Mark Hayward Is My Hero

Tomorrow I’m off to Cassopolis MI for a fair for 3 days, and then it’s back up to Wisconsin for the WI State Fair.  I like the fair, it’s always fun and pretty relaxed, although it gets brutal when it’s hot.  Unlike Summerfest you have no relief from the cool breese off the lake.  I might even get to do some pig wrestlin’ this year!

Let me just say upfront that I knew I was going to like An Inconvenient Truth before I ever even saw a preview for it. That being said, it is a great film. I thought Al Gore actually avoided being alarmist while he was sounding the alarm. Most environmental messages move very quickly into the emotional side of the argument, and while passion is important, it makes it easier to tune out for those who most need to hear the argument.

Al Gore provides mountains of evidence to back his claims, and dispells the myths so often spoken by those who are resisting change.

One of the really interesting things for me about this film is that for those of us who have been environmentalists for decades, there was almost nothing new. I didn’t know all the stats, and have never seen most of the charts, but the basic story is the same as it has been for twenty years. I’m really glad that Gore has finally managed to get the word out, and it amazes me that it has taken this long to reach the public eye.

I hope you will pardon my vast optimism, but everyone should see this excellent film, and together we can change the world.

For more information on what you can do check out www.climatecrisis.net and Five Simple Things You Can Do to Help Save the World

I just read an incredible article in Discover magazine about the cutting edge of origami. Those crazy kids are doing some astounding things with a single piece of uncut paper!

The focus of the Discover article is Robert Lang who created a computer program that gives you a diagram of all the folds you need to make a shape, but doesn’t give you the folding order. You have to figure that out for yourself, and it can take months for the really complex ones. See more here.

One of the people mentioned in the article is a japanese dude named Satoshi Kamiya, who is a true prodigy. It’s really unbelievable the stuff he does considering that in the 1980s just making legs was a big deal, and this guy does it all USING ONLY HIS MIND! Check out his site, but keep in mind it’s all in japanese so will have to flail around blindly a bit. The link marked 2004/10/19 is the dragon he’s most famous for.

Read the Discover article.

Ate breakfast (Apple Jacks cereal… I’m not proud). Went to dog park. Took dog home, went to get oil changed and steering column recall done on Prius. Brought Taco Bell to Lenore at work. Forgot guacamole. Went to Takeshi’s house. Talked about his yo-yo DVD project. Painted some yo-yos. Came home. Fed and walked the dog. Ate dinner. Watched TV. Brushed teeth (and flossed). Worked on websites. Quick shower and reading of book on vaudeville coming up… then bed. Big day.

I think I am now mostly recovered from the Portland IJA festival. It was a lot of fun, and there was just enough craziness and stupidity to generate some good stories. In other words, Crash was there. My last Portland festival memory was Crash’s foot bleeding all over the pool deck after a failed attempt at a backflip with a pool chair off the poolside railing. Good times. (Don’t worry, he’s fine.)

I’m home this week, I have a gig on Satruday, and then I’m gone for two weeks. This is the last big trip for the year, and I’m really glad about it. I’m ready to be home for a while.

Juggling is awesome.

The IJA festival is going great as expected. In addition to seeing some great juggling, and doing a little myself, I decided that this is a good time to learn to whistle the loud way. You know, the kind where you put your fingers in your mouth and deafen everyone around you. It’s pretty funny. Just like with any other skill, you have to practice to be able to do a good finger whistle.  More specifically, you have to spend a lot of time getting spit all over the place and not making any noise before you can do a good finger whistle.  I think I’ve finally got it though. It’s still not 100% but it’s getting pretty good. Of course you have to have the right technique, but I’ve discovered that the real secret is just to blow really hard. The juggling festival is a great place to learn since there are so many shows and the crowd of jugglers is both so much more relaxed (ie: tolerant), and more responsive than your average audience.

The location for the late-night, open-mic Renegade Show is especially good this year. We’re out on a 6th floor balcony of the hotel I’m staying in. Aside from the great convenience, it’s really nice to have the show outside. It’s been warm here the last couple of days so we usually have a nice warm breeze blowing on us for the show. The fact that a breeze could be warm has kind of freaked out the Canadians, but we’re all enjoying it. Since we’re so high up, and it’s so late, there is very little city noise and the open roof and enclosed sides give us really nice sound quality.

Tonight I am the MC for the Cascade of Stars Public Show. There are only two acts, so it should be fairly easy, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the show myself. Also, today at 2:00 all the top spinners are getting together for a “breakout” which is always a great time. Tops are awesome.

In a mere 7 hours I leave for the International Jugglers Associations annual summer convention!  This year it is in Portland OR, and it’s gonna be fun.  I don’t know if I’ll get around to posting the week I’m out there, it’s usually hard to get away for normal life things during a juggling fest.

Yesterday, Vader (my dog) and I left Indianapolis around noon Eastern time. We stopped briefly at the library to get what turned out to be a boring audiobook. I’m actually still in the middle of listening to Dune by Frank Herbert (and it’s AWESOME!) but it’s on cassette and I wanted to take the good car this time, and it only has a CD player. The plan was to drive up to Milwaukee, stop at Lynn’s house (my mother-in-law), drop off Vader and then head off to the gig at the Milwaukee Zoo. Unfortunately, leaving later than we should have (my fault, not Vader’s), coupled with unusually bad traffic in Chicago (we lost an hour), meant that we had to drive straight to the Zoo, and Vader had to wait in the car for me while I did the gig. For lunch I had packed a sandwich, some blueberries (that I got on Saturday when I performed at one of the Indianapolis Farmer’s Markets), some carrots and two cookies. Good thing too, since there was not time to stop for dinner before the gig.

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Mark Hayward in the media once again.

Check out www.intakeweekly.com/partycrasher/ and click on the July 7th gallery.