es. Ribs, pizza (“I ate 40 pizzas in 40 days”), hoagies, cheesesteaks…

Wursthaus, a German restaurant known for its long list of imported And then beer. beers. “We went there, probably two or three times a week, and tried to In 2011, he and his panel handed out awards during a packed final work our way through the beer alphabetically,” he said. “I think I got up round held at a South Philadelphia restaurant. Macnow was stunned by to Switzerland, which was a noble goal.” the enthusiastic crowd.

Macnow took the usual route toward a career as a journalist. Small, “That made me realize what a vibrant scene it was,” he said. “Until local papers in Florida, a big city daily in Detroit, then to a treasured then, I knew Yards and I knew Troegs and Victory, and one or two 64

others. But what I didn’t know was that there were 25 or 30 worthy brewers out there. That really opened my eyes to the Philly beer scene, because there was stuff that year that was just great….

“And it was probably the night I realized I’d like to be a part of this.”

When he was approached a couple years later by a close friend—a Delaware County dentist named Andy Rosen (“The biggest beer geek I know.”)—he was eager to hear his pitch to invest in a new brewery.

“There’s a lot of ways I can lose money, but doing it drinking beer seems more productive than a lot of other ways, given how my other investments have been going,” he said. “So I said why not, and I bought a small percentage of the brewery.”

When I ask him how small, he holds two fingers about an inch apart.

The brewery’s owner, John Remington, said, “That’s the wonderful thing about Glen. He owns a small piece, but you’d think he was the principal owner. The passion he brings to the project is incredible.”

Indeed, Conshohocken Brewing—housed in a plant along the Schuylkill River Trail—has quickly built a loyal following, mostly because of its lineup of well-made ales, but partly because Macnow is out there as its brand ambassador, hawking its beer.

“They pay me in pint glasses,” he joked.

I wondered, if given the chance, what type of beer he’d brew.

At first, Macnow told me it would be an India pale ale. But then he thought back to his younger days, growing up in New York, to fond

Glen Macnow with patrons at Conshohocken Brewing

memories of another beer that everyone drank, at a buck-and-a-half a sixpack: Genesee Cream Ale. “Ah, I would love for somebody to make a really good cream ale,” he said.

They really need to invite Macnow into the big boy room. n

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PUT DOWN THE FREAKIN’ PHONE! The Epidemic of Distracted Driving

BY MICHAEL BRADLEY

LOOK OUT, PHILADELPHIA DRIVERS, or people are going to start confusing you with those dopes from Connecticut. Worse, you might get mistaken for someone from Ohio.

And you don’t want that.

It’s getting bad out there on the roads, and that has nothing to do with politician-induced idiocy like the Blue Route’s drop from three lanes to two at the Broomall exit. Or the inspired decision to merge four lanes into two on the Schuylkill just east of the Turnpike exit.

Genius stuff.

Nope, this is all about how getting from Point A to Point Anywhere around here these days is being complicated by a growing inability for Philadelphia drivers to operate their vehicles properly. It’s not just confined to the 66

usual suspects, either. Men and women of all flavors are creating turmoil on the roads by not handling even the most basic driving duties. They don’t signal properly. They aren’t able to get out of the fast lane when someone who’s driving faster comes up behind them.

They don’t respond when the light changes.

And just watch someone try to get up a hill.

Hit the gas, fella!

The worst thing about this epidemic is that this buffoonery is happening on dry, clear roads. We are all familiar with the phenomenon of how the average IQ of Philadelphia drivers drops about 50 points the minute the first snowflake falls. But how do we account for the rotten driving when the sun is shining?

Like it or not, all of those warnings about distracted driving are looking pretty accurate.

We are doing everything in our cars these days except driving well, and it’s really starting to

piss me off. Can there be anything worse than trying to pass on the left while zipping up I-95 and being blocked in by some guy with a cell phone attached to his ear? What’s that you say? You think the woman adjusting her GPS while not getting through the crowded intersection is worse? Maybe, but perhaps neither has anything on the guy who is playing with his satellite radio and doesn’t put on the signal until he’s in the middle of his sudden-death Bat Turn.

“Fifteen years ago, all we had to do was get in the car and change the radio station or maybe put in a CD or a cassette tape,” says Jana Tidwell, manager of public and government affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic. “With all the technology in our cars today come more distractions.”

There have been plenty of reports about the fatal results of these distractions and the as-

We are doing everything in our cars these days EXCEPT DRIVING WELL, and it’s really starting to PISS ME OFF. sorted tragic implications of taking one’s eyes off the road. But even if a driver’s extracurricular activities don’t end in catastrophe, that doesn’t mean he or she isn’t having a negative impact on the people around them. It’s one thing if a crackerjack driver decides to make a phone call. That’s’ not ideal, but one would expect that person to have a limited drop-off in effectiveness. The real crime of this is that even bad drivers are eating, drinking, programming, talking, texting, arguing and daydreaming while on the ro ads. And the rest of us are paying the price.

“People are not thinking of themselves as part of a driving community,” says Kathy Bernstein, senior manager of driving initiatives for the National Safety Council. “They aren’t anticipating the actions of others.”

Simply put, we have to get better, Philadelphia. It’s one thing for that guy not to let you

merge onto the Schuylkill. This is the big time.

Either hit the gas and make a power move from the shoulder or move out to the Midwest and wait for some nice cheesehead to wave you onto the highway. It’s one thing to drive with attitude and quite another to suffer from rank incompetence. Being assertive on the roads is fine, although that might upset Ms. Bernstein and Ms. Tidwell. But no self-respecting citizen of the Northeast part of this country should ever settle for being an impediment to brisk travel. They can’t help themselves in Connecticut, but we can do something about it here.

We must. The highways are crowded with people who can’t maintain reputable speeds.

The local roadways get packed with people who wait until the last second to affect a threelane shift, because they haven’t been paying enough attention to know that their turn-off is 50 feet away. Slowpokes carry on inane

conversations instead of hitting the gas. And thanks to GPS systems, nobody has any idea where they are going until some electronic voice tells them to “turn left in 100 feet.” As a result, every maneuver on the road is now a surprise. Just try to find someone who can give directions these days. “Take the second right and the first left” has been replaced by “just plug it into your phone.” It’s disgraceful. We are becoming an area filled with empty-headed, satellite-radio-searching telephone addicts for whom driving is the last thing they care about once they buckle up their seat belts.

“There’s a lot of multitasking going on today,” Tidwell says. “But when you talk about cognitive distractions and what the brain is capable of doing, only one-to-two percent of people can do that.”

Lately, it’s becoming more and more obvious that those one-to-two percent don’t live around here.

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ou’re not going to get a sermon or a scolding here for talking on the phone while driving. I do it, albeit handsfree—every time. So, that makes me pretty good, right?

Wrong, according to the experts.

“People think that hands-free is risk-free,” Tidwell says. “It’s not. There is still a cognitive distraction if you are involved in a conversa-

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There can be NO DEBATE about texting, e-mailing, posting to social media or surfing the web while driving.

IT’S JUST PLAIN STUPID. tion or giving instructions to voice-activated tools.”

According to Bernstein, the mind “toggles” from one task to the other, which means that someone talking on the phone and driving is bouncing between making sure the figures he is giving to a client are accurate and noticing that the clown on the right is making a lane change without signaling. “When you are engaged in a conversation while driving, you are using different parts of your brain,” Bernstein says.

Oh, yeah? So why are we allowed to drive with passengers at all? People in the same car talk all the time. They even argue. And yell.

Why not mandate silence in automobiles? No more discussions or debates. Period. “If you are engaged in a conversation in the car with another adult driver, you are at least both looking at the road,” Bernstein says. Maybe,

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but I still think the evidence about driving and talking means that married people should never be allowed to drive together again.

There can be no debate about texting, emailing, posting to social media or surfing the web while driving. It’s just plain stupid.

A driver travelling 55 mph who takes his eyes off the road for five seconds to read a text will travel about a football field without looking.

Even James Bond couldn’t handle that kind of stretch. So, lay off the devices.

This may not be too popular with the folks at AAA or other organizations trying to save us from ourselves, but if you are going to talk on the phone while you drive, do so hands-free.

There’s a reason 14 states (including Jersey) and D.C. ban holding onto a phone when talking. It causes big problems. So, get a Bluetooth device, or put the other person on speaker. So

what if the sound quality is a little less than crisp? You don’t want to be that clueless guy driving with a phone stuck to his ear, unable to maneuver the car properly and causing the blood pressure of everyone around him to hit Alec Baldwin levels.

Even Bernstein, who is supposed to be the voice of calm in all of this, can’t handle it when someone is distracted on the road. “It makes me irate,” she says. If she’s that angry, imagine what the guy who hates his job, can’t deal with his four whiny kids and just learned that his favorite tappy is closing down is going to do when some knucklehead is driving 10 mph below the speed limit because his left arm is stuck to the side of his head.

“Distracted drivers make others want to get around them quickly, and that makes people take risks,” Bernstein says.

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DON’T DO THE CRIME IF YOU CAN’T PAY THE FINE

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ccording to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, the fines for talking or texting on a hand-held wireless communications device are as follows: First time offenders will face a fine of $200$400. The fine associated with a second offense will increase to $400-$600 and drivers who are caught a third time or more, will face a fine of $600-$800. Also, beginning with the third offense, there will be three (3) points assessed to the driver’s record and there may be a 90day driver license suspension as well.

New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission

So, don’t be that guy. Put down the phone and drive. Talk if you must, but do it handsfree.

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f we’re clear on that, it’s time to move on to some other rules that people don’t follow anymore. Pay attention, because it’s likely you’re guilty of at least one of them.

Speed Up or Get Out: The left lane of the highway is a laissez-faire region. That’s a term commonly used to describe the free market, but it also applies to the passing lane. If somebody wants to drive 95 mph on the far left, get out of the way and let him go. And should you find yourself in the left, make sure to check the rear-view regularly to make sure you aren’t leading a parade of 20 angry men behind you wanting to go faster than 55 mph. Head left to pass trucks and painfully slow motorists, but get out quickly, or put some ballast in your shoe and stand on the gas.

Green Means Go. NOW! When the light changes, you had better be ready to advance the car. Every few seconds you delay, whether you are checking a cat video or trying to find the nearest fast-food joint on your GPS, robs some other, more worthy driver of the chance to get where he has to go, which is probably to Fight Club or to save some orphans from a burning building. If you wait, you make others wait. That’s just wrong.

Hill, Yes! For some reason, area drivers have forgotten that applying the same pressure to the gas pedal while heading up a hill as when driving on flat pavement results in a drop in speed. As they go more slowly, everyone behind them suffers. Instead, they should suffer by having to watch every minute of every Sixers game this year.

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Eyes Front: Is that abandoned car on the side of the road that interesting that you have to stare it down for 10 seconds while dropping your speed 15 mph? Maybe it’s all right to rubberneck if there is a Blues Brothers-style crash on the other side of the highway. But if two cars are pulled over, there is absolutely no need to ease off the gas and get a good look. Get moving, Mr. Curious. You’re pissing everybody else off.

Police Story: Can someone please tell me why when a cop has pulled someone over on the highway and is standing next to the driver’s side window asking for a license and registration that everybody else has to drop down to 45 mph? What’s the guy going to do, run after you? Even if you were driving above the speed limit, there is no way for him to know it.

And, yet, the mere sight of a police car on the shoulder scares the hell out of everybody else.

If you’re going 80, ease up some, fella. Every-

body else, please carry on. I have places to go.

And, finally…

Snow Hope: It’s common knowledge that the area’s Hysterical Weather Machine regularly whips locals into a fever with its dire forecast of winter precipitation. (I’m talking to you, Hurricane Schwartz.) It’s how they make money. As soon as the first flake is forecast, the sales team springs to life and promises advertisers prime spots on “team coverage” for Snow-tastrophe 2016. While everyone heads out to buy the ingredients for French toast, they don’t have to drive like Alabamans who have never seen snow before. Be extra alert with the white stuff around. Maintain steady speeds. Signal early.

Be bold heading up those hills. In other words, drive like you have seen it before. It’s going to take a little extra time, but it doesn’t have to be a case of region-wide gridlock. If it’s too much for you, get the hell off the roads.

And let the good drivers have some room. n

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PROMOTION

Tax Court considers house flipper’s expense deductions

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ith many real estate markets on the rebound, real estate investors are resuming house-flipping strategies to reap profits by, among other benefits, deducting large amounts of related expenses. But those expenses are deductible only if incurred in connection with a “trade or business.” And, as the taxpayer in the recent case of Ohana v. Commissioner learned the hard way, a trade or business requires more than just vague intentions to sell at some point.

FLIPPER CLAIMS EXPENSES In 2005 and 2006, the taxpayer bought houses in Saratoga and Palo Alto, California.

He initially lived in the Saratoga house and rented the Palo Alto house.

During that time, he worked full-time in an executive position requiring long hours and extensive travel. Nonetheless, the taxpayer claimed to run a real estate business in which he planned to make money by flipping houses: that is, buying a house with the intent to fix it up and sell it at a profit. To avoid the risk of a down market, his strategy was to move into the house and live in it until the market was more favorable.

The taxpayer bought the Palo Alto house with the intent of tearing it down and building a new one. On the record deed, he checked a box indicating he intended to eventually make the house his primary residence; he also obtained a residential mortgage for the construction. In late 2009, he moved into the new Palo Alto house and rented out the now-renovated Saratoga house.

The taxpayer claimed more than $280,000 in non-rental expenses in the years 2007 to 2009. The IRS filed notices of deficiency disallowing all of the claimed nonrental expenses, and he appealed.

TAX COURT WEIGHS IN The U.S. Tax Court weighed whether the taxpayer’s activities amounted to being in a trade or business. To be engaged in a trade or business, a taxpayer must be involved in the activity in question with continuity and regularity for the purpose of garnering income or making a profit.

Although the taxpayer in this case was heavily involved in his real estate projects, he wasn’t continuously or regularly involved in the business of buying and selling real estate. As the court noted, he didn’t sell or buy a single property during the relevant period.

The Tax Court also found that the taxpayer’s primary purpose in engaging in the real estate activity — which revolved around properties that either were or became his homes — wasn’t for profit. It first considered the Saratoga house, observing that — though the taxpayer had begun to rent it out in 2009 — he’d never tried to sell it.

The court added that the taxpayer had failed to record any of his expenses for the home, so the deductions would have been denied for lack of substantiation.

As to the Palo Alto house, the taxpayer argued that the expenses incurred in building the new home weren’t personal because he intended to make a profit on its eventual sale. But, the court noted, referencing a prior case, if hoping to eventu-

ally sell a house at a profit was sufficient to establish a profit-making intent, “rare indeed would be the homeowner who purchased a home several years ago who couldn’t make the same claim.”

Regardless, the facts showed that the taxpayer had always intended to make the new Palo Alto home his personal residence. When he bought the property, he told third parties it was to be his primary residence. He enrolled his children in the Palo Alto school system for the 2008 and 2009 years. And, his loans were the type one would obtain for a primary residence.

The court also pointed to “minor touches” that made the home less marketable for sale and more useful for the taxpayer. These included a custom-built door with a peephole low enough for the 5-foot, 4-inch taxpayer to see out of it.

LOOK BEFORE YOU FLIP House flipping may seem like an easy path to great profits, but that’s not always the case. Work with your tax advisor to ensure you can defend any deductions you take against IRS scrutiny.

TAXPAYER’S USE OF TAX PREPARER DIDN’T PREEMPT PENALTIES In Ohana v. Commissioner, the U.S. Tax Court upheld the underpayment penalties assessed against the taxpayer. (See main article.) A substantial underpayment exists if the understatement exceeds the greater of 10 percent of the amount of tax required to be shown on the tax return or $5,000. An additional issue in the case was whether the taxpayer had a reasonable-cause-and-good-faith defense.

Among other things, the court considered whether he’d actually relied in good faith on his tax preparer’s judgment — and concluded that he hadn’t. The Tax Court noted the general rule that a taxpayer can’t avoid his or her duty to file accurate returns by placing responsibility on an agent such as a tax preparer.

Moreover, taxpayers have a duty to read their returns to ensure that all income items are included. Given this particular taxpayer’s unusually focused attention to detail in other areas of his life, the court didn’t find him credible when he said he’d never once looked at his tax returns or checked his accounting records against his returns.

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BY ASHLEY DUNEK

Pedal

Power PEDAL YOUR WAY TO BETTER HEALTH WITH IBC’S INDEGO BIKES!

P

arking. Traffic. The PPA. Gas prices.

Just a few of the piercing headaches to endure when driving into Center City during the morning rush hour commute. Don’t get me started on the endless construction that has us fighting over one lane on Vine Street.

The solution is here, Philly.

Indego, with its main sponsor Independence Blue Cross, is helping to ease Philly drivers’ problems one bike ride at a time (and promoting healthy living as a bonus!). Did you know that taking a relaxing bike ride burns almost 300 calories an hour? You can burn off breakfast before you tackle your work day!

Indego’s bike share features hundreds of bikes that are available to patrons any time of day, any day of the week. With 60 bike stations strategically placed in high traffic areas, they are changing the way us Philadelphians travel around the City of Brotherly Love.

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This isn’t some lame, expensive, Rent-ABike program. Indego has flexible and affordable membership programs for every type of rider. Members receive a unique key that gives them access to bikes at any station— much more attractive than trying to remember where you parked your car the morning after

an Eagles game.

In a statement from Dr. Richard Snyder, Independence chief medical officer, he raves about the relationship with Indego, “We’re thrilled at the positive response that the program has gotten in Philadelphia. In the first five months since the program launched on April

23, 264,000 rides have been taken on Indego bikes, and there are nearly 7,000 members— well ahead of the program projections!”

For $15 a month, Indego30 is the premier level membership meant for frequent riders— the riders who use Indego for their morning commute or enjoy a nightly ride through the city. Your first hour is always free, and after that you chalk up a mere four dollars an hour. Beats cab fare any day!

Indego has 60 bike stations strategically placed in high traffic areas throughout the city.

IndegoFlex is meant for the riders who aren’t sure how much they will ride, so they pay as they go. For just $10 a YEAR (cheaper than a pizza in Northern Liberties), you pay four dollars an hour every time you feel like taking a spin.

These programs are a no-brainer for riders of all levels.

You can always opt for a walk-up ride; just swipe your card and pay four dollars per half hour of riding. Bored on a Sunday afternoon?

Grab one of Indego’s baby blue bikes and take an unguided scenic tour of our historic city.

Indego and Independence Blue Cross have even created special opportunities for local businesses, offering corporate memberships and discounted rates for hotels and conventions in the area. The promotions don’t stop there. “Independence Dollar Days” take place on the first Tuesday of every month and walk-up trips are just $1 for the first thirty minutes. This is about the only thing I know of that costs $1 in Philly.

Indego and partner Independence Blue Cross are helping to make Philadelphia’s transportation system healthy, active and innovative. “A world-class city deserves world-class transportation—and we are excited to help Indego grow over the coming years,” says Dr. Snyder.

Use the hashtag #RideIndego to tell the world why you love Indego… I did! n 75

THE

Entrepreneur Coach

by John Hopkins

inspireme@inspiritgrowth.com

Focus, Execute, and Win with Team Potency

CH L E A R

YOUR MOST VALUABLE INVESTMENTS. ow often do we remind ourselves of the significance and value of the two BIGGEST investments we have ever made? Is it frequent enough to avoid taking either for granted?

The most valuable investment is in ourselves via the business. The second most valuable investment is in our people. While our customers or clients are the business’s “highest priority,” our teams are our most valuable assets. Products and services are delivered primarily by our people. What we have to offer comes from the efforts of our teams. Innovation and the customer experience we create is driven by the people that shape the culture of the company. The leverage we have, or don’t have, to do what entrepreneurial owners must do is as a result of how self-motivated, inspired and competent our high potential employees are with their responsibilities.

Our people either directly enhance the company brand or limit it. So our people need “team potency” as much as the team needs our leadership.

WHAT IS TEAM POTENCY AND WHY IS IT SO ESSENTIAL TO YOUR BUSINESS? TEAM POTENCY is the high potential a group of like-minded employees has to grow through shared belief and mutual trust. It is essential to understand because within any work environment, the degree of collaboration and business success comes from belief in the mission and trust in the vision as a team. This is a two-way street between leadership and employees, but most of the nurturing effort is a leadership initiative. How well do we do this as business owners? Are we all good at developing self-initiating teams? If you said no, that is because what makes an entrepreneur successful out of the gate is being driven, working solo, doing whatever it takes, making things happen. Team building was not on your mind; you learned as you grew. While patience is a virtue, it is not ever-present in most entrepreneurs! Nurturing shared belief and mutual trust requires patience and candid team communication to shape a great culture and succession plan. If you said yes, that’s advantageous and good for you, but it’s rare. Regardless, it is a MUST do if you seek better business balance, growth and more time to enjoy what you love to do.

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SO HOW DO YOU BUILD AND MAINTAIN HIGH POTENTIAL TEAMS? Have a “CLEAR” impact by…

COACHING – There is a shift going on now from being supervised to being coached. This shift includes employees becoming more self-sufficient with self-coaching learning systems. Learning how to coach is emerging as more vital than managing.

Everyone’s performance shifts when they move to self-learning tools. They can be more effective and potent as a team.

LISTENING – Have your employees present their findings to you in an orderly way with their self-coached tools once a month in a Growth Review Session.

EMPOWERING – Give your employees the latitude and confidence that we have all “mistaken our way to success.”

Failure is a fear that employees have because most leaders do not know how to encourage their teams around how to deal better with failure. We grow when we fail. When we don’t fail, we don’t grow. Mistakes and failure are part of being in an entrepreneurial business. By empowering people to work in a high potential team environment, the risk of error is substantially reduced, the business performs better and knowledge-sharing creates more leverage for the owner to pursue more strategic growth initiatives.

APPRECIATING – We all need positive reinforcement and inspiration. The demands on our time as owners unfortunately leaves us with less time to express our appreciation even though we have it in our minds and hearts. Set calendar discipline to devote to appreciation. Once per quarter, schedule a team appreciation event. For example, a group dinner on the third Thursday of the third month of each quarter can do wonders, and you have locked this in your mental calendar.

REWARDING – As a “coach” of your teams, you want to reinforce the right individual and team performance behaviors.

This is almost effortless and inexpensive today with simple rewards like gift cards, dinner gift certificates, and other easy rewards that can be ordered online. Saying THANK YOU is still the most important reward, but backing that up with a series of small gift cards for trendy stores goes a long way to reinforce the right behaviors.

Be CLEAR to develop and grow high potential teams. It is a win/win! n

77

THE HEALTH REFEREE ______________________________________________________________________________________________

BY DR. RUBINA TAHIR, DC

Welcome to the World Series!

Your fans at Citizens Bank Park are ready for you to clinch the series tonight!

Will you strike out against the famous Team Migraine’s curve ball? Or will you knock that migraine out of the park?

T

EAM MIGRAINE made it to the championships because of its consistency to outplay their opponents. The team is well known for plays that include:

• Pain on one side or both sides of your head • Pain that has a pulsating, throbbing quality • Pain behind one of your eyes • Pain that becomes worse with routine physical activity • Sensitivity to light, sounds and sometimes smells • Nausea and vomiting • Blurred vision • Lightheadedness, sometimes followed by fainting

TYPES OF MIGRAINES Depending on the symptoms, most migraine headaches are categorized as “migraine with aura” (known as a classic migraine) or “migraine without aura” (known as a common migraine). Aura refers to feelings and symptoms you notice shortly before the headache begins. These early symptoms are also called a prodrome. In visual aura, the vision changes might include such things as losing part or all of one’s vision for a short period of time, or seeing zig-zag or squiggly lines. Typically these visual symptoms come on gradually, develop over a period of about half an hour, and fade away as the migraine headache begins. The entire episode usually does not last longer than an hour. Some people with migraine have other types of aura, in which they experience problems such as numbness, tingling or weakness.

MIGRAINE STATISTICS Let’s check in with Alene Brennan, certified Health Coach, Natural Food Chef and Yoga Instructor, who is reporting live from the field: “The stats are surprising! Nearly one in four U.S. households includes someone with mi78

graine. Many people do not realize how serious a threat Team Migraine can be. Migraines rank in the top 20 of the world’s most disabling medical illnesses. Every 10 seconds, someone in the United States goes to the emergency room with a headache or migraine. Migraine affects 36 million men, women and children in the United States. 27 million of those sufferers are women.”

a trigger for some migraine sufferers.

How To Steal A Base Ginger

There are plays that work to defeat Team Migraine, and have been used successfully by many teams in previous games. Let’s take a look as our research indicates that there is a link between migraines and food.

Chewing on raw ginger has been linked to alleviated migraine pain. This powerhouse play is a remedy that you can carry with you anywhere. Keep a small piece in your wallet, purse, car and office. An alternative to raw ginger is an herbal ginger tea. Ginger has been used for centuries as a natural remedy for nausea, diarrhea and upset stomach, and to aid digestion, since these symptoms may accompany a migraine.

Secure A Base Hit

How To Hit a Double:

Chia Seeds

Spinach!

The omega 3’s are anti-inflammatory and work well for migraine relief and guarantee a single, so you can secure first base. Why is this play successful? Chia seeds are a top plant source of omega 3 fatty acids, which can help reduce the frequency, intensity and duration of headaches. They also can serve as a great egg substitute in recipes because eggs are known to be

Spinach is effective for migraine prevention for two reasons: The magnesium content will help you round first base in a flash! Spinach is packed with magnesium, a nutrient that researchers find is low in all migraine sufferers. A study published in The Journal of Neural Transmission states that “oral magnesium is warranted in all miAlene Brennan

graine sufferers.” In another study, people who took magnesium reduced the frequency of attacks by 41.6%, compared to 15.8% in those who took the placebo.

Spinach also contains Riboflavin, also called Vitamin B2, which is necessary for the body’s production of energy, getting you safely to second base. Research shows that migraine sufferers may not have enough Vitamin B2.

Make It a Triple Coffee The most controversial ingredient of this World Series, but caffeine does have its benefits. Research suggests that regular consumption can actually trigger migraines. However, once completely eliminated from the diet, coffee can be introduced as an effective and immediate treatment for migraine.

Homerun! Going, going, gone!

Watermelon It’s an excellent way to elevate your water consumption. Chronic dehydration is a migraine trigger and the easiest to fix. To help boost your hydration, have one to two serv-

ings of water-rich fruit like watermelon, strawberries, grapefruit, cantaloupe and pineapples with at least one meal a day.

Share your migraine remedies! Tweet us at @JerseyManMag, @PhillyManMag, @chirorubina. We want to know what helps you!

CAUSES OF MIGRAINES

References:

Researchers are not sure what causes a migraine, although they know it involves changes in the blood flow to the brain. At first, blood vessels narrow or constrict, reducing blood flow and leading to visual disturbances, difficulty speaking, weakness, numbness, tingling sensation in one area of the body or other similar symptoms. Later, the blood vessels dilate, or enlarge, leading to increased blood flow and a severe headache.

1. Alene Brennan www.alenebrennan.com 2. J Neural Transm. 2012 May;119(5):575-9. doi: 10.1007/s00702-0120790-2. Epub 2012 Mar 18.

3. Clin Neurosci. 1998;5(1):24-7.

4. Eur J Neurol. 2004;11:475-477.

There also seems to be a genetic link to migraine headaches. More than half of migraine patients have an affected family member.

TREATMENT FOR MIGRAINES Prevention is key when it comes to migraines.

Using food as medicine, in combination with a healthy lifestyle, can control migraines by reducing the frequency and intensity of attacks.

Congrats on your world series win! n

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Stay in touch jerseymanmagazine.com

80

2015

September

Did we miss 9 the day that will make history?

S

EPTEMBER 9, 2015, was a very important day. I’m not plugging the fact that I turned 35. I am focusing on the subtle yet profound announcements made by Apple. Looking back 10 years from now, we might realize that we witnessed one of the most significant announcements in technology and not even known it.

On his deathbed, Steve Jobs noted that (according to his autobiography) he has figured out the future of TV. That is an extremely bold statement, but considering he changed the mobile phone market, the carrier market and the delivery of music, his statement was not far-fetched. Before his passing, he said he had a plan in place. Let’s Jobs fast forward to 9/9/15.

Apple announced the newest Apple TV, one of Steve’s last projects that he started from the beginning. Not

TECH TIME

______________________________

BY ANTHONY MONGELUZO

announced a new iPad... big deal, right?

Very much so. This new iPad will be 12.9 inches... no big deal, right? Not really… but what other options will be available to accompany this new device? One of Steve Jobs’ biggest accomplishments was the iPad. Steve loathed the stylus and called it a useless piece of technology. On 9/9, Apple introduced the Apple Pen, which is in essence a glorified stylus. Additionally, Apple will also be selling a full-size attachable keyboard for this new iPad, another thing that Steve was not too fond of with his invention.

They always say that when one door clos-

es, another opens. Sept. 9, 2015 may have silently marked the day that Apple will change TV forever. It may have even more quietly shown the new era of Apple and its new CEO, Tim Cook, who has always been lurking in the shadows of Steve Jobs but making his mark on technology. Tim Cook has always been there for Apple and Steve. He has been a silent and literally unknown powerhouse in the company. The fingerprint and vision of Apple will be changing. Tim Cook is now leading that change. Sept. 9, 2015 might be one of the bigger days in history that none of us realized even happened. n

SEPT. 9, 2015 MAY HAVE SILENTLY MARKED THE DAY THAT APPLE WILL

CHANGE TV FOREVER. only will Siri be a major part of the experience (you will be able to use your voice to search through multiple apps for content), this new Apple TV will be a game system, and focus on “APPS.” Apple CEO Tim Cook said we consume more television now on our mobile devices than we do actually watching “regular” TV, and Apple wants to lead this new revolution. Given the explosion of Netflix, Hulu and general on-demand content, I cannot disagree. Will our new TVs be a giant iPhone with voice capability and act as a large iPad/iPhone? It is very possible.

If you heard the announcements, you also might have realized a sudden change in Apple’s offerings and what many Apple loyalists consider a transgression. Apple 81

BY MOLLY GOLUBCOW

LOOKING FOR MEDICAL CARE

I

t’s 2015 and we live in an iPhone and instant messaging world. We expect to have information, products and services at our fingertips.

Waiting days to receive a letter used to be normal; now it’s a text, a tweet and a nanosecond away. When it comes to health care and wanting to feel better, the “I want it now” attitude applies as well.

Whether you call them urgent care centers, doc-in-a-box clinics or walk-in clinics, these businesses are popping up in epidemic numbers (pun intended). Between 2009 and 2013, the number of such health centers doubled in the US to more than 400 according to data from the American Hospital Association.

In addition to the walk-in concept, health care is showing up in all sorts of unlikely places, ranging from your local CVS to the produce section at ShopRite. So, let’s take a look and see 82

(in all the NEW places)

how health care delivery options have changed from the traditional make-an-appointmentwith-your-doctor-and-wait, to no-appointmentneeded, 24/7-help-is-around-the-corner (literally in most cases) approach.

Feel Better Later Than Sooner?

I Don’t Think So…!

It’s Sunday afternoon and you decide to put up fencing in your backyard. Instead of hammering the nail, you accidentally smash your thumb— it’s black and blue, swollen and hurts like hell.

Rather than suffer all night waiting until Monday morning to call your family doctor to see if he can “squeeze you in,” there are walk-in clinics available everywhere—in malls, neighborhood shopping sites and even pharmacies.

What drives this trend for instant and convenient medical care? The first words that come to mind are getting in and out quickly. For example, MinuteClinic (a division of CVS Health) is the largest provider of retail clinics with more

than 800 locations in 28 states serving more than 20 million patients. In the Cherry Hill, NJ area, four CVS pharmacies offer medical care when you need it—especially important on weekends and evenings. And, being located within a pharmacy makes for one stop shopping—see the doctor and then get the prescription filled under the same roof.

As the name implies, many MinuteClinics are located minutes away and strive to get you seen by a physician or medical practitioner as soon as possible—without an appointment.

You simply walk in, sign up at a computer kiosk and wait to be called. If there is a 30-minute or more wait, you can leave the clinic and wait for a text message alerting you when to return for your appointment. Why sit in a waiting room full of sick people when you can wait at Starbucks?!

In addition to convenience, MinuteClinic offers an impressive menu of illnesses that they treat including strep throat; bladder infections; pink eye; minor wounds; sprains; and ear, nose

EchoLab by Medical Appware, LLC

According to a 2014 Health Research Institute survey, consumers are favorable to forgoing traditional care methods and trying more convenient and affordable options - 58.6% would use an at-home strep test purchased at a store, and 42% would have a urinalysis test and echocardiogram done at home using a device attached to their smartphones.

and throat infections—conditions that would be no fun to have while persevering through a weekend or waiting for a doctor’s appointment.

ER vs Walk-In Clinics - Getting to be a No Brainer of a Choice Your six-year-old daughter fell off her bike and might have broken her wrist. It’s 7:00 p.m. on a Tuesday evening. Where should you take her?

Besides a convenient and fast treatment, cost may go through your mind as well. Yes, there’s the ER at the local hospital, but you don’t want to spend four or more hours in a waiting room full of “emergency” cases. Options?

In many cases, a trip to a walk-in clinic is CHEAPER than traditional alternatives. According to statistics from the Medica Choice, a health care insurer, the cost of visiting an urgent care center for most medical conditions was cheaper than the emergency room. For example, the average ER claim for strep throat was $531 vs. $111 for a walk-in clinic, saving Medica Choice patients an average of $420.

Because of this trend, many insurance plans offer lower copays for members who visit urgent care centers rather than emergency rooms—a penny saved is a penny earned for you and your insurance company. For patients without insurance options, clinics accept cash and credit cards, and in many cases are able to set up payment plans.

Located in nine locations throughout South Jersey, AtlantiCare offers convenient hours, board-certified providers, X-ray and lab services and the ability to treat a wide variety of non-life-threatening illnesses and injuries ranging from sore throats to sports injuries. Similar to the MinuteClinic model, AtlantiCare Urgent centers make an attractive alternative to traditional doctor office visits because of their availability (open seven days a week) and their accessibility. No appointment is ever necessary

and they have many locations in South Jersey including Marmora, Egg Harbor Township, Hammonton and Sicklerville.

Pros & Cons, if Any….

Regardless of the urgent care option that you select, patients seem to prefer being treated in a doc-in-the box environment as opposed to ER or even the “family doctor” route. Convenience is the driving factor there, but is that enough of a reason to kiss your doctor goodbye forever?

The answer is up to you, of course.

Many doctors see why patients like the walkin clinic model for their medical care. However, some doctors feel that the lack of continuity of care could be an issue for some patients and certain illnesses. Dr. Jordan Teglasi, an internist working in a walk-in clinic, explains the two sides of the argument, “I think the walk-in clinic concept is a great idea—perfect for keeping people out of ERs and hospitals. However, what I see lacking is that there is an issue with continuity of care.”

Ironically, Dr. Teglasi’s sentiment is not lost on doc-in-a-box centers. In an effort to mimic a more family doctor-like experience, some clinics are offering follow-up calls 24-48 hours after a visit just to see how you are feeling. In addition, MinuteClinic offers preventative care plans ranging from TB testing, physicals and healthy lifestyle programs such as smoking cessation and weight loss programs. To further help you stay healthy instead of treating you for illnesses, MinuteClinic provides education and medical guidance for those with diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

Attention Shoppers - Nutritionist in Isle 6!

In addition to finding medical care in a pharmacy setting, grocery stores are offering “supermarket dietitians” to educate customers about food as they shop for said food. According to the Retail Dietitians Business Alliance (RDBA), there are currently more than 400 retail registered dietitians throughout the US working in supermarkets helping customers with food and nutrition issues. So, if you ever wanted to know what veggies were high in calcium but were afraid to ask, your worries are over! In-store dieticians provide answers as well as cooking demonstrations and classes. They can also develop recipes for you and your needs.

Ciara Beck, Registered Dietician, can be found most days on the floor at the ShopRite in Somers Point, NJ readily answering customer questions about diets, products or nutrition labels. In addition, she offers healthy recipes and product demonstrations. If needed, you can also schedule one-on-one consultations in which Beck gives personalized advice ranging from

nutritional counseling to weight management, and the service is free for shoppers.

Nutritional information on packaging can be like confusing gibberish to consumers. Beck explained how she helps shoppers feel a little less overwhelmed by packing information overload: “My goal is to help customers break down the information and simplify the messages to help them accomplish their health and wellness goals and achieve a balanced diet.”

Supermarket nutritionists like Beck also help customers understand what foods they need to buy based on health issues they or their family might have. For example, she educates shoppers about sugar content, gluten-free products and managing lactose intolerances.

Rather than having to make an appointment with a nutritionist and pay the fee (and/or a copay), grocery stores offer the advice right on the spot where you probably have your most food-related questions. According to Beck, “Being based in ShopRite really has its advantages.

I’m available to walk the aisles with customers to help them make the healthiest food choices and read product labels with them.”

A Virtual Apple a Day… An apple a day used to keep the doctor away.

However, in 2015 if you need a doctor, it might only be an Apple iPhone app away. The times they are a changin’—and so is how, when, where and by whom we expect to get our health care delivered.

What’s in store for the future? Most likely medical care will keep pace with the rest of our lifestyles—fast, convenient and efficient. So, you will probably still say “ahhhh” and take an antibiotic. You just may do it over a video conference via your iPad. n

FOOTBALL 2015

All-Jersey NFL Squad New Jersey might not have the rep of, say, Texas or Florida when it comes to high school football.

There wasn’t a book, a movie and a television show based on a town in South Jersey.

Through the years the Garden State has continued to produce its share of NFL players, including Hall of Famers such as Elvin Bethea from Trenton, Franco Harris from Mount Holly and Dave Robinson from Willingboro, and still does today.

Here’s a position-by-position list of the current All-New Jersey NFL squad.

OFFENSE QUARTERBACK: Joe Flacco (Audubon), Baltimore Ravens Flacco joined two other Jersey natives in Joe Theismann (South River) and Jim McMahon (Jersey City) when he led the Ravens to a Super Bowl win.

In his seven-year career, Flacco has taken the Ravens to the playoffs six times and has a sparkling 10-5 record in the postseason.

Joe Flacco

good size. Streater and Britt have good speed. Miles provides a veteran presence, just as he does for the Eagles. And the rookie White may turn out to be the best of them all.

The 2010 fourth-round draft pick out of Wisconsin has blossomed into a dependable starter for the Texans and an integral part of their offense. The two-time AllState performer at Brick Township, Graham caught 49 passes for 545 yards in 2013.

RUNNING BACKS: Shonn Greene (Sicklerville), free agent; Donald Brown (Atlantic Highlands), San Diego Chargers

WIDE RECEIVERS: Victor Cruz (Paterson), New York Giants; Mohammad Sanu (South Brunswick), Cincinnati Bengals; Rod Streater (Burlington), Oakland Raiders; Kenny Britt (Bayonne), St. Louis Rams; Miles Austin (Garfield), Philadelphia Eagles; Kevin White (Plainfield), Chicago Bears Flacco has a diverse array of receivers to throw to on the Jersey team. Cruz, coming back from a knee injury suffered last year against the Eagles, is one of the league’s best slot receivers. Sanu, at 6’2”, 215, has 84

BY MARK ECKEL

TIGHT ENDS: Garrett Graham (Brick), Houston Texans

Greene, who played for the Jets and Titans, and Brown provide not just a colorful backfield, but a good mix of power (Greene) and speed (Brown). The 5’11”, 226-pound Greene, who went to Winslow Township High School, gained 4,110 yards in six NFL seasons and had consecutive 1,000-yard seasons in 2011 and 2012. Brown, from Red Bank Catholic, was a firstround pick of the Chargers in 2009.

OFFENSIVE LINE: Eugene Monroe (Plainfield), Baltimore Ravens; Johnnie Troutman (Browns Mills), San Diego Chargers; Jeremy Zuttah (Edison), Baltimore Ravens; Richie Incognito (Englewood), Buffalo Bills; T.J. Clemmings (Teaneck), Minnesota Vikings That’s a pretty solid front to keep Flacco protected.

Monroe is a good left tackle; and the rookie Clem-

mings is starting for Minnesota at right tackle. Zuttah, at center, knows Flacco well. And Troutman, out of Pemberton High School and Penn State, and Incognito can get it done at guard.

And if need be, maybe we can convince Anthony Davis (Piscataway), the former first-round pick of the San Francisco 49ers to come out of his early retirement.

DEFENSE DEFENSIVE LINE: Muhammad Wilkerson (Linden), New York Jets; B.J. Raji (Washington Twp.), Green Bay Packers; Mike Daniels (Stratford), Green Bay Packers; Vinny Curry (Neptune), Philadelphia Eagles This group is going to get after the quarterback from inside and outside. Wilkerson, the Temple product, has developed into one of the top defensive linemen in the league. Last year playing in the Jets’ 3-4 scheme he had six sacks, but was also a force against the run.

Raji, coming back from a torn pectoral that caused him to miss all of 2014, is a premier nose tackle for

Muhammad Wilkerson

Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs have produced their share of NFL players as well.

Here’s a list of the top dozen current players from the city and surrounding areas.

Matt Ryan (Exton), QB, Atlanta Falcons: Ryan, who went to Penn Charter, is in his eighth year with the Falcons. He’s taken his team to the playoffs four times in seven years and led the Falcons to the NFC Championship Game in 2013.

the Packers and was a catalyst for their 2010 Super Bowl team. Daniels, Raji’s teammate in Green Bay, is a fierce inside pass rusher. The Highland Regional High School standout has 19 1/2 sacks the past three seasons. Curry emerged last season as an elite edge pass rusher, totaling nine sacks in 2014 despite playing just 32 percent of the defensive snaps, and also had three sacks wiped out by penalty.

LINEBACKERS: Tamba Hali (Teaneck), Kansas City Chiefs; Brian Cushing (Park Ridge), Houston Texans; Gerold Hodges (Paulsboro), Minnesota Vikings Hali, who has played his entire 10-year career with Kansas City after coming out of Penn State, is a multiple-Pro Bowl selection and one of the league’s most feared outside pass rushers. Cushing is the key in the middle of a Texans’ defense that promises to be very good this season. Hodges, a fourth-round pick in 2013 out of Penn State, is a versatile defender for the Vikings who will see action in different packages for Mike Zimmer.

CORNERBACKS: Aqib Talib (Trenton), Denver Broncos; Logan Ryan (Berlin), New England Patriots; Jason McCourty (Montvale), Tennessee Titans; Dwayne Gratz (Piscataway), Jacksonville Jaguars Not many are aware that Talib, one of the game’s best cover corners and a Pro Bowl player, is from the state capital. He grew up in Trenton, but moved to Texas when he was in the eighth grade. Ryan, who played his high school ball at Eastern High, is a starter for the Super Bowl champion Patriots. McCourty is used both outside and in the slot for the Titans. Gratz sees most of his action in the nickel for the Jaguars and would do the same for team Jersey.

Devin McCourty

Jahri Evans (Philadelphia), G, New Orleans Saints: The six-time Pro Bowl guard has played all 10 of his NFL seasons with the Saints. The Frankfort High product is one of the league’s best guards and has been since he entered the league in 2006.

Brent Grimes (Philadelphia), CB, Miami Dolphins: The Northeast High product has gone to the past two Pro Bowls as a Dolphin after spending his first six years with the Atlanta Falcons. He has nine of his 22 career interceptions for the Dolphins in the past two years.

Justin Pugh (Holland), OL, New York Giants: Pugh, from Council Rock South High in Bucks County, was the Giants first-round pick (19th overall) in the 2013 draft. He started at right tackle his first two years in the league, but has moved to left guard in 2015.

Derrick Morgan (Coatesville), DE/LB, Tennessee Titans: Tennessee’s first round pick in 2010, Morgan was a 4-3 defensive end, but switched to outside linebacker in the team’s 3-4 scheme. He has 23 career sacks.

Sharrif Floyd (Philadelphia), DT, Minnesota Vikings: Minnesota’s first-round pick out of the University of Florida in 2013, Floyd, from George Washington High School, will start on the defensive line for the Vikings in 2015.

Earl Watford (Philadelphia), OL, Arizona Cardinals: Selected in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft, Watford, out of Simon Gratz High School, won the Cardinals starting right tackle job this preseason.

Matt Schaub (West Chester), QB, Baltimore Ravens: This is Schaub’s 12th NFL season, and first with the Ravens. He began his career as Michael Vick’s backup with the Atlanta Falcons and enjoyed his most success with the Houston Texans from 2007-13 and went to the Pro Bowl in 2009 and 2012.

Bernard Pierce (Ardmore), RB, Jacksonville Jaguars: This is Pierce’s fourth year in the league and first with the Jaguars after spending his first three with the Ravens. The Glenn Mills product was part of Baltimore’s Super Bowl champions in 2012.

The Eagles weren’t able to pair McCourty with Jenkins in their secondary, although they tried. We can here with the Jersey team, and it forms a dynamic pair of safeties.

McCourty might be the best in the league (Earl Thomas is right there as well) and Jenkins is as solid as they come. Adams and Hill are good set of backups.

COACHES HEAD COACH: Bruce Arians (Paterson), Arizona Cardinals DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR: Todd Bowles (Elizabeth), New York Jets OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR: Greg Roman (Atlantic City), Buffalo Bills

SAFETIES: Mike Adams (Paterson), Indianapolis Colts; Devin McCourty (Montvale), New England Patriots; Malcolm Jenkins (Piscataway), Philadelphia Eagles; Will Hill (West Orange), Baltimore Ravens

Arians gets the nod over Bowles, who is in his first year as head coach of the Jets. But we’ll reunite the two on the Jersey staff and add Roman, who worked with Jim Harbaugh for years in San Francisco and is in his first year with the Bills as offensive coordinator.

Ryan Nassib (West Chester), QB, New York Giants: Nassib, the Giants’ fourth round draft pick in 2013, went to powerful Malvern Prep before moving on to Syracuse. He’s been Eli Manning’s backup with the Giants his first three years in the league.

Jalen Strong (Philadelphia), WR, Houston Texans: Strong was a third-round pick of the Texans in this past draft and is expected to help the team’s passing game. The West Catholic High product had a good career at Arizona State, which led to his draft status.

Ibraham Campbell (Cheltenham), DB, Cleveland Browns: A product of Chestnut Hill Academy, Campbell went to Northwestern University where he was a fourth-round pick of the Browns in this past draft. He’s a backup in the secondary for the Browns.

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WHAT WE WEAR

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BY DANIEL R. MORRONI

Achieving the lived-in look

W

hile a crisp, clean look is appealing, there are times when you don’t want to look too pressed, too starched, too new. Especially in your custom casual clothing, you may want to create a more relaxed look than your dressier wardrobe pieces offer—without sacrificing on style or fit.

Your expertly crafted customwear will lookand feel—as comfortable and familiar as your long-beloved favorites.

Your color choices can also help create a more broken-in look. Choose muted earth tones instead of bright, crisp colors. Mossy greens, camel brown and heathered colors are good options when crafting that subtle lived-in look. Low-contrast plaids and stripes look more relaxed than contrasting colors.

‘‘

Denim is a perennial favorite for crafting the lived-in look. Its color intensity varies sharply with wear, yet denim offers long-lasting durability. Pairing a custom-made shirt in an earth tone with a well-fitting pair of denim jeans instantly gives you an appealing ensemble. Remember that you’re not limited to blue denim—dark gray or tan jeans can create a refreshing change of pace in casualwear.

A man should look as if he had bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care, and then forgotten all about them.” - Hardy Amies

HOW TO STORE A TIE Your holiday or seasonal neckwear needs a safe place to rest until its moment to shine arrives. Instead of letting occasional-use ties collect dust or fade by languishing near your everyday ties, treat them right by storing them wisely.

Fold the tie in half lengthwise. Roll it up smoothly from the folded end to the point.

Be careful your roll is neither too tight nor too loose. Store the tie in a shallow drawer.

Now it’ll be in excellent condition when its day to shine arrives. n

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87

GET FIT

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BY ALEXANDRA DUNEK

Step It Up!

T

HE ART MUSEUM OF PHILADELPHIA is one of the most iconic places in the City of Brotherly Love. It attracts visitors from all over who are eager to soak in the building’s beauty and history. You will see tons of people snapping pictures, hanging out, eating lunch or even getting a workout in on the steps. The 72 steps that lead to the top serve as a challenge for anyone who attempts the climb.

I’m always down to switch up my training. The repetitive gym routine can get boring from time to time and the “Rocky” steps are a fun way to introduce something new and challenging.

Kenny Jackson: Nationally qualified NPC competitor and NASM-certified personal trainer based at City Fitness Thrive. If you’re looking for a change of pace in your routine, hit the steps of the Art Museum on Sundays at 10:30am. It will be just the fix you are looking for.

Q: How did training at the steps start?

Jackson: It all started by putting a status on Facebook and then people asked to join. Those people then brought their friends so it eventually turned into a boot camp. Now I put out a reminder every Friday on social media.

Alexandra Dunek

Jackson

Q: What do you like most about training there?

Jackson: I love the atmosphere and it’s exciting to have people watch… tourists and even other people working out.

Q: After an intense workout, what do you suggest people refuel with?

Jackson: A banana and a protein shake.

During the session, you should always drink water.

Check out this routine and get an idea of how Jackson’s boot camp usually works!

Round 1 • 15 Step-ups • 10-15 Push-ups on the ledge • 30 Toe taps on the bottom step • Run up the steps 2 times

Round 3 • 15 Walking lunges • 15 Single-leg deadlift • 30 Jumping jacks • Run up steps 2 times

2-3 sets

2-3 sets

Round 2 • 30 Bodyweight squats • 15 Shoulder taps • 15 Leg lifts and sit-ups • Run up steps 2 times

Finisher • Timed step runs. For this drill, run at a good pace up and down the steps 5x, then do two more rounds trying to beat your time from the previous round.

2-3 sets

For anyone who is interested, Jackson’s boot camp meets every Sunday at 10:30am and the cost is $20. Sessions usually last about an hour.

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92

THE WINE

MAN

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BY ROBERT KENNEDY

Surviving the Red Wine Headache RHW.

Has anyone ever heard of it? For all those who suffer from “wine headaches,” the meaning is well known.

It stands for Red Wine Headache, or RWH for short, and is common to many people. So let’s explore the what, how and why it may debilitate some, or completely prevent others, from partaking in a wonderful experience that should never be passed up in one’s lifetime.

Let’s begin with the causes that give people that pounding headache the next morning after sharing in a good bottle of wine the evening before. Sulfites, you say?! Perhaps, but not likely. If you’re like many, this is the most common answer. In fact, many physicians would argue that sulfites don’t cause RWH at all, or that it’s very rare. It’s true that sulfites naturally occur in all wine, and that some wineries include sulfites to increase the shelf life of wines. Additionally, many of us falsely believe that drinking wine from Europe doesn’t give RWH because it doesn’t contain sulfites. Wrong. Again, sulfites actually occur naturally in all wine. More importantly, U.S. wineries are required to disclose on each label that their wines contain sulfites because it could trigger negative health reactions, but European wineries are not obligated to do so. So if all wines contain sulfites, and this is not the root cause, what is? There are many causes, as we’ll find out. (We know, over-indulging is one of them, but we’ll assume for this read that the wine lover is drinking in moderation.)

One of the real causes is the presence of tannins.

Tannins come from the stems, seeds and skins of the grapes. Tannins also bring a pigmentation, pucker-ness and dry sensation to the palate, which are all very important to a great wine.

Tannins are what make wines really tasteful and flavorful, and red wines have more tannins than white wines, thus the reason why some wine drinkers who suffer from RWH favor whites over reds. Ahhh, you say! If you love wine, there is no getting around this one, except to experiment with different wines. Some sufferers will claim that Merlot works best for them over Cabs, for example, but this is completely random.

A

nother cause, although not as prevalent as the one above, is the presence of histamines and tyramines, as well as other chemical compounds found naturally in wine. Red wines have more natural histamines than found in Champagnes, sparkling and white wines. To some wine drinkers, these chemicals can trigger higher blood pressure. Some doctors may suggest tak-

ing antihistamines or aspirin before drinking, but these can cause their own side effects. It would be wise to consult with your doctor before deciding on any over the counter regimen that might cause other health problems.

Yet another reason is simply drinking cheap wine. Your wine choices may actually cause RWH. When too much residual sugar, sulfur or increased amounts of alcohol are present, this may cause the proverbial headache to occur. Just as importantly, adding a sweet dessert following a few extra glasses of cheap red can certainly be a culprit. (Do you really need those extra calories, anyway?)

Lastly, dehydration should be added to this list. Any alcohol, no matter what bottle it comes from, can cause headaches, as we all know.

Nothing new here. The real recommendation is moderation, but if that goes quickly out the window, then remember to drink plenty of water.

Sometimes drinking an eight-ounce glass of water before the first red wine is even poured can help. But to mitigate the possibility of dehydration and thus RWH, drink a glass of water with each glass of red consumed to help prevent RWH from rearing its ugly head.

These are just a few reasons why wine drinkers might suffer from Red Wine Headache. The myth that sulfites cause RWH is just that—a myth. However, it’s really a combination of all the above reasons, and the physiology of the drinker that can trigger this bad guy. If you love red wine, as most of us do, but suffer from RWH, take some of these recommended precautions and consult your doctor to determine how best to mitigate this convergence. After all, some of the simplest pleasures in life, such as drinking an incredible red, are the best pleasures! n

Remember to drink plenty of water.

Sometimes drinking an eight-ounce glass of water before the first red wine is even poured can help.

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SAY GERV?

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BY GERVASE PETERSON

S

ay Gerv? My 17-year-old son was caught drinking alcohol with his friends in the house. My wife says teenagers are going to drink and there’s not much I can do about it. Is she right?

– Antonio, Somerdale, NJ What the what?! No, Antonio your wife is wrong. Dead wrong. There is plenty you can do about it. You can ground your son for life (even though that is a long, long time) or sit him down and find out why he feels the need to drink when he’s too young to be doing so (that one’s pretty boring, but effective). Teenagers will be teenagers, yet all teenagers don’t do the things that they should. The times have changed. When we were younger and drank, nobody really heard about it except us. Nowadays when kids drink they post things on social media and everybody knows about it, which may affect them down the road when trying to get a job. I teach my kids there are consequences for everything you do, so choose wisely because some consequences can last a lifetime. _________________________________________

Try getting to know your wife all over again. Go on a date and actually talk to her, and LISTEN to what she says. You’ll be surprised…

Say Gerv? I went to a party and met two girls that are friends. I like them both, but how do I decide which one to talk to?

– Juan, Camden, NJ Swerve: Gerv, I’ll take this one. (Editor’s Note: Swerve is Gervase’s perhaps slightly more cynical alter ego.) Oh Juan, this isn’t that hard at all. Why choose? Take them both! Two is always better than one. Double your pleasure and double your fun. I dated these two girls one time, one from USC and the other from UCLA. Can you say rivalry!

Gerv: Juan, don’t try to talk to both girls, that will just blow up in your face. Which girl did you have the most chemistry with? I’m sure you connected with one of them. That’s the one you should talk to. Go with your gut, focus on one and get those visions of a threesome out your head. Women really do like nice guys.

If you play your cards right, you’ll finish first.

Got a question for Gerv?

Send your questions to:

saygerv@jerseymanmagazine.com and look for his answers in the next issue!

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Say Gerv? They say opposites attract, but my wife and I bump heads constantly and bicker. How can we both make each other happy and live life like we used to?

– Steve, Palmyra, NJ Steve, who’s the fool who said that nonsense?

We’re not magnets. Could it be possible that you bicker because you don’t have so many things in common with your wife anymore?

When you first start dating, you think those things your partner does that you don’t like are cute. That cuteness wears off real quick and you realize you never liked those things to begin with. Try getting to know your wife all over again. I’m sure you’ve both changed over the years so go on a date and actually talk to her, and LISTEN to what she says. You’ll be surprised by how much she’s grown and what her new interests are. It’ll be like dating someone else who just happens to look like your wife. Now there’s a fantasy you can get into! _________________________________________

Say Gerv? The thought of dieting and exercise SUCKS and I have a sweet tooth. How can I lose weight and still eat sweets?

– Daniel, North Philly Daniel, you can’t. Well actually you can, but it’s all about moderation. I agree dieting, counting calories, exercise and staying fit sucks, but it’s a package deal. I don’t like the word “diet.” It’s more about changing your eating habits and exercise. That’s the winning combination. And don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results right away. It takes time. Usually the people around you will notice before you do. So just feed off of their compliments, stay focused and before you know it you’ll be looking in the mirror at the new you. n Gervase Peterson is a cast member from the reality series “Survivor.” Gerv is an actor and entrepreneur and keeps busy fulfilling personal appearance requests and speaking engagements all across the country.