So I'm Playing

This is a photo from VisualPhotos.com. I'm advertising their image because it was the closest one I could find to illustrate the woman's face this Sunday past. I'm not using it in a commercial setting so I thought it would be ok. 

So I'm playing at The Old World Village Bazaar in Huntington Beach on Sunday. The manager had seen my videos and we had discussed me coming in December, but it didn't work out. She finally decided to have me this Sunday. I play all over Southern California now. I get paid $100.00 an hour for the paid gigs. But I'm still trying out tips venues. I still play for free, for non-profits and anything that looks halfway interesting. I'd rather be performing than not. There are several I do regularly that offer good money. So I set up and start to play about 9:30. I've agreed to 10:00 to 2:00, which I can do easily. The manager is happy, I'm happy. I play. All of the table vendors outside are raving about me, The lady next to me comes over to video me on her Iphone so she put me up on Facebook to tell her friends to come out for the music if nothing else. Five dollar bills are flying into my banjo case. Other vendors are coming over to give me tips. The manager comes over and suggests that I come back for their Farmers Market starting in July. I tell sure. $50.00 to $100.00 is a pretty good tip day anywhere.

About 11:30 a little old lady, from a deli across the courtyard hobbles out of her doorway. She looks like she is at least seventy. She comes halfway over to me, waits for me to notice her and then makes a face like this at me. Then turns and goes back into the deli. I told her over the mic: "Don't listen if you don't like it."

I got one of these from a little old Hispanic guy in Woodlawn Hills six months ago. Don't know why exactly. Goes with the territory, I guess. Anyway, I keep playing. I've long gotten used to the mean spirited little bugs of the world. So about 1:00- after I've played some more and taken a lunch break- the manager comes over to tell me the bug has complained and can she move me. I say sure. And I do my last hour around the corner. I feel bad for the manager. Now she will have to get this bug's approval for any other musician she has in the place. And I'm not coming back.

They are people that love and people that hate me. I became aware of it early on. The judging at the Topanga Fiddle Contest was two judges. I got a 70% rating and a 30% rating. There really has only been a handful. The manager of an antique fair in Anaheim, who sent me home. (Meanwhile her vendors are hooting and hollering and tipping me) She hadn't listened to the video clips I had sent her. And a shopkeeper in San Clemente, who came out because I was interfering with her shop music. I guess you have to put up with this if you are playing these kind of venues. Clubs and Festivals only have people who want to be there. I've decided I want to make them all into bobble-heads that I can keep on my mantle to remind me of my roots. But there really has only been about five or six. The problem is that you are out there because you want everyone to love you.

The other thought occurred to me this morning. I've never really understood why people want to listen at all, but I've been told more than once its probably because of the emotive ability of my voice. And since I don't understand any of this, I've been following my emotional ties and my emotional gut feeling as I've been recording and performing now, thinking, well, this is what I'm being told I do well. So I'm thinking maybe that very emotional output really really bothers certain kinds of people.
The guy running an early open mic I used to go to, coming over afterward and telling me that I had written one of the best dead baby songs he ever heard.