K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 25Mar2017

Pretty good night. Lots of kids out at first, including a pack of girls who'd just come from the beach (with some parents). They were on their way past when the crosswalk signal stopped them and I hijacked them by handing out the song lists. And since they'd all seen the new "Beauty and the Beast" movie the day before, you can guess what song they wanted.

Now that my Vietnamese super fans know how to find me, they came by again. Phuong has to be the sweetest lady I've ever met -- there are probably a few adult women who will admit that "Puff, the Magic Dragon" is their favorite song, but how many also cry at the story of "The Boxer"?

But they didn't get there until about 8:30, and we're supposed to quit at 9. Warren says that he and Jim have been exceeding that deadline lately and getting away with it, and theorizes that, since Sanchez has apparently disappeared for good, and was presumably the cause of the curfew, the cops have relaxed their enforcement again.

That sounded OK to me, except that, right at 9:00, the cops' little golf cart was parked right across the street from us, while they were inside the gallery over there for some reason. It seemed a bit inexpedient for us to be observably playing through amplifiers when they came out, so I shut it down and just chatted with Phuong and Chris until the cops left. Then we went ahead and played until 10:20, with no further police appearances.

Still too many bums, and especially obnoxious drunken ones, for my tastes, but Warren tried to keep a lid on that, as best he could. It's a shame that we live in fear of the cops shutting us down, but (almost) never benefit from them helping keep the drunks out of our hair. This time though, for the first time, they came by and just hung around the worst drunk until he decided to go someplace less intimidating. More of that, please.