Posts Tagged ‘The Hukilau Song’
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Cat and Mouse
0August 2, 2019 by admin
Colin was finishing up; he looked exhausted. On this hot day, while I wore shorts, a rayon shirt, sandals and a paper panama, Colin was in a leather vest, long pants, boots and a cowboy hat. “I’ve had enough,” he said when he saw me. “It’s your turn.”
Across the plaza, the jazz violinist was amped up high. “I thought the cops cleared out the amplifiers,” I said.
Colin, who used an amp, smiled as he turned it off. “They cleared us out yesterday.” I made a gesture with open palms, as if to say, yet here you are today. “Cat and mouse,” said Colin. “Cat and mouse.”
After my first 30 minutes, there was nothing in my case. I took a long drink of water and looked around. Despite the heat, there were lots of people walking through. Given that I’ve never yet gone without making, at the least, round-trip senior subway fare, I stood up for my second 30 minutes and confidently began to play.
Almost immediately, a passing 20-something Chinese man put a dollar in my case. A short time later, a burly black man gave me $2, saying, “Good effort.”
A busload of Spanish teenagers in red tee shirts flooded the plaza. They pretty much avoided me, until 3 young women came close enough for me to ask, “Have you got time for a hula today?” As I passed out leis, 3 more young women joined in. They did a wonderful synchronized hula to “The Hukilau Song.” A small crowd formed to watch and take pictures. Afterwards I collected the leis and draped them over the lid of my open case again, where I could see the same 3 singles lying there. All 6 dancers had walked away.
I started the third 30 minutes of my set, content that I’d broken even. I earned 2 more dollars for singing a chorus of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” for a 30-something woman who video-ed the performance. She seemed never to have heard the song before. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s a really pretty song.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song, Tiptoe through the Tulips
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After the Heat Wave – 1
0July 26, 2019 by admin
The heat wave broke this week. Wednesday was warm and clear with cool breezes blowing from the north. A new batch of begonias brightened the hill on the other side of the Central Park West wall. Deep in the underbrush, a single stand of white phlox captures the eye. Cleome and gomphrena populate the area behind the benches, while the rose bushes, devoid of roses, have only wine-red growing tips to show.
At the Imagine Mosaic, the guitarist sings “Hey, Jude,” accompanied by a blond soprano who shattered the upper registers with her “better, better, better, better.”
Past jewelweed and astilbe, around the corner from Daniel Webster, the jazz combo performs from the American Songbook. The park is packed. At Bethesda Fountain, three amplified buskers, a violin and 2 guitars, are duking it out. On this, among the most beautiful days of the summer, I easily summoned the aloha spirit and kept walking to the maple, where 3 caricaturists were duking it out. As I set up I asked the closest one, “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all,” he said. “It’s nice background music for me.”
At the end of the first 30 minutes, no one had given me anything. During the next 30 minutes, a 40-something Spanish man dumped $1.10 in coin into my case. In the final 30 minutes, I stopped two 30-something guys and talked them into a hula. It was a sedate interpretation of “The Hukilau Song” until one of the men broke loose with waving arms, yelps and leaps. He then tore off his lei with a dramatic gesture and handed it back to me, along with a $5 bill.
By then, with $6.10 in my pocket, it was time to go home.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Hey Jude, The Hukilau Song
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90-Degree Tuesday
0July 17, 2019 by admin
Another week has passed since I last visited the park. So, with life’s obligations fast filling my calendar, despite Tuesday’s 90-degree heat, I ventured out. In the shade of Central Park West, half the begonias have been replaced with coleus, their thirsty green and burgundy leaves already parched. The roses behind the benches struggled to produce a second crop, but those across from the so-called Peace Rock bloomed abundantly, pink and red, singles and doubles in profusion.
Dominic, the big-bubble man, shook the soapy water from his hand and gave me a fist-bump. “We were just talking about you, me and Colin, where’ve you been?”
It was just noon and Colin, the cowboy, wasn’t there. Perhaps he had sense enough to come in from the sun. Many tourists, sensibly, chose cool marble museums over Bethesda Fountain in this heat, but not all. My first hula dancers weren’t even tourists, but an au pair and her 2 young charges, a girl of 3 or so and her older brother. Brother wouldn’t dance, but the girls had a ball at the hukilau; the au pair tipped me with a fiver.
A tall young woman from Montreal got through the vamp to “The Hukilau Song,” and was starting to remove her lei, when a 60-something woman walking by began singing along. She knew the hand motions too, so I quickly got a lei around her neck and directed the Montrealer to follow the older woman’s lead. She told me she’d learned it in grade school, in 1959, when Hawaii became a state.
There was a large group of high schoolers from Argentina, many of whom danced a hula and threw money in my case, and another slightly less large group of scouts from Sweden, who neither danced nor donated.
I was relieved to get to the end of my set. I sang my last few songs to no one, and, precisely at 1:30, said “Aloha, New York” and sat down. The change was too hot to count, so I dumped it in the shade of my ukulele case and counted the bills, $13. I packed up the solar-powered hula girls, the leis, CDs and other paraphernalia, by which time I could handle the coins, $3.68.
“I see you counting your money,” the ice-cold-water man said with a grin. He was hauling a cooler behind him; it bounced over the uneven bricks. “See you tomorrow.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song
