Posts Tagged ‘Honolulu Eyes’
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Of Things Canadian
0August 6, 2015 by admin
Finally, low humidity and my busy schedule cooperated, drawing me back to the park. I was not the only one; Meta was playing her harp on the bench on the path. An amped guitarist with a music stand had set up at the fountain, so I stopped to chat with her on my way to my maple.
“Have you been out in this heat?” she asked. “I haven’t worked in 3 weeks. I just got back from Montreal. It was a lot cooler there.”
As it happened, the first people to stop for me were 2 girls from the Canadian Plains, neither of whom had ever seen the ocean. They talked each other into a hula, then walked away before I could ascertain what province they were from.
A French mom and daughter (or perhaps they too were Canadian) stopped to listen to “Honolulu Eyes.” The mom danced and gave me a dollar; the daughter shrank with embarrassment.
An overweight hipster, laden with cameras, dropped a buck as he raced by. Later, a couple stopped to examine the paraphernalia in my case. It turned out he spoke German. We chatted haltingly auf Deutsch before his wife took him by the elbow and pulled him away.
A large group, in blue tee shirts, stopped to hula. They were from a Bronx day camp. I sang both verses of “The Hukilau Song” so everyone had a chance at a lei. A little girl of 5 or 6 pulled on my sleeve. “Mister,” she said, showing me the quarter she was giving me.
A young couple from Boston danced, and walked away. A wise-guy made a big show of giving me 7 pennies.
Meta, done for the day, pushed her harp on wheels past me, then stopped to chat. “Let me know next time you go to Montreal,” she offered. “My kids showed me all these wonderful local places of interest. Really cool stuff.”
“I went to New Brunswick with a friend over 40 years ago to see the tidal bore on the Bay of Fundy,” I said. “Moncton, I think. The bore was disappointing, but a local guide book sent us to.…”
“Magnetic Hill?” “Yes, Magnetic Hill.” “Magnetic Hill, I can’t believe it.” She raised her hand for a high-five. “My father loved to go there. He’d put the car in neutral, take his foot off the brake, and up the hill we’d go. Over and over.”
With that memory, off she went. I went too, in the other direction, wondering how much today’s $3.32 was in Canadian.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Eyes, The Hukilau Song
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Too Hot to Hula
0June 24, 2015 by admin
Monday’s temperature was in the high 80’s and Tuesday’s broke 90. Nevertheless, properly SPFed, hatted and hydrated, I made my way to the shade of the maple. The crowds were thin. Three men walked by. They stopped to listen, then, after a long negotiation, a dollar appeared and floated into my case. Sometime later, a set of 40-something parents handed their toddler over to me. While the kid and I did the hula, the parents retreated to check their cellphones.
At the end of the set, I had 2 singles and a penny in my case. The penny was either an accidental contribution stuck to a bill, or a comment from one of the many people who failed to be charmed by my performance.
The next day started out no better. I checked in on the chestnut tree to see how it was faring. Spikey golfball-sized nuts had formed, looking like World War II mines. Throughout the tree, one or two lobes on every leaf had dark spots caused by the blight.
The sprinklers were turned on in various sections of the landscape. Children were running through the spray by the white rhododendron to keep cool.
Center stage was uncontested, but to play there today seemed suicidal. A school group of young adolescents stopped to hula. They came up with $3 of their own money. A man took a video of the complete “Honolulu Eyes,” then dug out 4 quarters for me. A woman from Montreal encouraged her 2 daughters to dance. One of them waved her arms and shook her body, as if possessed, while her sister slowly turned in circles. Four kids from the Bronx did a creditable dance. Passersby stopped to watch, and then, in the purest form of Aloha, a middle-aged woman paid their way with a dollar.
I felt my bad luck of yesterday had changed when a lady from Louisiana, newly relocated to NYC, had to hula. By the end of the set, I had $14. I took off my hat to wipe my brow and saw that sweat had soaked my hat to within an inch of the top, a plimsoll line of perspiration. And, for good luck, walking under the oak tree just off the path leading back to the fountain, an acorn hit me in the head.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Eyes
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Something New
0October 28, 2014 by admin
With so few suitable days remaining in the season, I ventured out on Monday despite the cool temperature. It was just 60 degrees, and the sparse crowds at Bethesda Fountain wore hats, coats and scarves. Singing in the sun kept me warm.
A trio of Italians got off their bikes near me and started to take pictures. The boats on the lake, fall colors on the far shore, and crystal blue sky above complemented the brick, stone and bronze of the place. As the others remounted, a young man came toward me and placed a dollar in my case. It lay there alone for some time until a thin elderly woman got up off the bench to add a handful of quarters.
Barreling down the path came a large group of teenagers. “Have you guys got time for a hula today?” There was a scrum for leis, then the kids lined up and danced to “The Hukilau Song.” They were 8th graders from Gloucester, NJ, and were in no hurry at all. After the dance, the group colonized the grassy hill beyond the benches, tossing a frisbee, snacking, and generally slacking off until their next activity. Three times, a gaggle of girls broke away and asked to dance again. For variety, I played “My Little Grass Shack” and “Honolulu Eyes,” but the last group of girls wanted to go to the hukilau again. All told, I collected $2 and change. Two unaffiliated boys of the same age had been sitting by the fountain to watch the show. When the group finally gathered to leave, the boys each gave me a dollar.
Maybe because there were so few tourists today, I became aware of some new presences. A tall, muscular man in jeans and a tee shirt walked slowly around the fountain, asking loudly who had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior; he offered baptism right then and there. A man set up on the opposite side of the fountain with a microphone and tape recorder. He was lip-syncing to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”
I was packing up to leave when the saxophone player sat down near me. “Are you coming or going?”
“It’s all yours,” I said.
He rolled his eyes toward Frank. “There’s something new here every day,” he said, warming up with scales. As I walked away, I heard the sax’s rendition of “New York, New York,” a jazzy fortissimo. Frank didn’t stand a chance.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Honolulu Eyes, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
