1. Mr. Ukulele Goes Ukrainian

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    July 12, 2018 by admin

    It’s been a month since I last went a-busking.  The heat, a long vacation, then a terrible cold kept me away.  The park was verdant when I returned.  Red begonias had been planted out for half a block along Central Park West.  The swollen ovaries of the spent Stellas were as big as my thumb.  Behind the benches, ageratum and allium made a purple apron in front of the dog roses, and, next to the pergola, hydrangea bore flowers just starting to turn blue.

     

    Randy played his dobro at the Imagine Mosaic.  I stopped to chat with him; as I left I shook his hand, each finger of which was armed with metal picks.

     

    White morning glories had infiltrated the undergrowth.  The jazz combo had crossed the road for the cool breezes off the lake, and the acrobats were making their noise on the promenade, where they belonged.  It appeared center stage was mine, until I saw the accordion player sitting on a bench, talking to the Ukrainian artist.

     

    “Are you still playing,” I asked him, “because I’d like to set up here.”  He answered in a language I couldn’t understand; the Ukrainian was no help.  “Do you speak English?”  In response another torrent of noise.  “I’m going to play here,” I told him.

     

    Having laid out my leis and hula girls, I started with “Making Love Ukulele Style,” whereupon the accordionist squeezed out a doleful melody.

     

    “No, no, no,” I told him.  “I asked you, now I’m playing here.”

     

    “OK, play,” he said, finding some English after all.

     

    But as soon as I started, he did too.  I felt the aloha spirit draining from me and approached him again.  “What is your problem?  You’ve got to stop.”

     

    “Ten minutes,” he said.

     

    “I know what 10 minutes is, do you?”  No affect.  “Ten minutes,” I said, pointing to my watch.  I walked back to the fountain and sat down.  After about 2 minutes, he packed up his instrument and left.

     

    I stood up and started again.  A man asked for a picture and gave me 2 bucks.  A few minutes later, a couple danced to “Honolulu Eyes” and gave me another dollar.  Another dollar came from a woman who wanted a picture, and 2 more from a woman who wanted to hula.  Next came a family of 4 from Georgia who were driving up to the Adirondacks to spend a few days with a friend at his cabin.  Somewhere in North Carolina they’d bought a ukulele for the kids in the car.  They wouldn’t dance, but dad was interested in a 5-minute lesson.  I taught him the D-G-A7 pattern, to which you can sing practically any song.  That earned me $1.

     

    The Ukrainian artist came by.  “What’s with that friend of yours?” I asked him.

     

    “No friend,” he said with a frown.  “Russian.  Ukraine and Russia no friends,” and he bumped his fists together to illustrate his meaning.

     

    I continued to play in the heat.  My voice was gone, my throat hurt.  I stopped frequently to drink from my water bottle.  Then I heard the accordion again; the Russian had set up by the stairs.  In a flash, I became Ukrainian.

     

    A man and his daughter walked by with $2 for me.  “Thanks for the music,” he said.

     

    The Russian had stopped playing and was filling a water bottle from the fountain’s pool.  I had pleasant thoughts of amoebic dysentery, cholera and other water-borne diseases.  As I sipped the last of my cool, clean water, I realized I was still sick with my cold.  With 30 minutes left in my set, I sang “Little Grass Shack” and went home.

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