Posts Tagged ‘The Hukilau Song’
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A Hot Day on Center Stage
0June 18, 2015 by admin
Yet another week has gone by before I made it to the park again. A week’s absence reveals great transformations. Golden stelladoro lilies dominate the beds at 72nd Street’s Women’s Gate. A huge lilac-colored spirea bush demarks the transition to small purple celosia, in front of tall, pale pink cleome, backed by dense, deep red roses, their thorny branches rising 8 feet in the air.
Shade engulfed the entrance to Strawberry Fields, where one of the guitarists sang “If I Fell.”
At center stage, under the hot sun, I tuned up and sang “Making Love Ukulele Style.” For almost 30 minutes no one seemed to notice me, then a girl rose from the bench where she was sitting with her parents and put a dollar in my case.
Three girls from Queens did a fine hula, then walked off. Moments later a family from Milwaukee stopped to dance to “The Hukilau Song.” A mom and her 3 daughters knew all the moves; dad took pictures. That was worth a fiver. It had also drawn a crowd.
Some young children got the idea for another few bucks. At a break in the action, a wise guy from Norway asked me, “Did you lose a bet?”
A lady taking video of “Honolulu Baby” dropped a fiver, and a young man, who was just walking by, added his dollar to my case. Walking up to me from the bench, a man in his forties asked if I could play “Tiny Bubbles.” He told me that his father, a Vietnam vet, had done R&R in Hawaii, and had seen Don Ho. “Tiny Bubbles” is not in my repertoire, but I faked it well enough to earn a buck.
A school group from PS 11 in Queens massed at the fountain for a photo. The left flank sat behind my case, so I moved out of the way and waited for them to finish. “How about a song,” one of the teachers shouted to me from the right flank.
I started singing “My Little Grass Shack” and before long another teacher stepped out of the pack and started to hula. I put a lei around her neck and kept singing. Soon some of the students grabbed leis and before long a riot of hulas broke out. I saw one of the parent-chaperones put a fiver in my case, but the kids put in money too, as did the dancing teacher. I quickly lost count, but upwards of $10 came from this group, lifting the day’s total to $28.61.
As the kids from PS 11 moved off, another parent/chaperone offered me a banana. I declined, but I did accept her offer to refill my water bottle. During these hot days on center stage, staying hydrated is vital.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Baby, Making Love Ukulele Style, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song, Tiny Bubbles
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Return from a 10-Day Absence
0June 11, 2015 by admin
More than a week has gone by since my last trip to the park. New plantings of foxglove, and other showy flowers, have joined the cosmos and cleome. Small patches of astilbe and hellebore peak out from under the rose bushes. Large spiraea bushes are covered with tight bud clusters just days away from opening. Already little white florets are visible.
The Central Park Conservancy has taken over Bethesda Terrace for a fund raiser. The area is barricaded from all 3 south-end staircases to the north-end of the fountain; the only way in is from the east, and once in, there is no place to go but out again. I set up on the path, under the maple. Looking over the ugly green fence hiding the improvements to the rowboat rental operation, I noticed the still green mulberries on the giant English Mulberry tree, where later in the year birds will gather for its sweet treats.
A group of middle-schoolers stopped, but only one boy put on a lei to hula, while his 20 or so classmates, looking rather bored, watched. With the final chord of “The Hukilau Song” still ringing, off they trudged. “Aloha.”
Moments later, another school group, this one from PS 16 in the Bronx, found time to hula. So many dancers, so few leis. I stopped between verses so those with leis could pass them to those without, then reprised the first verse to give another group a chance. One teacher gave me a fiver, another a single.
Meta walked by without her harp. She was extremely agitated. “I’ve got no place to play,” she said, “and I’ve got to play. They just threw me out in front of the boathouse. I tried to play by the bench,” she continued, pointing back toward the fountain, “but Alex is being a real jerk today.” Alex is the painter who sells his wares. “He keeps feeding the squirrels, and the people would much rather look at squirrels than listen to music. When I asked him to stop while I was playing, he just shrugged, like he doesn’t understand me. He understands me,” she went on, and in an act of frustration made the motion of garroting him with a harp string.
“I don’t have to play,” I told her. “You can play here.”
“Oh, no,” she said, but in the end she agreed and headed back to the boathouse to get her instrument. While she was gone, a young man gave me dollar.
Pushing her harp up the slow incline, she said, “You know what, I’ll try to work with Alex. Thanks for the offer,” she added. “You’re very kind.”
A little girl of 4 or 5 stopped to hula. After putting on her own lei, she passed out leis to the 3 adults accompanying her. She also rearranged my hula-dancing dashboard figure and my solar-powered hula girl. Everything and everyone exactly how she wanted, the girl danced beautifully. An adult gave her a dollar to drop in my case.
A girl and her mother stopped to dance. At the end of the dance, instead of giving me a dollar, the girl asked, “Can I have a dollar?”
“Go ahead,” I said, “take one.” When they’d gone, I replace it with a single from my wallet.
Another dollar here and there made a substantial pile in my case. Toward the end of the set, a school group from Texas – the same group that had no time to hula earlier – had time now. Three girls did a spirited line dance, if not exactly a hula. Their leader gave them each a dollar to give to me.
On the way out of the park, with $15.35 in my pocket, I passed Meta on her end of the bench. She seemed less agitated; I could see the bills piled high in the collection box at her feet. Alex was painting at the other end, not a squirrel in sight.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song
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A Rare Saturday
0May 31, 2015 by admin
It’s a rare Saturday that I go to the park. The crowds are fierce; I have to excuse myself many times to get through the scrum taking selfies around the Strawberry Fields sign. One homeless guitarist screams at another homeless guitarist about who plays next and for how long. The regular order of weekdays has broken down. Sunbathers on their blankets and towels dot the lawns; people picnic under every tree. As I walk toward the fountain, I hear far more English than on weekdays; New Yorkers have crowded out the tourists.
The south face of the catalpa is in full bloom, while the north side is still largely showing little green berry-like buds and the occasional white floret, tinged pink in the center. White dogwood blossoms float like kites above the green leaf clusters. Rhododendrons bloom pink in the shade of the stone staircase. The azaleas are kaput.
I set up in the heat of center stage. My first contribution was 26 cents, same as yesterday. Later, when I mentioned the coincidence to friends, they pointed out that a large regular coffee at Starbucks is $2.74, putting a quarter and a penny change in more pockets than I’d realized.
“Have you got time for a hula today?” The young couple was eager, having just returned from their honeymoon on Maui. At the end of “The Hukilau Song” they returned the leis, patted their pockets and shrugged that they had come out without any money. “Don’t worry about it,” I said, draping the leis over the back of my case.
During my rendition of “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” I noticed that a woman sitting at the fountain to my right was singing along to the first verse, but got lost in the second. When we talked, she told me how much she liked the Nina Simone version released in 1958. In that recording, the second verse features Liz Taylor and Lana Turner, updated for time and gender from the original Gus Kahn lyric written for Eddie Cantor in 1930, featuring John Gilbert and Ronald Coleman. My 2015 rewrite features George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
The woman was from Argentina, in New York with her sister. Would I be willing to sing a duet with her for her daughter back home? And so we did, twice in fact, because the sister had trouble with the video recorder on her smart phone. That was worth a fiver.
A short time later, a family came by with a 3-year old who wanted to hula. The child waved his arms with a determined intensity, sucking in his lower lip in concentration. Grandpa rewarded me with a $2 bill, the first I’d received in the 8 years I’ve been busking. Now I’d been given at least one of every denomination from 1 to 100.
Adding to the chaos, the troupe of acrobats had colonized the western staircase and were whipping up the crowd with loud music from their boom box, and with clapping and chants. I ignored the commotion as I finished my set with “My Little Grass Shack.” Although tomorrow, Sunday, also promises wonderful busking weather, I’m done with weekends for a while.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: b, My Baby Just Cares for Me, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
