Posts Tagged ‘Let It Be’
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Mr. Ukulele Loses His Aloha
0September 21, 2018 by admin
A gray Thursday in the park, the platoon guitarist pleads “Let It Be” at the Imagine Mosaic. By the lake, the jazz combo’s drummer pounds out a samba, joined by bass, guitar and horn. Colin is still playing at the fountain, for another half hour, he tells me. Along the path to my second venue, it is strangely quiet: no caricaturists, hand-writing analysts, artists. I set up under the maple, where, unlike at the fountain, I don’t need to project, so even my busking is subdued.
Then I spotted Eugene and his parents, fresh off the red-eye from California. Eugene was a stocky early teen, with bright pink hair, shaved at the temples. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
The parents kept walking, but Eugene had time. I set him up with a lei and simple instructions, then off we went to the hukilau. Mom and dad came back to take pictures, while Eugene grinned broadly through his orthodontics. He told me he too played the uke. I handed him mine, and his parents and I chatted until Eugene was ready to sing his song.
“I haven’t played in almost 3 weeks,” he said, by way of apology. His first chord was D major 7th, a teenage angst-filled chord if ever there was one. When he was done, he handed the uke back to me and reached for his wallet.
“No, mom,” he said, when she offered to pay. “This was my thing.” He had a dollar out and ready.
“I’ve got it,” she said, and handed me a fiver.
“Thanks, Mom.”
I packed up my gear and headed for Bethesda Fountain, where Colin was finishing up.
A young couple walked by. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
They were from Tennessee, he visiting her, who now lived in Flatbush. They danced beautifully together, with beatific smiles, very much in love. When I took back the leis, he handed me another fiver. The warm aloha of Eugene and Tennessee had already made the day a great success.
All of a sudden, as loud as can be, “The Theme from the Godfather” crashed into my conscientiousness, played on the accordion. I looked in the corners under the balcony formed by the stairs, both north and south, where accordionists, like cockroaches, can be found. I looked along the edge of the fountain. I couldn’t locate the source at first, but there he was, his back to me, not even 90 degrees from where I played.
There is an etiquette to busking, the first rule of which is you don’t set up against another busker. Here was a gross violation. I tried to ignore him. When I moved farther from him, he moved closer. It was maddening, hostile, intolerable. What was I to do?
What I did do was finish out my set, put away my 2 fivers, pack up and head out, but just walking past the accordionist was not possible. I strode up to him and said, “Next time you come out, how about looking around to see who else is here. You didn’t even try to keep some space between us.”
“Vaffanculo.”
“What did you say? Do you even know what I’m talking about? Do you speak English?” All the while he muttered unintelligibles, still playing his damned instrument.
Now that I’d lost my aloha, what? Push him in the fountain?
It was time to leave.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Let It Be, Theme from the Godfather
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Lucky Eights
0August 9, 2018 by admin
On August 8, the temperature in Central Park reached 88 degrees. The triumvirate of begonias, ageratum and allium provided color. Not a rose could be found behind the benches; instead the bush was littered with brown leaves and wilting tips. In the shade of Strawberry Fields, the guitarist finished “Let It Be,” then immediately launched into a dark rendition of “Strawberry Fields.”
Colin, the cowboy, dressed in black, motioned to me as I walked past. “I’m ready to call it a day,” he said. “This is brutal.”
“Not for me today,” I said, looking toward the sun-drenched fountain. “I’ll go play in the shade.”
There weren’t many people in the park. I played to the sky and water, and to the towers of the San Remo on Central Park West. The boat rental business just across the path, on the other side of a chain-link fence, looked slow. One of the attendants, his back to me, danced a lazy hula.
I took a water break after 30 minutes, and another, 30 minutes later. So far, except for the 2 singles I use to give people the right idea, priming the pump, so to speak, my uke case was empty. While I sang out lyrics I’d sung 10,000 times before, I started to compose this blog in my head. After 11 years of busking, nothing, nil, bupkis. Then, literally at the 88th minute of my 90 minute set, a woman, who had been taking pictures of her young teen daughter, plopped a fiver in my case and said, “Picture, please.”
“I have one requirement,” I said, reaching for a lei and draping it around her daughter’s neck.
“Requirement?” she said. “Ok, we accept.”
After the picture was taken, I invited the girl, who was in New York from San Diego, to hula. “Go ahead,” said mom.
“You go ahead,” said the girl, taking the camera and putting the lei on her mother.
So mom danced to “The Hukilau Song,” while daughter took the pictures. “That’s worth some more money,” mom said.
The set over, I unfolded another 3 singles, for a total of — what else — $8.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Let It Be, Strawberry Fields, The Hukilau Song
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First Day Out
0April 12, 2017 by admin
The temperature shot up to the mid-70s, so, without much preparation, I set off for my first busking session of the year. It had been a lazy winter, uke-wise. Except for a star turn on New Year’s Eve, I hadn’t played at all, and even then I’d played my soprano uke. My tenor uke, for outdoor playing, was in the same sorry shape I’d left it in, with pieces of paper lei and dried leaves crushed in the velvet corners, my last CD in a cracked jewel case, broken cocktail umbrellas, and the uke itself horribly out of tune.
Minimally organized, I went forth to Central Park, at 72nd Street, where The Dakota had emerged from its safety netting of last year, with freshly cleaned buff brick and ornate stone and terra cotta trim. Entering the park at the Women’s Gate, I was treated to a hillside of daffodils, tulips and hyacinth. The rose bushes had finger-sized shoots growing from old wood, while grape hyacinth bloomed at their feet.
At the Imagine Mosaic, the same spring flowers, along with an expanse of wood hyacinth, bloomed all around. The troubadour on duty played “Let It Be.” There were aspirational buds on the chestnut, and farther down the hill, hellebore made a great success where a few years ago rhododendron failed. Fuzzy flames adorned the magnolia, and astilbe unfurled its leaves low to the ground. In the middle distance and on Cherry Hill fruit trees bloomed pink and white.
At Bethesda Fountain, where I like to set up, a man played lounge music on an amplified acoustic guitar. Buddhist beggars stalked the crowd, pushing prayer flags into people’s hands. The lake teemed with rowboats.
I moved on to my maple tree, halfway to the boat house. I started out with the old playlist. Unlike other first days, I was able to remember most of the chords and lyrics. Soon enough a woman tossed 31 cents into my case. A while later, a man gave me $2 for the long video he shot. I got a dollar from a 20-something woman, and another dollar and change from 2 pre-teen girls. No one wanted to hula. “But thanks for asking,” said one of the girls.
A man stopped and shot another long video; I gave him a good show. He peeled off a fiver and tossed it in my case. “You like ukulele music?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said in a thick Russian accent. “It makes me happy.”
Me too.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: h, Let It Be
