By JOHN T. WARD

Can a Jersey Girl whose work as a 22-year-old prostitute helped derail a political career in spectacular fashion return home and remake herself as a small-town retailer?

Four years after her high-priced hotel romps with Eliot Spitzer dynamited his tenure as governor of New York and made her infamous, Ashley Dupré says she turned a page Monday with the opening of Femme by Ashley, a lingerie and swimwear boutique on the choicest block in downtown Red Bank.

The shop, Dupré told redbankgreen in an exclusive interview, “is almost like the beginning of the rest of my life.

“I made a bunch of mistakes when I was younger, and I feel like, for the first time in my life, I’m growing into an adult, and I’m really excited about that,” she said.

The Broad Street boutique features lingerie, swimsuits and Victoria  Beckham sunglasses. (Click to enlarge)

Petite and wearing eyeglasses that made her appear somewhat more studious than she did in Girls Gone Wild videos made a decade ago, 27-year-old Dupré said she agreed to redbankgreen‘s request for a sit-down only at the urging of her boyfriend, TJ Earle, who thought it was important in establishing community roots. She said it would likely be her only interview on the topic.

Off-limits were questions about the events that made her a household name. Dupré also refused to allow redbankgreen to videotape the interview or even take her photo, saying she’d been “burned” in the past by the unauthorized release of images. Instead, she supplied a commissioned portrait.

“I’m just done with it,” Dupré said of her scandal-based persona. “I’m very private. People don’t believe that, but I’m a very private person. I don’t want that life. I’m not looking to be in the press. I’m just looking to get on with my life.”

Her focus, she said, is on becoming a business owner and “me doing what I enjoy for the first time, and not caring what anyone else has to say about it.”

Dupré’s image rehab effort might be traced to her hire two years ago as a sex -and-relationship advice columnist for the New York Post, which had previously reveled in labeling her a “ho” and “trollop” at every opportunity. In bringing her on board, the newspaper wrote:

She didn’t ask for fame, but, “Now that I have it, it’s up to me to take advantage,” she said.

Under the tag “Ask Ashley,” Dupré fielded questions that at first overtly traded on her notoriety. “How do I know if my daughter may be getting into trouble?” asked “Meredith, 40, Queens,” in the debut.

But the column later morphed into questions about keeping relationships fresh and exciting, Dupré said. “I think I have moved away from how I’m viewed to ‘how do I save my relationship?’ and ‘how do I make this work?’” she said.

The Broad Street store represents a continuation of that evolution, she said – and the likely end of the column, which she said has “run it’s course.”

Other than a confessional interview with Diane Sawyer on 20/20, a raunchy one with Howard Stern and a nude spread in Playboy, what else has Dupré been up to since the Spitzer scandal broke in March, 2008?

“I’ve been in a relationship,” she said. “I’ve just started my life over.” She and Earle, a paving industry exec, have lived in the Navesink section of Middletown for the past two months. She said she considers him her best friend, and his young daughters her family.

Growing up in Wall Township, Dupré said she was a frequent visitor to Red Bank. Moving back to the Shore after seven years in Manhattan and again visiting the town, “I just fell in love with the community as a whole,” she said. “It is like a little mini SoHo, and the people here are great.”

In creating Femme by Ashley, Dupré hired Amy Manor of West Front Street to design the space. Borough-based Frame to Please supplied oversized mirror frames and Solari Creative, also of Red Bank, did the website.

“We really kept it in the community. It’s like our own little networking circle here,” Dupré said. “It’s very important to me to have that.”

The resulting shop features white walls, ceilings and flooring. Long, silver velvet drapes form a pair of dressing rooms, each equipped with a plush purple chair so shoppers and their significant others can have some intimate time during a bikini or teddy try-on.

Dupré said the boutique’s merchandise, including labels Agua Bandita, Pily Q and Jenna Leigh, reflects her own evolving fashion sense.

“I’m  a girl, and I think every girl likes to shop and explore their tastes,” she said. “Getting into this business, I kind of explored all of these designers and fell in love with them.”

The shop offers swimsuits in the $180 to $200 range as well as some “special” underthings, Dupré said.

“I really wanted this to be a place where anybody could come in and get something and be able to afford it, but also to have the luxurious items, too,” she said.

Dupré said she plans to be in the store daily, and is braced for curiosity seekers.

“Well, I’m sure I’m going to see everybody,” she says with a laugh. “I’m sure a lot of interesting people are going to walk through those doors.”

Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna met recently with Dupré and Earle at their request, and said he came away impressed by their vision for the store and their enthusiasm about the town. Only one person, the wife of a retailer, had complained to him about Dupré’s arrival, he said. “I reminded her that none of us are exemplary in every aspect of our lives.” he said.

“We are a very diverse town,” Menna said. “We welcome everyone.”

Dupré, though, doesn’t expect everyone to be welcoming. She says she’s learned to shrug off whispers, which she finds prevalent “whether you’ve been involved in a scandal or not. People always talk about other people. And it’s sad that you don’t have anything more important to talk about in your life, but that’s just the way of life. Not everybody can like you, and it’s OK. I’m OK with that.

“What am I going to do, live in the past, regretting every mistake I’ve ever made?” she said. “That’s the sign of a weak person. You need to get over it and move on.”

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

Red Bank RiverCenter, the downtown business-promotion entity, has gone mobile with the introduction of an app for iPhones and iPads.

“It’s part of our marketing mission, getting information about Red Bank out far and wide, and making it easy to come to the theaters and restaurants and stores in town,” says RiverCenter executive director Nancy Adams.

She envisions visitors getting off the train and using their iPhones to find places to go.

“There are who just don’t want the paper” on which directories and maps have heretofore been printed, she says.

Mimicking RiverCenter’s website, and branded with the agency’s “Only One Red Bank” slogan, the app’s meatiest element is its business directory, broken down into categories of dining, shopping arts and services.

Users can dig into “books” in the shopping list, for example, and find, well, no book stores, but two retailers carrying books among their wares.

Under “Italian” in the dining list are 20 eateries, including Mr. Pizza Slice and Sicilia Café. Listings include tap-to-call phone numbers and links to websites, where available.

The app features a page of “hot deals,” though no deals are yet being offered.

“We’re hoping to have our local ‘Groupon-ish’ feature loaded with special offers very soon, says longtime borough resident Steven Craig Sickles, who built the app, at no charge, using it as a prototype for a service he plans to offer elsewhere.

Also featured:

•  An events calendar, so far showing Tuesday night’s Menorah Lighting at the train station (no time given) and successive $5 Cheese Fridays at the Cheese Cave on Monmouth Street.

•  Municipal phone numbers

•  RSS feeds from two news sources, one of them being the area’s only independent, Authentically Local online publication: redbankgreen.

“To cement the app’s hometown appeal,” Sickles says he’ll be adding “more local interest and social networking features, including resident, local journalist and business blogs, and even a feature that will allow users to know when their other friends are in town.”

The app uses Google Maps to direct users, and as some of its familiar errors are immediately evident. The locator map for the mid-block Bagel Station on Monmouth Street, for example, shows it at the corner of Monmouth and Water streets – the actual location of Juanito’s restaurant. Juanito’s, meanwhile, appears to be located on the railroad tracks at the nearby train station.

The app still has some glitches to be worked out, Adams says. And there’s no non-Apple version available yet, though RiverCenter is exploring the possibility of getting one.

Back in September, redbankgreen told you about Jon Bon Jovi shooting a commercial for Advil at the Soul Kitchen, which hadn’t yet opened. Well, for all those fans with an ache for the pop star, here’s the spot, which debuts today.

Advil’s a backer of the JBJ Soul Foundation, which built and runs the pay-what-you-can restaurant on Monmouth Street in Red Bank.

Eight-year-old Andrea John introduces herself to Mary Faith Chmiel at a meet-the-director event held at the library earlier this month. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Book-loving Red Bankers of a certain vintage may experience a bit of deja vu when visiting the public library these days: it seems the institution’s new director looks a lot like the woman who owned a long-departed downtown used bookstore, Twice Sold Tales.

That’s because, of course, the two women are one and the same: Mary Faith Chmiel.

Chmiel, 57, of Tinton Falls, returned to town after a dozen years absence, this time taking up working residence among the racks on West Front Street, her bookstore having given way to a Starbucks early in the days of the first Internet browser. She was hired as the library’s new director in October, replacing Deborah Griffin-Sadel, who departed under unexplained circumstances in January.

redbankgreen pulled Chmiel aside for a quickie interview during a meet-the-director event hosted by the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library earlier this month.

redbankgreen: When was Twice Sold Tales in Red Bank?

Chmiel: From 1983 to 1995. It started as a used bookstore, but as bookstores went away, I started to get a little into new books.

redbankgreen: From there you went into the library field?

Chmiel: Yes, I got my degree in library science from Rutgers and spent 12 years in Spotswood. But first I spent about a year and a half with three part-time library jobs: Monmouth County, Brookdale and here.

redbankgreen: What does it mean to you to be back here?

Chmiel: It means a lot. To me, it’s like coming home. It was my hometown library for 20 years when I lived in Red Bank, and it’s really fabulous to be back here.

redbankgreen: So you spent 12 years at the bookstore, 12 years in Spotswood. Does that mean you’ll be here for another 12?

Chmiel: Wouldn’t that be great? Yeah. There’s a lot to do here, there’s a lot of opportunity here, there’s a really rich and exciting community, and it would be wonderful to make our library as rich and as exciting as the rest of the community.

redbankgreen: In the 12 years or so that you’ve been in the library field, we’ve seen the ascendance of the Internet, and a lot of people are wondering, ‘What’s the point of a library?” What is the point of a library nowadays?

Chmiel: Well, I think if you look around, you’ll see that it brings together a community of people who don’t need to spend their entire lives looking at a screen. People come to us to access screens, but I think a library is also about community, it’s about sharing, it’s about your book club, it’s a place for people to get together and share whatever it is they have to share.

redbankgreen: Do you envision that the digital world will eclipse the printed world? And will libraries have a place in it?

Chmiel: I think that there will always be a place for print. I think there’s a lot to be said for digital: we have two Nooks here, we have an iPad, and I think that’s all important. But I don’t think it will necessarily supplant the printed book, no matter your age, because there’s still something about sitting with a child and a picture book and turning the page and having each page be a new surprise. It’s not quite the same on the screen.

redbankgreen: What do you see as the big challenges for this library in particular?

Chmiel: We definitely want to bring more children into the library. We have story times, we want more people bringing their children in for those. We want more young adults – YAs. And we want people to know that we’re not just books. I’m working really hard and refreshing our collection, because the collection had gotten really dated. So I want people to know that there are exciting new elements to our collection, but that we’re not just about books, either.

redbankgreen: Are you doing anything in particular to reach out to the Hispanic community?

Chmiel: That is definitely one of our goals. We have a Spanish collection, but I want to build it up a little bit more. We want to do more outreach to the Spanish-speaking community with our bilingual storytime program, which has kind of fallen by the wayside because we don’t have a bilingual member on staff right now, but that would probably be something we’d want to pursue in the future. We can also show Spanish-language movies, and that’s another thing we’d like to do as well.

redbankgreen: Is there anything on the horizon with regard to capital programs?

Chmiel: I don’t think so. We’ve moved our New Jersey collection upstairs; it’s now in a locked room. So we’ll be able to do things with the front room, which is just gorgeous. I’d really like to make that a quiet reading room that people can just go in there with their laptops or books and enjoy the quiet on either side of the fireplace. So there are some things that involve a little bit of funding, but mostly, it’s just using our own creativity.

redbankgreen: Speaking of funding, I understand you’re sitting on a big bundle of cash.

Chmiel: (Laughing) Me, personally? Wouldn’t that be wonderful.

It’s an unfounded rumor. The library does have some endowment funds, but they are not astronomical. It’s not inappropriate that we have those. They were set aside for particular things, not for the general operation of the library, which is still the municipality’s responsibility. They’re set aside for things like the children’s room, for programs. There are two other endownments and I’m not sure of their purpose, but they were not meant for the day-to-day operation. They’re meant to enhance the mission of the library.

Lots of glitz was on display last month when the JBJ Soul Kitchen, the new pay-what-you-can-or-volunteer restaurant, opened in Red Bank last month.

It wasn’t just the star power of pop star Jon Bon Jovi, whose foundation bankrolled the operation, but the swarm of New York media and even the superchic look given to the former auto repair shop by Red Bank architect Michael Malone.

It made some people wonder: would this turn out to be a restaurant for the haves only? Would those who need what Soul Kitchen was created to provide come out, too?

A volunteer at the Soul Kitchen, Christina Georgas, tells redbankgreen that they do. A bit reluctantly, on occasion, but they’re coming in.

“The great thing is that we have that long driveway out front, and sometimes we see them hesitating,” says Georgas, who works as a server. “So we go out and tell them, ‘Please, come on in.’ And they do.”

In an article published Monday on Philly.com, the website of the Philadelphia Inquirer, food reporter Dianna Marder also reports that the concept is working.

From Marder’s piece:

The Soul Kitchen, centrally located in Red Bank’s hip Arts and Antiques district, is in a former auto-body shop that sparkles with glass bay doors, sunny yellow walls, black tables and chairs covered in butcher paper, and floor-to-ceiling shelves decorated with jars of honey, pickled peaches, grains, and gadgets.

The 25-seater has become a mecca, with guests waiting up to an hour to share a table with strangers, in keeping with the “community kitchen” concept.

“The response has been even better than we could have hoped for,” Bon Jovi wrote on the kitchen’s website.

So far, about 15 percent of patrons have paid with vouchers. The rest have paid in cash, which is what is needed if this restaurant is to stay afloat. Many are tourists making a side trip in the hopes of seeing Bon Jovi himself. But the musician has made a point of staying away, so as not to be disruptive.

Marder, quoting JBJ Soul Foundation executive director Mimi Box, also talks about how the kitchen grew out of the singer’s work in providing housing in Philadelphia and Camden:

This time Bon Jovi is watching television. He sees a news story on a community kitchen in Denver called SAME (so all may eat) and learns the idea came from Denise Cerreta of Salt Lake City, who started OWEE (one world, everybody eats).

“We visited Denise and saw her model and talked about what makes it work,” Box said.

“Every organization has to tweak the model to fit the needs of that community,” Box said. “Denise cautioned us that to make the project work, it has to be at the intersection of a population that could support the kitchen as well as a population in need.”

Red Bank scores on both counts. Its poverty rate, especially among 5- to 15-year-olds, is twice that of the rest of the state. So there are certainly sufficient individuals and families to welcome an opportunity to buy a meal in exchange for work.

But Red Bank is also home to artsy newcomers whose one-of-a-kind work draws shoppers from nearby moneyed towns. Colts Neck, eight miles away, is home to many of the country’s wealthiest 1 percent (and their horses).

A renovated train station with service to Manhattan and the Count Basie Theatre for Performing Arts is steps from the Soul Kitchen.

“When we’ve perfected the model here,” Box said, “we’d love to expand.”

From ‘Jersey Shore‘ to ‘Jersey Store,’ the reality TV juggernaut continues…

Kevin Smith‘s Red Bank emporium, Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, a magnet for comic book fans and camera-toting devotees of the filmmaker himself, has been greenlighted as the locus of an unscripted series.

Six one-hour episodes of the show, with working title “Secret Stash,” have been ordered by AMC, home of ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Breaking Bad‘ and ‘The Walking Dead,’ according to a post on Smith’s Silent Bob Speaks website.

Smith, who got a toehold on fame with the no-budget breakout film ‘Clerks,’ will be executive producer of the series, which aims to capture the vibe of a neighborhood comic book shop and celebrate ‘fanboy‘ culture, as aficionados interact with employees in the store, according to a description posted on the site.

An announcement by AMC says the show also “captures the fun and emotion” of buying and selling collectibles.

The show is expected to feature the likes of Robert Bruce, a borough-based dealer in vintage comic books, records and toys who reports on Facebook that he’s been told he’ll be involved.

The show is scheduled for launch early in 2012.

The front page of today’s Star-Ledger is dominated by a single story, headlined “N.J.’s MOST DEVASTATING STORM EVER?’ (Click to enlarge)

From NJ.com, the Sledger’s website:

New Jersey is wearing the bull’s-eye for what could turn out to be the state’s worst storm ever, a Category 2 hurricane packing winds that could reach 100 mph, pushing a wall of water from the ocean as high as 12 feet and spreading floodwaters to inland towns.

Clearly, the newspaper reflects the consensus judgment of experts that we’re in for a potentially catastrophic storm come Sunday as Hurricane Irene lumbers north along the East Coast, with threat levels classified as “extreme” from the Carolinas to New England.

What’s up? Crew members say they’re sworn to secrecy, but sources tell redbankgreen they’re gathering footage for a reality dating show called ‘Perfect Date’ to be aired later this year. An MTV spokesman did not respond to a request for confirmation. (Click to enlarge)