Keith in Laguna Beach -- Sunday, 03Aug2014

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.