Posts Tagged ‘Honolulu Baby’
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A Good Friday
0March 27, 2016 by admin
The sky looked like a concrete sidewalk, including the variations of gray and the swirling irregularities, as if smoothed by a distracted workman. Rain was predicted for the morning, but by noon it still hadn’t come.
There seemed to be no life on the wisteria covering the north pergola. Upon closer investigation, however, I could just make out some growing tips emerging from the vine’s creases. It was the change of shift at the Imagine Mosaic, one guitarist carrying away his case to count his money, the next sitting down on the back of a bench, his feet on the seat, his case on the ground, tuning up. The magnificent magnolia was drawing a crowd; I edged my way past to avoid spoiling anyone’s photos.
Was that a raindrop? No. Is that a dandelion? Yes.
The cowboy had arrived before me, so I set up under the leafless maple. A man smiled as he tossed me 50 cents, then looked to the sky. “It’s not gonna rain,” I said, just as the leading edge of the front moved overhead, and annoying drops turned into real rain, rain I could no longer ignore. I folded everything into my case and headed for the tunnel under the road leading to the Conservatory Pond. Although I was no longer walking with an air boot and cane, I could still only make my way slowly, so I got pretty wet.
The space under the tunnel was packed with tourists waiting it out. Despite the darkness, I found a cloth in my case and wiped down my uke. After 10-15 minutes, the rain stopped, the sun peaked through, the people scattered, and I headed back to the maple. On a hunch, however, I kept walking to the fountain to find the cowboy hadn’t come back, so for the next hour, center stage was mine.
A school group from San Diego had time to hula. Eight or nine teenagers donned leis and pranced around. Once again, my case filled with bills. After the dance, the kids hung around, during which time I learned that they’d never heard of Laurel and Hardy (“Honolulu Baby”) or Dean Martin (“Making Love Ukulele Style”). One girl asked what decade my songs were from. “Mostly the 20’s and 30’s.” The look on her face made me realize just how long ago that must seem. Comparatively speaking, how many songs from the Civil War did I know at her age?
“Have you got time for a hula today?”
A shy teenage girl from Virginia was talked into dancing by one of her friends. After a few bars of “The Hukilau Song,” a pair of younger girls from somewhere else wanted to join in. “Put on a lei.” I motioned to the colorful array of leis draped over the back of my case. The three danced a verse, the Virginian bowed out, and the kids kept waving their arms until the final Huki-huki-huki-hukilau. What had started as a dreary day was now bright and warm. When I played “Tiptoe through the Tulips,” I felt that by singing, as the song says, “we’ll keep the showers away.” The front moved through;people were happy to add to my growing pile.
Over my shoulder I could hear amplified music. It was the Chinese accordion player, sitting on her stool in her cap and sweater, midway between me and the Boyd singers in the arcade. She was really too close – I could have called her out on her breach of busker etiquette — but I didn’t. It had been a fine day. I made $22.42.
As I walked past the accordion player, she played the theme from “The Godfather.” In a box at her feet were a few dollars and her CDs. My CD, “Aloha, New York,” is currently out of print. I must attend to that.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Dean Martin, Honolulu Baby, Laurel and Hardy, Making Love Ukulele Style, The Hukilau Song, Theme from the Godfather, Tiptoe through the Tulips
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Third Day in a Row
0August 8, 2015 by admin
The weekend seemed to come early at Bethesda Fountain Friday. In one corner was an electric keyboard playing cool jazz at respectful, if still illegal, volume. The rhythm and blues cowboy was in another. A couple of kids, working things out on guitars, staked out the space on the west side of the fountain. John Boyd and his orchestra occupied the Arcade. (I call it an orchestra now because he’s added a piano.) If I’d wanted to join this circus, I’d have to do it from a rowboat.
Things were more sedate under the maple. I played for a long while without a nibble; I sang to the warm blue sky and the puffy white clouds skittering behind the towers of the San Remo on Central Park West. I sang to the solar-powered hula girl on the asphalt next to my case. “Honolulu Baby,” “Honolulu Eyes.”
A Spanish girl made her friends stop so she could hula. She gave me $1. A short while later, a mother and her teen-aged daughter happily went to the hukilau. The mother gave me $2, but she didn’t answer when I asked her where she was from. It did seem this week as if all New Yorkers had left town.
A young couple from New Orleans, he South Asian, she wearing a mezuzah, had time for a hula. She gave me a dollar.
A portly man from the heartland challenged me, “Can you play ‘The Hawaiian Wedding Song?’” I, of course, could, and did. He softly sang along, nodding approval to his daughter, who was not quite scowling, and to his wife, who was. They knew what was coming. “Now, can you sing it in Hawaiian?” He was holding back the dollar bill he’d fished out of his wallet.
“No, but I’ve got a feeling you can.”
He gave me the dollar and walked off triumphant, singing, “Eia au ke kali nei.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Baby, Honolulu Eyes, The Hawaiian Wedding Song
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A Hot Day on Center Stage
0June 18, 2015 by admin
Yet another week has gone by before I made it to the park again. A week’s absence reveals great transformations. Golden stelladoro lilies dominate the beds at 72nd Street’s Women’s Gate. A huge lilac-colored spirea bush demarks the transition to small purple celosia, in front of tall, pale pink cleome, backed by dense, deep red roses, their thorny branches rising 8 feet in the air.
Shade engulfed the entrance to Strawberry Fields, where one of the guitarists sang “If I Fell.”
At center stage, under the hot sun, I tuned up and sang “Making Love Ukulele Style.” For almost 30 minutes no one seemed to notice me, then a girl rose from the bench where she was sitting with her parents and put a dollar in my case.
Three girls from Queens did a fine hula, then walked off. Moments later a family from Milwaukee stopped to dance to “The Hukilau Song.” A mom and her 3 daughters knew all the moves; dad took pictures. That was worth a fiver. It had also drawn a crowd.
Some young children got the idea for another few bucks. At a break in the action, a wise guy from Norway asked me, “Did you lose a bet?”
A lady taking video of “Honolulu Baby” dropped a fiver, and a young man, who was just walking by, added his dollar to my case. Walking up to me from the bench, a man in his forties asked if I could play “Tiny Bubbles.” He told me that his father, a Vietnam vet, had done R&R in Hawaii, and had seen Don Ho. “Tiny Bubbles” is not in my repertoire, but I faked it well enough to earn a buck.
A school group from PS 11 in Queens massed at the fountain for a photo. The left flank sat behind my case, so I moved out of the way and waited for them to finish. “How about a song,” one of the teachers shouted to me from the right flank.
I started singing “My Little Grass Shack” and before long another teacher stepped out of the pack and started to hula. I put a lei around her neck and kept singing. Soon some of the students grabbed leis and before long a riot of hulas broke out. I saw one of the parent-chaperones put a fiver in my case, but the kids put in money too, as did the dancing teacher. I quickly lost count, but upwards of $10 came from this group, lifting the day’s total to $28.61.
As the kids from PS 11 moved off, another parent/chaperone offered me a banana. I declined, but I did accept her offer to refill my water bottle. During these hot days on center stage, staying hydrated is vital.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Baby, Making Love Ukulele Style, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song, Tiny Bubbles
