Posts Tagged ‘Sons of the Desert’

  1. Right Back out There

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    May 30, 2016 by admin

    It was 90 degrees on Thursday, more like August than May. The spring flowers were largely gone, while the dog-roses flourished in the heat. Green spears of day lilies have shot up from the lush foliage; they’ll soon be here.

    The cowboy owned the fountain, so I walked toward the boathouse, not without trepidation. The caricaturist was setting up. And no sign of the chameleon. I might have set up in the shade of the maple, but I saw a place to the left of the staircase, under a bush for shade, and along the main path to the boat rental, water fountain and restrooms. I’ve played this stage many times over the years.

    A young couple, both of them short and overweight, tossed in a pair of Susan B’s. They were from Maine. We had not chatted long before I had leis around their necks and we were hula-ing at the Hukilau. There was something sweet and childlike about them, I thought they might be newlyweds. After the dance, the young man put a folding dollar in the case too.

    Three cyclists stopped near me in the shade. They were from Argentina. “Have you got time for a hula today?” Only one of them spoke English. Straddling her bike, she watched, a little bored, as her mother and sister danced to “The Hukilau Song.” When they returned their leis and rode away, she tossed a dollar in my case.

    A young woman walked briskly by and floated a fiver my way. “Thanks a lot,” I said, happy to have shed the curse of the chameleon.

    An old man shuffled past, accompanied by a young man, as I was singing “Honolulu Baby.” The young man held back to listen. “Do you know this song.”

    “Never heard it before. But I love the way you sing it.”

    “It’s from a Laurel and Hardy movie, ‘Sons of the Desert.’ Ever hear of Laurel and Hardy?”

    He thought for a moment. His eyes darted down the path, to where the old man had slowly made his way. “I think I have,” he said, “Gotta go.”

    Another young man sauntered by, took a dollar out of his wallet, and set up for a selfie of himself and me. “Snapchat,” he said.

    The old man’s aid walked back to me and gave me a buck. “What was that movie? King of the Desert?”

    “Sons of the Desert.”

    I ended the set with a lovely hula by a Lebanese woman living in Cambridge, who kicked in another fiver to bring my take to a respectable $17.

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  2. Best Day Ever

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    September 24, 2014 by admin

    The autumnal equinox brought a crystal clear day in the low 70s. People were out in coats and sweaters; I was back in long pants. Center stage was mine.

    After a few songs, a toddler came up to me and indicated he wanted to dance. I tried to put a lei over his head, but he would have none of it. Standing stiffly by my side, the child smiled for the camera. His father and older brother took pictures, while mother and sister sat on a bench. Mother was totally covered in brown, only her eyes exposed. She had a large red pocketbook in her lap. Father gave me a fiver and I asked him where he was from.

    “You are my first Qatari,” I told him, and shook his hand.

    “It is a very small country,” he said in unaccented English.

    “In a very difficult part of the world,” I added.

    Taking in the scene around him – boats on the lake, splashing fountain, giant bubbles from the bubble man, children dancing, the sweep of the twin stone staircases leading the eye to the sky – he said, “How lovely here. The children are happy.”

    Next came 3 women, one of whom, Janice, was having a birthday. That was good for $2. The 40-something man in Bermuda shorts was good for a handful of silver. A girl in her 20s put on a lei and did some kind of interpretive hula that had her cavorting all around the fountain, balancing on the walls, leaping like a gazelle. That was good for another $2.

    A pear-shaped man in a panama hat wanted to take my picture while I sang “Honolulu Baby.” As he held the camera steady, he waggled his butt. “Sons of the Desert,” he said, naming the title of one of the Laurel and Hardy movies in which the song had been performed. I sang on; his graceful waggle was vintage Oliver Hardy. As he walked off, he told me he was from Germany, where they love the old films.

    A man walked up with money in his hand. “My group over there has been listening to you, and we want you to have this. It’s $100.” He put the c-note in my hand; I put it in my pocket. “Give them a little acknowledgement.” I tipped my hat.

    They were 3 couples from Nantucket who had done well and had no problem spreading it around. At the end of the day, I counted $16.86 in my case. My previous one day record of several years standing was $51, $40 of which I got from film crews who had paid me to shut up. This was better.

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