Little Things That Count

9/25/96 Akron, OH

Often, when I'm out on the street, fans come up to me and say: "Bruce, shows us the
real you, please". So this next song, uh, I usually hate to say that any song is
autobiographical or something, it's always ??? You can always say, "well, it's not really
about me" But this next song is a page ripped right out of my diary, if I kept a diary,
which I don't do. You can ask Ted "I shouldn't have kept a diary" Kusczinski why
[laughs]. So I don't want posthumously anybody going through my notes and seeing
what I was really thinking about all these things. Also, if I die in one of those little
planes I gotta fly around, I don't want anybody traipsing through my fucking house.
Remember that, tell my family ??? So this is a true story, that happened a real long
time ago. I can barely remember back this far.

I was in California visiting my mother and a friend of mine invited me out for dinner,
so I borrowed my mother's Cadillac and I had to go across the bridge in the Oakland.
So I was about half the way and I got lost, of course. And I turned off this freeway and
I ended up in some industrial section of town. Everything seemed closed down, I didn't
see anything open. And way down, a couple of blocks, I see a little corner bar. So I
pulled the Cadillac over and get out and go into the bar. Figured I am gonna practice
my new-found maturity and call people and tell them I'm gonna be late if I'm gonna be
late. I go into the bar but I don't have any change, so I go to the bartender, I only got a
20$ bill and I ask for some change, and he looks to me and says "Well, we don't give
any change around here" So I say "You mean, like, they don't give any change in this
bar? Or has the whole community join together and say "Fuck it, no more change?""
So he doesn't say anything, but a waitress is sort watching all this go down. And she's a
quarter, between her fingers, so I take it and say thanks. I go to the payphone, put the
money in and dial the number. But it seems like I'm a bit out of the area code. So I
turn to the waitress and say "Gee, it's a 50c call" and she just answers "Well that's too
bad. But, if you give a ride home I'll give you another quarter" [pauses, waiting for the
audience's reaction] That's the story! [Cheers] Made it all up though.