Mark Hayward Is My Hero

Today I had four shows, and they were only 30 minutes apart. It was exhausting. At least it was a nice sunny day though, so there were lots of people around to watch.

Today’s high points:
– On the way in I saw a car with the liscense plate “BON JOV1” Awesome.
– Buying my SECOND 36 bar case of Limited Edition 100 Grand candy bars. Today I got the peanut case since I already had the one with the coconut bars in it.
– Eating two ears of delicious sweet corn while watching cowboys do rope and gun tricks.

Today’s low points:
– Having to talk over the sound of the speed boat races on the nearby lake.
– After all the work to correct it, the sound quality on the “Diamonds” stage was STILL terrible

If all goes well, tomorrow after the fair I will get to hang out with a couple of top-spinner/yo-yo friends. Then on Tuesday Vader and I will go off to Madison for a day to try to get some stuff ready for the move to Pittsburgh.

Today at ChocolateFest it rained. That was really the major aspect of my day. One of my shows got cancelled as a result, but mostly it just meant there were fewer people around. People were literally running from the park when the rain started. Not a good sign when you are trying to gather a crowd for a show.

In other news, I ate a whole bunch more chocolate today, so that was good.

I’m in Burlington WI today, and for the next three days performing at ChocolateFest. I met a guy from ChocolateFest at one of my gigs last year, and I actually tried really hard to get them to hire me… mostly because I had heard that there were mountains of free chocolate just lying around, waiting to be eaten. So far that has not proven to be the case. Admittedly, it’s only been one day, and while there was free chocolate for the performers, it did not come from a mountain as I was promised.

My first two shows had some mic trouble, but that was nothing when compared to the carousel trouble. It was brutal. Right across the walkway from the stage I was on was an incredibly loud carousel. They were playing the shrillest music I’ve ever heard, and it was as if they were piping it directly into my head. There were times when I could hear the carousel better than I could hear myself. Not ideal. After my show they turned it down bit, so maybe tomorrow will be better.

This is WAY harder than ever before, and it doesn’t help that we have a dog either… or that we have standards now.

In case you haven’t heard or figured it out, we’re moving to Pittsburgh.

I think we all know on some level that our country only functions because of trucks. Almost everything we buy, drive, eat, etc. comes to us on a truck, and yet they’re so common that we not only take them for granted… we don’t even see them anymore. I spend a lot of time on the road, and most of the time I don’t really notice the specifics of the trucks myself, but this week for some reason I was noticing all kinds of things being hauled around the Midwest. Here are just a few of the more interesting things I saw on my trip up to Minneapolis last weekend:

• An entire flatbed full of steel train wheels.
• Two GIANT McDonald’s Arches. So big that they had to lie them on their sides.
• I don’t know what they were hauling, but I saw the semi that has the Marines sword on the side. It’s the full length of the trailer, so it’s HUGE, and it says, “Earned. Never given.”
• Big steel tubes
• Massive rolls of metal sheet that are so heavy they can only put one or two on a flatbed trailer at a time.
• An entire locomotive frame. It was just the structure, the walkway around the outside (with railing), and the huge gas tanks underneath.
• Explosives. That’s right… an entire truck with specially built containers full of explosives.
• Russet potatoes, mmm….
• Tractors. They take the wheels off, and just stack ’em up. It’s really cool.
• Fire hydrants. I have to assume that they were being shipped up from the fire hydrant factory, ‘cuz it was a whole truck full of ’em. It was about 8-10 feet of pipe with a hydrant on the top of each one. They were stacked on their sides maybe 4 or 5 high.

I always wonder what is in all of the other trucks that have no markings on them. When I worked at REI I was often on truck-unloading duty. Our stuff only took up half the truck, and the stuff in the other half was always pretty cool. Once it was a tractor, once it was giant stacks of plastic storage bins, and once it was massive rolls of empty bags for frozen vegetables on their way to be filled. The veggie bags were actually the most impressive because they were so incredibly heavy. You wouldn’t think that plastic bags would be heavy, but they were in these big, tightly-wound rolls, and then stacked high on pallets. Everything that we ever got for our store could be easily moved by one person with a pallet jack. It took FIVE of us just to get the towers of veggie bags rolling after we got them off the ground on our pallet jack. It was crazy. I really thought that our buddy Trucker Dave was going to have a heart attack right there in our warehouse.

So truckers, keep it rolling, and thanks.

I got my new blowgun in the mail this week:

copyright Target Zone Sports, all rights reserved

It’s just what I needed.  In order to fit my old blowgun into my new prop case I had to cut a few inches off the front of it.  I was hoping that 4 inches wouldn’t make much difference in the accuracy, but it made a HUGE difference.  So I bought the good ol’ Extreme Trailblazer so that I could use just one segment and add it on to the front of my performing blowgun, and yet it would still fit in my case when it was disassembled.  Works great.

The weird thing though, was that when I opened the tiny little box that it came in, I was OVERPOWERED by the stench of old cigarette smoke.  It’s no surprise that the people who sell blowguns would smoke, and I have no problem with that, it’s their own business… but seriously… how did they manage to make their product smell so incredibly bad?  I’m starting to think that they must’ve blown smoke directly into the box and then quickly sealed it up, because there is no way a human could survive in that kind of atmosphere.  Even today, 4 days later, the box still reeks.

**Kids: Don’t buy weapons online without your parents approval.  Even a blowgun is a serious, and potentially dangerous weapon.

On Friday Vader and I went to the IMA future sculpture garden for a nice little walk, and there were birds everywhere! The wildlife at the IMA is always pretty good, but there were just SO many birds this time. I am guessing that they must be migrating. I saw the usual Canada Geese, grackels, robins, and ducks, but then there were Coots, Cowbirds, Woodpeckers, and I even saw a Turkey Vulture eating what I think was a snake. That took me off guard. I already knew that they were carrion feeders, so maybe the snake was killed by the mower or something.

It’s starting to look like no one is going to buy the New Kids on the Block Bubblegum I’m selling on ebay. It doesn’t make any sense to me. How could someone not want it? It’s so awesome! It looks like there may not be a buyer for the Garfield Pencils I’m selling either. To me that one is not as hard to believe, but I really thought they would sell. There is still time for both items, but I’m just so surprized that there are no bids on either one yet.

Ok, but here’s the real shocker for me: the Toyota Prius keychain that I almost threw away is now over $20! Who knew? Maybe it’s rare, or maybe there are more keychain collectors out there than I thought… actually that must be it since I didn’t think there were ANY keychain collectors out there.

I’m still firing it up though. I’ll have a Dish Network DVR on sale on Tuesday, and I’m going to put up some vintage Mark Hayward t-shirts later today I think. I’ll post a link when I do.

Vintage Mark Hayward performing t-shirt ebay auction

Astronomers have discovered the most Earth-like planet to date.  Its 50% bigger than Earth, five times heavier, and it’s 20.5 light-years away.  The most fascinating thing is that some astronomers believe that there should be liquid water on Gliese 581c (catchy name I know), and THAT means that there could be life!  My favorite part of the story:

“London bookies duly took note, lowering the odds on extraterrestrial life from 1,000-to-1 to 100-to-1.”

Read the whole thing yourself here.

In other news, I had to bring some poop to the vet today so they could check my dog for worms.  Good times.

That’s right… I just won on ebay. My first ebay auction ended very early this morning, and I got a respectable $6.63 for my 19 year-old Mountain Dew can. While I’m content with the outcome, I was hoping, as all ebay sellers do, that my item would be the envy of all the rich collectors around the world, and that they would stumble over themselves trying to outbid each other. The Mountain Dew can was my trial run, just to see how it all worked… now on to bigger and better things: like Garfield Pencils and New Kids On The Block Bubble Gum. Yeah, you want ’em.

Check out my current auctions:

New Kids on the Block Bubble Gum

Toyota Prius Snazzy Keychain

Set of four Garfield pencils from 1978