Mark Hayward Is My Hero

Yesterday, as I was setting up to do my first street show at Summerfest in Milwaukee, there was a big camera crew standing in front of me. I went over to ask what they were doing, and to see if they were going to be staying right there for long since I wanted to do a show. I didn’t go over to talk to them to try to get on TV, but they offered, so of course I said yes.

I did a little interview with Mark and another guy (whose name I forgot, sorry) for the Nickelodeon show Slime Across America. I did some yo-yo tricks while they asked me questions, and at some point Mark asked me if I wanted to have a dance-off with him. I didn’t want to at all, since I can’t dance, but I said, “Do I EVER!” So the other guy did a little beat-boxing and we each got 5 seconds to dance. I won. Of course I had the upper hand since the producers said I could do some yo-yo tricks as part of my dance.

The show is what they called an “interstitial” which means that it is a short show that is shown between other shows. If they use the footage of me, it will be aired on July 26th. The problem is that it’s not a show that will be listed in TV Guide, so I’m going to have to record the entire day of programming on Nickelodeon. I’m pretty excited about being on the show, so I really hope they use the footage of me.

My buddy Marcus Monroe walked by as they were interviewing me, and got interviewed too when I was finished.

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.

Now that my busiest time of year for performing is over I have to catch up on everything that I have let slide, or partially slide, for the last three months. Ug. There’s a lot of it. I dubbed today “Efficiency Day”. Nothin’ but workin’ fast today. I set a timer for meal times, and just worked, worked, worked. It went well, but I think tomorrow will have to be day 2 of Efficiency day… I still have a lot to do.

I will be performing at a big one-day art fair this Saturday. The Penrod Art Fair at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Tens of thousands of people go, so it has big potential. We’ll see how it goes. After my experience with the non-existent street-performing scene in Indianapolis I’m trying to not get my hopes up, but in the best-case scenario this could be huge.

My wife Lenore had some surgery last week (she’s ok) so I have been hanging out with her at home just letting her recuperate. Today I am with her at work being her teaching assistant since she is not able to lift anything heavier than 8 pounds for a month. She gets tired very quickly since she is not all the way healed yet, so we might go home and take a nap between her classes. I know… very cute.

This week is the Indianapolis Fringe Festival and I was asked to do some street performing as a part of it. The only problem is that there is no one out. I mean really no one. I drove down Mass Ave yesterday at about the time I was considering starting and I counted a total of 19 people in the five blocks of the street, and most of them were getting into their cars. I think that the problem is that unlike other major downtown streets in other cities, Mass Ave is not closed to cars.  So people just drive up to what they want, do their thing, and then drive away.  Since the only pay I will be getting is passing the hat, I am starting to think that I might not even be able to do a single show. I’ll keep checking it out though, so we will see.

This weekend my neighborhood, Woodruff Place, is having their annual flea market. It’s kind of a big deal, and I’m told that last year there were about 6000 people who came through, so I figured it would be a good opportunity to do some street performing. Although the money would of course be nice, my real goal was to pass out business cards in an effort to try to get more local work, and spend less time driving to Chicago.

I have to say that I did have high hopes, and unfortunately, even my worst-case scenario was too rosy. I’m not quite sure what the problem was yesterday, but my two shows were pretty dismal. The first one wasn’t too bad, although a little sparse, but the second show was so painful that I actually cut it short. Not every event is a good place to perform, and now I’m thinking that bargain hunters in this town aren’t interested in wasting time watching a show when there are bargains to be had. There may also be a clash of style. In order to enjoy my show you do have to use your brain at least a little bit, and I couldn’t get the people watching my second show to engage in any way. At all. Seriously. Even when prompted, they wouldn’t respond. It was like they were dead. Or not even aware that they were watching a show. I had three fellow Indy Jugglers watching (yeah, that was embarassing) and they were usually the only ones reacting in any way.

In the end, I passed out very few cards, and made $13.53 in the first show, and $3 in the second show. Not my worst street show ever (35 cents and an apple split between two people), but it was pretty bad. Unless it’s really packed out there today, with people with pockets full of cash grumbling about how there are no good street performers in this town, I will be better off sitting in the dark watching reruns of The Golden Girls than trying to do any more shows.