‘Uncategorized’ Category
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Scotland and Kosovo Dance the Hula
0September 12, 2017 by admin
I checked out both chestnut trees this morning. The one south of the path has brown leaves, with only a few shiny nuts on the ground. To the north, the chestnut still has some green in its leaves, but no nuts that I could see. Either it did not bear any, or the squirrels did a good job gathering them up.
The wood anemone near the path is covered with buds, but has no flowers. The other wood anemone, off the path, is also covered in buds, with 3-4 flowers to show for it. While never heavy with flowers, the plant near the path, given its sunny location, ought to be showing something; perhaps the ease of access has encouraged people to pick the delicate blooms.
A family of Canadians were the first to stop to hula. The younger daughter swayed easily to “The Hukilau Song;” the elder was too embarrassed, and clung to her mother. Dad gave me a dollar.
A contingent of Scots came next. Ainslee was herself a uke player; after her hula, she strummed out a little tune. Her friend decided that she wanted to hula too. When they all got up to leave, Ainslee gave me a fiver.
A young woman, with Goth makeup and piercings, tossed me a dollar as she walked by. A Seattle couple stopped to record “That’s My Weakness Now.”
“Thank you,” I said, as the man peeled a dollar from his wad. “Your generous contribution entitles you to a hula dance.” So hula they did.
A young woman from Chicago, with short brown hair with blonde streaks, photographed me from several angles. When she came up to give me a dollar, I invited her to hula.
“Why not,” she said. Why not, indeed.
A steady stream of dollars flowed. I lost track. Blue sky, puffy white clouds and a cool breeze put me into some kind of ukulele trance, until a foursome of Kosovars entered the fountain area. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
One of the men encouraged his girlfriend to hula, but there was no hukilau until he joined her. They soon fell into a synchronized rhythm, leading to the big finish: “huki huki huki, huki huki huki, huki huki hukilau.” The man shook my hand, thanked me for helping out his country in the 90’s, then gave me a fiver.
At the end of my set, I had $16 in my case, thanks largely to Scotland and Kosovo.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: That's My Weakness Now, The Hukilau Song
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“He’s Alive”
0September 11, 2017 by admin
On my way to Bethesda Fountain on Friday, I saw a woman leaning over an unconscious man lying on the grass along the side of the road. “He’s alive,” she told me. Relieved, we each kept walking.
I arrived at the fountain just as the cowboy was leaving. “Have you got time for a hula today?” I asked a family who passed by.
“I’ll hula,” said the teenaged daughter. The family was from California, and talked among themselves while the daughter undulated like the sea, as I had instructed her. Dad gave her a dollar, which she handed to me.
Two 50-something women stopped near me to listen. When I finished my song, one asked, “Do you know ‘Ukulele Lady’?”
“Is that your favorite song?”
“My favorite ukulele song,” she said. I played it for her; she gave me $2. Neither would hula.
As soon as they left, a man led his young daughter by the hand to me. The man’s gestures indicated that she would like to hula. They were from Argentina. Dancing rather awkwardly, she started laughing as her dad snapped pictures, and laughed all the way through “The Hukilau Song.” Dad tucked a fiver under the capo I used to keep bills from blowing away.
A bearded man and his girlfriend came off the benches; he tossed me a single. “Thanks for entertaining us,” he said. Next, a woman pulled out a handful of change, including a Susan B., and sprinkled the coins deliberately over the cash in my case. A man with a baby in a Snugli on his chest bounced to the music and gave me a dollar.
A toddler ran up to me. “Do you want to do a hula dance?”
“Yes, please.” He put the dollar his mom had given him into my case. I put a lei around his neck and gave him my quick hula instructions: Put out your arms to form the horizon, now move them like the waves breaking on the shore. He tried, but could only manage one arm at a time. When I told him to use both arms, he lifted one up and let the other drop.
Two women from Minnesota with a little girl stopped to listen. I put a lei around the girl’s neck and started to sing “The Hukilau Song.” The girl had no idea what to do, so the women started dancing too. I grabbed 2 more leis for the women and off we went. At the end of the song, one of the women said, “We have no money.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her.
A couple in their 40’s walked by hand in hand. “Have you got time for a hula today?” They did not have time for a hula, but they did have time to foxtrot to “Honolulu Baby,” complete with turns and dips. The man rewarded me with $2.
I finished my set, as usual, with “My Little Grass Shack.” When I turned to start packing up, I noticed a couple walking toward me with a dollar. For their dollar, I encored “Honolulu Eyes.” Stuffing $15.30 in my shirt pocket, I exited the park.
I was pleased to see that the unconscious/sleeping man was gone from the side of the road.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Baby, Honolulu Eyes, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song, Ukulele Lady
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A Respectable September Thursday
0September 8, 2017 by admin
At the entrance to the park, the rose hips have gone deep orange. Gomphrena and celosia still dominate, but now there is an invasion of wild asters. They push forward, out from under trees, showing up in the more organized beds and at the feet of Daniel Webster.
The wood anemone is 6 feet tall, and has flower clusters forming at the growing tip of every stem. The first plant sported 5 open flowers, no more than 3 inches in diameter, among scores of buds; the second plant, farther from the path, was shorter, with only 3 flowers.
Center stage was mine. After a quarter hour, I got my first tip from a man who’d been there when I arrived. A song or 2 later, a woman, who’d also been there before me, came up and gave me a dollar. “I like your backup group,” she said, with a nod to the trio of toy hula girls rocking in the sun on the ledge of the fountain. She reminded me that we’d met before. Her name was Carole. “My mother said we spelled it with an ‘e’ like Carole Lombard.”
A teenage girl, walking by, gave me a quarter.
When a pack of bicyclists entered the area, their leader, a swarthy 20-something man with a radiant grin, gave me the thumbs-up. I asked if he had time for a hula today.
“A hula? I’m Mexican, we don’t hula in Mexico.”
“You’re in New York now,” I said. The other bikers in his group teased him. They were a mixed assortment of attractive people, like a Benetton ad. I reeled him in, got a lei around his neck, started telling him about the hukilau, then he balked.
“He needs help. Come join him,” I said to the others. A slim blonde Slovakian got off her bike and took a lei. At the end of “The Hukilau Song,” the man put $2 in my case. “Thanks,” I said. “You’re a good sport.”
Later, another pack of bicyclists rolled in. This time, an Ecuadorian girl ended up with a lei around her neck, but she didn’t want to dance if her friends wouldn’t dance, and her friends wouldn’t dance. She gave me back the lei and walked away.
On the bench, a 20-something woman, with earbuds, rolled a cigarette. Through several songs, while involved with her phone, she took one puff at a time, having to relight her cigarette with every puff. When she got up to leave, she gave me a buck.
It was time now for me to leave. I prepared to sing “My Little Grass Shack,” when a man, who had been standing to my left, out of sight, put a dollar in my case, thereby closing the day with a respectable $6.25.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
