1. A New Season

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    September 11, 2014 by admin

    I’d call it a perfect September morning. The humidity was low and the air felt cool despite temperatures in the 70’s. There were many fewer pedicabs lined up at the Women’s Gate, and many fewer rowboats available for rent. I looked forward to a day in the sun.

    Things looked good as I turned toward the fountain. I heard John Boyd’s group, as usual, but no one else seemed to be busking. The closer I approached, however, the more clearly I heard classical guitar music coming from a tape recorder. On the stone bench, on my stage, so to speak, sat a dark-haired man, leaning closely over a puppet about 18” high. The puppet was dressed like a toreador, and the man manipulated its arms to the music. This was a new one. Doesn’t he know amplification is forbidden in the park? Where are the park police when you need them?

    I set up on the path, turned my face to the clear blue sky, and sang my songs. After an overlong while, a Hispanic man and his wife put a dollar in my case. I invited them to hula, but they had no idea what I said, so I acted it out. We all had a good laugh as they walked on.

    Maggie and her master stopped to chat. Maggie is the scottie who likes to sit at my feet and listen, often at great length. Her master and I praised the day, remembered days past, and contemplated days to come. “In honor of the start of football season,” I said as introduction, and started to play “You’ve Got to Be a Football Hero.” A new tune for me, it was a little ragged, but I got through it. Maggie’s master pulled out a crumpled dollar and tossed it in my case. Altogether, over the years, he’s probably given me 5-6 bucks.

    A lady in overalls and a straw hat, hauling a backpack, dropped a dollar as she quickly walked by; she was gone before I could ask her to hula. In fact, there were no hulas at all today.

    An old man with a scraggly gray beard laboriously walked by, then came back and leaned against the wire fence nearby. In a baseball cap and dungarees, he seemed to enjoy the music. I saw him smiling at my strategies to get people to hula. He sang along to “Tiptoe through the Tulips.” When a family of Orthodox Jews strolled by, and the father tossed a coin in my case, the old man looked over to see the shiny quarter on top of the singles.

    A parks department worker came by pushing a spewing and coughing double-wide power mower. He stopped right in front of me and opened the fence. “I’m just going to do this little piece here,” he told me. I looked at my watch; it was time to go anyway.

    As I picked up my $3.25 and stuffed it into my breast pocket, the old man came forward with a dollar. Without a word, he put it in my case and walked away.

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  2. Another Tough Day

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    September 6, 2014 by admin

    It started well enough. I had center stage, which at 11:30 was still in shade. I began with “Making Love Ukulele Style,” moved through the C-major medley of “Sunday,” “Fit as a Fiddle” and “I Saw Stars,” and ended with “Ukulele Lady.” As I’m playing, a couple of twenty-somethings sit down near me, then a couple more. They weren’t there to do the hula – I checked. They were there to practice a flash mob for tomorrow, when someone was going to propose to someone else.

    “Is this going to take long?”

    “Oh, no, just a few minutes. Go ahead and play, it won’t bother us.”

    The mob had swollen to 25-30 people; they were swarming all around me, in loud conversation with themselves. I had become inaudible as well as invisible. Finally, they lined up, paired off, and followed their slim blonde leader through their number. It had Broadway choreography, high kicks, 2, 3, swing, dip, 2, 3, hop, hop, hula. I sat down in the shade and waited for it to end.

    “So, is that it?” I asked when they took a break, knowing full well it wasn’t. “You’re killing me,” I told one of them. “How about moving this thing over there?” I motioned toward the Arcade, where the sacred singers sung. Slowly the mob moved off.

    I had 2 contributors today, both teenage men, a 14-15 year-old who said he liked uke music but didn’t himself play, and an 18-19 year-old, who gave me $2 and danced with his friend for Margie’s birthday. Margie got a good laugh, but would not join in.

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  3. Aloha Oy

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    September 5, 2014 by admin

    There are good days, there are bad days, and there are days like Thursday.

    The space north and east of the fountain was paved with plywood. A few folding tables were scattered about; there was a tented area in the NE corner, and a generator parked by the path. A couple of guys were milling around; this was no place to set up.

    I kept going, past Nick, to my spot under the maple. As I unpacked, however, I heard the echoing blare of a saxophone. It came from under the bridge to the east and could not be ignored. So I tried moving westward up the path, but the sax just mocked me. “Saxophones, trumpets and drums should be outlawed,” Arlen once told me, adding, “and ukuleles.”

    I set up on the westernmost edge of the path, just as it entered Bethesda Terrace. For the first hour of my set, the dismantling of the plywood stage proceeded apace. Three guys stacked the wood onto a forklift, which then drove the load right past me. I sucked in my gut as it rolled by. “Don’t worry about that guy, he’s cool,” I heard the forklift driver say to his flagman, referring, I do believe, to me. It took 3 round trips to clear the area.

    My first and only dollar came from a woman rushing by who said, “I’m going tomorrow, to Hawaii.” She was gone before I could ask her if she’d like to brush up on her hula before she got there.

    While I packed up, a couple of EMTs strolled past the fountain to the lake. They were dressed in heavy clothes and boots with lots of metal devices hanging from their belts. With their hands on their hips, faces uplifted, they invited the cooling breezes. No one I could see looked sick.

    Such was not the case at the Imagine Mosaic. One of the homeless guys was stretched out in a stupor. The joke man shook him, saying, “Michael, you gotta get up. Wake up, man,” while 2 EMTs stood by, and another 2 talked quietly with a few of the regulars. Out on the road among the pedicabs, 2 FDNY vehicles idled in wait.

    On balance, I was lucky to get out of there alive.

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