1. Good Day/Bad Behavior

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    October 12, 2016 by admin

    Another cool morning developed into another beautiful day. Behind the benches, a single rose bloomed high atop a singularly aggressive branch. The dogwood fruit, pink and spiky, hung over the button seller’s head. The guitarist at the mosaic sang “In My Life.” Where the art seller lounged with a book on a plastic beach chair, the electric guitarist sat on the ground, picking out riffs.

    At Bethesda Fountain, while the cowboy sang his final 2 songs, “Sweet Caroline” and “Would You Know My Name,” I chatted with a group of bible-schoolers from Rochester. When I stood up to play, I asked, “Would you guys like to dance the hula?” In response, one of them said, “We don’t dance.”

    An elderly man stood some distance away taking my picture. He came a little closer and took some more. When he lowered his camera, he pulled a dollar from his pocket. He told me he used to live in the city, but had retired to Albuquerque. “You picked the perfect time to come back,” I said, taking in the blue sky, the happy crowd, the architectural and natural beauty, all in one broad sweep of my arm.

    Two girls from Long Island did the hula and gave me a dollar. Two girls from Queens did the hula and walked away.

    Ninety degrees around the fountain, facing the arcade, a saxophonist started wailing. This, of course, was a flagrant breach of busker etiquette. When he turned on his electric accompaniment, which seemed to consist of a drum and bass, it was an illegal act. For a while, I contemplated going over and talking to him, or moving my operation somewhere else, but in the end I decided to summon all the aloha spirit I had and play on. Even when the violinist from the arcade joined him, even when people on the benches applauded enthusiastically, I sang my songs.

    A woman took a video of my singing “Sunday,” both verses, then came forward with a fiver. A 7 or 8-year-old girl stopped to listen. “Have you got time for a hula today?” She shook her head and ran back to her parents, who were listening to the sax. Sometime later, she came back with a dollar. “Have you got time for a hula now?” Again, she shook her head and ran off. I saw her skipping around near her parents; she was playing the air-ukulele.

    A family rode up on bikes. The teenage daughter started moving to the music. It wasn’t long before she was at my side, lei-ed and hula-ing.

    At the end of my set, I counted an even $10, not bad for such a competitive outing. Then all the attention shifted to a 1-year-old girl who was walking wobbly in brand new shiny black patent leather shoes. With each uncertain step, the shoes squeaked loudly, succeeding where I failed, to drown out the sax.

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  2. Hats and Scarves

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    October 11, 2016 by admin

    It has to be at least 60 degrees for me go out, otherwise I’d have to break character and wear something under my aloha shirt, or something over it. Today was on the cusp. I wore socks and sneakers instead of sandals, long pants instead of short, and what I’d come to call my formal aloha shirt, a lined, 100% rayon number in purple, with white, green and gold fronds and flowers.

    It was a perfect October day, as sweet and cool as a Honeycrisp apple. New mothers dressed up baby in her new fall wardrobe, tourists donned hats and scarves, and at the Imagine Mosaic all you needed was love. There were lots of shiny chestnuts on the ground under the sickly chestnut tree; few, if any, still held on to the denuded upper branches. Squirrels seemed to prefer acorns, which are plentiful.

    I checked in on the wood anemone. Although still covered in buds, no more seemed to have opened; I may have seen the only one to bloom this year.

    In the sun at the fountain, despite intermittent gusts of wind from the north, I was warm, and only got warmer the longer I played. A little kid ran up and tossed a dollar in my case. He ran back to his parents and, a moment later, ran back to me. “Is that a guitar?” He ran to his parents, then back to me a few more times, until I had him strumming a D chord. His parents joined us, pictures all around.

    I got $2 from a couple walking by. “I’m married to a musician,” she explained.

    “I’m sorry,” I said, as if I too were a musician, instead of just playing one in Central Park.

    There were lots of kids in the park. Only later did I remember it was Columbus Day. After taking in a few bucks from a few pre-schoolers, a man who had been sitting nearby at the fountain with his family, dropped a dollar in my case. They were from Israel, and as we talked I learned that his wife and children were sabras, but he was born in Iraq.

    “Where will you break the fast?” I asked them.

    She shrugged. “At a restaurant, I guess.”

    “When is Yom Kippur?” the dad asked me.

    “Is he Jewish?” One of three sons, in his early teens, wanted to know, presumably about me.

    A family from D.C. did the hula for a dollar. Two young Irishmen gave me two. A giggling English girl walked up from the benches with a dollar. She would not hula.

    Lots of people contributed loose change. The gorgeous holiday had brought out big crowds. By the end of my set, people were sitting all around me. The bubble girl had set up to my right; the back massage lady unfolded her chair with its face pillow directly in front of me. I counted out 6 singles and $3.18 in coin. I slipped away and the crowd closed in on where I’d stood, as if I’d never been there.

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  3. And Here I Am

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    October 8, 2016 by admin

    Friday was a carbon copy of Thursday, cloudless blue skies, temperature in the 70s. Before crossing the road to the Daniel Webster statue, at the intersection of paths where a seller of prints and photographs camps out, a young woman has lately appeared. She sits on the ground and plays an electric guitar hooked up to a small amplifier. As I walked by her, a mother and daughter had stopped to listen. “I play ‘Imagine’ for you,” she told the little girl, pronouncing it with the accent on the first syllable.

    The crowds were out today. Before long, I’d convinced an Australian woman to hula. Her teenage daughter wanted nothing to do with it. While mom danced, daughter walked around to the other side of the fountain. “She’s not even going to take my picture,” said mom, continuing to hula as the girl moved out of sight. Finally, she gave me a dollar, then looked around, unsure where to go next.

    The bench sitters came across with a few dollars, then one of them, who had been taking my picture, pulled out his harmonica and joined me in “Give Me a Ukulele and a Ukulele Baby.”

    A well-dressed Mexican woman came forward before she understood that I wanted her to dance the hula. A good sport, she let me put the lei over her head. We went to the hukilau at a moderate, dignified tempo. Her husband took pictures and gave me a buck.

    On the bench, a mother nursed her baby under a white shawl. When they got up to leave, I was rewarded with $1. The dad, who had been roaming around to get a look at the big bubble man and the jazz combo in the arcade, rejoined his family near me and kicked in another single.

    As usual, I ended with “Little Grass Shack.” Looking around, I saw that a woman sitting at the edge of the fountain was quietly singing along. When we got to the humahumanukunukuapua’a, she was aglow. While I packed up, she walked up to me with $2 in her hand. “My husband passed 2 years ago,” she said. “He used to sing that song to my daughter when she was a baby.” I looked up and spotted the daughter, now a young woman in her 30s; we smiled and nodded. “What are the odds,” the woman went on. “We came from Memphis and Seattle to meet in New York, and here you are.”

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