Mark Hayward Is My Hero

I performed in Rocky Ripple today. It’s the neighborhood that is just a little south of Broadripple… since I’m sure that you all know where Broadripple is. And yes, that’s it’s real name.

It was a fun little fair. Very cozy, very comfy, with maybe 15-20 vendors and a small kids area. They had a little set-up for bands that were playing throughout the day, and they asked me to come to do a couple of short sets while the bands were switching over. Everything was very casual and low-key, and I wasn’t really sure there were enough people for me to gather much of a crowd.

My first set was about 20-25 minutes long and it went really, really well. I kind of felt like the old-time circus that comes to a small town and gets mobbed by spectators. This was not a rural neighborhood or anything, we were right in the middle of Indianapolis, but by the time I started my finale I think I had every person at the fair standing around watching me. It was great. Afterward I overheard one of the people involved in the fair half-joking, “…maybe we should forget about the bands and just have jugglers and magicians and stuff….”

My second set wasn’t quite as long or as packed, but I’m sure some of the people from the first show were still at the fair and wanted to give other people a chance at the front row ;) When I started I noticed that there was a girl in the front row who was about 8 years old and had been at my first show. As soon as I did my first trick she said, “Don’t you have a different show you can do for us?”
“If you’ve seen my show before, then you’re gonna see it again!” I said, and so she got up and left. It was very funny.

I gave out a bunch of business cards, which was my real goal, and we’ll see if anything comes of it.

Today I woke up, took a shower and ate breakfast, ordered my new prop case, went to the dog park, had lunch, worked on the Model A Ford, had dinner, and made cookies. That’s almost the full spectrum of my life, and it was all packed into one day. I didn’t realize until I wrote this just now that the different activities were delineated by meals. If I weren’t so tired I would have to have another meal and start on a new chapter in life. Maybe as a Sumo wrestler….

The goal with the Model A today was to take off the radiator so I can take it in to a professional to have it cleaned. Last time I drove the car the radiator boiled over, and when I took off one of the water pipes it was LOADED with nasty gunk, so the radiator has to be filthy too. Taking the radiator off isn’t an insurmountable task but there are a bunch of things you have to do before you even get to the radiator. First you take off a couple of water pipes, then unhook the wires for the headlights and the horn (which run through the radiator housing), take off the hood, and THEN you can remove the radiator. Unfortunately I only got as far as the hood. I got everything unscrewed and I realized that actually lifting the hood off (and not messing it up) was either a two-person job, or I didn’t know how to do it by myself. Either way, I needed help. Since my neighbor Todd wasn’t home, the radiator will just have to wait. What’s one more day after being in storage for 15 years?

In the morning I perform at the Carmel Farmer’s Market, and then at the Rocky Ripple festival… if it doesn’t rain. I’m anticipating a rain-out, but we’ll see.

I just did some editing on the yo-yo page in the wikipedia.  I’m not sure if I should be proud or ashamed.

Who am I kidding?  I’m totally proud!  Wikipedia is AWESOME!

For about a week now I have been working on a cardboard mock-up for a new prop case to carry all of my performing gear. I think it’s finally finished.

In these photos the mock-up is sitting on top of my current prop case so you can see the size difference. It may seem ridiculous to spend so much time on a mock-up, but this case will be a really important tool in my life, and I am going to spend a LOT of time hauling it around. (more…)

As a kid, the way I remember it, was that on the day after Thanksgiving all of a sudden you would see the Christmas stuff appear in the stores. Then, as I got older, I remember being offended when the Christmas stuff started appearing before Thanksgiving. Recently, Christmas stuff has made its debut just after Halloween, but THIS IS THE LAST STRAW! Just LAST WEEK I saw an entire area of red and white, and ornaments and little Santas at Macy’s! Not only is it not Thanksgiving OR Halloween yet, but IT’S NOT EVEN OCTOBER!!!

What’s going on here?!? Are retailers really that desperate, or is this a sign of the disintegration of modern society and the onset of Armageddon? I mean really… September is the start of Christmas? Come on! We’re not even in the same financial quarter as Christmas yet. Maybe I’m getting cranky at an early age, but I think this is SICK and WRONG.

For those of you who are in an accelerated holiday state, you may have already started thinking about pumpkin carving. If so, I can be of service. I have amassed some pumpkin carving tricks and tips for the betterment of mankind. And please… let’s all try to remember that there are still two major holidays BEFORE we get to Christmas.

In any career people develop unintended bonus skills that are not a part of the job description but are still a very important aspect of what you do. Teachers learn to listen to (and understand) multiple people talking at the same time, bartenders learn to read lips so they can still take drink orders when the music is loud, retail workers learn to quickly calculate percentages in their heads so they know exactly how much an item will cost after their employee discount.

Performers have their own specific set of bonus skills too. Performers are able to:

• drive and follow directions/read a map to a place they have never been before
• drive five hours or more without a break
• walk into almost anywhere, unquestioned, and without a pass/ticket/escort
• make small talk with complete strangers
• fake their way through even the most obvious on-stage catastrophes and make them look like part of the show
• change their sleep schedule multiple times in a week
• drive and do all kinds of things you shouldn’t be doing while driving: eating, getting better directions than the ones that got you lost, changing your shirt/shoes/pants, taking pictures of crazy stuff that your friends won’t believe you saw without a picture to prove it

I just got back from a nice trip to Denver for my cousin Brett’s wedding to the lovely Diana.  They asked me to perform at the reception and of course I agreed.

I love performing at weddings.  It’s great for several reasons:

1. everyone is happy and in a good mood
2. there are ususally people who are worried that the reception will be boring so they are extra happy to be entertained
3. there’s cake

There was a lot of entertainment at this wedding: singing, poi swinging, professional dancers, a magician, and of course me.  My set went well, and I handed out a bunch of trading cards, the wedding was great.  It was a good time.

Bought a new shredder today.  What could be more fun than a little personal security?  I haven’t actually plugged it in yet or anything, I was just sick of the entire adventure after I took a wrong turn (and then a whole series of wrong turns) that added an hour to my 20 minute drive.  Tomorrow will be a shredding bonanza.

Now that my busiest time of year for performing is over I have to catch up on everything that I have let slide, or partially slide, for the last three months. Ug. There’s a lot of it. I dubbed today “Efficiency Day”. Nothin’ but workin’ fast today. I set a timer for meal times, and just worked, worked, worked. It went well, but I think tomorrow will have to be day 2 of Efficiency day… I still have a lot to do.

I will be performing at a big one-day art fair this Saturday. The Penrod Art Fair at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Tens of thousands of people go, so it has big potential. We’ll see how it goes. After my experience with the non-existent street-performing scene in Indianapolis I’m trying to not get my hopes up, but in the best-case scenario this could be huge.

I was performing up at the Wisconsin State Fair last month and after my show I was handing out my new super-hero themed trading cards. One kid got his, took a few steps away, and stopped to look at it. After a minute or so he came back over to me and said,

“In this picture it looks like you are wearing a cape.”

“Yeah, I am.” I said.

“Ok… then why aren’t you wearing a cape now?” he said.

It took me a second to suppress my smile and come up with the right response.

” Well, sometimes I like to keep a low profile and just go out in my civilian clothes.”

“Oh, ok.” he said, and walked off.

It did make me wonder though, of all the people who see my show, what percentage of them would actually think the show was better if I was wearing a cape?

Get your own Mark Hayward trading cards here.