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Spreading Joy
0August 11, 2017 by admin
I got to Bethesda Fountain just as the cowboy was packing up his guitar and amplifier. “Good timing,” I called, as I unloaded my paraphernalia. This was the third glorious August day in a row. The park was packed.
A thin young man wearing a yarmulke got me started during my opening number, “Sunday.” An Hispanic woman added her dollar during “Fit as a Fiddle.” During the course of my set, she walked by several times, each time pointing to my case and reminding me, “I gave already.”
A man gave me 50 cents for a picture. “Did you get a good one? Now how about a hula?” He smiled, “No.”
A young Chinese boy wandered from his family, who were taking pictures of each other in every permutation. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
He didn’t seem to understand and returned to his family, only to come back a moment later with a fiver. One of the women (his mother?) wanted a picture, so I put a lei around the boy’s neck and posed. Then grandma wanted to join in, and soon the family, properly lei-ed, was working through their photo permutations again.
A woman came off the bench and gave me $2. Various passers-by dropped their singles, but no one, so far, had time for a hula.
Then, toward the end of my set, 2 large women negotiated who would dance and who would work the camera. After the first verse of “The Hukilau Song,” the photographer lamented that she could not get the video recorder to work. So we halted for instruction, then moved on to the second verse, which, as indicated by a thumbs-up, was a keeper.
A man on the bench had been observing the last 15-20 minutes of my act. As I packed up, he walked over and sat down. He was newly retired, and had just lost his mother. Today was his first time out of the apartment in a month. He watched me count out the day’s take, $15.50. “Here, let me add to that,” he said, pulling a single from his wallet. “You spread a lot of joy today.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Fit as a Fiddle, Sunday, The Hukilau Song
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Under the Maple
0August 10, 2017 by admin
All plant life behind the benches has been grubbed up except for the 2 new flowers fronting the dog roses, which, so far, I haven’t identified. One has tall stems with pink button-like flowers, the other sports a conical catkin-like flower which started out as white fuzz, but is now pinking at the tip as the tiny white petals fall off.
The guitarists are back at the Imagine Mosaic; the cowboy, clad in leather, crooning to his recorded backup of “Cracklin’ Rosie,” is also back at Bethesda Fountain. So today I set up in the shade of the maple, far enough away from the caricaturist on the other side of the path so as not to obstruct his operation.
For the first 30 minutes or so, I sang to the sky, to the rowboat wranglers on the other side of the fence, to the family of cardinals busily shuttling from the mulberry tree in front of me to the mulberry tree behind.
A group of pre-teen girls from the Caedman School stopped to hula. “Brooklyn?” No, I was told, the upper east side. They danced with uneven enthusiasm; their adult supervision seemed distracted. After the dance, the kids lined up against the fence and marched off.
At this point I began to wonder if today, for the first time in my busking career, I would make nothing. A very old woman stopped a few feet past me. With her back bent to hide her money, she pulled a quarter from her change purse. The coin bounced out of the case onto the asphalt. I picked it up and tossed it in. “Thanks,” I said, happy to have averted a busking schneider.
“Is that a ukulele?”
“Yes, a tenor uke. That’s why it’s bigger than what you’re used to seeing.” She seemed please to have her suspicion confirmed so cheaply.
Another small group of preteens, from Harlem, had time for a hula. “Does it cost anything?”
“Not a thing,” I said, handing out leis. After a little hula instruction, we were off, through both verses of “The Hukilau Song.” The adult supervision, in this case, cheered the kids along, took lots of pictures, and managed $2 between them for Mr. Ukulele.
At $2.25, I was still 45 cents shy of break-even, $2.70, the cost of 2 senior rides on the subway.
A young redhead with a bright, open face, strolled by. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
“You bet I do,” she said. Her name was Ori, a native New Yorker. She danced to “The Hukilau Song,” then gave me a fiver, and stuck around to hear me play “I Wonder Where My Little Hula Girl Has Gone.”
Passing back through Bethesda Fountain on my way home, I saw that the cowboy had been replaced by the accordionist, there was do-wop in the arcade, and Lady Liberty, atop her pedestal, was scrolling on her cellphone. Thanks, Ori, I thought, and Aloha, New York.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Cracklin' Rosie, I Wonder Where My Little Hula Girl Has Gone, The Hukilau Song
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A Fine Day for a Hula
0August 9, 2017 by admin
After another long vacation, I returned to the park on a cool, wet day, that evolved into a beautiful sunlit outing at Bethesda Fountain. The vibes were strange today. No guitarist picked through the Beatles’ repertoire at the Imagine Mosaic. No combo set up across the road from Daniel Webster. There seemed to be no music in the park at all. The road to Cherry Hill was clogged with police cars, with more police cars parked on the grass and across the road, where clusters of color-coded kids gathered around snack tents, or sat in tight circles on the lawn. It was Police Appreciation Day, or some such event I was told. Five hundred kids were gathered, each of whom appeared to have arrived in his own police car.
Walking down the western stairs, I was relieved to see that Bethesda Fountain was free of the no music/heavy police presence vibe. I opened with “Making Love Ukulele Style.”
I spotted a willowy short-haired woman weaving to the music. She was 30 yards or more away, but with each song she got closer. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
She was thrilled to be invited and danced a vigorous, interpretive hula that attracted a crowd. When a mom and daughters from Ohio stopped to watch, my hula dancer threw leis over their heads and egged them on, through yet another iteration of “The Hukilau Song.” There was raucous laughter at the end of the dance. Dad from Ohio counted out some singles and put them in my case. My dancer ran off to meet the photographer she’d been waiting for. I called her back to learn she was a model from Turkmenistan. “I love New York,” she said.
A girl came by with 50 cents, but would not hula. A gray-haired man pushing a stroller with his toddler stopped to listen. Out of the stroller, the boy bobbed his head and bent his knees to the music. Dad gave me a fiver.
It was a good day for teen-aged girls. A dollar here, a quarter there, hula dancers everywhere. A tour group came by and the leader gave me a dollar. Her name was Dina. She said she’d heard me play many times and wanted me to know how much she enjoyed it.
A group of Israeli teens sat around the fountain for a photo. It was their last day in New York. The boys would not hula, but the girls, pushing first one girl forward, then another, finally decided they would all hula together. One of the boys joined them. As graceful as the girls were, the boy was stiff and awkward, like Frankenstein’s monster on Waikiki. I got a couple of dollars in donations, plus a coin worth 1/10 of a new shekel, a little less than 3 cents.
A Pakistani contingent came next. Like the Israelis they sat for photos and giggled among themselves about dancing, but they did not dance. When they gathered to leave, they too threw some bills my way.
At the end of my set, with over $25 in my case, I played my closing number, “Little Grass Shack,” for Isabella, from Virginia. She danced a joyful hula, handed back the lei and ran to her parents, who turned and walked away.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Making Love Ukulele Style, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
