Because Underdogs Rock

Growing up in New Jersey, you, quickly, understand what it’s like to live as the underdog. My poor home state. Its wonders are frequently overlooked. Isn’t that just a place where people who commute to NYC live? It’s an easy punchline for most outsiders. New Jersey. Heh heh. Snicker snicker.

Yes, I’ll admit that, once I went off to college (Boston—another underdog place), I made Jersey jokes and laughed along the millionth tired time somebody asked me what exit? I made it clear that I hated Springsteen, that hair bands were evil and that my aesthetic leanings were more Manhattan than Jersey. I vowed never to return (permanently) to the Garden State. But graduating into the lovely economic climate of 1992, well, plans changed. I ended up back at my parents’ house in Teaneck, commuting into Manhattan via NJ Transit’s 167 bus.

But it wasn’t until I was 23 and had set up camp in my very own fourth-floor walk-up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that I started to fall for New Jersey.

It was a subtle shift brought on by many Manhattanite’s bridge-and-tunnel jokes (local shorthand for making fun of Jersey, Long Island and the outer boroughs). Manhattanites who, in most cases, had moved to the city from places way away from NYC! How freakin’ dare they make fun of people who lived in the next state over (and whose grandparents had probably built the freakin’ city in the first place). So I started to claim Jersey as my own. I started to admit that I had love for the Garden State.

Though I lived in Manhattan for 11 years, my love for underdogs blossomed. I realized that I had never lived somewhere cool. Hell, even when I lived in Manhattan I didn’t live in a what-other-people-thought-was-cool neighborhood.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Manhattan. I’m the first to defend my fellow New Yorkers when people slam us for being rude and I still get my hair cut in Alphabet City. But, over time, I’ve learned that I’m all for places with more subtle charms. Places like Jersey. And, yeah, I’ve grown to love Bruuuuuuuce.

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