Smith: It’ll be one cold night of empathy for teens who live on the streets

As the sun sets on Friday, Nov. 3, more than 50 Sonoma County people, some of whom you likely know, will prepare to spend all night on a sidewalk and a sheet or two of cardboard.

I’ll be one of them, having volunteered to experience for one night what hundreds of local teens endure night after night.

The sponsoring Social Advocates for Youth aspires to seeks to inspire more of us to actively care about young people who suffer and struggle, and to raise dollars for services such as those at SAY’s Dream Center in Santa Rosa.

That’s where those of us taking part in One Cold Night will layer up, unfurl a camping bag onto a bed of cardboard and try to get some sleep.

If you’d like to learn more and perhaps donate to one or more of us, go to saysc.org.

I’m counting on natural padding to soften and insulate. Of course, I’ll write about the night.

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THE GIANTS WON their last game of the difficult season on Sunday, and before the first pitch the crowd of about 40,000 lost its heart to a reprise performance by 94-year-old Elaine Joyce of Sebastopol.

Elaine’s rendition of the national anthem brought a cheer surely heard in Oakland.

It was just last July that the Giants organization, impressed by an audition video made by Elaine’s son, Tif, invited her to come launch a game by singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” She told me beforehand that to calm herself as she stood on the infield and gazed up at the fans, she would imagine them all wearing diapers.

She hit it outta the park.

So the team asked her to come back for Sunday’s concluding game against the San Diego Padres. She sang her heart out again. Afterward, Giants president and CEO Larry Baer told her, “You can come out and sing anytime you want to.”

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JIM BELUSHI and his harmonica dropped into the Glen Ellen Star restaurant on Sunday night and served up a tasty slice of improv at the front door.

An Instagram video has the actor/comic/musician sporting a Glen Ellen Star cap, clutching a huge, live cigar and making it up on his mouth harp as he went.

“Standing in the street in Glen Ellen,” Belushi sings for a clutch of accompanying admirers. “Big doorman won’t let me in.

“Baby it’s so fine. Yeah, that pizza’s so fine!

“You got to move that man so I can get in and have some fine piz-za.”

Star chef-owner Ari Weiswasser shares that Belushi, who succeeded late brother John as the Blues Brothers partner of Dan Aykroyd, appeared at his place in downtown Glen Ellen fairly late Sunday night, after 10 p.m.

Earlier that evening, Belushi had performed at a company event by SPARC, the San Francisco-based cannabis company that several months back merged with the Peace in Medicine dispensaries in Santa Rosa and Sebastopol.

Weiswasser and his staff didn’t mind Belushi arriving late for a bite.

“We obviously accommodated him,” said the acclaimed chef.

Lucky for the Star crew, Belushi stepped just outside the door and let his stogie idle while firing up his harmonica and his sense of humor.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.