Posts Tagged ‘The Hukilau Song’
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Sienna, Sam and Ann
0April 23, 2015 by admin
Four 40-something women stopped me as I walked by and asked me to take their picture as they sat at the edge of the fountain. After two snaps, I invited them to do a hula. “Not me.” “Not me.” “Not me.”
“I will,” said one.
“I knew she would,” the others said. I quickly unpacked my uke, and off we went to the hukilau. The women were from Texas, the dancer from the Houston area. She closed her eyes and undulated languorously, while her friends took photos. I got a fiver from a friend and a buck from the dancer, an excellent start to the day.
There were several groups of elementary school kids assembling on the stairs or at the fountain for class pictures. They were young and hard to manage, so I wasn’t surprised that the teachers did not want to stop for a hula. But a quartet of high school boys, on a trip to NYC from Atlanta, had wandered from their classmates and wanted to dance. I gave them a quick lesson, they lined up and danced a marvelous freestyle. When called back to their group, they dropped $2 into my case.
A little girl of 4 or so walked up to me, wanting to dance. “Are you here with your mom or dad?” I asked. “Go ask them if it’s ok.” She ran off and soon returned with permission. Two verses of “The Hukilau Song” were not enough for her, so I played “My Little Grass Shack” too. Off she ran again, this time returning with a dollar for me. Her mother, father and brother followed. She told me her name was Sienna. “The color or the town?”
Her brother answered, “The color, two n’s.”
Walking down the path toward me came the dog Maggie and her master. They’ve been regulars over the years. Maggie loves my music; she happily sits in front of me to listen. A photographer thought the scene cute and started taking pictures. A toddler on a leash approached and bounced up and down on her chubby knees, grinning and clapping. Finally a 75-year-old man in a baseball cap stopped to listen. “This is my music,” he said in a thick middle European accent, and as I sung out “Get Out and Get Under the Moon” he began to tap dance. Amid all this chaos, money piled high in my case.
The tap dancer was Sam Katz, who after a career dancing in the city now lived in Parsippany. He had not lost his joie de vivre. The photographer was Ann Price. Here is one of the pictures she took.
Another 1pm drought took hold, and for the next 30 minutes, except for 2 women bikers eating lunch, I sang to the empty spaces. As I packed up, one of the bikers approached and gave me $3. “Thanks for entertaining us,” she said.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Get Out and Get Under the Moon, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
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$110 of Aloha
0April 16, 2015 by admin
The day started out cool and windy, and ended warm and windy. Yet another guitarist serenaded the throngs at the Image Mosaic, this time with “Here Comes the Sun.”
The water in Central Park was turned on. The sparkling splash of Bethesda Fountain accompanied me throughout my set, and will so now until fall. On the masts flanking the lake were hung long green pennants that snapped in the wind, the metal halyards clanging noisily.
Before I could ask a group of middle-schoolers if they had time for a hula, they were pawing through my leis. We danced a single verse of “The Hukilau,” while the adult leader of the group waited impatiently nearby. As they ran off, a few kids dropped singles into my case; one girl, with purple highlights in her hair, ran back from the Arcade in order to make a belated contribution.
The day was extraordinarily beautiful. Two moms with their toddlers listened from the bench. One of the kids, about 2 years old, bounced to the music, approached cautiously, then ran back to familiar arms. A woman walked by and thanked me with a buck. The toddler approached again, ran back. Finally, holding mom’s hand, the toddler made it all the way and dropped a Susan B. “And the other one?” asked mom. It is a well-known phenomenon: children tend to pocket money meant for me.
A man my age walked up with a big smile on his face. “You keep the real songs alive. I love the low poetry of the lyrics. I can’t stand what passes for music today.”
I agreed. “Nobody rhymes ‘daily’ with ‘ukulele’ anymore, or my personal favorite, ‘hula’ and ‘Honolula,’ although Dylan did rhyme ‘Honolula’ with ‘Ashtabula’ in the ‘70s.”
“Don’t you get discouraged that so many people just ignore you?”
I opened my arms to take in the magnificent day. He smiled with understanding and put $2 in my case. “You’ve got the right attitude.”
People do indeed ignore me, although I figure for every $1 put in my case I bring $5 worth of aloha.
A Hispanic family gathered around. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
“How much?”
“Nothing, it’s free.” So the 4 children, ranging in age from 6 to 16, donned leis and hula-ed away, laughing and jostling each other while dad shot video. When they finished and moved on to other delights, a middle child ran back with a dollar.
It was a big day for Brits, where they love the uke. “My favorite movie is ‘Sons of the Desert,’” one man told me, so together we sang out a few bars of “Honolulu Baby.” It was a $10 performance, boosting me to $22 for the day.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Here Comes the Sun, Honolulu Baby, The Hukilau Song
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Easter Monday
0April 7, 2015 by admin
After a lovely Easter weekend, the daffodils have popped and crocuses have opened wide in pastel purples and yellow. As yet budless tulips have pushed their leaves through the groundcover toward the warm sky. Waves of light blue chindoxia grow against the wire fence. The London plane trees, dressed in camouflage green, gray and brown bark at the base, rise to a sepulchral white tangle of bare branches. The forsythia has started showing tiny yellow buds.
At the Imagine Mosaic, one guitarist is singing “Eight Days a Week,” while another stomps past me, complaining into his cell phone about the angry words just exchanged and the punch in the nose he left unthrown. Thus the early season jostling has begun for this lucrative site. I expect that soon these guitarists will work out their platoon system, as they do every year.
Center stage was mine. I set up at the east end of Bethesda Fountain, turned my face to the sky and sang my heart out. In short order, some preteens came by and did the hula. Other little kids, sitting on the benches with their moms or sitters, quickly got the idea. After only 10-15 minutes, there was already $6 in my case.
A mother from California was resting with her daughter beside their bicycles. They enjoyed the show the kids and I put on, eventually wheeling their bikes toward me to chat. The daughter had recently moved to NYC; this was mom’s first visit. They wouldn’t hula, but mom dropped a fiver all the same.
Two women came by for a hula while a third took video. They danced to both verses of the “Hukilau Song” and put a total of $16 in my case, each giving me a bigger bill than the last. A couple of boys followed up with an energetic dance. A young girl stepped up when they’d finished.
“Can I wear a lei for a selfie?” she asked, pulling a dollar from her wallet.
“Of course,” I said, handing her a lei and stepping out of the way.
“No, come back, I want you in the picture too.” Silly me, I thought a selfie was a picture of herself.
At the end of my 90 minute set, I sat down to count my money and pack up. At $31.64, if history is any guide, this could well be the best day I’ll have all season. A 20-something walked up and handed me another dollar. And it just keeps getting better.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Eight Days a Week, The Hukilau Song
