Posts Tagged ‘Honolulu Eyes’
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Mr. Ukulele Goes Ukrainian
0July 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.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Eyes, Little Grass Shack, Making Love Ukulele Style
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Working Overtime
0May 10, 2018 by admin
On the ground, the daffs have faded, the tulips hang on, and the masses of wood hyacinth are mostly spent, looking like the spiky skeletons of fish. The first red rose opens low on the bush. In the canopy, the trees are green. Both chestnuts are in bloom. At Cherry Hill, above salmon and white azalea, a giant paulownia is bursting with purple flowers. For years I’d seen these trees blooming along the Henry Hudson, looking like purple chestnut trees. I looked up the name a few years ago. They were named for Anna Paulowna, daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia.
Center stage at Bethesda Fountain looked like mine until I saw the old man with the accordion, sitting on the bench. He wasn’t playing; he appeared to be picking lint from his base buttons. “Are you done, or are you still playing?” I asked him. He didn’t seem to understand, or maybe he was hard of hearing. I asked again.
“One o’clock,” he said.
I went to the maple for 20 minutes, where I made nothing, returned at 1 and set up at the fountain. The old man kept pumping out chords, while I waited. At last he noticed me and stopped.
I continued my set where I’d left off. The fountain was crowded today. A large group of pre-teens from Central Islip, having picnicked on the lawn, started running around, from water’s edge to the arcade, in front of which the big bubble man competed with 2 snake handlers on segways for their attention. “Has this group got time for a hula today?”
The leader of the group, a rather rumpled 50-something, shrugged. Soon I had a line of kids squealing with laughter on their way to the hukilau. Between verses, they passed the leis to another line of dancers. Afterward, one of the kids came running back to me with a fiver from the leader.
I saw a woman recording me, so I gave her a good show, for which I received $2. An old man walked by and tossed me a buck. Two women slowed as they passed, then stopped 20 yards away. They were sorting through their wallets. One of them returned with 4 tightly folded singles.
Toward the end of my set, a 20-something from San Francisco danced a hula and walked away. The same happened with 3 young women from South Carolina. My 90 minutes up, I sang “Little Grass Shake,” sat down and started packing up.
“Would you mind?” said a 60-something man in a white shirt and name tag (Mike) on a lanyard around his neck. “I’ve got a school group here from Chicago, and I’d like to get the teachers dancing for the kids.”
I took out my leis, set up the yellow dancing girl, and spread the currency out in my case. Standing, I sang out “Honolulu Eyes” until Mike led his group to me and stopped. With a word to the kids about an opportunity for blackmail, he called out 4 teachers. Dressed in the same black tee shirts as the kids, they donned leis and, after very brief instruction, lined up to dance to “The Hukilau Song.” The kids howled as the teachers broke ranks, flapped their arms, spun in circles, and finally united like the Rockettes for a high-kicking finale.
Mike, grinning, handed me a fiver, and one of the kids tossed in a buck. That 6 from Chicago, added to the 12 from my 90 minute set, boosted me to highly respectable $18.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Eyes, Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
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“He’s Alive”
0September 11, 2017 by admin
On my way to Bethesda Fountain on Friday, I saw a woman leaning over an unconscious man lying on the grass along the side of the road. “He’s alive,” she told me. Relieved, we each kept walking.
I arrived at the fountain just as the cowboy was leaving. “Have you got time for a hula today?” I asked a family who passed by.
“I’ll hula,” said the teenaged daughter. The family was from California, and talked among themselves while the daughter undulated like the sea, as I had instructed her. Dad gave her a dollar, which she handed to me.
Two 50-something women stopped near me to listen. When I finished my song, one asked, “Do you know ‘Ukulele Lady’?”
“Is that your favorite song?”
“My favorite ukulele song,” she said. I played it for her; she gave me $2. Neither would hula.
As soon as they left, a man led his young daughter by the hand to me. The man’s gestures indicated that she would like to hula. They were from Argentina. Dancing rather awkwardly, she started laughing as her dad snapped pictures, and laughed all the way through “The Hukilau Song.” Dad tucked a fiver under the capo I used to keep bills from blowing away.
A bearded man and his girlfriend came off the benches; he tossed me a single. “Thanks for entertaining us,” he said. Next, a woman pulled out a handful of change, including a Susan B., and sprinkled the coins deliberately over the cash in my case. A man with a baby in a Snugli on his chest bounced to the music and gave me a dollar.
A toddler ran up to me. “Do you want to do a hula dance?”
“Yes, please.” He put the dollar his mom had given him into my case. I put a lei around his neck and gave him my quick hula instructions: Put out your arms to form the horizon, now move them like the waves breaking on the shore. He tried, but could only manage one arm at a time. When I told him to use both arms, he lifted one up and let the other drop.
Two women from Minnesota with a little girl stopped to listen. I put a lei around the girl’s neck and started to sing “The Hukilau Song.” The girl had no idea what to do, so the women started dancing too. I grabbed 2 more leis for the women and off we went. At the end of the song, one of the women said, “We have no money.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her.
A couple in their 40’s walked by hand in hand. “Have you got time for a hula today?” They did not have time for a hula, but they did have time to foxtrot to “Honolulu Baby,” complete with turns and dips. The man rewarded me with $2.
I finished my set, as usual, with “My Little Grass Shack.” When I turned to start packing up, I noticed a couple walking toward me with a dollar. For their dollar, I encored “Honolulu Eyes.” Stuffing $15.30 in my shirt pocket, I exited the park.
I was pleased to see that the unconscious/sleeping man was gone from the side of the road.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Baby, Honolulu Eyes, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song, Ukulele Lady
