Posts Tagged ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’

  1. Taking One for the Cowboy

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    October 27, 2019 by admin

    This time of year, every day above 60 degrees is a gift.  Judging by the size of the crowds in Central Park on Thursday, I was not the only one who felt that way.

    Someone at Bethesda Fountain has an amp turned way up.  At the top of the stairs I see a dense throng across the plaza where Colin, the cowboy, likes to play.  I haven’t seen Colin for a month and assumed he’d headed south, as he does, for the winter.  But as I got closer, past the audience that had formed a neat semicircle around him, I saw it was Colin himself, his basket brimming with bills, belting out his repertoire from the 80’s.  He acknowledged my thumbs-up as I walked past.  Even under the maple, he was audible.

    After 30 minutes, with no activity beyond the birds feasting on the bright red mulberries, I stopped playing and cocked an ear.  Colin was still at it.

    After another 30 minutes, thinking today might be the day I get schneidered (shut out), I turned to find a dollar in my case from an unseen passerby.

    During the last 30 minutes, an Orthodox Jewish couple pushing a carriage stopped when they noticed, as I did, that their son couldn’t keep his eyes off me.  I was singing “Tiptoe through the Tulips,” and finished the song, our eyes locked.  The parents clapped, so the boy did too, then dad gave me a dollar.

    Not long before I finished my set, a 40-something woman, smartly dressed, walked by and smiled while I sang “My Baby Just Cares for Me.”  She stopped to listen about 10 yards past me, while I crooned my own second verse:

    …My baby don’t care for Frank Sinatra.

    She shows the exit to Jean Paul Sartre…

    She came back with a dollar, taking me from schneidered to a break-even day.

    At the fountain, Colin, still amped to the max, raked it in well past his usual quitting time.  The old accordion player, set up much closer to Colin than he needed to be, could barely be heard.

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  2. Hurricane Hula

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    September 20, 2017 by admin

    On a humid Tuesday morning, with hurricanes in the Atlantic driving powerful winds and moisture at New York City, I sallied forth to Bethesda Fountain with my ukulele.  On my way, I counted wood anemone flowers.  The plant along the path had been invaded by boneset, yet still managed 13 flowers; the other, 8.

     

    My paraphernalia started blowing away before I even set it out.  First the plastic hula girl packages, followed by the plastic bag I store leis in, then some leis themselves.  I anchored the leis in the outside pocket of my case, still allowing them to drape over the back so people could see them.  I protected the hula girls by standing them in the lee of my case and the ledge of the fountain.

     

    A little kid watched at a distance.  “Have you got time for a hula today?”

     

    She ran to her family, who were sitting around the fountain to my right.  As I sang my opening numbers to a largely empty plaza, I frequently turned to her and made beckoning motions.  She would not hula, but before the family moved on, she ran over and tossed some small change in my case.

     

    Two Swedish women had been eating their lunch by the lake.  As they walked by, one of them dropped a dollar and change.  “Thank you so much for the entertainment.”

     

    Carole stopped by to chat.  A photographer, she often came to the park with her camera.  “Why isn’t anybody paying attention to you?  Won’t anybody hula?”

     

    I offered her a lei, which, as usual, she refused.  She stood with me while I busked, and watched all the people who walked by without a glance at the man with the uke.  “I don’t get it,” she said, giving me a dollar, then went off to find something more interesting to shoot.

     

    An Israeli man came off the benches with $2.

     

    A woman smiled broadly as I played.  She asked lots of questions about my ukulele and told me she played guitar.  I offered her my uke.  “No strap?” she said, then sat down at the edge of the fountain and started to play.  This woman had no idea.  Her fingers flopped all over the fret board.  “Every chord is minor!”  She mumbled lyrics.

     

    I took the uke back and began to sing “My Baby Just Cares for Me.”

     

    A strong gust of wind whipped through the plaza.  My case blew closed with a thud; leis, business cards, cocktail umbrellas went flying.  The woman got up to help collect things nearby.  The leis and a section of AM NY had blown all the way to the niche where the eastern wall meets the stairs.  I picked my stuff out of the jumble of dead leaves, drinking straw wrappers and single ride metrocards.

     

    While I was gone, the woman had taken up my uke again and brought forth a tortured tune.  I battened things down, pleased to find that the lid had closed on my money before it could escape.  But where were my notes?  I always jot things down so I can write this blog.  Leaving the woman with my uke, I walked off to find the 3 ½ x 5 inch piece of paper.  It was not by the stairs, it hadn’t blown over the wall to the lawn.  There it was, at the feet of a woman on the bench.  I walked up to her, excused myself and retrieved it.

     

    With everything restored, I took back my uke.  “Would you rather I not sit here?” the woman said.

     

    “You’re free to sit wherever you want,” I said, “but it would be better if you listened from over there,” pointing to the benches.

     

    She got up and stood 10 feet in front of me, through several songs, applauding after each.  When she finally walked away, I felt a weight lift, and the return of joy.

     

    A young woman gave me a dollar.  She had to catch up with her family, or she would certainly hula.  “Bring them back here and everyone can hula.”

     

    At the end of my set, I sat down to make some notes.  A 40-something man with a red handlebar mustache walked up with a dollar.  It was s $7.91 day.  I got everything packed up but the leis.  The plastic bag I keep them in was gone.  For the third time, I searched downwind, this time without success.

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  3. Summer’s End

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    August 27, 2017 by admin

    The faint stink of ginkgo greeted me upon entering Strawberry Fields.  Another sign of summer’s end, the fallen leaves of plane trees freckled the green lawn at Daniel Webster’s feet.

     

    Bethesda Fountain was given over to the film crew for a new movie, “Three Seconds,” coming out next year.  A sign on the stairway warned that anyone in the area could end up on the silver screen.  I set up at center stage, ignoring the many PA’s with headsets, the techies with clipboards, and the bevvy of people huddled around the director’s chair in the arcade.  I stood to play, scanning left and right for anyone approaching who might want me to shut up and go away.

     

    Three young people, 2 women, and a man with earrings and a blonde streak in his hair, wandered by.  “Have you got time for a hula today?”  One of the women, who was from New York, was all in, and, after a few words of encouragement, so were her friends from Connecticut and Philly.  They rocked out to “The Hukilau Song.”  The New Yorker danced and took pictures at the same time.  Afterward, she showed me a handful of coins, pointing out that most of them were Susan B’s.  In fact, there were 5 Susan B’s, and 2 quarters, plus another 2 bucks from her friends.

     

    A threesome of 5-year-olds were the next to dance the hula.  Three dads took pictures and reached into their wallets.  The kids, one white, one black, one brown, delivered the dollars to me.  One of the boys wanted to play with my solar-powered hula girls.  I took the pink one apart and showed them all how the sun’s rays generated a tiny current through a copper coil, creating a tiny magnetic field that caused a pendulum, hinged at the shoulders and equipped with a magnet at the bottom, to swing back and forth, and with it the hula girl’s torso and arms.  “They’re never too young to dance the hula or learn about electromagnetism,” I told the dads.

     

    A well-dressed woman holding a well-dressed child by the hand slowed as she came close.  “Have you got time for a hula today?”  She laughed and kept walking.  Then she stopped.  “Changed your mind?”

     

    “No, no, but I will listen for a moment.  Sing me something.”

     

    I sang “Honolulu Eyes.”

     

    She said, “Thank you,” and gave me a fiver.

     

    A Brazilian woman danced a sexy hula, while her friends clapped and laughed ($3).  A thin old man stood at a distance while I finished off “Honolulu Baby” with a flourish.  He came forward to make a donation.  “Did you like that song?”  “It’s not the song, it’s how you sing it,” he said ($2).  Two kids wanted to hula.  “Make sure it’s ok with your mom,” I said to the elder.  “That’s my nanny,” she said, adding, “that’s his nanny too” ($4).

     

    A short, muscular man came running up to me as I sang “My Baby Just Cares for Me.”  He held a phone to his ear; he was drunk.  “Sing to my buddy in Michigan,” he said.  “Listen to this guy,” he said, “I’m in New York City.  In Central Park.  Listen to this guy.”  He held the phone up to me.

     

    I continued to sing, “My baby don’t care for shows, my baby don’t care for clothes…”

     

    “Sing about Ted Nugent,” he said.  “My baby don’t care for Ted Nugent, ‘cause he sucks.”

     

    His friend hung up on us.  The man explained that his friend was having a terrible time, gave me a dollar and walked away.

     

    It was a $25-plus day.  As I packed up, I said to the PA who’d been assigned my corner of the fountain, “Thanks for not asking me to stop playing.  Film crews usually want me to go away.”

     

    “No problem,” she said.  “We shot all the dialog yesterday.  Today was just people walking around, strictly M.O.S.”

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