Maybe I was just tired. I had a tough time getting "into it". There were a couple of people, here and there, that would stop to listen, but I couldn't get much interaction going until very late.
Except for a batch of little kids who just *had* to be up on the stage. At first there were three fairly well-behaved little girls, and it was nice. Then more, and more, until there were eight of them, only occasionally in danger of knocking the music stand over. But their presence made the older boys in the crowd bolder, and pretty soon I had strafing runs of unruly boys zooming across the stage, coming very close to tripping on the wires and/or knocking down the iPad. I let it all go, but it put a crimp in my performance to have to worry about all this stuff while trying to sing the songs. I probably shouldn't have given them that inch...
After a while, I was down to just one little 2-year-old, who really just wanted to be on the stage. She was too young to really care about the songs, but she liked being up there with me. And since I had no one else to sing to, I sang to her for a while.
I also had two teen-age girls come by who remembered me from when they turned cartwheels in front of the Fountain Stage at my gig in February. They were quite thrilled that I'd learned songs by Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber in the interim.
Finally, very late, some couples showed up who were really listening, and asking for songs. One of the couples wanted to dance, and the guy bribed me to play "Brown Eyed Girl", which is in the book, but I rarely do 'cuz I don't think I pull it off at all. But they stayed and stayed, and I ended up playing until 11:30, when we'd all had enough. I guess that last half-hour partially made up for the previous five. I did bring home $82, so I guess it wasn't quite as awful as it felt. Maybe I was just tired.
No rain this time, but it's starting to get a bit cold out there already. Not a lot of normal people out, but I had a full contingent of the Regular Crowd. I suppose that "homeless" also means "TV-less", so these people don't have much else to do. None of them are particularly bad off -- there's a pretty good structure for them with the Shelter to sleep at (though most of the guys don't), and local restaurant employees and patrons coming out and handing them food. They have cell phones, and reasonably nice (and clean) clothes. But no TVs, and nowhere else to go. And though they've all seen me a dozen times, they really do seem to appreciate the distraction.
The good part is that there's always somebody there to play for, and people tend to pay more attention if *other* people are paying attention. On the other hand, if the regulars are acting boisterous or erratic, I sometimes think that the regular people passing by are reticent to stop and be too close to some of these "sketchy characters"...
Anyway, I did manage to get a few "other" people to stop. One young couple started dancing to some love songs, and caused a lot laughter when their dog tried to join in on the dancing, the only way an un-neutered male knows how to. And later I had a couple that really needed to get back to their hotel in Anaheim so they could get some sleep before their early flight back to Florida, but I kept playing my best stuff and keeping them there. I'm so mean...
The first tip of the night was from a lady who breezed through the corner and, without slowing down, stuffed a five and three ones into the jar on her way through. I get fives, and I get lots of ones, and an occasional ten or twenty, and even, once, a fifty, but exactly eight dollars? That was either incredibly and inexplicably specific, or absolutely random, but I guess I'll never know which.
Warren was gone to Hawaii for a week, which meant that he and Jim wouldn't be on The Corner on their usual Saturday, so I went down. It was way better than the usual Tuesdays we've been playing, naturally, but I was surprised by how *much* better.
I got there just after 5:00, and it was kind of cloudy but not cold, and lots of people were out, especially later on after dinnertime. But around 8:00 it started to mist. No problem. That faded out, then came back, and then turned into a sprinkle. I was using my iPad as the music book, and those are obviously not supposed to get wet, but it wasn't really *raining* yet...
And, naturally, just as it got worse, a crowd formed. I was starting to worry about the iPad, so I took one of my pass-out song lists out of its plastic "sheet protector" and put the iPad in it. It was hard to read through the water drops, but at least it was safe. And I had to keep wiping the guitar neck off with my sleeve between songs, but it was kind of fun.
Still, I began to feel like I was some kind of idiot who didn't know to come in out of the rain, but I guess it came off as romantic, 'cuz I started getting several couples who were standing in the sprinkles -- cuddling, slow dancing, and making out. I was thinking, "What is this, Paris?!?", but I started playing lots of love songs, and apparently made some people happy.
But after a while as it started to be an actual "rain", the crowd disappeared, so I could half-pack up and roll over to stand underneath the little awnings out in front of the ice cream store. That got me out of the ever-increasing rain, but made me pretty nervous when folks would rush by on the narrow sidewalk, just barely avoiding snagging the music stand and sending my iPad crashing to the sidewalk.
So I played a while longer and then figured it wasn't gonna stop, and obviously nobody else was going to show up in the rain, so I went on home about 10:30.
Just another quiet night in Laguna, playing for Silly Patty and some of the usual homeless guys. The bad part is that not many people are out anymore -- the good part is that it gets nice and quiet, so it's fun to play and sing (especially with my new not-really-stealth rig that uses my "real" amp, instead of the smaller, bad-sounding, practice amp).
The only problem (OK, one of the problems) with these street corner gigs is that there are no rules. People can do whatever they want, within social and legal constraints, which, in Laguna, are pretty lax. For instance, if a guy shows up with a loud drum and wants to play along, off beat, there's not much I can do. If a drunk shows up and wants to sing along off key, same thing.
With homeless Matthew, who I can't tell if he's always slightly drunk or just partly spun-out, it's singing, and stomp-dancing, along. He's harmless, and kinda sweet, if tone deaf, and goes on and on (and on and on) about how great we are, and how we (?) sing like angels, and how amazing every song we play is. He's just kind of erratic, and scares the normal people away.
Lately, he's become enamored of the LED "Glow Ball" that I put in my tip jar to make it findable in the dark. I finally fished it out and let him "hold" it, and when he disappeared with it, I figured the three bucks it cost me was well spent to be rid of him for a while. But he brought it back eventually. I ordered a bunch more from Hong Kong, and I think I'll just give him one when they arrive -- though I'm not sure if making an even better "friend" of him is a good idea or a bad one...
But eventually that wore off and I had the benches filled, and some folks standing around, and requests a couple deep. And over to the side, a pretty college girl, scribbling furiously in her notebook. I assumed she was writing up a journal entry or something, but it turned out that she was drawing. Me. And then she threw the picture in my guitar case and disappeared without a word, mid song. It's quite good, though it makes me look old. Or at least older than I think I look... [Click to enlarge the picture.]
I finally remembered to bring the "foot tambourine" that my daughter got me for my birthday. It straps onto your foot, and rings when you tap. Theoretically. The good part is that it doesn't ring unless you really mean it, so you can wear it all the time. The bad part is that it doesn't ring unless you really mean it, meaning, stomp pretty hard. I was wearing my boots, so it was kind of hard to get it to ring with my heel already 3 inches high. Maybe I need to move it out towards my toes more, like the guy in the picture, but then I'm afraid for the elastic. Needs experimentation, and practice, I suppose.
Anyway, it was pretty fun for the second half, and I played on through until 10:45. Went home with $101 in the jar, and some artwork to boot.
A very slow night, as I'd expected to come even earlier, but made bearable and even fun by the presence of Silly Patty, who somehow manages to maintain her enthusiasm all night even though she's heard almost every song I know by now.
Actually, that's not quite true. She came by when I was standing on the lonely Tuvalu corner during Art Walk last week, and I showed her the "Everything" page of my iPad song book, which has (currently) 238 songs on it (as opposed to the 104 songs on the printed handout list). The balance are songs that I don't play very well (but will muddle through if asked), and obscure songs that I don't think many people know. The "B List", if you will.
Patty immediately spotted a few songs that she liked, so I guess I ought to print that list up and let her go through it, since she's sweet enough to overlook the mistakes I'm bound to make on these seldom-practiced songs. So I played quite a few half-remembered songs, not too terribly, and that's kind of fun.
Other than Patty, we had a scant few tourists come by, and went home with $15. Maybe it'll pick up again when "Holiday Season" comes around.
I almost forgot about this, again, but it came up on my calendar so I decided to go on down. Jim & Warren always play on Thursdays, especially on Art Walk Thursdays, so I knew I'd have to find somewhere else to set up, but I've been eyeing the far corner, and wanted to give that a try anyway.
I got there and was set up at 7:30. I decided to add the monitor speaker to the rig, because although the big amp sounds *way* better to the audience, I'm beside it and get a very muffled version. It took a while to get it all figured out, but it did sound way better to me, so that's a keeper, as long as I can figure out a more elegant way of transporting and situating the thing.
Unfortunately, it was almost a moot point, because nobody stopped to listen anyway. Everybody has a map to all the galleries that are participating, and they're all in a big hurry to get to the next one, presumably before the wine and cheese runs out. It's disheartening when people toss, "Oh! I love this song!" over their shoulder as they rush by. I want to shout out, "Then why don't you stop and listen to it?", but it's too late anyway.
I kept on playing, though, 'cuz it sounded really good, and I'm eternally optimistic that someone will notice. But mostly they'd stop on my corner to say "I think it's down this way!", hunting for their cars. So about 9:00 I gave up and walked down to see how Jim & Warren were doing.
And as deserted as my corner was, theirs was a *party*. Lots of people were still out, though they were mostly zooming by there, too. Jim and Warren had just finished packing up, so I figured I'd just settle in and take over -- at least there were potential listeners here.
And I managed to snag quite a few of them, and more and more as it got later, more relaxed, and the galleries (and their free wine bars) closed. It's really gratifying when some people are breezing by and pull up short, apparently realizing, "Hey, this guy's pretty good!". And if I can get them to stay until the end of a song, I can point out the list, and maybe get them to pick a favorite, and stay even longer.
Anyway, I probably made 3 or 5 bucks down the street, but by the time I quit at 10:30, I was up to $40. But still, I'm starting to wonder if Art Walk is the best time to go down, as generally believed, or actually the worst.
It turns out that the problem with starting at 7 (instead of 5) is that it doesn't seem like I've played nearly long enough until it's really late. The good part is that the quiet part of the evening comes sooner. The great part was having an attentive audience, willing and happy to hear some of the lesser-known or infrequently-attempted songs in The Book, like "The Water is Wide", "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier", and "Bridge Over Troubled Water".
Patty, on finding out that it was Warren's birthday and that mine was the day before, went off and got us some amazing cookies at the bakery down the street, which came in handy at 10:30 when I finally decided to get home to bed. I'm always starving at the end of a gig.
Though it didn't seem like very many people stopped to listen, somehow 35 bucks showed up in the jar. I do remember one guy buying a CD. It was kinda funny though -- he had already put in a buck as a tip, then decided to buy a CD, so he put in a fiver, but also fished out his original dollar. Technically correct, sure, but it seemed a bit petty.
Since I didn't have any other gigs this weekend and Tuesday had worked out pretty well, I decided to give Friday a try. I also wanted to try out the "arrive at 7" idea, saving me the two dead hours leading up to the "sweet spot".
For these street-corner gigs, I've been using the "little amp", "stealthily" hidden in a plastic roller-crate. But it's frustrating because I have to turn it up literally all the way to be heard, and it tends to distort and sound terrible. So I decided to take a chance and bring the "big amp", which also happens to be battery power-able, since it was bought specifically to take to Indian Princess campouts in the woods.
Laguna Beach does have an "amplifier permit" ordinance, but the cops hardly ever come by, and when they do they turn a blind eye as long as you're not bothering anyone with excessive volume. So the theory goes, anyway, and I have had a lot of cops walk or drive by when I'm there with an all-too-visible head-mic, a big black wire coming out of my guitar, and a harmony box on the ground, blinking its myriad red lights. It's not hard to tell I'm not strictly acoustic...
The big amp is already on a roller cart thing, so I packed all the rest of the stuff into a big backpack, stacked it on top, and went on down there to test my luck. Because of the shorter hours, I even convinced my wife to come along with the dogs. It was kinda great to have people already coming by, right at the start, and the big amp setup sounded *so* much better. And of course, as always, when I can hear myself, I perform way better, too.
So I was having a pretty good time, and as always, the dogs were attracting a lot of attention, too. If they'd'a had a tip jar out, I'm sure they'd'a been doing better than I was...
But after an hour or so, just when it was getting really good, a cop car whipped around the corner, lights flashing (though no siren), and screamed to a stop right there next to me. I quietly had a heart attack, but somehow continued and finished the song, singing and playing half as loudly as before, and mentally preparing to be rousted.
But it turned out that the cop was there to take a report from a guy who had apparently been harassed by somebody, so while they were talking I quietly unplugged the guitar, grabbed the iPad and slinked away. The good part was, I didn't get busted. The bad part was, they stood there talking for what seemed like an hour, and destroyed the "prime time" section of the evening.
I actually had a lady come up and tell me that they wanted to hear me play, and I had to tell her that I really couldn't fire up with the cop standing right there, so they reluctantly wandered off. And another lady -- there with her cute little 14-month-old, the dad, and the grandparents -- told me that she *loves* James Taylor (though the song she'd heard just before the cop showed up was John Denver), and always cries when she hears "Carolina in my Mind". They stalled as long as they could, but they had to leave before the cop did, so I didn't get to see/make that happen.
The cop finally left, so I fired up again, but the wind was out of my sails, and the crowds were nearly gone, so I gave up after a while and packed it in. We were there far later than I'd meant to be, and I'd gotten to play far less, but I still pulled in 25 bucks, and it was a success as far as testing out the big amp rig (and not getting busted for it), and for showing up later and still getting to be on The Corner. I've had better gigs, but it was still more interesting than sitting at home...
