Friday started out bad and got worse.\u00a0 As soon as I entered the park, I was assaulted by loud music.\u00a0 Some moron with a boombox had cranked it up to 11, or so I thought.\u00a0 \u201cAren\u2019t there rules about amplification in the park?\u201d I asked a green-shirted volunteer in the information kiosk.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, there are, but this is the only time for the musicians to rehearse for Saturday\u2019s concert.\u201d\u00a0 The concert she was referring to was the Global Citizen Festival, an annual event since 2012, which featured, she told me, \u201cworld-class performers like Stevie Wonder and Elton John.\u201d\u00a0 The concert was held on the Great Lawn, some half mile from where we stood.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
From Central Park West to Fifth Avenue, waves of rock riffs roared from the north.\u00a0 It stopped from time to time while technicians fiddled with the bass, thumping like a migraine, then began again.\u00a0 The noise echoed around Bethesda Fountain, where a sad-looking woman played folk songs on her acoustic guitar.\u00a0 Farther east, under the maple tree, the caricaturists and begging Buddhists occupied my secondary and tertiary venues.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Instead of giving up and going home, I hit upon the idea of playing near the Alice in Wonderland statue.\u00a0 In my early days as a busker, before the Quiet Zone Wars, I frequently set up between the Conservatory Pond and Alice.\u00a0 Like Bethesda Fountain, Alice was a destination, especially for children; unlike the fountain, it remained a Quiet Zone after the peace.\u00a0 Despite the ambient amplification, if I played softly, using an inside voice, so to speak, I could sing my set here.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As I put out my solar-powered hula girls, I was mobbed by little kids .\u00a0 Each kid wanted a chance to position the toy on the ground and watch it dance.\u00a0 In the melee, the yellow hula girl was roughed up in what turned out to be a non-life-threatening injury.\u00a0 When it came time for a hula dance, however, nannies and governesses whisked the kids away.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Two older girls, maybe 6 years old, hung back.\u00a0 They did not want to hula, but they seemed to enjoy \u201cI Wonder Where My Little Hula Girl Has Gone.\u201d\u00a0 One ran off to get a dollar from her mom, who sat out of sight on a bench.\u00a0 Not to be outdone, her friend ran in the other direction and returned with a dollar too.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The first hula of the day was by a little girl, the second by an Argentine woman.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A man motioned for permission to take my picture, after which he gave me a buck.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s very happy music,\u201d he said.\u00a0 Two women got off their bikes and leaned against the fence across from me, listening with smiles on their faces.\u00a0 After a few songs, one remounted and the other came forward with $2.\u00a0 A woman from the unseen benches to my left surprised me with a dollar.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With 9 singles in my case, the day\u2019s busking proved to be far more successful than I thought possible 90 minutes ago.\u00a0 As I was about to wrap up with \u201cMy Little Grass Shack,\u201d a green shirt pulled up in his Konservatory Kop-mobile, told me I was in a Quiet Zone and asked me to leave.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cListen,\u201d I said, as another bass sound check rattled my teeth.\u00a0 \u201cAre you seriously going to enforce Quiet Zone rules today?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t play here.\u00a0 You can play farther uptown,\u201d he said, pointing north, closer to the source of the noise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My aloha spirit, put much to the test today, drained away.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve been kicked out of better Quiet Zones than this,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not kicking you out, I\u2019m asking you to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOk, as long as you\u2019re asking, I\u2019ll leave after one more song.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, yeah,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cIs it 20 minutes long?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you take a spin around the pond; I\u2019ll be gone before you get back.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I sang \u201cLittle Grass Shack,\u201d packed up and left, not at all happy about this day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"