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April 26, 2012
Hello everyone!
The “unflappable melodist” (NYT) on the guitar, Jamie Fox, and I just had a very special weekend in Michigan, joining the Chapin Family festivities in a benefit for the Hope Center of Macomb north of Detroit, and then heading west to Grand Haven for two engagements there. The wonderful singer-songwriter and great person Brian Vander Ark and the C3 Community hosted us for a concert on Saturday and musical spiritual Earth Day gathering on Sunday. We are so grateful to our fantastic hosts, and to all of you who came out to the shows there. Michigan rocks — we will be back!
Next on to Florida, where I will be giving a keynote address (much scarier than singing for me!) at the Hunger Summit of the Harry Chapin Food Bank of SW Florida this Friday. This is free and open to the public. Later that evening, Jamie will come down for a benefit for the Food Bank at a lovely arts center in Fort Myers. Before coming home after our too short FL trip, we’ll stop in the Tampa area for a house concert. See below for details.
An updated preview of upcoming gigs is below, and more have been added to my website at jenchapin.com. Highlights are a return of the band (after 10+ years) to our old home base, the legendary Bitter End in Greenwich Village NYC, on Friday, June 29th. Song requests for that set list now being accepted at jen@jenchapin.com!
Parting thoughts —I was dropping off recycling down in the basement of my big Brooklyn apartment building some weeks back, and it occurred to me to peek in the laundry room. You see, we have been living here in our big Brooklyn apartment building since 1999, but we obtained the wondrous situation of our own washer and dryer in 2008. Bye bye laundry room! No more wondering if the change machine is working or if the dryers are going full blast. Not my problem!
But now it was time to check in on this shared resource, and reflect again about “the commons.” I was struck by how the laundry room served as a symbol of all those things that we invest in and share in our society, and which people of privilege (like we fortunate urban washer dryer owners) too often check out of, as soon as we have a chance. Local schools not good enough for your kids? Well if you can afford private schools, don’t worry about it (until your business can’t find qualified workers..) Crumbling infrastructure means the water in your pipes is no longer safe to drink? Just get the delivery guy to drop off some tanks! Police Force slashed in half? Get a fancy alarm system, or better yet, one of those downsized cops to serve as a bodyguard!
Then there are the necessary but ultimately unjust ways that the public sector fills in the gaps for the private sector. In this day and age, our shared resources are supplementing the abysmally low wages of extremely profitable companies like Walmart ($16Billion in profit in 2010) with SNAP (food stamp) benefits and Medicaid, paid for by the rest of us. Many if not most workers in the huge discount retail sector depend on public benefits and publicly subsidized private charity to survive. Meanwhile, Walmart, like many other global corporations, could easily pay its workers a living wage, thereby stimulating local economies with increased consumer demand and more jobs, boosting the health of families, and lessening the burden on all of us to pick up the enormous slack. Do it, Go “job creators”! You can do it! Hooray! (More information on this, here)
Tax day has come and gone, and too many of us are not cognizant of what our taxes actually pay for, and what the cost is when we fail to invest in our shared resources; as has been the tendency of failed leadership and angry citizens of late. Yes, we need to keep a cold hard eye to make sure our governments spend wisely and accountably, but we especially need to elevate the national — and international — debate so that we can consider the same set of indisputable facts, stop demonizing each other, and find some common sense solutions. And repair a heck of a lot of bridges.
For the record, the building laundry room is clean and operational for my neighbors, and for us when we need it again..
Thanks for listening! (and please do so — the tunes are all up and streaming at jenchapin.com!)
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