I have the Pleasure to assure you Congress pay particular Attention to the Defence of New Jersey, and hitherto have denied us nothing which we have Asked for that Purpose.
I was born in Riverside and spent my whole growing-up years in Florence, a little township on the Delaware River. I tell people that I'm from the West Coast of New Jersey.
My dad is a Deadhead, my mom's a Jewish-American princess from Jersey.
Growing up in Livingston, New Jersey, was terrific.
I grew up in New Jersey and played sports and rode my bike around. It was a really nice time - kids didn't have cellphones then - and you knew everyone in the town.
I could be anywhere in the country, and people will ask, 'Are you from Jersey?' I'm proud of that. We're a weird breed.
I want people to know where I come from. I think I have come really far from that, and I did it on my own. It's sort of the American dream to come from absolutely nothing and to succeed while still doing something that you love. Not compromising yourself in any way. I hope I'm making Jersey proud in that way.
For me, Jersey represents going through what you can go through and still surviving. That's the cool thing about people from the Tri-State area. We're fighters. We're survivors, and we're edgier than anyone else on Earth.
I've lived in so many different towns - Guttenberg, Union City, West New York, Jersey City. We didn't have a lot of money, and we'd get kicked out of places a lot.
It was sort of assumed, from the time I was born, really, that I would go to college. That's sort of the way that Jewish families in New Jersey handled things; that was the norm.
