Who wants Bruce Springsteen’s Harley Fat Boy?

It’s not Tony Soprano’s Chevy Suburban but it has way more cache: starting today Bruce Springteen’s 1991 Harley Davidson Fat Boy is up for grabs on the charityfolks.com online auction house.

The white Harley is owned by Springsteen who says it has been driven 9,198 miles across (the Badlands no doubt). The bike will be part of the live auction at the November 7 Stand Up for Heroes event, with proxy bids placed on behalf of the online auction’s winner.

Along with the Harley, the high bidder will also receive a print of the picture on the site, signed by Springsteen of course. Bidding currently is at $15,000. Online bidding ends 11.7 at 6 p.m. Eastern.

Proceeds from The Stand Up For Heroes: A Benefit for the Bob Woodruff Family Fund auction go toward service members injured while serving in the United States Armed Forces. According to the charity’s Web site, special emphasis is placed on soldiers with traumatic brain injury and combat stress injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder.

Conan O’Brien will host the benefit at New York’s Town Hall and the evening will feature intimate performances by Lewis Black, Springsteen and Robin Williams.

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Springsteen pulls a rabbit out of his hat

My friend Phil calls me a Bruce Springsteen “purist,” and to an extent, he’s right. The romantic, mysterious boardwalk characters of his first two albums, the hope and longing of Born to Run, the collision that occurs when that hope meets the grim reality of Darkness on the Edge of Town, and the ultimate paradox it creates on The River combine to form perhaps the most compelling series of albums in all of rock & roll.

Springsteen and his long-standing sympathetic comrades The E Street Band managed to achieve seemingly incompatible aims: telling tales of the search for moments of humanity amid hardships and disappointments while making the most joyous, life-affirming music. Driven by Springsteen’s eternally youthful sense of wonder and his uncommon intensity, the albums and the live performances left listeners with an unbreakable bond of community, a hint of a greater purpose and a feeling of elation which made them, in the words of one of his songs, “glad to be alive.”