Warren lives a lot closer to The Corner, so he went down around 6:00 to see if there was any chance of it being available, and to our surprise, he got it and called me and I jumped in the van. Parking was another matter, though, and after I surrendered to the Valet parking garage (!), we started around 7:00.
Unfortunately, the Palm Frond Rose operation was in full swing again, taking up most of the bench. Warren asked them to try to leave some space for the tourists, but they weren't very responsive. And indeed, when Angel arrived and heard that Warren was talking to his "crew" he got very angry and threatening. (He later apologized, but explained that they make way more money when they set up like that.)
I get it that this scam really works for them -- they spend their time reworking free materials into something that they get "voluntary tips" for, and they make way more money than just sitting there looking pathetic with a hand-lettered cardboard sign. And of course the cops can't do anything about it, 'cuz they're just "giving flowers to the pretty ladies", totally innocent.
But because they take up almost the whole bench so people can't sit to eat their ice cream, and many people find the interaction with these polite but scruffy guys uncomfortable, they put a huge damper on our ability to get any audience going. Indeed, we played from 7 to 11:00, and brought in a third of what we usually do on a summer Saturday -- the tips not being really the point, but being a pretty clear indicator of how much Not Fun it was.
Helping to ruin the evening on the Fingerhut side was Loud David, the neo-hippie. Warren at least talked him into aiming his amp not directly at us, so it wasn't as bad as last time, but it's still very distracting, and has to be detrimental to the people who'd like to hear me. At least the fire trucks are polite enough to go on by, eventually.
The saving grace was the appearance of two sets of Superfans: the cute and sweet Vietnamese couple, Phuong and Christopher; and young Gabby from Spain with her family. Gabby used to visit me at Spectrum, almost every time I played there for a while. She brought to show me her new pink guitar once, so I asked her if she was learning to play it. She said "A little", and I told her that that was OK, because she was still little.
It's hard for me to believe it, but I have to think that both of them showed up because, since I had advanced notice that I'd be playing on The Corner, I'd posted that we'd be there on my Facebook "Music Page". I suppose I ought to be posting there every time…
Since there was nobody there most of the time, I did have a chance to play a few new songs I've been working on. People keep asking me for Neil Diamond, and I only have "Play Me" in my book 'cuz all of his popular songs are heavily produced (with horn sections, etc.) so I can't make them sound good. (Actually, that's not entirely true -- I also have "Sweet Caroline", but the part that is true is that it doesn't sound very good.)
But it occurred to me that now that I'm strumming not-half-badly, I might be able to pull off "Solitary Man", so I worked it up again. And I guess it's accordingly just about not half bad.
I also re-worked up "Catch the Wind", just 'cuz it sounds so Laguna Beach to me. Donovan plays it in a flat-picking style that's way out of my wheelhouse, but when I have a plastic fingernail glued on, I can almost fake it pretty well. At least Phuong seemed to like it (of course, she likes anything I play).
So, a mostly terrible night, with some bright spots. It's a shame that the environmental conditions have deteriorated to such a point. I'm pretty sure that if it had been like this the first time I went down there, I wouldn't have gone a second time.
I took aim at 6:30 last night, but there was an accident on Laguna Canyon Road, so after some difficulty parking, I got to the empty corner at 7:15. One of the homeless kids warned me that the cops were giving out tickets today, and apparently expected me to just go home. But I'm not breaking any laws, so I stayed.
Nobody else was down there, but the Flower Kids arrived and set up their workshop on the bench. I requested that they leave some room for the tourists to sit and eat their ice cream, which they readily agreed to, but didn't take to heart, much.
Not a lot of people out on a Friday, though. I got a few friendly groups, and a pretty big Kid Party when I snagged them with "Let It Go", and one little "four and a half" girl who stayed for a dozen songs, practicing her ballet moves.
I was in the middle of "Leavin' on a Jet Plane" when a middle-aged Asian woman came up, singing. She climbed up next to me so she could see the words, and held onto my arm to get in close. Apparently she wanted to share my head mic, but since I'm 6'-5" in my boots, and she was probably all of 5'-5", there wasn't much chance of that -- I can only lean over so far and keep playing the guitar... She sang along an octave higher than me in her church-lady soprano, but then took off just before the end of the song. Strange.
Around 8:30, guitar-scourge Sanchez hustled through, without his guitar, and took several pictures of my sign. Clearly a portent of trouble to come...
And so, at 9:00, as predicted, I was, like Scrooge, visited by three cops, two Beach Patrollers in their polo shorts, and a motorcycle cop who introduced himself as Darren, who did all the talking. He claimed that he'd gotten complaints about the "noise. And when I say 'noise', I don't really mean that, 'cuz I like your music". He said that the complaints were from "a local business". I expressed disbelief, and pointed out that the owner of the ice cream store loves me, and I was way too quiet to be bothering the Fingerhut ladies across the street. He said that he couldn't reveal who had lodged the complaint, and I said, "Of course not" (since it was obviously Sanchez, and not a "business" at all).
He went on to say that I wasn't supposed to have an amp, which I told him wasn't exactly true, and offered to show him the city statute on my iPad, but he declined since he wasn't really gonna ticket or stop me anyway. Apparently, he just needed me to agree to turn it down.
My new buddy Darren also secondarily warned me about complaints of illegal "vending". I pointed out that my sign says "Suggested donation" under the "$5", and he said "That’s just how you’re getting around it", to which I just shrugged, 'cuz, yes, exactly. But is it illegal..?
But to legitimize if it's a "sale" or not, he asked if I chase down people who don’t pay. I told him that I never even look -- they can deposit the money, or not, and just take a CD. Indeed, I sometimes give them away to people who profess a desire for one but a lack of cash on hand. Darren was apparently satisfied by all this, and finally wandered off to chat with his Beach Patrol friends.
(The funny part was that, although I had brought out the CD-holding racks, I'd forgotten to put any CDs on them, so, technically (and accidentally), I wasn't selling any CDs tonight, anyway.)
This second issue was also obviously inspired by Sanchez, who sells his CDs (for $10), but apparently isn't using the "donation" trick on his sign. His getting busted has made him even grumpier, and vindictive.
Anyway, I just stood there and waited for the cops to leave. I didn't want to test Darren's sound level limit, and he couldn't really just ask me to play. I suspect that they were also happy to use the opportunity to intimidate the Flower Kids a bit. And apparently, there's no law against standing on a street corner holding a guitar. After 20 minutes or so, they all finally left.
I did turn down, a lot, but since there was nobody to play for -- whatever. Except a guy came by with his two young teen sons. He sat and listened for quite a while. I thought that he was just stuck there, waiting for the wife or something, but I finally went over and offered him a song list. He said that "Everything you play is great", and told me that he drives down from Pasadena, just to listen to me. Really?!? But he knew that I'm usually there on Saturdays, and he can't be just hanging around South County after work, 'cuz he has his kids with him. Hard to believe, but incredibly flattering.
Anyway, it was a pretty slow night, partially because of summer winding down, and, I think, partially due to the chilling effect of the Flower Kids. Either way, I think Fridays are done until next summer. I did sell one CD to an older foreign lady who apparently figured out from the sign that there were CDs somewhere, and had her daughter translate her request for one. Nice of her to want one bad enough to go to the trouble...
I thought I'd go down around 3:00 and see if there was an after-beach crowd and then just come home for the dinnertime slump. Turned out it was *all* slump, so there was no noticeable "go on home" dead time, so I ended up staying until the batteries died at 9:30, because it got better and better starting around 7:30.
I think a big part of the problem was the Flower Guys (Angel and his friend), who make origami flowers from palm fronds, and "give them away" for mostly inevitable "donations". They're nice guys but they take up most of the bench with their tools and materials workshop, so people can't sit and listen to the music. Unfortunately, they do very well with this scheme (the guy told me that they had already made $60 on this very slow day, and that they can make $150-$300 on a Saturday), so I have a feeling that this is a new permanent fixture.
Anyway, around 5:00 a family came up right after the first verse of "Let It Be". The mom asked me, "Can they sing with you?", and I said, "Sure!", and they kind of formed a small circle next to me, and the daughters sang church choir harmonies along with the choruses. The dad was kind of encouraging the girls to sing out, and I looked up at him, and it was Chevy Chase! When the song was over, his wife told me that they had sung "Let It Be" at his dad's funeral the day before, which explained their knowing the harmony parts, their somber demeanor, and the all-white clothes that most of them were wearing.
They thanked me and went over to sit on the bench (though most of them had to stand). I quickly started up the next-best song I could think of for the situation, "Hallelujah". They stated through most of that, but got up and wandered up the street before it was over (and before I could get my camera back out).
I went over and told Angel that the guy that he didn't even notice sitting next to him a minute ago was Chevy Chase, and after a bit of "No way!", I showed him the guy up the street in the cantaloupe-colored hat, and he took off to see for himself. Apparently he caught up to Chevy, who was none too pleased to be accosted on his family outing, but (angrily) confirmed that, yes, he was Chevy Chase. I guess I should have let Chevy get a longer head start before alerting rude Angel...
A cute little girl came by, carried by her father, but she needed to get down to dance when I started playing "Twinkle Twinkle". They stayed for a few more songs, and then re-appeared three more times through the evening. I guess she kept convincing her parents that she needed to hear more music.
A while later, a 10-year-old boy ran up and threw a dollar in the trashcan, and his brother came right up behind him and did the same. Of course, I was in the middle of a song, so I couldn't do much about it, but after a while the dad came over and fished the dollars out of the trash and put them in the tip jar, where they were presumably meant to be. He gave me the universal "What are you gonna do?" exasperated dad look on his way past, and I shrugged in solidarity.
So, although for the first four hours people couldn't sit and listen, they were tipping pretty well anyway. And the last two hours were inexplicably like a Saturday night -- lots of people competing for the next request, and bringing in more people with their interest. It helped that the neo-hippies had shown up, and after a while of monopolizing the little part of the bench that wasn't workshop, they all left together, finally clearing some space for the tourists. But at 9:30 my iPad shut down, and after two more songs from memory, the accessory battery did too, so the show was over.
When I got there at 4:00, there was a passel of young neo-hippies camped out on the corner. I was afraid that they'd be strumming guitars or something and block me out, but they were just hanging around, and ended up liking my music and requesting songs for a while.
I had some trouble with some of the other homeless guys, though. The guy who was such a troublemaker last weekend came around and decided to "help" by bellowing his own songs. Nothing recognizable, but *amazingly* loud. He wasn't acting particularly drunk otherwise, but this was aggressively rude. I suppose I could have cranked up a bit and drowned him out, but I guess I wasn't drunk enough to play his game.
"Frisbee King" Blair had shown up just a few songs before the interruption, which was unlucky for him, but lucky for me 'cuz it gave me someone to talk to while the troublemaker wore himself out. Unfortunately, Blair had better things to do, so after a while he went home. After 20 minutes or so of being ignored, the bellowing finally stopped, and Troublemaker and his drinking buddy Incomprehensible Gordon wandered off. It's wild and wooly out there, I tell ya.
I also had to deal with the Hawaiian Buddha (aka Mark) who kept wandering through, dressed even crazier than usual (Palm fronds and seaweed strapped to his chest, and is that a trash bag diaper? And I can't even guess what's on his head...), and shouting at nobody. It was a bit alarming, actually, but he kept the worst of it across the street. I did keep wondering "Where are the cops when you need them?"
But it was a pretty slow night for a summer Friday. I did have people stop and listen but only in small groups and I never got a critical mass to get some real participation going. People were listening and smiling and choosing songs but for some reason it was one of those quiet nights with little or no outward applause. On the other hand, I did sell 12 CDs and the tip jar was pretty heavy, so it was a quiet night but a good one.
My last Sawdust gig this year was on a Wednesday night, which I expected to be pretty slow, but there were quite a lot of people there at the Tavern. And all about the right age to appreciate my song list.
The layout of the place is a little strange, with three tables right up front of the stage, and some "stand up" tables behind them, demarking the pathway through to the Beer Window. And beyond that, more tables. The far-away tables can hear, mostly, but they're too isolated to interact with, either by applause or requests.
There were two nice ladies at one of the close tables, who were on a bus trip from San Diego to do the Sawdust Festival in the daytime, and then go over to the Pageant of the Masters when it got dark. They were apparently done with Sawdust, so they were just hanging out in the Tavern, waiting. Fortunately for them and me, they liked my stuff, and stayed around for three of my half-hour on, half-hour off sets.
Near the side of the stage attached to the front of the bar building itself is a small TV set, running random stuff, with the sound off. I, and everyone else, ignored it, until a show called "Dating Naked" came on. Suddenly, six or seven 10 or 12-year-old kids appeared out of nowhere to watch the naked people, even though the naughty bits are blurred out. One of the san Diego grandmas couldn't take this, and went up to the window to tell the guys inside to "turn off this X-rated television show". That suited me fine, 'cuz I don't need my audience distracted by a TV, naked or not.
There were a couple of guys on the main stage, and they were pretty sloppy with following the half-hour schedule, but they were nice and quiet, so it didn't really bother me. In fact, it would have been fine for both of us to play the whole time, but the Sawdust people don't want the customers to get comfy and not be up buying art.
Anyway, I love playing there, even on slow nights. There's no traffic noise, and the people are there to browse and don't mind sitting a while to listen.
I drove down at 3:00 to try to beat the Tommies to the corner, but instead I was blocked by Cranky Fiddle Girl, and I've seen how lame it is to play on the Fingerhut side that early, so I just went home.
I waited until 7:00, had a proper dinner for once, and went back, resigned to having to play on the Fingerhut side. But when I got there, a homeless friend of ours was there with his new guitar. He had been keeping the Tommies away, but was happy to turn the corner over to us. Thanks Mike!
Unfortunately, Neo-Hippie David, who, the night before had been commiserating with me about what a loud jerk Sanchez was being, came back with his amplifier, and set up across the street to be a loud jerk. Warren tried to get him to turn it down some, but he said that we were just as loud as him, and wouldn't budge. What was worse is that he had (correctly) decided that you do better if people can sit, so he'd moved into the middle of the corner area to play directly at the bench, which put his amp directly across the crosswalk from us.
Fortunately, apparently, the people sitting across from *my* amp could hear me better than I could, and claimed that the crosstalk was no problem for them, so I just barreled through. (In retrospect, David might have been amenable to an offer of both of turning down simultaneously, so that we'd cover our respective areas, but not carry across the street to each other so much. Wish I'd'a thought of that at the time...)
But apparently it really was OK for my audience, because I had lots of appreciative people -- listening, asking for songs, and having a good time. It coulda gone smoother, but it was a pretty great night.
I decided that going down at 4:00 and then not getting the corner anyway, especially on a Friday, was too much trouble, so I went at 6:00 instead. And, of course, the Tommies were bogarting the ice cream corner. It's not so bad if they're playing, but they were mostly just hanging out, preventing anyone else from playing, and waiting for the crowds to show up to make it worth their while to actually play. That seems pretty uncool, but what can you do?
Sanchez was in Acoustic Alley, as he has been since he got ticketed, so I set up on the Fingerhut corner and played to my reflection in the window for a couple of hours. Even 6:00 is "too early" to be on Fingerhut on a Friday. Noted.
I did have a few groups stop to listen a bit, but without a bench, it's tough to get anyone to stay very long. I was playing "Kiss the Girl" for some people, and a tall slender 60-ish woman couldn't help but stop to do some solo Samba. She was completely unabashed about dancing right there on the street corner. I asked her to find a song on the list, and she chose "Under the Boardwalk", which normally has a Calypso beat, but I do it -- cleverly, I had thought (and necessarily, due to lack of drummer and bass player) -- in straight four. It's the first time I was embarrassed by that, since she probably chose it for the expected danceable beat. She danced anyway, but oops.
Around 8:00, a group of teenage girls appeared, as, coincidentally, did Warren. They stayed for quite a while, dancing, singing along, and generally acting silly. It was good for us, though, since a crowd attracts a crowd.
Still, it was mostly awful, but about to get worse. At 10:00, Sanchez relocated to the "other corner" across the street from the Tommies in the other direction (the intersection is actually a three-way meeting of PCH, Forest, and diagonal Park Ave). He cranked up really loud, clearly deliberately trying to drive them (and us) away. Warren went over to ask him to turn down or at least maybe turn the amp so it wasn't pointing right at us, and he responded by threatening to go get his "big amp" out of the car. Apparently, the gloves are off...
The Tommies gave up, since it was late anyway and they're all-acoustic and didn't have a prayer of competing. On their way out, they walked by us and told us how, a few days before, Sanchez had cranked it up directly across from them, and when Tom went over and asked if he was deliberately trying to drive them away, he said, "That's why I'm here". He had also told them that he "owns" Thursday and Friday nights. Presumably that was before the cops showed him differently...
But rather than give him what he wanted, I just started playing my loudest strummy songs: Mrs. Robinson, Cinnamon Girl, etc. I was in the middle of one of those when Devon, the homeless ex-Marine came over and urgently told us to "cool it" while "they" were there. I turned around to see four cops around Sanchez -- Devon had called in a "citizen's complaint".
I figured, it's late anyway, let's just pack up and leave while the cops hassle Sanchez, so we're not here, or at least not playing, if they decide to pass out tickets all around. I was almost done packing up when, incredibly, Sanchez started up again! The cops were gone, so he fired back up and was playing just as loud as before. Amazing! Devon immediately borrowed Warren's phone and called the cops again, but from experience, he figured they wouldn't respond a second time to his call.
Meanwhile, just 'cuz there wasn't enough drama yet, a looking-for-trouble homeless guy started hassling Devon about a cigarette lighter he'd supposedly taken. That dispute spilled over to the ice cream corner where Ruby's Diner Girl got involved and ended up calling the police on Troublemaker. I looked up the street, and Warren was on his way home, but simultaneously calling the police about Sanchez!
Five minutes later three pairs of cops showed up, but it was hard to tell for which complaint. Some of them broke up the cigarette lighter dispute, and some of them talked to Sanchez again, though they didn't give him the promised second ticket. Still, he obviously couldn't play with all these cops around "taking statements", so after a half-hour or so, he decided there was no point in playing anymore anyway and packed up, leaving Neo-Hippie Guitar Guy, who had been waiting out the Tommies, to take the late-night shift as best he could. I had been waiting to hear his stuff, but he was terrible: crazy melodies over wildly out of tune random chords, so I went home. What a night!
I got down to Laguna at 4:00 but although there were no Tommies in sight, there was a girl playing classical violin songs on The Corner. I set up on the Fingerhut side, hoping that she'd been there a while and would be done soon.
No such luck. Not only did she stay until 8:30, she kept coming over to ask me to turn down. I politely complied the first time, but that made my output so quiet that I couldn't hear it myself, which really puts a damper on my ability to perform well. When she came over the second time, I told her that I was already too quiet, and that she couldn't really expect concert hall silence out here on the street corner. I've certainly had my share of someone else playing too loudly nearby, and I'm sure I wasn't half as loud as what I've had to endure.
She even convinced the junior cop that was monitoring the crosswalk to come over and make a speech about some vague "chain of command" that wanted me to turn down. And that I "wasn't really supposed to have an amp, but if it was quiet enough it would be OK". That, we know now, it just a lie, since I really *am* allowed to have an amp, but I didn't bother to correct him. I just pretended to turn it down, and he disappeared soon after anyway.
I did have a few moments with nice families that were waiting for a table at the pizza place. And a local guy who I remembered from the Fete came by and was apparently impressed. He bought a Kids' CD, and said that he's been doing puppet shows around town, and was going to see if any of my songs would work, and maybe we'll do some gigs together. Sounds fun! I told him to listen to "Waltzing With Bears" especially -- it made a good cartoon, so it would probably make a good puppet show.
But finally Fiddle Girl left so we quickly moved over and had a great gig from then on. There was this sudden surge of people in the right age-range, and we had a pretty big crowd going. It helped that the weather was so nice that the ice cream store stayed open really late.
A guy asked me if I knew any James Taylor, which, of course, is my specialty. So first he asked for "Shower the People", which is on the list, and then for "Copperline", which isn't. But it's in the book, and I can play it, but not too well if I haven't in a while. After about a third of it, I got the hang of it again and did OK. He was impressed, anyway.
Bottom line: It was terrible on the Fingerhut side, and terrific once we moved to the ice cream side. I don't think I'll bother with the Fingerhut side anymore -- it's not that there's no tips over there (though there isn't), there's just no fun.
I went down at 5:00, but despite the three-hour limit supposedly going off at 5, the meter still wouldn't let me pay for more than three. The random meter rules are really getting frustrating...
Anyway, there was a new guy sitting on the bench with a 12-string, playing the chords to songs. Not singing though, so it was impossible to tell what songs they might be. I suppose they sounded good in his head...
Not that anybody could hear him anyway. I just sat on the side bench and waited. After a while he broke a string and came over to ask me if I had a spare, which I didn't. I took the opportunity to ask him how long he'd be playing, and he thought maybe another hour. But then he said that he was going to take a smoke break so I could set up 'cuz he'd like to hear some of my songs, and maybe jam a little. I told him that I don't really know how to jam -- I just play the songs as they are.
So I set my stuff up, and of course, with my amp, people could actually hear my songs, and were stopping to listen. When he seemed ready to play again, I felt like I had to let him, since it was still "his" corner. So we kind of traded off, with people looking at me like "What's going on?"
I hadn't brought out any of my "marketing" stuff: the song lists, CDs, and my tip jar, but when people would stop to listen, I pulled out a list and handed it to them, and they'd pick a song, and I'd have to wait for the other guy to finish one of his before being able to fulfill the request. It was really awkward, but he seemed oblivious -- and he did have "first dibs".
And then people started coming up to hand me money, which got even more awkward, 'cuz I had to get my tip jar out, and no one ever put any money in his guitar case, just my jar. Finally around 7:00, he caught on that people wanted to hear me play actual songs instead of his random stumming, and he wandered across the street to listen to the Tommies.
So I really only had an hour left on my parking meter to play without the confusion. A girl and her boyfriend came up and stood right next to me and right in the middle of the song she asked me "Were you born in 1951?" That was an unexpected question, not to mention the awkward timing, but I managed to spit out "four" in a break in the song. By way of explanation, apparently, she said that I play all the same songs her dad likes. OK, good to know.
Anyway, it was mostly a blowout because of the Corner ownership confusion, but the good news was that the rain from the night before had soaked the "merchandise table" trashcan lid so I was able to clean it up pretty well -- you can imagine what the trashcan in front of an ice cream store gets to be like -- and wipe down my song lists to get some of the sticky handprints off of them, too.
I got down to Laguna at 4:00, but Tom is clearly on to us, and was already on the ice cream side. I'd played the Fingerhut side a few days earlier and found it pretty awful, but thought I'd give Saturday a try anyway. And it was a little better -- more traffic, and less "local color". But still not a lot of people stopping since there's no ice cream, and no bench.
But we had a few nice moments, usually when a parent would stop with a little child. One little girl in pink just danced and danced, to the delight of many other passersby. The family was there for maybe a dozen songs. After a while, the little girl came over and just stood up against my leg. Hiding? Resting? Hard to tell...
Discovered something I hadn't thought of. I made some "Kids' Music" lists with pictures of the associated characters next to the song titles. This lets even the kids that can't read yet find the song they want. But I had a family from Spain come by, and the kids were able to choose the song from Tangled, even though they didn't speak any English. I didn't realize that my lists were "multilingual" by being "nonlingual".
A guy came by with his family that I see all the time at Spectrum. He asked me when I'd be at Spectrum next, and I said, "Never. They changed the way they book it." He sighed heavily and said, "Oh, they have terrible management. I know some people. I'll talk to them." I hope he can get me back in there, but I won't hold my breath.
Around 9:00 the "possible thundershowers" that we'd all discounted actually arrived. We got some sprinkles, then some more, so I laid my plastic-protected song lists over the top of the electronics. But it finally got wet enough that we had to pack up for fear of the guitars and getting electrocuted.
By the time we were completely packed up, though, it had stopped. The Tommies had cleared out too, so I figured, what the heck, and rolled over there to play some more. But I only managed to play two more songs when the battery quit. Oh well.
Got to The Corner ahead of the Tommies at 4:30. Fridays have been unusable lately because of Sanchez, but since he got busted for "unreasonably loud", he hasn't been a problem.
Of course, everybody else has to work on Fridays, so it's pretty dead at 4:30, but by 6:00 or 6:30 it livens up. I had a lot of friendly people and a huge Disney song party happened around 9:00. I had a nice and not-in-a-hurry local couple volunteer to watch my stuff just at 7:15 when I needed to go put some more money in the parking meter. The city recently reprogrammed the meters, and the rules are implemented somewhat randomly these days.
I was hoping to get myself to quit somewhat early to save some finger stamina for Saturday night, but that never works. Fortunately (?) around 10:30 some surly homeless guys came and started demanding songs, so I decided it was time to go home. Overall, it was a pretty good night; lots of friendly faces to play for, good tips, and seven CDs sold. Fridays are worth doing, but only on the ice cream corner.
