‘Uncategorized’ Category
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Good Enough for Me
0September 23, 2016 by admin
The cowboy said he would sing 2 more songs, so I set up at center stage and listened to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and the Bee Gee’s “You Don’t Have to Show It.”
A plump, elderly Chinese woman seemed fascinated by my colorful paraphernalia. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
“Yes,” she said with a giggle.
I put the lei around her neck. “Do you know how to hula?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Ok, then, let’s go to the hukilau.” She continued to smile and nod in the affirmative. “So you know it?”
“Yes.”
“You must be from Hawaii.”
“Yes.”
When I started to play “The Hukilau Song,” however, it became clear that all she really knew was how to say “yes.” After a few bars, she gave up and, laughing, gave me back the lei, along with $2.
A group of Spanish girls danced next. After a ragged beginning, they soon fell into a rhythm and ended the dance in unison.
A 50-something man from Arizona handed me a tightly folded dollar bill. “I love New York,” he said.
Next came the Brazilians. First 2 women who fused the hula with a samba gave me $2, then an extended family, wearing white tee shirts that read “Klaus, 5 years, in New York,” gave me $3. Klaus was a handsome boy celebrating his 5th birthday.
A young woman from Utah wanted to hula. She called her sister over to join her. Soon after a mom and her 2 young daughters rode up on their bikes. Mom gave one of the girls a buck and sent her my way. “Thanks,” I said, picking up a lei and waving it at her. “Would you like to hula?”
“No,” she said, and she ran back to mom and the bikes.
An Englishman walked by. When he was right in front of me, I said, “Aloha.”
He immediately reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar. “I have a fondness for the ukulele,” he told me. “I play it myself.”
“Let’s hear what you can do,” I said, handing him my uke. He noodled around for a minute, getting the feel of the instrument, then strummed out the opening chords to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
By the time I packed up, with 12 singles in my pocket, everyone seemed to have gone home. The benches were empty. The young Chinese woman, who had been making big bubbles by the water, decided to haul her stuff closer to the arcade, where whatever people there were huddled in the shade.
“This spot no good,” she told me as she walked by.
I said, “Good luck.” It had been good enough for me.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song, Thriller, What's Going On, You Don't Have to Show It
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Lost and Found
0September 22, 2016 by admin
On another warm September day, occupying center stage, with only the Boyd Family Singers in the arcade to compete with, I sang to the people as they walked by. For the first 15-20 minutes, nobody noticed me, then a boy of 9 or 10 came from behind me, where he’d been listening from the rim of the fountain, and threw some coins in my case. After my first break I counted it, 4 cents.
I prefer to think that he liked my music, that, having no money, he rolled up his sleeves and fished 4 pennies from the fountain to give to me. The alternative, however, that he had made a childish gesture of disrespect, if not outright contempt, by de minimis tipping, was probably closer to the truth. Over the years, grown men have tossed pennies in my case. One even gave me a dime, then said, “You suck.”
A Spanish man held a toddler by the hand. The little girl bounced to the rhythms of “I Saw Stars.” When I waved a lei at her, she came running, like a bull to the cape. I doubled the lei to make a tiara for her, then sang a verse of “The Hukilau Song.” Her dad gave me a dollar.
Three Danes, 2 women and a man in their early 20s, stopped to dance. After 2 verses of “The Hukilau Song,” I chatted with the women while the man took up my uke and noodled around with some proficiency. All of sudden, he looked up, noticed that the larger group they were with had left without them, alerted the women and hurried off, but not before tossing $3 in my case.
A photographer shot video while I sang “Honolulu Baby.” When he was done, he gave me a quarter.
A 40-something woman with a big hat gave me a dollar; she had no time for a hula.
A small group of Italians wandered separately around the plaza, then reunited near me. One of them, a woman in her mid-30s, kept looking at me. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
Another woman in the group, perhaps 10 years younger, said, “Si.” Two more women joined us. “Do you all want to hula?”
“Si, si.”
Each one put a dollar in my case before grabbing a lei. I positioned 4 dancers, all women, while the 3 men in the group stood nearby and commented loudly as they danced. They were from different places in Southern Italy, from Rome to Calabria.
I had to leave after an hour to meet Mrs. Ukulele at the dermatologist. When I got to his office, I discovered I’d lost my indoor glasses. All I had were my shades.
After my examination, with no medical concerns except the stripes of tan on my feet from my sandals, we retraced my steps. There, on the rim of the fountain, were my glasses, safe in their hard case. Crisis averted, we exited the park, past the profusely podded catalpa, the guitarist at the Imagine Mosaic, the button sellers and cold water men.
Just before stepping out onto Central Park West, Mrs. Ukulele identified the morning glory-like vine with small yellow flowers that grew on the fence behind the benches: thunbergia alata, or Black-eyed Susan vine.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Baby, I Saw Stars, The Hukilau Song
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Practicing in the Sun
0September 21, 2016 by admin
The torch singer was back, as incoherent and screechy as last time. The cowboy was still working. At the rim of the fountain, a young man in a neatly trimmed beard was standing with a guitar at his side. “Are you planning on busking here?” I asked him.
His name was John, from Melbourne. He’d been traveling in the States for 10 months, had bought his guitar in San Francisco, and had busked in different parts of Central Park for the last few days. “Where do you play?” he asked.
“Right here.”
When the cowboy signed off, John left me to chat with him. I stood and started my set. Soon enough, a woman walked by and dropped a half dollar in change. Moments later, another woman did the same.
A girl from Georgia was most eager to hula. She pranced around through 2 verses, then walked back to the bench, where her friends were waiting.
“Have you got time for a hula today?” I asked a lone stroller. She did, but after 8 bars, she handed the lei back and walked away.
The crowds were thin, no school groups, no guide-led scrum of tourists. For extended moments, I played to the puffy white clouds and green pennants snapping in the breeze. A photographer captured a minute or two of my act, then gave me a dollar.
Two women were listening from the northern bench. They kicked in $3 when they left. Another woman, from the south, kicked in a buck.
Toward the end of my set, a father carrying his toddler daughter bounced to “Get Out and Get Under the Moon.” When dad put his girl down, I doubled up a lei and put it like a crown on her head. She walked rhythmically to the song, to the delight of passers-by. They appeared to be Middle Eastern or North African. When dad gave me a dollar I asked where he was from.
He thought for a moment, then answered, “D.C.” Perhaps he was attached to a foreign embassy, or in New York for the opening of the United Nations.
By the time I packed up, $7.31 to the good, the crowds again had disappeared, leaving me almost alone by the fountain. John from Melbourne reappeared. “How’d it go?”
“As good as I expected.”
“Maybe I’ll just practice here in the sun.”
“Sounds good. That’s what I do. If you’re here for the money, you’ll starve.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Get Out and Get Under the Moon
