Posts Tagged ‘Chen Guangbiao’

  1. Hot and Noisy

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    June 26, 2014 by admin

    The quiet zone in Strawberry Fields, which hasn’t been quiet yet this year, was especially not so this morning. Instead of mostly Beetles, the accustomed program played from a bench, today a disheveled young man sat cross-legged on the ground, blocking foot traffic, singing “Rainbow Connection” in imitation of Kermit the Frog. It was creepy; he might be the same guy who yelled at the tourists.

    The day is hot and muggy; a lawnmower gets evermore loud. The parks worker pushing it greets me with a wave and mouths “Aloha.” John Boyd and his Sacred Chorale are working the vaulted tunnel, as they do all year long. It always draws a crowd in the heat and rain, and besides there’re restrooms. The fountain is lovely, but there’s no shade. Heading toward my spot on the path, I note that the azalea is over, while hydrangea and spirea are coming on strong.

    Shortly after I started singing, a woman walked by with a hand-lettered sign. “What are we protesting today?”

    “No protest,” she said. “We’re just saying thank you to Chen Guangbiao for feeding the homeless.”

    That’s nice I thought, playing on. After almost an hour, a middle-aged woman dropped the first — and what was to be the last — dollar of the day. I took advantage of the gaps in passers-by to practice “Down among the Sheltering Palms,” and was a little dismayed to find I’d forgotten some key chords. A man asked if it was okay to take a picture.

    “Ok, you’ve got your picture, now how about a hula dance,” I said. No, no, he protested. “It’s only fair,” I told him, trying to save the day with the hard sell. I didn’t get the hula, but I managed to shame a handful of change out of his pocket.

    An amplified rant emanated from The Boathouse Restaurant. Someone with a bullhorn was screaming unintelligibly. It sounded as if she were shouting to have someone’s head cut off. I playing over the tumult, but my concentration was shot. “Blah blah blah blah cut off. Blah blah blah blah blah off.”

    The big bubble maker, who works at the north end of the Mall, walked up from the boathouse with his pail of water. “What’s going on?” I asked.

    “Some Chinese billionaire is buying lunch for homeless people and people are protesting. Something about how he made his money, or Falun Gong, I don’t know. I see something like that, I walk the other way.”

    “Good policy,” I said. “I saw the counter-protest earlier today.”

    Five minutes later, a NYC cop shooed the bullhorn-wielding shouter away. Quiet again descended. I played my finale, “My Little Grass Shack.” At the end, I shouted, “Aloha New York,” as I sometimes do.

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