Just 34 more jobs and I will no longer have to contend with the crazies in the audiences. I had a little kid that came with his mother to a retirement community where I perform regularly, a spoiled, rotten, nasty assed little kid that obviously never had a minute of discipline in his life. He was about 5 years old, I guess, and running around the great hall like his butt was strapped to a rocket. When he ran up to me, reaching for the keyboard keys, I put my hand up and yelled "STOP!" and stopped playing at the same time. His mother, like the above scenario, was outraged. I told her that the child could have been seriously hurt if I had not stopped him at that moment. She left in a huff, saying she would report me to the management.

A few minutes later the grandparents, both of them, came up and apologized for their daughters actions and remarks and said they would talk with the management to set the story straight. That was 4 years ago and I still perform there every month.

This past Friday, I performed at an assisted living center, about 50 people in the audience, among them, a young man in his 20s, whom immediately upon sitting down, pulled out his I-phone and began texting. Now, this irritates the living Hell out of me, but I try not to let it show to the general audiences. This time I was having a bad day with severe back pain, pain so intense that I wasn't sure I could do the job. I looked at the kid, (to me he is a kid) and said, while you're looking at your I-phone, why not Google the lyrics to this song so you can sing along with the rest of us, at which time I fired up with Toes In The Water. He put the phone away for the remainder of the hour.

Some days you get even, ;)some days you just go with the flow,

Gary