K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 01Aug2015

Warren always sends a text to Tom to see if he's going to be there, and Tom usually doesn't reply, so we have to assume he will be, 'cuz he usually is. This time Tom actually replied that he would be there, and that his State Program (whatever that is) imposed curfew was over, so instead of staying until 9pm, he'd be playing until 10:30.

Leaving us to start at 9:30 was already pretty bad, but stuck starting at 11:00 is ridiculous. But because he has a legion of kids to do supply runs and take turns going to the bathroom, he can and does spend the whole day on the corner, playing only occasionally, and keeping anyone else from setting up. And I can't think of a way to overcome that.

Warren went down to scope it out, and texted me all of this, also revealing that Rasta Ross was set up noodling with his tabla on the Fingerhut corner, Fiddle Guy was across the street, some guy with an acoustic guitar was in a closed gallery's alcove down the way, and further down, a Chinese lady was singing in Mandarin to a karaoke machine. This is really getting out of hand...

But I went down anyway to try to think of something. Warren thought that the alcove that the acoustic guy had just vacated looked promising, but I thought it was too far from the Corner to siphon off any traffic. I proposed the half-circular alcove between Fingerhut and Chico's, which is usually off-limits when those stores are open, but at 9:05, should be OK since they were both closed. (And Fingerhut is Really Closed, out of business, and there were painters in there, preparing for whoever's next.)

Warren objected that our amplifiers would be pointing directly at the Tommies from there, but I countered that that was a Good Thing, since Warren's supposed friendship with Tom hadn't caused him to do anything to accommodate us, so why should I accommodate him? I was hoping that, at least, some people who were done with the cuteness of the Tommies Show would hear some Real Music coming from across the way, and trade up.

And indeed, right after I started, I had gathered a pretty big crowd, even with no place to sit. Not knowing how this was going to go, I hadn't bothered to deploy all my stuff, so I was playing from memory. But after four songs there were so many people there that it seemed rude to not give them the chance to pick their favorite songs, so I got the song lists out, handed them around, and fetched the music stand and iPad out.

About 10:30, Tom's older daughter Tessa came over to tell us that they were going to play two more songs and then go, so I packed up quickly and rolled over there. We did OK, but obviously, starting at 11:00, the real crowds were long gone. It's not about the money, but as a barometer of how much interaction and appreciation we gathered, the "take" was the worst since the colds of the middle of January.

I'm apparently really going to have to come up with another plan for Saturdays.