Posts Tagged ‘Here Comes the Sun’
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Another Cool, Wet Day
0July 27, 2017 by admin
Tuesday was another cool, wet day, but it did not keep people away. At the Imagine Mosaic, the platoon guitarist sang “Here Comes the Sun.”
Bethesda Fountain sported the usual buskers, the Boyd Family Singers in the arcade, Lady Liberty at the bottom of the western stairs, and the big bubble man on the central medallion of Bethesda Terrace. I took up my spot at the eastern edge of the fountain.
Two girls from Melbourne Beach, Florida, danced an acrobatic hula. Mom gave me $2. A man, amused, gave me a dollar.
Two women from Rhode Island were taking pictures at the fountain. Reluctantly, they hula-ed. As I transitioned into the second verse of “The Hukilau Song,” they found their stride, including a deep, dramatic bow at the conclusion. Grinning with aloha, one of the women found a fiver in her wallet for me. The second woman added a single.
Another twosome, both tall, skinny teenaged girls, danced to the hukilau. A 40-something man, having watched the show from the benches, tipped me a dollar. “Quite an operation you’re running here,” he said. A woman, who had also observed from the bench, dropped a handful of change.
An extended Muslim family, consisting of young children, several women in head scarves and dark, mustachioed men, sat in various configurations near me for a set of photos. At the end of the shoot, one of the men gave me $2.
A 30-something woman with a large dog asked for a picture. I handed her a lei and she put it on the dog. “Sit,” she said. “Stay.” The dog at first tried to shake off the lei, but finally settled down for a picture. The woman gave me some change.
At the end of my set, a young woman came up to me with 2 singles and laid them carefully under the capo I used to keep my money from blowing away. “Love the uke,” she said.
“Me too.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Here Comes the Sun, The Hukilau Song
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A Birthday Hula
0September 15, 2016 by admin
The London Plane trees that line the path from Strawberry Fields to Bethesda Fountain have turned a lime green. The bark is peeling and the leaves are wilted at the tips. Autumn has also arrived at the dogwood; the browning leaves curl to reveal the forming fruit. At the Imagine Mosaic, the guitarist sings, “Here Comes the Sun.”
The day is hot and humid. I give a thumbs-up to the Chinese man playing the one-string instrument. I meant to indicate the volume level on his amplifier was ok with me. After playing for a short time, I noticed that he’d gone.
A half-dozen 20-something women headed back to work after a birthday lunch. One, Karen, wore a giant button and a glittering tiara. “How about a hula for the birthday girl?”
After much discussion, with emphatic demurrals, one of the women said, “How much for a lei?”
Normally, I would not sell my means of production, but in this case I said, “Three dollars.”
She dug in her wallet and came up with a fiver. I had no singles in my wallet, and was reluctant to give her my shill money, the 2 singles I keep in my case to prime the pump.
“How about a picture?” another woman said. I put a lei on Karen, who started to hula despite herself. Afterward, she returned the lei, which I gave to the first woman, who put it back on Karen. I had decided to use the shill money for change, but the first woman waved it away.
A man gave me a dollar as he walked by.
A family from Minnesota posed as they threw coins into the fountain. When asked, they had time for a hula. A bored dad took a few pics, then wandered off to hear the doo-wop sextet in the arcade, while mom and 2 daughters went to the hukilau. For her fiver, mom not only got a dance, she got sight-seeing advice from Mr. Ukulele.
A father and daughter, sitting on the steps, stood up to leave. The father put a tightly folded dollar in my case.
A little girl sat by the fountain with her family. “Have you got time for a hula today?” She shook her head no. A little later, she put a dollar in my case. “Have you got time now?” Again, she shook her head.
As they walked off, she turned to wave goodbye to me. “Aloha,” she said.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Here Comes the Sun, The Hukilau Song
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One Hot Wednesday
0July 16, 2016 by admin
The city is simmering. At the mosaic the guitarist sings, “Here Comes the Sun.” Out on the lawn a mob of day camp kids are picnicking in clusters of yellow and blue tee shirts. Back on the path, toddlers squeal when the sprinklers come around to cool their knees and toes.
The singing from the arcade was really loud, it had to be amplified. It sounded like a rhythm and blues orchestra. At center stage, however, the noise was nothing I couldn’t drown out with noise of my own. Soon three 20-something women showed some interest in the hula. “They’re from Poland,” one of them told me, “they’re shy. I’m Serbian,” she added, “I live in Astoria.” Unlike the Polish women of yesterday, the Serbo-Astorian knew enough to tip a dollar.
Next some Finnish kids gave me $2. They were out running, and had stopped to listen. As it happened, I’d been reading about Emil Zatopek, the Czech Locomotive, who won 3 gold medals at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. They knew of him and didn’t seem to like him much.
All the while, the noise from the arcade echoed out past the fountain and over the lake. I had already decided to finish my set and check out its source on my way out, when a motorcycle policeman rode slowly by. “Excuse me, Officer,” I said, “I don’t mean to bother you.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I suppose I do,” I continued, quickly laying out the regulations all buskers must obey, a thumbnail history of selective actions against buskers, including arrest.
“The acoustics are so good under there they don’t need amplification,” he concluded.
“Exactly.”
“I’ll check it out.” He continued riding around the fountain and dismounted at the arcade. I broke into “Fit as a Fiddle.”
A pack of Australian boys stopped to chat. They passed around my uke, paying $2 for the privilege.
A group of Jewish Day Camp girls got permission to hula from their leader, a 30-something woman with a clipboard. At the end of “The Hukilau Song” they returned their leis and said thank you.
“You guys did a great hula,” I told them. “In Hawaiian we say, ‘tov m’ode’.”
“That’s not Hawaiian,” one of the girls challenged me. “That’s Hebrew.”
“I was told it was Hawaaiian, I must have been misinformed.”
The motorcycle policeman coasted to a stop in front of me. “They’re legit,” he said. “No amplification. It’s a big group, maybe 30-40 voices. But no violations.”
A father and daughter rode up on bicycles. The daughter, 4 or 5, did a lovely hula. They were from Senegal. The father sent her back to me with 2 quarters. “Mahalo.”
As I packed up, with a respectable $11.60 in my pocket, a young black man in tee shirt and shorts sat down next to me. He was with the group in the arcade. They were from Kansas and were going home soon. He questioned me on what values were dear to me: any guess where this conversation was headed?
“There is only 1 rule, the Golden Rule,” I answered, “Or as Timothy Leary said, ‘Live and Let Live.’ Everything else is bullshit.”
“Jesus said, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”
“Did he?” I hoisted my ukulele onto my back. “Aloha.”
“Jesus loves you.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Fit as a Fiddle, Here Comes the Sun, The Hukilau Song
