Posts Tagged ‘Tiptoe through the Tulips’
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Tuning Up, 2018
0April 15, 2018 by admin
The weather forecast for Friday promised a beautiful day with temps in the 70’s, so Thursday night I got down my tenor uke and tuned up. The hum in my low-G string reminded me that I should have put a new one on last busking season. It takes a few days for a string to settle in, but there was no help for it; I spent my first day of busking retuning after every song.
Central Park at W. 72nd St. still had a wintry feel. The trees had not yet leafed out, although the spring flowers were starting to show: yellow and white daffodils, pale violet myrtle, blue chionodoxera, and scattered red and white tulips from some prior year’s planting. Behind the benches, a single 2-foot tall yellow fritillaria bloomed in the sun. Forsythia has started to show here, while deeper in the park it is already in full glory.
In my haste to start busking, I left my water bottle at home, but was happy to find the water fountains had been turned on. Snowdrops burst through the undergrowth around Strawberry Fields, where Randy, the dobro player, now played early Beetles on his guitar. It was nice to see a friend.
Making my way down the path, past hellebore galore, patches of violets and fat magnolia buds 3 inches tall, I heard the 5-piece jazz combo across the road from Daniel Webster. The dog roses were leafing out; pale impatiens hugged the ground. More magnolias, these in full sun, were clothed in blossoms.
Bethesda Fountain, center stage, beckoned. “Welcome back, sir,” said the hot dog man when I bought a bottle of water.
“Hey, you’re back,” said Carole, greeting me as I sat by the fountain and set up my solar-powered hula dolls. Carole, with camera, is a regular at the fountain, which is how I got to know her. “The place is hopping today. You’ll do great.”
Tuning up — always tuning — I chatted with a young couple from Cherry Hill. Soon they were on their feet, paper leis around their necks, doing the hula to “The Hukilau Song.” She gave me a dollar; he gave me two.
I started my set, as usual, with “Making Love Ukulele Style,” and moved through my play list, successfully remembering, for the most part, all the chords and lyrics. Two young women stopped to listen.
“Have you got time for a hula today?”
No, they didn’t, until I picked up a lei and dangled it in front of them. One of the girls came forward to dance, the other followed. The follower lived in the city; her friend was visiting from Austin. They dropped a buck and change.
A man who had been sitting at the fountain to my right gave me $2, as did an English couple walking by. A large group of teenagers from the UK spread out on the benches to my right. After a few tunes they came up to me, singly or in pairs, some to dance, some to investigate my solar-powered hula dolls, each making a little donation before returning to the group.
Two little girls shyly approached, their mom proudly watching.
“Would you like to hula?” They nodded, and I put a lei around their necks. The older girl, who was about 5, quickly got the hang of it, then began choreographing her little sister. By the time I started the second verse of “The Hukilau Song,” the girls were moving in unison, step to the right, step to the left, arms waving, fingers aflutter. Their mom, who was also English, gave me a fiver.
As well as I remembered chords and lyrics, I couldn’t remember my playlist. There were songs, I was sure, I hadn’t played yet, but what? After more than an hour, as I looked around at the lake, the sky, the pennants in the wind and the azaleas lining the path to the boathouse, I saw the willows on the shore, leaves turning from yellow to green. Of course, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” which begins, “Evening shades are creeping, willow trees are weeping…”
A family from Belarus danced the hula. A couple from Queens, soon to be married, did too. During my final number, “Little Grass Shack,” a sixty-something couple from western Canada stopped to chat. He tossed 2 singles in my case, bringing the day’s take to $27.32, a hefty sum marking an auspicious start to the season.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Little Grass Shack, Making Love Ukulele Style, The Hukilau Song, Tiptoe through the Tulips
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“Honolulu Baby”
0June 10, 2017 by admin
The guitarist sang, “Imagine all the people,” but no imagination was required. The crowd was as impenetrable as those at the Sistine Chapel. Finally, I broke from the pack and hurried to Bethesda Fountain. The park workers who had guided the delivery trucks to the site of the fund-raiser on Wednesday and Thursday had assured me that all would be back to normal today, and they did not lie.
“Have you got time for a hula today?”
The woman smiled, hesitated, then the large man she was with said, “Yes, of course.” At the end of the dance, he handed me a twenty. I asked him if he wanted change, but he waved me off.
I got my first 20-dollar tip one fall day in 2007. An old man had been sitting on the bench with his attendant through several songs. The attendant walked up with the twenty while I was singing; at the end of the song, I walked to the old man to thank him.
“Do you know ‘Honolulu Baby’?” he asked. I had to admit I did not. “If you’re going to sing the ukulele canon, you really should learn it.” I took his advice. Over the next few years I hoped to run into him again to thank him, because “Honolulu Baby” has become a mainstay of my repertoire.
A woman accompanying 2 developmentally challenged teenagers, a boy and a girl, came by. The girl wanted to hula, but mostly just stood still and smiled. The woman, camera in hand, showed her the moves, but we got to the end of “The Hukilau Song” without hula-liftoff.
A woman took pictures from the edge of the plaza. Most photographers get their shot and walk away. The woman, seeing me see her, approached with a handful of quarters.
A 40-something man with his 2 daughters stopped to dance. They were from London, although the man was originally from Belgium. He gave each of the girls a dollar for me, then stuck around to chat about the political situations in both the US and UK.
A young woman sat on the bench in front of me. She appeared to be writing in a notebook; from time to time she looked up to listen. After 30 minutes or so, she gathered her things and walked up to me. She put a dollar in my case, then asked me questions about my music. “I’ve heard ‘Tiptoe through the Tulips,’ but all those other songs are new to me. Did you write them?” Her name was Sophie. She used to play classical guitar, but now she thought a ukulele was the way to go.
Two guys walked past. “Aloha,” I said. They stopped and consulted, then walked back to toss a handful of change into my case.
As usual, at the end of my set, I counted my take: $26.53. A good day, however, got better, when I unfolded the dollar I got from Sophie and found this drawing.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Baby, The Hukilau Song, Tiptoe through the Tulips
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“I Don’t, but Ashley Does.”
0August 19, 2016 by admin
“What a beautiful day for fishin’.” Temps in the 80’s, humidity low, puffy white clouds scudding across the clear blue sky. I took a seat at the fountain and waited until the cowboy finished. I began with “The Hukilau Song.”
Two little French girls put on leis and waggled through a verse. Each one handed me a dollar. After a few more songs, a woman got up off the bench and tossed a buck in my case. “I truly felt as if I was there,” she said.
A photographer captured most of “Tip Toe through the Tulips.” After putting his camera away and hoisting the case over his shoulders, he stopped by with a dollar.
A half dozen teen-aged girls came down the path. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
One girl tried to drum up interest, but got no takers. “Well, I want to dance,” she said.
“What say we go to the hukilau?” I said.
“I know that one.” She danced using all the movements she’d learned in elementary school on Oahu. Barely 5 feet tall, with flowing black hair and pudgy cheeks, she attracted a crowd. I brought the dance to a close, she bowed to scattered applause, returned the lei and walked away.
A 15-year-old girl, who’d been watching from the bench, gave me a dollar. Two sisters stopped to put a dollar in my case. I invited them to hula, but only one took me up on it.
With a short time left in my set, Maggie the dog, and her owner, Marcel, stopped to say hello. This was the first time out for them in over a week.
“Have you got time for a hula today?” I addressed a couple of college girls, who, accompanied by an older woman, were wonderingly taking in the circus atmosphere at the fountain.
“I don’t, but Ashley does.” I waved a lei at Ashley, who put down her backpack and made ready to dance. This time, we skipped the hukilau and went back to “My Little Grass Shack.”
The presumptive mom found a fiver in her wallet and handed it to me. “We’re from Chicago,” she said, “and having a wonderful time.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song, Tiptoe through the Tulips
