1. Back to Center Stage

    0

    October 9, 2014 by admin

    I took up my uke at center stage, under a wind-swept October sky. Clouds, some dark with rain, passed in front of the sun, then moved off to the southeast. The crowds were sparse today, only a few people on the stone benches, reading, eating, enjoying an illegal smoke. An elderly woman started me off with a buck and a smile.

    A family of four stopped nearby. Dad gave his young son some money. As he approached to give it to me, I watched the kid unfold two singles and put one in his pocket. I got the other.

    A quartet of young Brazilians danced by. “How about a hula today?”

    One woman looked interested, but she needed encouragement. “Don’t let it rain. A hula will chase away the clouds and bring out the sun. Do it for your friends, do it for yourself.” She danced, and damn if the sun didn’t emerge .

    A 50-something couple strolled down the path toward me. When they got to the benches they sat down and listened to my rendition of “Honolulu Baby.” They were Brits. “Do you know that song?” I asked the man when he made his $2 donation.

    “No,” he said, “but you sure sold it. You’ve got charm.”

    One of the reasons I prefer center stage to my spot on the path under the maple is that people get a chance to hear more than a snippet as they walk by. Another couple of a certain age had been listening for a while before thanking me with a dollar. Two young women took a seat and, between bites of their sandwiches, struck silly poses for each other. It was inevitable that one of them would answer the call of the uke.

    “I don’t know how to hula,” the mocha-skinned California girl told me.

    “Just do what’s comfortable for you,” I said. “No rules.”

    She must have seen people hula, however, because she had all the moves, including the double-time hip action of the natives. Her friend filmed most of “The Hukilau Song,” promising to put it up on Facebook.

    While singing “Ukulele Lady” for the second time, a man in flip-flops and long white hair sat down by the fountain to listen. He introduced himself as Mr. Melody TM, told me he was an international music distributor and asked me if I had any of my own material. When I told him I only played the old songs, he asked me to listen to his latest release; maybe I would cover it. It was called “Riding in the Park,” about horse-drawn carriages. The chorus begins: “Don’t take away our horses, please.”

    My time was up. With $10.12 in my pocket, I considered it a fine day.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: , ,

  2. Aloha Ain’t Always Easy

    0

    October 7, 2014 by admin

    I turned into the park expecting to have another aloha-filled day, but was sorely challenged. A film crew for “Manhattan Love Story,” a new ABC sitcom, had occupied the north end of the plaza and filled it with wooden benches, phony hot dog stands, lights, electronics, booms, cartloads of cables, and all the appurtenances of a professional shoot, including at least 3 young crowd wranglers on my side of the fountain. At the moment I arrived, nothing seemed to be happening.

    “When are you guys starting your shoot?” I asked a bearded man lounging in the sun.

    “I don’t know.”

    “Could you find out? I’ll be making a lot of noise here.”

    “There’s no one to ask, they’re all at lunch.”

    “So when is lunch over?”

    “I don’t know.” In fact, although they were wired with headsets for ease of communications, neither he, nor his 2 colleagues, knew anything for the rest of the afternoon, so I set up on center stage and started my set. An apple-cheeked lady made the first, and only, donation of the day.

    The cast and crew slowly drifted back and took their places around the fountain and on the wooden benches. A number of people limbered up to the sweet sound of my uke. All this activity drew large crowds in need of wrangling. Now armed with signs that asserted the production company’s perpetual right to everyone’s image, the youngsters formed a line to keep people from wandering into frame. I continued to play, encouraging people to dance the hula while they waited for the show to begin.

    After 45 minutes, a harried man in full beard and open work shirt showed up and started directing people. Little by little, the wranglers expanded their perimeter past where I was playing.

    “What are you doing, chasing away my audience?”

    “You can’t stay here,” ordered a tall young girl in a turquoise sweatshirt. I suppressed my first few responses, worked to summon the aloha spirit. Before I could respond civilly, however, she ran off to stop some Italian bicyclists from riding through the set.

    A 40-something man, looking very official, stopped to talk. He explained what was going on and asked if there was somewhere else I could play. “Yes,” I said, “I understand. Maybe you could give me a little tip?” indicating my case.

    “What did you have in mind?”

    “How about $20,” I said, naming the sum other film crews had given me to go away.

    “We can do better than that,” he said. “Just wait here a few minutes while I get a W-9 for you to sign. In the meantime, go ahead and play. I like your music; I’m trying to convince them to put you in the scene.”

    When the assistant director called “Action,” I put down my uke and watched as the actors wandered in front of the wooden benches, apparently randomly, while the boom-mounted camera swooped and dove to get the shot. This flash mob then aligned for an energetic dance, all mitout sound (MOS). At “cut,” they cheered and high-fived themselves before gathering to hear what the director had to say about their performance.

    I took up my uke and doggedly resumed my requests for hula, in vain. The crowd was thick around me; where was that guy with my money?

    After a second take, I asked the wranglers if they knew who that guy was who spoke to me.

    “What guy?” I explained, and the girl in turquoise said, “We’re not paying you. Just get out of here.”

    “No need to be unpleasant,” I managed to say, struggling to keep aloha in my heart.

    After another take, I approached a young woman who appeared to be a little higher up in the pecking order. She heard me out, then said, “Ok, I’ll talk to the location manager right after the next take.”

    It had been more than 30 minutes since I’d been promised some money, and I was starting to wonder if I’d been had. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to stay calm, and I worried, knowing myself, that I might become loudly disruptive of the whole production. Finally, a young woman approached with a stack of W-9s. “Dave will be here in a minute,” she told me. “We need the form to prove we didn’t just spend the money on ourselves.”

    As I filled out the form, Dave arrived and handed me a crisp 50. “His name is Dave,” I shouted to the wranglers. “Get in the loop.”

    The young woman then asked if she could take a picture of me and my uke, additional documentation, I suspect, in support of the W-9. I shook hands with her and Dave, put my uke back in the case and exited the crowd. Feeling rather upset by the whole experience, despite the happy outcome, it occurred to me that ALOHA spelled backward is A-HOLA.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags:

  3. Memory and Tradition

    0

    October 4, 2014 by admin

    The saxophone blared from center stage, simulating laughter with a reedy run in thirds down the scale, before breaking into “The Girl from Ipanema.” Two caricature artists worked the rise in the path, a painter sold his park scenes at the crest, and I set up at my usual spot, under the towering maple. The day was warm, the sky cloudless blue.

    A German girl was the first to drop a dollar in my case. “Haben Sie die Zeit für eine Hulatanzen heute?” She did not.

    Two Swiss men had been rowing on the lake, heard me singing, and wanted to give me a dollar. I often get reaction from folks in boats, a wave or a smile, but rarely does anyone seek me out afterward. Once, several years ago, a young woman asked me to play “Honolulu Baby.” She knew that I knew the song because she’d heard me singing it when she was on the lake a few days before. I had revived a favorite memory of her grandmother singing it while bouncing her on her knee.

    A short-haired southern lady with a backpack hurried by, gave me a buck, and wished me a wonderful day.

    About a dozen pre-teen girls came noisily up the path. I asked their leader, a thin, middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed beard, if they had time for a hula.

    “Have we got time for a hula?” he asked. The response was a boisterous affirmative. They danced to 3 verses of the “The Hukilau Song,” passing the leis to each other between verses so everyone had a chance to wear one. The leader gave a fiver to one of the girls to drop in my case. “The group I brought last year did the hula too; it’s getting to be a tradition.”

    Next up was an Australian family, with a young boy who tried to hula, but only managed to move his shoulders up and down. Dad gave him some coins for me. When they’d gone, I peeked into my case to see a quarter and a penny among the folding money. I also looked at my watch, which I keep in my case, and was amazed to see that my 90 minute set was over.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: , ,

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Archives