1. Too Hot to Hula

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    June 24, 2015 by admin

    Monday’s temperature was in the high 80’s and Tuesday’s broke 90. Nevertheless, properly SPFed, hatted and hydrated, I made my way to the shade of the maple. The crowds were thin. Three men walked by. They stopped to listen, then, after a long negotiation, a dollar appeared and floated into my case. Sometime later, a set of 40-something parents handed their toddler over to me. While the kid and I did the hula, the parents retreated to check their cellphones.

    At the end of the set, I had 2 singles and a penny in my case. The penny was either an accidental contribution stuck to a bill, or a comment from one of the many people who failed to be charmed by my performance.

    The next day started out no better. I checked in on the chestnut tree to see how it was faring. Spikey golfball-sized nuts had formed, looking like World War II mines. Throughout the tree, one or two lobes on every leaf had dark spots caused by the blight.

    The sprinklers were turned on in various sections of the landscape. Children were running through the spray by the white rhododendron to keep cool.

    Center stage was uncontested, but to play there today seemed suicidal. A school group of young adolescents stopped to hula. They came up with $3 of their own money. A man took a video of the complete “Honolulu Eyes,” then dug out 4 quarters for me. A woman from Montreal encouraged her 2 daughters to dance. One of them waved her arms and shook her body, as if possessed, while her sister slowly turned in circles. Four kids from the Bronx did a creditable dance. Passersby stopped to watch, and then, in the purest form of Aloha, a middle-aged woman paid their way with a dollar.

    I felt my bad luck of yesterday had changed when a lady from Louisiana, newly relocated to NYC, had to hula. By the end of the set, I had $14. I took off my hat to wipe my brow and saw that sweat had soaked my hat to within an inch of the top, a plimsoll line of perspiration. And, for good luck, walking under the oak tree just off the path leading back to the fountain, an acorn hit me in the head.

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  2. Central Park Hustlers

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    June 20, 2015 by admin

    Even a couple of days can bring change to the park. Flowering fuschia and begonia have been added to the beds, along with some low-lying yellow flowers I can’t identify. Walking to the fountain, I passed 35 portable toilets rented from a company called Callahead. A carnival was being set up on the mall, with booths for food, games of chance and a merry-go-round. The displaced acrobats had already taken over the western staircase, their boombox music thumping loudly, crowding out all other action on the plaza. Jim, the big bubble man, was packing up. “They kill it for all of us,” he lamented.

    Meta was at her bench on the path, looking rather annoyed. Not only were the acrobats still audible, but more amplified music floated from the restaurant over the lake. The ugly construction fences had come down in the morning, revealing a new rowboat dock built out over the water to create a narrow lagoon. I walked to my spot under the maple and got a better look: a wedding or some other event was taking place. I returned to assure Meta that it didn’t look like The Boathouse music would be permanent competition.

    Two boys with mom and dad were eager to hula. After thanking dad for a $2 tip, I asked, “Where’re y’all from?”

    “Atlanta.”

    “Was that the proper usage of ‘y’all’?” I was assured it was. As they left I said, “Bha.”

    “Has this group got time for a hula today?”

    The kids were wearing tee shirts indicating they came from the Bronx. Their leader hesitated. “Sure,” he finally said, “they gotta learn about getting hustled sooner or later.”

    “No, no, no,” I said, handing out leis. “You’ll see, this is value for money.” At the end of the dance he coughed up $2, looking, I must admit, as if, maybe, he’d been a little bit hustled.

    An older man with his young wife or daughter, a nanny and toddler twins, stopped his entourage in the shade of the mulberry tree in front of me. “Have you got any songs for strapping kids into their carriage?”

    As he lifted them into the 2-seater, he struggled with wiggly legs and arms.

    I started singing, “I can’t give you anything but straps, baby. That and a couple Apple apps, baby.” Click, click and the deed was done. The young woman gave me a buck.

    Two teenage boys selling candy set up on either side of me, one at the crest of the hill, halfway between Meta and me, the other at the bend in the path toward The Boathouse, near the stairs leading under the roadway. They accosted everyone walking toward me from both directions. This hustle too, as Jim said, killed it.

    I considered quitting early when a large group of kids from Southern California came by. Their leader was thrilled to have the kids hula and handed out leis to all who wanted to dance. At the start of “The Hukilau Song,” she danced slowly, urging the kids to stop complaining that they didn’t know how and to follow her. In the end, they did a credible line-dance resembling a hula, close enough to cause a good number of singles to show up in my case. Take that, candy hustlers!

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  3. A Hot Day on Center Stage

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    June 18, 2015 by admin

    Yet another week has gone by before I made it to the park again. A week’s absence reveals great transformations. Golden stelladoro lilies dominate the beds at 72nd Street’s Women’s Gate. A huge lilac-colored spirea bush demarks the transition to small purple celosia, in front of tall, pale pink cleome, backed by dense, deep red roses, their thorny branches rising 8 feet in the air.

    Shade engulfed the entrance to Strawberry Fields, where one of the guitarists sang “If I Fell.”

    At center stage, under the hot sun, I tuned up and sang “Making Love Ukulele Style.” For almost 30 minutes no one seemed to notice me, then a girl rose from the bench where she was sitting with her parents and put a dollar in my case.

    Three girls from Queens did a fine hula, then walked off. Moments later a family from Milwaukee stopped to dance to “The Hukilau Song.” A mom and her 3 daughters knew all the moves; dad took pictures. That was worth a fiver. It had also drawn a crowd.

    Some young children got the idea for another few bucks. At a break in the action, a wise guy from Norway asked me, “Did you lose a bet?”

    A lady taking video of “Honolulu Baby” dropped a fiver, and a young man, who was just walking by, added his dollar to my case. Walking up to me from the bench, a man in his forties asked if I could play “Tiny Bubbles.” He told me that his father, a Vietnam vet, had done R&R in Hawaii, and had seen Don Ho. “Tiny Bubbles” is not in my repertoire, but I faked it well enough to earn a buck.

    A school group from PS 11 in Queens massed at the fountain for a photo. The left flank sat behind my case, so I moved out of the way and waited for them to finish. “How about a song,” one of the teachers shouted to me from the right flank.

    I started singing “My Little Grass Shack” and before long another teacher stepped out of the pack and started to hula. I put a lei around her neck and kept singing. Soon some of the students grabbed leis and before long a riot of hulas broke out. I saw one of the parent-chaperones put a fiver in my case, but the kids put in money too, as did the dancing teacher. I quickly lost count, but upwards of $10 came from this group, lifting the day’s total to $28.61.

    As the kids from PS 11 moved off, another parent/chaperone offered me a banana. I declined, but I did accept her offer to refill my water bottle. During these hot days on center stage, staying hydrated is vital.

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