Fuck it.

This is the last time I don't follow a hunch; the last time I don't pursue a gut feeling; the last time I don't take a chance on realizing a dream.

I came within 100 feet of Bruce Springsteen last night and did not meet him.

The Boss put out a double live album today, a collection of recordings made at the final two shows of the 10-night Madison Square Garden stand last summer. Jack's Music Shop in Red Bank put the album on sale at midnight Tuesday, something they hadn't done before with an album. You may know Jack's from some street scenes in "Chasing Amy." Binky goes and sits on the front stoop after he walks in on Holden and Alyssa asleep on the couch in the apartment. It's also in an early establishing shot, I believe.

Anyway, I was working until after midnight, and seeing as how Red Bank is the next town over from home, I figured I'd take a drive by on the way home.

Let me preface this with some other close encounters. There was a day back in November, a Saturday after the World Series ended when I was given the night off. I worked an extra day during the week helping put out our Yankees celebration section, and for doing the devil's work, I was rewarded with my first Saturday off since June.

I made plans to spend the night out in New York with some friends, but I had this feeling ... so I checked the club listings in the paper to see what live acts were around that night.

Joe Grushecky and the House Rockers were performing at Asbury Park's famed Stone Pony, a benefit concert for Parkinson's disease research. I knew Grushecky and Springsteen were friends, and I knew Bruce had made apperances at Joe's shows before � including one at the Tradewinds one summer, in which Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were in the audience, in part because it was the time when Springsteen had just worked with them writing "Dead Man Walking" for the movie of the same name.

But I never went to the Grushecky show, and lo and behold, Springsteen showed up.

And years ago, when I was a grade schooler wearing out my Born In The USA tape, my father, sister and I returned from the local video store, only to have my mother meet us in the kitchen with wide eyes, asking if we'd seen Springsteen. He stopped in to rent videos and the son of a friend of my mom's had met him there, and my mom had just gotten off the phone with the friend; we missed Bruce by minutes. One of my friends in high school has seen him several times at the store since.

And a long time ago, when I was young, maybe 8, 10 years old, my best friend Matt had a neighbor, Dana, with lukemia. Dana was, I think, a year behind us in school, but it was hard to tell � she was in school so infrequently, any appearance she made was a big deal, a celebration. We know she does not have long to live, and one day, my mom tells my sister and me that Matt and his sister got to meet Bruce Sprinsteen because he paid a visit to Dana at her house. I was only a little jealous that time, even at such a young age, because of the circumstances that initiated the visit. It must have been a tough thing for him to do. Or maybe not, knowing that simply by showing up, he was making Dana's day a good one, of which she likely had little.

And there was even one other time, in high school, when we were hanging around outside the corner convenience store, drinking sodas after a Sunday afternoon game of tackle football, when a vintage 50s Corvette turned the corner and headed down the street, past my house and toward Rumson. From the car that followed on the otherwise empty road a woman screamed out the window as she passed, "That was Bruce Springsteen!"

So last night, I walk out to my car in the cold New Jersey night. I'm tired from a long day of heading out to the ballpark to cover an event, then a night on the copy desk at the newspaper. And I decide I'll drive by Jack's on the way home, just to see the scene, not really expecting to stop and buy the CD � I won't be listening to it much between midnight and when the other stores open the next morning. I figure if I go to my regular CD store, where I have a membership and get discounts, I'll save maybe six bucks on the album.

As it turned out, I would've covered that extra six buck by having Bruce write on the disc.

But I also think that maybe � just maybe � The Boss himself might make an appearance. I have a hunch, an inkling that this might be the kind of event that draws him out from his Rumson mansion or his Colts Neck ranch, wherever he's living these days.

I drive by Jack's a little after 1 a.m. No one lingers outside, but there are still a few dozen people in the store � just as if it were a Saturday afternoon. Lights are on, people make purchases and ring up sales at the registers right by the front window. I roll by and ride down dark Broad Street, turning at the light to go home.

Then I walk into work tonight and am told that Bruce was there. He walked in a little after midnight, when 300 people were in the store, and signed just about anything before leaving. The first report I heard had him leaving at 2 a.m., though the Asbury Park Press is saying he left a little after one.

Still, it was too close.

I'm never going against a hunch again.