Posts Tagged ‘Making Love Ukulele Style’
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Oasis in the Park
0July 23, 2015 by admin
It was the first nice day in a week. The water plants in the fountain had bloomed, lotuses at water level in pinks and golds, red lilies towering over their sword-like leaves. Two teenagers from Cincinnati watched me set up. I sang “Making Love Ukulele Style,” a simple tune written by Dean Martin, and sung by Arthur Godfrey. Of course, they’d never heard of either man, or of Jerry Lewis. They never heard of Steve McQueen, or “The Cincinnati Kid.” Nor, apparently, had they ever heard of tipping the musician.
A family from West Virginia was next. The kids were too embarrassed to hula, but not mom and dad. Another family walked by. These kids were very interested, but mom and dad kept walking. The elder daughter, however, split from the group and ran up to me with 2 quarters and a dime.
“She’s from Hawaii,” a 20-something yelled to me, pointing out her friend.
“Am not,” said the friend in a distinctly English accent. “I just lived there for a few months.” With a little coaxing, she started dancing to “The Hukilau Song,” all the while saying, “I don’t remember, I don’t remember.” Nevertheless, she danced to the end and her friend rewarded me with $2.
Small change here and there, tossed in by appreciative passers-by, weighted down the singles so they wouldn’t fly off in the cool breeze from the lake.
Last year I added “Down among the Sheltering Palms” to my repertoire, but when I tried to play it this year, it had flown from my head. Having boned up on the chords before I left the house in the morning, I played it now. A Saudi man and his veiled wife, a few steps behind, planted himself in front of me and started taking pictures. “Do you know this song?”
“I do,” he said, singing with me. At the final chord, he dug out a dollar and handed it to me. It amused me to imagine the caravan at the oasis; the camel-driver breaks out his uke and strums a song of love: Oh, honey, wait for me.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Down among the Sheltering Palms, Making Love Ukulele Style, The Hukilau Song
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Better than Average
0July 19, 2015 by admin
Thursday dawned to reveal clear blue skies, low humidity, cool breezes; it was a beautiful day for a hula. Other people thought so too. The park was mobbed. I rushed past the red and pink begonias, past the cone flowers and cosmos. Behind the mass of color were fire red fuschia, in front deep purple heliotrope. On the sides, lantana in yellow, red and orange.
A new guy sang out “Let It Be” at the Imagine Mosaic; at the end of the bench an older man sold cold water, “a dollar less than the hot dog man.” The pods on the catalpa are almost 2 feet long.
I set up on center stage, i.e. the east end of the fountain, and opened with “Making Love Ukulele Style,” followed by “Sunday,” “Fit as a Fiddle,” and “I Saw Stars,” then returning to the Hawaiian theme with “Ukulele Lady.” I noted attention, amusement, acceptance building up around me. I convinced a young man taking a picture to hula. A couple of teens talked each other into a dance. I didn’t mind the walk-aways; they gave others the idea.
My first contribution came from a man just walking by. Then a German-speaking 6-year-old stopped, transfixed. “Wollen Sie der Hula tanzen?” Tanz she did, swaying from side to side while she flapped her hands uncertainly.
Another little girl planted her feet near me and laid her dollar in my case. “Would you like to hula?” “Oh, yes.” A man in a matching tie-dyed shirt was standing by the lake. “Is that your Dad over there? Make sure its ok with him.” It was.
A blonde mom parked her stroller a few feet in front of me. A toddler stood tethered to one side while his 4-year-old sister stared at me, absorbed, on the other. I ran through a few songs, got the kids bopping a bit. Mom dug around in a bag on the stroller. It was either money for me, or a cellphone. The odds were 10-1 against me. It was sunblock. Through another few songs, mom goopped up the kids, then away went the sunblock, out came the wallet with $2 for me.
A dozen or so teenage girls from Argentina were up next, followed by another group from Spain. When both sets of dancers walked away, a 20-something man stepped up with a couple bucks. The cold water man from Strawberry Fields set up shop in the shade in front of me, calling out “agua frio, agua frio.” A single here, a single there floated into my case. It was shaping up to be a wonderful day on all counts. Now 3 women each gave me a dollar. “How much for the lei?” one asked. “Can’t sell them,” I said. “These are my means of production.”
At the end of the set, I counted $16 in my case, a better than average sum on a better than average day.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Fit as a Fiddle, I Saw Stars, Let It Be, Making Love Ukulele Style, Sunday, Ukulele Lady
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Another Hot One
0July 9, 2015 by admin
Today, a tee shirt vendor has replaced the Sabrett hot dog man at the entrance to the park at W. 72nd St. Hot dogs had always been more expensive at this location, $3 compared to $2.50 inside the park. When I asked the hot dog man about it, he told me his monthly rent was $10,000 – that’s a lot of hot dogs. This year hot dogs are $3 everywhere.
It’s hotter than yesterday. A Japanese Katsura tree at the entrance to Strawberry Fields looks stressed, its heart-shaped leaves browning in the sun. The guitarist sings “Let It Be.” At Bethesda Fountain, an accordion has replaced John Boyd’s family singers. He had to have gotten up pretty early in the morning to do that.
Once again, I sought the shade. The doo-wop singers had already set up by the boathouse. I launched into “Making Love Ukulele Style,” and immediately got a dollar from a 60-something, like me.
It was a day for families and pleasant conversation. First a family with 4 girls, from 6 to 16. They got a line-dance hula going. The oldest guided her young sisters, while mom sat behind, on the rock, and dad took some photos. He was an optometrist from Sherman Oaks, CA. He too had a pension, he told me, and couldn’t wait to retire like me and have nothing to do all day but seek his bliss.
“Are these all yours? That must be quite a pension.”
He laughed. “Four daughters, how expensive can that be?”
A man from Norway stopped to tell me his son had just started to learn to play the ukulele. I handed the instrument to the pre-teen boy. “Let’s see what you can do.” He was indeed a beginner, laboring over D-G-A7-D. I helped him along, giving him tips his father translated.
The doo-wop dancers got chased away by the park rangers. According to the optometrist, who gathered his information on a trip to the bathrooms with a couple of daughters, the group had been blocking the path. More probably, the restaurant had complained; Meta and her inoffensive harp, after all, had also been rousted from that spot.
An Italian family replaced the California family, this one with 3 young children. While 2 daughters did the hula, a toddler boy kept picking up my watch from out of my case and slipping it on his wrist. Dad took it off, put it back, and the kid swiped it again. At the end of the “The Hukilau Song” I took a quick inventory; everything was there, including $6.15 in donations.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Let It Be, Making Love Ukulele Style, The Hukilau Song
