‘Uncategorized’ Category
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Rained Out Farewell Tour
0October 17, 2019 by admin
It had been more than a month since I’d gone a-busking, the events of life having intervened. If I didn’t go again soon, winter will have sidelined me until the first nice day in spring. So yesterday, when the temperature rose above 60 degrees, despite the predictions for a nor’easter, I headed for Bethesda Fountain, for what I thought of as my Farewell Tour.
It really was a crummy day. A cold, moist wind nearly took my hat off on West End Avenue. Gomphrena, God bless it, stood tall and colorful behind the benches and in front of the rose bushes covered in hips. I spied 2 wild rose flowers blooming in the underbrush, beside the last remaining wild asters. The button man was gone. Along the path to the fountain, spirea bushes flashed foamy white bouquets. The western wood anemone had burned up, but the eastern had escaped the thuggish jewelweed and seemed to have reestablished itself 10 feet off the path at the base of a boulder.
The wind was wet and heavy. I wondered if I’d even get to the fountain before it rained.
NOW PRESENTING ON CENTER STAGE, MR. UKULELE
There was no one around. What people there were kept looking up, at the clouds rolling in from the northeast. The flagpole pullies banged against the metal poles, as if sending out a warning.
A 40-something woman stood at the benches and fumbled in her purse. Instead of her cellphone or a handkerchief, she pulled out her wallet. I was not disappointed, there was a dollar in there for me.
A man, walking with his wife and friend, rushed up to me for a picture. “You must wear this,” I instructed him, “I have to protect my brand.”
A kid of 10 or so approached respectfully with a dollar and laid it in my case. “Thank you,” I said as he hurried away. He stopped and said quietly, “You’re welcome,” as if English were not his native language.
A light drizzle started during “Tiptoe through the Tulips.” I sang:
Knee-deep in flowers we’ll stray.
We’ll keep the showers away.
And they stayed away for another few tunes. A sonorous thunderclap, however, signaled time to go. I had played for 50 minutes and made $3, covering senior subway fare home, avant le deluge.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Tiptoe through the Tulips
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Mr. Ukulele Loses His Aloha Again
0September 11, 2019 by admin
On an overcast Tuesday, I set up in Bethesda Fountain and immediately snagged a man and 2 women from Lebanon and Dubai. The man informed me he’d been to Hawaii but had never hula-ed. One of the women said, “It’s easy, just pretend you are the ocean waves.”
“Exactly.” I took them through 2 verses of “The Hukilau Song.” During the second verse, one of the women broke through the constraints of the traditional hula, and, arms flailing, pranced around the others with abandon. When they’d returned the leis, I looked down to find a fiver in my case.
A man off the bench gave me a dollar.
Then I heard the accordion, and my aloha spirit was replaced with a low-level rage. It was the Italian man who’d cursed me out last time I’d asked him not to set up so close to me. ( http://www.mrukulele.com/?p=1092(opens in a new tab)). Before I had a chance to consider what, if anything, to do about him, I was in his face. “We’ve talked about this before,” I began. “When you see me playing, you move somewhere else. You don’t set up on top of me.”
He sputtered something in Italian. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.” More Italian. I turned my back and returned to my spot. I strummed out some chord patterns until I regained my composure, then began singing “Making Love Ukulele Style.” By the time I finished, the accordionist was gone.
Two little kids came off the bench, each holding a handful of coins to toss in my case. Neither wanted to hula.
The rain clouds churned overhead. A few drops hit the ground, but the sun soon burned through; all those who had stood up to leave sat down again.
A 50-something woman came forward with a dollar. “Why don’t you play something Hawaiian?”
“Are you from Hawaii?”
“Yes.”
I reached for a lei. “How about you hula to ‘The Hukilau Song?’”
“No, no, no,” she said, taking a few steps backward. “I don’t dance.”
At the end of my set, I stuffed $8.06 in my pocket. On my way out of the park I saw the Italian accordionist, sitting on his stool, wheezing out the “Theme from the Godfather.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song, Theme from the Godfather
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The Nick of Time
0September 10, 2019 by admin
The signs of the approaching autumn are multiplying: red crabapples are ripening on Central Park West; orange hips cover the rose bushes; spiky red dogwood fruit hangs above the button-seller’s head. The gomphrena continues to dominate behind the benches, plush purple buttons slowly swaying on tall stems. The only real color in Strawberry Fields comes from the pink dog roses across the path from the peace-loving peoples’ plaque. Next year’s magnolia flowers are locked up in 2-inch buds that will survive the winter.
The Italian accordion player and the jazz violinist had Bethesda Fountain to themselves; I moved on to the maple. A Croatian family on bicycles stopped to ask directions to the Bow Bridge. The 20-something daughter interpreted for her parents. “My father wants to know where you are from,” she said.
“Here. New York.”
“Your father then”
“New Jersey.”
“His father?”
“Eastern Europe. Near Kiev, which was part of tsarist Russia.”
“My father is from Ukraine,” she said.
The father gave me a dollar. “I love New York,” he said.
A Japanese man carrying a bass viol on his back stopped to listen to me. Between songs he asked me about my repertoire; as it turned out, he too played the old songs. By another stroke of luck, we were in tune. We played “Sunny Side of the Street” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” He was a busker in Tokyo and had come to the U.S. for the Detroit jazz festival. The bass was a rental.
After our 2 numbers, I directed him to the fountain and to other busking locations. Resuming my solo act, I played for another 30 minutes and only received another dollar from a passerby.
“There’re lots of people at the fountain,” the big bubble man told me on his way to the boathouse bathrooms to pee and refill his bucket.
Taking his advice, I moved my gear. The change of venue did nothing to change my luck. It was looking again as if I wouldn’t make carfare. As I started my final number, “Little Grass Shack,” a 40-something woman walked by and put me over with a dollar.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Little Grass Shack, Sunny Side of the Street
