Posts Tagged ‘The Hukilau Song’
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No Advice for You
0July 22, 2016 by admin
A stand of creamy white coneflowers with gold button centers gave height and color to the palette at Women’s Gate. I spied a few scrawny hydrangea florets under the dogwood. On the north pergola, the wisteria has gone crazy with twisty vines. In my many years of busking I have yet to see it bloom. There are pink hosta, and double orange daylilies, kwanzaa.
At center stage, I sat on the hot stone surrounding the fountain and unpacked my hula girls, leis and CDs. The ritual focuses me. I use a capo to keep the bills from blowing away, and lay out a sign, “Got Aloha?” which came with a purchase from Aloha Shirt Shop. My dashboard Hawaiian uke player is showing his age; I’ve recently added a cocktail umbrella for him to rest under. I tune, hydrate, remove my watch, note the time, stand and play. Today I opened with “Making Love Ukulele Style.”
Two teenagers, both wearing mirrored sunglasses, wanted a picture. They were from Mexico, and knew how to hula. Soon I had them going to the hukilau.
A family of women stopped to listen, at least 3 generations. A 35-40-year-old woman wore a sticker, “Grandmas for Peace.”
“So who’s the grandma?
“I am,” she said, although to my eye she was more daughter, sister, mommie. “And I want to hula. Where are the hoops?”
“No hoops, leis,” I said. She didn’t seem to mind. Her hula was spirited and varied. She had her family howling with laughter.
Two girls from Oxford, UK, danced the hula and walked away. Or, alternatively, I drove them away with stories about my stay in Oxford, England, long before they were born. A group of kids from Sweden, Michigan and New Jersey stood at a distance and listened, finally tossing in some change.
A boy of 8 or 9 ran up with a handful of coins, mostly nickels. “You want to hula?” I asked, reaching for a lei. He nodded eagerly. “What are you going to do with that?” He offered his nickels to me. “Put them in the case.” He did. “Now your hands are free to hula.” With a grin of delight, he danced to the hukilau. “You want to keep going?” He did. He told me he was from California.
A young woman from the Bronx, with lip, nose and ear piercings, and severely cut green hair, rocked out to “The Hukilau Song.” She jumped around through the intro, teased out a hula into the first verse, then quit before throwing her net into the sea. I took the lei back from her and she walked off.
A tall, elderly man had been walking around the fountain, sitting for a while, listening from a distance. He finally came up and introduced himself. Al was a retired doctor who played jazz piano. “I love it that you play all the old tunes,” he said. We talked for a while, he gave me a dollar, then he walked off to take a phone call.
A Swiss couple sat around the fountain. They were newly-weds. We chatted about New York, Zurich and Montreux. They sat down as I turned to play, but gave me a dollar when they left.
At the end of my set, Al came around again. He was supposed to have met someone, but she called and said she’d be late. “How long do you think I should wait?”
“I’ve been married 42 years and just became a grandfather,” I told him. “I have no advice for you.” Swinging my uke onto my back, I wished him Aloha.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: alohashirtshop.com, Making Love Ukulele Style, The Hukilau Song
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One Hot Wednesday
0July 16, 2016 by admin
The city is simmering. At the mosaic the guitarist sings, “Here Comes the Sun.” Out on the lawn a mob of day camp kids are picnicking in clusters of yellow and blue tee shirts. Back on the path, toddlers squeal when the sprinklers come around to cool their knees and toes.
The singing from the arcade was really loud, it had to be amplified. It sounded like a rhythm and blues orchestra. At center stage, however, the noise was nothing I couldn’t drown out with noise of my own. Soon three 20-something women showed some interest in the hula. “They’re from Poland,” one of them told me, “they’re shy. I’m Serbian,” she added, “I live in Astoria.” Unlike the Polish women of yesterday, the Serbo-Astorian knew enough to tip a dollar.
Next some Finnish kids gave me $2. They were out running, and had stopped to listen. As it happened, I’d been reading about Emil Zatopek, the Czech Locomotive, who won 3 gold medals at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. They knew of him and didn’t seem to like him much.
All the while, the noise from the arcade echoed out past the fountain and over the lake. I had already decided to finish my set and check out its source on my way out, when a motorcycle policeman rode slowly by. “Excuse me, Officer,” I said, “I don’t mean to bother you.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I suppose I do,” I continued, quickly laying out the regulations all buskers must obey, a thumbnail history of selective actions against buskers, including arrest.
“The acoustics are so good under there they don’t need amplification,” he concluded.
“Exactly.”
“I’ll check it out.” He continued riding around the fountain and dismounted at the arcade. I broke into “Fit as a Fiddle.”
A pack of Australian boys stopped to chat. They passed around my uke, paying $2 for the privilege.
A group of Jewish Day Camp girls got permission to hula from their leader, a 30-something woman with a clipboard. At the end of “The Hukilau Song” they returned their leis and said thank you.
“You guys did a great hula,” I told them. “In Hawaiian we say, ‘tov m’ode’.”
“That’s not Hawaiian,” one of the girls challenged me. “That’s Hebrew.”
“I was told it was Hawaaiian, I must have been misinformed.”
The motorcycle policeman coasted to a stop in front of me. “They’re legit,” he said. “No amplification. It’s a big group, maybe 30-40 voices. But no violations.”
A father and daughter rode up on bicycles. The daughter, 4 or 5, did a lovely hula. They were from Senegal. The father sent her back to me with 2 quarters. “Mahalo.”
As I packed up, with a respectable $11.60 in my pocket, a young black man in tee shirt and shorts sat down next to me. He was with the group in the arcade. They were from Kansas and were going home soon. He questioned me on what values were dear to me: any guess where this conversation was headed?
“There is only 1 rule, the Golden Rule,” I answered, “Or as Timothy Leary said, ‘Live and Let Live.’ Everything else is bullshit.”
“Jesus said, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”
“Did he?” I hoisted my ukulele onto my back. “Aloha.”
“Jesus loves you.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Fit as a Fiddle, Here Comes the Sun, The Hukilau Song
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Grandpa Ukulele
0July 13, 2016 by admin
My first day out in a month, just back from the coast where I became Grandpa Ukulele.
The park was lush summer green. I took a quick inventory of the flowers at the Women’s Gate: morning glory, both pink and purple, and a variety I don’t know — perhaps no morning glory at all — with small yellow petals, a burgundy center and almost no sex organs; lantana both tall and short, red fuchsia and cleome, lots and lots of cleome. A mound of spirea was a week away from blooming, the stella d’oros were done, their seed pods the size of my thumb. And of course the roses, doing their duty, some red stalks thick with buds reaching 10 feet in the air.
Across the road, at the Imagine Mosaic, the guitarist sang “Here Comes the Sun.” Randy, the dobro player, was set up on the rock with the plaque listing the countries of the world who supported John Lennon’s philosophy of peace. Someday, when I feel I can stand the irony, I’ll read it.
Across the road to Daniel Webster, and over Cherry Hill to Bethesda Fountain, there is no color at all, until the water lilies, blooming yellow and pink, at center stage. Except for the big bubble man, no one was busking. “This is weird,” he said, leaning on his sticks in front of a pail of soapy water.
A little out of practice, I forgot some chords, forgot some words, but warmed up fast enough. A man in a panama hat gave me 50 cents. Later, a young girl also gave me 50 cents.
A horde of South African teenagers descended on the fountain area. The adult supervision discouraged them, but a group of 6-8 kids wanted to hula. They danced to “The Hukilau Song,” both verses, while their friends took pictures and shot video. A few kids tossed some change into my case, then rejoined the group.
An English adolescent in a ponytail and braces on her teeth, stared wide-eyed at a homeless man who sloshed through the water with his pant legs rolled up, reaching for the silver tossed in by wish-makers. “What do you think he’s doing?” I asked her.
“Cleaning up?” When I explained what was going on, she said, “There’s a wishing well in our village, and people throw in coins. I never thought about where the money goes.”
Three women were sitting on the bench, moving to the music. I invited them to hula, and one pointed to the other, the other to the third. In the meantime, I scooped up 3 leis and waved them as enticement. One stood up, sat down; the other stood up, sat down. “Am I going to have to come over there?” I advanced on them and led them back to center stage, where they danced a lovely hula. They were Polish. At the end of the dance, they returned the leis and walked away.
At the end of my set, there were only coins in my case, totaling $1.77.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Here Comes the Sun, The Hukilau Song
