‘Uncategorized’ Category
-
Quite an Act
0October 7, 2016 by admin
It was a crystal clear fall day. Despite temperatures in the 70s, folks are wearing sweaters and coats, long pants and hats. All the babies are bundled up for winter. The surviving plants, lantana, begonia, Michaelmas daisies, will thrive until first frost.
I waited for the cowboy to finish his act, then stood up to sing. The first contributor was a German woman. She and her friend had been listening from a bench. An Englishman followed, then an older man. Each gave me $2. Another man off the bench gave me a single. This is why I prefer center stage in the sun over the shady maple on the path. When people can hear more than a snippet, they’re more likely to like what they hear.
A woman and her teenage son carried baggies full of quarters. As they passed, they dropped a few into my case.
Another man off the bench, another dollar. An Irish girl from County Meath, also off the bench, gave me a dollar, but would not dance the hula.
After 90 minutes, I sat down to gather my stuff. A little girl, who had been hanging out near me at the fountain, waved Aloha. I stuffed $11.15 in my pocket and hoisted my uke on my back. Just then a young man approached with $2 in his hand. He and his girlfriend had been listening from the bench for 30 minutes or more. He was from Australia, his girlfriend from Texas; they now lived on the Upper East Side.
“That’s quite an act you have there,” he said. “We really enjoyed it.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags:
-
Beating the Rain
0September 29, 2016 by admin
In spite of the threat of rain, I made my way to the park. Chilly gusts of wind drove fat black clouds across the sky. The thin crowds were swaddled in sweaters and jackets. Across from the plaque of peace-loving countries, a lone wood anemone, covered in tight buds, displayed a single flower. The plant shot new branches more than a foot long from the lower leaf clusters. The flower was made of 7 white overlapping petals around a yellow center of pollen bearing anthers, with thread-like filaments emanating from a green pea-sized ovule.
The cowboy had been joined by another guitarist and a young man, who shook out a beat with what appeared to be a coffee can full of pebbles or beans.
Under the maple, where I’ve played only infrequently this year, I prepared to sing to the birds. They flew in and out of the English Mulberry tree, pecking at the small yellow berries. In both directions, the path was empty.
A young girl of 6 or 7 named Preston was delighted to dance. Somewhere she had learned to hula. She swayed from side to side and fluttered her arms, while her proud parents looked on. Two Australian teenagers went to the hukilau next. As controlled and dignified as Preston had been, that’s how wild these girls were.
A dark-haired toddler stared at me suspiciously. “Would you like to dance the hula?”
His parents were encouraging, so I slipped a lei-crown on his head, but he shook it off. “That’s ok,” I told him, “we don’t need that.”
He didn’t know what to do, so I bent my knees; he bent his. I rocked from side to side; he rocked too. There was only so much I could do while strumming the uke, but every movement of mine got a response. By the end of the song, his parents and I agreed that a hula had been committed here today.
My last dollar arrived at the end of long line of hula dancers. A family of 6, in single file, had heard my music from the crest of the hill. First one, then another of the teenage children, skipped and swirled, followed by mom and the younger children. Dad brought up the rear with his wallet in his hand.
At the end of my set a man and his wire-haired terrier stopped to chat. He remembered me, from conversations we’d had last year or the year before, as the guy who retired to play the ukulele in Central Park. His name was Neil, and he had set his retirement date at December 31. “After that,” he told me, “I’m coming out here to play the ukulele with you.”
The gusts of wind had become a constant blow. The dark clouds were piling up fast in the northwest. I called it quits 15 minutes early, hoping to beat the rain.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song
-
Little Girls and Bikers
0September 28, 2016 by admin
It’s a beautiful day in New York. There are no longer big crowds in the park. Fewer than 10 people were at the Imagine Mosaic, where the guitarist sang “Let It Be.”
From a distance, it appeared there were no nuts on the chestnut tree at all, but up close I spotted a few browning golf-ball sized nuts in the upper branches, and the ground was littered with shells. I found a whole nut, shiny brown, and crushed it under my foot. The meat was white and moist, good eating for squirrels.
Sitting alone on a bench near the stairs down to the fountain, a man sat expressionless, unmoving like a statue. His head was wrapped in white gauze. Wearing a suit, sunglasses, no tie, his shirt out of his pants, legs crossed, he was a living work of art, although I was at a loss as to how to interpret him.
The accordion player was in the arcade. No other buskers were around. I set up, tuned and started my set with only a handful of people to hear me. A 5-year-old girl looked me over suspiciously. “Would you like to dance the hula?”
“She’s shy,” said her dad. I tried to lure her with a lei, made funny faces, sang funny lyrics, all of which drove her farther away.
“Not going to happen,” I said to dad. He agreed, then dropped 55 cents into my case.
Another dad and daughter, 2-3 years old, stopped to chat. I doubled the lei into a crown and put it on the little girl’s head. The only sign of a hula was the occasional bend of the knee, or wave of the arm. Dad gave me buck and said, “Sorry, she won’t dance, but you sound great.”
Three women rode into the plaza on bicycles and dismounted. One of them couldn’t take her eyes off me. “Have you got time for a hula today?” She turned her back and consulted with her friends, finally coming my way with a big smile and $3.
Later, another set of bikers, stopped to listen. These were young men from Ireland. “From the west,” one of them told me. “Near Galway.” I told him that Mrs. Ukulele’s family hailed from Tipperary.
My ukulele was falling farther and farther out of tune. I tightened the low-G string, strummed a few more chords, then twang, the string broke. I finished the song on 3 strings, then found a replacement string in my case. My old string maker, Hilo, had gone out of business; my strings now are from Aquila. I took off the broken string and replaced it as quickly as I could. New strings, once stretched, need some seasoning; right out of the package they go flat, so I had to tighten it up after – sometimes during – every song until I finished with “Little Grass Shack.”
When I sat down at the end of my set to pack up my stuff, a couple from Poland asked, “How much for the purple dancing girl?”
Ordinarily, my dancing girls, like my leis, are not for sale. But today I made an exception. “Five dollars.”
They conferred as I continued packing. The man finally pulled out a $50-dollar bill. There was only $5.55 in my case, plus $2 in starter money. I made change from my wallet, nearly doubling my daily take without playing a note.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Let It Be, Little Grass Shack
