1. Better than Average

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    July 19, 2015 by admin

    Thursday dawned to reveal clear blue skies, low humidity, cool breezes; it was a beautiful day for a hula. Other people thought so too. The park was mobbed. I rushed past the red and pink begonias, past the cone flowers and cosmos. Behind the mass of color were fire red fuschia, in front deep purple heliotrope. On the sides, lantana in yellow, red and orange.

    A new guy sang out “Let It Be” at the Imagine Mosaic; at the end of the bench an older man sold cold water, “a dollar less than the hot dog man.” The pods on the catalpa are almost 2 feet long.

    I set up on center stage, i.e. the east end of the fountain, and opened with “Making Love Ukulele Style,” followed by “Sunday,” “Fit as a Fiddle,” and “I Saw Stars,” then returning to the Hawaiian theme with “Ukulele Lady.” I noted attention, amusement, acceptance building up around me. I convinced a young man taking a picture to hula. A couple of teens talked each other into a dance. I didn’t mind the walk-aways; they gave others the idea.

    My first contribution came from a man just walking by. Then a German-speaking 6-year-old stopped, transfixed. “Wollen Sie der Hula tanzen?” Tanz she did, swaying from side to side while she flapped her hands uncertainly.

    Another little girl planted her feet near me and laid her dollar in my case. “Would you like to hula?” “Oh, yes.” A man in a matching tie-dyed shirt was standing by the lake. “Is that your Dad over there? Make sure its ok with him.” It was.

    A blonde mom parked her stroller a few feet in front of me. A toddler stood tethered to one side while his 4-year-old sister stared at me, absorbed, on the other. I ran through a few songs, got the kids bopping a bit. Mom dug around in a bag on the stroller. It was either money for me, or a cellphone. The odds were 10-1 against me. It was sunblock. Through another few songs, mom goopped up the kids, then away went the sunblock, out came the wallet with $2 for me.

    A dozen or so teenage girls from Argentina were up next, followed by another group from Spain. When both sets of dancers walked away, a 20-something man stepped up with a couple bucks. The cold water man from Strawberry Fields set up shop in the shade in front of me, calling out “agua frio, agua frio.” A single here, a single there floated into my case. It was shaping up to be a wonderful day on all counts. Now 3 women each gave me a dollar. “How much for the lei?” one asked. “Can’t sell them,” I said. “These are my means of production.”

    At the end of the set, I counted $16 in my case, a better than average sum on a better than average day.

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  2. Another Hot One

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    July 9, 2015 by admin

    Today, a tee shirt vendor has replaced the Sabrett hot dog man at the entrance to the park at W. 72nd St. Hot dogs had always been more expensive at this location, $3 compared to $2.50 inside the park. When I asked the hot dog man about it, he told me his monthly rent was $10,000 – that’s a lot of hot dogs. This year hot dogs are $3 everywhere.

    It’s hotter than yesterday. A Japanese Katsura tree at the entrance to Strawberry Fields looks stressed, its heart-shaped leaves browning in the sun. The guitarist sings “Let It Be.” At Bethesda Fountain, an accordion has replaced John Boyd’s family singers. He had to have gotten up pretty early in the morning to do that.

    Once again, I sought the shade. The doo-wop singers had already set up by the boathouse. I launched into “Making Love Ukulele Style,” and immediately got a dollar from a 60-something, like me.

    It was a day for families and pleasant conversation. First a family with 4 girls, from 6 to 16. They got a line-dance hula going. The oldest guided her young sisters, while mom sat behind, on the rock, and dad took some photos. He was an optometrist from Sherman Oaks, CA. He too had a pension, he told me, and couldn’t wait to retire like me and have nothing to do all day but seek his bliss.

    “Are these all yours? That must be quite a pension.”

    He laughed. “Four daughters, how expensive can that be?”

    A man from Norway stopped to tell me his son had just started to learn to play the ukulele. I handed the instrument to the pre-teen boy. “Let’s see what you can do.” He was indeed a beginner, laboring over D-G-A7-D. I helped him along, giving him tips his father translated.

    The doo-wop dancers got chased away by the park rangers. According to the optometrist, who gathered his information on a trip to the bathrooms with a couple of daughters, the group had been blocking the path. More probably, the restaurant had complained; Meta and her inoffensive harp, after all, had also been rousted from that spot.

    An Italian family replaced the California family, this one with 3 young children. While 2 daughters did the hula, a toddler boy kept picking up my watch from out of my case and slipping it on his wrist. Dad took it off, put it back, and the kid swiped it again. At the end of the “The Hukilau Song” I took a quick inventory; everything was there, including $6.15 in donations.

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  3. It’s Nice to be Back

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    July 8, 2015 by admin

    I returned to the park after Independence Day; it was brutally hot. Strawberry Fields, however, was in deep shade. At either end of the mosaic area, men were doing a brisk business selling cold water, while the guitarist played “Norwegian Wood,” a song I always associate with saunas. Across the road, sprinklers cooled the feet of Daniel Webster. There were pods on the catalpa.

    I walked across the plaza, taking little note of the amplification at one end and the blues ensemble at the other. Under the shade of the maple tree, with a light breeze off the lake, I set up shop. Right off the bat I spied a YMCA group from Chinatown. The counselor went to the hukilau, but none of the kids joined in. Instead, a lei passed from one kid to the next until a girl wouldn’t touch it, and it fell to the ground. We quit after one verse and the counselor gave me a dollar. The girl gave me 2 quarters.

    A jazz trio, consisting of bass, guitar and sax, set up near the boathouse. Four men lined up in front of them, while a fifth, in a white homburg, tap-danced on the path. The men sang in close doo-wop-style harmony. I watched as they worked the crowd; there was hand-clapping and foot-stomping. Two little girls dressed in colorful skirts twirled with the music. I worried I’d lost my target audience.

    “Have you got time for a hula today?” I expected they were danced out, but the 2 little girls in the colorful skirts wanted nothing more than to hula. Their patient parents reached into their wallets again.

    A young man with an English accent gave me a dollar. “You made me smile,” he said. A woman told me I had a good voice. It was her first time in New York; she asked for a New York song, so I faked my way through “The Sidewalks of New York.” I asked a photographer to hula for his picture. He did, and we were both happy. A teenager wished he could give me more than a quarter.

    I looked around to see that I’d outlasted the jazz dancers. It must be tough to split the take 8 ways. I ended my set with “My Little Grass Shack.” Counting my money afterward, I was delighted to find a fiver someone had slipped by me. That brought the total to a perfectly respectable $12.75. Then came the cherry on the Sundae: two people, who had been sitting on the rock behind me, walked up while I was zipping my case and each handed me a dollar. Aloha, New York.

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