“They’re Real and They’re Spectacular”

By Art Gallagher

What does that headline make you think of?

I didn’t write it, thus the quotes.  Dan Jacobson didn’t write it either, but he’d be more likely to do so than I would.

I read the headline to my assistant, a 42 year old single mother, and asked her what it made her think of. Her answer was probably what you are thinking now, which was the same thing I thought of when I saw the headline.

 

The headline is from APP.com’s InJerseyMag.  The sub-headline is worse:

“Jersey Shore housewives defy TV stereotype”

The related article is not terrible.  It is about five dynamic Monmouth and Ocean County women who don’t live like the Jersey women portrayed on MTV or Bravo.  It could have been a great piece highlighting role models healthier than Snookie for our region’s teenage and twenty something women .  That was probably the writer’s intent.  However, the context of the article created by the headlines defeated the purpose.  Epic fail.

One of the women featured is Matawan Councilwoman Toni Marie Angelini.

While Angelini is real and she is spectacular, she is not a housewife!   She’s an ex-wife!

Toni is single and available.  Why is APP.com limiting her opportunities by highlighting her in an society piece about housewives?  Even when APP tries to do something nice for a Repubican they manage to screw it up.

“I am the furthest there is from a housewife,” Angelini told MMM, “not that there is anything wrong with that.”  In addition to raising her three children, running the Hazlet MVC office and serving on the Matawan Council, Toni is apparently a huge Seinfeld fan.  She filled me on the Seinfeld origin of “They’re real and they’re spectacular.”

Toni is endowed with great talents.  Not Teri Hatcher type talent so much, but equally as beautiful, if not more so.  Every guy I know, married, single, straight or gay, who meets Toni and finds out that she is divorced wonders, “What was they guy thinking?  Is he gay?  Is she gay?”  That last thought often leads to other wonderings I can’t print on a right wing blog.

“Oh my God, Art!  That is going to be the new rumor now! Forget about it, I’m hanging up,” Toni said in reaction to those wonderings,  “My feet are firmly planted in the straight column, not that there is anything wrong with feet that are not in the straight column.”

The point of the APP article, despite the disempowering and inaccurate headlines, was to portray Monmouth and Ocean women as intelligent, capable, productive , “real and spectacular.”

The point of this article is to affirm all of those things about Toni, and to provide a  public service to any eligible guy who had an eye on Toni, saw the APP story, and was heartbroken about her being a “housewife.”  The point is to make Toni’s phone ring.

As a car and truck dealer that frequents the Hazlet MVC office, I can attest to Toni’s abilities.  The place runs much better since Toni took over from the Manalapan Democrat. 

At first I thought the improved service might be because I’m a “powerful Republican blogger,” as Dan Jacobson likes to write.  But the quality of service hasn’t changed since I started writing about Dan and publishing his work here.  Dan is running for Assembly against Toni’s mother, Mary Pat. 

I thought for sure I’d have to start taking my dealer work to Eatontown or Freehold after we (MMM readers) killed Mary Pat’s bill A3242.  I was wrong.  Mary Pat and her staff have not called me back since I broke the story about the bill that if passed would have allowed school personnell to question students about personal and private family matters without their parent’s consent, but the service at Hazlet MVC keeps getting better, even when there are computer problems.

Then I thought, maybe the service from Hazlet was lacking, for me, when the Manalapan Democrat was running the place because I’m a “powerful Republican blogger.”   I suppose that is possible, but I don’t think so. 

The give away that something has changed radically is the employees.  They are happier and friendlier than at anytime since I’ve been doing business with the agency dating back to 1992 when it was in Matawan.   Most people only go to MVC once per year, if that.  The employees go everyday.  Us dealers go weekly or more.  I see more smiles now on both sides of the counter, employees and drivers, than at anytime over the last 19 years.  The only thing that I can see has changed is the management.

Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper. While Toni Marie Angelini is “real and spectacular” she is not a housewife.  

Not that there is anything wrong with housewives.

And MVC doesn’t suck. It is getting much better.

Posted: July 28th, 2011 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: NJ MVC, Uncategorized | Tags: MVC, Toni Marie Angelini | 4 Comments »

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