Posts Tagged ‘My Little Grass Shack’
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The Hottest Day Yet
0July 29, 2015 by admin
The temperature topped 90 degrees. Anyone who didn’t have to be out was home in the A/C. At the entrance to the park, all the pedicabs were clustered in the shade. I checked on the blighted chestnut tree; the leaves were browning badly, nor did I see any chestnuts forming, even on the upper branches.
The arcade and terrace at Bethesda Fountain were cordoned off for the annual staff luncheon for the Central Park Conservancy. An Asian accordion player sat on the bench in the shade. According to John Boyd, her name was Whaley, or Wei Li, and she was his fiancé. “Don’t you have six kids?” I asked him.
“Nine,” he said.
“She looks like a young woman, maybe this is your chance for an even dozen.”
“I never thought of that,” he said. “That just may be the excuse I was looking for.”
At my spot beneath the maple, before I even had a chance to tune up, a Chinese man stopped with his family, dropped $2, and asked me for a Chinese song. I told him I didn’t know any, so he asked for “Santa Lucia.” I didn’t know that either, but that didn’t stop me from faking it.
Next up was an Egyptian woman and her daughter. The young girl had no interest in a hula, but mom did. Despite her mom’s efforts, however, the daughter was adamant, so mom quit in the middle, thanked me with a dollar and walked off.
A teenage boy gave me a buck, and a man walking by dug deep into his pocket for a handful of silver.
My location on the path is on the way to the Boathouse restaurant, which, in addition to food, offers an outside water fountain and restrooms. Often people hurrying by give me a thumbs-up, but do not slow down. On 2 occasions today, middle-aged men acknowledged me in one direction, then, much relieved, gave me money in the other.
A couple sat on the rock behind me, in the shade, posing for pictures of one another. After a while, I forgot all about them. A large group of pre-schoolers came by, including one little girl who cried inconsolably. They were from a summer camp sponsored by PS 175, and everyone wanted a lei. I ended up singing 6 verses of “The Hukilau Song,” so they could share leis until everyone had a turn. The crying girl hung back, clutching the hand of one of the counselors.
At the end of the dance, with no money changing hands and none expected, the counselors herded the kids into a line in preparation for marching them to their next destination. That’s when a woman approached the crying girl, in an attempt, one presumes, to…well, I don’t know what she thought she could do, and neither did the lead counselor. He was a stout muscular man, with a full beard and sweet smile, which quickly disappeared when the woman intervened. He tried to warn her off, and before long, raised voices, unruly kids and a crying child soured the mood.
I waited until the storm passed, then closed my set with “My Little Grass Shack.” The couple from the rock climbed down and headed east, in the opposite direction as the kids. The man put $2 in my case.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: My Little Grass Shack, Santa Lucia, The Hukilau Song
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It’s Nice to be Back
0July 8, 2015 by admin
I returned to the park after Independence Day; it was brutally hot. Strawberry Fields, however, was in deep shade. At either end of the mosaic area, men were doing a brisk business selling cold water, while the guitarist played “Norwegian Wood,” a song I always associate with saunas. Across the road, sprinklers cooled the feet of Daniel Webster. There were pods on the catalpa.
I walked across the plaza, taking little note of the amplification at one end and the blues ensemble at the other. Under the shade of the maple tree, with a light breeze off the lake, I set up shop. Right off the bat I spied a YMCA group from Chinatown. The counselor went to the hukilau, but none of the kids joined in. Instead, a lei passed from one kid to the next until a girl wouldn’t touch it, and it fell to the ground. We quit after one verse and the counselor gave me a dollar. The girl gave me 2 quarters.
A jazz trio, consisting of bass, guitar and sax, set up near the boathouse. Four men lined up in front of them, while a fifth, in a white homburg, tap-danced on the path. The men sang in close doo-wop-style harmony. I watched as they worked the crowd; there was hand-clapping and foot-stomping. Two little girls dressed in colorful skirts twirled with the music. I worried I’d lost my target audience.
“Have you got time for a hula today?” I expected they were danced out, but the 2 little girls in the colorful skirts wanted nothing more than to hula. Their patient parents reached into their wallets again.
A young man with an English accent gave me a dollar. “You made me smile,” he said. A woman told me I had a good voice. It was her first time in New York; she asked for a New York song, so I faked my way through “The Sidewalks of New York.” I asked a photographer to hula for his picture. He did, and we were both happy. A teenager wished he could give me more than a quarter.
I looked around to see that I’d outlasted the jazz dancers. It must be tough to split the take 8 ways. I ended my set with “My Little Grass Shack.” Counting my money afterward, I was delighted to find a fiver someone had slipped by me. That brought the total to a perfectly respectable $12.75. Then came the cherry on the Sundae: two people, who had been sitting on the rock behind me, walked up while I was zipping my case and each handed me a dollar. Aloha, New York.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: My Little Grass Shack, The Sidewalks of New York
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Return to Center Stage
0June 25, 2015 by admin
Wednesday was another hot day, but the humidity had dropped after last night’s storm, making it a perfect day at Bethesda Fountain. As I was setting up, a duck jumped out of the water and shook his feathers dry, delighting the children, while, at the same time, spraying water all over my ukulele. No matter, I wiped it dry with my shirt, stood up and started my set. My son-in-law, Evan, was on hand for the first hour. He took pictures, stills and video, which I’ll post when he sends them to me.
My first three hulas were walk-aways. A Korean girl started the inning, joined by another girl who saw us dancing, grabbed a lei and jumped right in. At the end of the dance, they each kissed me on the cheek and went their separate ways. A young child was up next, to the delight of her father, but at the end of the dance, without even kiss, off they went.
The dollars started flowing with the second wave of dancers. A young man dropped 67 cents, which I used to anchor the singles so the wind didn’t blow them away.
A family from Indiana sat down near me. They wouldn’t hula, even though they’d been married in Maui. We chatted about destination weddings – it turned out they had paid the airfare for their guests. While I talked with the man, the woman walked over to my case and emptied her change purse. “You’re doing me a favor,” she said. “Now I have less to carry.”
“I’m happy to lighten your wallet any time,” I said.
A woman came over and gave me dollar. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
“I’ll dance if he will,” she said, pointing to Evan. So they did.
Marcel and Maggie came by. Usually Maggie will sit and listen until Marcel picks her up and carries her off. Today, however, the bricks were so hot, Maggie wouldn’t sit down, even when Marcel pushed on her hindquarters.
An extended family from Tibet filled the space in front of me. Two men, four women and a couple of kids, including an infant, started bopping to my tunes. One of the men, wearing a porkpie hat that was 2 sizes too small, took pictures. When I asked him to hula, a word he didn’t seem to know, he smiled but made no answer. Then I picked up a lei and acted out a dance; his face lit up. Soon the whole family, duly lei-ed, was waving their arms to the music, after which the hatted man gave me $3.
I collected the leis and finished the set with “My Little Grass Shack.” The Tibetan children continued to dance, even when the music stopped.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: My Little Grass Shack
