Patti Smith

Asbury Park boardwalk. August 5, 1978. A damp afternoon was turning to evening. Inside a candy store, a few young people shadowed a woman wearing a brown jacket, hat and boots. The woman was Patti Smith, in town for a concert just a few doors away.

"Wow, I can tell I'm back in Jersey," Patti said to the fans around her, almost giggling. "The salt water taffy gives me pimples."

A few hours later, wearing the same brown jacket, hat and boots, Patti strolled on to the Asbury Park Convention Hall stage to the applause of a crowd already ignited by a stirring opening set by The Ramones. And, she squirted lighter fluid on them, figuratively, with a set that included "Because the Night," co-written by Bruce Springsteen and heard on many radio stations that year.

Less than a year later, shortly after the release of her fourth album, Wave, Patti Smith ended the first of her two sets at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic by saying, "I'm going backstage, eating a roast beef sandwich, and I'll be back."

She returned for her second set and, after a few minutes, told the crowd, "Oh, sh*t, I forgot my roast beef sandwich!" At the end of the concert, she waved goodbye. It proved to be a long goodbye -- she waited nine years before releasing her next album and some more before touring again.

Fast forward to December 15, 1995. Opening for Bob Dylan at The Electric Factory in Philadelphia, Patti Smith walked on stage as her band began to play and started singing and dancing barefoot. The crowd applauded her set, and cheered when she came back later in the evening to join Dylan on a duet of "Dark Eyes," which she ended by planting a kiss on her hero's cheek.

Patti Smith returned to concert touring this year, scheduling dozens of dates in the U.S. and Europe, where the popularity of this New Jersey-born Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee seems highest these days. On Friday night, she came back to her home state for a performance at the State Theatre in New Brunswick. Anyone who thought being 65 years old and on stage with her daughter would mellow the godmother of punk were proved wrong. Patti is still "outside of society...where I want to be," per the lyrics of one of her most popular and controversial songs.

She was in fine voice, despite her claim that the humidity was having an adverse effect on her singing. She danced on stage and even ventured into the crowd a couple times to dance with her fans. She spat out lyrics -- literally, at times -- with the same passion she showed at shows 30-40 years ago, and pleaded with fans to "Vote! Vote! Vote!" at the conclusion of "People Have the Power."

At one point during the New Brunswick concert, the predominantly 50+ crowd got particularly boisterous, yelling at Patti and at each other. She paused to listen, and asked, "Is there something controversial going on?" After the cacophony died down for a moment, she looked up at a heckler and yelled, "If you got a problem, come on down so I can give you a hundred dollars to get the f*ck out of here!"

She played some guitar, and ended the show by purposely breaking strings in a way that would've impressed Pete Townsend. She talked about the effect the pending arrival of Sandy was having on her body, and told stories about attending a scary movie in a New Jersey theater, hanging outside CBGB in New York, and a concert at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall that she'll always remember for many wrong reasons.

"This has been some night," Patti said before walking off the State Theatre stage at the end of her two-hour set on Friday night. "I'll never forget this show."

Nor will I and many others.

The barber king

The second time I walked into his shop, he was sitting down, reading the New York Post, drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette.

"Hello, Charley," he said, with an Italian accent. It's an accent that has stayed with him for 50 years since he left Italy and settled in the West End section of Long Branch, New Jersey, where he opened his barber shop in 1964. He's kind of semi-retired these days, working only five mornings a week. He cuts hair by appointment, something I didn't realize the first time I walked off the street and into his shop.

"There's one ahead of you," he told me that first time, although there was no one waiting. A few minutes later, a gentleman even older than the barber walked in slowly, sat in the chair, and spoke softly while his hair was cut. When it was my turn and he began using his scissors on my graying scalp, I acknowledged the Yankees memorabilia in his shop and asked if he had been to the new Yankee Stadium yet.

"I'm a Mets fan," he replied. "I went to their new stadium once. My daughter drove me there. We got there so early, we didn't know what to do. So, we waited and then went inside. It's a nice park. But, the Mets lost."

The second time he cut my hair, we talked about the Jets, Mets and Ryder Cup.

"I got sick Sunday, with the Jets losing so bad, the Mets losing, and the US not winning the Ryder Cup," he moaned. "It made me sick to my stomach, really. And then the Giants lost."

Midway through my haircut, the barber noticed someone approaching his shop. He looked at me, paused briefly, and asked, "Did you make an appointment?"

"I did," I replied. "I called you yesterday morning."

The man the barber had spotted outside seconds earlier walked into the shop, said hello, then sat down to wait his turn. After my haircut was done, with no other customer visible, he got up.

"Not yet, Charlie," the barber told the other man. "There's one ahead of you."

As I walked out, I realized the barber may have double-booked 10:30 appointments for a "Charley" and was probably waiting for the next appointment to arrive. He likely had just enough time to finish his coffee and cigarette and, perhaps, scan a few pages of the newspaper or chat with Charlie.

The barber has not, after all, stayed in business for over 47 years by rushing through haircuts. He is his own boss, king of his castle, one with a red and white and blue striped poll that rolls only when he turns it on.