Posts Tagged ‘The Hawaiian Wedding Song’
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Rosh Ha-Hula
0September 15, 2015 by admin
After a week away from the park, I returned at the change of season. The weather was in the mid-70’s with cool gusts of wind. The sky was cloudless. The cowboy was back near my spot at the fountain, so I continued to the maple, setting up where I could easily move into the sun.
Shortly after I started my set, a family with 4 teen-aged girls walked by. Dad pulled out his wallet and gave a dollar to the eldest girl for me. She would not dance, nor would any of her sisters, whom I invited in turn.
A 40-something man, walking twin terriers, waited across the path, eager to tell me that he was on his way to meet his friend, who had colluded with one of the portrait artists on a marriage proposal scheme. Having given the artist a picture beforehand, his friend would bring his girlfriend to the park to sit for the artist, whose final product would include, voila, a diamond ring. He rushed off so excited, he almost forgot to give me a dollar. After 10-15 minutes I saw him again, walking back the other way. I stopped what I was singing and switched to “The Hawaiian Wedding Song.”
While singing “Fit as a Fiddle,” when I came to the lyric, “…how the church bells will be ringing/with a hey nonny-nonny and a hot cha-cha,” a young couple stopped in their tracks. It turned out the woman’s name was Nonny; there was laughter and handshakes all around, then off they walked.
A woman in a head scarf seemed to like “My Baby Just Cares for Me.” She took a long video, then counted out 4 quarters. A woman with a screaming child in her arms walked by, just as I was deciding what to sing next. It was “Get Out and Get Under the Moon,” a cinch to make a child smile. Mom peeked over her shoulder at her happy daughter, smiled at me. All was well.
A tall man dressed in his high holiday best took out his wallet and gave me a dollar. His wife, on his arm, beamed up at him approvingly. He had started the new year with a mitzvah.
A couple of men and women, with 5-6 kids, were picnicking behind me, on the other side of the fence. They’d finished their lunch and some of the kids got up to run. One boy, about 10, found a break in the fence and was throwing his body against it until he could squeeze through.
“You want to hula?”
“Does it cost anything?”
“Not a thing.”
Soon his brothers and sisters were squeezing through the fence to hula too. I got them lei-ed and lined up, when the eldest sister, 15 or so, egged on by the adults, got up off the blanket and wriggled through the fence. She already knew how to hula, so I instructed all the others to follow her to the hukilau. At least 2 singles found their way into my case, along with an unknown quantity of change.
Two preteens on scooters raced by, dismounted, and prevailed on the adult in charge to let them hula. They pushed and giggled their way through both verses of “The Hukilau Song.” Each gave me a dollar and hopped back on her scooter. “That was fun.”
There was close to $13 in my case when a woman and her husband passed by, stopped, walked back and asked if mine was a tenor uke. She was a 1st grade teacher, living on the west side, who wanted an instrument to play in her class, so the kids could sing along. She thought the ukulele might be the answer. I assured her, while her husband put a dollar in my case and pulled her away, it surely was.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Fit as a Fiddle, Get Out and Get Under the Moon, My Baby Just Cares for Me, The Hawaiian Wedding Song, The Hukilau Song
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Location, Location, Location
0September 2, 2015 by admin
On the first day of September, for some inexplicable reason, the cowboy set up on the opposite side of the fountain. I immediately claimed center stage. And just to prove, once again, that in matters of real estate location is everything, I made $17, multiples of August’s paltry daily take, in fact, the best since mid-June.
A man with a backpack started me off, then a tween from Toronto danced for her mom. Three Spanish beauties romped around, waving their arms above their heads, as if they were palm trees in the breeze. An Australian man, whom I mistook for English, feigned insult, yet still dumped more than a dollar in change in my case.
A 60-something lady gave me money. I was playing “My Baby Just Cares for Me.” “Don’t go yet,” I said. “I wrote a second verse.” At the final chord, she clapped twice, turned and headed for the stairs.
A Brazilian man heard me playing “All of Me,” and wanted to sing it with me. “Can you play it in D?”
“No,” I said. “Try this.” I played it in the only key I know, which is B, more or less. He sang beautifully, while I quietly filled in the English lyric when he stumbled. He was singing to his wife, who listened adoringly. He gave me $2, and went away complaining that the key was all wrong. I put the bills in my case, and noticed that someone had tossed in some change, including a Sacagawea dollar.
A lady from St. Louis put a dollar in my case, saying, “Can I ask you a question? My friend and I think you’re retired from Wall St. and just doing this for a lark.”
“You and your friend pretty much nailed it,” I said. “I am retired, this is a lark, and my office was downtown, but I didn’t work for a Wall St. firm, Wall St. firms were my clients.”
“You were a lawyer?” She added, “I’m so nosey.”
“I was a salesman, of technology services.”
After talking about St. Louis for a while, she went back to her friend on the bench by the water, their curiosity satisfied.
A bridal party showed up at the fountain while I was packing up. The photographer posed the couple near me. Seated behind my case, I picked up my uke and launched into “The Hawaiian Wedding Song.” The photographer smiled, but otherwise the picture-taking went on as if I weren’t there. After the coda, “I do/love you/with all my heart,” I put my uke away. The bridal party moved off. Last to leave were a pair of parents.
“You probably thought I was going to stiff you,” said the man, putting 4 quarters in my hand.
“You must be the father of the bride.” He nodded. “If you want to stiff me, it would be okay. I understand. You’ve probably been reaching into your pocket all day.”
“No, no, you’re the least of it,” he said. “And besides, you sang beautifully.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: All of Me, My Baby Just Cares for Me, The Hawaiian Wedding Song
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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
