K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 09Aug2014

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.