K&W in Laguna Beach -- 17Feb2013

Sunday was nice, ahead of the next arctic storm on its way, so there were lots of people out at The Corner. We started up around 4:00, and the first hour or so was the best, so I guess we ought to start a bit earlier next Sunday. We had several groups of people stopping at the benches to listen for a while, lots of requests, and lots of tips ($81, a new street corner record).

Three young guys were hanging around, listening, so I asked them if they wanted to pick a song off the list. I assumed they were just local high school kids, until they started to talk -- they had French accents even more outrageous than John Cleese's. Turns out they were from Quebec, and had *driven* out. I felt bad that they were about to get some decidedly non-Californian weather, but I suppose that they're pretty well acclimated to cold and wet.

They asked for a few songs, and seemed to run out of ideas, so I proposed doing some Neil Young, 'cuz, "He's Canadian." One of the kids looked at me and said, "Eee's note Can-aid-ee-aan." Um, OK. Forget I mentioned it, Pierre.

A young couple sat down and asked if I knew any James Taylor. I said that I know *lots* of James Taylor, well-known and obscure, and started listing some famous ones. They picked one, but an older guy took me literally and asked for "Copperline", which, Ha!, I know. Challenge accepted! Got a big round of applause, too, even though I'm sure most of the people there had never heard it before.

It was quite nice during the day, but as soon as the sun went down, the arctic air started coming in, and it got cold, fast. I was about to call it a day when four high-school girls came and sat down, and got very excited when I invited them to choose some songs.

After a song or three, one of them picked up a CD and asked me how much they were. I said "five bucks", and she complained back to her friends that she "had three bucks". I told her that she could have one for three, but it turned out that she had meant that she *had* three bucks, but didn't have them anymore. So I said, "Well, OK, you can just have a CD", which, of course, turned into each of them just having one, so I "sold out" all four that I'd brought, for free. I said, "OK, but you all have to go "Like" my Facebook page", but none of them have. Oh well. It was worth it just having them stop by to listen and be so excited. And it's flattering that they even *wanted* CDs.

After a while, somebody's mom pulled up, and they all tumbled into the car and were gone. I was freezing, hungry, and, having played four hours plus four and a half the night before, decided that it was probably time to go home.