1. Another Hot One

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    August 6, 2014 by admin

    As I turn into the park I’m greeted by the usual mix of bicycle rickshaws, hot dog vendors, tour groups getting return bus instructions, button salesmen. A second crop of roses and cosmos are budding behind the benches. It’s another hot one; I don’t even think about center stage.

    Four Chinese teenagers stopped to watch. One of them asked to play my uke. He worked out a few chords and they all started singing. It was a Russian tune, or so I was told by the New York couple who leaned lazily against the fence and proudly watched the Chinese kids totally take over my gig. The couple were hosts for a program called “Impact,” one goal of which is to explore the world in the spirit of spontaneity and creativity. “You’re perfect for our purposes,” the woman told me. Retrieving my uke, I didn’t let them leave without a hula.

    The candy boys from Jersey City were out again today. One of them shook his fist, as if shaking dice, then rolled 76 cents into my case. For the rest of my set, whenever they walked by hawking candy bars, one or more would give me a high-five or fist-bump.

    A Brazilian woman danced the hula, then walked away. This is not surprising behavior; there is no tradition of tipping street artists in Brazil. A more common walk-away are the people who assiduously avoid eye contact, then, as soon as they pass and can no longer see me, joyfully hula down the path, as if invisible.

    Two kids did the hula. “Look, mom, look,” they called, but mom was leaning into her cellphone, her back turned. Dad took a picture, but, by the end of the first verse, all enthusiasm had evaported, so I brought the “The Hukilau Song” mercifully to an end. The parents turned and walked away, the kids running after them.

    At the end of my set, I squatted to count out $7.76 in my case. Someone came running up to me. The girl who could not get her mother’s attention had managed to get a dollar for me. Aloha.

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  2. Mid-Season

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    August 1, 2014 by admin

    The last day in July is another gem. The homeless man is singing “All You Need Is Love” at Strawberry Fields. The chestnut leaves, as expected, are starting to brown from blight. Across the road, past Daniel Webster and the hot dog stand, the pods on the catalpa trees are 18” long. There is the usual commotion up on the mall, where the acrobats whip up the crowd, but all is quiet at Bethesda Fountain. I keep on going; one day a week in the sun is sufficient.

    A couple stopped to chat. He was from Ireland, County Galway; she was from Jersey City. “I’ll give you a dollar if you play something Irish,” he said.

    I faked a couple of bars of “The Harp Which Once Through Tara’s Halls.”

    Satisfied, he reached for his wallet. “We used to sing that in school when we were little kids,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve heard it since.”

    A couple of Portuguese girls stopped to hula. One of them showed me how much she’d learned to play the uke from the internet.

    No sooner had I taken the leis from the Portuguese girls than I heard a cry of delight. “Oh, look, it’s the hula man. Remember me?” asked a dark-haired twenty-something. “From Beirut? I still have the video.” While she searched her backpack for her camera/phone, she made the introductions. “This is my sister and my cousin and her friend from Queens. Let’s hula.” She pressed some buttons then handed the camera off to her cousin’s friend.

    “What did we dance to before?” I asked.

    “Hukihukihuki,” she said, handing out the leis. So this time we danced to “My Little Grass Shack.”

    “I come every year,” she said, while her cousin dropped a fiver. “I see you next year, ok?”

    Aloha to that. A young man told me as he walked by that I was the best yet. I presume he meant best busker and thanked him for the compliment, which was all he had to give. A group of Italians, who did not have time for a hula yesterday, were back today with time to kill. A gay guy in a porkpie hat did a languorous hula for his friends. Add a couple of toddler hulas, and before you can say humahumanukunukuapua’a there was over $16 in my case.

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