Archive for February, 2007

This afternoon I had a really fun gig in downtown Indianapolis. It was for a party at RATIO Architects. Every month they have their 4th Friday at 4 Party, where at four o’clock snacks and drinks appear, and for the first time they decided to hire professional entertainment… that’d be me. Being at a place that has a party for their employees every single month almost made me want to get a job.

When I was hired they told me that the president had done a few yo-yo tricks at one of the parties in the past, and after my show today he came up to chat. His name is Bill Browne, and he told me that 30 years ago he and a friend set the world record for the longest session of continuous yo-yoing. They went to a radio station and yo-yoed for something like 30 hours straight! I didn’t get as much information about the event as I would have liked so I went home, got online, and checked out the Guinness Book of World Records site. I didn’t link to it because it is not worth your time. There are almost no records to be found on the site despite the fact that they have a search box, so don’t even bother. I can list more world records from memory than I was able to find in my searches of their site. I KNOW that there are more than 6 records in the category of “food” for example.

Anyway, the more I’ve thought about it the more I’m intrigued by this “longest continuous yo-yoing” record. I may just have to contact Bill again and see if I can get more information.

I spent some time this week painting the custom Freehand Zero yo-yo sidecaps that I ordered from Duncan. I got 150 pairs, and they are clear plastic so I can paint the inside of them however I want. This is the second batch.

At the moment the yo-yos and caps are only available through ExtremeSpin.com or from me directly. Here’s a great shot of an assembled yo-yo from the ExtremeSpin website:

My Superhero/Supervillain FHz!

It’s gona snow tonight.  A lot.  People are FREAKING OUT.  The grocery store had every single lane open and there were at least 10 people in every line.  They were running out of milk.

Natives tell me that it regularly snows here in the winter, but you sure can’t tell that by the level of panic in the face of a snow storm.  We’re supposed to get 6-12 inches tonight, and the little “Snow Warning” tag in the corner of the TV screen has now been there for 18 hours.  The local news people are just SO excited about the big storm.  By the amount of coverage it has gotten so far you’d think that the Manson Family was moving to town.

Of course snow and slippery roads can be dangerous, and people need to be careful and properly prepared, but is it really necessary to make a national emergency out of everything? This is exactly what Michael Moore was talking about in Bowling for Columbine, we live in a culture of fear where the media just can’t wait to blow everything WAY out of proportion.

I had a gig Friday night in Lombard IL, followed by three shows the next morning for Kids In The Rotunda in Madison WI. The shows all went well and were fun to do. One of the great things about doing the Kids In The Rotunda shows is that since I grew up, and went to college in Madison, there are often people I know in the audience. Old friends (usually with their kids now), the parents of old friends, and in the second show this time I saw my Middle School science teacher Mr. Leidel. I was trying to mention the fact that he was there during the show, but I couldn’t deliver lines, and figure out where to mention him, at the same time well enough to do it. I couldn’t find him after the show either, with the rush of people trying to buy yo-yos and wanting trading cards, and I’m not sure he even recognized me anyway. Middle school was a long time ago.

After the shows, I got really lucky and got to have a quick personal tour of the two big theaters in the new Overture Center. John, who had been running sound for me, offered to show me the newly remodeled Capitol Theater (formerly remodeled as the Oscar Meyer Theater, but now returned to its original name), and the brand-new Overture Theater. It was awesome.

I have actually performed in the Capitol Theater twice, and it was fantastic. Unfortunately, one of the shows was on 9/11, so John and I share that bond since we both were working that day. The Capitol Theater is one of the two massive ones in town that were built in the days of Vaudeville. First the Civic Center, and after that was demolished the Overture center, were built around the Capitol Theater. So inside a sparkling, new, modern building you have a gorgeous old Vaudeville theater. I was worried that the remodel (to make it smaller) was going to destroy it, but they did a great job.

The newly renovated Capitol Theater

The brand-new Overture Theater is pretty great too. It has a TRIPLE balcony! It’s an astonishing sight standing on the stage looking up at the house when it’s empty, so I can only imagine how great it would be to play to a full house there. They have a new giant symphonic pipe organ, and a really cool retracting symphony shell that allows all the sound to go out into the house instead of getting lost backstage, or up in the grid above the stage. I don’t think it’ll be happening any time soon, but I sure hope I get to perform to a full house on a stage as grand as this one.

Overture Hall

I love hanging out with spin-top people. It’s always a ton of fun, and at MadFest this year we had a ridiculously good time.

Eric Wolff with his 11″ diameter top. The largest he’s ever made… so far.

For the average person, the phrase “spin-top people” is not one that is heard very often. Of all the very small social groups I belong to, the top-spinners are one of the smallest; I think only “paddleballers” are fewer in number. At the MadFest Juggling Convention this year we had a really good showing of spin-top people… and that means that there were 7 of us. Eric and Noah Wolff, Alan and Robert Gray, Chris Mulhall, Steve Brown and me.

The normal progression of events when top-spinners get together is:

  1. Show off new tops. This rarely takes very long since there are virtually no mass-produced tops, so it’s really a question of who had the time to make some themselves.
  2. Show off new tricks. This also rarely takes long since there are very few new tricks developed each year.
  3. Play Battle Top.
  4. Continue playing Battle Top until it degenerates into a different game that is way more fun.

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