K&W - SCP 20May2006

Good ol' "No Clapping!" SCP. It's pretty hard to get anything out of the "audience" (I use the term loosely) there.

My throat was all kludged up, so I sounded kinda "furry", but not really "bad". I had control and range, just with an uncharacteristic sound. Still, because of the "library" feel there, nobody seems to want to clap. So we got no response except smiles until the last half-hour or so when the atmosphere finally loosened up a little.

The good part was that I didn't bother to record the gig ('cuz of my throat), so I was a lot more loose myself. When the recorder's going, I feel the pressure to try to Make No Mistakes. With a screwed-up-anyway voice, and no recorder, the pressure was off. Liberating, really. Made it a lot of fun, even with no clapping.

But, it turns out, although they "couldn't" clap, they were apparently liking it, 'cuz at the end, I was making the obligatory "There are some CDs and business cards over there" speech, and people got up and went over there! Didn't expect *that*! We made $30, and sold 4 CDs -- probably a record for that place.

An older guy asked if we knew any "Peter, Paul and Mary" songs, and we do, but it's "Puff". He said we "sound like the Sixties". Hmmm. Then I remembered that I learned "Lemon Tree" for Dad's CD, so I pulled that out and managed it pretty well, considering that I don't practice it much and it's a lot more complicated than it sounds. It's fun to be able to satisfy a random request like that, even if it only happens sometimes.

KC at "It's a Grind" MV - 12May2006

A new coffee shop opened up just down the hill from my house, so naturally I offered to come play there, and after some stalling to "get on their feet", I got booked. It was quite low-key -- maybe 20 people over the course of the night, and never more than 10 at a time. But the owner was there (asked for "Georgia"), and seemed pleased enough. As he left, he said he'd get in touch with me about scheduling a next time.

Originally he had me booked for Saturday night, but he called two weeks ago and moved me to Friday, without much explanation. There was a little plastic stand thing there with a printout of the month's activities calendar, showing just 4 things (one was me), and nothing on Saturday, so I just don't get it. Before Friday, my two theories were: (1) He had something else lined up, but it fell through and he was too embarrassed to call and move me again, and (2) Saturdays are really crowded and he didn't want to risk an untried act on his big night (or, maybe, he just didn't want to have the hassle when it's a big night anyway).

But, I drove down there at 8:30 on Saturday night and it was almost empty (3 people and a very bored coffee girl), so now I have a third theory: Saturdays are dead, and he didn't want me to waste my time.

The good part, I guess, is that he set me up just to the right of the door, and I set the amp on my left. There were no little tables, so I put my little sign and the tip jar on top of the amp (on its stand, but as low as it goes so the top was just shoulder height). That meant that everyone passed very close to the jar on their way out, and most folks dropped in a buck, or the change they got from their to-go coffee order, as they left. I made $13.86. Woo-hoo! No more bread-lines for me!

The sound was kind of echo-ey, but nowhere near as bad as the school (of course). Toward the end, four teen-agers came in, and were *remarkably* insensitive to the live music that was going on. They stood right in front of the amp (they kind of had to, to get to the coffee order spot), and shouted at each other to be heard over the music. Never a glance at me. After they got their drinks, they sat down, and continued shouting over the music. I spun the amp a little, to shoot it towards the other people who were there, but even then, they were louder than me. I turned up as much as I could, but hit the feedback threshold and couldn't go any higher, so I just toughed it out until the end.

They struck me as kids who encounter loud music everywhere they go, and are completely comfortable with it, and shouting louder than it, to chat with their friends. Live or boombox doesn't seem to make any difference. Used the back of one of my songlists as scratch paper to write down phone numbers, too. Not the worst behavior that I've seen, but I sure hope my kids never grow up to treat the world with such disrespect.

Anyway, it was Good Enough -- I'll give it another go. My apprehension was clearly unfounded. A lot like Tully's, really. Not many people, not much response -- the "crowd" was just too small to support any amount of clapping -- but there was some occasional genuine appreciation. It may build up some...

K&W - OCEAA, 11May2006

OK, that was pretty weird. We got a call from an Indian Princess mom who works at the Orange County Educational Arts Academy, which is sort of the elementary school version of the High School of the Arts that Geneva coincidentally just got into. She'd heard the "Waltzing With Bears" CD (a few million times, no doubt) because all the Princesses have one by now, and was wondering if we'd like to come down and play during lunchtime. A strange request, but we're in this for the Stories, good or bad, so, sure, we'll give it a go.

They have five lunch shifts, which spread over a too-long time span, so we decided to do the three middle shifts, skipping the Kindergartners, and the 6th graders. We played in the cafeteria, to maybe 50 or 70 kids at a time, while they were eating, shouting, etc. The place was *outrageously* echo-ey, so the sound was really strange. It didn't bother me so much as make me think that the kids weren't really getting the songs, and especially, the words. I wasn't getting any reaction to the Funny Parts, so I had to assume that they couldn't understand any lyrics.

So, I settled on doing songs that they'd already know, like "Puff", and "You've Got a Friend In Me". But as the older kids started coming in, they were asking for "some rock and roll", so we did "Love Potion Number Nine", and "Roll Over, Beethoven", and finally, "Take Me To the River". Those went over pretty well, probably because they didn't require any comprehension of the lyrics to have some rhythmic merit.

The kids were pretty enthusiastic, if only because we were Something Different. Some of them were clearly enthralled, and others were having fun at "pretending to be at a concert", with hands waving in the air, etc. One could take that as "making fun of", but I don't think they were being malicious about it.

Compared to the Indian Princess audience that I'm used to (and that all know me (and my songs)), these kids were less appreciative. But compared to the usual Borders audience, they were worshipful! Warren was pretty pleased by that, and thinks we ought to look into doing more of these. The teachers all know me down at Acacia's school, so I think they'd let us come in sometime and do that. I guess I'll email her teacher and make a proposal.

San Mateo Campout with Geneva, May2006

Back at San Mateo like last weekend, this time with Geneva and the Trailmates. (Good thing it's my favorite campground.)

I had volunteered, somehow, to lead the Talent Show that we (I) decided would work better than trying to get this very-low-turnout group to do tribe-based skits or whatever. I was afraid that everybody would beg off, but I managed to get all 12 girls up there doing something. They seemed to have fun, and there wasn't a lot of anxiety about it, probably thanks in great part to the "team building" games that Todd had set up earlier that morning. Once they were all friends, they didn't seem all that worried about performing for each other.

We had two violins (one of them Geneva, of course), a viola, a flute, a recorder, a guitar, a dance, some gymnastics, a magic show, and some jokes. Then we did karaoke for a while so the dads would get some exposure.

On Saturday we got to go down to the beach to see the tide pools, which Geneva really loves. She'd have explored all day, if we'd had the time. And on Sunday, we finally got to go down to the stables on Camp Pendleton and do the horseback trail ride. And after that we went to Joe's Crab Shack in Oceanside, and I bought her a really cute cowboy hat in the gift store.

Pretty good weekend for her, which made it a pretty good weekend for me.

San Mateo Campout with Acacia, April 2006

Great campout, as it is every year. On Friday night, instead of the usual movie, I volunteered to do a "Kids' Concert". I was worried that I would be less entertaining than "Ice Age 2", but the everybody seemed to be OK with it. The surprise of the night was when I did "Love Potion Number 9", which has been in the Kids Section of the Book for a long time, but never gets requested, so I don't do it much. But I did it anyway, and it went over really big. When I played at the Saturday night campfire, and again at the Sunday morning "Chapel", some kids were calling out for me to do it again. Raucously. Who knew?

On Saturday, we implemented my idea for the "video" that we're supposed to submit to be shown at the end-of-the-year Family Campout in June. Each tribe is supposed to do whatever they want. Nobody in my tribe had any ideas, so, naturally, I had to come up with one, which was to do the "Penguins on a Bus" sketch, but with sock puppets which the kids would make, use in the play, and take home. A craft and a video, all in one. I spent two weeks designing the penguin puppets for cuteness and build-ability, and making the cop and bus driver, and the motorcycle, and getting ready to build the bus at the site, to accomodate however-many girls we ended up with. Planning nightmare, 'cuz whatever I remembered to bring was gonna be it -- no running out to the garage for some duct tape or whatever.

It came out quite well. Took forever, but we had a good long morning to do it in, and the kids could go play while the dads worked on the "set". I was really surprised at the level of participation -- all the dads helped out, a lot. Frequently, on this kind of thing, they all just sort of get a "This is Keith's thing" attitude, and walk away. This time they all pitched in, and it's a good thing, too, 'cuz it was pretty complicated to get it all working.

You can check it out here.

The link is to an 8 megabytes file, but you might find it's worth it.

The original idea was to do it in one take, in the camera, and to submit the tape, foregoing any editing on the computer and that whole can of worms. Didn't happen, but since I had to go to the computer anyway, I was able to throw in some titles and stuff at the beginning that make it a lot more fun anyway.

By the way, the name is a parody of the upcoming Samuel Jackson thriller "Snakes on a Plane", which won't be out until August, but is getting lots of buzz on the Internet, probably only 'cuz the name is so cool/funny. I know nobody will get it, but it's just my little joke.