Mark Hayward Is My Hero

The only thing I’m legally allowed to say is:

I managed to get myself on National TV once again! Check it out:

It was great fun hanging out with Bob Rule and getting the stories from the old days of yo-yo demonstrations. Of course it’s fun hanging with the other guys in the tour van, but they’re no Bob Rule. You can see Bob’s website at www.mryoyo.com

Yup. You read it correctly. Tonight I was on the NBC Nightly News.

Screenshot from MSNBC.com

They were doing a story on the writer’s strike and how it affects shows that are run every day like The Tonight Show, and Late Night with David Letterman, and one of the clips they used when talking about Letterman was of me doing my Stupid Human Trick. Now both my Dad and I have been on the NBC News without having to commit a crime, or fall into a well.

For a short time you can see the video here on the NBC website.

For a longer time you can see the story on YouTube here.

If you recorded the show by chance, I REALLY want a high-quality copy of this broadcast, and I’d be very grateful if you could help me out.

I just got an email today from Jonathan Burns saying that he saw me on Letterman’s website. I didn’t know what he was talking about so I went to the site, and lo and behold, there I am on the front page in the highlights slideshow! (I’m number 3) That is so awesome! Check it out quickly because who knows how long it will last.

In case you missed my appearance on the show, you can see it here.

My friend Jon Wee just pointed out that I may in fact be the first person to benefit from the current writers strike. Since there is no one to write for The Late Show with David Letterman, they have started doing reruns, and the first one they aired was the one with my appearance on the Stupid Human Tricks segment!

In case you missed it Monday night, check it out here on YouTube.

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

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

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.

I went up to Chicago this week to audition for Stupid Human Tricks from The Late Show with David Letterman. It was surprisingly low-key. I figured that there would be at least 100 people in line, and possibly 1000, but as it turned out, there were 18 registrants. I did my marshmallow tricks with the traps, and it went as well as I could’ve hoped, short of leaving there with a signed contract to be on the show. Of course I still have no idea if I’ll get on the show, but I’m hopeful. We’ll see. Some of the other auditioners had lame tricks, and a few had really great tricks. The final choice will all depend on what strikes the fancy of the producers back in NYC.

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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