K&W in Laguna Beach -- Tuesday, 17Sept2013

We got down to The Corner at 7:00 to find Spider already there, only slightly drunk, and feeling charitable enough to shut down and let us take over. He hung out for a while, scaring the passers-by away, but left after a while.

It was pretty slow at first, as expected, but then two local ladies came by and pulled up short when they heard that we weren't half bad. They sat and asked for a few songs, and then four guys from Detroit on a business trip came by. The boisterous one, who turned out to be the CEO, looked at the list and chose "Carolina in My Mind". I think he plays a little guitar himself 'cuz he was hugely impressed with my James Taylor abilities, and seemed to know how good/hard his guitar playing is. That roped the guys in pretty well, and they stayed for a long time, asking for more songs, and the CEO loudly praising us between and during the songs, and dancing with the local ladies. He hooted and hollered at Warren through his guitar solos, and tried to involve other people as they came by. Must be a great guy to work for!

And of course, once there was a party started on the corner, more people were automatically pulled in. The CEO put a twenty in the jar after a few songs, and after half-a-dozen more, added another twenty. One of his guys did likewise. And one of the ladies who got caught up in the party wanted to buy a CD, and asked me if the twenty she was holding was OK. I told her it was way too much and to go ahead and make herself some change out of the jar, but she said she'd just take "three of whatever is in there", which turned out to be three ones. I'm not sure I meant for this to be some kind of rigged carnival game...

After the party had wandered off, at about 9:30, I decided it was time to go home ("school night" and all), and I had just started to shut stuff down when there was a sudden wave of new people. We played a few songs for them, and up came Gaby the dancer. She swayed a bit, but decided she really wanted to sing "Scarborough Faire", so I fired it up, after warning her that it was unlikely to be in her range. And I was right, 'cuz she had to switch octaves back and forth to stay with the melody, but at least she stayed in key.

This blog post. Let me read you it.