1. Monday in the Heat

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    July 11, 2017 by admin

    It was “A Hard Day’s Night” for the platoon guitarist.  It was hot; the park was relatively uncrowded.  I set up in the blazing sun at Bethesda Fountain and sang to the sky.

     

    A dark-eyed little girl came back from the benches, where her mother sat in the shade, with permission to hula.  After the first verse of “The Hukilau Song,” she walked away.  Another girl of 7-8, from Georgia, with her mom, was eager to hula, and she too walked away.  Finally, a teenaged girl, from Newport Beach, who would not hula, gave me a dollar.  “I like your music,” she said.

     

    A woman from San Francisco said she didn’t have time to hula, but she couldn’t pull herself away, so she put on a lei and danced, gracefully and expressively.  “That was great fun,” she said.  “I feel really great.  I wish my family were here to record it.”  She returned the lei and walked away.

     

    “Bring them back, we’ll do it again.”  As if that would ever happen.  A walk-away doesn’t grasp the concept of paying the piper.

     

    A young couple from Flagstaff happened by.  “Not much hula in Arizona, I’ll bet.”  The girl danced a sweet, simple hula, while the boy, after snapping a few pictures, pulled out his wallet.  Tossing a dollar into my case, he said, “I’m originally from Alaska.”

     

    “Not a hula hotspot either,” I supposed.

     

    An 80-something woman came by with a dollar.

     

    Two tall, self-possessed young black women allowed themselves a hula.  They fell into a synchronized display of hula moves, including twirls and shimmies, attracting a crowd.  They’d grown up together in California, now one lived in New York and the other in Chicago.  We had a good talk, then they walked away.

     

    A man tossed in a couple of quarters and gave me a thumbs-up.

     

    An older dad, with 2 barely walking babies, decked out in white lace dresses, encouraged them to hula.  The smaller baby, despite the dress, may have been a boy.  They barely moved; I brought “The Hukilau Song” to an end after one verse.  Dad kept pulling change out of his pocket.

     

    It appeared to be 12-15 pennies, but when I counted it at the end of my set, there was a dime mixed in.

     

     

     

     

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  2. Good Start to the Summer

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    July 7, 2017 by admin

    Back from the July 4th break, and the stella d’oro daylilies are as fat as figs.  I can’t identify the major new plantings at the Women’s Gate; one has dark pink chive-like flowers and long, smooth-edged pointy leaves, the other has similar leaves and light pyramidal flowers opening pinkish-purple, like an artichoke.

     

    The first signs of the blight have appeared on the chestnut.  I saw little, if any, blight on the second tree across the path.  On the other side of the road, the catalpa pods hang like 18-inch-long string beans.

     

    Center stage again was mine.  Alexis, a toddler of 2 or so, danced a hula.

     

    A 50-ish couple was hanging around; the woman wanted to dance.  After Alexis was shown how to tip the busker, she did.  She knew all the moves to “The Hukilau Song,” which attracted a crowd.  After the dance she told me that she and her husband had a ukulele/hula act in California.  “There he is,” she pointed to a barrel-chested man who was walking toward us.  He had long, gray hair and wore a beautiful aloha shirt.  I handed him my uke.  He made it sing with a softly voiced Hawaiian folk tune, in a way my plink-a-plink style of strumming could never do.  They were good for a fiver.

     

    A tourist family stopped to dance.  While a young teen stumbled his way to the hukilua, his family laughed and snapped photos.  Dad dropped a fiver; grandma chipped in a buck.

     

    While setting up today, a couple with a young child had been sitting at the fountain next to me. The child was too shy to hula.  As my act got underway, they’d wandered off.  Now they were back.  Having seen others do it, the kid was ready to hula.  A good observer, she needed no lessons.

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    Three strapping boys, maybe 16-18, just had to hula.  They were from Florida, in NYC with a mom, who watched from the shade, inured to their nonsense.  The hula was a shambles, and when they were done they came up with 5 singles among them.

     

    Throughout my set, a number of people came by to drop a dollar or two.  An Argentine bombshell in her early 20’s danced the hula for her friends.  In addition to a dollar, she gave me 3 pieces of Lindt chocolate.  A family from Kentucky stopped to hula.  When the young boy of 8-9 faltered, dad took a lei and danced alongside for support.

     

    At $29, it was another high dollar day.  On my way out of the park, I opened a piece of chocolate.  It had melted in the sun; I had to lick it off the wrapper.

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  3. Hulapalooza Update

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    July 6, 2017 by admin

    Here are some photos from the Hulapaloooza last week.  Thanks to Carol for forwarding them to me.

     

    These lovely ladies are the Staten Island Five.

     

    The sisters needed some hula instructions

     

    Click below to see how they did

     

     

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