"A repository of my time on earth." That's what Jersey, the Jersey shore in particular, represents to Bruce Springsteen. "My memory, the music I"ve made, my friendships, my life ... all buried here in a box somewhere in the sand..." Bruce made these comments May 4th at an induction ceremony into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. Now, as Bruce said, it's hard to believe there really is a New Jersey Hall of Fame, and does New York have one? On the other hand, how cool is it that Springsteen actually showed up to accept, and gave a speech about his love for the Garden State and especially the shore, about the comfort he gets being in the ocean and looking to the shore and seeing his kids coming toward him through the waves? From being in the same place his whole life, walking the same streets, taking his kids to the same beaches his mom took him to when he was a child? Here's a transcript of his speech, and the video.

>Last night, Cookie Till, owner of Steve and Cookies By the Bay, took her application for a weekly farmers market in the parking lot of her Margate restaurant and won approval. This followed a contentious but awfully entertaining dispute with Howard Seiden, owner of Casel's supermarket, who opposed the plan, saying the farmers would unfairly compete with his and other stores in town. The market will operate Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. from late June through early August. Martin DeAngelis reports that Seiden's attorney, Richard King, predicted a slippery slope from tomatoes and lettuce to velvet Elvis. Till's approval is for one year.

In memory of Danny Federici, the E Street Band keyboard player who met Springsteen in the late 1960s at the Jersey shore, where the two kicked it up at the Upstage Club in Asbury Park. Federici, 58, died Thursday after a battle with melanoma. He got his Phantom Dan nickname from Bruce after some antics eluding police in Asbury Park back in the day, or so it is told. Federici gave the boardwalk classic 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) its plaintive accordian sound, here in a video from 1975.

And, in this video from Paris in 1985, he's on the organ in Hungry Heart.

An early sign of summer at the shore, every year, is the crop of new restaurants. We keep driving by Ventnor's newest offering, the as-yet-named pizza place on Dorset Avenue, a few blocks on the left before you get to the bridge. At one point, the red-shingled building had a sign that said Pizza Mia. Cool, we thought. A few weeks later, that was replaced by a fancier scripted sign that said "The Red Room Cafe." Um, not so much. Now, there's no sign. Word on the street is that the new owners, who have done a major renovation job including street scaping and new trees in preparation for this spring's opening, originally wanted to call the place, simply, SLICE. That, we like very much. Hope you also serve good JAVA.
UPDATE: What do I know, anyway. Pizza Mia/Slice/Red Room Cafe has opened its doors as the Red Room Cafe with some good local buzz, a pretty mocha and tan awning, a chic decor, gourmet pizzas and sidewalk tables. It's joined on that block of Dorset, just past Monmouth as you're headed toward the beach, by the relocated Rain Florist. Imagine that, you've got your flowers, your wine, your dinner all in one block, plus Custard's a short walk away for desert. All that's missing is a cool coffee shop in Sue Van Duyne's old pottery store. Takers anyone?
Meanwhile, in the little spot on Ventnor Avenue next to Cleo's that used to hold the excellent Manna and before that LoBianco's (Manna has since moved to LoBianco's spot at Jerome and Ventnor in Margate), new owners are opening up a restaurant this month called Gertrude's.

That spot has been a winner for years, let's hope it continues.

...is that seagulls and other shore birds have oily tears that help keep the salt from the ocean out of their eyes. True that. Bob pointed out this obscure fact while signing off today on his XM Radio show, Theme Time Radio, the second straight week he has done birds as his theme. It followed Prince's When Doves Cry, and came just before his final quote, from William Blake. "No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings." The beach, though not birds, figures prominently in one of Dylan's most beautiful songs, Sara, whose lyrics are here. Dylan hasn't done a beach theme, though he's done summer and weather and the catch-all, danger, but it seems like something he'll get around to eventually.

Er, so much for the breakthrough concept of an actual book store in Atlantic City. It wasn't a real Borders anyway, but a Borders Outlet, which went with the outlet theme of the otherwise-kickin' Walk in Atlantic City, but was a failure as far as the idea of, you can walk in here and find the book you're looking for. It was mostly oversized remainders and book products, a waste of an excellent location with an actual Starbucks across the street (We have forgiven the Starbucks for rubbing salt into our wound by selling an Atlantic City coffee cup this Christmas with the phrase "City of Pageants." Um, I believe that would be Vegas). So the A.C. Borders has closed. We await another attempt to bring a real bookstore to town, though probably a real supermarket might be a higher priority. In Atlantic CIty, you're better off browsing the enduring storefront book shelves outside the Princeton Antique Shop, which is looking spiffy these days. Well, there always the Vineland Music Festival this summer for nearby culture. Oops, that's been called off too.

Vineland?
For a huge music festival organized by the people behind Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and festivals in Glastonbury and Reading, England?
That's a tough one to wrap your mind around at first, Vineland, N.J. being more associated with depressed economic conditions, migrant workers, chicken farmers and a drive-in movie theater than alt rock music festivals featuring the likes of Amy Winehouse, the White Stripes and Dylan. But waddaya know, Vineland is suddenly a cool global brand. It's already, as my well-read colleague notes, the name of a Thomas Pynchon book (set in California), and Patti Smith, who grew up in nearby Woodbury, wrote about Vineland in a song aptly titled "Ain't it Strange." So maybe it was inevitable. Bring it on. We're always ready for drop-ins at the shore in August. What's another 150,000 who bring their own sleeping bags? Fairmount Park's dunderheaded loss is the Jersey shore's gain this summer, Vineland being just a few dozen miles of curvy back roads from most shore points, pretty much suburban Jersey shore. As one commenter on the Vineland daily newspaper's website joked, "I can hear it now: Rte 49 is closed, man." Hopefully not route 40, though. Who knows, one day, telling people you hang at the Jersey shore may yield this response: Hey, isn't that near Vineland?

Word around our favorite cafe at 4th and Atlantic in Ocean City _ which announced its imminent demise months ago, but obstinately refused to stop serving coffee, scones and an increasingly full lunch menu _ is that a new location has been found. The owners, who bought a vineyard in California but apparently still have a jones for importing La Colombe coffee to Jersey, have reportedly signed a lease for a building at 1st and Asbury, the old Cousin's, beginning in February, when the old Fourth Street Cafe lease is up. Looks like a nice spot, with an enclosed porch and outdoor patio, pretty much the same neighborhood. Should satisfy the many bereft Fourth-Streeters who left their email addresses and pleas in a little notepad at the old location. Just goes to show you, some things are too good to let go of.

The massive pier reconstruction has begun in Ventnor, a controversial project that may had the incidental effect of galvanizing an opposition movement among second-homers in this town. In any case, new pilings are being installed, and the pier's floor/roof/cover (a designation that depends on whether your perspective is fisherman walking out on the pier, beach trekker passing underneath or slacker poking around at the sand in the shade) ripped off. It's starting to look a little like Stonehenge out there:

Well, hey now. Excuse me while I wipe the dust off my sleeves. That was one creepy dark implosion on the Boardwalk tonight. See ya later Sands, imploded after an oddly quiet, yet strangely disquieting fireworks display emanating from inside the rooms and out the broken out windows, followed by a series of heart thumping booms that led to the finale every fireworks display yearns for: the building itself brought to its knees, obliterated. So why were people, like, walking away kind of disturbed? This was not so much thrilling, like a roller coaster, but scary like a horror flick. Maybe because it was nighttime, the white Sands building lit up like a ghost. Then the fireworks came out from inside, like there were little troublemakers setting off sparklers inside, like it was possessed or something. It was cool and pretty at times, but putting life in a lifeless building through fireworks only to then destroy the thing like it had been taken over by demons, by the undead, by the _ I'm not kidding, this is what it felt like watching it. Some teens nearby worried that somehow, someone could be inside. Or some other kinda thing. Maybe it's that after 9-11, there's nothing particularly fun about watching a tower collapse in a heap of inevitability. Or maybe it felt too much like an poor-taste imitation of a middling apartment building being taken down during wartime. Whatever, "It was creepy," was a reaction I heard more than once from spectators leaving (and the beach and Boardwalk were packed like the Fourth of July). Ah well, it definitely gave meaning to the phrase bit the dust. I've watched the 1978 implosion of the Traymore Hotel on the Boardwalk at the beginning of Louis Malle's Atlantic City a bunch of times, and it always looked grand and gallant and breathtaking, but regrettable. This building, no one will miss. But the implosion felt, well, haunted. A goth time was had by all. All witnesses invited to describe their reaction to the implosion in the comments section.
Meanwhile, here's a before picture:

And an after picture: That's dust there.