As the headline suggests, the weekend that awaits is jammed with the potential for good times.

We’ve got the fifth Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale, this one making a migration from fall to spring.

We’ve got one of the inaugural events of this year’s weeklong Paint the Town Pink festivities to raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection.

And capping it all off, rain or shine, is the first-ever Red Bank International Flavour Fest, an outdoor celebration of the wide variety of cuisines available year-round at Red Bank restaurants.

And Mother Nature appears to be in a mood to cooperate.

Details, as they used to say when that was still a two-syllable word, are just below.

SATURDAY: Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale
Location: all over town. Maps available at the Red Bank Public Library and at many of the participating homes.
Time: Officially, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., but sellers can set their own hours.

From an email update from Beth Hanratty, president of the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library, which has hosted the event since 2010:

lots of records, books and air conditioners

SATURDAY: Pink Hat Tea Party
Pilgrim Baptist Church
172 Shrewsbury Avenue
Doors open 10:30 a.m., Event 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Don’t miss this important Paint the Town Pink event, presented by Riverview Medical Center. Gather all the special women in your life to join us for an educational and entertaining Pink Hat Tea, with a hat and apparel fashion show courtesy Geneva’s Boutique of Neptune, a speacial presentation from Adi Smolinsky, M.D., a Riverview Medical Center OB/GYN, education about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of the importance of annual mammography, and more! Refreshments will be provided by Jameson’s Ultimate Southern Cooking Restaurant in Neptune. Don’t forget to wear your pink hat!

*Pink Sale Event. Deck your pink all year long with our exclusive Paint the Town Pink gear and goodies for sale at this signature event.

This event is FREE but registration is required. RSVP: 1-800-DOCTORS

SUNDAY: Paint Everything Pink Community Day
Riverview Medical Center parking lot
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Pink your town, pink your house, pink your family. Everything is pink at our family-centered, free Community Day! Featuring many of the same pink “zones” families have come to expect as well as exciting new ones, this year’s event will feature:

Kids’ Fun & Games: Rides, arts and crafts, face painting – all the things your kids have come to love! And don’t miss photos with Dr. Bernard from the Pawsitive Action Team at
K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital.

Pink it Yourself Man Cave: In line with this year’s theme of Men in Pink, our “man cave” will offer the men in your life an area just for them. Activities will include DYI demonstrations from the Home Depot, interactive games, and of course our exclusive Real Men Wear Pink t-shirts.

Rockin’ Country Thunder 106.3: Bring out the country in you! With live music from a local country artist, this local-favorite station will have you dancin’ in your boots. Your kids will love our pony rides and everyone can enjoy some good old fashioned root beer!

And that’s not all! Enjoy some snack-food favorites and other sweet treats, and beverages from a number of local pink partners, and don’t forget to stop by our educational tables to pick-up important information about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of raising awareness of the importance of annual mammography.

Special Pink Cotton Candy and Snow Cones presented by Arrow Limousine.

SUNDAY: Red Bank International Flavour Festival
White Street Parking Lot
12 p.m. to 7 p.m., rain or shine

Here’s the National Weather Service forecast:

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind between 10 and 13 mph.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind around 9 mph.

The lighted staircase shown in last week’s Where Have I Seen This? tripped up a few readers.

Susan Heckman, Jenn Woods and Cindy Burnham thought the shot was taken at the Hovnanian Enterprises HQ on West Front Street in Red Bank, while Mary McGrath went with Riverside Gardens Park, a block east of there.

Dawn Placer guessed the Red Bank municipal building on Monmouth Street.

Justin Theime (is that a put-on?) and Trish DePonti pegged it at the First Presbyterian Church at Red Bank at Tower Hill, while Kelly Busch went with the Church of the Nativity in Fair Haven.

Correct answer: the Tower Hill church.

Thanks to all who wrote in. If you think you can wend your way to this week’s location, please drop us an email with WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS? in the subject line.

Council members Juanita Lewis and Ed Zipprich opposed a permit application for the event last month, with Zipprich citing a Virginia law that would require most women seeking abortions to undergo an invasive ultrasound procedure. “I believe religious organizations have funded this attack on women’s rights,” Zipprich said. The permit was approved by a 3-to-2 vote. (Click to enlarge)

Matt DePonti of Powerhouse Signworks gets the word about Wedding Walk out above Broad Street last week. (Click to enlarge)

Here come the brides-to-be again, as Red Bank merchants reprise an idea that’s turned into one of the more popular recurring draws of shoppers and diners.

As with the first three editions of this shopping extravaganza, merchants of everything from formalwear to framing, from rehearsal-dinner restaurant meals to riverfront hotel suites will open their doors on Saturday to an expected swarm of soon-to-be-marrieds hoping to nail down details of their big day.

Organized by downtown promotion agency Red Bank RiverCenter, the free, one-day event is designed for prospective brides, grooms, their families and friends to come to town to plan their weddings, checking out more than 40 wedding-related businesses have to offer.

Florists, gown and tuxedo retailers, photographers, jewelers, hair and nail salons and banquet facilities are on board, RiverCenter says in an announcement. Most will be offering promotions, light refreshments, and libations and live music will be performed all day at three locations throughout town.

From RiverCenter:

The day begins at 9:00 AM with Registration/Check In and Continental Breakfast at the historic Molly Pitcher Inn, at 88 Riverside Avenue followed by a self-guided tour of the town’s participating businesses.  All registrants will receive a Wedding Walk map/passport and each registered couple will receive one complimentary tote bag to hold all the giveaways and information.

Free shuttle, limo and trolley service will also be available with stops at each of the downtown’s shopping areas. Guests must visit at least 16 businesses (including one from each zone) to be eligible for the prize drawings at the end of the day.

The day concludes with a fabulous champagne reception including hors d’oeuvres at the Oyster Point Hotel, a beautiful, waterfront, wedding venue at 146 Bodman Place at 3:00 PM.  The prize raffle will be held at 3:15 PM where guests can enter to win fabulous prizes with their validated passport including the Grand Prize of a 6-day vacation in Costa Rica!  The Wedding Walk will conclude at 4:00 PM.

Guests are strongly encouraged to pre-register @ www.OnlyOneRedBankWedding.com where they can browse the participating businesses and map out their itinerary to get the most out of their day.  Engaged couples, mark your calendars for the Red Bank Wedding Walk on Saturday March 24th! Your dream wedding awaits!

For more information go to www.OnlyOneRedBankWedding.com or call Red Bank RiverCenter at 732-842-4244.  Red Bank RiverCenter is a not-for-profit alliance of businesses, property owners, and residents working toward the economic vitality of the Red Bank Business District.  Please visit www.redbankrivercenter.org for additional information.

The $20,000 raised will help cover the cost of a daylong celebration on Saturday, June 16 that will feature a parade, a community picnic and a fireworks show at Fair Haven Fields. (Photos by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)

Last week’s photo was of a scruffy sign that read “QUAKER PARKING” with a bent arrow painted on it.

“Too obvious,” wrote Sandra Talarico, who along with 15 other readers identified its location as the Quaker Meeting House at the historic Four Corners in Shrewsbury – the intersection of Broad Street (Route 35) and Sycamore Avenue. (We had one incorrect answer: Hudson Street in Red Bank.)

“Thank you for an easy one that brings to an end our dry spell,” wrote Wheregulars Carl, Kathy Lou, Bob and Debbie Colmorgen, aka the Colmorgen Kids.

Here’s a little plug for the folks at the Shrewsbury Friends, a congregation whose roots date back to 1660, from their website:

We are an unprogrammed meeting; there is no set order of service. We wait in expectant silence; vocal messages are given as members and attenders are moved. Children attend for only the first fifteen to twenty minutes at which point they proceed to First Day School. Meeting for Worship lasts about one hour, and is concluded with the shaking of hands with those sitting nearby, followed by announcements of upcoming events. Also at this time, we introduce ourselves when visitors attend. Following Meeting for Worship there is an opportunity for fellowship. There is always coffee and tea and good conversation.

Thanks to all who wrote in: Jenn Woods, Lindsey Hintelmann, Brian Phillips, Parker Trasborg, Christine Jahnig, the Colmorgens, Chris Conk, Eleanor Blass, David Martin, Alan Fisher, Sandra Talarico, Trista Clayton, Jackie Franciso Sapienza, Anna Higgins, Mary White and Mike Welsh.

Can you identify the location of the object in this week’s photo? Take a guess, and send it to us via email, please.

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

Right off the bat, the above photo hints at what new Sea Bright Mayor Dina Long is up against.

Long is far from the first of the town’s top elected officials to confront flooding issues. Pinched between the Atlantic Ocean and the Shrewsbury River, the three-mile-long spit of sand can always count on seeing water slosh onto residential streets abutting the downtown business district during storms.

But a fix is finally in the works, says Long, who hopes to check off flood control, beachfront redevelopment, cellular service quality and one or two other longstanding projects from her to-do list in her term.

“I refuse to see things as problems,” Long told redbankgreen in a recent interview over coffee at Steve’s Breakfast & Lunch on Ocean Avenue. “Otherwise, you’re just stuck all the time.”

Long with Councilman Read Murphy at Steve’s Breakfast & Lunch. (Click to enlarge)

Long says Sea Bright has kind of been “poised at the edge of progress” for a years, and that it’s her job as mayor to “make the numbers work” to enable it to happen.

Her vision for the beachfront redevelopment, she says, is the same as the council’s: to transform a town of 1,800 that serves mainly as a summer destination for visitors into one with year-round draws. And the first stage of that plan is “finally about to happen,” she says.

Likewise for a flood mitigation plan that calls for taller bulkheads along the river and a pumping station to keep the streets drier, if not immune to nature’s worst.

Long, 42 years old, grew up in Neptune, where her parents still live. After graduating from Rutgers, where she studied journalism – a subject she teaches as a full-time faculty member at Brookdale Community College – Long worked as a paid campaign staffer for governors Jim Florio and Jim McGreevey, presidential candidate Bill Bradley and then-Senator Jon Corzine.

She met her husband, Rob Long, on the Florio campaign, for which he was treasurer. They moved to Sea Bright in 2002, when he became pastor of Sea Bright United Methodist Church. Rob now works for a law firm and serves part-time as associate pastor at Christ Church in Fair Haven. The couple have an 8-year-old son.

“Is Sea Bright like any other place you’ve ever seen?” Long says brightly, just minutes after helping some of her neighbors remove their cars from flooded New Street.

From early on in her decade in Sea Bright, Long says she has been enamored of a town that’s a little bit of Mayberry by the Sea, and was inspired to serve it. She had one year left in her third three-year term on council when she was elected mayor over former Mayor Jo-Ann Kalaka Adams in November.

Councilman Read Murphy, who clashed loudly and often with one of Long’s political mentors, former Mayor Maria Fernandes, says Long is “trying to get rid of the politics here” to make things happen.

Despite her party pedigree, Long calls herself a “disaffected Democrat,” one who is “extraordinarily conservative” fiscally, a fan of Governor Chris Christie and says she’s “holding a grudge against” President  Obama over bank bailouts, carbon tax credits and other issues she declines to detail.

She says Murphy is right that she wants to maintain and build consensus across party lines. But no one should mistake her for a pushover, she suggests.

“If you refuse to play politics, and everybody else is playing politics, then they’re going to politic you,” she says, adding, “I don’t allow myself to be trampled.”

More particularly, Long expresses resentment for party bosses “and other people who are not elected attempting to make decisions that should be in the hands of elected officials. I really object to that.” Though she says that, in all her time in politics, “at least on my side, that has never happened.

“There have been times when I’ve marched away from my party, away from the party chairman, because I’m independent,” she said. “I’m out for what’s best for Sea Bright.”

She declines to give examples of it happening on the other side, however, instead turning the conversation toward her “collegial” relationship with the borough council, all of whose members she’s worked with productively for at least two terms.

“She’s a real asset,” said Murphy, a Republican whose brash, often crass manner could hardly be more different from Long’s careful choosing of words. “I think she’s going to be a great mayor.”

Sea Bright residents and fans can now follow the town’s doings on Facebook and Twitter, via accounts set up by Long earlier this month.

On the grounds of the First Presbyterian Church at Red Bank, atop Tower Hill, is a wonder of a nature: a paper-bark birch throwing off its clothes in paper-thin layers to reveal something purer underneath.

Red Bank arborist Bill Brooks tells redbankgreen that the exfoliation process occurs “pretty much year-round” for the trees, also known as white birch and canoe birch, because Native Americans used the detritus to waterproof their vessels.

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