Posts Tagged ‘Fit as a Fiddle’
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In the Shade of the Maple
0August 25, 2017 by admin
The gomphrena has grown tall, the button-like flowers towering over the celosia, the pink conic flowers of which have turned into gray cones, like bottle brushes. The wood anemones along the path have grown up in 2 locations, both as tall as me and bursting with buds.
At Bethesda Fountain, Lady Liberty, in shades, has wrapped a flag around a tourist for a photo op. Snake man is there, as is the big bubble man. Looking good for me, I thought, until I spotted the cowboy. “Are you coming back?” he asked as I walked by.
“Probably not. Once I set up, I don’t like to move.”
Under the maple, I laid out my paraphernalia and started my set. A woman with her daughter walked by. “Have you got time for a hula today?” She laughed, then stopped a few steps past me. “Change your mind?”
“No,” she said. “Just listening.”
I was playing “Fit as a Fiddle.” When I finished, she dropped 65 cents in my case.
A Muslim couple walked by with their young daughter. Mom wore a hijab, dad pushed an empty stroller, and the little girl toddled up to me and started dancing. Her dance consisted of bending her knees and bobbing her head. Since I was already playing a song in G, “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,” it was an easy transition into “The Hukilau Song,” also in G.
A man of 35 or so was enchanted with the scene. During the dance, he dug a dollar out of his wallet and placed it in my case. “You’re terrific,” he said. At the end, mom gave me a dollar too.
Two moms and 3 daughters walked by. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
One mom answered, “We might.” She polled the girls, 2 of whom were up for it, 1 was too shy. Once more, we went to the hukilau. “I’ve got it,” one mom told the other. At the end of the dance, she gave each girl a single to put in my case.
“You guys from New York?”
“Chicago, the other big city.”
My set complete, I pocketed $4.65. In the cool shade of the maple, I’d hardly broken a sweat.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Fit as a Fiddle, I Can't Give You Anything But Love, The Hukilau Song
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Spreading Joy
0August 11, 2017 by admin
I got to Bethesda Fountain just as the cowboy was packing up his guitar and amplifier. “Good timing,” I called, as I unloaded my paraphernalia. This was the third glorious August day in a row. The park was packed.
A thin young man wearing a yarmulke got me started during my opening number, “Sunday.” An Hispanic woman added her dollar during “Fit as a Fiddle.” During the course of my set, she walked by several times, each time pointing to my case and reminding me, “I gave already.”
A man gave me 50 cents for a picture. “Did you get a good one? Now how about a hula?” He smiled, “No.”
A young Chinese boy wandered from his family, who were taking pictures of each other in every permutation. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
He didn’t seem to understand and returned to his family, only to come back a moment later with a fiver. One of the women (his mother?) wanted a picture, so I put a lei around the boy’s neck and posed. Then grandma wanted to join in, and soon the family, properly lei-ed, was working through their photo permutations again.
A woman came off the bench and gave me $2. Various passers-by dropped their singles, but no one, so far, had time for a hula.
Then, toward the end of my set, 2 large women negotiated who would dance and who would work the camera. After the first verse of “The Hukilau Song,” the photographer lamented that she could not get the video recorder to work. So we halted for instruction, then moved on to the second verse, which, as indicated by a thumbs-up, was a keeper.
A man on the bench had been observing the last 15-20 minutes of my act. As I packed up, he walked over and sat down. He was newly retired, and had just lost his mother. Today was his first time out of the apartment in a month. He watched me count out the day’s take, $15.50. “Here, let me add to that,” he said, pulling a single from his wallet. “You spread a lot of joy today.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Fit as a Fiddle, Sunday, The Hukilau Song
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One Hot Wednesday
0July 16, 2016 by admin
The city is simmering. At the mosaic the guitarist sings, “Here Comes the Sun.” Out on the lawn a mob of day camp kids are picnicking in clusters of yellow and blue tee shirts. Back on the path, toddlers squeal when the sprinklers come around to cool their knees and toes.
The singing from the arcade was really loud, it had to be amplified. It sounded like a rhythm and blues orchestra. At center stage, however, the noise was nothing I couldn’t drown out with noise of my own. Soon three 20-something women showed some interest in the hula. “They’re from Poland,” one of them told me, “they’re shy. I’m Serbian,” she added, “I live in Astoria.” Unlike the Polish women of yesterday, the Serbo-Astorian knew enough to tip a dollar.
Next some Finnish kids gave me $2. They were out running, and had stopped to listen. As it happened, I’d been reading about Emil Zatopek, the Czech Locomotive, who won 3 gold medals at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. They knew of him and didn’t seem to like him much.
All the while, the noise from the arcade echoed out past the fountain and over the lake. I had already decided to finish my set and check out its source on my way out, when a motorcycle policeman rode slowly by. “Excuse me, Officer,” I said, “I don’t mean to bother you.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I suppose I do,” I continued, quickly laying out the regulations all buskers must obey, a thumbnail history of selective actions against buskers, including arrest.
“The acoustics are so good under there they don’t need amplification,” he concluded.
“Exactly.”
“I’ll check it out.” He continued riding around the fountain and dismounted at the arcade. I broke into “Fit as a Fiddle.”
A pack of Australian boys stopped to chat. They passed around my uke, paying $2 for the privilege.
A group of Jewish Day Camp girls got permission to hula from their leader, a 30-something woman with a clipboard. At the end of “The Hukilau Song” they returned their leis and said thank you.
“You guys did a great hula,” I told them. “In Hawaiian we say, ‘tov m’ode’.”
“That’s not Hawaiian,” one of the girls challenged me. “That’s Hebrew.”
“I was told it was Hawaaiian, I must have been misinformed.”
The motorcycle policeman coasted to a stop in front of me. “They’re legit,” he said. “No amplification. It’s a big group, maybe 30-40 voices. But no violations.”
A father and daughter rode up on bicycles. The daughter, 4 or 5, did a lovely hula. They were from Senegal. The father sent her back to me with 2 quarters. “Mahalo.”
As I packed up, with a respectable $11.60 in my pocket, a young black man in tee shirt and shorts sat down next to me. He was with the group in the arcade. They were from Kansas and were going home soon. He questioned me on what values were dear to me: any guess where this conversation was headed?
“There is only 1 rule, the Golden Rule,” I answered, “Or as Timothy Leary said, ‘Live and Let Live.’ Everything else is bullshit.”
“Jesus said, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”
“Did he?” I hoisted my ukulele onto my back. “Aloha.”
“Jesus loves you.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Fit as a Fiddle, Here Comes the Sun, The Hukilau Song
