K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 16Aug2014

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.