NEAL CONAN, host:
And now, a brief trip to the Garden State.
(Soundbite of TV advertisement)
Unidentified Woman: Welcome to your New Jersey summer vacation, where there's a great destination in any direction, with every activity under the sun.
CONAN: Activities like snorkeling, bicycling, organ smuggling, bribe taking, money laundering. And after the arrest last week of - I'm not kidding - five rabbis, three assemblymen and two mayors, the state of New Jersey is back in the news and not for its famous musicians or beaches. Corruption, as Jersey is salt water taffy, makes Jerseyites everywhere cringe again. So, if you're from a state that's notorious for something or is often used as a punch line - Louisiana, Taxachussetts, Illinois, I'm looking at you - tell us your state's punch line and how you feel about it. We promise we won't mess with Texas much. Give us a call, 800-989-8255. E-mail us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our Web site, go to npr.org and click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Full disclosure: I am from Englewood, New Jersey, first exit off the George Washington Bridge on Route Four. And another Jersey refugee…
(Soundbite of throat clearing)
CONAN: …native joins us now. Peter Sagal, host of NPR's WAIT WAIT…DON'T TELL ME!, joins us from Chicago. Nice to have you back on the program, Peter.
PETER SAGAL: Peace, my New Jersey brother. How are you?
CONAN: I'm good, Peter. What exit?
SAGAL: Oh, stop.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SAGAL: I expect better from you. I'm from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, which…
CONAN: Where is that?
SAGAL: Well, it's - no one has ever heard of it, oddly enough. It's like the Brigadoon of New Jersey. It doesn't seem to exist in most people's mental maps. But it's near Summit, if that helps.
CONAN: Yes, I know Summit. It's sort of in the north…
SAGAL: North central, north middle out there by - you go out to the mall…
CONAN: Yeah.
SAGAL: …you take a left…
(Soundbite of laughter)
SAGAL: …basically, is where you find me, in the vast farms where we were all raised, much as - I mean, not by farm. I mean, like, agricultural farm but sort of person farm, like in "The Matrix" - that scene in "The Matrix," where they're all plugged into that thing, that was like growing up for me.
CONAN: North Central Jersey.
SAGAL: Pretty much.
CONAN: And you now live in Chicago.
SAGAL: I do.
CONAN: And, of course, there's no punch lines about Illinois.
SAGAL: No, no, no. We're all clean. Actually, there are but they're better punch lines.
CONAN: Really?
SAGAL: I mean, if you ask me. I mean, I am raising, with intent and pride, a family of Chicagoans. My three daughters will tell people, as they go off into the world someday, I'm from Chicago. And they will say that with just pride, a certain swagger, a way that things are done here. It's a tough city. It's a city that's serious. It's a city that means business. It's colorful. It has broad shoulders. It has flair, if corruption and maniacal governors.
CONAN: Al Capone.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SAGAL: Exactly. But there's a certain panache to being from Chicago. Can we say that about New Jersey? I don't think so.
CONAN: Look, there is a lot of - I used to hear it described as first Jersey formal, and then later Carteret, which is a sort of subsection. A Carteret formal was black shirt and white tie.
SAGAL: Exactly.
CONAN: Yeah.
SAGAL: Well that's - yeah, there you are. I mean, I'm just saying, you know? And I think in many ways - and maybe you will disagree - but I'm sure you experience this, too, the best thing that ever happened for we New Jerseyites was "The Sopranos," because that gave us something as opposed to a blank look of pity when we announced where we were from.
CONAN: I would've said The Boss gave us something to rally around.
SAGAL: You think? I don't know if his utter coolness really refracted upon us. I mean, I don't remember anybody ever saying - I said, hey, I'm from New Jersey. They said, really? Like Springsteen? You lucky guy. Nobody ever said that to me.
CONAN: Well, Berkeley Heights ain't Perth Amboy.
SAGAL: No, it's true. Part of the reason is there are so many New Jerseys, as you may know. I mean, there's - I mean, the way - a friend of mine put them many years ago, there's Bruce-Springsteen New Jersey, the working-class cities, the shore, the guys with the cigarettes tucked up into their undershirt sleeves. And then there's Jon Bon Jovi New Jersey, which is pretty much where I'm from.
CONAN: There's also the big divide between, well, television markets. You're either from Philly-New Jersey or New York-New Jersey.
SAGAL: Yeah, basically, New Jersey is like one of those nations in Africa that no longer exists because it got divided up by other larger nations.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SAGAL: We're sort of the Biafra of New Jersey.
CONAN: The Kurdistan of New Jersey.
SAGAL: Pretty much.
CONAN: Yeah.
SAGAL: You know, we're a notional state. Pretty much, we're the Philadelphia market, the New - yeah, we're just between markets.
CONAN: Now, let's get some callers in on the conversation. 800-989-8255. E-mail us talk@npr.org. Bob(ph) joins us on the line from Boston, New Jersey.
BOB (Caller): From Boonton, New Jersey. Boonton.
CONAN: Boonton. I'm sorry. I misread it.
BOB: Yes, and I'm surprised at both of you guys. The word is New Jerseyan, not ites. Ites are rocks. So…
SAGAL: We're New Jerseyan. We're not New Jerseyites. We're New Jerseyans.
BOB: We are New Jerseyans.
SAGAL: Yes.
CONAN: It doesn't scan very well, Bob.
BOB: Oh, it scans beautifully. It - you've just been away too long, you know, both of you. I'm a faithful listener of both of you and I'm just a little surprised and chagrined.
SAGAL: Right. Is there a better word? Can we go back and coin in Neal-agisms, so we can say we're from New Jersey? We're Garden Staters. We're gardeners. We're - I mean, that's another problem in New Jersey. Like, if you're from Ohio, you're a Buckeye, right? If you're from Indiana, you're a Hoosier. What are you if you're from New Jersey? You're an unindicted co-conspirator at best.
CONAN: Listeners, let's come up with a - we want emailers. Email challenge right now. Send us a better name for somebody from New Jersey. We demand one. In the meantime…
BOB: The punch line…
SAGAL: The punch line. Oh, he has a punch line.
BOB: …for New Jersey is only the strong survive.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CONAN: Only the strong survive. All right, Bob. Thanks very much for the call and we'll…
SAGAL: The Darwinian hell hole, come visit.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CONAN: Yeah, life is short, brutish (unintelligible). Anyway, email us at talk@npr.org if you've got a better word to describe those of us who come from New Jersey.
Here's an email from Carol(ph). I live in Waterloo, Iowa. This came to me from a friend in Minnesota. What's the difference between Iowa and yogurt? Answer, yogurt has an active culture.
SAGAL: Yeah. You know, I've been to Iowa and I live in the Midwest now. And Iowa, sadly, is in, at least rhetorically, the New Jersey of the Midwest. People make Iowa jokes. I've been to Iowa. It's very nice. You have farms. You have rolling fields. You have pigs. You have, you know, an easy supply of bacon. These are not things to be diminished in my view.
CONAN: I tend to go to Iowa every four years and it's always January, so I don't think it's quite as detestable.
SAGAL: I know. Well, you don't have the same vision. It's, well, you know, the snow drifts are nice.
CONAN: Rachel(ph) joins us on the line from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
RACHEL (Caller): Yeah. Actually, I'm calling from Canton, which is about 10 miles from Iowa.
SAGAL: Yeah.
RACHEL: So, I - and I live in the town of 3,000 now, but I am of naturally born Jersey tomatah(ph), which we were…
CONAN: A tomatah.
SAGAL: A tomatah, not tomato, tamatah, tamatah. A-H, tomatah. You can go on.
RACHEL: Well, sure.
Mr. SAGAL: All right, go on.
RACHEL: (Unintelligible) Jersey tomatah, because that's what, you know, that's what we were endearingly called growing up were Jersey tomatoes. Those girls that were nice girls.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know that. Hold on. I'm thinking for a song, it's like you say tomato and I say, tomato.
CONAN: Oh, Peter, let's call the whole thing off.
Mr. SAGAL: Exactly. And so, in New Jersey, we say, get out of my face about it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CONAN: That's right.
Mr. SAGAL: All right, I'm sorry. Go on. She's a tomato. Go on.
RACHEL: Well, I'll tell you something pretty funny. I was - I'm the substitute teaching today and one of them said, oh, what would you know, you're from smelly New Jersey.
CONAN: Smelly New Jersey.
RACHEL: And, you know…
SAGAL: And you had them killed in the traditional New Jersey - what?
RACHEL: And, you know, I usually get a bad rap about the smell because - and I told them, I think the reason most people think of New Jersey as this awful smelly place is because our airport is right by the oranges - and as we say in New Jersey, Orange.
CONAN: Yeah.
RACHEL: And it stinks in the Oranges, but you get out of there and it's beautiful.
CONAN: When you get out of there, you're in Bayonne.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SAGAL: I know.
RACHEL: I know. That's why we're called the Garden State. And when I tell people that when I was a teenager, I went to the Stone Pony, you better believe my age group knows all about Bruce Springsteen.
SAGAL: Were you one of those people who claimed to have seen Bruce Springsteen in like a 400-person club way back when?
RACHEL: Hello? We drove down the shore to see him.
SAGAL: There you go. Those 400-person clubs must have held 40,000 people given the amount of people who claim to have been there. But I believe you. I believe you.
RACHEL: Well, we did it. We drove down the shore to do it. And I just have to say, you know, it's the Garden State. And the funniest thing is living next to Iowa and living in South Dakota. When I try and tell them that our corn tastes as good or better than theirs, they have a real hard time with that.
CONAN: All right. Rachel, thanks for the tomatah.
RACHEL: Thank you.
SAGAL: I do want to say this about Bruce Springsteen. I do want to point out that at some time, I think it was back in the '80s when I was still living there, there was a movement in the state legislature to make Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" the state song. And then, somebody realized that "Born to"…
CONAN: What the lyrics are.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SAGAL: The - "Born to Run" if it's about anything, is about the need to get out of New Jersey as quickly as possible.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SAGAL: So why not, let's all flee this dismal pit, you know, would be, I think, an appropriately good choice. So, that's so much for Springsteen, I think, as our icon.
CONAN: Ed(ph) joins us on the line from Traverse City in Michigan.
ED (Caller): Hello. How are you?
CONAN: Good, thanks.
SAGAL: We're - I'm great.
ED: I am originally from Rhode Island and I've heard a couple of good jokes about Rhode Island like…
CONAN: Can we repeat any of them?
ED: Yes. My backyard is so big you can fit the entire state of Rhode Island in it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
But in Rhode Island, we have a joke about New Jersey.
SAGAL: Yeah, of course, you do.
ED: And it goes, why is New Jersey called the Garden State? And it goes that - because they couldn't fit Petrochemical State on the license plate.
CONAN: Oh, I see. Okay.
SAGAL: There you see.
ED: Oh, I'm sorry.
CONAN: Hey, Rhode Island, don't go. Rhode Island known formally as Little Rhody. There's also the state nearby here, Delaware, the second smallest state that officially its name is Small Wonder. But its favorite slogan is always tax-free shopping. You got to love magic poetry like that.
(Soundbite of laughter)
ED: Yes, definitely. Well, hey, thank you. Have a good day.
CONAN: Thanks, Ed.
SAGAL: You too.
CONAN: Let's go to some emails. This is from Elaine(ph), Minnesota, land of 10,000 recovery programs. That's not bad.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CONAN: I'm from Cow Hampshire and proud of it. Of course, we are considered the suburb of Boston. That from Erin(ph) in New Hampshire.
Julia(ph) writes: I grew up in Reno, Nevada, and eventually moved to the East Coast. When I tell people where I'm from, the most frequent response is, I had no idea people lived there. We're usually infamous for gambling and sex. Lately, we've become more infamous for the politics, your show isn't helping.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SAGAL: Can I ask something though? Wouldn't it be great, Neal, as one New Jerseyan to another, to be known for gambling and sex? Wouldn't that be a better response than what we get saying, oh, New Jersey. I understand you have a lot of gambling and sex there.
CONAN: There is Atlantic City.
Mr. SAGAL: That's why I look so tired. There is Atlantic City. There is - I don't - I've been to Atlantic City and I'm pretty sure about the gambling. I don't know if anyone's had sex there in I don't know how long. It's a pretty sterile place.
CONAN: All right. Eve(ph) responding to our email challenge for a better name for New Jerseyans. He says, New Jersey, not just for criminals.
SAGAL: That's true.
CONAN: We're talking…
SAGAL: Also their victims.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CONAN: We're talking with Peter Sagal, the host of NPR's, WAIT, WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, which I'm sure you're going to tune into now.
SAGAL: They're going to - they're going to tune to it.
CONAN: Tune to it. Yeah.
SAGAL: Your true self was coming out.
CONAN: And you're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
Here's an email from - another response to the email challenge from Jeanine(ph) who says, how about Guernseys?
SAGAL: Guernseys?
CONAN: Guernseys.
SAGAL: Like the - like Guernsey, New Jersey? There's a breed of cow.
CONAN: The Jersey cow and a Guernsey - I think that's what she's working on. Let's go to Darren(ph). Darren on the line from St. Louis.
DARREN (Caller): Hey there.
CONAN: Hi.
DARREN: Yeah. I grew up in Kansas and I was used to all the jokes about people asking me how Dorothy and Toto were. And also heard about being the driveway to Colorado. But the harshest thing I've heard recently was from the fine news magazine The Onion, where they referred to the Kansas triangle or - the Kansas rectangle. People go there, get lost and never come out.
CONAN: Really?
DARREN: It's harsh.
CONAN: It is harsh. It is - Kansas is - I'd heard it described as the world's largest natural airport.
(Soundbite of laughter)
DARREN: That's the one.
CONAN: Okay.
SAGAL: I just got to say, I've been to many of these places, but it's - I mean, Kansas, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and it seems to me that they have an identity that at least you can work from if you're from there. Something - you know, if you're Kansas, well, are you a corn fed, you know, pioneering farmer out there in the plains or aren't you? There's something to work from. If you're from New Jersey, what do people think about us? Is there anything at all good, Neal…
CONAN: About?
SAGAL: …about being from New Jersey?
CONAN: Oh, yeah. There's plenty good about being New Jersey. It's very close to New York.
SAGAL: That's exactly right, you know? I mean, I remember reading a profile of Stevie Van Zandt, Little Steven. And it was only out of the coolest guy in New Jersey, Stevie Van Zandt. And then at the end of it says - and then he got in his car to leave because the coolest guy in New Jersey lives in Manhattan.
CONAN: Darren, thanks very much for the phone call.
DARREN: Thank you.
CONAN: Bye-bye. Let's do Rick(ph). Rick with us from Portland, Oregon.
RICK (Caller): Yes. Hello. Hi, Neal and Peter. I'm a big fan of both your shows. Thank you so much for taking my call. No, it's not a state, but it's a city and it's my hometown, and it's Cleveland, Ohio.
SAGAL: Okay. Now, Cleveland we're talking.
CONAN: Cleveland.
SAGAL: Cleveland is really…
CONAN: City of Light, City of Magic. Yes.
SAGAL: To the pantheon of places of which we speak.
RICK: Exactly. And when I spoke to the call checker, I told him, I said, I have to make mention of the fact when the Cuyahoga River caught fire…
SAGAL: Yes.
CONAN: Indeed. Memorialized in song by Randy Newman.
RICK: We heard about it for years. And I remember distinctly, there was an underground, we used to call it back then, underground newspaper called the Burning River Oracle.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CONAN: I didn't know that.
RICK: We had. And I also remember that Cleveland, back then, I think it was in '70 or '71, we had the first city-sponsored rock concert. It was downtown and another source of the ribbing that we got around that same period of when the river caught fire is when the mayor was announcing this concert. It was a beautiful summer day and some fireworks went off around the stage. And one of the ashes or the embers landed on top of his head and he started smoking…
(Soundbite of laughter)
…off at the top of his head while he was on stage. And this was the mayor of our beautiful city, right?
CONAN: It wasn't Dennis Kucinich, was it?
SAGAL: No. No.
RICK: No. It was Ralph - Mayor Ralph Perk(ph) was his name.
CONAN: Okay. All right.
RICK: But at any rate, I had to bring up the fact that, you know, being from Cleveland, I'm still - I'm the president of the Portland Browns Backers out here. I've been a Browns fan all my life. You know, of course, the Browns have been another source of ribbing for Clevelanders going back many, many moons. But I just wanted to kind of bring up the fact that Cleveland is, was and always will be my hometown and I still love it even…
CONAN: And the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Thank you very much, Rick.
RICK: Okay. Thank you, gentlemen.
CONAN: Bye-bye. There's an email from Kevin(ph) in Jacksonville. I'm from West Virginia, currently live in Florida. Any time I meet people, I feel obligated to tell them I am from Virginia to avoid the incest jokes and the question of whether or not we wear shoes there. We're not saying that.
SAGAL: (Unintelligible) independent hill folk.
CONAN: Yes, indeed.
SAGAL: What is the problem? I'd be proud to be from West Virginia.
CONAN: And we have some more response to our email challenge on renaming people from New Jersey. Christopher(ph) suggests strip mall employees.
(Soundbite of laughter)
How about calling…
SAGAL: There are number of ways.
CONAN: Kirk Chad(ph) emailed to say, how about calling people from New Jersey Southern New Yorkers? And this from Stacy(ph), says, the New Jerseyers(ph) are the exitors(ph).
SAGAL: No.
CONAN: That's not too bad. And here's one for you, Peter.
SAGAL: Yeah.
CONAN: This from Mark(ph). Illinois, where governors make the license plates.
SAGAL: That's - no, look, like I said, I seem to be moving in my life, New Jersey to Illinois, to just epicenters of correction - corruption. Next, I'm moving to Somalia…
(Soundbite of laughter)
SAGAL: …just to continue…
CONAN: And become a pirate fan.
SAGAL: Exactly. You know, just to continue the level of political dysfunction.
CONAN: Peter Sagal, thanks so much for your time today.
SAGAL: My pleasure, Neal. See you back in the Short Hills Mall.
CONAN: Back at ya. Peter Sagal is the host of NPR's, WAIT, WAIT...DON'T TELL ME! He joined us today from Chicago. You can hear him weekends on NPR's WAIT, WAIT.
Copyright © 2009 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.