Posts Tagged ‘Little Grass Shack’
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Not a Cop
0October 30, 2014 by admin
The New York City Marathon is Sunday. The W. 72nd St. entrance to the park was blocked off with 8-foot silver fencing. There were motorized vehicles driving every which way. Inside the park, more fencing. The city is busy cleaning up for the event. On the path leading away from Strawberry Fields, 3 gardeners pulled up black-stemmed boneset and multiflora roses. “Multiflora,” said one gardener, “because they multiply.”
On the upper branches of the catalpas, the long skinny seed pods hung like black tinsel among the broad, yellowing leaves. For reasons unknown to me, the flag across the road was at half-mast. On a grassy patch, 15-20 new moms with their babies were exercising back into shape. The restrooms south of the arcade were newly hosed down.
The guy I call Frank, the lip syncher, was set up near my spot at the fountain, his amp turned up high. I stopped to inform him that amplification was not permitted; it did not go well. “I see amps here all the time,” he said. “Do you hassle them? Why you hassling me? You gonna call the cops?” I explained that since the Quiet Zone Wars, we buskers agreed to police ourselves and his egregious behavior could ruin it for the rest of us. “Nobody but you is bothering about me,” he said by way of justification. “It’s not nearly as bad as the subway.”
Having made no impression at all, I wished him Aloha and headed toward the boathouse. As it happened, Frank was not lip-synching; he had a fine voice and interspersed his performance with high kicks, break dancing and acrobatics.
A dollar from a young couple got me started. Two English lads threw in 6 quarters, then stopped a few yards away and conferred. Moments later, they came back and gave me a handful of change. When I counted my take at the end of the set, I found a 1913 Buffalo nickel among the coins.
A young parks department employee opened up the wire fence in front of me so he could mow the lawn there. “I’ll only be 10 minutes,” he said. Over the roar of the mower, I practiced my new numbers, “Down among the Sheltering Palms,” and “You’ve Got to Be a Touchdown Hero.”
A tall, heavily muscled young man from Brazil took the ukulele out of my hands and started playing “New York, New York.” He hadn’t quite mastered all the chords, but he made it through to the end of the song. Smiling proudly, he gave me back my uke and walked away to rejoin his friends.
It was a hula-free day. A number of people danced, but only when they’d passed me by and thought I couldn’t see them. One 30-something man with a sympathetic smile gave me a buck. During my finale, “Little Grass Shack,” a couple stopped to hear me pine for my “fish and poi;” they too contributed a buck.
The fellow who mowed the grass had taken up a broom and was sweeping the leaves off the stairs. I asked him if his supervisors had ever discussed the rules governing buskers. He nodded toward Frank. “You mean like him? I told him he couldn’t amplify, but I’m not a cop. Whenever I call PEP (Parks Enforcement Patrol) they don’t come, so I don’t call anymore.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Down among the Sheltering Palms, Little Grass Shack, You've Got to be a Football Hero
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Suffer the Children
0August 8, 2014 by admin
The white nicotiana is close to 3 feet tall; its cigarette-shaped blossoms brighten the undercover near the wall. A green-shirted park worker is weeding around them. “What happened to the wisteria on the pergola?” I ask. “It didn’t bloom this year.” She shrugged. “There were a couple flowers on the north side,” she said, “but otherwise nothing.”
Once again, I took up my spot on the path. I wasn’t there long before a little boy in a stroller, holding a beat-up uke with 3 strings, parked a few yards away. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” I said, handing him my uke in exchange. I tried to tune it up, but it was pretty far gone. His mother told me his name was Henry, and that he called the instrument a guitar, not a ukulele. “In British Columbia,” I said, “they’re using ukuleles to teach music, not…”
“Not the recorder?” she finished my sentence. “I’m a third grade teacher, and let me tell you, the recorder is worthless, no one ever gets good at it, or continues to play it.”
“You hear that, Henry, the uke is for life.”
A man with a baby dropped a buck as he walked by. Three girls from Mumbai did the hula. Some bicyclists stopped to take pictures of the boats on the lake, then scraped up some small change for me. There is no bike-riding on the paths, although, like so many other park rules, it goes for the most part unheeded. Later, a man filmed me singing “Little Grass Shack,” from beginning to end, gave me a thumbs-up, and nothing else.
Vasiliy came by, pushing his bass fiddle in front of him. “Nice day,” he said, “not so hot.”
“You wouldn’t be so hot if you didn’t dress all in black,” I said.
“But I must wear black,” he answered. “I am a classical musician.” We both thought about that for a second, then burst out laughing.
Three teens, on their way home to Illinois after their stay at a Christian camp in NJ, stopped to listen. They had a few hours before their train and were planning a boat ride on the lake. A tall girl with a mouthful of orthodontics was carrying a uke; I prevailed on her to take it out. It was equipped with an amp pickup, and had, strangely, no soundhole. She started playing a simple song, something like “This Little Light of Mine,” with uplifting lyrics and only 3 chords. I found her key and strummed along. One of her friends took out a trumpet and played a soft accompaniment, while the third kid sang harmony. At the end of the song, they packed up and headed toward the boat rental.
It was a $5.82 day. As I headed home past the fountain, I could hear the plink-a-plink of a ukulele wafting across the water.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Little Grass Shack, This Little Light of Mine
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Sunny Saturday in May
0May 3, 2014 by admin
The park was as crowded on Saturday as I’ve ever seen it. Little knots of NYC policemen were scattered all about, keeping an eye out. Ordinarily city cops are scarce in the park, with most authority invested in the Central Park Conservancy, so maybe this marks a policy change from the old administration.
The daffodils are done; now the tulips are in full-throated bloom. Along the edge of the path, violets and dandelions cling to the wire fence, safe from the lawn mower, while across the road to the south several maple trees unfold their rusty red leaves to the sun. The break dancers’ boom box was audible at 50 yards. Arlen and Meta bravely played over the din.
At my spot on the path by the Lake, I opened with “Making Love Ukulele Style,” and for the next 20 minutes I lifted my voice to the sky, since no one on the ground was paying any attention. At last, 3 girls from Thailand stopped to hula and take pictures. Not long afterward, a proper gentleman in ascot and cap, with a pencil-thin mustache, asked me if he might take a picture. I smiled. He focused, clicked, then dropped a sawbuck in my case. Half an hour in, I already had $13.
A lovely couple from New Mexico stopped to talk, first about ukuleles, then, at length, about how much we were enjoying our retirements. “Well, this has been worth $2,” he said, reaching for his wallet. His wife was aghast. “How can you say that to the man?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I play my music for free. You decide what it’s worth.”
To end my 90 minute set, I sang “My Little Grass Shack,” and shouted to the passing crowd, “Aloha, New York.” While packing up, a young woman approached me from behind, where she and her friends had been picnicking on the newly seeded lawn. She handed me 3 singles over the fence. Not counting the 5 centavos coin that was mixed in with the change dropped by some Brazilians, my total take was $22.19, just a penny shy of my personal best.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Little Grass Shack, Making Love Ukulele Style
