Sam Austin on Sax in Civic Center Station

Dorian and I didn’t get out for New Year’s Eve this year because she wasn’t feeling well. So after we ushered in 2012 together I grabbed the video cam and took a walk by myself at about 1:00am to capture life on Market Street.

Sorry about the coloring, my cam is kind of old and not great at night shooting in the city.

NOTE — at4:18 an SFPD unit rolling code three almost clocks a guy in a crosswalk. Also, the ending of this video sucks. We can’t all be Martin Scorsese.

A guy fell asleep in a coffeehouse and another guy called the cops.

No kidding. There I was, set-up at a table in my favorite joint downtown with my little netbook in front of me and a cappuccino by my side, when alla-sudden a patrol car pulled up and these two SFPD officers came in.

This wasn’t unusual because cops go in there for coffee all the time, since it’s downtown, but I knew they were on a call because they had the flashy lights on and had entered all business-like.

You know how cops casually saunter into a place when they just want coffee or pie; they have their thumbs hitched in their belts and look up at the menu or smile at the person behind the counter and say, “Hey *enter name here*, how are ya today?”

These two entered looking all concerned, and they were met by a nattily-attired young African man clutching a cellphone, who spoke in a clipped accent. “Dat ees him ovuh deah, officuhs.. he not move foh long time.”

Few people were paying attention. This is downtown San Francisco, where you pretty much have to strip all your clothes off and paint yourself in day-glo orange, then run into a coffeehouse yelling, “I’m Marylin Monroe!” to get people to look up from their iPads. That probably wouldn’t even do it, unless you tossed snakes at them or something.

So the cops walked over to the sleeping guy, who looked to me like he was sleeping, and they loudly said, “How you doin’ sir? You alright? Hey buddy, you ALRIGHT?” Then the sleeping guy awoke — slowly — and blinked his eyes while looking around, and when he saw the two cops he sat upright and woke up a little faster.

“Sure, I’m fine.. dozed off.. is there a problem?”

He was scruffy, but not terribly so. He had a backpack with him and it looked like he had a few layers of road dirt from traveling. His shaggy brown hair was mussed and he had a bit of stubble trying to be a beard.

“Let’s have you stand and produce some identification for us, please.”

The guy did that and as the cops scrutinized it he explained that he’d just arrived in town that day and was pretty tired from traveling, but there was this friend who was going to let him crash on his sofa, and blah blah blah..

The African guy stood near me as he watched intently, like the cops were shaking down the terrorist he’d spotted. Then, more flashy lights and a droning siren drew my attention to the sidewalk as a firetruck pulled up and parked behind the police car. One of the cops broke off from sleepy guy and approached the caller..

“Uh, did you ask for them too?”

“I call for help because I think he dead, if not dead then serious medical problem he was unconscious! In place of business during day! I was concerned!”

The cop rolled his eyes then met with the firemen. He said something to them and they all had the guy step out to the sidewalk where they gave him a quick examination, checking his eyes and so on. This went on for a couple of minutes until they were satisfied the guy wasn’t on drugs, then they all got in line to get coffee, including sleepy guy.

I was sitting near the little counter where people dress-up their coffee with stuff, which is what sleepy guy was doing a few minutes later, so I said, “Boy, don’t fall asleep in a coffeehouse in San Francisco, huh?”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” he replied with an appropriate tone of aggravation. “I can’t believe this stupid place called the cops on me man, I shouldn’t even be buying any coffee from them but I obviously need some.”

I realized that he never saw who had actually called, since the place had been crowded the entire time.

“No, they didn’t call it in, that guy did.” I pointed him out as he went through the door and headed down the sidewalk. Sleepy guy slammed his coffee down on the counter. “No kidding? That sombitch!” ..and out the door he went.

I didn’t expect that. Seriously, I didn’t know he was going to run off after him and get into some kind of altercation. He disappeared into the crowd on the sidewalk so I just reached over for his coffee and put it on my table for safe keeping because I’m cool like that. Also, if he landed in jail for assaulting the guy then hey, free coffee.

But he returned a few minutes later and as I handed his coffee over, I asked why he ran after him.

“I just wanted to find out why he called the cops when all I did was nod off.”

“And?”

“He said he thought I was dead.”

Well, there you have it. But I should add that if you’re ever in town and want to visit that particular coffeehouse but feel sleepy, it’s usually no big deal to nod off in there because I saw a guy sleeping in a chair once and Naomi, who works there, just nudged him to see if he was okay. He was, so he went back to sleep while Naomi went back to work and nobody called anyone.

Although maybe they should have, because the cops and firemen that day sure did seem to enjoy their excuse to have a coffee break.

Just so you know, it’s not a lot of fun to move into an apartment that was formerly occupied by a drug dealer.

We moved in two weeks ago, and there have been no less than twenty people at the door, at all hours, looking for “John.” They always seem to be a little nervous while trying to be cool at the same time.

I tell them that “John” no longer lives here and I don’t know where he went. I do know that he was evicted for dealing drugs, but I don’t tell them that.

It hasn’t been too bad – most of them have come along in the afternoon or evening – but the other night there was a guy at one-thirty in the morning, followed by another guy at four.

I got a little mad at the 4:00am guy. I know it wasn’t his fault – John had moved without notifying his clients and all the poor guy wanted was a bag of weed or meth or whatever it was John sold – so I felt kind of bad going off on him.

He scurried away into the night and I just stayed up – no use going back to bed after all that excitement.

Someone suggested that I might be missing a “prime marketing opportunity.” They said that I should set up a bowl of candy bars like it was Halloween, and sell them to the people looking for John. It seems that if they’re in need of some kind of fix, that they’ll settle for a sugar rush until they can locate him. I could mark the candy bars up about a thousand percent and make a really good profit. They most certainly all have cash in their pockets – it’s doubtful that John took checks or credit cards.

I thought it over but decided it’d probably not be a good idea to have that many candy bars lying around. I’m weak.. I’d consume the entire investment and the drug addicts would have this really fat guy answering the door, which doesn’t necessarily mean anything but I still don’t want to be a really fat guy.

A couple of days ago a hot chick knocked on the door at about two in the afternoon. There were a few differences between her and the others, starting with the fact that the others are all guys. They also seem to be kind of scruffy, whereas she was dressed well. They all looked surprised when I answered and they asked for John, but she didn’t look surprised and she asked me if I WAS John, which leads me to believe that they all knew what he looked like and she didn’t.

I just told all the dudes that he’d moved, but with her I said that he’d moved and she should go to the office to try and get more information. I went to get the mail later and popped in to ask the property manager if a young lady had been asking for the former tenant, and my suspicion turned out to be true – she was a cop.

I’m getting old – she looked about 18 to me, but she was a narco detective. Well, maybe one CAN be a narco detective at 18, if one is a hot chick.

I wish I’d had a candy bar to offer her.