{"id":1279,"date":"2022-05-09T16:30:44","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T20:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/?p=1279"},"modified":"2022-05-09T16:30:46","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T20:30:46","slug":"its-vicious-out-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/?p=1279","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;It&#8217;s Vicious Out Here&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At Central Park West and 72<sup>nd<\/sup> St., waves of white tulips, with clumps of forget-me-nots, lead me into the park.&nbsp; Bottlebrush bushes display their white wares; bleeding hearts dangle from a few dicentra plants near the budless wisteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Along the path I see solomon\u2019s seal, with tiny pendulous white flowers with variegated leaves.&nbsp; There is a hot pink azelia and a plot of spent daffodils.&nbsp; Under the cherry trees are a thick carpet of pink petals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bethesda Fountain is thronged with people.\u00a0 It is a beautiful day, yet as I look over the scene from the top of the stairs, the atmosphere crackles with lawlessness:\u00a0 No fewer than 3 buskers are amplified, 2 guitars and a chanteuse.\u00a0 I walked through the chaos and cacophony, casting a stink-eye at the outlaws.\u00a0 Under the Norway maple, I set up between 2 painters selling scenes of the park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After 30 minutes, I invited 2 young Frenchwomen to dance the hula to \u201cThe Hukilau Song.\u201d&nbsp; One took my proffered lei enthusiastically, but the other stepped away to watch.&nbsp; I played both verses, and brought the number to big ending, after which this jeune fille handed me back the lei and walked away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A Korean grandmother took a toddler out of his stroller and urged him to dance.&nbsp; \u201cDance, dance.\u201d&nbsp; Barely able to walk, he managed to keep his balance while he bent his knees and pumped his arms up and down.&nbsp; We all yelled with glee at the end of the dance.&nbsp; Grandma gave me a dollar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shortly before my 90 minute set was over, a woman of a certain age put a dollar in my case, bringing the total for the day to $2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Passing through Strawberry Fields on my way out of the park I saw Randy, the dobro and guitar player, at the Imagine Mosaic.\u00a0 It had been 2 years since we\u2019d seen each other.\u00a0 After exchanging inquiries about our mutual health and wellness, Randy pointed to a small group of Italian tourists.\u00a0 \u201cThey ask me to do stuff,\u201d he said, \u201cpose with them, sing a song into their friggin\u2019 cellphone.\u00a0 Then, nothing.\u201d\u00a0 He sighed.\u00a0 \u201cYou know what I think it is?\u00a0 These goombahs don\u2019t know to tip, they never travelled before, they\u2019re ignorant and suspicious of everything outside their village.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t think we can say the same for the French girl who danced a hula and walked away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMaybe we can.&nbsp; Remember, the world has stood still for 2 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI see you\u2019ve gone to the dark side,\u201d I said, indicating his amp.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Randy shrugged, more of an acknowledgement than an apology.&nbsp; \u201cIt\u2019s vicious out here,\u201d he said.&nbsp; \u201cTime to take the gloves off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Central Park West and 72nd St., waves of white tulips, with clumps of forget-me-nots, lead me into the park.&nbsp; &#8230; <br \/><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/?p=1279\">keep reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-1279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-the-hukilau-song"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1280,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions\/1280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}