Woog’s Web World

The news that Westport is home to the most structurally deficient high-traffic bridge in Fairfield County — the I-95 one carrying more than 130,000 vehicles a day over Saugatuck Avenue — leads to 2 thoughts:

• We’re #1!
• Wasn’t the same bridge repaired just a few years ago?

For many years, Adam Colberg worked as a personal trainer with Westport Boxing. But when the economy hit the canvas, he sold the company.

His followed his dream — working with pro fighters — by commuting to Brooklyn’s Gleason’s Gym, one of the most famous in the world.

Among his boxers: Vivian Harris, a WBA light welterweight champ.He also worked with Daniel Gracie, a leading MMA fighter.

Adam Colberg

Adam served as a strength and conditioning coach for some boxers. For others, he held mitts — something he loves doing.

He learned about sport-specific training.

He also learned about the ways boxing can instill confidence.

Recently, Adam spent 2 days shooting an MTV video. Called “Bailey’s Unwasted Weekend,” the public service announcement sends the message that by setting short-term goals, teenagers can reach long-term ones.

Nowadays, Adam trains plenty of kids — and also some “highly aggressive Wall Street guys.” He works out of LA Boxing in Norwalk, but many of his clients are from Westport.

On March 1, a new video — with Daniel Gracie — launches. Adam is the “fitness host” in that one.

“I love helping change lives,” he says. “Whether it’s working with a professional, a housewife looking for a positive outlet or a teenager wanting to lose weight, the bottom line is, it’s about people.

“I like being a motivating factor, to help jump-start a healthy lifestyle change or whatever people need. I guide them for a while, and give them the tools to do it on their own. When I do that, I feel accomplished and successful.”

Today’s Westport News reports that our town’s proposed new parking regulations are getting a rough reception.

The paper says that, going forward, there would be “one parking standard for places of worship, auditoriums and other places of assembly. Under the new amendment, these sites would need to allocate one parking space for every three seats or one seat for every 45 square feet of floor space, whichever is greater.”

Right now, there are different standards for theaters, auditoriums and stadiums, and houses of worship.

Without getting into the specifics — involving fire marshals, allegations of inconsistency and discrimination against churches and synagogues, and God knows what else — here’s my solution:

We have plenty of room for parking in Westport. What we don’t have is people who know how to park.

Everywhere in town — and not just at houses of worship, auditoriums and stadium, and theaters (which we don’t, actually, have) — Westporters park so close to the stripe, no one else can fit in. Park over the stripe. And, of course, deliberately plant their vehicle diagonally across two spaces, so that their Very Important Vehicle will be safe and sound.

We don’t have a parking problem. What we have is a problem with parkers.

Yeah, I'm special.

The town has released its list of Westport’s top municipal wage earners. As usual, police and firefighters predominate — overtime, after all, can sometimes double an employee’s base salary.

As usual too, some folks are grousing about how much some cops and firefighters make. (That ends, presumably, the moment the complainer’s house is burglarized or catches on fire.)

All of which brings to mind the comment of a town employee I know: “When they publish a list of the top 10 salaries, I want to be #11.”

Lola, the police dog, retired last month. She did not make the list of top wage earners.

It’s been a while since I’ve been in an elementary school classroom.

But this morning I spent an hour with some of Kings Highway’s brightest 5th graders. I’d been invited — as my capacity as a “Woog’s World” pundit/pontificator — to share a few thoughts about Westport.

The 9 or so youngsters peppered me with very specific, well-researched — and challenging — questions on topics they’d chosen themselves.

For example:

• Which age group has more “distracted drivers,” teenagers or adults?
• What are the arguments for and against a senior assisted living center on the Baron’s property south?
• Should there be underground parking downtown?
• Will “congestion pricing” tolls on I-95 and the Merritt send more traffic onto Westport’s streets?

I had to think long and hard about these questions. The 5th graders listened well, and asked pertinent follow-up questions.

Now, if those of us a bit older than 10 years old can learn to do the same…

Eric Burns spent the bulk of his career as an Emmy-winning media critic, and a non-fiction writer on subjects like the social history of alcohol, the 1st years of American journalism and television’s impact on America in the 1950s.

Eric Burns

Now Eric’s turned his attention to plays. His 1st effort — “Mid-Strut” — involves a charming, prosperous man in his mid-50s who is given less than a year to live.  He wants to reconnect with a majorette he lusted after more than 3 decades earlier — though he’s not sure “lust” is still the operative word.

After readings in New York  (Richard Thomas was the lead) and the prestigious Eudora Welty New Play Series, it opened recently at the Pittsburgh Playhouse.

All 14 performances were sellouts.

Gordon Spencer praised: “Playwright Burns has given us memorable portraits of real people dealing with the vagaries of real life…and death.”

Burns, he says, is “old enough, wise enough and skilled enough to know about the complexities of human behavior and to convey them in intelligent, natural dialogue, sometimes peppered with wry humor.”

No wonder Eric Burns is strutting proudly.

Achorn’s will soon decamp Main Street, for Playhouse Square. It’s been a downtown fixture for 85 years.

Liquor Locker is leaving too, for Compo Shopping Center.

Soon, the only independently owned businesses on Main Street will be Oscar’s, Westport Pizzeria and Francois DuPont. A deli, pizza place and jewelers.

In the early 1960s you could find all this on that one little street:

Shilepsky’s Clothing
Country Gal Rico Beauty Salon
Klein’s Department Store
Townley Restaurant
Tracy’s Menswear
Hartman’s Hardware
Oakes Automotive Service
Barnum Travel
Melody House Music
Dress Box
Westlake Restaurant
Swerdling’s Bakery
Welch’s Hardware
Westport Food Center
Greenberg’s Department Store
Economy Liquors
Ben Franklin Store
Pickwick Gift Shop
Isabel Eland Shop
Dorain’s Drugs
Town & Country Shoes
Charles Food Shop
Linen Closet
Bill’s Smoke Shop
Westport Hardware
Country Bazaar
Gristede Brothers Grocers

Later came stores like Selective Eye and the African Room, and a dance club.

There was a gas station too, right where Vineyard Vines sits now.

Ah, progress.

Main Street, from the 1962 Staples yearbook.

In 10th grade at Staples, Mike Waxx — well, teachers called him by his real name, Mike Bowen — formed his own company.  Illroots promotes artists and provides graphic design for mixtapes. It’s a huge success, and Mike has used it as a springboard for other ventures.

With Mike Carson, he has created videos for Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music troupe (and others), released a clothing line (“IllAmerica”), and produced hit videos like Big Sean’s “Dance (A$$).”

Recently, Interview Magazine interviewed the 2 Mikes.

One question was about how Waxx started his 1st website. He answered:

My parents were really into different music—they had The Fugees’ albums and stuff like that, so they were a really good influence. Watching MTV and seeing Dr. Dre and Eminem’s video for “Forgot About Dre,” I felt like [making videos] was exactly what I wanted to be doing. That was my introduction.

But he was interested in videos long before that. For example:

All through middle school, I was really into videos. I wrote a movie script in sixth grade—it was pretty shitty, but it was a full, long script. I was really into it for a while, but I had some really bad video teachers in high school that didn’t encourage creativity, so I decided to go into design more. When I met up with Mike was when I got back into the video stuff. I knew video was the future of the Internet in terms of blog content—there aren’t really a lot of other sites creating their own original video content.

As for one of the biggest names he works with:

It’s funny—we linked up with Big Sean as college students. I remember one weekend in September of 2010, Sean had a show in Ohio, and we decided we would just go and try to connect with him, because this was before we knew him. So we got on the Megabus, went to the show, ended up meeting Sean and he was into what we were doing. Like two weeks later, his manager at the time reached out and said they wanted to do a music video for a song on Sean’s mixtape with Chiddy Bang. We had to throw this video together really quick, and we ended up shooting it on our friends’ rooftop, which was really spontaneous, but we ended up making it work. Now the video has like 10 million views, and that was just something we did in college.

And directing Nicki Minaj:

It was amazing. It was one of the greatest moments of my life! To see her in real life, walking into a room—I remember her in her old mixtape days when she was freestyling on The Come Up DVD, and now she’s up there with Madonna and Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. She really knew what she was doing—she’s a pro. She walked in there ready to put in work and do what she had to do. It worked out really well.

To read the entire Interview interview — including working with Spike Jonze, and where IllRoots is going — click here.

Mike Waxx (left) and Mike Carson. (Photo/Interview Magazine)