Posts Tagged ‘Little Grass Shack’
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Delightful Day in May
0May 17, 2017 by admin
“Where’s your ukulele?” asked the woman, making a strumming action, as we passed on the path.
I pointed to the case strapped on my back. She gave me a thumbs-up.
The day was perfect at Bethesda Fountain. John Boyd and his crew sang in the arcade. The big bubble man spun his creations in the center of the terrace. I set up at the fountain, where a bride and groom were posing. I opened with “The Hawaiian Wedding Song.”
A nice young woman gave me my first dollar. She would not hula. From the far side of the fountain, a pudgy kid of 8 or 9 came running. Arms flailing and out of breath, he tossed 30 cents in the case. He had no time to hula; he took a deep breath and raced back around the fountain. A young woman walking with her mother stopped to give me a dollar, but not to dance.
A couple with 2 young girls sat down near me. The elder girl, 4 or 5 years old, explored the stuff in my case. “Would you like to hula?”
“No.”
The younger, barely walking, showed no such reticence. With her father’s help, I put a baby lei — fashioned from broken adult leis — around her neck. I again invited her sister, but she just said, “No.”
The toddler floundered through the intro to “The Hukilau Song,” so I invited mom to help her out. Mom would not take a lei, but she nevertheless took the toddler’s hand and together they managed a cute little hula. Big sister was playing with the hula girl toys, her back turned on the action. Dad gave me a buck.
Two 30-something women sat near me while an older woman took a picture. “You,” she called, “get in photo.”
I grabbed 2 leis and slipped them around 2 necks. “Sing,” she commanded. I sang.
They were from Macedonia. The photographer, who may have been mother, aunt or older sister, handed me 2 singles.
I ended with “Little Grass Shack,” to the delight of a man walking past, who stopped to hula for a second, then walked on.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Little Grass Shack, The Hawaiian Wedding Song, The Hukilau Song
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A Dark Day in May
0May 11, 2017 by admin
It was a cool day, 60 degrees, if that. Yet I went to the park anyway. There wasn’t much new growth since my last outing…the opposite, in fact. The dead daffodils were a little browner, the mauve tulips drooped to the ground, dead, the colorless stems of the remaining tulips deader still. Pansies and South African daisies were holding up; the fritillaria? Dead.
The mood in the park was decidedly down. No Beatle tunes at the Imagine Mosaic; it was change of shift for the guitarists. An old woman, homeless, slept on a small patch of lawn between some azaleas and the road. Across the road, a young man in a hoodie combed through the trash for bottles and cans. Before the day was over, the police would announce that 2 bodies had been pulled from Central Park lakes.
A young man on his cell phone was plucking references from his resume in response to the voice on the other end of the call. He was confident that he could make a contribution to the future of (insert name of hedge fund here). At Cherry Hill I stopped for 3 horse-drawn carriages, while all around the pedicabs hustled for fares. Victorian London meets modern Dhaka.
I had hopes for Bethesda Fountain, that under a warm sun I might dispel the gloom, but a young man with an accordion was playing some lugubrious minor-key folk song. On my way to the Norway Maple I passed the Ukrainian art vendor on his bench, feeding the squirrels. A bird landed on his leg. He later told me the accordionist was Russian, and he did not like Russians.
I laid out my gear. Very little sun penetrated the leaf canopy; I hopped around from one side of my case to the other for warmth.
After 30 minutes a couple from England gave me a dollar. They laughingly refused to hula. But an Australian family got the spirit from a youngster of 2-3, who stopped to stare. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
He shook his head yes. His enthusiastic dad helped him put on a lei, then off we went to the hukilau. An older sister showed him some moves, for which I awarded her a lei, and mom stood proudly by. “I always wanted to go to Hawaii,” she said.
“Yet you came to New York for a hula.” A dollar passed from mom to dad to the toddler to me. “Aloha.”
A teenaged boy gave me a quarter.
A woman walking by didn’t stop to hula, but she gave me a word. “It’s the only Hawaiian word I know. Pulelehua. It means butterfly.”
It wasn’t getting any warmer. I launched into my final song, “Little Grass Shack,” when a 30-something woman, bundled up in down vest, hat and hiking boots, put a dollar in my case, bringing my take to $3.25 cents, 45 cents more than my $2.70 break-even. All things considered, I was lucky to get out of there with my life.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
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Little Girls and Bikers
0September 28, 2016 by admin
It’s a beautiful day in New York. There are no longer big crowds in the park. Fewer than 10 people were at the Imagine Mosaic, where the guitarist sang “Let It Be.”
From a distance, it appeared there were no nuts on the chestnut tree at all, but up close I spotted a few browning golf-ball sized nuts in the upper branches, and the ground was littered with shells. I found a whole nut, shiny brown, and crushed it under my foot. The meat was white and moist, good eating for squirrels.
Sitting alone on a bench near the stairs down to the fountain, a man sat expressionless, unmoving like a statue. His head was wrapped in white gauze. Wearing a suit, sunglasses, no tie, his shirt out of his pants, legs crossed, he was a living work of art, although I was at a loss as to how to interpret him.
The accordion player was in the arcade. No other buskers were around. I set up, tuned and started my set with only a handful of people to hear me. A 5-year-old girl looked me over suspiciously. “Would you like to dance the hula?”
“She’s shy,” said her dad. I tried to lure her with a lei, made funny faces, sang funny lyrics, all of which drove her farther away.
“Not going to happen,” I said to dad. He agreed, then dropped 55 cents into my case.
Another dad and daughter, 2-3 years old, stopped to chat. I doubled the lei into a crown and put it on the little girl’s head. The only sign of a hula was the occasional bend of the knee, or wave of the arm. Dad gave me buck and said, “Sorry, she won’t dance, but you sound great.”
Three women rode into the plaza on bicycles and dismounted. One of them couldn’t take her eyes off me. “Have you got time for a hula today?” She turned her back and consulted with her friends, finally coming my way with a big smile and $3.
Later, another set of bikers, stopped to listen. These were young men from Ireland. “From the west,” one of them told me. “Near Galway.” I told him that Mrs. Ukulele’s family hailed from Tipperary.
My ukulele was falling farther and farther out of tune. I tightened the low-G string, strummed a few more chords, then twang, the string broke. I finished the song on 3 strings, then found a replacement string in my case. My old string maker, Hilo, had gone out of business; my strings now are from Aquila. I took off the broken string and replaced it as quickly as I could. New strings, once stretched, need some seasoning; right out of the package they go flat, so I had to tighten it up after – sometimes during – every song until I finished with “Little Grass Shack.”
When I sat down at the end of my set to pack up my stuff, a couple from Poland asked, “How much for the purple dancing girl?”
Ordinarily, my dancing girls, like my leis, are not for sale. But today I made an exception. “Five dollars.”
They conferred as I continued packing. The man finally pulled out a $50-dollar bill. There was only $5.55 in my case, plus $2 in starter money. I made change from my wallet, nearly doubling my daily take without playing a note.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Let It Be, Little Grass Shack
