1. The Season Winds Down

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    October 26, 2017 by admin

    The wood anemone score:  0-0.  So much for that.

     

    Most of the water plants have been removed from Bethesda Fountain.  Here and there, sunken tubs of water lilies remained, their greenish-yellow leaves floating on the surface.  At the southern end, 2 plants still sported white flowers.

     

    The park was cool, the rolling gray clouds threatening.  More than 30 minutes went by before my first dollar.  Two men bundled against the weather stopped to listen.  One of them, it seems, owned 5 ukuleles, yet he would not take my uke to show me what he could do.

     

    Chatting about the kind of music he played, he mentioned that he and his teacher were working on “Five Foot Two.”  I sang Dean Martin’s “Making Love Ukulele Style,” as an example of my repertoire of ukulele novelty songs.

     

    “And you have a good voice too,” he said

     

    Two 20-something women walked by.  “Have you got time for a hula today?”

     

    With a little encouragement, one of them, from New York, put on a lei.  The other, from England, would have been content to take video, but her friend put a lei on her and pulled her into the dance.  They swayed to “The Hukilau Song,” laughing while they passed the camera between them.  The New Yorker gave me a buck.  The Englishwoman gave me two, saying, “That was fun.”

     

    Toward the end of my set, a woman off the bench gave me a buck, wrapping up a $5 day.

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  2. October 19th and Still Busking

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    October 22, 2017 by admin

    “Has this group got time for a hula dance today?”  I addressed the tour guide, a jolly, elderly man, who, after years of leading his group past me, stopped.  The group stopped too, in an arc around me as if awaiting a short lecture about a statue.  “Where’s everybody from?”

     

    “All over.”

     

    “Brazil,” shouted a 30-ish woman.  She shook her head “no” when I offered her a lei.  “I don’t know how.”

     

    “All the Brazilian women say that, then they come up here and dance beautifully, and so will you.”

     

    As she danced, beautifully, the tour guide put a quarter in my case, but no one stepped forward to follow his example, except the Brazilian woman.  After her dance, she gave me a quarter too.

     

    A couple of English women with bicycles witnessed this scene.  They had been sitting near me at the fountain when I set up.  Tossing a dollar in my case, they pedaled off.

     

    Three kids from North Carolina walked up from the benches with a dollar and change.  They danced to the “The Hukilau Song,” then ran giggling back to their parents.  The eldest, a girl of about 11, came back for a second dance, this time to “Little Grass Shack.”

     

    A bride and photo crew set up near me.  In addition to the photographer, there was an assistant to carry the cameras and tripod, a lighting grip with screens and tripods of his own, and a dresser to arrange the train of the bridal gown, and to fluff the bride’s hair.  The absence of a groom led me to believe the bride was not a bride at all, but a model.

     

    A 20-something man walked by with his friend.  “A ukulele and a bride.  Only in New York,” he said, laying a dollar in my case.

     

    A petite woman in her late 30s watched me play.  I invited her to dance to “The Hukilau Song.”  She told me she was from Hawaii, and that she had danced to the hukilau with me about 5 years ago.  As we moved through the second verse, her delicate hands formed the silver moon under which kanes and wahinis sang their love songs.

     

    A man ran up and took her hand, spun her around.  She looked surprised, and uncomfortable.  He let her go to put a dollar in my case.  “Do you know him?”

     

    “No,” she said, “Yuck.”

     

    “Let’s dance another one,” he said.  He was 50-ish, with a trimmed beard and a porkpie hat.

     

    “Aloha,” the woman said to me, returning my lei and moving quickly away.

     

    The man, Alexander (“My secret service name is also Alexander”), hung around for a while, listing for me the times and locations of the best free swing dancing in the city.  He chased after women, grabbing their arms and trying to pull them over to me for a dance.  Finally, I said, “I do a solo act.  I need you to move away.”

     

    “No, no,” he said.  “I’m helping you.”

     

    “You’re not.  I’ve been doing this a long time, believe me, you’re not helping.”

     

    “I bow to your experience,” he said.  He moved some distance away; I resumed my act.  When I next looked in his direction, he was gone.

     

    A woman wanted a picture.  I put a lei around her neck.  She gave me a dollar.  A thin elderly man, with a bemused smile on his face, watched me for a while, then he gave me a dollar.  At last, with a few more minutes left in my set, a young couple from Baltimore, now living on 125th St., wanted a picture to send to her father, a ukulele buff.

     

    With $8.51 in my pocket, I exited the park.  There can’t be very many busking days left this year.

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  3. Conflicts at the Fountain

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    October 19, 2017 by admin

    Randy, the dobro player, has worked his way into the rotation of platoon guitarists at the Imagine Mosaic.  “It’s very well organized here,” he told me.  “None of the conflicts you’ve got at the fountain.”

     

    The wilting, drooping plants along the path await the merciful frost.  The wood anemone score:  2-0.  The flowers have formed seed pods, like green peas, on axial branches, looking like nodes in a network diagram.

     

    First up to hula was a Brazilian woman.  After her dance, she and a friend posed for pictures and gave me a dollar.  A couple off the bench walked up to me with a dollar.  “Thank you,” I said.  “No, no, thank you,” was the answer.

     

    A teenager on a skateboard rolled by and tossed 28 cents into my case.

     

    Despite the warm weather, a cool breeze kept me comfortable.  “I really enjoyed your music,” said a man coming off the bench with a buck.

     

    A quartet of Chinese women from Hong Kong danced to “The Hukilau Song,” then walked away.

     

    The day’s final contribution came from a couple who had been listening nearby.  They were from The Netherlands, from a town called Tilburg in the south.  They either gave me $2, or someone else kicked in a dollar when I wasn’t looking.

     

    Early in my set, another busker set up on the other side of the fountain.  He played classical guitar and sang opera, fully amplified with an orchestral accompaniment.  I held my annoyance in check for over an hour; he was plenty loud without the mic, and plenty rude for setting up so close to me.  The beautiful day helped me find my inner aloha, so I could finish my set with some equanimity.  After packing up, however, on my way out, I let him know, calmly, that amplification was prohibited, then quickly walked away before I lapsed into stronger language.

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