Posts Tagged ‘The Hukilau Song’
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Mr. Ukulele Loses His Aloha Again
0September 11, 2019 by admin
On an overcast Tuesday, I set up in Bethesda Fountain and immediately snagged a man and 2 women from Lebanon and Dubai. The man informed me he’d been to Hawaii but had never hula-ed. One of the women said, “It’s easy, just pretend you are the ocean waves.”
“Exactly.” I took them through 2 verses of “The Hukilau Song.” During the second verse, one of the women broke through the constraints of the traditional hula, and, arms flailing, pranced around the others with abandon. When they’d returned the leis, I looked down to find a fiver in my case.
A man off the bench gave me a dollar.
Then I heard the accordion, and my aloha spirit was replaced with a low-level rage. It was the Italian man who’d cursed me out last time I’d asked him not to set up so close to me. ( http://www.mrukulele.com/?p=1092(opens in a new tab)). Before I had a chance to consider what, if anything, to do about him, I was in his face. “We’ve talked about this before,” I began. “When you see me playing, you move somewhere else. You don’t set up on top of me.”
He sputtered something in Italian. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.” More Italian. I turned my back and returned to my spot. I strummed out some chord patterns until I regained my composure, then began singing “Making Love Ukulele Style.” By the time I finished, the accordionist was gone.
Two little kids came off the bench, each holding a handful of coins to toss in my case. Neither wanted to hula.
The rain clouds churned overhead. A few drops hit the ground, but the sun soon burned through; all those who had stood up to leave sat down again.
A 50-something woman came forward with a dollar. “Why don’t you play something Hawaiian?”
“Are you from Hawaii?”
“Yes.”
I reached for a lei. “How about you hula to ‘The Hukilau Song?’”
“No, no, no,” she said, taking a few steps backward. “I don’t dance.”
At the end of my set, I stuffed $8.06 in my pocket. On my way out of the park I saw the Italian accordionist, sitting on his stool, wheezing out the “Theme from the Godfather.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song, Theme from the Godfather
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Return after Labor Day
0September 5, 2019 by admin
The park, frankly, looked unkempt. There were stands of Michaelmas daisies slowly browning in the sun. A bud-bearing branch of the wood anemone was snapped and hanging down, and a light breeze scattered fallen leaves across the asphalt paths and into the gutters. A large clump of jewelweed, yellow-orange flowers already wilted, should have been pulled up weeks ago. A new pest, pokeweed, has growth through the dog roses and started to produce its toxic purple berries. If the Central Park Conservancy doesn’t attend to the pokeweed now, in future they will attend to nothing else.
A solo amplified guitarist picked out a Spanish classic; either he just began his set or no one was tipping today. I moved on, to the Norway Maple, where the old Ukrainian caricaturist was setting up his easel, chairs, pads, paints and signage – this took him close to an hour. The young Ukrainian caricaturist, with his wife, came much later, set up quickly, and was leaning against the fence, smoking a cigarette, when a man came by and put a dollar in my case.
Two teen-aged boys let their families head for the boathouse bathrooms, preferring to stand in the shade of the maple with me. When their families returned, one of the boys dug a dollar coin out of his jeans. “You’re good,” he said, tossing it to me.
Three Spanish girls reluctantly did a hula. It’s not as if I forced them. After 1 verse of “The Hukilau Song,” I gathered my leis and set them free. One of them gave me a quarter. Shortly afterward, a man leaned over my case and carefully stacked a quarter, dime, nickel and 5 pennies.
A tall woman, walking by, danced the hula to the delight of her friends. The caricaturist’s wife observed, “Everyone is happy when it’s free.”
A man, walking quickly, tossed me a dollar. I only saw him as he zoomed down the path. “Thanks,” I called after him. He waved acknowledgement without turning around.
And then, no one. For the next 10 minutes, not a single person passed by.
The old man was sleeping; the younger smoked another cigarette. “This is boring,” said the wife. “Let’s go to Atlantic City.”
“You tell me this in the morning, not now,” he said.
I played “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” to the trees and sky, then noticed very near me a young dark-haired girl of 14 or so, listening intently. I sang the rest of the song to her. “Do you know that song?”
She shook her head.
“But you play the uke?”
“A little.” I handed her the uke and she strummed a basic chord pattern. Her adult relatives showed up, so she handed the uke back.
“Have you got time for a hula dance?”
She did. I put a lei around her neck. Turned toward her so she could follow my fingering, I played, “I Wonder Where My Little Hula Girl Has Gone.” At this point grandpa got into the act, dancing a hula of his own. At the end of the dance, he waved the parents away, as if to say, “I got this,” and laid down a fiver. It was a satisfying way to end my set.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: I Can't Give You Anything But Love, I Wonder Where My Little Hula Girl Has Gone, The Hukilau Song
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Chased by the Sun
0August 27, 2019 by admin
On Thursday, per the news, the “feels like” temperature was 95 degrees. Not a great day to stand in the sun, yet on my last day in the city until Labor Day, not to be missed. In the New York garden of the climate-altered future, evidence suggests gomphrena will dominate. The chestnut blight in Strawberry Fields reveals itself in browning leaves and a paucity of nuts. There is a heavy quiet today: no jazz combo, no acrobats, no Colin the cowboy.
Carole, the photographer, told me Colin had been here earlier, but couldn’t stand the heat. Her advice was to keep moving, which I did, but as I crested the hill I heard an amped guitar, then saw the man-bunned guitarist in my spot under the maple. Returning to the fountain, I set up just beyond the perimeter, where the fountain crowd, such as it was, could hear and see me, while I stood in the shade. After a few tunes, a man my age, perhaps contemplating his own retirement, gave me a buck.
A large group of T-shirted teens followed the leader across the sun-drenched plaza to the shaded path in front of me. “Has this group got time for a hula today?”
“Not today,” he said, waving a red umbrella over his head, in a motion meant to rally the stragglers. In the meantime, the kids had clogged the narrow path in front of me, so I launched into “Honolulu Eyes” to keep then entertained. A few spontaneous hulas broke out, but there was to be no organized dancing to “The Hukilau Song.” Having regained control of his tour, the leader turned and started to walk, his charges dutifully followed. At the end of the line, a gangly boy gave me a dollar as he passed.
A mother-daughter duo came next. Their hula was sedate, perfectly appropriate for the heat.
The bench facing the fountain was empty, and shaded, so I moved my gear to a corner, sat the solar-powered hula girls on the bench above my case, and continued my set. Before long, a solidly-built 20-something man, in a baseball jersey sporting “STANTON/28,” gave me $2.
A 50-something woman took a video, then unfolded a fiver from a wad of bills and gave it to me. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
“Too hot to hula,” she laughed.
The rotating Earth, with me on it, once again turned directly into the sun, so I pushed my gear to the opposite corner of the bench to finish my set. The shade vanished here too, just about the time I finished. My aloha shirt was soaked through; the sweat stain on my hat was 6 inches wide. I counted out 5 singles and a fin, then headed home for a shower and nap.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Eyes, The Hukilau Song
