K&W in Laguna Beach -- Tuesday, 13Aug2013

After the amazing evening we had last Tuesday, I was really looking forward to this one. But it turned out to be an almost total disaster.

When I got there at 5:25, there was a girl playing classical violin on The Corner, but Warren had already talked to her and her parking meter was set to expire at 6:00, so we just hung out so that nobody else could snag it. And while I was waiting, a guy with a big professional camera took some (great!) pictures of me (and actually emailed them). So far so good!

There was a homeless guy there listening to Violin Girl, and he stuck around to listen to us, too. He seemed to like her stuff, but was totally enthralled with ours. Indeed, he was trying to get passers-by to stop and listen, and seemed amazed that anyone would just walk on by. I can't help but agree with his assessment, but because of his scruffy appearance, his only success at stopping people was with other scruffy homeless guys.

So, almost immediately, we had a bench full of scary homeless guys, and a flow of tourists speeding by even faster than usual. Only a few were brave enough to stop at the tip jar. Several of them ended up sitting on the benches across the street, where the sound carries well enough, but not the scary.

Two high school girls stopped and I brought them a list of songs and played "Over the Rainbow" while they looked it over. When the song was done, they walked over and gave back the list, saying "We'd like to stay, but that guy keeps trying to talk to us".

Now, I get that "homeless" also means "TV-less" and these guys have nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do. And it's very sweet that they love my music so much. But it's all a little much (one guy was so overcome with emotion (and the pass-around gin) that he came up and prostrated himself in front of me). But they stayed all night, and even the tourists that aren't scared of them can't find a seat, so they don't stop.

I tried to bore them away by taking 10 minutes to tune, and playing the same couple of songs again and again. But it didn't work. These are guys who are bored for a living.

But I guess that's part of the anarchy of street-playing -- you get what you get, and can't do much about it. In contrast to last Tuesday's record-breaking $167, we made $28 by the time I gave up at 8:30. Bottom line: as everyone knows, you learn to play guitar to attract pretty girls, not a bench full of ugly old men...