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...