Posts Tagged ‘The Hukilau Song’
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A Slow Day under the Maple
0July 20, 2018 by admin
The park foliage drooped in the heat. Nothing new seems to have been planted this week. The big surprise was a dusty pink wood anemone in bloom under the pin oak by the road. In the shade by the lake, the jazz combo was reduced to a bass, drums and keyboard.
It looked as if center stage was mine. Past the big bubble man and snakes on segways, a woman had set up a table with manual typewriter, ready to write poems to order. I let her know I would set up near her before I saw the erhu player, scratching out “Besame Mucho.”
“Never mind.”
Under the shade of the maple, I began my set with “Making Love Ukulele Style.”
“Hey,” a man shouted as he walked by, “Can you spell ukulele backward?” I did and he kept walking.
A young family with 2 daughters walked by. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
“Absolutely,” said mom. The elder girl, about 7, was shy, but the younger was full of energy; she romped through 2 verses of “The Hukilau Song.” Dad coughed up a buck.
A 50-ish woman stopped to give me a dollar, followed by a woman whose kids were being drawn by a nearby caricaturist. Another caricaturist set up on the other side of me. He watched my act for a while, then packed up his stuff and moved on.
A young woman gave me a smile and a dollar. She had no time to hula.
As I wrapped up, 2 families with 4 kids under 5 agreed to hula. Draping leis around their necks, I gave them a quick lesson and sent them off to the hukilau. They started with enthusiasm, but before I got halfway through the first verse, their arms fell to their sides, smiles faded, boredom set in. Across the path, the moms started dancing, encouraging the kids to follow their lead, but it was no use. I brought the song to a merciful end. One of the dads made a dollar donation.
I played “Little Grass Shack,” stuffed 5 singles into my shirt pocket, packed up and went home.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Besame Mucho, Little Grass Shack, Making Love Ukulele Style, The Hukilau Song
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The Difference a Dime Makes
0June 13, 2018 by admin
At 72nd St. it was the same show as last week. Only the workhorse red and pink dog roses provided color on the ground; in the air, dogwood flowers fluttered white as clouds. Except for a random stella and a couple of yellow foxglove, the park was undergoing June death, or, if not quite death, then June coma, when spring sputters out and nature takes a breather before full-blown summer.
The clover heads in the lawn surrounding Daniel Webster were white and shriveled. “Look at that, Daddy,” said a boy of about 10. Birds had built a nest in the crook of Webster’s arm. The glorious catalpa trees were a mess; browning petals dripped like candle wax onto the leaves below.
Forget Bethesda Fountain. The acrobats had moved their act down from the promenade. Music blared. One of the acrobats was warming up the audience with gansta-style shtick, getting them to call out and clap with him. Colin the cowboy was packing up. I kept walking, first to the maple, where a caricaturist had set up, then to Location C, on the path across from the boat rental booth, in the shade of some tall bushes.
After a slow start, 2 toddlers, aged 2 and 3, stopped to dance the hula. Crowds gathered to soak up the cuteness, then dispersed at the end of “The Hukilau Song.” Dad gave me $2.
A kid of 7 or 8 got a quarter from his father and gave it to me. A little later a 20-something threw in another quarter. I was thinking about my breakeven when a 60-something woman came out of nowhere with a tightly crumpled single for me. A gentleman emptied his pocket of change.
A 40-something woman ran up and started picking out a lei. She put a dollar in my case and asked for a photo. Her husband or boyfriend took the picture; she hated it. “My nose is all lit up.” He took another that she didn’t like either. “Maybe I just don’t like the way I look.” I put my hat on her head to shade her nose; this one was a keeper.
“Now a hula dance,” she said, and off we went to the hukilau.
Near the end of my set a young man dumped a fistful change into my case. “Nice job.”
I counted out $6.93, happy with my haul. Then I spotted a dime, hiding in the felt creases of my case, and was thrilled to cross into 7 dollar territory.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song
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Better Than Break Even
0May 31, 2018 by admin
Three weeks since my last outing, and spring is over. The bulbs have been cut back, or dug up, by park volunteers. The first few stella d’oro lilies provide the only color along Central Park West. The garden behind the benches at the Women’s Gate has gone to the dogs, i.e., bright red dog roses, thick on the bush, and a flowering dogwood, gowned in pretty 4-petaled white flowers.
The park is preparing for an event. Some roads are closed. At first, the lawns appear to be strewn with white cots, each with a sign I can’t read. It looks like a massive blood drive, a scene from a medical disaster movie, an NYPD chemical attack drill. As I get closer, however, the cots resolve into long tables, the signs read Fortress Investment Group.
At Bethesda Fountain I heard the amped guitar of Colin, the cowboy. We’d struck a deal last year to share center stage. “Two more songs,” he said.
I sat by the fountain and slowly set up. Colin had attracted a 40-something woman who danced around and took photos of him. When he’d played his 2 songs, she pleaded for another: “Shake Your Booty” (KC and the Sunshine Band, 1976).
An Ecuadorean woman was taken with my solar-powered hula girls. “How much?”
Ordinarily I would not sell; like leis, they are my means of production. Nevertheless, I answered, “Five dollars.”
It was too much, she told me. She was going home tomorrow, and New York was so expensive. She reached for the pink doll. “That one’s broken,” I said. “Three dollars.” Still too much.
“Ok,” I said, picking up a lei. “You dance the hula, the pink doll is free.”
Her face lit up. She gamely danced to “The Hukilau Song,” took her prize and walked off with it.
The Asian man with a shaved head who sells colorful $5 caricatures ran up to me and shook my hand. “I’m back,” he said.
A mother and daughter paused to listen. Mom dug into her purse and came up with 55 cents, which daughter shyly dropped into my case.
Two families, with 4 kids, had stopped to take a picture by the fountain. “Have you got time for a hula today?” They were from Mississippi and Tennessee. For the first verse of “The Hukilau Song,” the kids were awkward and stiff, but for the second verse I told them to dance however they wanted, so they pranced and swirled to the end.
An Australian man, now living in Toronto, walked by with wife and son. The boy, he told me, was learning the uke in school. “My daughter’s early music training was on a recorder,” I said. “The uke is so much better.”
“We learned the recorder in Australia too. You can’t sing along with a recorder, can you?”
The boy danced a hula, and showed us what he’d learned on the uke.
A young Chinese couple stood at a distance, watching me. The man started up the path, but the woman ran to me, placed a 5 yuan note in my case, and ran off.
A young girl walked up with a dollar in her hand. She wanted to dance. While her mom watched, she danced a poised and expressive hula.
If I make $2.70, it covers my subway fare. More than that is profit. With the yuan at 16 cents, today’s take was $4.35, better than break even.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song
