This was supposed to be "our turn" at the ice cream corner, but, understandably, Tom had a tough time shutting down at 6 when I got there, since there were lots of people out and he was presumably doing pretty well. I didn't want to just sit there waiting like last time, so I set up on the Fingerhut side, and did OK, but I'm sure it made it easier for Tom to stall on relinquishing the "good side".
Just as I was starting, three teenage guys pulled up with their big cameras and asked if they could take pictures of me. Of course I said yes, and asked them to send me the best ones. They never did, though.
I had been standing in front of the Fingerhut display window when I noticed the lady inside. She gestured and mouthed for me to move away from blocking her window, which, hmmm: public sidewalk, *outside* her store. But I like to be cooperative, so I moved. That put me on the "wrong side" of my amp, and made me have to try to use my right foot for the harmony box buttons. That was surprisingly hard, since I'm used to using my left foot, not to mention that, if the box is on my right side, I can't even see it to aim my foot at the buttons 'cuz my guitar is in the way.
The Tommies finally quit when Warren showed up at 7:30, but took their time clearing out, so I didn't really get moved, set up, and restarted until 8:00. Tom doesn't really seem to be taking his "take turns" promise to heart -- but I guess it's a bit better than not having any cooperation at all.
It started out a bit chilly and windy, but a lot of people were out anyway, and we did quite well, for a February. Lots of people there, requesting songs and being appreciative. I sold six CDs, where I usually sell none.
At one point there was a couple who were big Cat Stevens fans on the bench, some Chinese guys who liked John Denver and the Beatles, and a couple who were huge James Taylor fans showed up. Ain't that the way? After a few songs back and forth, the James fan guy asked me if I could play "Up On the Roof", 'cuz it's his favorite, and he knew it was hard. I do know it, and it *is* hard, but I do a pretty good job of it, which he acknowledged by ostentatiously sticking a twenty in the jar.
Later on at closing time, like he had done last time, the new manager of the ice cream store asked if we'd like some free ice cream. I like this guy...
We were pretty drunk-free all night, but at 10:30 or so, the drunk and crazy Mexican lady showed up with her also drunk and crazy new boyfriend. She was wearing a tube top, and a wedding dress upside down and backwards, with the dress part fixed around her waist, and her feet sticking out the unzipped back, leaving the bodice and long sleeves to drag on the ground. That's something you don't see every day. Nor want to...
I put up with her antics for a while, but the sane people were mostly gone anyway, so eventually I gave up and we went home.
My dad was an aerospace engineer; my mom (who died last Sunday) was a "home maker" -- the mom-est mom ever. My dad knew, and knew how to do, everything: fix a sink, replace a water pump, build a camp, put a guy on the moon. He, like most dads, wanted the best for/from us, and instilled/inflicted his perfectionism in me. You didn't want to show anything to Dad unless/until it was perfect.
To Mom, on the other hand, *everything* we did, said, made, or bought was, by her definition, perfect. Everything she saw was, in her words, "the [adjective]-est [noun] you ever laid eyes on". Whatever we had to show or tell her about was the best one ever. New car, girlfriend, pocket knife, shirt, pair of shoes -- whatever it was, no matter how objectively good, bad, or ugly it was, it was the best one she'd ever seen.
You'd think that her seemingly non-critical assessments would make it easy to slack off, but it had the opposite effect on me. I wanted to make everything I made or did live up to her (even though guaranteed) high praise. And she loved to hear my stories, almost as much as I loved telling them to her.
Indeed, it seems like half the things I've done were just to be able to tell the story afterwards -- to my wife, friends, co-workers, but mostly my mom. She was always the best audience, and frequently made telling the story more fun than doing the thing.
And she was entirely the reason I started this blog. I didn't think anyone else would care, and the people close-by would hear the stories first hand. But my mom was far away, and in order to make sure she heard the stories, I started writing them down, if only to have reminders so I could tell them when I get to see her next. What I write, I write for her. As I'm typing, I'm talking to her. If anyone else reads them, that's just gravy.
She was, in her words, "not technical". When I started the blog, I made sure that the entries were automatically sent by email to my dad, who would print them out and let my mom read them on paper. When my dad died, I worked out a way to print them remotely on his printer, so she could hear the print noises and go in the office to find the latest post. (Each post (this one makes 759) is worked out three times -- the original, seldom visited but nicely formatted, searchable, and cataloged by date on http://y7alanzo.blogspot.com/; the text pasted into a Facebook "Note", poorly formatted and ugly, but more accessible to my friends; and a paper-sized, bigger pictures version in Word, printable for my mom, who kept them in a huge 3-ring binder.)
When her health started failing, I started wondering if I would keep the blog going once she wasn't around to read the stories. Now that that's happened, I'm thinking that probably I will. So far, it just seems like it's been a while since I've driven up to see her. But it feels like my best option to keep her around is to keep telling her these stories.
But I'm going to have to stop telling this one before the saltwater shorts out the keyboard. Thanks, Mom -- everybody says that theirs was the best mom ever, but you really were.
Played my now-monthly gig for the old folks at the senior day care. It went pretty much like last time -- they sit (mostly) politely while I play. Thigh-slap drummer guy was at it again, but at least not every darn song like last time.
I had a lot of embarrassing technical issues at the start. It's one thing to have to change out a battery when you're on a street corner, but another when 40 people are sitting, staring at you, and waiting. Right off the bat it was clear that the vocal was distorting, which is always the transmitter battery, so I swapped that. But then the guitar was also getting quieter and distorted -- so much so that the harmony box couldn't get a clear enough signal to tune from, nor create the right harmony vocal. I had to abandon harmonies in "Leaving on a Jet Plane", which sounded *really* weird without them.
I swapped out the battery that runs the guitar pickup and is mounted pretty inconveniently inside the guitar, but that didn't help. Only thing left was the battery in the "DI" box, but that's even harder to swap -- especially while people are staring at you, so I just abandoned that whole signal path and plugged in my backup cable. That solved it for now.
Anyway, I'm also getting over (I hope!) a cold, so my voice was pretty weak and wobbly at first, but after a few songs I felt pretty good, enough to chance "Bridge Over Troubled Water", which went quite well.
It's just an hour time slot, which seems like just enough time to get warmed up, to me. Especially if I screw around with technical difficulties for the first while. My bad.
I deliberately asked for Valentine's Day for my return engagement at the CALB gallery, thinking that there would be lots of people there. But it rather backfired. More so because my wife came along, so it wasn't just me suffering...
First off, the parking lot was full, so we had to park in the city lot. At three dollars an hour. And I mis-remembered the space number and bought somebody else nine bucks worth of time. Daleen had to go back when our initial time expired, but moving the car to the Village lot was still hopeless, so we ended up paying $21 for parking, instead of getting validated parking for free. Not to mention the long walk with the equipment, which was not on rollers 'cuz I was going to use the "house system" and not my own amp that's on a cart.
When we got there, there was a Really Loud band playing in the patio area of Shenanigans, directly below the windows of the gallery. When I got set up and ready to play, I had to close most of the windows, just to hear myself play. Fortunately, they quit after a few songs, but I was really worried for a while there.
But the worst part was that almost nobody came upstairs to listen. Maybe 7 people all night, plus the "owner" Tom and his friend who arrived late and had to leave early. My theory slash rationalization is that although there were lots of people there, they all Had Plans. Valentine's parties or dinner reservations to get to. So where, on a normal Saturday, people are just wandering around to see what there was to see (and hear), these people didn't have time to come up and listen a while.
Anyway, that's my theory and I'm sticking with it -- until it's disproven when I go back in a few weeks on a "normal Saturday".
And then, to really ruin the evening, my hopes of walking around Shoreline Village after the gig (at 8:00) with my wife as our own Valentine's date were dashed because our parking time was expired, and we had all this equipment to drag to the car. I can only describe the whole thing as a Spectacular Failure -- though the few people who came by were *amazingly* good tippers and I made about as much as I could have expected if I'd'a gone to Laguna instead, so I guess it coulda been worse...
Warren had theoretically negotiated with Tom that we'd trade off getting The Corner on Saturdays, and this was supposed to be our one. But when I got there, the Tommies were already there, and Tom said they'd just do one more 10 song set, which turned out to be 40 minutes long. He's not exactly cooperating...
Anyway, once we got started it was pretty fun. Lots of people to play for, and lots of requests to fill. Early on, a group of high school kids came by all dressed up for their Winter Formal. One of the girls said, "Hi Keith! I'm from Indian Princesses!" It was Megan, who I knew well when she was 8 or 10, but I'd'a never recognized this 17-year-old with the fancy dress, makeup, hair, and all.
Three young ladies from San Diego, but originally from Saudi Arabia, came by. They claimed to not know any of the songs on my list, but they'd been in the US long enough to know "I’m Yours" and "Hey Soul Sister". And then I played "Let It Be", which they knew, as I figured they would, which led to "Hey, Jude" and "I've Just Seen a Face". They weren't as ignorant of "western" music as they claimed to be.
Indeed, the bravest one came up and tried to sing along, though she didn't really know any of the songs well enough to actually do so.
Later on, a pair of high school girls came up and one of them told me that she was a terrible singer but could she sing a song? That was an interestingly honest sales pitch, so how could I refuse? She wanted to sing "Need You Now", which I happen to know, so I started it up, and sure enough, she *was* terrible, so I had to sing the whole thing on top of her since she never did find the right key. Fun anyway, I guess.
A dad came by with his little 7-year-old daughter, so I played "Twinkle Twinkle", and then "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?". Another guy asked for "City of New Orleans", so I did that one, and was amazed to see the little girl singing along on the choruses. Her dad then told me that she's a big Willie Nelson fan, and wanted me to play "On the Road Again". I don't know that one, but I fired up "Always On My Mind", which the little girl was thrilled by.
Around 11:00, the new assistant manager in the ice cream store came out and offered some to me and Warren. That was pretty nice of him, and quite welcome, considering I'm starting to feel a cold coming on and after 4 and a half hours my throat was getting pretty scratchy. Not to mention how hungry I get after playing for 4 or 5 hours...
