Mark Hayward Is My Hero

I admit it: I have my dorky moments. But seriously… Star Wars is SO awesome. My friend Harper just gave me this link to a great read-between-the-lines reassessment of the Star Wars movies. If you are a web junkie this is probably old news, but it’s new to me, and besides… Star Wars is timeless. ;)

A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope
Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III

Having just finished another great MadFest juggling convention I have come to a better understanding of why there was such a controversy over the popularity of the Chris Bliss video that swept the internet a while back. (If you haven’t already seen it, check it out here before you read the rest of this article.)

MadFest is the annual regional juggler’s convention that is held each January in Madison Wisconsin. I have helped organize it to one degree or another since it started. For the last six years I have been in charge of the Public Show.

This year, as usual, we had a fantastic show. We had great jugglers like Luke Wilson (Brittish, living in Germany) and the Dew Drop Jugglers (Minneapolis/St. Paul MN) and we had great variety acts like The Rope Warrior (Chicago) and the Flybar Pogo Stick Demo Team (Chicago/Ohio), and sold out our 1300 seat theater once again. It’s always a challenge convincing people to go to the show, but once they go they are usually astonished at how great it was. For the most part, once people have seen the show they make it a family tradition to go every year. Initially it was frustrating to me that people didn’t seem to believe me that the show was going to be good enough to be worth seeing. I eventually got over the fact that not everyone thinks juggling is as cool as I do, although that never seemed like the whole story. This year I think I have seen the light, and my frustration has changed to a slightly different form: I think that American society no longer believes that live entertainment is worth the trouble.

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Tomorrow I leave for Madison WI to start the ramp-up to the MadFest Juggling Festival.  I have to go earlier this year than usual because I will be doing a radio interview on Tuesday morning (at 6:30 am… ug) on Z104.  As usual I’m really looking forward to the fest, and a bunch of my favorite people in the whole world are coming, so it should be a blast.

Also, we will once again have the Wisconsin State Yo-yo Contest at MadFest this year.  Unfortunately, this was the year of starting everything later than I should have, so there aren’t many details up about the contest yet, but that should change soon.

Coming out of the Christmas season I have had a realization about the role of the male in contemporary suburban society. A huge percentage of Americans live in the suburbs, and many smaller cities are really more suburban than urban these days. 100,000 years ago the male may have been in charge of hunting or other primitive man duties, and 100 years ago the man may have been responsible for the family income and the major decisions, but now the primary role of the man, in my view, is Stuff Wrangler.

In case you doubt me on this one, here is a list of some of the ways that the modern male is often expected to wrangle stuff:

• carrying diaper bags
• carrying grocery bags
• carrying shopping bags
• handling suitcases
• doing home repair
• taking care of car maintenance
• taking out the trash
• moving furniture
• walking the dog
• cleaning the hairball out of the drain
• killing/removing bugs
• getting stuff from high shelves
• opening jars
• holding the purse in public
• loading the car
• driving the car
• putting lipstick/cell phone/keys/wallet in pockets when going out

This is, of course, an incomplete list, and is not universal, but this is the stuff that I do, my friends do, and that my Dad has always done. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, it’s just that I finally saw the pattern. And to be honest it does make me feel like a man to load the car before a long trip.

I was in Washington DC this week to hang out with my Dad’s side of the family, and I saw a man with the longest legs in the world. Ok, I don’t know if they really were THE longest, but they were seriously long. Crazy long. My wife is 5’9″ and the dude’s legs were at least up to her shoulders. He was not the tallest man I have ever seen, but he CERTAINLY had the longest legs I have ever seen. The thing was that his body was about the proportions of a regular-size guy, it was just his amazingly long legs that made him so tall. It took a lot of effort to not stare, and the guy next to me didn’t even try, he just gaped.

Here’s what went through my mind, in order, when I saw Mr. Long Legs:

1. Wow, that’s a really tall guy
2. Wow, his legs are really long
3. REALLY long
4. Huh… his pants are too short….
5. Yeah, well… what’re ya gonna do?  There’s no way anyone makes pants that long.

Smoothies are SO yummy. It’s not always easy to find a place that will make you a good one. The whole smoothie industry seems like a bit of a racket to me anyway. The total cost on the ingredients is very low, but the smoothie still costs three or four bucks. The solution? Make your own!

My buddy Adolfo is a smoothie master. He has one almost every day, and he gave me his recipe:

Throw in a peeled mango or a banana

About 1/3 cup OJ

About 1/3 cup Soy milk

2 or 3 ice cubes

Throw in blueberries, strawberries, or whatever

I like to put in some flax meal, maybe a tablespoon or two

Now, blend the heck out of it. Should be yummy.mmmm.

A very good recipe. Now here’s my version of it:

• One peeled banana
• One peeled, seedless tangerine or orange
• A handful of frozen blueberries and/or cherries or mango chunks
• 2 or 3 spoonfuls of vanilla yogurt
• 1/3 cup of whatever juice I have already made in the fridge
• sometimes 1/3 cup of milk
• I think I’m going to add in the flax meal since it’s so good for you, but I just haven’t bought any yet

I am amazed at how delicious it is. AND you get a whole bunch of servings of fruit (a real problem for most Americans) in a very quick and easy form. Works much better in a blender than a food processor by the way. Sometimes it’s hard for me to resist the urge to put other weird stuff in there. I figure that it’s all going to get blended up anyway, so what’s wrong with throwing a few Skittles, a Snickers bar, or some Doritos in too?

Yo-yo contests are awesome. First of all, I get to hang out with a bunch of yo-yo folks (mostly dudes, but hopefully that will change), and second I get to see TONS of awesome yo-yo tricks.

Indiana States was really fun this last Saturday. Much to my surprise a lot of the WAY out of town people came. We had people from Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, and even New York. I counted about 75 people before things really got rolling, so I think there were about 100 there at the peak of the action. That was twice as many as I expected.

For the most part the contest went smoothly. We got the freestlye routines (3 minutes of tricks set to music) going a little late and we had a LOT of them so of course things went long. 20 is a lot for one conetest, and we had 48 to get through. It was really too many, but it’s hard to cut people when the main goal is to encourage yo-yoing.

You can see the final contest results here, and you can learn yo-yo tricks here.

I’ve said it before, but it still amazes me how cool I continue to think yo-yos are. Seriously… yo-yos are awesome.

I just sent an email to NBC. I don’t do it very often, but I enjoy sending letters to large companies when I have something to contribute. Partly I do it because I have an idea, suggestion, or complaint, but I also do it just to see what will happen. Most of the time I get a real response from an actual person, but I don’t think this will be one of those times. Here is the letter I just sent through NBC’s Contact Us Form:

I saw some of the cast of Heroes on Ellen this morning and Masi Oka lamented that he didn’t have a new witty answer to the question: “If you could choose a real-life super-power what would it be?” It seems to me that if he had a list of good answers he could just pick the next one on the list for each new interview he had. I made up a list for him in case he wants to use it: (more…)

I travel around the Midwest of the United States a lot doing shows, and some of my favorite gigs are at libraries. Library crowds are a really good fit for my show, and librarians are great to work with since they tend to be smart, friendly AND organized. There’s nothing like getting to a gig and not only having people know who you are and that you were coming, but also have a big homemade poster of you up in the lobby.

I like to read at home, but I also spend a lot of time in my car driving to and from shows. For me the best thing to have on those long drives is an audio book. It keeps me awake and entertained, and I can improve myself all while driving to work. I keep a list of books to read, and I always try to keep a bunch of books on the list so that when I go to the library to find an audiobook I have a greater chance of finding one I want.

Librarians are a great intellectual resource, and at one of my library shows last year I asked if there was a list anywhere of the books that every American adult should read before they die. They didn’t know of a specific list, but the ladies I was talking to sat down and wrote one up for me while I was performing. I wish I could give them credit here, but unfortunately none of us wrote down the names of the compilers, and I don’t even know which library it was. Here is their list: (more…)

It seems that no matter where I move I end up getting involved in organizing something that is juggling or yo-yo related. I’m not complaining, it’s just what happens. At the moment I’m helping my buddy Takeshi organize the Indiana State Yo-yo Contest. I’m really looking forward to it, it should be a blast. If you want more info check out the website: http://indianastates.newschool101.com/