Mark Hayward Is My Hero

Easter bunny egg? Loch Ness Weeble? No. It’s a hard-boiled egg rolled in dill. And it was yummy. My nephew Zev invented this dish, and it is called the Green Hairy Egg.

The adventure continues in Lenonia NJ.

I’m spending a long weekend with my cousin and family in Leonia NJ. Today we went to the bakery, and were met at the door by the largest pile of butter I have ever seen. It was awesome.

Worth Their Weight in Butter: My Cousin Scott and his daughter Frances at Balthazar Bakery in Englewood NJ

I had a shockingly good chocolate chip cookie, and we brought home a giant, and delicious, loaf of bread.

Other highlights so far:

• didn’t get lost on the way here
• played a surprise game of soccer with my dog
• got yelled at by a NY cop
• juggled tennis balls representing the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs for Tot Shabbat at the local Synagogue
• got recognized as being from Pittsburgh by the grocery bag I had the tennis balls in

Unfortunately I was not able to connect with my NYC juggler pals, but I’ve got a whole day and a half left in Leonia, so who knows what else might go down.

It’s true! I had the good fortune to be on the Late Show with David Letterman last month on the Stupid Human Tricks segment. I’m not sure why I haven’t gotten around to writing about it before now… I must’ve been busy… or something. I will write up a more detailed account at some point soon, but in the meantime, here’s a link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aykkrCz1dlg

By sheer chance I heard that the Australian Circus Oz was in town, so I went to see it with my friend JoAnna.  It was AWESOME!.  I had only heard the name of the circus, and never anything about it, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.  Aside from having a different take on some classic circus stuff, what they really excel at is telling a story.  The trapeze act was all about the kids in the schoolyard, and there was a rolla-bola routine done on top of a street cart for Pink Lemonade.  The whole show is acompanied by live music, and the ring-mistress has both an unbelievable voice and enough personality for two people.  It was a really great show.

Unfortunately I was not able to meet or hang out with any of the cast since they were on their way to Mexico that night for the next gig.  After Mexico they are headed up to Berkley CA,  so if you’re in that area don’t miss your chance to see them.  I guess they only come to the states about once every two years.

Learn more at www.circusoz.com

Last year I published an ebook on pumpkin carving just barely in time for Halloween at Lulu.com. I just posted the second edition of the book, and this time it’s early enough that it could actually be of use to people in time for Halloween. It’s got more tips, more photos, AND more patterns (drawn by me of course). It’s awesome. Now all I have to do is get people to buy it. One thing that I think would help would be reviews. If you are one of the people who already bought the book, I would sure appreciate a review on the Lulu site here. If you haven’t bought it yet, TIME’S-A-WASTIN’! There’s pumpkins to be carved!

Also, if you liked the book, please spread the word and tell a friend. It would make me very happy.

Last weekend we held the 2007 Ultimate Battletop Championship of the Universe, in Chico California at the National Yo-yo Contest. It was a blast. In order to keep the game interesting we leveled the playing field by making everyone use the same tops. Alan Gray made 25 battletops, and he sold out right before the contest started. There was so much interest that I even sold two out of the 5 I brought.

There were two rounds to the contest: Long Spin, and Death and Destruction. In the Long Spin round you get more points the longer your top remains spinning compared to the rest of the players in the arena. In the Death and Destruction round, spinning doesn’t matter at all, you only get points for tops knocked out of the arena, and damage done to other tops. Halfway through the contest we decided that it was also a good idea if you got a point for a top ricochet that hit another competitor. This rule addition was developed after a competitor (who shall remain nameless) got it in the nards off a bad bounce.

Alan designed the battletops to be just the right size for a bottle cap to fit on the crown. On one hand, the bottle cap lessens the potential for destruction, but it made the tops way more awesome, and easier to identify quickly during a battle. In an amazing coincidence, there was an Old Town Root Beer Company just down the street that sold literally hundreds of kinds of small-batch soft drinks, and they let us take any of the used bottle caps we wanted.

In an effort to make the contest as awesome as possible, and to entice people to compete, I spent a few days making a really cool trophy:

We had 20 competitors and a bunch of spectators. With the help of the illustrious Mark McBride acting as MC/herder, we got all the people organized and had a great contest. It had all the suspense, intrigue, and action that you could want… well, with one exception.

Part of the reason that we designed this contest the way we did was so that we could find out if it is really possible to split a top in two in the midst of a battle. Anyone who has ever played with tops in public has had someone come up to them to tell about how they used to battle as kids, and break each other’s tops in two. I believe that it is possible with the right conditions, and the right top, and if anyone can do it, I think it is committed top-spinners.

We had surprisingly few direct hits in this contest, especially considering how much damage was accomplished at the Indiana State contest last month (mostly by Heidi… she was on FIRE). Since we had so little damage in Chico, I’m going to have to hold out on any conclusions about top splitting, and we will just have to do more battling.

Although there were no split tops, the arena (a trash can lid) certainly got a lot of abuse. I was not the only one to lodge my top into the plastic, and punch a hole all the way through.

I was surprised by the number of competitors, and the number of spectators (as well as the fantastic amount of noise we made), and it was great to be a part of such a raucous good time. There will be more glorious battles in the future… and Alan already gave me the idea for the next trophy.

I’ve already started thinking about how I’m going to carve my pumpkin, I just can’t quite decide between fire and lasers though…. I’ve also been scheming about how I’m going to scare the snot out of the children in my neighborhood.  Good times.

Get Carving Tips and Tricks here, along with photos of the pumpkins I’ve carved in the past OR check out the enhanced version in my ebook with patterns, a seed roasting recipe, etc.  Get your $2 ready and go here.

I just got a great email from my friend Kenny Ahern:

HI Mark — I hope all went well for you on Letterman. I am in
Singapore now, no Letterman Show.

However, I have good news for you. Two young guys in my stage crew
think you are a yo-yo god. They were doing some amazing yo-yo moves
between shows and I asked if they knew you. Man, you should have seen
their faces. I instantly became a cool guy because I knew you.

Hope all is going well!

Kenny

Friday night I had some time to kill in Manitowoc WI, so I went to see a movie. I was up there because I had a gig the next morning, and I was staying in a dive hotel. The movie I chose to see was Rush Hour 3, and I would not recommend it.

The experience of seeing the movie was kind of strange by itself. I unintentionally got to the theater 45 minutes early, so I decided to try to find a pinball machine to help me kill some time. The theater only had Street Fighter, an out-of-order driving game, and a console that had a bunch of classics that were all out of focus.  No pinball though, so I ventured outside. There was no one on the sidewalks at all, but each of the four bars I went into was packed. It was very odd. It felt kind of like a movie except for the lack of tumbleweeds. There were lots of video poker and Golden Tee golf games, but no pinball to be found.

I went back to the theater, and sat down to read the news on my mobile phone while I waited for the movie to start. There was one other person in the theater who had gotten there way too early, an older woman with a GIANT soda, and I’m sure she was there early because the time in the paper was not the same time that they were actually playing the movie.  Of course I was that early because I had nothing better to do than just show up at the theater without checking the showtimes and hope it would all work out.   I really thought that more people would join us by the time the movie started, but no. It was just her and me… the whole time. Comedies are way more fun to watch in a large group, but the fact that there were only two of us didn’t stop me from laughing out loud at the funny parts… and as far as I could tell, giant soda lady just sat there in silence.

We’re still unpacking, although the end is now in sight.  Here is a photo of the best of the labels so far:

Only one of them refers to yo-yos.  Can you tell which one?