Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 13Dec2008

It was pretty darn cold, and a pretty low turnout, but I had a great time. With the economy and the temperatures so down, there were few people there at all, and the even fewer that were eating at the Food Court were sitting indoors, of course. But, I still had a few small families come by, and they get roped in pretty good when I launch into "Rudolph" and the kids light up.

I had one extended family stop while their 6 and 3-year-old sons watched and danced. The smaller one had downs, and was really into the dancing (with her gramma's encouragement), but instantly broke into crying when the songs stopped. I had to flip through the pages as fast as I could to get another song started. It started to feel like I (and the rest of the family) were puppets to this kid's whims, but he started to understand that there were gaps, but more songs would come, and settled down some. (The family may have partially understood this, and kept adding to the tip jar, again and again.) But they eventually ran me out of danceable kids' Christmas tunes after 6 or 8 of 'em, and wandered off.

I played to empty tables for a while, but dang it, just having all that volume behind you is fun, all by itself, even if nobody's there listening. Sure, I can go home (where it's warm) and play to nobody, but I can't CRANK IT UP! I don't really get that *power* effect at the indoor venues, but out there, it has to be loud to carry any distance, and to compete with that fountain. Of course, there were occasional passers-by and packs of high-school kids out, too. And I knew I had some scheduled visitors a'coming.

My brother came by, as promised, and braved the cold for quite a while. Since there was near-nobody else there, I could talk to him, and played a bunch of Christmas songs, plus all my recent songlist additions for him. He makes a good judge of what's working and not, so it's valuable to me for him to come by.

After he left, a pair of ladies from work (Kristy and Tammy) finally made it, just as I had decided that it wasn't the first, nor the last, time I'd been stood up by pretty girls. I was starting to get a bit cold and stiff-fingered by then (the little heater I'd brought from home had given up at the hour mark, for no apparent reason), but with a real audience, I kept going. Of course, I had to play all my Bestest Tunes for 'em. They stayed a long time, but at 9:00 or so they decided that they really had to find some dinner, and left.

But not before asking me if I'd give them guitar lessons during lunchtime at work. I said that I could give that a try, sure. Might be fun to see if I can teach them something useful. After 20 years or so of guitar playing, I realized that I'd learned a whole bunch of stuff that I don't, or only rarely, need. I think I can filter out what they'll really need to know, and get that much into them pretty quickly. There's *way* more mechanical skill (which you can only get by practice) than there is intellectual facts to know, anyway.

Anyway, I made an astronomical $68, but that's only because my brother threw in a twenty, even though I told him not to, and Kristy did the same thing, even though I told her not to. Discounting them, I guess $28 from the very few people that were there was pretty good.