Posts Tagged ‘What a Wonderful World’

  1. Trading Places with the Cowboy

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    October 15, 2015 by admin

    The cowboy was back. I walked past him as he finished “What a Wonderful World” and started in on “Cherish.” As I entered the cool shade of the path, however, I changed my mind. I needed sun, so I went back to the fountain and set up on the west side. At this location, where I’ve never played before, I sang my heart out, with no success. From this vantage, however, I could keep an eye on the cowboy, and when, after 30 minutes, he packed up, I moved onto center stage.

    A large family from Utah walked by. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

    The mother asked the kids, 2 teenage girls and 2 younger boys. They shook their heads no, but mom said, “Well, I want to hula,” at which the girls changed their minds and joined mom. They did a lovely dance, graceful and expressive, especially the younger daughter who pantomimed riding a surfboard and getting wiped out. The father, minding the boys at a distance, dug out a fiver for one of the boys to give to me.

    A Brazilian couple had watched the dance, but would not dance themselves. The man, 30-ish, asked me for a song. I sang “My Little Grass Shack,” and when I sang the lyric about the beach at Hōnaunau, I added, “and Ipanema,” which elicited a big smile and a $3 tip when I finished.

    The afternoon was glorious, even when a roiling black rain cloud blotted out the sun for a while. It was good weather for photographers. At least 3 fashion shoots took place around me, and 3 bridal parties, including a Scottish wedding complete with kilts.

    A 70-something in bicycle gear and an American flag bandanna on his head had been sitting on the bench, adjusting his handlebars and listening to me. After a few songs, as he prepared to leave, he walked up to me with a dollar, saying, “I’ve watched too many people pass you by.”

    A trio of Chinese women stopped nearby. One put some change in my case and asked to take a picture, but that was not the end of it. A little girl had stopped to hula, and the sight had so amused the Chinese women that they assembled another $2 for me.

    A man and woman, dressed in identical horizontally striped polo shirts, sat listening for about 20 minutes before tossing 2 singles into my case and moving on. Soon after, Thoth, the “prayformance” artist who moves into the arcade when the Boyd sacred singers move out, walked by in his loin cloth and face paint. Thoth is best remembered for being arrested a few years back during one of the many busker-sweeps ordered up by the Central Park Conservancy.

    Toward the end of my set, a guy came loping down the path right toward me and presented me with a dollar. “I could hear you all the way up the path,” he said, pointing back toward the Boathouse. “It sounded really cool.”

    At almost the same time, a man turned up the path and put his fingers in his ears. In case I didn’t get the message, he gave me a thumbs-down behind his back. I’d seen that same fingers-in-the-ears gesture from 4-year-olds, but wondered what kind of adult felt compelled to behave that way. An adult with the maturity of a 4-year-old?

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