A Good Friday
0April 20, 2019 by admin
It was warm and overcast on Good Friday. In the weeks since my last outing in the park, the yellow daffodils were replaced by a white variety, swaths of pink and white tulips opened as wide as saucers, while tall stems of yellow fritillaria wowed the tourists. Other spring starters, like bleeding heart, grape hyacinth and Virginia bluebell, bloomed behind the benches. Across the road, at the Imagine Mosaic, the beds were thick with pheasant’s eye narcissus. Magnolia bloomed in several locations. Foot-high Solomon’s Seal and hellebore lined the path toward the statue of Daniel Webster, around which dandelions poked above the grass.
As I neared Bethesda Fountain, I noted flowering forsythia and the trees, so many trees, showing red and green leaf tips and pollen-rich florets. There were mobs of people around the fountain, which was filled with water, and operating.
I set up, got to my feet and opened with “Making Love Ukulele Style.” Before long, a man gave me a dollar. A little later, a dad with 2 young sons stopped to listen and gave each boy a buck to give to me. For the next 30 minutes, a steady stream of singles filled my case, but no one would hula.
“Have you got time for a hula today?” This time I asked a group of teenage girls from Montreal.
“I do,” said one, who was immediately joined by 2 of her friends. Another 10 or more girls gathered to watch, as well as a ragtag bunch of curiosity seekers. The girls hula-ed through 2 verses of “The Hukilau Song,” then stood with me for a picture, while members of their group started tossing money into my case; the dancers put money in too, probably doubling my take up till then.
I sang “Little Grass Shack” for a grandma from W. 84th St., who was enjoying the sun with her granddaughter. She gave me a dollar coin.
A family of 4, mom, dad and 2 daughters, stood nearby, waiting for me to finish a song. They were from Waterloo, Belgium. They wanted to know if I could sing “Happy Birthday” to Pierro. We all sang together into the camera.
“Do you want to sing it in French?” I asked
“Of course not,” said dad with gallic disdain. “It is an English song.”
While dad and I talked about Bruges, one of the daughters put a few bills in my case. Later I was pleased to spot a fiver. After another song, and another single, I looked down and saw what I thought was another fiver. No, wait, it was a 50!
The last time I got a 50-dollar bill, it was from a tv production company who paid me not to play. I’ve gotten a few 20’s over the years, and once was handed a $100-dollar bill by a man who was part of a foursome from Nantucket who very much enjoyed my music.
I ended the day with a few more singles, and one more hula, by a 20-something woman from Maryland. On my way out of the park, I said hello to Dominick, the big bubble man. He said, “I can’t believe what a good day this is.” With $78.22 in my pocket, I enthusiastically agreed.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Happy Birthday, Little Grass Shack, Making Love Ukulele Style, The Hukilau Song
The Last Saturday in March
0March 31, 2019 by admin
I was on my way to get a haircut on Saturday, when, turning down Broadway, with the sun on my face, I decided to make an impromptu debut at Bethesda Fountain. It was just 60 degrees. Unshorn, I returned home and retrieved my outside ukulele, a Lanikai tenor with low-G tuning. The low-G string was the one I’d replaced on the fly at the end of the 2018 season; I restrung it more carefully, then tuned the uke down a halftone, to F-sharp, which gives my voice maximum range.
At the subway station, I tipped the lounge singer a buck for good luck.
The bulbs around the Women’s Gate to Central Park, at 72nd St., had started to emerge: purple croci, pink and white chionodoxa, miniature daffodils. At the Image Mosaic, mounds of snowdrops bloomed behind the benches, while farther down the path, hellabores turned their faces to the ground in glorious humility. Yellow forsythia hinted at so much more to come, and the rose branches, just green, would soon be covered in red growth.
The jazz combo played across from Daniel Webster; the acrobats on the mall were highly amped. Bethesda Fountain was teeming with tourists, and center stage was mine.
I started slowly through my repertoire. It had been months since I’d played some of these songs. A young man started me off with a dollar.
Three generations of Indian women stopped to listen. “Have you got time for a hula today?” The youngest, a 5-year-old named Samantha, stepped forward. Glancing over her shoulder at my solar powered hula girl, she imitated the swinging hips and jerky arm movements. At the end of the dance she ran back to her mom, who rewarded me with a ten-spot.
A man walking by dropped a single. Two late teens came running. “We’ve been waiting for you since last year,” one said, tossing in a buck. “Have you got time for a hula?” said the other.
“You even know my shtick. So,” I said, “have you got time?”
“We’re big fans, man, we waited all winter, and now we have to go.” They walked away laughing.
Three teenaged girls from Connecticut danced a decorous hula and gave me a fiver. I got another fiver from a man who’d been listening from the bench. A tall, bearded 30-something recorded “Little Coquette,” dug into his pocket and tossed me a quarter. Toward the end of my set 4 young women from England danced a raucous hula; they gave me $2.
It was my first day of busking in 2019, my 13th year as Mr. Ukulele. I’d kicked off the season with a very respectable $25.25, just about the price of a haircut.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Little Coquette
The Gift of Today
0November 3, 2018 by admin
Yesterday was to have been my farewell tour, but fortune made me the gift of today. Seventy degrees in Central Park, the people wore their coats around their waists, and wondered, with me, at such a Day of the Dead. In Strawberry Fields, the chestnut tree was bare; I walked around it, kicking up the leaves to reveal what few nuts remained. Those I found had blackened shells, and the nuts inside were white and juicy. The sister chestnut, in a stand of trees across the path, still had leaves and stood proud among the showy maples and oaks.
Carole started me off with a dollar. I do believe she also gave me a dollar back in April, the first day of the season.
A man from the crowd tossed in a buck. There were lots of people enjoying the park. A man from the bench added a dollar, then another, a woman, a kid. “You have a good voice,” someone told me. The compliment, rarely heard, felt true today. My baritone voice and my low-G tenor ukulele seemed especially tuneful, and in tune.
“You’re singing my favorite repertoire,” said a 40-something woman with a single in her hand. A man dumped a handful of change in my case. I’d lost track of who gave what. I played for an hour without a break: Mr. Ukulele had found his bliss.
On his way out of Bethesda Fountain, a distinguished man stopped pushing his bicycle toward the Boat House, turned and started taking pictures of me. His equally distinguished wife stood beside him, with her bike. When he put the camera down, they both stayed until the end of the song. They walked off, as I’d expected they would, but then the man stopped, gave the bike to his wife and strode toward me. He laid a dollar in my case. “You’re a lucky man,” he said. I first thought he was referring to the dollar, that I was lucky to get it, but of course he meant this enchanted day, this beautiful space, the blissful aloha of this moment.
A little girl came running from the other side of the fountain and gently lay a coin in my case. I learned later that it was 1 Albanian lek, which everyone knows is equal to 100 qindarkas.
A young Asian woman, with short black hair and the face of a geisha, sat through several songs. She appeared to be sketching, or writing in a journal. She gave me 2 tightly folded singles, then took lots of pictures.
At the end of my set, I sat down to count $19, plus 1 lek. Folded into the geisha’s bills was the following note:
Your song brought me
a happy moment. 🙂 ♥
Thanks for singing such
great songs, nice grandpa
Category Uncategorized | Tags:
