Posts Tagged ‘My Little Grass Shack’
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Hot and Humid
0September 27, 2018 by admin
The begonias and Michaelmas daisies along Central Park West just won’t quit. Behind the benches at the Women’s Gate, a few roses bloom above a bushful of hips. Two yellow foxglove, with thimble-like flowers, have emerged in the middle ground, where the dinner plate hibiscus has melted away in the heat. The reddening dogwood fruit resembles spherical strawberries.
At the Imagine Mosaic a new guitarist has shown up with an amplifier. The button seller told me that he’s been told several times to lose the amp, to no avail.
The crowds were sparse at Bethesda Fountain. A kid of 12 or 13 dropped a handful of quarters into my case. A few songs later, an elderly man, walking by, covered the change with a single. A baby sitter, with two charges, gave me $2. The kids were too young to dance, but they came back later for a picture. The boy of 3 or 4 put on a lei, but the girl, not yet 2, ran crying back to the sitter.
“Real nice,” said Carole, with camera around her neck. “Making the little girls cry.” It was too hot and humid for her to stand with me in the sun for long.
An Asian teenager spotted me as she walked down the path from the Boathouse. Sporting an ear-to-ear grin, she danced a lovely hula to “The Hukilau Song.”
A young woman, Kate, from the Parks Department, roamed the fountain on her lunch break. We chatted for a while and she danced a lazy hula (“Why not?”) before moving on. A Chinese photographer captured a dollar’s worth of “Honolulu Eyes” on video. A trio of young women, 1 from Westchester and 2 from East 86th St., lined up for a hula. They snapped photos while they danced, laughing all the way to the hukilau.
After an hour, the crowd thinned further, until several songs went out only to the trees and sky. At such times, I often close my eyes and play for myself alone. When I opened them again, a tall blonde woman and her tall blond daughter had just dropped $2 into my case.
I closed my set, as always, with “My Little Grass Shack.” A 30-something bicyclist, in spandex and a racing cap, walked with a handful of change from the bench where he’d been listening. When he returned to his bench, I thought for a moment I should play him another tune, but at that moment the sun came out from behind a cloud, and the tropical humidity dissuaded me, so I stuffed $10.55 into my pocket and went home.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Eyes, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
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Mr. Ukulele Loses His Aloha
0September 25, 2017 by admin
Friday started out bad and got worse. As soon as I entered the park, I was assaulted by loud music. Some moron with a boombox had cranked it up to 11, or so I thought. “Aren’t there rules about amplification in the park?” I asked a green-shirted volunteer in the information kiosk.
“Yes, there are, but this is the only time for the musicians to rehearse for Saturday’s concert.” The concert she was referring to was the Global Citizen Festival, an annual event since 2012, which featured, she told me, “world-class performers like Stevie Wonder and Elton John.” The concert was held on the Great Lawn, some half mile from where we stood.
From Central Park West to Fifth Avenue, waves of rock riffs roared from the north. It stopped from time to time while technicians fiddled with the bass, thumping like a migraine, then began again. The noise echoed around Bethesda Fountain, where a sad-looking woman played folk songs on her acoustic guitar. Farther east, under the maple tree, the caricaturists and begging Buddhists occupied my secondary and tertiary venues.
Instead of giving up and going home, I hit upon the idea of playing near the Alice in Wonderland statue. In my early days as a busker, before the Quiet Zone Wars, I frequently set up between the Conservatory Pond and Alice. Like Bethesda Fountain, Alice was a destination, especially for children; unlike the fountain, it remained a Quiet Zone after the peace. Despite the ambient amplification, if I played softly, using an inside voice, so to speak, I could sing my set here.
As I put out my solar-powered hula girls, I was mobbed by little kids . Each kid wanted a chance to position the toy on the ground and watch it dance. In the melee, the yellow hula girl was roughed up in what turned out to be a non-life-threatening injury. When it came time for a hula dance, however, nannies and governesses whisked the kids away.
Two older girls, maybe 6 years old, hung back. They did not want to hula, but they seemed to enjoy “I Wonder Where My Little Hula Girl Has Gone.” One ran off to get a dollar from her mom, who sat out of sight on a bench. Not to be outdone, her friend ran in the other direction and returned with a dollar too.
The first hula of the day was by a little girl, the second by an Argentine woman.
A man motioned for permission to take my picture, after which he gave me a buck. “It’s very happy music,” he said. Two women got off their bikes and leaned against the fence across from me, listening with smiles on their faces. After a few songs, one remounted and the other came forward with $2. A woman from the unseen benches to my left surprised me with a dollar.
With 9 singles in my case, the day’s busking proved to be far more successful than I thought possible 90 minutes ago. As I was about to wrap up with “My Little Grass Shack,” a green shirt pulled up in his Konservatory Kop-mobile, told me I was in a Quiet Zone and asked me to leave.
“Listen,” I said, as another bass sound check rattled my teeth. “Are you seriously going to enforce Quiet Zone rules today?”
“You can’t play here. You can play farther uptown,” he said, pointing north, closer to the source of the noise.
My aloha spirit, put much to the test today, drained away. “I’ve been kicked out of better Quiet Zones than this,” I said.
“I’m not kicking you out, I’m asking you to leave.”
“Ok, as long as you’re asking, I’ll leave after one more song.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Is it 20 minutes long?”
“Why don’t you take a spin around the pond; I’ll be gone before you get back.”
I sang “Little Grass Shack,” packed up and left, not at all happy about this day.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Global Citizen Festival, I Wonder Where My Little Hula Girl Has Gone, My Little Grass Shack
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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
