1. A Rare Saturday

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    May 31, 2015 by admin

    It’s a rare Saturday that I go to the park. The crowds are fierce; I have to excuse myself many times to get through the scrum taking selfies around the Strawberry Fields sign. One homeless guitarist screams at another homeless guitarist about who plays next and for how long. The regular order of weekdays has broken down. Sunbathers on their blankets and towels dot the lawns; people picnic under every tree. As I walk toward the fountain, I hear far more English than on weekdays; New Yorkers have crowded out the tourists.

    The south face of the catalpa is in full bloom, while the north side is still largely showing little green berry-like buds and the occasional white floret, tinged pink in the center. White dogwood blossoms float like kites above the green leaf clusters. Rhododendrons bloom pink in the shade of the stone staircase. The azaleas are kaput.

    I set up in the heat of center stage. My first contribution was 26 cents, same as yesterday. Later, when I mentioned the coincidence to friends, they pointed out that a large regular coffee at Starbucks is $2.74, putting a quarter and a penny change in more pockets than I’d realized.

    “Have you got time for a hula today?” The young couple was eager, having just returned from their honeymoon on Maui. At the end of “The Hukilau Song” they returned the leis, patted their pockets and shrugged that they had come out without any money. “Don’t worry about it,” I said, draping the leis over the back of my case.

    During my rendition of “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” I noticed that a woman sitting at the fountain to my right was singing along to the first verse, but got lost in the second. When we talked, she told me how much she liked the Nina Simone version released in 1958. In that recording, the second verse features Liz Taylor and Lana Turner, updated for time and gender from the original Gus Kahn lyric written for Eddie Cantor in 1930, featuring John Gilbert and Ronald Coleman. My 2015 rewrite features George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

    The woman was from Argentina, in New York with her sister. Would I be willing to sing a duet with her for her daughter back home? And so we did, twice in fact, because the sister had trouble with the video recorder on her smart phone. That was worth a fiver.

    A short time later, a family came by with a 3-year old who wanted to hula. The child waved his arms with a determined intensity, sucking in his lower lip in concentration. Grandpa rewarded me with a $2 bill, the first I’d received in the 8 years I’ve been busking. Now I’d been given at least one of every denomination from 1 to 100.

    Adding to the chaos, the troupe of acrobats had colonized the western staircase and were whipping up the crowd with loud music from their boom box, and with clapping and chants. I ignored the commotion as I finished my set with “My Little Grass Shack.” Although tomorrow, Sunday, also promises wonderful busking weather, I’m done with weekends for a while.

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  2. Love the School Groups

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    May 30, 2015 by admin

    Where the bulbs had been grubbed, a park employee was busy planting out cleomes and cosmos from flats driven in from the greenhouses. The plants were already 18-24 inches high and showing little white and pink petals.

    A wedding party of 2 dozen or so was gathered at the fountain. As I got closer, I spotted Meta sitting unhappily on her bench while groomsmen and bridesmaids milled around as if she weren’t there. I kept moving toward my spot on the path. Barriers blocked the way to the Boathouse, forcing people to walk across the lawn to get there. Almost all the foot traffic was from west to east.

    The day started with 26 cents from the pocket of a thirty-something. Shortly afterward, another young man emptied his pocket of change, then a third. A mixed group of high-schoolers from Louisiana, Kansas, and other exotic states, stopped to hula. Their leader reminded them that buskers, like canoes, are often tipped. Soon all those dimes and quarters were buried beneath a blanket of crumpled singles.

    Another school group in blue tee shirts stopped to hula. A mid-teen girl said, “I don’t know how to hula.” I pointed to one of my props, a 4 inch high solar-powered plastic hula girl, and said, “Just move like that.” The hula girl had a hinge at the shoulders, so that when her rigid body moved over a magnet one way, the shoulders moved in the opposite direction. And so the girl, feet together, legs stiff, arms outstretched, mimicked the toy’s action.

    I burst out laughing, stopped playing “The Hukilau Song,” and gave a quick demonstration. Now the girl mimicked me. At the end of the dance, the pile of bills rose still higher, with a few bucks contributed by the kids, a few more by their teacher, and even more by the principal.

    Groups of kids are great fun. They often start out shy and reluctant (“Not me”), escalate to teasing (“But she will”), and end up negotiating (“I will if you will”). Pretty soon a handful of kids have leis around their necks and are off to the hukilau.

    Meta walked by pushing her harp on wheels. “I lost the shade,” she said. For a moment I contemplated moving to center stage, but given the time I’d spent in the sun yesterday, I stayed under my maple, cooled by the breeze off the water.

    After 90 minutes, I counted 19 singles and a few dollars in change, amounting to another fine day.

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  3. A Hot Day in May

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    May 29, 2015 by admin

    It’s been more than a week since my last trip to Central Park. In that time, all the bulbs have been grubbed out of the beds. The chestnut blossoms have shriveled, and the catalpa blossoms have just started to form. For most of the walk to Bethesda Fountain, the park was a monochromatic green, broken by the occasional pink rosa rugosa.

    At the fountain, Jim the bubble man was packing up his buckets and ropes. “What’s going on today?” he asked. It was a hot, humid day; people quickly crossed the plaza to get from one shaded spot to another. “Nothing today, absolutely nothing,” he shrugged. “Maybe the heat, maybe the holiday weekend.”

    Meta wasn’t there. She doesn’t play in the heat because she can’t keep her harp in tune. John Boyd and his crew had also taken the day off, for the first time in memory.

    I set up in center stage. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

    “I don’t, but he does,” said a woman walking with a small group, all dressed in black tee shirts. She pointed out a rather large man. He said he was from California, not Hawaii. The woman, perhaps not wanting to disappoint, took a lei and said, “I’m ready when you are.”

    A pregnant mom stopped to let her toddler dance, a slow, precise waving of arms. “Only in New York,” said the mom, handing a dollar to her daughter for me. A boy, walking by, put another dollar in my case. A young couple sitting by the fountain watched the show. When they got up to leave, I offered them a hula, but they weren’t interested. Then they stopped, the man’s back to me; a discussion, rummaging in pockets and backpacks, soon produced $3.01.

    A Chinese teenager approached with a dollar in his hand. “This is from the 2 ladies over there,” he said, pointing them out in the shade. I tipped my hat. “I’ve started to learn the ukulele,” he told me. “I hope someday to be here too so I can attract girls.”

    A large school group from Killington found time for a dance. “In what grade do they teach the hula in Vermont?” The kids howled. “How about skiing?” Not that either. The kids dumped an unknown quantity of change in my case.

    I had thought that after 30 minutes in the sun, I’d move to the shade, but I was doing so well, I kept postponing the moment. With only 15 minutes left in my set, I stayed put, singing my songs pretty much to myself. A random young man or old lady gave me money, a smile, a hula-lite hip waggle. I had a $16.16 day, proving that the hula is mightier than the bubble.

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