Mark Hayward Is My Hero

Extreme tug-of-war with Vader, the Egyptian Snake Hound.

Today Vader and I were cruising through the woods, as we like to do, and we had been walking for about an hour and a half when just as we were almost back to the car all hell broke loose. One of the things Vader likes to do whenever he has the chance is to chase deer. It’s annoying. Partly because I don’t like it that he is hassling nature, partly because he could get hurt, and partly because he turns into a one-track-mind pursuit machine. Once he’s after a deer, there is pretty much nothing I can do until he tires out or loses the poor beast. Lucky for the deer, they are much faster than Vader. Normally he finds deer one at a time… today he found a clump of four. The chase was actually pretty short since I think he was already tired, but that wasn’t the end of the action.

Shortly after I got him back on track he found something else. He was just in sight way off in the trees, and he was more or less doing his play bark. At first I thought maybe he found some people, then as I got closer it seemed like maybe he was stuck somehow, or maybe had cornered a woodchuck or something. Once I got close I could sort of see what he was barking at, and it looked like a giant puffball. I thought, “If he’s barking at fungus I am gonna be pissed.” It wasn’t fungus. I could tell because fungus doesn’t fight back. It was a GIANT snapping turtle. The biggest one I had ever seen. Right there in the middle of the woods. Its tail was folded in, and it’s head was all pulled back in its shell, it was actually really cute, but Vader wouldn’t stop barking at it. I had to put him back on-leash and basically drag him away. Of course, by then we were a little lost so it took a while to get back to the car, but it all turned out ok.

There has been a Western movie marathon on TV for the past week or so. It’s AWESOME! I just can’t get enough. Even without wearing any rhinestones Clint Eastwood is the best cowboy ever.

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.