Keith at Laguna Beach -- 20Oct2012

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.