Keith at Laguna Beach -- 11Nov2012

I had gone down to Dana Point to eavesdrop on new music-acquaintance Joe Cannon's party (though I didn't want to be seen, nor pay the $15 (!) to get in). I only heard the first verse of "Teenager in Love" and decided that that was enough.

From there, though, I stopped by Forest St. and nabbed a parking spot across from Acoustic Alley. There were some guys parked on the bench at The Corner -- one was idly thumping a djembe, and the other seemed to be sketching. I got there at 5:00, and there was some pretty decent foot traffic, so I played in the Alley for a while, just me and my guitar, which made it easy to just walk down to The Corner every 20 minutes or so to see if they'd gone away yet. But they never did.

Playing "au natural" was interesting: no mic, no amp, no harmony box, no tip jar, and no music book. I got the chance to see not only what songs on my list I know how to play without the song sheet, but what songs on my list I can even remember are *on* the list. I hit the top 5 Obvious ones ("Hotel California", "You've Got a Friend", "The Boxer", "Over the Rainbow", "Let it Be"), and then, um, what other songs do I know, again? Oh yeah, "Sweet Baby James", "Crying", and um, "Wonderful Tonight". And then, um, "Over the Rainbow" again.

Anyway, at 6:00 I resolved to walk by the guys on The Corner, carrying my guitar, and see if they'd volunteer to be done, or maybe back off on the drumming and let me play anyway. But loony Mr. Frequency was there, regaling and/or berating them, and I'd had plenty of that last time, so I spun around and went on home. I guess I broke even for the evening, though, tips versus parking, since I happened to be playing "Sweet Baby James" when a family came by, and the newborn strapped to the lady's tummy was named "James", so the dad sent the 4-year-old big sister skipping back to hand me a dollar.