In the middle of a benefit concert in his home town of Freehold, N.J., while singing about his first kiss, Bruce Springsteen called out: “Maria Espinosa, where are you tonight?” Probably babysitting her grandchildren. “I can’t believe he remembers my name,” Maria Espinosa Ayala, now a 48-year-old grandmother, told the Asbury Park Press.

“My parents were so strict. I wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend so I couldn’t let anyone know what happened,” she said of the smooch at a dance more than 30 years ago. And after Springsteen became famous, she didn’t think anyone would believe her.

“It must have lasted about a minute,” she said. “It was good. I dreamed about it afterward.”

Loose talk

Sponge singer Vinnie Dombroski, on the band’s latest album, “Wax Ecstatic” (in Hits magazine): “Some people write records from their hearts. This one’s from our liver.”

Well, we suppose he could use a new suit

David Leisure turns 46 today.

Sounds like the kid is driving Chiquita bananas

The latest on the Madonna baby front: the Maternal Girl reportedly has had to send her chihuahua, Chiquita, to a doggie psychiatrist because the pooch is jealous of little Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon and has been tearing up the furniture and piddling on expensive carpets.

Actually, we don’t even know the father’s name

Amid tabloid reports that his baby was born prematurely with a deformity, the artist formerly known as Prince is declining to even confirm that the child exists. “Whenever we give birth to our children, the world won’t know anything,” he said. “They won’t know their names, sex, anything. Our child has to make those decisions. What if it doesn’t want to be a public person?”

Oh, you know how one shot leads to another

Bobby Brown says he had a nervous breakdown after gangland bullets grazed his chest and killed his sister’s fiance a year ago, right after he had separated from wife Whitney Houston. “I didn’t know where I was, if I was alive or dead,” he tells Vibe magazine. “I was drinking Courvoisier straight. I’d wake up, and the bottle still would be there from the night before. I was smoking more weed than Bob Marley and the Wailers. Chronic, chronic, chronic.”

Poor Rob could feel his knees beginning to melt

Death Row Records chief Marion “Suge” Knight, who was driving the car when Tupac Shakur was killed, didn’t get his fearsome reputation for nothing. Failed rapper Vanilla Ice (aka Rob Van Winkle) recalled on “PrimeTime Live” that Knight made him sign over the rights to his hit song “Ice Ice Baby” by taking him up to a balcony and pointing out it was a long way down to the street.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino