Musical talent’s nice, but not necessary, on street

Attention, ye merry minstrels.

We are a month away from the seventh annual Spokane Street Music Week. Once again, I’m putting the call out to anyone with a hankering to sing, strum, blow a horn, play a fiddle or whatever.

The fun takes place on the sidewalks of downtown to raise money for the Second Harvest food bank.

This year’s event is set for the noon hours of June 8 to June 12.

So contact me by e-mail or phone via the information at the end of the column, and let me know if you’d like to participate. I’ll put you into our fast-ballooning street music database (if you’re not in there already) and keep you posted on all the details of this year’s event.

As always, SSMW isn’t a talent show.

We welcome virtuosos.

We welcome tyros.

(Hey, it’s a word. Look it up.)

The event is about two things: 1) a desire to help feed the hungry and 2) a mission to make the downtown jump, jive and wail through live performance.

Nearly 150 performers took part last year. We raised a record $3,800, a fabulous amount considering that each dollar will buy 6 pounds of food.

I’m confident the haul this year will be even bigger.

That’s a bold prediction, what with the economy in the crapper. But we have two late and great baseball legends on our team.

I hold in my guitar-calloused fingers an autographed Mickey Mantle photograph. A signed Joe DiMaggio photo should be in my mitts by next week.

These generous donations come thanks to Alan Brill. The longtime Yankees fan wants me to auction or raffle off the items for the food bank during street music week.

How this came about is one of those weird stories you couldn’t make up if you tried.

I met Brill last August at the Northern Quest Resort and Casino. He was overseeing the installation of the product that has made him a man of considerable means.

Brill’s company – Brill Hygienic Products Inc. – manufactures a motorized device that automatically rotates a ring of protective, clean plastic around toilet seats in public restrooms.

A commode condom, if you will.

But fanny sanitation is just the back story. During our lunchtime interview, we found a common bond in our love for the New York Yankees.

(Please pause here so pathetic and predictable Mariners fans can rage against the pinstriped machine and count their World Series rings. Oops. I forgot. The Mariners don’t have any World Series rings.)

Speaking of rings, Brill let me try on his genuine 1996 New York Yankees World Series championship ring. The gold ring, which felt like it weighed a pound and a half, was given to him by a close friend in the team’s management.

Brill, if you haven’t figured it out by now, is very plugged into the Yankees family.

During our chat he offered to donate some Yankees memorabilia for street music week.

I told him to wait until next year and see if he still wanted to do it.

Fast-forward to last month. Brill was in a hotel lounge in Tampa, Fla., when he overheard someone say he was from Spokane. Brill ambled over and struck up a conversation that eventually got around to: “Do you know Doug Clark?”

As it turned out, Scott Reed was not just a reader. I had actually once written a column about his father, Roger.

(That’s really not such a shocker. I’ve been here so long I’ve written a column about everyone’s father.)

As a kicker, Reed, who works for Pearson Packaging Systems, has a friend who still has a job at the newspaper.

Brill was sold. He gave the stranger the Mantle photograph with instructions to deliver it to me.

“I had a good feel about him,” Brill told me during a Wednesday morning phone call.

The bottom line is that I’m hoping this toilet seat magnate’s baseball treasures will turn into some real dollars for the food bank. Same with Brill.

“When I can do something for charity,” he said, “I’m the first to step up.”

•Dougbench reminder: The unveiling ceremony of my own bus bench advertising takes place at noon today on the southwest corner of Broadway Avenue and Jefferson Street. Come on down for the music, speeches and treats.

There is, however, an alternative for people who have swine flu and can’t make it. You can watch the festivity as it unfolds live on your computer.

I know. I’m as shocked as you are.

Tune in at www.spokesman.com , or go to www.ilinklive.com . Type ilinklive in the user name space and dougclark for the password.

Click submit, and you’re there.

A Dougcam. Is this a great country or what?