K&W at Costa Mesa -- 21July2007

The gig went really well this week. My voice was in much better shape than last week in Brea, and we had lots of friendly faces. One couple came in to buy some coffee, noticed us, and decided to sit and listen. They were very into it (being big James Taylor fans), and even moved from their table to a closer one when it freed up. The big triangular display structure that usually blocks us from the Comfy Chair area was gone, so we had the luxury of playing to both those people and the café itself at the same time.

We got there nice and late -- partially on purpose and partially because of the OC Fair traffic -- and set up slowly, to avoid the "starts too early" no-no. We took the requisite Break, and I ended up talking to some of the Comfy Chair people, who were aghast that this was to be our last time playing there. One guy who's there every time we play immediately got up to talk to the manager. I'm not sure how inclined the manager should be to accommodate the desires of people who essentially use his store as a living room, but maybe it'll help.

We played to 10:00 and quit (despite no sign of the usual watch-tapping Manager Girl), and it occurred to me that maybe the manager had changed, as they do pretty frequently, and if so, this was our best and only chance to try to fix the black-balling. So we found him, a nice guy named Nick, and he said that he had nothing against us, and would call the district manager on Monday, after talking to his staff to see if there was something treacherous about us that he was unaware of. He's supposed to call me with the results of all that, but so far, nothing.

But, with some luck, we may get un-black-balled from there, which would be nice since it's becoming one of our favorite places to play -- and it's a heck of a lot closer than Brea and Yorba Linda. We recently discovered that we've been banned from the Mission Viejo store, too. My gasoline budget can't really afford us getting kicked out of all the close stores so all our $3-in-tips gigs are $10 away.

But, musically and audience-response-wise, it was a great gig. My voice was strong and accommodating, my mind was somehow sharp so my playing was good, and the audience was very friendly. Overall, a great antidote to how badly I felt after the disappointing showing at Brea last week.

I hope I can do as well as a solo at Yorba Linda next Saturday. A lot of it is on me, whether I can connect with some chunk of the audience, but a lot is also on random chance of who's there, and whether they're willing to interrupt what they're there for. If somebody is clearly listening, I get a lot braver to start talking and interacting, and it can be contagious. But I need that one starter...

Keith at Brea -- 14July2007

This was my first time as a solo in Brea. When I got there, it was very quiet, which makes it *so* hard to start up. So I played, and played some more, all to no reaction at all, except one guy in front who'd look up from his reading to clap quietly, most of the time.

It's very intimidating. I guess my insecurity needs the applause just to tell me that they're not resenting my intrusion. When this happens, I just tell myself to treat it like a dress rehearsal and play and sing like it counts. But once that no-applause pattern is set, it's pretty hard to break it.

So I played for a while, and took the Required Break. This kind of helped to break up the "song, song, song, he must be Muzak" pattern, and when I started up again, they seemed to realize that there was a person up there. One nice lady fetched up the list she'd been neglecting and asked me to play, of all things, "Octopus's Garden". And although the coffeeshop was almost entirely full, some new people had arrived and they weren't in on the unspoken agreement to not clap.

I also got to play my trump card: a lady with an 8-year-old boy came in, and after I played "You Got a Friend in Me" for him, I got him up to shake the shaker for "Jenny Dreamed of Trains". That always breaks the ice, at least some.

Then, near the end, amazingly, the guy who'd been quietly clapping two hours ago and had got up to leave, walked over and handed me a cold bottled water. He had bought me a drink! That's sure never happened before. I presume he was just being nice, and not reacting to my not-very-well-behaved voice of the night.

And when I played my last song and made my "gotta pack up now" announcement, there was a general (but quiet) round of applause (which has happened only a few times), and several people leaped up to put money in the jar! Apparently, despite my gloomy feelings about the night as it was happening, they were actually an appreciative bunch, just not a very demonstrative one...

Geneva, Driving!

Yes, it's hard to believe, but Geneva turned 15-and-a-half in June, so we signed her up for a 4-day Driver Ed class, and she passed the test, and she now has her Learner's Permit.

On Sunday, I needed some stuff at Home Depot, so I let her drive me there -- first time. The class included some post-test driving instruction, so she'd had 2 hours with her teacher, and claimed she was doing really well. And she is doing OK, with a few exceptions. She as a little trouble staying in the middle of her lane, but she'll get that, I’m sure.

Her worst mistake was that she had apparently heard the part about being able to turn right on red lights, but missed the part about stopping first. We pulled up to an intersection to make a right turn, and the light was red, and she slowed down, apparently (to me) to go ahead and stop. I was about to launch into the "Look this way, now look that way" speech, but she just rolled right on around the corner!

I was so shocked that it took me a while to realize that she was just gonna go on around. Then, to make matters worse, when I recovered my senses and started yelling "Stop! Stop! Stop!", she just *didn't*! So we had a *very* stern talk about "When I say 'Stop!', you *stop*!", and went on to Home Depot.

Then, on the way home, she rolled on around another red-light right-turn! This time I realized that she just didn't know she was *supposed* to stop at red lights, so I made that part perfectly clear. Very, very, clear.

It occurred to me that the basic implied contract that I, the dad, have with Society is that I'll sit next to her, and I won't let her hurt anybody. That seems simple enough, but it assumes that she'll do what I tell her to do, when I tell her to do it. Apparently, Society has leaped to a untenable conclusion on that one, 'cuz she appears to be as capable of ignoring me yelling "Stop!" as she is when I tell her to clean up her room...

But she's pretty aware of what she's into, and I'm sure she'll be fine. I was basically proud of her, and a little sad, 'cuz it's certainly one of those "They grow up so fast" moments...

K&W at South Coast Plaza -- 06July2007

Nice. SCP is definitely my favorite place to play these days. It's the only one where we commonly get that "shoppers going by, hearing the music, and joining in for a while" effect that we're looking for. It tends to start out with a lot of Studying Kids, but as the evening goes on, some older people come by and some of 'em like our stuff, and they stop to listen. We had a couple of sets of those this time -- friendly, appreciative, involved people.

And that helps me two ways. I sing and play better when I know somebody cares, and if somebody's listening, I can talk between the songs. Or, possibly more accurately, if nobody's listening, I can't. And, of course, if somebody's listening and I'm talking, it tends to better involve other people, and it all snowballs into a fun night for us, and, hopefully, them too.

What was really surprising was three Asian kids that were there when we got there, with their notebook computers, working away on something. They never really looked up or joined in at all, but after probably 2 hours, they got up to leave, and they bought a pair of CDs on their way out! I sure didn't expect *that*.

Keith @ Yorba Linda -- 30June2007

A bit better than last week when Warren and I played this one together. The audience was a little more responsive, and I had some kids to play for, which always helps. When I first got there, there was a young family with two boys, one reading comic books, and the younger one (4 or 5?) pretty bored. I let him come up and shake the shaker while I played "House at Pooh Corner", and although he never caught the actual rhythm, he had fun and his mom appreciated it.

And later on, I had a Latino family come in and their little girl Marisela (8 or 9) was totally into it. She danced, applauded loudly, jumping out of her chair in what I came to believe was what she understood to be a "standing ovation". I got her up to shake the shaker, too, on "Jenny Dreamed of Trains", so she could try to do the train sound. She really got into "Love Potion Number Nine" and "Lollipop Tree", and was "dancing" to a lot of songs. Her dancing consisted of bouncing around, trying to mime the specific words of each line as they went by. For instance, she was "rocking the baby" when I sang "Here Comes My Baby" which was literally applicable, but not exactly right...

I was obliged to play with a fake fingernail again, but I explained to the audience that the curse of playing fingerstyle guitar is that you have to have those three particular fingernails intact all the time, and that I had shattered my middle finger's nail a few days ago, doing something that I can't recall but I'm sure it was very manly, and so I had to go buy some stick-on nails, which, unfortunately, the closest they had to "natural" color was Pink Pearl, which is not very close at all. I'm sure this explanation was well received by everyone, and nobody thought I was weird at all...

I never did spot anyone that I thought might be the manager for the night, so I couldn't ask about stopping time or the Mandatory Break. Out of new-found fear, though, I took my first Break, ever. It was kind of strange, but nobody else seemed to think it was odd, and nobody was particularly listening, or so I thought.

I wandered out to the Info desk and talked to the girl there, who couldn't guess why "they" want me to take a break, but she took the opportunity to ask if I knew how to play "Leaving On a Jet Plane", which, of course, I *could* play, but don't. A customer was over using the computer, and after a while walked over and said "Linda Ronstadt", which was apparently the answer to his unasked question about who originally recorded "Long, Long Time", which I had just done. I usually announce that song, but didn't this time, and it was apparently killing him to know who it was, so he used the store's computer to look it up. Coulda just asked me, but whatever. He also said that he thought I played really well, and did I know "City of New Orleans", another song I can play, and have played, but it's not in the book anymore, sorry.

Later on, when I was playing "Old Man" at some guy's "Neil Young" request, a college-age kid was watching me intently, and when it was over I looked over at him and he did the two-thumbs-up sign, with a kind of knowing look. That was cool, and as I was leaving, he happened to be in his car next to mine, and he opened up the passenger window, called out, "You did a really good job in there, sir!", and wanted to shake my hand. That was odd, and nice.

K&W at Yorba Linda -- 23Jun2007

Kind of disappointing. I was never able to really connect with anybody -- they were almost all otherwise engaged. Or unimpressed...

We had one small funny incident: one of two seriously studying young ladies asked me to play "You've Got a Friend", so I did. But as soon as I started the intro, I could tell by their reaction that that's not the song she meant. Of course, I couldn't stop once I'd gotten started, but when I got to the end, I said "But that's not the song you wanted, is it?" The one she meant was "You've Got a Friend In Me" (from "Toy Story"), so I chided her a bit about hoping that she was being more accurate in her homework there, and played that one, too.

One of my sometimes-successful tricks for getting some kind of attention from a non-attentive audience is to play a noticeably-difficult or impressive song. This tends, at this point, to be "Scarborough Fair" -- people know it, and can somehow tell that it's tricky to play, and once I've played it, I get the (probably imaginary) feeling that there's a bit more respect in the room. This makes the subsequent simple songs go over better, presumably because they now know that I *can* play more impressively, but don't happen to be doing so.

Anyway, the only problem with that is that I (have to) play that one solo -- it's so concentration-intensive that if Warren plays along, the distraction is enough to completely derail me. Last week when our guest-harmony singer sang along, I got screwed up several times (though I was able to recover, astonishing myself in the process). Warren once told me that he didn't mind sitting a few songs out, but it still bothers me to do it, 'cuz he has to put his guitar down and walk away, and it's plenty awkward.

And this time, I played it early on in desperation, trying to get some reaction from these brick-like people. Then later in the night, I solicited requests from Tiffany the coffee-girl, and she wanted to hear, oops, "Scarborough Fair". I guess she can't hear us very well way over there behind the counter (or maybe she's just too preoccupied) and didn't hear it the first time. Of course, I can't refuse a direct request, especially from a store staff-person who we'll be seeing again. But doing that to Warren once a night is bad enough -- twice felt really uncool.

K&W at Brea -- 16June07

This was only the second time I've played at the Brea store, though Warren's been there a couple more times with Jim. It's got a terrible layout for playing -- there's no decent place to set up and play, but we figured something out, kind of in a too-narrow aisle, back to the store. We end up pretty far away from the people back in the corner of the café, and I remembered that from last time, so I made sure to personally interact with them right from the start ("Can you hear us back there?" kind of stuff), to make sure that they were "in" the show.

While we were setting up a guy came over and asked when we were going to play, and what kind of stuff. I gave him a list, which he got pretty excited about, and when he saw "Bus Stop" he said that he'd come over and sing harmony, if I had a spare mic. I did, and told him he'd be welcome. He introduced himself (Dave) and wandered off, but came back over once we'd started, and, sure enough, after listening for a while, asked us to do "Bus Stop" and I fetched out the other mic, and we went to town. He knew the words, and sings really well, so we started hunting the list for more songs that had harmony in 'em.

Of course, I choose songs specifically that sound OK *without* harmony, but there were plenty that sure don't mind having the harmony in 'em -- and we played 'em all. It was pretty big fun. He was a little freaked about the fact that almost all of them had been transposed down, but it didn't seem to actually throw him in practice.

Then a group of high school girls came in and were *very* enthusiastic about us playing. One of 'em plopped down on the ground right in front, so I handed her a list, and when she saw "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", she 'bout wet her pants. Turns out she's a *huge* Harrison fan, so of course we played that one for her. I'm pretty sure that she and her friends were literally screaming (quietly) at the end of the songs. Unfortunately, they could only stay for a few, but they made the night even more fun.

Though he clearly didn't intend to stay there all night, Dave kept singing, and thanking us for letting him, until the very end. He sang along on most everything, and was gracious when there wasn't a part for him. We met up with him and his friend in the parking lot afterwards, and it turns out that he's a part of the local musician scene, and has been for a while. He and Warren knew a bunch of people in common. It could turn into some alternate playing opportunities.

So, overall, a great night. Certainly different, and that's a good thing.

Princess Campout at Campland San Diego, June 2007 -- Part 2

This campout also always includes the initiation/hazing of the incoming tribe chiefs. This is frequently a semi-disaster, 'cuz the idea is to embarrass/humiliate the guys, which is supposed to be fun, but it sometimes just comes out as mean. I remember once when Geneva started crying watching them turn a guy into an ice cream sundae, and it wasn't even me.

This time, my buddy Todd proposed that we "test their bravery" by making them sing in public. And, rather than bring in a karaoke machine (which was a disaster 2 or 3 years ago), I would be the musical accompaniment. Like the TV show "So You Think You Can Dance", but it was "So You Think You Can Sing Like Keith". This was genius because (a) my songs are already transposed into a more-singable by normal (non-tenor) guys key, (b) unlike a tape, I could (try to) follow where they were going, timing-wise, and (c) if they got really lost, I could help out over my head mic.

And it did work out really well. We had 2 or 3 essentially tone-deaf guys, but I helped them out so nobody completely crashed and burned, and some of the guys were pretty OK on their own. None of them were really ready to step up and take my now-vacant position as Nation Music Guy, but it was fun for everybody, and no permanent damage to any of the chiefs.

There was also a nice graduation ceremony for the girls (like Acacia) that are leaving Princesses. Since she's moving up to Trailmates, we aren't really leaving the program exactly, but we are leaving a lot of friends behind, and I won't be along to play at the Princess campfires anymore, except...

I'd really hate to lose those campfire times -- they all seem to love having me, and I surely love playing for all those appreciative little girls. So, I made it clear that I'd be happy to come back and play at future campfires, as long as they're at reasonably close-by campsites, and my calendar permits. I really just meant that I would drive out and play, and go home again, but I talked to one of the chiefs and he thinks that they could/should pay my way to the event, and have me (and Acacia) there the whole time. That's pretty generous, especially since he was talking about the expensive snow camp type events. We'll see what happens.

On Sunday morning we have the more serious ceremony, "graduating" the old chiefs, where the nation chief talks about what a great job each guy did in planning an event, or doing his Council job. I'm on the Council as the Web Guy, and he hit on that briefly, but mostly talked about the music job I do. This was met by a standing ovation from the nation, which was pretty nice. I stepped up to the mic and made a little speech, thanking them (or, more likely, their predecessors) for helping instill the courage in me to get up and sing, which led to my "career" in the coffee shops.

I also confessed that I had never bought the "required" leather Princess Vest, on which the event patches are sewn. The girls each have one, but I just kind of collected the patches, with nothing to do with them. So, earlier in the week, I bought a 20-foot piece of rope, which was just long enough to hot-glue the patches to, in chronological order, with a small space between them. I folded the "garland" up and wrapped it in some paper, and while I was talking, I had the girls grab one end each, and walk apart, stretching the rope across the front of the stage. The effect was pretty stunning -- I heard a lot of "amazement" noises as I talked about this being what 10 years' worth of patches looks like.

It really is quite sad for me to have to leave the Princess program -- even though we're moving up to Trailmates which is almost the same thing. It's been a really good device for keeping me from letting the girls' childhoods slip by even more than they have anyway. But, hey, they grow up -- there's no stopping it.

Princess Campout at Campland San Diego, June 2007, Part 1

Well, we had our last Princess event over the weekend; the annual end-of-the-year Family campout at Campland in San Diego. It's a "resort" campground, and we rent a pop-up tent-trailer for the weekend, and there's real bathrooms with hot showers, so the moms (and specifically, Daleen) will come.

Every year on Saturday morning, there's the Sand Sculpture "contest", where each tribe builds something, and is given some lame design-specific award for it. There seems to be an unwritten rule that those awards be as lame as possible, so even the youngest kids can see through the ruse. I've always wished that the chief/judges would at least try to make the awards less lame-jokey and more something the kids could be proud of: biggest, most creative, funniest, most realistic -- anything that could be taken as possibly referring to more than one entry. But I guess I'm done after 10 years, and I should just get over it...

For our first entry, 10 years ago, the guys (or should I say "boys"?) wanted to do a mermaid. This came out as you might expect, and I was feeling like it wasn't terribly appropriate, nor any fun for the kids, so I added a cartoon-ey octopus next to it. The cool part about the octopus design is that you can farm out each tentacle to 8 people or small teams, and everybody gets to contribute. They all look to me to do the finishing touches, but they get pretty close with just some guidance.

This time, I went for a more realistic style, and did more with the twists and curls of the tentacles than before. I had lots of help right at first, when I need a lot of sand moved into the main pile, so we had more finishing-touches time to do the eyes and get some variety in the tentacles.

It was an eventful weekend -- more tomorrow!

KC at Yorba Linda -- 01June2007

Playing solo is always twice as scary at first, but I settle into it OK after a while. It went pretty well -- there were lots more studying kids this time than we normally find at Yorba Linda, but it's the end of school, so maybe it was cramming for finals time. Still, I had several people listening and requesting, pretty much right from the start, so it was fine.

Side story: Back in the 70's, there was an arcade video game called "Tail Gunner". It was terribly primitive by today's standards, of course, but it was the only game that I ever put any of my hard-earned quarters into. It was a "sit-down" game, and you were the tail gunner of a spaceship, where your job was to shoot, using the between-the-legs joystick, three incoming bad guys that would fly in from the sides, dance around a bit, and try to "pass" you. If you let three past, you were out.

One time I was playing it, and a young kid came and parked outside, watching. This made me nervous, and I started playing pretty badly. He watched for a while, and said, "You're trying too hard." This was nail-on-the-head absolutely true -- he could tell just by looking. The cool part about this game was that you had to shoot those guys on pure instinct. You didn't have time to think, aim, and shoot -- you had to give up thinking. It was a "Zone generator" -- it required, and caused, you to go into the Zone to play it. When he was watching me, I couldn't zone out, and had to resort to "trying", which didn't work. I've never seen a game, before or since, that was such a direct path to that "use the Force" feeling.

Playing music is a lot like that -- for me anyway. At first, when I'm working on a new song, it's all mechanical, just getting the notes. But when I can relax, zone out, and let it flow, I'm so much better. And it's so much more fun.

Which leads (finally) to my mistake on Friday. I brought the video camera and set it up, pointing at myself. The good part is that it's possible to grab stills from the video where you aren't looking like a dork. The bad part is that I play badly. I want to have good, mistake-free takes for the movie, and I end up "trying too hard". I can't just let go and play, so I play worse, not better.

The temptation to bring the camera (or an audio recorder) is that, sometimes, it all goes magic. When it does, you think, "Dang! I wish I had a recording going!" What I finally realize is that the recorder is never gonna capture the magic -- the recorder *prevents* the magic.

So, yeah, I'm not that proud of the songs on the video. There might be one or two that are presentable -- hardly worth the trouble to convert them off of the tape. I'm gonna have to learn to ignore the temptation to try to record this stuff.

But I did have fun. It's one of the "open 'til 11" ones, but for the first time, people were actually leaving before they got kicked out. By 10:20 or so, there were only 3 or 4 people left in there (and the battery was dead on the vidcam), so I thought it'd be a good time to try out some of the new songs I've been practicing: "Still Crazy", "American Tune", "Girl", and even "Mexico". They all went OK, except "Girl" seems kind of uninteresting when I do it. It sounds much better in my head. Maybe with Warren playing along it won't be so dull.

K&W at Waterloo Station -- 25May2007

Well, that was different, at least. Waterloo Station is a new coffee shop, just 4 miles from my house. Daleen noticed an article about it when it opened up, and the owner (Suzy) was soliciting "local musicians" to come play. I emailed her, and got a reply from her boyfriend Rick, saying that he knew all about us 'cuz he'd seen us play several times before, and that he'd be happy to have us come in. That was kinda cool -- being "famous"...

A lot of my local friends have never come to see us play, citing "too far" as their reason (or excuse). So I thought that this would be a great place to play 'cuz they could all come out. Luckily (or not) it occurred to me to check the place out in person before I sent out the "come see me" message, 'cuz the place is kinda small. So I sent out the message, but I didn't really push it.

I needn't have worried about my friends overcrowding the place, though -- none came. Not only that, no strangers came either. Well, almost none -- we had one very loud older guy come in and basically take over the place for 45 minutes. We just kind of stood and watched. He didn't even buy anything -- in fact, he was trying to sell some paintings to Suzy. And later on, a guy come in to buy a chocolate croissant, settled for a brownie, and sat and made a few requests and listened for a while.

Other than them, all we had was Suzy and her dad to play for, until boyfriend Rick finally came by towards the end. He's a big British Rock fan, and ran down the list naming lots of songs for us to do. In addition to being the "booker" for Waterloo, he's also a "local musician" playing open mics and gigs at other places, so he knows a lot about being a "bookee". As we were tearing down he and Warren had a long talk about places to check into, which might turn out really useful.

But Suzy (and her dad) and Rick seem to like us and our songs, so we all agreed to (pretend to) blame the lack of attendance on the Memorial Day weekend, and try again at some unspecified future date.

Pawnee Princess Campout at O'Neill

Since Sunday was Mother's Day, and we couldn't find any other less-crowded weekend, we had an Our-Tribe-Only campout for just Friday to Saturday. This one-night campout idea actually worked brilliantly. Since there were only 2 meals involved, we just had pizza on Friday night, and went out to McDonald's for breakfast on Saturday morning.

It saved us having to get groceries for 20, and drag out all the propane, stoves, supplies, pots, pans, forks, paper towels, etc., etc. And we didn't have to waste time cooking the food, and cleaning up afterwards. Clean-up from pizza is "Throw your paper plate in the fire".

It was also easier on the dads, 'cuz it's a lot easier to recover from one bad night's sleep than two, and easier on the girls 'cuz they had some weekend left over to get their homework done, etc. Not as much playtime, obviously, but, you know, enough.

It also produces a cool effect that Warren and I independently noticed about playing on Friday nights -- when you do something cool on Friday night, it makes it seem like a 3-day weekend. You do something fun, and then you have Saturday, and, although it seems like the weekend must be over, there's still Sunday left -- like a bonus!

I guess another thing that made this one-nighter seem a lot easier was that there was no Big Production Saturday Night Campfire (with me setting up the Whole Rig, playing, and tearing it all down again) and no Sunday Morning Assembly (with me setting it all up and playing again). I sure like playing for the kids and all, but it takes a big chunk out of my weekend to have to.

K&W at CM - 05May2007

Pretty good night. The amp didn't blow up this time, so that's a start...

We set up really early, 'cuz we're getting used to getting kicked out at 10. Most places that close at 10 start the music at 7, so we're just treating that place as a 7-10er, even though officially it's an 8-11.

Downside of that, though, was that there was nobody there yet, so it was hard to get started, playing (and, worse, announcing) to an empty room. But it started filling in after a while, and people were tuning in. My voice, which, by my experiments singing in the car in the days leading up to the gig, was gonna be a terrible embarrassment (cracking and just cutting out), turned out to be the best it's been in many weeks. And at times, better than I can remember for a long time. I was hitting high notes, and had a kind of nimbleness that I haven't seen in forever. Truth be told, it was making me kind of cocky, and I took chances I won't usually touch. Fun!

The last hour or 45 minutes we had a kind of full house, and it seemed ridiculous to shut down just when the crowd had finally materialized and gotten in the groove, but the Mean Girl Manager doesn't see any of that...

We had lots of people come up and tell us that we were "really good", and one guy seemed to be telling Warren that he was gonna fix us up with a (presumably paid) party somewhere. We'll see...

Tried out the new "Girl", a Beatles song from "Rubber Soul". It sounds pretty good at home, but just kind of laid there in the store. I'll give it another go or two, but it may just not "have it". Shame, too, 'cuz it's a song where I actually strum (gasp!) the guitar, and it actually works.

KC at Costa Mesa - 28April2007

I always have trepidations before a solo gig, but once I get started (always the hardest part), I get over it and have a great time. There were lots of nice people there this time, and I set up a connection right away, and got lots of requests and dialog with several people.

Eventful night. I'm still not over my throat trouble, but I managed, mostly. Following, kinda, Warren's example, I set up the video camera with what I thought was a newly charged battery, but it kept going off after a minute or two. I didn't know what was wrong, so I kept trying to get it to keep going, but was reluctant to keep stopping the show to go out and mess with it too much. At 9:10 or so I finally put in the spare battery (duh), and it ran fine from there.

But not for long. At 9:45, right in the middle of the last dramatic heartfelt chorus of "Jersey Girl", the amp just went "click!", and was dead. That was an interesting feeling -- the sudden "silence" of being abruptly acoustic-only.

I turned it off and back on and tinkered with various things, but it was a goner. So, since I thought I had a half hour or so left, I pulled out the store's little amp, and jacked all my stuff into it, and tried to continue (the show, not that song).

That was kinda tricky too though, 'cuz although my guitar and vocal mic run at about the same level when I'm using my amp, with the store's amp I had to set the vocal channel and the master volume all the way up to get even close to Loud Enough. My guitar's channel only had to be at about 4 (of 10). Weird. Anyway, I did another two or three songs, and got the tap-on-the-wrist signal from the Mean Girl Manager, so it was over.

But it was fun while it lasted. Lots of good feedback, requests, comments, and then warm-fuzzies afterwards while I was tearing down. Some ladies were requesting James Taylor songs, and called out "Thank you, Keith!" as they left. A young couple came over and just plopped down right in front and were just Listening. They didn't even have any books or magazines with them -- a First, I think.

I'm back there again next Saturday, with Warren. Good thing I still have the Indian Princess amp as a backup. I guess I'll take a look and see if it's something obvious, and then send mine back to Carvin for repair.

Canoe Trip down the Colorado River

We had a Trailmates trip to paddle some canoes down the Colorado River. Officially, only Geneva is in Trailmates, but I took Acacia too, since there's not much chance I'll do this again.

There's a campground on the river, just south of Needles. We left plenty early on Friday, but it took 6 hours to get there. Saturday morning, you get up, and they bus you upstream 11 miles, and you get to drift/paddle back to camp. They provide a sack lunch (in a zip-lock bag, just in case), and build a big barbeque dinner at the camp, too.

Apparently, it's really easy to flip the canoes over, so the standard practice for beginners is to bring some heavy sprinkler pipe and duct tape two canoes together into an unflippable catamaran. It also makes it more fun, 'cuz the kids get to be with their friends.

We paddled for a while, then pulled up on a beach to eat lunch. Paddled down a little while more, and pulled up on the other side, so the kids could "go swimming in Arizona". The water was chilly, but not too cold for the kids, and it was nice and sunny to dry them out soon enough. We also had some big squirtguns for water wars between canoes, but that only happened right at first 'cuz we were slowpokes and didn't run into any other friends after the launch point.

We were out for about 5 hours in all, which was plenty, but it was fun. Maybe I will do it again...

KC at Yorba Linda - 14April2007

This was scheduled as a K&W gig, but Warren got a better offer (a unique opportunity he couldn't, and shouldn't, pass up), so it was just me. Probably for the best, too, because I'm coming down with a nasty cold, and had a *terrible* sore throat. I've played/sung with a sore throat before, and the adrenalin or whatever made it seem to go away, but this one was un-ignore-able for most of the night. For the first hour or so I was constrained to some kind of little half-voice, which, even then, wasn't terribly accurate when I'd send it after some note or another.

It wasn't so bad that I had to just give up and go home, though I had half a mind to do so, but I had a good start (the hard part -- getting that initial connection), and a good audience that didn't seem to notice the flaws, so I kept going. Right at the beginning I had a gramma and grampa with three little kids, so I got to sing some of the kids' songs, and several audience members were throwing out requests.

For the last hour or so, an older lady and her daughter sat down in the comfy chairs, and related how the grandson/son (2, but not present) "plays my CD every day". They knew, and requested, a bunch of songs off of that CD, and I could see their lips move as the sang quietly along. They really liked "Teddy Bears' Picnic" (which I ought to record and add to the CD someday), and they were delighted by the new "Matilda" verse for "Waltzing With Bears". They had clearly seen me/us before, and I wish I'd'a had the presence of mind to ask them how they knew I was coming back, or if they're just there every Saturday.

There was also a beautiful Asian-American lady, by herself, who sat and listened closely for the whole last hour or more. She requested a few songs, the same ones that I think are my best (for singing, i.e., "Crying"), but when I asked her if she had more requests, she just said "I like them all." It was kind of unnerving -- I was starting to think that she wanted to ask me something, or was studying my guitar playing, or something. At the end, while I was tearing down, she come up and asked what kind of guitar I have, 'cuz she thought it "sounded beautiful". That was nice.

Anyway, it was pretty good, but pretty bad, too. I had fun, but it was tough to be that bad of a singer, and the bandwidth I was spending on worrying about and trying to control my trashed voice made me make guitar screwups that I've never even imagined. Which, of course, made me start to think too much about my hands, which makes it worse, 'cuz my hands know how to play that stuff, but I don't. I had considered bringing along the computer to record the night, but I'm glad I didn't -- I wouldn't want a recording of the many songs that were the worst I've ever done. Oddly, though, there were half a dozen that went really well -- I was kind of singing really "gently" to spare my voice (and not push it to cracking), and that treatment worked nicely of a few of them.

I had been working (some more) on "Mother Goose" all week, but was afraid to try it, or most of the songs that go even a little high. I've also been working on "American Tune", which I thought might be safer to try without Warren there, but it goes *way* too high, so I didn't risk it. Next time, assuming I'm well by then.

Yellow Submarine Pinecar

For this year's, and presumably our last, Pinecar Derby, Acacia and I built the Yellow Submarine. Every year I ask her what she wants her car to be ("Caterpillar!", "Whale!", "Unicorn!"), but this year, since she's become a big Beatles fan, I proposed the Yellow Submarine idea, which, of course, she loved.

We used the same methodology as the Gray Whale from three years ago, but that one was whittle-able (with a carrot peeler, for safety (she was only 9 then)). This one has more complexity, and more "inside curves", so we cut the basic profile shape from a block of balsa, and just started working on the 3D shape by hand, using the sanding drum. There are no pictures (in the movie) of the sub from the top or bottom, so we just got to (had to) fake the plan view shape.

I whittled the periscopes while she sanded and painted, and we made the handrail around the top out of some 1/8-inch solder I had, super-glued together and painted red.

The painting was a lot harder than the all-gray whale, but we didn't have to make perfect lines 'cuz they got covered up by the red vinyl pinstripe tape. We did the hatches with masking tape, and the windows (with the little Beatles in them) and main "flower(?)" decoration were printed to scale on CD label sticker stock. The clear lacquer overcoat gives the flat acrylic paint, and everything else, the same shininess, and hopefully will keep the stickers safe.

The base is the original car block, cut off short, and covered with a printed piece of paper. I found a picture of an original cel from the movie showing the Sea of Holes, and PhotoShopped the Beatles out of it. Acacia pointed out that one of the holes should be green, 'cuz they went through that one to get to the Sea of Green. The clear shaft that connects them together is a piece of a mini-blind control rod.

There was no race or design competition this year (to save both the dads and daughters the worry of trying to compete in everything), so it was just for fun, and for show. Of course, we got lots of impressed people, but we also have a fun decoration on permanent display in her room, and lots of memories.

Idea for Borders

I had a spontaneous idea at Borders the other night, which both worked really well, and failed spectacularly. When I was out passing out the song lists, I gave one to the baristas, and told the kid that they were welcome to request songs, too. Later, a different kid brought the list back with no less than 22 songs checked, with three of those circled with green highlighter, with "Special request for Kelsey" noted nearby.

I don't know which one was Kelsey, nor if any of them could actually hear the songs anyway, since the bar is really far away at South Coast Plaza, but it seemed like a nice way to get them "on our side", as it were. Might account for the guy coming out and asking us if we wanted a drink -- that doesn't happen very often (ever?).

Unfortunately, because of all the attention we were getting down front, and my lack of being able to see that anybody back at the counter was noticing us, I only really did one song specifically "for Kelsey": "The Way You Look Tonight". Of the other two, we accidentally did "The Last Unicorn" anyway(requested by a girl down front), and neglected "Puff", which is kinda hard to do without the requester specifically being there to justify it. Of the other 19, we happened to hit 9 of 'em.

Anyway, I like the idea/effect of at least making the offer to the kids behind the bar, and it'll probably work even better at a place with a closer bar, like, say, Yorba Linda next Saturday.

K&W at South Coast Plaza again - 07Apr2007

Another darn fun night at SCP. Brazenly anticipating a repeat of the success of last week's gig, I sent out a "you should come" notice to the mailing list, but only got one taker. But they were probably right -- it wasn't as magic a night as the previous one, though it was pretty close. My voice was dry or something, and although it was behaving pretty well, it just sounded kinda raspy -- to me, anyway.

But we had a *really* good crowd, which always makes it fun. We had between 4 and 10 people really listening, all the way through. Good applause, lots of smiles. And, despite Will not being there to do his "You should tip these guys" announcement, we made more in tips than last week. That's probably due to my little bus stop gramma friend, Virginia, who brought her Asian friend along and must have been the one who put that twenty in there.

There was a friendly college-age couple there who stayed the whole night. The girl was a big Simon and Garfunkel fan, so we ran through all the S&G I've got. When she requested "The Boxer", I suspected and so asked her if she could/would sing the high part. She said yes, but declined to actually get up to do it -- I didn't have a second mic set up anyway. I could barely hear her, but it sounded like she was right on it...

I had fun pulling out all the new stuff, which is getting to be quite a list of its own. "Mother Goose", "Heart Full of Soul", "Old Man", "Jersey Girl", "I Want You To Want Me", "Under the Boardwalk", and "Satisfaction", which (finally) seemed to be taken in the ironic, I'm-just-kidding-around spirit that I'm doing it in -- people were smiling and chuckling at me. It was also the debut of "Here Comes My Baby", which, in a reversal of my usual experience, seemed kinda lame at home, but went really well at the gig. Felt like a "keeper".

And, we pulled out "Five O'Clock World" again (kinda rough through the yodels), but it uses a down-tuned bass string, which brings up a whole slew of other new/old songs that use that tuning: "Can't Find My Way Home", "Four and Twenty", and "Sarah Maria". That was fun, too.

K&W at South Coast Plaza - 30Mar2007

A great night! Started off a little slow, as usual, with the usual crowd of disinterested patrons, but we brought several of them around over time, and my in-laws showed up and sat right down front, so I had people to play to/for, which always brings out my best.

The sound, also, seems to be better there than anywhere else we play -- I love it when I can hear myself clearly. It lets me relax into the song -- easier on my voice, and better for my playing 'cuz I don't have to try (pick) so hard. You might think that just "louder" on the amp would have the same effect, but it's more than that (and less -- sometimes it's *too* loud, which screws me up even more!). There's something that I can only describe as clarity that makes all the difference.

Anyway, Warren set up his little still/video camera and recorded most of the best stuff, and is gradually posting the songs on his YouTube page. The video is pretty boring, since the camera is on a tripod and never moves, but the audio is surprisingly good for such a simple setup, and it's not really about how pretty we are -- I hope! (Check the K&W webpage to watch some videos.)

We played some of our new stuff, including the new Brit-pop trio of "Bus Stop", "Heart Full of Soul" and "Mother Goose". And a girl requested the once-favorite and still-on-the-list, but seldom-played "Five O'Clock World". It went surprisingly well, and since my voice is both higher and stronger than it was when I semi-abandoned it, I don't see why we can't start doing it regularly again. I've always liked it, but felt like my singing was sub-par on it. Now, not so bad.

And the most amazing thing happened -- the friendly (rare in itself!) Events Manager at that store (Will) came over at 9:45. I assumed he was giving me the "sign" that it was time to shut down (I usually quit at 9:40). But he wanted to borrow my microphone to make an announcement. I figured he was gonna repeat the "We're about to close" announcement, since the store PA is (thankfully) really quiet over in the café. But, nope, he started up a speech about how much he appreciates us coming in to make some music in the store, and how "you probably don't know this, but Borders doesn't pay the musicians, and we really appreciate Keith and Warren giving up their Friday night to come down here" and how "we should all show our appreciation by buying a CD or something", and on and on...

People, thoroughly guilted-out by this, immediately leaped up and started stuffing the tip jar. (It's a shame he didn't make this announcement earlier, when more people were there!) He gave me back my mic, shook our hands (to much thanks from us!), and wandered back down the aisle. As he walked past the jar, he said, to no one in particular, "Well, I should put my money where my mouth is!" and fished some money out of his own pocket!

We were completely stunned by this, especially considering the very cold treatment we've been getting lately at the Costa Mesa store, where we seem to be barely tolerated as a necessary evil, and booted out as early as possible. Not to mention that the tips were really good, for that place. Usually we expect to make 6 or 8 bucks each, this time it was $18. Not a fortune, nor even a record, but it's nice to get some tangible appreciation for our efforts...

And the cool part is that we're back there again next Saturday! Normally we don't (can't) play the same place twice in a row, but last weekend was in March, and next is in April.

K&W at Costa Mesa - 23Mar2007

Pretty fun night. They tend to kick us out at 10:20 at that store, so we started really early so we'd have some decent time to play. Since it was so early, it started out really dead, but we got more and more people roped in as the night went by. By the end, we had more requests stacked up than the management would let us stay and fulfill, which felt pretty rude. Oh, well -- leave 'em wanting more, right?

Warren had his camera set up, and captured a *lot* of Pretty Good performances (15), despite the fact that we haven't played together in 6 weeks. He trims them down to a single tune per clip, and uploads 'em to YouTube, where you can watch 'em, if you want: Click here.

My voice was not nearly as strong as I've gotten used to it being -- I think the time off let it get "out of shape". Hopefully it'll get back on course 'cuz we have gigs for the next three weekends straight, then I have a campout (with gig), and then a solo gig. But I did OK, and played pretty good, and Warren had practiced the week before and played OK, too. And I didn't choke (too much) because of the camera, either.

Another odd thing happened: a guy asked us if our "Blue Spanish Sky" was the Chris Isaak one, and since it was, to play it, which we did. He wandered off briefly, and then reappeared and asked if he could "sing it with [me]". Ohhh kay, sure, why not? I gave him my headset, and he went into it -- and not bad. He was a lot looser with it than I am -- I think he was trying to "Chris Isaak" it up, with a lot more moodiness than, I think, this one actually has. Commendable attempt, but it was a bit beyond him (as Isaak is beyond almost all of us...)

Me and Daleen at California Adventure

A peculiar series of events left me taking the day off to take Geneva and her friend Claire to California Adventure, but without Geneva and Claire. That left just me and Daleen, which seemed strange, but was quite nice. Not that we don't enjoy taking the kids to Disneyland, but it was a lot less frantic this way.

We rode "Soarin' Over California" twice, went to the Broadway-style "Aladdin" show, took the "Learn to Draw" lesson (Jiminy Cricket), and had a nice lunch at the sourdough place. There's not a whole lot to do at California Adventure anyway, and if you're skipping the thrill rides there's even less, which makes for a nice slow paced day. And they have a new thing where they take your picture and post them on-line so you can spend big bucks buying prints of 'em. Or, you can snag them off the page, if low-res is sufficient -- as it is here...

But hey, look! A picture with me in it!

KC at Costa Mesa - 16Feb2007

This was my first solo Borders gig in, wow, a long time -- apparently 14 months. I used to do about one a month, in Rancho Santa Margarita, but since they shut down doing music at that store, I've been being too chicken to play solo at any of the other stores -- and typically getting three gigs a month with Warren, which is almost enough.

But this month, since we somehow didn't get any gigs at all in the initial schedule, we had to pick up scraps from the "Opens". I had to do a solo, or I'd'a only had one gig the whole month. It was at Costa Mesa, which Warren and I had done just the Saturday before, but that actually worked out well, 'cuz (a) they were pretty nice to us, and (b) it felt familiar and comfortable to be there. Not to mention that a full-sized gig the week before is good practice for a gig this week.

Warren's gotten into posting videos up on YouTube lately, and I was gonna try to experiment with setting up my vidcam to catch some tunes. The idea was to put it over at the side, so it (a) wouldn't be right in the middle of the room and in the way, and (b) could catch me and Warren in a single edge-on frame, without being a huge wide shot. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a place to put the camera where it could see me (and "virtual Warren") without being right in the walkway where it would surely get knocked over. I think it'll be possible at South Coast Plaza, but not at Costa Mesa.

Which is a shame, 'cuz the performance felt pretty good. With the "rehearsal" the week before, I was playing well, and feeling loose. I think I did some pretty good work. It was one of those nights when the sound sounds particularly good (to me), so I can really knock it out. Not sure why, though. Obviously, a big difference is that Warren wasn't there, so the songs sound different, but it was a kind of "clarity" that made the difference. My only theory is that the second speaker, which is usually back behind Warren, was much closer to me so I was getting completely immersed in the sound field. Or maybe it was just my imagination...

Speaking of Warren, we apparently make more of an impression that I'd imagined, 'cuz at least three people (mostly the store employees) asked me "where my partner was". (He was in Yorba Linda with Jim, playing one of the other scarce "Opens".)

Anyway, it was pretty fun. My ex-boss Tim came by and listened for a while, and there were several folks that I now know to be "regulars" there, too. But unlike the Mission Viejo regulars, these guys are quiet and appreciative. I had to quit at 10:08, when the manager pointedly pointed at her wrist, but I was prepared for it this time and my voice was starting to go anyway.

K&W at Costa Mesa -- 10Feb2007

You'd think, after four years of doing this, that we'd'a seen most every "kind" of night that we were likely to. But, this one was unique, again. There were lots of people there when we got there, so I handed out lots of the song lists. Just as we started, a local Folk Scene lady-friend of Warren's came by, since she lives only a few blocks away. She started us off right away with a song request or two, and it appears to have opened the floodgates for the rest of the night. I hardly got a chance to choose any songs myself at all -- requests were coming at us the whole night. Usually most people are shy about asking for songs, but it "became OK", and everybody was yelling out songs.

Which was oddly fun, but got kinda cut short. The managers there have apparently gotten the impression that we're supposed to quit at 10:00. We don't know why. We understand that they want us to be out of there before closing at 11, but why the very wide margin for error? Unfortunately, the managers run the place, so there's no appealing for reason.

Anyway, we usually play until 10:40, leaving 20 minutes to pack up, but we got cut short at 10:15. I usually save any New Songs that I'm thinking of trying out until the last half-hour, when there's fewer people there, but because of the surprise cut-off, I didn't get to any of them. Oh, well.

But, because of the overall store-scheduling issues (which appear to be ongoing), I'm supposed to play there on Friday again, as a solo. That might be a bit awkward, but I think the manager (or, more likely, the assistant manager) likes my stuff -- she's friendly enough when she's kicking us out -- so maybe it'll be OK. And, at least, now I know.

Father/Daughter Girl Scout Bowling

The annual Father/Daughter Girl Scout event was bowling this year, and we had fun. Geneva's inherited Daleen's loose ligaments problem, so she can't really swing a heavy ball on the end of her shoulder, but she played anyway. Acacia doesn't exhibit that problem, yet anyway, and she got three strikes. 'Course, those were mainly bounced off the gutter-bumpers, but still...

They traditionally take father/daughter portraits at these things. Two years ago, it was with a Polaroid camera, but last year they bought some little photo printers, and took the pictures digitally. Unfortunately, the printers are really slow, so a lot of the pictures weren't printed yet when the event was over.

This time, we had a couple of cameras, and several memory chips to swap between the cameras and the printers, and we kept the printers churning. I also had snagged the "Father/Daughter Pose" that the professional photographers use when they come take pictures at the Indian Princess events. I also rigged up some makeshift lights with tissue paper diffusers to soften that "snapshot flash" look, and forced the picture-takers to step way closer and get the faces, not the shoes as in the past. The pictures turned out pretty well, for a change.

K&W at Yorba Linda -- 20Jan2007

A really fun gig! The place was unusually full when we got there, and a lot of the people there were "in our demographic" (i.e., old and white). I managed to make myself start off with a spoken introduction again, which kicked things off much better than my usual "start off with a timidly played-and-sung song, and see if you get any reaction" method. We got some immediate interaction in the form of song requests, and if you get some applause on the first song, you're in like Flynn.

Played good, sang good. Felt looser than usual, and was just throwing stuff out there, and it was working, which feels great. I remembered to play some of the new-ish songs (my wacky "Satisfaction" in particular), and surprised Warren by bringing out the brand-new "I Want You To Want Me". I'm not sure exactly how to play it yet, (the chords are easy enough, but I need to work up a way to make it work on acoustic (if that's possible)) but I was feeling daring so I went for it despite not really "having it down". Besides, it was getting late and there was hardly anyone left.

The only bummer is that I put my cell phone on the unused speaker behind me so I could occasionally check the time, and managed to walk out of there without it. Unbelievable, since it's a shiny silver object sitting on a big black box -- how could I not notice it while I was packing up? Anyway, I called right when they opened on Sunday, and it was just sitting there still, so they held it for me until I could go by and get it. Kinda ate up the five bucks tip money in gas, but, oh well.

Great night, overall. Had a good time. Unfortunately and inexplicably, we don't appear on the emailed-out schedule for February. We don't know if that means that Bob just forgot about us, lost Warren's request email, or that we've been fired. The last is pretty hard to imagine, 'cuz "Jim & Warren" is also not-on-the-list, and it's extremely unlikely that both bands did something unforgivable at the same time. We're still waiting on the Final February Schedule -- Warren requested, so we may have snagged, some of the Open spots. Hope so. As of now, we have no upcoming gigs...

K&W at Mission Viejo -- 13Jan07

What a night! First off, it was our first time at Mission Viejo since August, so that was kind of fun. I knew that Geneva's friend's gramma (a really sweet retired nurse), who drives her to the bus stop in the morning was planning to come see us. We've become good friends in 10-minute increments since school started, and I'd given her some CDs that she purports to like. She did show up, with 2 friends, but since that café is always jammed full of people treating it like a library, there was no place for them to sit.

But the real surprise was when a troop of 9 Trailmates dads and associated daughters marched in and lined up at the back (since there were no chairs). They were grinning and mugging at me, and I was pretty hard pressed to maintain the song I was in the middle of, but managed to keep it together. Of course, I was required (and happy) to play "Waltzing With Bears", with many of them singing quietly along. When that was done, it was "Picture time!"

The regular customers were perplexed and (hopefully) amused by all this, of course, so I explained the Indian Princess connection. Most of them seemed to think that that was pretty sweet, and it was over soon enough.

There was a 30-something married couple there when we got there, who were apparently just hanging out to hear the music. I don't know if they were specifically there for us, or just for whoever showed up, but when I passed out the song lists, the guy came up immediately and asked for James Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves", pointing out that it was "their song". Fine with me, though I didn't expect I'd be able to play it as the first number, and held off until number 3. They stayed almost the whole night, and it was great to have some Real Live James Taylor fans.

Pretty much the worst singing I've done in at least a year, but not so bad that I needed to hang it up. It got a little better in the second half, so I could come closer to the notes I was aiming at. Fortunately, the worst seems to be over now, so I should be OK at Yorba Linda next Saturday. I hope saying that doesn't jinx it...

We had the usual problem of the Regular Club that hangs out at that Borders. They're a group of 40 and 50-year-olds, mostly single, who hang out in the café every night, apparently. Since they "own the place", they're reticent to give up the sonic space to the band. It's odd, because they profess to like our music, and to prefer it to most (all?) of the other bands that play there, but they just talk, joke, and laugh at full volume over the top of us -- and if I turn up the amp, they just shout louder. And they insist on taking all the "good seats", closest to us.

Of course they have a right to be there, but it's terribly distracting, and makes it hard for me to get through the songs, much less perform them well. Oh, well. Maybe it's a good thing that we don't get assigned there very often. The good part is that it's close to home, and more likely to be visited by my friends -- the bad part is that it's hard to play with all that racket.

K&W at SCP -- 05Jan07

A mostly uneventful night. We did pretty well, despite the layover of the holidays.

Christi, a nice young lady whom we had met before at that store, timidly wanting to know what the procedure was to get a gig with Borders, showed up again to ask more questions. This time the questions related to doing the actual gig, 'cuz she's got herself on the list, and starts next weekend. She was the one that told us about Eva Cassidy, from whom I stole my arrangement of "Time After Time", so I invited Christi to sing it, and she did. Amazing voice -- though a bit intense for a night's worth. Seems like the audience will be emotionally exhausted after a few songs of that, but maybe that's just me.

A nice senior couple came and sat up front in the comfy chairs for the last hour or so. She went down the list and said "They're all good", at first, but finally requested "Somewhere" from West Side Story. Nobody ever asks for that one -- I was about to take it off the list, but I do love singing it.

K&W at Yorba Linda -- 15Dec2006

It was our last shot at doing Christmas tunes for the year, and it went pretty well. Yorba Linda is kinda far, but I like it. It's a nice big café, and there's usually a fair number of people there, and they're not all studying students.

We played to moderate attention for a while, but then a family came in with two little girls (7 and 9-ish), so I was able to pull out "Rudolph" and "Frosty", and some of the other kid songs. They actually got up and danced around for "Waltzing With Bears". And they sang along with "Rudolph" (the classic little-kid "response" lyrics: "Like a light bulb!"), and tried to keep up with Frosty, which everybody *thinks* they know, but nobody actually does.

Overall, pretty low-key, but pleasant. At the end, I pulled out three new songs I'm working on / playing with. "Under the Boardwalk", which is a contender for permanent status on the list, my strangely peaceful version of "Satisfaction", and my seriously weird "Jimi meets Merle" version of "Purple Haze". Pretty sure I blew Warren's mind with that one...

I played a Christmas Party!

So, Friday night we went to a Christmas party at the home of one of the Trailmates (big-girl Princesses) guys. I had brought along some of my Christmas CDs, and gave some away to people that didn't have one already, including Ralph's sweetie-pie wife, Carla.

She had to work on Saturday morning, and was apparently listening to the CD in her car, called Ralph to get my number, and called me to ask if I could/would play at the office party she was planning for Sunday at her house. I said, sure! 'cuz I love playing the Christmas tunes, and had nothing better going on. She asked what I charge per hour, but I told her I was free -- I don't know how to, much less what to, charge friends. And I expected to have fun.

Ralph sent me his address and directions in an email. I looked it up on Google Maps, and drew myself a copy. But I neglected to write down the actual address number, which I didn't notice until I was almost there. I pulled up anyway, expecting to have to pull a Marlon Brando and stand out in the street yelling "Carla!", but a little neighbor girl was outside and knew where Ralph's daughter lives...

It was pretty odd, gig-wise. I don't play parties, and didn't know if Carla expected me to be background music (which, if she had, and I'd'a had the presence of mind to ask, I'd'a said no to the whole idea), or for people to actually listen. Turned out to be some of each, I guess. A lot of people were chatting, loudly, but occasionally some folks would drift in and request a song or three off the list. Toward the end, as people left and it got quieter overall, more people came to listen.

I'd brought some CDs, in case, and a few people took some and stuffed some money in the jar, and Carla foisted a batch off on people who were leaving. As I left, she gave me an envelope with a hundred bucks in it, and an extra twenty for the CDs she'd snagged. That plus the tip jar came to $141 -- not bad for a "free gig".

At the very least, I learned something about playing parties (besides "Don't"). Mostly, I learned that it's *way* different than playing Borders, if only because at Borders, people are stone silent, and at the party they were way too loud. But they're also much more "at home", and vocal to each other and to me -- asking for songs and deciding to sing along, or even get up front and sing with me. Clearly, at a party (at least a "happening" party) I need more "party songs" -- whatever than means (I tried, and if I could have remembered the words and chords to "It's My Party", I could have had a bunch of women up singing it -- a missed/botched opportunity). At least, some (more) songs that other people can sing, or sing along to. And some in a "girl key", and not only mine.

Anyway, mixed feelings. Generally, people who came in to listen were appreciative. But I found myself trying to play, sing, and concentrate against a wall of party noise, which is hard. I guess I'll do it again, if asked, but it'll take a dozen or more before I figure out how to really pull it off, if ever. After playing Borders so many times, I can see how naïve we were when we started -- I'm sure I'm just as clueless about how to successfully play at a party; in the "don't even know what I don't know" phase.

K&W at South Coast Plaza -- 01Dec2006

I love pulling my Christmas music out every year. Unfortunately, we don't get many gigs in December to play the stuff. So I sent out an "only chance!" message to the K&W mailing list, and it actually worked! 9 out of 10 gigs, nobody we know comes in, which is fine. Of course it's nice when somebody does show up, but also rare. This time we had 17, count 'em, 17 friends: my brother and his wife, my dad's college friend and his wife (who've known me since babyhood), and old high school friend and her husband, three Toshiba friends, one from Linksys, and, almost at the end, two Princess friends with five teenybopper daughters-and-friends in tow.

Which made it pretty fun. Just getting to play those songs is fun in itself, too -- most of them are more elaborate, and therefore more interesting, than the standard pop songs we play. I attribute a lot of my growth on the guitar to my years-long striving to get those songs sounding good. Pop songs just don't "get" the diminished and augmented chords like them old tunes do.

Also, since there's no Definitive Version of most of them (Elvis' "Blue" and Bing's "White" Christmases notwithstanding), I get to do a personal arrangement of them. Meaning, of course, that I can play them "in my style", which means "down at my level of (in)ability".

But it went great. We had all those friends out there, paying attention, and lots of other folks were right there with us, too. One guy was in the comfy chairs when I got there, and we talked while I was setting up. He had to go, though, before I got started, even though he thought he (and his daughter) would like my stuff. About an hour into the gig, he showed up again, with the daughter, and did, in fact, seem to like it.

The whole night shot by. Having the additional 10 or 15 songs to play meant that we did that many fewer of the Usual Songs, which was a nice change. Makes me want to have another 20 songs on the list so the ones we play at any one gig can vary from week to week. That's a bit easier said than done -- (a) I can't think of another 20 songs that (a1) are great, and (a2) I can play, and (b) the best 40 or so always percolate to the top of my "want to play 'em ('cuz they work the best)" mental list, and the rest might as well not be there.

Anyway, we actually do have another Christmas gig, a week from Friday, but it's in generally-unreachable Yorba Linda. We won't have any friends there, but, hopefully we'll get lots of shoppers that need a little break.

K&W at Brea - 18Nov2006

I've never played Brea before, though Jim & Warren have, and Warren warned me that "there's no place to set up". That turned out to be very true, but we moved some roll-able displays out of the way and figured something out.

I played pretty well, considering the 3 weeks lay-off and lack of home practicing. My brain seemed somehow more lucid than usual, as if I'd had some kind of bandwidth upgrade -- stuff seemed to be easier than I remember, so I could handle it all without a lot of specific effort. Odd feeling, that.

Also, being away from the songs for a while has an odd effect: I remembered, well enough, how to play them, but wasn't remembering the exact things I usually do with the vocals, so I was free to (slightly) re-interpret them. Hard to explain, but, I think, good for my performance.

Unfortunately, we were mostly ignored, with light clapping between songs -- except for one young kid at the back that perked right up when we started, and was watching and listening pretty much all the way through to the end. I got the impression (proved right later), that he played guitar himself. He moved up closer in the last hour or so, and talked to us afterwards. Nice kid, and it's always a big help if at least one person is really listening.

Our best reaction all night was for "Homeward Bound". Didn't expect that. And, despite it being a bit early, I played my 6 most presentable Christmas songs. I'm really doing well with "River" these days, now that I can hit that long, high, note without so much strain, and I played "Please Come Home For Christmas" probably better than I ever have.

I had broken my ring-finger nail really short while unpacking the camping gear last Sunday, and it hasn't grown back enough to play guitar with yet. I've been in fear of this happening eventually, and it's come close before, but this was the first time it was completely un-playable. So, I went and bought some "press-on nails", which worked surprisingly well. I looked kinda (let's use the word) odd, I'm sure, with one shiny pearl-pink nail, which looked not-so-bad at home, but really picked up a shine in the well-lit store environment. But it played just fine, didn't feel "in the wrong place" to be unusable, and didn't break loose in the middle of a song. I tried to remember to keep my hand closed up in between songs, but I'm not sure how successfully I hid it. Still, it's good to know that there's a pretty simple solution if this happens again, and I'll know to at least knock the shine off with some sandpaper, next time.

Princess Campout at Oso Lake

A great little campout. This is a new place for us. It used to be a private fishing lake, but it's recently been bequeathed to the Boy Scouts and they're opening it up for camping groups. It's really nice, because it's literally 10 minutes from home, so kids with soccer can get to their games and back, and, in our case, I was able to take Acacia to her Saturday art lesson, go on back, and play the rest of the day.

They have fishing (which we don't do), canoeing (which we missed), archery, and slingshots, which were pretty fun. We've been to other camps that had archery, but it's usually just for the kids -- this time I got to shoot, and it turns out that I'm not half bad, but that bow pulls to the right...

Usually, on Friday nights of the campouts, somebody brings a notebook, a projector, and a sheet to hang, and the kids watch a movie. I always think that we ought to be able to think of something better than that -- they can watch a movie any time. So, I volunteered to do a concert. Some kids (possibly prompted by the dads) made some flattering posters that they enthusiastically waved, and they had some beach balls to bounce around, just like a Real Concert. And between songs, they kept chanting "Four more years!"

On Saturday, the kids added little personal messages and little illustrations of my songs (a dragon, the lollipop tree, some waltzing bears), and gave me the posters to keep. Sweet.

I can't really keep Acacia in the Princess program for yet another year, but I'm gonna miss getting to play for a group of kids around the campfire. I'm wondering if the YMCA can give me some kind of unpaid volunteer staff position that lets me show up and play whenever my schedule allows and the camp isn't too far away, without having to pay the annual Membership fee. I guess I'll check into that as we get closer to the end of the program year this Spring.

Halloween 2006

Because of the Japan trip, Halloween snuck up on me this year. Daleen, typically, had much more foresight and built a princess dress for Geneva, and a (very re-usable) Hogwarts wizard robe for Acacia.

I took Acacia over to a friend's much-more-active tract for Trick-or-Treating, so that was fun. Geneva, being In High School Now, went out with some friends, with no parents for the first time. There were no phone calls from the police station, so I guess it went all right.

We have a pretty lame and mostly-non-participated-in annual costume contest at work, to which I usually just wear my astronaut jumpsuit. This year, I was half resigned to just skipping it like everyone else, but I don't want to be That Guy, so, the night before, I built a "Silent Bob" wig out of yarn, and painted my beard black with Daleen's mascara. It actually came out really well, but you either know Silent Bob, or you don't -- and more than half of the people at work, don't.

Oh, well.

Trailmates at Ortega Oaks

We had a campout at Ortega Oaks this weekend, which was ostensibly for Trailmates, but since there are so few of us, we invited the older Princesses along, "as a recruiting tool", wink wink. So Acacia got to come along.

It was a pretty good weekend, it's a really pretty place under huge oaks. It was *really* cold on Friday night, but nice and pleasant on Saturday. We basically just hung out around the campground -- I made a swing with some rope and a piece of firewood, and we flew the little R/C planes around, despite the risk of them getting caught in the trees. Which they did several times, but we just threw things at them to get them down -- they're pretty hard to break.

On Saturday night, we had the usual array of skits from the girls, but, since we had a screen and projector all set up for the movie on Friday night, I got my computer out and showed the "Waltzing With Bears" cartoon. It was fun to see it wall-sized.

After we were out of skits, I got up and played "The Indian Princess Song", with the cue cards. Most of the Trailmates are from other Princess Nations, so they've never heard it (or sung it), and it was fun to introduce it to them. Then I played some more songs, but people started to wander off, and some of the guys were anxious to start another movie, so I quit.

I get that it's fun to watch a movie with your friends, but it always seems to me to be a waste to watch movies when you could be doing camp stuff. You can always watch a movie, but how often do you get to toast marshmallows?

K&W at Costa Mesa - 28Oct2006

It went pretty well, considering that we hadn't played together in 5 weeks, and I'd been in Japan and hadn't hardly touched a guitar for the last half of that. I did try to rehearse a little, but I didn't have much time for it, so I expected to be really rusty and screw up a lot. But I didn't, too much. I kind of watched in amazement as my hands played most of the songs by themselves. I guess someone was singing, too -- probably me, somehow.

I had a few outrageous blowouts, but surprisingly few. Overall, not a bad time -- especially since I had completely foregone the recording rig, simplifying the setup, and removing the pressure. So, I just cut loose and played. Or my hands did, anyway. Kind of fun.

We had some nice people listening in, and a bit of applause. Only one guy, a previous fan, took us up on the first-time-ever Live CD, much to my dismay after all the work I'd done on it for the last few months...

Vacation in Japan with Acacia

Acacia and I spent 9 days in Japan! It was a terrific trip, but too long, complex, and picture-laden to report on here, so I created a specific webpage for it:

http://members.cox.net/acacia.comer

Check it out!

Princesses at Camp Surf!

By fortunate coincidence, the Trailmates (Geneva's "Princess" group) and Acacia's Princess Nation shared a trip to "Camp Surf", in Imperial Beach, south of San Diego. It's right on the beach, with cabins full of bunk-beds, and a big mess hall with darn good food. Which is a good thing, 'cuz they have surfboards and body-boards available, with lessons, and that surfing is hard, hungry, work.

Geneva tried to surf for a while, but decided that body boarding was more her speed, but that's in a separate part of the beach. So I spent most of the time with Acacia. She did pretty well, and had one fabulous ride, standing up all the way almost until the dry land. It was tough on me, though, 'cuz she'd ride in (standing or not), and I'd *walk* in, and help her walk the board back out, over the waves, to deep enough water to ride another one. So I was walking twice as much as her, and walking though waist-high water is some real exercise.

They also have archery and a climbing tower, and a cool little craft where you get to decorate a little wooden surfboard (really a woodworker's "biscuit"). I took a stab at putting a Hula Girl on mine, and it's not half bad, for an inch-tall painting. Check that, and lots more pictures here.

The campfire on Saturday night was an all-skits affair, but I stuck myself in the schedule 'cuz I knew that if the night went by without "Waltzing With Bears", there'd be trouble. I didn't want to hog up too much of the time, but was persuaded to do "Lollipop Tree" too, by audience chant/demand. Afterwards, the guy who runs the camp gave me an inadvertent compliment by assuming that I was a "professional musician that they'd brought in".

All-in-all, a great weekend -- best "campout" in a long time. *And*, a great way to spend my birthday.