Posts Tagged ‘Imagine’
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And Here I Am
0October 8, 2016 by admin
Friday was a carbon copy of Thursday, cloudless blue skies, temperature in the 70s. Before crossing the road to the Daniel Webster statue, at the intersection of paths where a seller of prints and photographs camps out, a young woman has lately appeared. She sits on the ground and plays an electric guitar hooked up to a small amplifier. As I walked by her, a mother and daughter had stopped to listen. “I play ‘Imagine’ for you,” she told the little girl, pronouncing it with the accent on the first syllable.
The crowds were out today. Before long, I’d convinced an Australian woman to hula. Her teenage daughter wanted nothing to do with it. While mom danced, daughter walked around to the other side of the fountain. “She’s not even going to take my picture,” said mom, continuing to hula as the girl moved out of sight. Finally, she gave me a dollar, then looked around, unsure where to go next.
The bench sitters came across with a few dollars, then one of them, who had been taking my picture, pulled out his harmonica and joined me in “Give Me a Ukulele and a Ukulele Baby.”
A well-dressed Mexican woman came forward before she understood that I wanted her to dance the hula. A good sport, she let me put the lei over her head. We went to the hukilau at a moderate, dignified tempo. Her husband took pictures and gave me a buck.
On the bench, a mother nursed her baby under a white shawl. When they got up to leave, I was rewarded with $1. The dad, who had been roaming around to get a look at the big bubble man and the jazz combo in the arcade, rejoined his family near me and kicked in another single.
As usual, I ended with “Little Grass Shack.” Looking around, I saw that a woman sitting at the edge of the fountain was quietly singing along. When we got to the humahumanukunukuapua’a, she was aglow. While I packed up, she walked up to me with $2 in her hand. “My husband passed 2 years ago,” she said. “He used to sing that song to my daughter when she was a baby.” I looked up and spotted the daughter, now a young woman in her 30s; we smiled and nodded. “What are the odds,” the woman went on. “We came from Memphis and Seattle to meet in New York, and here you are.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Give Me a Ukulele and a Ukulele Baby, Imagine, The Hukilau Song
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Last Licks
0November 17, 2015 by admin
Giant white snowflakes have been hung over Columbus Ave. Along Central Park West, they’ve set up the aluminum grandstand 7 tiers high for the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Inside the park, the crowds are thin, despite the 65 degree weather. The hydrangea behind the benches has turned wine red. On the almost leafless rose bushes, a few pink petals have opened wide, as if asking the sun for a handout; orange hips swell on the lower branches.
At the Imagine Mosaic, the homeless guitarist led the crowd in “Imagine,” encouraging the multi-part harmony with shouts of “lovely, beautiful” between line breaks. Fuzzy buds have lengthened on the tips of magnolia branches. Through the bare trees, I could see the tops of the tall buildings of Mount Sinai Hospital on upper Fifth Ave. In the arcade, the Boyd Family Singers have expanded their repertoire of sacred music to include a few secular Christmas carols.
Andrew, the young guitarist, was packing up when I got to center stage. “I like these European crowds,” he told me. “They drop a five where New Yorkers drop singles.”
A 40-something man gave me a dollar and asked if he could take a picture. “Do you play ‘Ukulele Lady’?” he asked. I told him I’d be getting to it soon. Not soon enough, I suppose, because he wandered away.
A guy and his gal from Brooklyn gave me a fiver and said, “Ok, entertain us.” I had just finished “Fit as a Fiddle,” and launched into “I Saw Stars.” The girlfriend bopped along to the beat, but refused to put on a lei. “How much to come out in a rowboat and serenade us?”
I hesitated. “150 bucks,” I told him, certain that at that rate I would keep my feet dry.
“No, don’t you get it?” he insisted. “You’re missing a great opportunity. People will row up to you from every direction to give you money.”
After haranguing me for a while longer, off they wandered to the boathouse. A man wanted to know if I would stand for a picture with his girlfriend. I put a lei around her neck for the shot. She would not hula.
A little girl came by and wanted to dance. “If it’s ok with your mom,” I said. It was. The girl was at a loss as to what to do, so I put a lei around her mom’s neck and told the girl to follow. It was a charming scene, recorded by several passers-by. Two women, who had been sitting on the bench for a while came by with a dollar.
The first photographer came back. “Thanks for playing ‘Ukulele Lady’,” he said. Marcel walked by with Maggie the dog to say hello, marvel at the weather and wish me a pleasant winter. The couple from Brooklyn pulled their rowboat up to the steps leading from the lake to the fountain area. They hailed me.
“Yo, Brooklyn,” I shouted to them.
At the end of my set, a thirty-something man got up from the bench and tossed a fiver in my case. “I gotta tell you,” he told me, “you’re the most talented man in Central Park.”
With his $5, my total came to $15, as good as any day in the summer, let alone a week before Thanksgiving.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Fit as a Fiddle, I Saw Stars, Imagine, Ukulele Lady
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Worst Day Ever
0August 15, 2015 by admin
Tucked in a shaded corner near the Strawberry Fields sign, a mass of Michaelmas daisies bloomed. Long white petals, varying in number from 6 to 9, radiated from a small yellow center. Someone played “Imagine” at the Imagine Mosaic.
Here is the chestnut report: withered leaves cover the ground; more than half the leaves still on the tree are blighted. The golf ball sized nuts are also browning. I crushed one underfoot to find the nut still unformed, although the meat inside was moist and green, suitable, I’d think, for the most discriminating squirrel.
Grass grew a foot high around the rhododendra, and had started to bolt.
The cowboy crooner was there again. As I walked by he called for volunteers to dance to his next number, the beautiful “Quando, Quando, Quando.” I could have told him it wasn’t so easy to get people to dance.
Maggie the dog stopped to visit. The black scotch terrier sitting at my feet, seemingly absorbed in my music, made a wonderful photo op. After some time, Marcel scooped the dog up and whisked her away, after which I played for the next hour pretty much to myself.
Just when I thought that this would be the day, the day I took in nothing, an old woman fumbled in her change purse. “I’m sorry it’s not more,” she said, putting 8 dimes into my case. “You were so nice to me.” I had no idea what she meant by that; perhaps she’d seen me before and we’d exchanged pleasantries.
A 20-something on a bike braked in front of me. He reached into one pocket, then another. “Sorry, mate, all I have is Irish money.”
“No problem,” I said. “Next time you’re at the pub, have a drink for me.”
A teenaged boy gave me a quarter.
A family stopped to hear me play. “Have you got time for a hula today?” The young daughter danced beautifully to “The Hukilau Song.” “Where are you from?” I asked her between verses.
“Holland.”
“Holland? Wow, I know Holland, what city?”
She looked puzzled. “Holland,” she repeated.
I looked toward the parents. “Holland, Pennsylvania.”
“Pennsylvania, ok,” I said, and launched into the second verse. At the end of the dance, they walked off. The day’s total came to $1.05, my worst day ever.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Imagine, Quando Quando Quando, The Hukilau Song
