It doesn’t look very red now, but the outlook for fans of Red Bank’s red clay courts is rosy. (Click to enlarge)

By DANIELLE TEPPER

A recent visit to Red Bank’s clay tennis courts in Marine Park found the riverfront facility deserted and unusually quiet. The courts, cracked and faded, looked more like a stretch of beige sand than a popular spot for athletes to brush up on their skills.

Not to worry though, for this is an annual lull. Over the next month or so, the only player working these courts will be court manager Rich Nicoletti, who’s been tending the facility, and its patrons, for decades.

“What you’re looking at here is the wear-and-tear of winter,” says Nicoletti. And its his job to bring the playing surface back to dusty-red glory, he said.

Each spring, the courts are stripped down to their bottom layer as Nicoletti and a team work their magic to revive one of America’s tennis rarities.

“It’s a long process,” Nicoletti said. “Repairing the damage, smoothing it out, laying the clay and the slate, nailing the lines.”

You read correctly: the court boundaries aren’t merely sprayed on. Long strips  of fabric are cut and, one by one, nailed to the court by hand.

It sounds like an arduous task, but the wait shouldn’t be too long.

“By mid-May, we hope to be just about finished,” said Nicoletti. “Then you can come back here and have your tennis match on our beautiful red clay.”

The courts are open to the public from May 26 to mid-October, seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to sundown. But they’re not free: court usage costs $28 per hour, though members get unlimited use. See the facility website for a schedule of fees for borough residents and non-residents.

For more information on the courts or lessons with “Coach Rich,” call (732) 530-2737 or email.

You can also check out redbankgreen’s 2007 article on the courts here.

The magazine’s ranking is based on cultural offerings in towns of 25,000 or fewer residents.  (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Smithsonian Magazine calls Red Bank the third-best small town in America in its May issue.

On a list of 20 small towns towns rich in culture, the town came in behind only Great Barrington, Massachusetts and Taos, New Mexico, the magazine reported.

That gives Red Bank bragging rights over places like Princeton (number 12) and Key West, Florida (16) –not to mention the thousands that didn’t make the list.

Here’s the magazine’s entry on Red Bank, by reporter Susan Spano:

William Count Basie grew up and got his musical chops on Mechanic Street in Red Bank. In the early 1920s he moved to Harlem and the rest is jazz history, to the tune of the “One O’Clock Jump.” His hometown on the south bank of the Navesink River about 25 miles south of Manhattan went through some lean, mean times after that, but has since made an astonishing cultural and economic comeback, linchpinned by the refurbishment of the 1926 Carlton Theater, now the Count Basie performing arts center, a venue for ballet to rock to Willie Nelson. Cafés, galleries, clubs and shops followed, along with farmers markets and street fairs, attracting people from well-heeled Monmouth County and the Jersey Shore. Town folk (pop. 12,200) went to work on neglected old homes with good bones, the landmark Victorian train depot was restored and the silver was polished at the Molly Pitcher Inn, named for a Revolutionary War heroine who is said to have brought water to thirsty soldiers serving under George Washington during the Battle of Monmouth County. The Navesink got a spiffy waterfront park, the setting for jazz concerts in the summer and iceboating when the river freezes; string quartets and youth choruses perform at the Monmouth Conservatory of Music, while the Two River Theater Company stages new plays and musicals. It all adds up to a model for small-town renewal.

And here’s its explainer on the methodology:

To help create our list, we asked the geographic information systems company Esri to search its data bases for high concentrations of museums, historic sites, botanic gardens, resident orchestras, art galleries and other cultural assets common to big cities. But we focused on towns with populations less than 25,000, so travelers could experience what might be called enlightened good times in an unhurried, charming setting. We also tried to select towns ranging across the lower 48.

Nancy Adams, who heads up the downtown promotion agency Red Bank RiverCenter, tells redbankgreen she was “pleased, but not surprised” to find the town rated so highly, in part because the magazine had previously singled out Red Bank seven or eight years ago, “so I knew we were on their radar.”

And because she doesn’t live in town, the Maplewood resident said she is frequently exposed to the outsider’s view of Red Bank “as a great place to have dinner or see a show or just hang out. But when you’re here all the time, you may not get that.”

Adams said she expects to begin working the designation into marketing materials for the special improvement district she oversees.

Dan Mancuso, a 22-year borough resident and real estate broker who serves on the planning board, said he’s not surprised by the ranking, given the town’s shopping, dining and entertainment offerings. “I easily see myself being a Red Bank resident for the rest of my life,” he said.

Here’s the full list:

1. Great Barrington, Massachusetts

2. Taos, New Mexico

3. RED BANK

4. Mill Valley, California

5. Gig Harbor, Washington

6. Durango, Colorado

7. Butler, Pennsylvania

8. Marfa, Texas

9. Naples, Florida

10. Staunton, West Virginia

11. Brattleboro, Vermont

12. Princeton, New Jersey

13. Brunswick, Maine

14. Siloam Springs, Arkansas

15. Menomonie, Wisconsin

16. Key West, Florida

17. Laguna Beach, California

18. Ashland, Oregon

19. Beckley City, West Virginia

20. Oxford, Mississippi

Clay-trap shooters gathered at  Rumson Country Club’s shooting range for the event, a fundraiser hosted by Ducks Unlimited. (Photos by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)

By STEPHANIE SCHROEPFER

A misty fog offered the perfect hunting-in-the-field vibe for nearly 50 enthusiasts who gathered for a trap-shooting event at the Rumson Country Club Saturday.

Shotgun blasts broke the morning calm as 47 participants took turns firing at orange discs lofted into the air at the the Monmouth County chapter of Ducks Unlimited‘s third annual clay shoot, a fundraiser for the conservation and maintenance of North American wetlands.

The clay shoot and the other charitable events Ducks Unlimited sponsors create opportunities for shooters and hunters to put money back into the wetlands, said state chairman Scott Paterson, a Rumson police lieutenant. Funds raised from entry fees and raffles will be dedicated to conservation efforts, he said.

“Hunters give back more than anybody,” Paterson said. “Trap and skeet shooters too, but we take, take, take, and we need to give back.”

Anyone who has hunted “at one point feels the need to give something back,” said Craig Widmaier of Red Bank, treasurer of the Monmouth County unit.

“This is strictly a grassroots and volunteer effort for habitat and wetland conservation,” one that has grown exponentially as Ducks Unlimited is now an international organization in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, Widmaier said.

Paterson, Widmaier and Monmouth County chairwoman Anne Pfaff have racked up a combined 50 years volunteering with Ducks Unlimited. The event, and the organizations’s mission, made for “a natural fit,” Pfaff said, as she ran around organizing shooting squads on the range’s blacktop surface.

Each shooter got three rounds of 25 clays, and chances at individual and team prizes. Raffle merchandise included prints, hand-carved shore birds and decoys by Anthony Ciambrone.

Paterson is also planning a spring shoreline clean-up in coming weeks with help from Ducks Unlimited and students from Rumson-Fair Haven Regional, he said. Volunteers will find contact info on the Ducks Unlimited website.

Michael Zapcic with Thomas Mumme, left, during Thursday’s live ‘SModcast’ at Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. Below: Kevin Smith on the center monitor during a taping earlier this week in Red Bank. (Photo below courtesy of Robert Bruce. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Michael Zapcic had the “really surreal” experience earlier this week of walking past Madison Square Garden, glancing up at the massive Jumbotron and seeing a commercial for ‘Comic Book Men,’ a new cable show in which he appears as himself: a self-described comic book geek.

“I’m like holy crap! It’s them! It’s us!” he recalled Thursday, in the tone of an average, fedora-wearing citizen spotting a caped man flying overhead.

Life in the mini-Gotham that is Red Bank may never be the same.

Only, yeah, it will be exactly the same, because ‘Comic Book Men’ is a reality show, one focused on the daily interplay of three employees of  “possibly the world’s most famous comic book store” – Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash on Broad Street, where the show is set.

Over six episodes, four opinionated, superabsorbent sponges of superheroism – Zapcic, Ming Chen and Walt Flanagan, plus original store manager Bryan Johnson – spend a lot of time  “just arguing about stupid movie plot points, which happens every day without cameras anyway,” says Chen.

Ming Chen mans the mic. The podcasts have a prominent role in ‘Comic Book Men.’ (Click to enlarge)

The show is the brainchild of Middletown-raised filmmaker Kevin Smith, who owns the 15-year-old store and participates in each show during podcasts – known in the sprawling Smithian ‘smerchandise’ empire as ‘SModcasts’ – that bookend each episode.

The SModcasts, normally taped in the store at a poker table strewn with Surf Taco crumbs, were recorded on a specially built set elsewhere in Red Bank in recent months.

There’s also lots of interaction with customers, some of them from overseas, looking to buy and sell comic books, toys and tchotchkes.

Red Bank resident and sage “pop culturist” Robert Bruce is in it, too, offering an appraising eye for rarities: comic books, action figures, toys and more.

“His focus is on the most obscure things in the world,” says Zapcic, who apparently butts heads with Bruce in the show, as in real life.

At some point, a faux Batmobile is expected to pop up, too.

It’s basically a “character-driven show,” Zapcic said during a redbankgreen interview that doubled as a SModcast Thursday. “The producers “basically pointed the cameras at us and said, ‘be funny.’”

The Stash staffers own up to being totally amped about their debut Sunday night: Ming says he’s had trouble sleeping. But what excites him most, he said, is that the natural comedic chemistry of his colleagues Flanagan and Johnson will finally be on display for all Gothamites to enjoy.

“These two guys are so damn funny, and without even meaning to be,” said Zapcic.

“That’s the key part. They’re not trying,” Ming said.

AMC, home of ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Breaking Bad‘ and ‘The Walking Dead,’ launches the series at 10 p.m. Sunday.

For more about both the store and the show, tune into redbankgreen‘s ‘smodcast’ interview of Chen and Zapcic here. Click on ‘Smodco Morning Show #80.’

By JOHN T. WARD

Jim Carroll had just pulled his car out of his Middletown garage when a neighbor drove by, shouting in his direction, “One point twenty-one jiggawatts!”

It’s the kind of thing you get when you own a stainless steel vehicle outfitted with a nuclear reactor for power and a flux capacitor for time travel.

Carroll, a 30-year-old engineer of fire suppression systems, is – you won’t be surprised to learn – an over-the-top fan of the film, “Back to the Future.” It’s a story in which a souped-up, gull-wing DeLorean serves as a time machine, requiring 1.21 gigawatts of juice and 88 miles-per-hour of velocity to launch occupants into a different historical era.

Carroll, a lifelong township resident who discovered his favorite movie through a sequel, saved up his money and bought his DeLorean for “a decent price” – $18,000 – when he turned 17 years old.

“It was basically perfect,” he tells redbankgreen.

Now married, a homeowner and running the North Jersey-based company started by his father, Carroll decided a few months back that it was time to crank up his plain-Jane DeLorean for excursions through time.

From Video Bob, a BTTF enthusiast in Dallas who has made authorized plaster casts of the parts used on the car in the film, Carroll procured a carload of accoutrements: time circuits, a nuclear tower that resembles an oversized kitchen blender, exterior lights that snake around the car like neon pythons.

“He created this for me,” Carroll says of the collection, which is almost entirely decorative and non-functional.

That set him back another $35k, which Carroll considers a bargain. “But I didn’t get the fog machine” that spews fog through faux exhaust structures on the tail, Caroll said. He figured that was just too much.

Carroll says his is one of only nine BTTF replica cars in America, and the only one in the Northeast. It’s also street legal, and with just 130 horses under the hood, not as fast as many observers, including cops, seem to think, he said.

He plans to rent his out for use in promotions and special events, and said he’s close to a deal with a local man who wants to use it in his wedding in July. But the aim is not to recoup his costs, but just to enjoy the reactions he gets, Carroll said.

“We went to the diner yesterday, and it took us half an hour to leave the parking lot,” he said. “The best part is just seeing people’s faces. It’s like they’re kids again.”

Here’s his website.

Here’s a video that tracks a couple of Red Bank kids as they explore Yestercades, the retro gaming emporium that’s been the buzz of Broad Street since even before it opened in October.

Niko Porter, a fourth-grader at the Red Bank Middle School, and Patricio Vera, a senior at Red Bank Regional, took a whirlwind tour of the arcade, which features such classics as Pac Man, Frogger, Space Invaders and Tetris.

Niko, by the way, no longer sports that awesome mop of hair. He recently donated it to be made into a wig for a cancer patient.

redbankgreen‘s picture person Trish Russoniello did the edit.

They come from all over Monmouth County and parts beyond — the rat rods and tuners, the street rods and customs, the competition-class racers, the blue-ribbon show cars, and the weekend works-in-progress from countless suburban garages.

Tonight, they’ll be lining the streets of Red Bank’s business district in remembrance of a good friend, to benefit of a great cause.

Once a semi-regular Friday night occurrence, Red Bank Cruise Night returns for a special edition presented by Red Bank RiverCenter in conjunction with Friends of Stu Paer — an organization co-founded by Frank Woods, borough code enforcement officer and, as a classic car owner himself, an organizer of the annual Liberty Hose Car Show.

Paer, the familiar proprietor of  Red Bank Sleep Shoppe, died in April at the age of 48 from liver disease — a passing that hit particularly hard over at  Wall Stadium Speedway, where the Fair Haven resident and long-time racing enthusiast was well known as both owner and driver of such competition cars as INSOMNIA.

Scheduled for 6 to 10 p.m., the event takes over Broad Street between Peters Place and West Front, as well as Monmouth and White Streets between Broad and Maple Avenue. Street parking spaces will be reserved prior to start time for the participating showy sheetmetal, and classic car owners are invited to join the Cruise, with no registration required. All designated streets will remain open to motorist traffic for the duration of the event.

Many borough retailers and restaurants will be keeping late hours, and select participating businesses will be donating a portion of  tonight’s sales to the American Liver Foundation, at the recommendation of Paer’s friends and family.

Here’s the local outlook from the National Weather Service:

Today: Sunny, with a high near 78. Northwest wind between 13 and 16 mph.

Tonight: Clear, with a low around 52. North wind between 9 and 13 mph.

Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 77. Northwest wind around 7 mph.

Saturday Night: A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 61. Southwest wind between 7 and 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

Sunday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 81. Southwest wind between 6 and 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Sunday Night: A slight chance of showers. Partly cloudy, with a low around 63. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 78.

Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 62.

Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 81.

Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 60.

Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 80.

Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 63.

Thursday: Partly sunny, with a high near 81.