Motivational Speaker Comes Back To Jefferson For A Second Go Around

Growing up is tough. Whether it be on the rough side of town in Los Angeles or even the humble suburbs of Jefferson, the years between childhood and adulthood are some of the most trenchant and trying times for teenagers, no matter what area they happen to grow up in.

And that’s why motivational speaker extraordinaire, Keith Hawkins, who’s been traveling to schools across the county for the past 15 years now, has been called in to work his magic at Jefferson High School and Middle School on the 14th and 15th respectively.

“When we get somebody like Keith to come to our school, I know the PTA is doing their job,” says Michelle Cannorozzi, Vice President of Programs for the High School Parent, Teachers, and Student Association, and Program Liaison for the Middle School.

“We really wanted to get more character based [activities] for leading your own life,” says Cannorozzi.

And Mr. Hawkins will be doing just that with his Stepping Up To The Challenge presentation, which he’ll be presenting to the kids when he swings by this year.

“The title might sound the same, but the content is different,” says Mr. Hawkins.

He says the title might sound the same because this actually isn’t his first time talking at the high school and middle school. Five years ago, he actually came by before, teaching the students about how to stay motivated and afloat of the problems that may be plaguing their lives.

“[It’s all about] the challenges they face in regards to education,” Keith says.

And Keith is definitely the right person to do it since he knows all about what it takes to exercise one’s demons.

Growing up on the harsher side of LA in a single parent environment, Keith was a leader even back when he was a child. Unfortunately, it was for the opposite side of society.

It actually wasn’t until he met a motivational speaker of his own named, Phil Boyte, that Keith decided to change his ways and get on track with where he wanted to go with his life.

And fifteen years later, he’s definitely moved on. Having spoken from everywhere to Newark to Columbine after the school shootings, Keith, who originally worked with the motivational group Learning for Living with his mentor before he moved on, has since gone on to become one of the leading speakers to the youth of America.

“I interacted with [the kids of Columbine] as if it were any other school,” says Keith on the experience of handling a tragedy. “While others were treating it as this huge thing, I went there and treated them like regular students.”

And in that way, Keith helped to make them feel normal again and not like the nation’s pariahs, which is always the case when put in the spotlight on a national scale.

“[I want to] get rid of doubt in their lives, and how they deal with fear,” says Keith, with fear being an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real (Keith likes to use acronyms a lot).

The speech on doubts and fears will especially press on an aspect at Jefferson’s school as one of the students last year actually committed suicide.

“There was a death of a student [last] year,” says Cannorozzi, “and Keith asks, ‘Do you want me to touch on it? Do you want me to leave it alone?’”

Keith will of course touch on it and other aspects of the teenagers’ and parents’ existence when he comes by and speaks on the 14th and 15th, (a parent session will also be held at night on the 14th at the high school). That is his job after all—the job of a motivational leader.
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National Treasure: 2-Disc Set Review

When the Nic Cage vehicle, National Treasure came out in 2004, nobody expected it to be the massive, worldwide hit that it was ($347.5 million dollars sure is a lot of money). Sure, it was a big and flashy Bruckheimer blockbuster, but this was PG, stuffed with history, and didn’t have a single pirate in it (Unless you count the skeletal pirates on the doomed ship, the Charlotte). But with a quest so heavily laden with conspiracy theories at the roaring time of the Da Vinci Code, how could we have possibly thought otherwise? It also helps that National Treasure never misses a beat and delivers in every single way imaginable.

The Movie: Four and a half stars

In the Nic Cage canon, National Treasure is certainly not his best film (leave that to Adaptation). That said, it may just be his most fun, as few movies have truly utilized the Nic Cage as goofy everyman/bona fide action hero as well as National Treasure has.

Playing as the aptly named Benjamin Franklin Gates, Nic’s treasure hunting tale begins with a story about how Gates’ great, great, great grandfather was told a secret by a moribund Charles Caroll, who was the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence. What he was told was about how a clandestine fortune still lies hidden, and that the current secret “lies with Charlotte.” Cryptic words if there ever were any.

This of course sends us to present day, where we find out that Charlotte was not in fact a person, but rather, a sunken vessel. And on this vessel, Gates and his genius partner, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) are searching for clues while his financier friend, Ian Howe (Sean Bean), is silently scheming on how to steal said clues. And it’s here, within the first few minutes of the movie that the little over two hour film really begins to pick up steam, as Ian Howe betrays the two of then and steals the treasure Gates’ has just uncovered—A pipe etched with a riddle on it. The wily Howe then leaves them for dead in a tundra explosion, providing the first real cliffhanger of many in this intelligently wrought action comedy.

Our heroes of course make it out alive in pure Bruckheimer fashion, and go on a quest that takes them from stealing the Declaration of Independence, to locating Ben Franklin’s special specs at Independence Hall, and even to Trinity Church in New York, where the treasure truly lies.

As great as Nic Cage is as an actor though, the film probably wouldn’t have been as good as it was if it weren’t for the outstanding costars. Besides the witty banter he has with Riley Poole and his love interest, Diane Kruger (Abigail Chase), the hammy as always, Jon Voight, who plays Nic Cage’s father, Patrick Henry Gates, is the real spotlight stealer in the film. And that’s because unlike the younger Gates’ who fully believes in the conspiracy, Gates Sr. is a skeptical, old coot who can’t imagine that there could possibly be hidden messages scrawled on the back of the Declaration of Independence. That is, of course, until he sees it for himself and winds up getting swept up into the whole mess also, which changes this film from being a standard treasure hunting flick, to a rollicking chase movie. Jon Voight just so happens to have the perfect role of looking bemused in the midst of chaos that you actually believe he can act again, which is no small feat.

It should be noted, though, that if anyone drags this film down, it’s the overly sapient, cool as a cucumber, Harvey Keitel, who plays the FBI Special Agent Peter Sadusky. His steely gaze and slow, husky voice seem to suck out all the life blood from every scene he appears in. Good thing these scenes are few and far between and that Nic Cage ramps up the energy every time he’s back on screen.

The Disc: Four Stars

To add to the whole mystery and glamour of treasure hunting is an excellent documentary on the first disc about real live treasure hunters and the techniques they use the preserve priceless artifacts. It goes to show that most of the stuff in the movie is purely bunk (as if you didn’t already know) as things just don’t happen that quickly in treasure hunting. Some of these people have been searching for close to a decade for certain treasures before they actually ever found them.

Also included on the first disk are deleted scenes, an alternate ending, and an animatic clip of the opening sequence, all featured with optional commentary. The real scene stealer though is the “Riley’s Decode This!” feature, which gives you a history lesson on various hidden cyphers, such as Hieroglyphics and Morse Code, while at the same time, providing a game for you and secret clues that open up even more features when you start piecing everything together.

That said, it’s a real shame that the second disc in this 2-Disc Collector’s Edition, which is no doubt being released since the sequel, Book of Secrets is just around the corner, is not as detailed as the richly prepared first disk. Featured in disc 2 are a few more deleted scenes, none of them really that important (One featuring an even longer sequence of the dull Keitel), which is also with optional audio commentary. Also on the disc is an informative lecture on Ciphers, a history lesson on the various locations of the film, and a sequence talking about how the crew blew up the sunken ship, the Charlotte, to make for a very riveting beginning.

And though it may very well be a special, hidden feature on the first disc, I couldn’t find any sort of full movie commentaries featuring either the director, Jon Turteltaub, or Nic Cage, which would have been interesting to hear how they felt about reacting to the twist and turns of the film.

Even so, you really can’t go wrong when a film like National Treasure is as good as it is. The big question though is, is it worth buying all over again if you already have the original 1-disc set? Personally, I say no, as the original commentaries and alternate ending have already been heard and seen before. But if you want a little more history mixed in with your treasure hunting, you can’t go wrong with this special disc set.

Wii Review: Super Mario Galaxy

While you’ve probably already read a baker’s dozen of reviews for the pleasant plumber’s escapades in outer space, this one’s different. Why? Well, unlike pretty much everybody else on the planet, I actually liked Super Mario Sunshine quite a bit and don’t just jump from Mario 64 to Mario Galaxy in comparisons like everybody else. In my mind, every game has progressed to reach this very moment to craft not only the best game the Wii has ever been graced with (Sorry, Twilight Princess fans, but this one has you beat), but also the best game in the Mario series ever. Super Mario World be damned!

What makes this game such a magical adventure, from its slightly slow start to its ultra awesome conclusion (I still haven’t gotten to the Luigi game yet), is how Nintendo managed to flip, both literally and figuratively, Mario from his side scrolling days of yore to now. Sure, Mario 64 did that just fine, but beneath the veneer of totally 3-D gaming done right, it still felt like a game that could have been done in 2-D if Master Miyamoto had decided to put it in that format. Not so with Mario Galaxy, a game that utilizes the nunchuku and Wii-mote so well, that I’ve finally become a true believer.

What Galaxy does with the physics and gravity of the minor planets and the overall scope of the larger ones is simply astounding. This is the overall leap from 3-D (Running completely around some planets—King Kai style—without falling off), that Mario 64 really wanted to be, and what Mario Sunshine came very close to nailing.

You start the game off learning that every 100 years or so, stars fall from the sky with the energy to power the entire universe. These stars can be harvested and yada, yada, yada, honestly, you won’t really care about the story (Even when Bowser comes into the picture with a flying airship), and will instead want to skip right to the gameplay, where you end up on a strange planet having to run and catch bunny rabbits, Mario 64 style. This is more a tutorial to teach you that, yes, you can run almost anywhere you want at certain times without the impending fear of falling off into the quasars, as some planets just work that way. It’ll take you about four minutes to get the hang of.

But that’s not saying that you can’t fall to your doom, though. On some of the larger planets, there are black holes directed right in the middle of them that if you fall off, you’ll get sucked off the terrain right to your death. If you think about it, it’s the equivalent of missing a jump in any of the Mario games—it means game over for you, bub.

And that’s why I said that every game in the Mario series has led up to this moment as just about every title has some sort of spark in its creative crevices located in this game. You have the down to Earth style of the first title, with its, get from A to Z momentum in Galaxy. You have aspects of going down into tunnels and coming out in brand new worlds similar to Mario Bros. 2. You have the sprawling, world map like qualities as found in Super Mario World. You even have the gimmicky Yoshi as seen in Mario Sunshine in Galaxy (One of my favorite special stars was called something along the lines of, “Random Appearance By Yoshi,” which is just about how I felt in Sunshine, too). But the game that Galaxy apes the most, and veterans of the series will probably appreciate, is Super Mario Bros. 3, inarguably the crowd favorite when it comes to longstanding fans of the series. From its airship battles, costume changes, and overall sprawl of secrets and missions, some could argue that Galaxy is basically the spiritual successor to Mario 3, with no level emphasizing that more than the very early Bee Galaxy. It’s here that Mario dons his funny bee suit and has the ability to fly for a limited amount of time to reach certain objects in the level.

At one point, you even have to fly and crawl on the queen bee to pluck off little individual star pieces that are making her itchy. Immediately, memories of swimming underwater with the frog suit in Mario 3 jumped to my mind for some reason. And it’s not because the two are really similar in their objectives or anything like that, but more because that sense of wonderment and discovery, that sense that I’m having the time of my life with a plumber, overwhelmed me all over again and reminded me of just why I fell in love with video games in the first place. If anything, if you’ve become a gaming atheist and have lost all faith in the medium, play Mario Galaxy to revive that interest once again. Seriously, I had given up on Nintendo forever until I played this game. Now, all I want to do is play the Wii some more.

Another great thing is the boss battles, which I looked forward to rather than wished to avoid. Unlike in past Mario games, the boss battles in this one are abundant, and each one asks you to try something totally different to thwart your baddie. Honestly, by the time I had gotten to Bowser for the first time, I was already so pleased with the boss battles that they could have already stopped throwing them at me and I would have been perfectly happy. Similar to God of War 2—another great game that I totally urge you to play—the boss battles really emphasize the strength and abilities of the lead character as a great game should.

Never have I felt more in tune with Mario than when I faced off against the bosses in this game, and I’ve been playing with Mario since the days he was simply called Jumpman. I’d be lying if I said this game didn’t have its faults (Some of the galaxies are lackluster. I’m looking at you Ghost Galaxy), but there’s so much good going for the game, that you’d have to look far and wide to find another game of this caliber. And I mean Super Mario Sunshine far. As I said before, I actually liked that game. If you even remotely liked Sunshine, then you’ll absolutely love this one. Bar none, Mario Galaxy is the game of the year. It might even be the game of the decade.

360 Review: Rock Band

Okay, if you read my last article comparing Rock Band to Guitar Hero 3, you might have gotten the impression that I don’t like Rock Band, which is just not true. With excellent effects, a pretty decent, albeit short, song list, and an intriguing multiplayer aspect (One of the best I’ve ever played), Rock Band offers a totally different experience than anything you’ve ever played before. And now that I’ve played them both extensively, I’ve come to the conclusion that both can share equal space of the playing field now that I’ve noticed their massive differences and sifted out their glaring similarities.

The main difference between the two is that though Guitar Hero can be played alone – and often times, should be played alone to nail those expert solos – Rock Band cannot. And by that, I mean that it can, but really shouldn’t, as playing it that way will only depress you with your $170 dollar purchase. Especially if you like to slap the bass, as there’s no single career mode for that instrument for some reason.

Also, another opinion that doesn’t change from my last preview is how much I hate the guitar for it. Anyone who has ever touched the Guitar Hero plastic ax will not want to go back, as Rock Band’s controller feels way inferior in comparison. Most of the time, the buttons feel loose and light and don’t offer the kickback you expect from your frets. Also, the extra five buttons don’t add much to the experience and feel like a waste to remove your fingers from the top five by the head when you really don’t have to.

Okay, phew, now that that’s out the way, I can finally get to praising the game for what it is: an awesome experience that might change the way you look at playing a video game in the same room with your friends forever. What Rock Band offers is a visceral experience that screams pizza, beer, and hours of good times, as no other game offers the kind of camaraderie you’d get from playing fake plastic instruments as Rock Band does.

First, I’ll talk about the microphone, as that’s my personal favorite aspect of the game. More than just a ripoff of Karaoke Revolution or Get On Da Mic, Rock Band actually offers you songs you probably like and let’s you be as horrible as you want as long as you nail that always swerving pitch meter. The aspect of singing in Rock Band is simple—find somebody in your faux band (Mine’s called The Foot Clan) who doesn’t mind sounding like a fool in front of everybody else and have them nail the words on screen, and that’s it. It could have been a lot more complicated if I didn’t know just about all of the 45 songs (More on that later), but since I had a pretty good idea of the melody of the tunes, I didn’t have much of a hard time nailing those Geddy Lee, “Tom Sawyer” notes.

But I’m sure most people could care less about the microphone (I was the only one who had the brass balls to pick it up in my band), and you’re probably more concerned about the other new rock rhythm game feature—the drums. For those of you out there who only want to play this game for that feature, I have some good news for you if you’ve got tempo, and bad news if you don’t. The drums are just plain hard for a beat retarded galoot like me who couldn’t keep rhythm if my life depended on it (Which is strange since I play the bass in real life). That being said, it’s absolutely awesome if you have the awe-inspiring ability to hit the pedal and snare at the same time, which I don’t.

Unlike the guitar or the microphone, the drums take real skill, and are best saved for people who can actually hold the drum sticks properly and still play at the same time, which I found I can’t as I constantly kept hitting the plastic surrounding the drum on more than one occasion. I also had a hard time playing it on medium, which just proves I’m not the kind of person you’d hire as drummer if you were forming an actual band.

Still, my friend absolutely loved it and had a great time pounding the skins and hitting into overdrive, which is similar to star power in Guitar Hero but much more integral to this game. As stated earlier, this is a true party game meant to be played with other people, and if one of your band mates happens to fail at a certain point in the song, overdrive, (which can be triggered when guitar players tilt their instruments upwards, or when drummers get into the free drum section), can save them.

In fact, if a member of your band isn’t saved, the crowd starts booing you, which introduces yet another element of Rock Band I absolutely adore: the presentation. And while Guitar Hero has about as much presentation as a 70 year old man wearing a diaper introducing The Starland Vocal Band, Rock Band has it by the butt loads. With its Band World Tour mode, you actually acquire more fans the bigger the venue you play at. And with more fans, that means your status increases immensely if you play well enough – fans will even sing along to your songs if you’re a hard enough rocker! Also unlike Guitar Hero’s meta-gameplay, which never really detaches you from your Les Paul, more than once I forgot I was standing in my friend’s stinky room with Rock Band and actually thought I was on a huge stage headlining for some bigger, better band than The Foot Clan. The presentation is really that astonishing.

Too bad the song list isn’t. At a meager 45 songs (plus a few bonus tracks), I must have played “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” by the Clash five times in one hour. And I hate that song! Word on the street is that you’ll be able to download whole albums in the future (And Yes’s Going for the One better be one of them!), but as of right now, the replay value of this game is startlingly low with the lame set lists available. So besides the crummy guitar, lack of a career mode for bass, and the fact that few are going to opt to take on the vocals, this is my major complaint with the game. And for a game in the music genre, that’s a biggie.

Complaints aside though, Rock Band is a great game that will undoubtedly get lauded and possibly be up for game of the year by the time those votes start rolling in. I’m going to give this a clear and easy four stars just to be safe. Add a half a star if you actually have friends to play with – you can play online with others, too, just not in career mode – and subtract a star if you don’t. Solo career mode blows. This is the kind of game that brings friends back together again.

Why do Vampires Get To Have All the Fun? Werewolves are about a kajillion times cooler

With the recent 30 Days of Night and I Am Legend almost back to back in the cinema calendar, vampire fans have a lot to be grateful for. But then again, don’t they ALWAYS?

Going from campy (Bela Lugosi) to suave (Brad Pitt) to ravenous (er, psychotic vampire #4 in 30 Days), vampires on the big screen have evolved, devolved, and revolted audiences for decades now, and have also become a staple in any rendition of the Monster Mash you can think of.

But what about werewolves? Those sometimes horrible, sometimes huggable creatures of the night that go through horrific night time changes only to wake up in a park butt naked and in the cold never get the kind of respect they deserve, and they damn well should! Werewolves are freaking awesome!

Sure, John Landis did us all a great favor by making his lycanthropic love epic, An American Werewolf in London. And The Howling also does us a great fan service with its demented plot and terrifying events (Isn’t it strange that both films came out in 1981. A Carter Conspiracy, perhaps?)

But what else do we have to show our children, and our grandchildren, and, if global warming doesn’t kill us all, their grandchildren? Jack Nicholson in Howl? Michael J Fox in Teen Wolf? Jason Bateman in Teen Wolf Too?! Come on, pal; now this is REALLY getting scary.

And while yes, you may say that werewolves had their day in the sun (Get it? As opposed to the moon) in the recent Kate Beckinsale vehicle, Underworld, just think about what you’re saying for a minute. That was a movie about vampires…featuring werewolves. It wasn’t a werewolf film where some poor sap gets bitten by a wolf and goes on a horrible killing spree. Rather, it was a movie about a war between sophisticated vampires that drank their blood from wine glasses and werewolves that fought each other in cellars like, well, animals.

Granted, the movie touched on the point that vampires consider themselves upper-class compared to the lowly, proletariat Lycans, but still! It isn’t any less humiliating if you’re a fan of werewolves and the only other movie you can talk about features the star of Arrested Development wearing a denim jacket and a fur suit.

So, my suggestion is that we wolf fans get on the highest surface we can scale (Preferably a roof) pump our hirsute fists and howl to the moon until we get exactly what we want—a fresh new werewolf film in theaters RIGHT NOW. I mean, if that Wendy’s spokesperson can make me love their brand name again just by wearing a red pigtail wig and a utter look of confusion on his face, I certainly think that we, who have an infinitely cooler mascot, can do some pretty rough damage ourselves, don’t you think? So are you with me, or are you with me?

Great, we start our first meeting during the next full moon.

Picking up the trash, cleaning up the streets

Just look on the side of the road on your drive to work and you’re likely to find all sorts of refuse laying in the wake of driver’s passing by and tossing their trash out the window. Soda bottles, White Castle wrappers, and even whole garbage bags can be seen littering the landscape of New Jersey, making the once appraised garden state look like the garbage state.

But not everybody is standing idly by on the sidelines while our world goes to waste.

“Two weeks ago, we had a clean-up,” says Jefferson Township recycling coordinator, Gino Recksiek (“But just call me Gino”), “We all help each other out with it.”

The “we” Gino is referring to are the various groups that go with him to pick up trash along the roadways—this “we” in particular being a Cub Scout organization in Hackettstown.

“I have to give credit for what they do,” says Gino, “and the younger groups are getting better knowledge of everyday recycling. Hopefully they remember it.”

And assistant Cub Master and den leader, Joe Terrezza, from Bud Lake aims to be the man to help them remember.
“We do it [clean up the roads] every year as a community service project,” says Mr. Terrezza, who took his pack this year, along with their parents, to clean up Berkshire Valley Road.

“We’re trying to teach the kids to respect the environment, and leave no trace,” says Terrezza.

The Cub Scout group, which had to actually get permission to clean up the road from the Boy scouts of America, isn’t the only organization taking time out of their busy schedules to handle some community service.

Only about a week ago, supervised children from the Oak Ridge Martial Arts Academy went out to clean Dover-Milton Road, and on Saturday, May 12th, a volunteer group of 20-30 members went to clean up Taylor Road. by Berkshire Valley.

“This area (by Taylor Rd.) is technically not something I would normally do, as I normally do public roads, not private property,” says Gino, who contributes not only to make the environment a cleaner, greener place, but also to teach a well deserved lesson to anyone who thinks that cleaning up the environment can be done in just one day.

“People will throw bottles right at you,” says Gino, who thinks it’s sad, but a good wake-up call to show these groups just how little concern some people have for the environment.
“I think Jersey is probably the worst when it comes to trash.”

Be that as it may, at least some people are doing something about it; other than just rolling down their window and throwing out more garbage.

Sticky fingers in Sussex: One Man’s Quest to Rob all his neighbors blind

It seems that Matthew Milone-Clapp, age 25, of Hamburg, was on a mission to break into every last one of his neighbor’s houses and make a break for it, as his arrest by Dt. Paul DeMott would prove as much.

Charged with 32 counts in one day in Village Drive where he lived, Milone-Capp was recently released when he promised to appear at his June 5th trial at the Hamburg Municipal Court. There, officials will know why he decided to go on such a strange spree to burglarize his fellow neighbors and also perhaps why he thought he might have gotten away with it.

“He attempted to get into 11 houses,” says Hamburg Captain Jan Wright, who alerted the paper about this felon’s actions. “So out of the four burglaries, the other seven are attempted burglaries.”

His count rate spiked with each individual action he took to intrude on his neighbor’s privacy.

“When he broke into his neighbor’s house, that was breaking an entering. If he stole something, that was burglary.”

And the counts just kept on adding up.

For every house Mr. Milone-Clapp broke into, he wound up breaking something, which adds even more points to his tally. And, when he could, he also stole credit cards and used them the next day, which is yet another crime that won’t be looked upon too kindly come June 5th.

But if anybody is furious about all this, it’s his neighbors, who are more than a bit miffed that one of their own residents is to blame for all these actions.

“They’re not too happy about this,” says Capt. Wright, who can’t confirm whether Milone-Clapp has a previous criminal history or not.