Today, I was reflective, though certainly not nostalgic, about a former residence I had near 21st and Capitol. It's a big, flat empty lot now, and no, there wasn't any buildings there, at least not in 1991 when I was "urban camping". It had a number of trees and shrubs in the back half of the lot, the end which was to the alley between Capitol and L Streets.
Most of the time, I would stay up for the night and end up passing out for a few hours during the day in Capitol Park. There were some pretty sketchy fuckups who liked to wander around at night, and if they were going to try to mess with me, I figured that at least they'd have to attempt to take me out while I was awake.
When I felt like actually getting some evening shuteye, I had a certain spot over at Capitol and 21st right under some shrubs, and would cover myself with a large old section of canvas completely, so that I'd look like a collection of yard work waste all bundled up, and usually cops and the like would pass me by. A few times, I would be woken up the next morning by a leaf blower going off a few inches away from my head. I was sort of grateful though, because they would roust me up before 8 AM, and that's when Francis House would start serving the donated coffee and leftover pastries.
Francis House has been around since 1970. It's a resource and counseling center run by a sort of convoluted partnership between a bunch of local churches and the community. Back before the area over by 17th and Capitol got turned into State of California department buildings and the like, Francis House shared an area with the Central Downtown Food Basket. My usual routine was to go to Francis House on weekday mornings to hang out in a hassle-free area, and once a week after coffee and what amounted to my breakfast I'd go next door to the Food Basket and get a bag of groceries that I could pretty much stretch for the following week.
One morning, I was sitting there drinking my coffee and reading an old copy of the New Yorker when two Sacramento Police patrolmen entered the area and circled sorta vulture-like around me for a while. They then politely asked me to step outside with them and informed me that I was getting a ride downtown to have a little chat at the PD headquarters. I found out in the interview room from the detective that I was suspected in a homicide investigation. Fortunately, they figured out pretty quickly that I was not the guy who they were looking for. Unfortunately, the person who actually did kill this person is still at large and the crime has never been solved.
Flash forward 17 years later. Last night, there was a benefit for the Francis House featuring performances by Maria Muldaur and a whole bunch of other talented people and I missed it. Usually, I flake out on stuff like this because I am an anti-social asshole, but this time it was because I got all caught up on a bass track that I couldn't get right, mostly because my name's not Gabe Nelson and bass playing doesn't come very naturally to me and I need about 1438 takes to put it down. And usually I don't feel too guilty about missing stuff like this show because I love recording despite the frustration involved, but this time, because of the combination of the show being a benefit for a charity that's helped me get by in the past, and that Maria Muldaur, et al were probably going to put on quite a memorable performance, I was kicking myself pretty hard after the fact for missing out on going.
Since I had missed out on the benefit show, I decided to kick down a contribution online. Francis House has a link to a donation page run by Network for Good, a site which handles donations for all kinds of non-profits. I figured as well that the hundred bucks that I donated online would go directly to the charity, as opposed to shows which tend to have high overhead and thus, a smaller percentage of the money actually goes to the cause. But still, I have a feeling that Maria will be performing for quite some time and I'll just have to catch her at a future visit when she comes back to town. Hey, at least the goal of the show got through to me, and I didn't even show up.
So, how about you? I think that you need to give a donation to a local charity for the poor in your community, especially since the economy's so fucked up and even working people need to depend on food closets and other types of aid organizations to get by. I dare you. I double dare you. I triple dog dare you!
(IMPORTANT NOTE OF GUIDANCE: This post is but one in a series called THE MUNDANE MONTH OF BLOGGING™. For those of you who are scratching your head right now and saying to yourselves, "What the fuck is he trying to prove?", Click Here, Pilgrim)
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