Keith in Naples -- Monday, 22Dec2014

The rich people who live on the island in Naples put up incredible Christmas decorations, and huge crowds come down every year to walk around to see them. And even though I'd played almost every day for three weeks, I had to go down.

As I drove down there, the thickest fog bank I've ever seen loomed up and engulfed me. When I was playing, it was so wet that water was dripping down my amplifier and guitar, and I could barely tune the guitar with the tuning knobs so wet. The iPad screen got so wet that it would stop responding to my touch. Weird.

Anyway, it was terrific. It's like playing in Laguna, but there's no traffic noise, except the occasional putt-putt motorboat going by in the canal. And nobody's in a hurry to get anywhere, they're there to get some Christmas Spirit, so they welcome some music. Early on there are lots of families with little kids, so I can rope them in with some "Jingle Bells", "Frosty", or "Rudolph", but this year, what worked even better was "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" from "Frozen". And whenever I'd play it, lots of people would stop, and then I'd follow it with "Let It Go". At one point I had at least 50 people gathered around, with three of four kids up by me singing it, and half the teens in the audience singing along, too.

A pack of high school kids came by and I asked them to pick a Christmas song, and showed them my on-screen list. A girl asked me to do "Baby, It's Cold Outside", and I said that I'd love to, but somebody has to do the Girl Part. She said, "No, I couldn't", but her friends insisted that she could, and talked her into it. And she was great -- so much fun!

Later on, I was doing "Jingle Bell Rock" and a group was there, and one guy was singing along in a comic Elvis voice. So, of course, I fired up "Blue Christmas" next, and he looked at me with panic in his eyes and said "Is that... Oh, you're killing me." And he was right -- his wife and friends made him come up and sing it with me. Afterwards, he went over to the jar and put something in it, and then took one of my "jingle sticks" and just walked away with it. That was odd, but I think I probably came out ahead still.