Keith at Laguna Beach -- 24Nov2012

I was anxious to get down to Laguna and sing some Christmas songs, now that it's past Thanksgiving. But too early still, I guess. Although the street was all decorated up with Christmas lights, nobody seemed to be "in the spirit" yet. The only people I got to stop were a couple of young families with little kids, for whom, of course, I played "Frosty", "Rudolph", etc.

Oh, and one other guy -- a drunk and addled homeless guy who sat down on the bench across from me and proceeded to shout, whisper, cry, and rant, to nobody in particular. At first he seemed somewhat reasonable, but he got louder and more crazy as time went on. And, of course, he was scaring away anybody else who might want to stop.

I tried to just overpower him, playing louder than his ranting, but he didn't seem to mind or even notice. Then I thought I might be the reason he was hanging out there, so I "took a break", hoping to bore him into moving on. But, no -- he didn't need a reason to be there, nor anyone to actually be talking to.

Occasionally he'd hit a patch of near-coherency. At one point he was proclaiming his "bottom of my heart" love for Eve -- *the* Eve; you know, Adam's girlfriend. Not sure how he knows her. And later on he was describing his emphatic belief that Ian Anderson (of "Jethro Tull") was the greatest musician that ever lived. And he *is* pretty good, but I think even Ian would agree that he's no Mozart...

Anyway, it was pretty awful. You can't help feeling sorry for the guy, but at the same time, there was nothing I could do for him. And he was certainly ruining my evening, along with his own. Finally one of the "regulars" down on the corner came by, a big guy who does a lot of Tae Kwon Do, and decided to help me out, forcefully telling the crazy guy to move along. Which he just up and did.

But it was too late -- the foot traffic had disappeared, so I played a while more, and gave up. Somehow I made $34, though, which was weird since almost nobody stopped. So I guess I'm considering going again, sometime closer to Christmas. Not sure when I'll be able to, though -- I'm booked pretty solid at Spectrum and lots of Santa Claus Workshop gigs.