1. Third Day in a Row

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    August 8, 2015 by admin

    The weekend seemed to come early at Bethesda Fountain Friday. In one corner was an electric keyboard playing cool jazz at respectful, if still illegal, volume. The rhythm and blues cowboy was in another. A couple of kids, working things out on guitars, staked out the space on the west side of the fountain. John Boyd and his orchestra occupied the Arcade. (I call it an orchestra now because he’s added a piano.) If I’d wanted to join this circus, I’d have to do it from a rowboat.

    Things were more sedate under the maple. I played for a long while without a nibble; I sang to the warm blue sky and the puffy white clouds skittering behind the towers of the San Remo on Central Park West. I sang to the solar-powered hula girl on the asphalt next to my case. “Honolulu Baby,” “Honolulu Eyes.”

    A Spanish girl made her friends stop so she could hula. She gave me $1. A short while later, a mother and her teen-aged daughter happily went to the hukilau. The mother gave me $2, but she didn’t answer when I asked her where she was from. It did seem this week as if all New Yorkers had left town.

    A young couple from New Orleans, he South Asian, she wearing a mezuzah, had time for a hula. She gave me a dollar.

    A portly man from the heartland challenged me, “Can you play ‘The Hawaiian Wedding Song?’” I, of course, could, and did. He softly sang along, nodding approval to his daughter, who was not quite scowling, and to his wife, who was. They knew what was coming. “Now, can you sing it in Hawaiian?” He was holding back the dollar bill he’d fished out of his wallet.

    “No, but I’ve got a feeling you can.”

    He gave me the dollar and walked off triumphant, singing, “Eia au ke kali nei.”

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  2. A Quiet Afternoon

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    August 7, 2015 by admin

    There was something serene about the park on Thursday. Strangely, not a single pedicab idled at the Women’s Gate. The Imagine Mosaic seemed to have fewer visitors than usual. The homeless guitarist played “Here Comes the Sun.” The chicka-chicka sound of sprinklers could be heard from Strawberry Fields to Cherry Hill.

    At Bethesda Fountain, the rhythm and blues guitarist with the leather Stetson, music stand and illegal amplifier, was back. Jim, the big bubble man, told me the park rangers chase him away, and he comes back 5 minutes later. Meta played the harp at the end of the bench on the path to The Boathouse. A caricature artist had beat me to my spot, under the English Mulberry, directly across from my maple. Adjudging that he was not exactly a busker, so I was not exactly setting up on him — an unforgivable infraction of busker etiquette — I moved as far from him as I could without giving up the shade, which really wasn’t very far.

    For the first 50 minutes, nobody paid any attention to me; all eyes turned to the portrait in progress. Then a well-dressed woman, in pearls and heels, insisted on a hula. The man she was with kept walking, but, at some point in “The Hukilau Song,” he came back and started taking pictures. After the second verse, he opened his wallet and grudgingly dropped 2 singles in my case. The woman, delighted, kissed me on the cheek.

    Next came a young au pair and her 2 towheaded charges. She was very interested in getting an ukulele for herself, so she could sing with the children. She took a picture of the label inside my uke, Lanikai LU-21T, crafted in China. We discussed prices, tuning, and the joys of aloha. “Boy, this was a real education, definitely worth a tip,” she said, forking over $2.

    Toward the end of my set, a family of 4 from Wall, NJ, mom, dad and 2 grown boys in their late teens or early 20’s, asked for a picture. I put a lei around the taller boy’s neck; he fluffed his long black hair over it. “I saw you here last year,” said the boy, whose name was Nick. “I was hoping I’d see you again.”

    “He just this minute said something,” said dad. “‘I wonder if the ukulele man is here.’ And here you are. Smile,” he said, taking the picture.

    “Mahalo,” I said, acknowledging the $2 he put in my case. “See you next year.”

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  3. Of Things Canadian

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    August 6, 2015 by admin

    Finally, low humidity and my busy schedule cooperated, drawing me back to the park. I was not the only one; Meta was playing her harp on the bench on the path. An amped guitarist with a music stand had set up at the fountain, so I stopped to chat with her on my way to my maple.

    “Have you been out in this heat?” she asked. “I haven’t worked in 3 weeks. I just got back from Montreal. It was a lot cooler there.”

    As it happened, the first people to stop for me were 2 girls from the Canadian Plains, neither of whom had ever seen the ocean. They talked each other into a hula, then walked away before I could ascertain what province they were from.

    A French mom and daughter (or perhaps they too were Canadian) stopped to listen to “Honolulu Eyes.” The mom danced and gave me a dollar; the daughter shrank with embarrassment.

    An overweight hipster, laden with cameras, dropped a buck as he raced by. Later, a couple stopped to examine the paraphernalia in my case. It turned out he spoke German. We chatted haltingly auf Deutsch before his wife took him by the elbow and pulled him away.

    A large group, in blue tee shirts, stopped to hula. They were from a Bronx day camp. I sang both verses of “The Hukilau Song” so everyone had a chance at a lei. A little girl of 5 or 6 pulled on my sleeve. “Mister,” she said, showing me the quarter she was giving me.

    A young couple from Boston danced, and walked away. A wise-guy made a big show of giving me 7 pennies.

    Meta, done for the day, pushed her harp on wheels past me, then stopped to chat. “Let me know next time you go to Montreal,” she offered. “My kids showed me all these wonderful local places of interest. Really cool stuff.”

    “I went to New Brunswick with a friend over 40 years ago to see the tidal bore on the Bay of Fundy,” I said. “Moncton, I think. The bore was disappointing, but a local guide book sent us to.…”

    “Magnetic Hill?” “Yes, Magnetic Hill.” “Magnetic Hill, I can’t believe it.” She raised her hand for a high-five. “My father loved to go there. He’d put the car in neutral, take his foot off the brake, and up the hill we’d go. Over and over.”

    With that memory, off she went. I went too, in the other direction, wondering how much today’s $3.32 was in Canadian.

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