Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Friday, 20Dec2013

I used to think that gigs at Christmas time would be really great, and they are fun just 'cuz I get to play all that great Christmas music. But people at Spectrum are actually shopping (!), and in a hurry, and it's cold, so I really don't get to much response (except quickly passing smiles), and I guess folks are already destroying their budgets, so the tips are actually worse.

Not that I'll stop doing them, of course. The kids are cute, and now that I have the Jingle Bell tambourines, I get a lot of audience participation -- as long as I don't mind playing "Jingle Bells", "Rudolph" and "Frosty" ad infinitum. (Fortunately, I don't.)

But I did have some people stop to listen. And at the end, a strange guy who thinks I'm so great that he gets really frustrated that nobody's stopping and/or tipping me. So he jumps around and tries to gesture people in, and basically acts so strange that he scares people away more than brings them in. I appreciate his enthusiasm, but that kind of help I don't need...

Keith at Jolly Trolley -- 13&14Dec2013

I got volunteered to play for the reception (i.e., waiting room party) for the busses that take people around to look at the Mission Viejo Christmas Lights winners. I did it last year and the year before, so they just kind of expect me now. Made the papers, though...

And it's pretty fun. They have fire rings set up and let the kids roast marshmallows, but mostly it's older people so I get to sing the old sentimental ones, unlike the Santa line gigs where it's almost all "Jingle Bells", "Frosty", and "Rudolph".

But it's a little tough to get anything going. The receptions are from 5 to 6 when the first bus leaves, and then 7 to 8 when the second one does. I start playing when the first people wander in, but it's weird to play directly to just one couple, so I start off quiet. Then more people wander in, and just walk past me, and after a while there are lots of people, but there was no "start up", so it's hard to stop being Background Music and become Entertainment.

So the first three were kind of boring, so when a little girl walked by me on her way to get more cookies during the fourth one, I snagged her in to play some jingle bells, and so her little brother had to come over too, which brought their parents, of course. And then other kids saw something happening, and it turned into Big Fun all around.

You'd think that after 12 years of doing this, I'd learn that the passive approach just doesn't cut it. I'm just still too shy, I guess.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Saturday, 07Dec2013

The parking lot was jammed when I got there, so I was expecting lots of people, but they must have been in the stores. But the people I did see were lots of families, so I played "Jingle Bells" a *lot*.

But apparently it was Weird Tip Night. There was a girl walking around selling roses, like you see in fancy restaurants sometimes. After a while, she came by and laid one on the stage. First rose tip I've ever gotten.

And later on, a guy came over and asked me to play Happy Birthday for his friend -- but not yet, she's on her way. So I eventually got the cue, and played it, no problem. Candles out, cake being cut, my job is done. But then after a while, he came over and laid a piece of cake on my table. I can't really eat while I'm playing of course, but at the end I tried it and it was an amazing chocolate thing from the Cheesecake Factory. Non-trivial to bring home, but worth it. First cake tip, too.

I was playing "Little Drummer Boy", and this guy was just staring at me. At the end he was very enthusiastic, and came over to the table and pulled out a Sharpie (he carries around his own Sharpie?!?), and announced that he was going to autograph a few of my CDs. Um, really? I thought *I* was supposed to autograph 'em. But off he went, and scribbled on one of each of the three of them, along with Bible verse notations.

I didn't catch his name, and his signature is illegible, but from what I could catch of what he was telling me and some Googling, he's some hyper-Christian football player who's played all over but considers himself a "49-er", despite not actually being on the team anymore. I guess he thought he was giving me some valuable items in those autographs, but I'm not sure how to cash them in. I can't really eBay some "CD cases with some probably-semi-famous guy's autograph on 'em". He said he was granting me this boon because I was "playing the Lord's music". Really? "Drummer Boy"?!? Well OK, I suppose Jesus is in there as a supporting character...

Keith at Santa's Workshop -- 4, 8, 11, 18, 21, 22 Dec2013

I don't usually combine gigs into one blog post, but I had so many of these, so close together, that I just didn't have time to write 'em up individually. Not to mention that they all blur together in my head.

I emailed the lady in charge just before the first one to remind her to remind whoever was going to be setting up the line ropes to put 'em in the right place. And as expected, they didn't. But the guy was willing to push the 50 earlybirds out or line and re-route the ropes for me while I set up the equipment, so it worked out OK.

I almost always had little kids come up and start talking to me even before I was set up. They were ready to go way before I was. My biggest fan on that first night was Lilybelle, who made lots of cutely but entirely unintelligible song requests due to her spectacularly random assortment of in, out, and half-back teeth.

I started these gigs with an assortment of toy tambourines, jingle bells, and egg shakers. But the shakers tend to disappear, so I quit that pretty soon, and after a few gigs I realized that the tambourines were way louder or more piercing than the jingle bells, so I discontinued bringing them out, too.

Obviously, I get a lot of kids at this gig, so there's no way I can give away fingerlights to any of them. So I thought of another idea. I bought a bunch of jingle bells and some thin ribbon, and tied them up so the kids can hold the ribbon to "play" them, or put it on their wrist to keep from losing it. Or at least not lose it so soon...

Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a way to have them handy except to put them in my pocket, and after fetching out a half-dozen, the rest were a complete tangle. And since the cheapest bells I could find were "assorted colors", I had to hassle of kids wanting to trade the one they'd gotten for a different color, and it just got way out of hand. So that only happened one night.

This year, I made a combined songbook for the iPad that has all my Christmas songs, and also the best of the Kids' song list. Makes it easier to mix it up when I start to run out of kid-friendly Christmas songs. There are really only about 5 that most kids are familiar with. Doesn't seem to bother them, though -- I frequently get loud requests for "Jingle Bells", even when I literally just finished playing it.

Last year a guy come by with his kids and a nice camera and took some great shots of me, and actually emailed me a link to go fetch them. This year, there he was again. See you next year, buddy!

Another repeat visitor was a little girl who told me "I saw you here last year. Last year I was only 5 -- guess how old I am this year!" She reminded me of Geneva at that age, totally confident and bold. She had learned a dance to "Feliz Navidad" at school, and was perfectly willing to do it for me while I played.

Several of the kids know the set of hand motions that go along with "Up On the Housetop", so that's fun. And one little girl did the hula while I played "Mele Kalikimaka".

The only downside to the setup is that, unlike Spectrum, when the kids come up, their parents may be quite a ways away. This allows for some occasional pretty bad behavior that I can't really stop, since my hands and mouth tend to be busy. It's usually the little boys. They tend to decide that the jingle bell tambourines are too quiet, so they bang them on the benches or they get two and bang them together, which ends up breaking them.

One little boy decided to toss a jingle tambourine into the air. Each toss was higher and wilder than the one before it, until he was liable to lose it in a bush, or mow another little kid down in pursuing it. And one little boy decided he needed to get the glow-ball that sits at the bottom of my tip jar, so he was determinedly digging away through the money.

But overall the kids are sweet, and it's so great to get a chance to interact with little kids again. Now that mine are all grown up, I miss it.