K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 30Aug2014

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.