Posts Tagged ‘Give Me a Ukulele’

  1. Feel Free to Give Advice

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    June 13, 2019 by admin

    A volunteer gardener was laying out flowering plants behind the benches at 72nd St.  I recognized white nicotiana and cleome, and asked for the name of a ping-pong ball sized purple flower on a tall, skinny stem:  gomphrena.  In the background, the perennial stella d’oro lilies and hollyhocks sported different shades of yellow.

    I set up at Bethesda Fountain, and soon an Englishman was hovering about, waiting for me to finish a song.  “Do you know any George Formby songs?”

    “I know of them, but I can’t play them.”

    “But you must.”

    “I tried to learn ‘With My Little Ukulele in My Hand,’ but it was too complicated.  Here’s an old music hall song,” I said, and played the chorus of “Give Me a Ukulele.”  That was good enough for him, and he gave me $2.

    A large number of high schoolers in matching gray tee shirts encamped at the southeast corner of the fountain to rehearse for some kind of show or pageant.  I tried at first to soldier on, but I couldn’t compete with their amplified soundtrack and the crowd of assembled curiosity seekers, so I sat down at the fountain and waited.  There were 30 or more of them, performing choreographed dance numbers, with lifts and dips, hand-springing boys and high-kicking girls.  This went on for about 20 minutes, then they came together as a chorus, boys in the back and girls up front or kneeling, to sing “My Country Tis of Thee.”

    Oh, good, I thought, this must be the finale.  I stood up, ready to resume my set, when they broke into the second verse.  I sat down again.  “America, the Beautiful,” came next, followed by a choirmaster’s idea of a socko finish, higher and louder repetitions, ending with a major chord that lasted for what seemed an eternity.

    After I’d resumed playing, an old man with a ponytail, tie-dyed shirt and beer belly, pulled a harmonica out of his pocket; he wanted to play something with me.  “What key are you in?” he asked.

    “F-sharp,” I said.  “I tune it down a half tone to increase my range.”

    “I’ve got a C and a G harmonica.”  I put on a capo to get back to G, but I couldn’t find the right chords for him.  Before he walked off, he gave me some advice.  “You’ve got to seed the pot,” he said.  “Throw in a 5 or a 20, that’ll get you the bigger tips.”

    In fact, I seed the pot with 2 singles, but to make him happy I pulled a fiver from my wallet and tossed it in.  It crossed my mind that he could have provided the 5 or 20, but I said nothing.

    A woman walking by gave me a dollar.  A mid-teen girl with her mom gave me 2.  I’d been watching her watching me.  I could tell she liked the music, but she refused to hula.

    Beer belly came back.  “So did it work?”

    “No.”

    He shook his head, deeply disappointed in me.  “When I busk in Key West it always works.”

    “Must be me,” I offered, happy to see him leave.

    As I packed up, a well-dressed man with a tall, skinny blonde on his arm, asked, “How much for the purple one?”  He pointed to a solar-powered hula girl.

    “Five bucks.”

    “For the purple one?” asked the woman.

    “Yes,” the man assured her, handing me a five.  I packed up the hula girl in a plastic case and gave it to him.  Despite losing 30 minutes to the pageant rehearsal, I was pleased with my $12 take.

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  2. Sixty-Four Degrees and Sunny

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    October 26, 2014 by admin

    A beautiful Saturday in New York brought out the crowds, foreign and domestic. The acrobats had taken over the western stairs, with their loud exhortations to make noise. The entire plaza teemed with people enjoying the day, a very welcoming sight as seen from the eastern stairs, and for a moment I thought it might be possible to coexist with the shouting and clapping of the acrobats, but no. I was content to visit my maple tree, still leafy overhead. The baby mulberries were dripping with bright red, hard-skinned berries, while the enormous parent across the path bore no fruit.

    A woman walked by and started me out with a dollar. Moments later, 2 people on bikes stopped to take pictures of The Boathouse Restaurant, and the yellow mums around the railing reflected in the lake. Before remounting their bikes, the woman asked for a picture with me. I put a lei around her neck; he gave me a dollar.

    Two toddlers bopped by, put on leis and danced ($2); two young women did not dance ($2).

    A girl and her mother told me they had lived in Hawaii for 8 years. “I can play the ukulele,” the girl said. I handed it to her and she plucked out a tune. “I can play the ukulele behind my head.” The girl wrestled my uke into position, but she could not play her song. “This should be higher,” she said, plucking the G-string.

    “It’s tuned differently than your soprano uke; it’s an octave lower,” I said.

    “So that’s why it doesn’t work.” She handed the uke back to me, turned and walked away, followed by her mother, who waved “Aloha” without turning around.

    A 70-something stopped to hear a few bars of “Give Me a Ukulele,” and he gave me a dollar. I asked him what had grabbed him, was it the song? “No,” he said, “it’s the whole…the whole presentation.”

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  3. Getting Crowded

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    July 19, 2014 by admin

    I had my hat, so center stage was a possibility. Deciding I’d gotten enough sun this week, however, I headed instead to my spot in the shade. There was a guy there with a trolley full of gear. “Are you planning to play here?” I asked him.

    “Yeah,” he said. He was a disheveled, balding man in his 40s or 50s, pale and not altogether clean.

    “Cause this is my spot.”

    “I don’t know you,” he glared at me.

    “I don’t know you either, just saying, I’m here almost every day. I’ll go find somewhere else to play today.” This guy had way too much gear; he wouldn’t last. “You’re going to use an amp?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Cause if you are they’ll shut you down, and you could screw it up for the rest of us. Especially if you start rocking out or something.”

    “No, man, I’m too old for that. I’m just out here because they told me at the hospital I need to get out and do something. They don’t want me hanging out inside all day. Hey, what’s your name?” he asked, taking out an electronic cigarette, sucking on it once and putting it back in his shirt pocket. “My name’s Heartstring.”

    “Call me Mr. Ukulele.”

    So back to center stage, in my hat. Three 20-something girls stopped to dance, but not the hula. They wanted to swing. “Only one rule here,” I said, “you have to wear a lei.” While one shot the video, the other two danced the swing to the hukilau. Triple step, triple step, rock step. They put on quite a show, through two verses and the big ending, A7 to D7 over and over before resolving to G. Then they walked off.

    I had a second walk-off of another kind about 15 minutes later. A couple sat down on the stone bench directly in front of me to eat lunch. They seemed to like the music, applauding at the end of every number. The young woman laughed and gave me a thumbs-up at the rhyme, “in those hula Honolula eyes.” I was inspired to serve up “Give Me a Ukulele and a Ukulele Baby (and with a Little Ukin’ You Can Leave the Rest to Me,” just to see if I’d get the same reaction. Instead, they gathered their trash, waved an approving goodbye and left.

    Somewhere during that performance, a woman walked by and waved her arms hula-style. “How about a hula today?”

    “No, not today,” she said, adding, “You seem to be having a good time.”

    As indeed I was. It was a $3 day. As I packed up, the breathy sound of an accordion wafted over the plaza, barely audible over the splashing fountain. A woman had set up in the shade at the start of the path. The busker scene, like the weather, has started to heat up.

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