Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Keith at South Coast Plaza -- 28April2008

Another quietly appreciative audience. Got plenty of requests, though -- the first one from a friendly girl at the back named Michelle, who asked for, of course, "Michelle". A guy down front marked up a song list, choosing several James Taylor songs, which suits me fine.

Also, the lady that's hiring me to play her art show was there, and her boyfriend brought up a list with a dozen songs on it. She was there to listen to my set and she'd brought a highlighter to indicate songs that she likes. By the end of the night, she'd pretty much colored the whole sheet yellow. She discovered that she basically likes all my songs, so I guess I'll have to ask her if there were any that she *didn't* like, so I can avoid them.

She was there the whole night, and used the time to stuff invitations into envelopes. It's not invitation-only, but she was sending out "notices" to everybody she knows. Turns out, she's not "running" the show, like I thought, she's the artist. The shop is a mosaic store, but she does "contemporary florals". There was a sample on the invitation, and it looks like "toile painting" to me, but, whatever. She says that there'll be mosaic art, and several of her canvasses, both. Should be interesting, because the "shop" is a converted old house in Long Beach, and she didn't even really know where she was gonna put me, yet. We'll see.

I looked around the store when I got there, and didn't see the "no tip jar" manager, so I put the jar out, just sitting by itself on a stool. I didn't put the CDs out because I forgot to make some more and there are only a few left. So, since the little sign refers to buying CDs, and uses the CD stand as its stand, there was no sign at all for the jar. Still, I made $21, which is pretty good. There were quite a few people appreciative enough to walk up and stuff some money in, even though there was very little clapping.

There are a few "regulars" there that I'm starting to recognize. One nice old lady painstakingly walked up and asked me "Where's your partner?" in her Jersey accent, as if I'd had him bumped off or something. I assured her that he was doing just fine, but was home with his wife this time.

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