5.30.2008

Summer Peaches And Tomato Gardens

Sucking on a peach pit is the perfect way to while away a steamy summer afternoon.

Roll it around carefully and use the pointed end of the pit to pick out the strands of peach fuzz and pulp between teeth.

All this while the taste of fresh peach tingles through your cheeks.

One of the first things Dad did when we moved into the big house in Belleville was to chop down the black walnut trees and plant a half-dozen peach trees in their stead.

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Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

5.23.2008

Parkway Tokens Pave Path To Hell

... We've always wondered if the old wives who said misery loves company ever spent time, endless smog-filled rush hours in line, attempting to pay a toll on the Garden State Parkway.




In countless hours of studying the pained expressions of obsessed drivers queued before the flashing red and green lights at the roadway obstructions, we have never recorded a smile other than the maniacal grin as someone launches a round metal missile at the urinal shaped receptacle.

These token tumbling commuters are not happy campers.

If only they knew how happy they should be. They have the privilege of tooling along the Garden State Parkway from the northern most part of the state to the southernmost pausing occasionally to hurl a coin or two.



Toll booth advocates espouse the logic of strategically placed roadblocks that make the highway more democratic.

For one thing, toll plazas make just about everyone drive at the same speed: zero.

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Does anyone REMEMBER parkway tokens?

Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

5.22.2008

We're No. 1: NJ Drivers are the dumbest - says AOL

No. 1 Dumbest: New Jersey
Average Score: 69.9%

For the first time ever New Jersey drivers rank as the dumbest. And to throw salt on the wound, they have the lowest average score ever. No score has been below 70% before.

Random Fact:
While average test scores between the genders were similar, women were more likely to fail the test than men (20 percent versus 13 percent)

See for yourself

5.21.2008

A GEMINI POET!

Who knew all these years that poet Allen Ginsberg (born Newark, N.J, 6.3.26 - d. 4.5.97) was a gemini?

Adaptable and versatile
Communicative and witty
Intellectual and eloquent
Youthful and lively

Nervous and tense
Superficial and inconsistent
Cunning and inquisitive
... Gemini


Learn more at www.ginsbergmovie.com.

Wikipedia on Allen Ginsberg

Poet Ginsberg: 'Keep on breathing'

Your Inner Kerouac

Waterloo Village Revisited

Other famous Geminis (May 21 to June 21):

Bob Dylan
Uncle Tonoose
Marilyn Monroe
John F. Kennedy
Clint Eastwood
Donald Trump
Marquis de Sade
David Berkowitz

Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

5.14.2008

Memories of Brookdale Soda

... I should put in to collect hazard pay for attempting to put ice in my Brookdale soda.

Lately, as my adulthood approaches, I've flavored Kola flavor. It's not cola, or un-cola, it's Kola! And I think it tastes best with lots of ice in a tall glass.


Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved

Every time I open the freezer door, a rock hard package of Sara Lee's dessert crashes onto my bare feet.

I won't say I'm a slow learner, but after about the fourth time around, I tried moving back with the freezer door when I opened it for the ice.

Good idea, right? I thought so, but that crumb cake was smarter than that.

It waited until I stepped around to get the tray, then it crashed. I put some ice in a glass and the rest on my foot.

If it keeps up like this, the soda made from artesian well water may just be my downfall.

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Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

5.11.2008

The Poetry of Place: North Jersey In Poetry

An Anthology Celebrating the Poetry of William Carlos Williams

Edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Mark Hillringhouse.

Poems that capture places and experiences in North Jersey.


By 45 poets from New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Iowa.


Featuring: SVEA BARRETT, LAURA BOSS, MARK BRUNETTI, ANTHONY BUCCINO, LAURIE BYRO, ROBERT CARNEVALE, JOHN CHORAZY, PHILIP CIOFFARI, DORIS DISAVINO, ANDREW FADER, FRANK FYFFE, MARILYN A. GELMAN, KATHLEEN GERARD, MARIA MAZZIOTTI GILLAN, SHARON LYNN GRIFFITHS, JAMES D. GWYN, WILLIAM J. HIGGINSON, MARK HILLRINGHOUSE, CHARLES H. JOHNSON, JANET KOLSTEIN, GILDA KREUTER, MICHELLE LERNER, JOEL LEWIS, DON LYNCH, MANUEL E. MARTINEZ, SHEILA O'NEILL MASSONI, STEPHEN MCNAMARA, CHLOÉ YELENA MILLER, HOWARD NELSON, FRANK L. NICCOLETTI, ESTELLE PADAWER, LINDA RADICE, CHRISTINE REDMAN-WALDEYER, ELLEN ROWE, GENE SIMAKOWITZ, CAROLE STONE, MAXINE SUSMAN, MARIANNE TAYLOR, CHRISTINE TURCZYN, JOE E. WEIL, SANDER ZULAUF.

Book Launch Photos



Order your copy of The Poetry of Place: North Jersey In Poetry

Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

5.08.2008

Saturday Afternoon

Paterson, a poem by Anthony Buccino appears in Celebrating William Carlos Williams and The Poetry of Place: North Jersey in Poetry available in May from The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College.


Poets included in the anthology read their work at a celebration honoring the legacy of William Carlos Williams on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 1 PM at the Hamilton Club Building of PCCC, 32 Church St., Paterson, New Jersey.

5.02.2008

Million Dollar Movie - The Phenix City Story

Every weeknight, at 7 and 10, WWOR-TV Channel 9 in New York would show the Million Dollar Movie. They used the Million Dollar Movie theme show music about thirty years earlier in Gone With The Wind.

In the 1960s, a million dollars was a lot of money. In fact, there was a show called The Millionaire and the rich man, John Beresford Tipton, had his assistant, Michael Anthony, give a one million dollar tax-paid check to people. The show was about how it changed their lives. But I digress.

Many of the movies were Abbot & Costello comedies.



Many other shows were dramas.

One show starred Ernest Borgnine as a New York Policeman - Lt. Joseph Petrosino - pursuing The Black Hand. At one point he's pushed in front of an oncoming subway car. Later, the bad guys stick a pin in a corpse to be sure it's dead. Pay or Die, 1960. It was such a scary movie. They put this guy in his pizza oven! The bad guys put black ink on a girl's underwear while she was still in it. Pretty tough stuff in an era of The Untouchables on TV.

Another show was about how bad guys took over a town in the south. That's The Phenix City Story (1955) and I believe it starred John McIntire who later turned up in the film Cloak & Dagger - starring Dabney Coleman as Jack Flack

As I write this, I get the feeling I wrote it before. What do you think?

The Adventures of Lieutenant Petrosino (1912)

Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

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