1. Reflections on the Start of the Season

    0

    May 3, 2018 by admin

    A silver-white bottlebrush bush blooms behind the benches, beside the dog roses, whose lush green branches are tipped with red growth.  At the Imagine Mosaic, I wave hello to Randy, the dobro player, who has joined the platoon of guitarists’ playing the Beatle canon.

     

    Randy is one of the first buskers I met when I started in 2007.  So many others have left the scene.  Arlen, on dulcimer, and Meta, on harp, once mainstays of Bethesda Fountain, are no longer to be found there.  Dominick, on guitar, also disappeared.  For a while, he’d joined the Boyd Family Singers, who have semi-permanent possession of the arcade, but that didn’t last long.  I saw him once at the 103rd St. subway station, then last year I ran into him and Kendra, another ukulele player; they were a couple now and played Union Square.  Raheem, on sax, who once claimed he made $125,000 a year busking, has gone mainstream.

     

    The blighted chestnut tree is showing small green catkins that will eventually form conical flowers and spiky fruit.  The magnolias are in transition; the white pink-tinged petals rot on the ground, as well as in limp brown clumps high in the branches.  Trillium masses in the shaded triangular plot near the Information Booth.

     

    No one is busking at Bethesda Fountain.  In fact, there are almost no people there.  I played for more than 30 minutes before a couple of gay guys packed up their lunch and dropped a dollar each into my case.  A fashionably dressed woman thanked me with a dollar.

     

    “Have you got time for a hula today?”

     

    “It’s too hot to hula.”

     

    A teenage girl from Long Island, who had already said no to a hula, walked by again and said yes.  “How much is this going to cost me?” she said.

     

    “Free of charge,” said I.  Most of the time, people will cough up a buck for a hula.  And if not, others, watching, might.  After a single verse of “The Hukilau Song,” she returned the lei and walked away.

     

    Two Korean women walked down the path from the boathouse straight to me.  Each one smoothed out a dollar and placed it in my case.  A tall thirty-something man who’d been listening from the path, in the shade, stepped out into the sun, opened his purse and poured out 73 cents.

     

    A group of high school kids from Miami had been picnicking on the lawn behind the benches throughout most of my set.  At one point they dispersed for a bathroom break, then straggled back in small groups.  “Have you got time for a hula today?”

     

    In the end, I wrangled 4 girls, 2 of whom could hula well; the others followed.  A fifth girl took video.  At the end of the dance, I collected the leis and the girls walked away.

     

    When I gathered up my take for the day, $5.73, the change was too hot to hold.  And tomorrow, I’m told, will be hotter.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags:

  2. May Day

    0

    May 2, 2018 by admin

    The wave of red tulips behind the benches at the entrance to the park at 72nd St. has given way to a wave of white tulips.  Purple hyacinth and wood hyacinth are holding up nicely, and in the middle of it all a bleeding heart stretches out its branches, the little white flowers with red centers hanging like carillon bells over the undergrowth.  Deep green rose bushes have not yet formed buds.  At the northern pergola across the road from Strawberry Fields, wisteria pushes out its first green shoots.

     

    The jazz combo played the singularly inappropriate “Moonlight in Vermont.”

     

    Again, I was too late to Bethesda Fountain; the accordionist was pumping away on one side of the fountain, and the single stringed instrument (ehru) player was scratching away at the other.  I set up under the maple.

     

    A young couple walked by, whispered to each other, then stopped.  The man walked back and put a dollar in my case.  A little later, the dad of a family of 4 tossed me 60 cents.  An affianced couple and their photographer stopped in front of me for a photo shoot.  We took some pictures together, then the photographer asked if the man could hold my uke while I stepped out of the picture.  Finally, the photographer asked if I might be so kind as to lend the man my hat.  Afterwards, the man returned uke, hat and a fiver.

     

    Toward the end of my set, the big bubble man walked by with his bucket in order to get more water at the boathouse.  “The fountain misses you,” he said.  I explained that others had got there before me.  “The Chinese guy is gone now,” he told me.  “And you’re so much better than that accordion.”

     

    Ordinarily I finish my set where I start it, but with 15 minutes left, I folded up my case with all my paraphernalia in it and returned to center stage.  A little girl of 3 or 4 was hanging out with her mom at the edge of the fountain.  Enthralled by my solar-powered hula girls, she shyly approached for a better look.

     

    “Have you got time for a hula today?”  She smiled and said nothing.  Looking toward her mom, I got the ok to put a lei around her neck.  Her name was Eva, and she danced to “The Hukilau Song” with her arms held tightly against her body, her hands slowly moving at waist level.  Mom gave me a buck.

     

    A young couple, each with a camera, were wandering around the fountain area looking for good pictures.  I asked if they’d like to hula; they demurred.  As I wrapped up my set, however, the man returned and wanted a photo with me.  “No hula?” I asked again.

     

    “She doesn’t want to,” he said, nodding toward his girlfriend as she pointed the camera at us.  She shook her head “no” to emphasize the point.  He opened his wallet and took out 2 singles.  “Maybe next time.”

     

    “That’ll be tomorrow,” I told him.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags:

Newer Entries »

Archives