Keith in Laguna Beach -- Sunday, 08Mar2015

Even though it's lame every time I go on a Sunday afternoon, I felt like the 45 minutes at the coffee shop the night before just wasn't sufficient playing for a weekend, so I went anyway.

And I was right -- lame. I knew the Tommies would be on the ice cream corner, but I was hoping the nice weather would make the Fingerhut side worth playing. Not so much. I played from 4:30 until about 7:00 and had almost nobody stop to listen.

I was playing towards the benches, but since the bums don't like (or don't like bothering) the Tommies, they were on the Fingerhut benches, hampering my ability to get a crowd. So around 7:00, I decided that my best bet was to move across the sidewalk and point the amp toward the line that was starting to form outside the pizza place -- which did work a little better. I had a few small families come over, so I played some "Frozen" and other kids' stuff. And once some kids are there, the older people stop to watch the cuteness. Note to self: 4:30 on Sunday, no; 7:00, maybe.

At one point, a professional-looking woman came up as I was starting up a song and made little pinching gestures with her fingers at me. I presumed she was trying to tell me to turn it down, 'cuz I'm paranoid that way, so I stopped playing to let her say it out loud. But she was actually asking me if I had a card, and said that she was putting on a women's golf tournament and wanted to hire me to play the after party. So suddenly the three hours of almost nothing was worth it...

Finally at 8:30, the Tommies packed up so I could move over to the ice cream side. I'd already been playing for 4 hours so I didn't expect my batteries to last much longer, but I played anyway, and started to do really well. Lots of people came by and left a tip, though not many actually stopped. It's flattering when someone tips me to play a song, but it's a bit more flattering when they tip me even though they're not staying to listen -- just "This guy's good" as they go on by.

Of course, being Sunday, it started to get pretty empty at 9 or 9:30, but I just kept playing 'cuz it was nice out, and the quiet was too tempting. I started playing songs I wanted to play, having done the Top Twenty for the last 5 hours, and I was really expecting the batteries to crap out at any minute anyway. I guess it sounded really pretty because the street was so quiet and my voice was in good shape, but I was surprised that people were tipping for obscure songs they weren't familiar with and weren't stopping to listen to.