A bloody good time!
T-Minus 24 hours until tour begins!
Yesterday I spent the late morning with the always effervescent Kyla Bea, drinking great coffee, eating a good breakfast and talking about all things meaningful, fun, and personal. As she was so kind to do the same for me, I do suggest you make an effort to give her blog a read, and be inspired at how gracefully she handles getting married, buying a house, having two schipperkes running amok (in all the best ways!) and still finding time to write. Lovely girl, a husband who deserves her and a great writer. Check it out, the link is on my blogroll!
Quick note, too! Even though the spotlight in my favour has clearly ended, there are still new readers checking in every day, so thank you and welcome!
Last night, I ended up attending three separate birthday and halloween parties, and tried as best I could to see all my friends one more time before I depart tomorrow morning. As today will be filled with packing, preparation, laundry, and all the usual hoops one must jump through before leaving for six weeks, I certainly appreciated the chance to see most of my good friends in one night. I know I'll miss them. I always do.
The anticipation to leave is getting overwhelming- The clocks are just inching by ever so slowly and all I can think about is seeing the city I live in vanish behind me tomorrow. I know I feel like a different person when I'm out on the road, and I wonder now if it will reflect in my writing. These next two months will be full to the brim of shows, training, hard work, excitement and another degree of anticipation as I have something wonderful waiting when I return.
But as for today, there's lots to get done, and still lots to say goodbye to.
Tomorrow I'm heading to a city where I've performed many times before, the first time being over nine years ago. Now, this city holds a special place in my heart, but not for any reason of love or fondness. While I do love the city, the reason I have so many vivid memories of it is because it was there that I suffered the only injury while performing my show that left a permanent mark.
I was young, eager to impress and overzealous. I had drawn a fantastic time slot, Friday night, 8:00PM on the main pitch and I knew right away that the show was going to be massive. All I had to do was show up, give the people all the energy I could muster and they would send it right back to me.
My finale at the time was a pretty basic juggling trick, a three-up pirouette with juggling torches and a catch to finish. The difficulty came in the fact that I would stand on top of my flight case, throw the three up, jump down to the ground (about four feet) and pirouette tightly tucked in the air on the way down.
The weather was gorgeous but a little on the windy side and the show is as good as I expected it to be. Lines are flying out at machine-gun speed, my wit is sharp and honed to recognize situations where it can be unsheathed and used. I'm nailing my tricks flawlessly. Hup, go, joke, laughter, hup, go, applause, joke, laughter. Rinse and repeat.
The crowd balloons to an absolutely huge size and I hop onto my case, head just underneath ten feet up and I can finally see my audience in their entirety. There are a lot of them and it's time to give them an amazing finale.
I breathe and look straight up for a moment, and the sun has completely disappeared from the sky. I think briefly about how great this will look as good fire juggling at night transcends juggling from its usual sad buffoonery into something enveloping and exciting. My crowd is ready, their hands clapping rhythmically along in unison giving me the traditional “circus drum roll” of sorts.
”Was it this windy when I started?"
Now before I go any further, the juggling torches I was using at the time are produced by a company called Dube and the model is called “the Classic”, which translates into “bare-bones”. They are composed of a kevlar wick, a metal shaft joining the wick to the handle, and said handle is made entirely of smoothed out hardwood. Many juggling fingers have been broken by the unforgiving hardwood handles of Dube Classic torches.
”I don't think it was. Come on, Dan, do it! They're waiting! Here we go... Hup!"
Attempt one: The torches fly, the first two spinning three times and the last one a quintuple spin up into the air. I leap, swing my arms and tuck to spin. Torch one comes down, perfect. Torch two, perfect. Torch three... Where is torch three? I hear a clack behind me, I realize I've missed it and it caroms off the ground landing directly beside my case. The crowd gives me an “aww” and I cover with a joke. Now, I'm not one to bail if I can't do something- I'm committed to performing this trick properly, and besides, a little tension is good, right? You see performers doing this all the time, intentionally flubbing tricks the first couple times so that when they in fact DO perform it correctly, the illusion of the trick being harder than it is makes people respond more favourably. But not then, I just screwed up for real- but I went along with creating the illusion of difficulty.
Attempt two: The torches fly. Two perfect triple spins, the last one goes up but it carries a slow rotation.
”Dammit! Adjust, you're running out of time, jump and adjust, that's three and a half spins at most, be ready for half-catches!”
First throw, catch, second throw spins perfectly but the wind drags it a few feet to my left. I sprawl to catch it, and fail. It hits my hand and bounces out, but I have no time to deal with it as the third one is coming down in a slow, lofty spin. Three and a half, just as it appeared going up. I catch it backwards on the hot end but manage to bobble it around so that I don't end up hurting myself. I had screwed up again. Two strikes. The unwritten rule of pretending tricks are harder than they are is that you've have to do it on the third try. I was worried about losing the crowd as in some places, audiences are far more mercurial than others. But not this group, they were with me the whole way even in failure, they wanted to see me succeed in this trick as much as I wanted to succeed in it myself. I was completely venial and that took a little of the pressure off.
”Okay, come on Dan, come on Dan, come on. They're clapping again, nail it this time. Give them a good show. Ignore the wind. You've done harder things than this!"
Attempt three: The torches fly. First two throws are perfect, the third is perfect.
”This is it!”
I jump, swing my arm up and tuck to spin, the jump is perfect and I land ready to catch. I catch one expertly, catch the second, and look up for the third. I don't see it until the last second and by then, there was nothing I could have done.
BANG.
That's all I hear although the sound is confined to the interior of my skull. I hear a collective gasp but I can't pay attention to my audience right now- the torch had come spinning down and hit me directly underneath my right eye. I learned very quickly that the butt end of those hardwood handles are not forgiving in the least. I feel no pain and speak into my microphone confidently.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I've just hit myself in the face it seems... But don't worry! I'm okay..! My eye is just tearing up a little, there's a little water. Let me get it out and we'll do this finale!” I bellow into the microphone while trying to sound playful and downplaying the situation.
I feel wetness surrounding my eye so I put my right hand up to it and hold it there for a second, while flashing the left hand to my audience in a “thumbs-up” gesture. Suddenly, I feel wetness at the tip of my elbow. Surprised, I look at my hand and arm for the first time and they are both covered in blood, droplets falling off of the tip of my elbow onto the cement.
”Uh oh.”
I look up my audience again and they are all standing there, silent, staring at me, wondering what the heck I'm going to do next. To me, there is no choice.
"You start the show, you finish the show."
My brain starts working a triple shift and words fly out of my mouth to avoid the situation getting tenebrous. I remember that I have an extra shirt in my case, so I run to it, pull it out and fashion a poor man's tourniquet by tying it around my entire head. Half of my mouth and my microphone poke out on the bottom side and my left eye pokes out the top. It feels like I'm consumed by the task of performing this finale properly, finishing the show and triumphantly defying the odds for the sake of my audience. I've decided that the technical term for this is “performance bloodlust”.
I commit to my audience and they taste in my performance bloodlust for a moment. They know I'm not going anywhere. Adrenaline pumping through my body, I scream into my microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are NOT going home until I do this trick!” and it is then that they truly realize that I'm serious. I prepare to try it again, re-fueling the wicks on my torches and wiping my blood off the handle of the one that struck me. With one eye covered, I have no depth perception which makes the finale exponentially harder. It takes four more attempts, but I do finally perform it without a mistake. I will never, ever forget how loud the applause was when I finally did. Battered, bruised, and bleeding, I pass the hat at the end of the show and make the biggest hat of the festival, donations and words pouring in commending my brio. A doctor in the crowd advises me to get stitches, then the adrenaline starts wearing thin and the pain starts rearing its head.
I make it back to the hotel, lean my head on the door to my room and brush dried flecks of blood off of my face. I open the heavy wooden door and enter. Stumbling to the mirror, I turn on the light and the damage is heavy. I take two advils and wash my face as best I can. I know I'm not going to go get stitches.
I go back to the main room and take my hat out of my bag, dumping it unceremoniously on the floor. A large number of small bills flutter to the ground, instantly I know that I persevered and succeeded in providing a unique experience to my audience albeit a little unintentionally tonight.
Looking at the splayed out hat I know there are probably a lot of sympathy dollars, but I have no doubt that I earned every single one of them.
Yesterday I spent the late morning with the always effervescent Kyla Bea, drinking great coffee, eating a good breakfast and talking about all things meaningful, fun, and personal. As she was so kind to do the same for me, I do suggest you make an effort to give her blog a read, and be inspired at how gracefully she handles getting married, buying a house, having two schipperkes running amok (in all the best ways!) and still finding time to write. Lovely girl, a husband who deserves her and a great writer. Check it out, the link is on my blogroll!
Quick note, too! Even though the spotlight in my favour has clearly ended, there are still new readers checking in every day, so thank you and welcome!
Last night, I ended up attending three separate birthday and halloween parties, and tried as best I could to see all my friends one more time before I depart tomorrow morning. As today will be filled with packing, preparation, laundry, and all the usual hoops one must jump through before leaving for six weeks, I certainly appreciated the chance to see most of my good friends in one night. I know I'll miss them. I always do.
The anticipation to leave is getting overwhelming- The clocks are just inching by ever so slowly and all I can think about is seeing the city I live in vanish behind me tomorrow. I know I feel like a different person when I'm out on the road, and I wonder now if it will reflect in my writing. These next two months will be full to the brim of shows, training, hard work, excitement and another degree of anticipation as I have something wonderful waiting when I return.
But as for today, there's lots to get done, and still lots to say goodbye to.
Tomorrow I'm heading to a city where I've performed many times before, the first time being over nine years ago. Now, this city holds a special place in my heart, but not for any reason of love or fondness. While I do love the city, the reason I have so many vivid memories of it is because it was there that I suffered the only injury while performing my show that left a permanent mark.
I was young, eager to impress and overzealous. I had drawn a fantastic time slot, Friday night, 8:00PM on the main pitch and I knew right away that the show was going to be massive. All I had to do was show up, give the people all the energy I could muster and they would send it right back to me.
My finale at the time was a pretty basic juggling trick, a three-up pirouette with juggling torches and a catch to finish. The difficulty came in the fact that I would stand on top of my flight case, throw the three up, jump down to the ground (about four feet) and pirouette tightly tucked in the air on the way down.
The weather was gorgeous but a little on the windy side and the show is as good as I expected it to be. Lines are flying out at machine-gun speed, my wit is sharp and honed to recognize situations where it can be unsheathed and used. I'm nailing my tricks flawlessly. Hup, go, joke, laughter, hup, go, applause, joke, laughter. Rinse and repeat.
The crowd balloons to an absolutely huge size and I hop onto my case, head just underneath ten feet up and I can finally see my audience in their entirety. There are a lot of them and it's time to give them an amazing finale.
I breathe and look straight up for a moment, and the sun has completely disappeared from the sky. I think briefly about how great this will look as good fire juggling at night transcends juggling from its usual sad buffoonery into something enveloping and exciting. My crowd is ready, their hands clapping rhythmically along in unison giving me the traditional “circus drum roll” of sorts.
”Was it this windy when I started?"
Now before I go any further, the juggling torches I was using at the time are produced by a company called Dube and the model is called “the Classic”, which translates into “bare-bones”. They are composed of a kevlar wick, a metal shaft joining the wick to the handle, and said handle is made entirely of smoothed out hardwood. Many juggling fingers have been broken by the unforgiving hardwood handles of Dube Classic torches.
”I don't think it was. Come on, Dan, do it! They're waiting! Here we go... Hup!"
Attempt one: The torches fly, the first two spinning three times and the last one a quintuple spin up into the air. I leap, swing my arms and tuck to spin. Torch one comes down, perfect. Torch two, perfect. Torch three... Where is torch three? I hear a clack behind me, I realize I've missed it and it caroms off the ground landing directly beside my case. The crowd gives me an “aww” and I cover with a joke. Now, I'm not one to bail if I can't do something- I'm committed to performing this trick properly, and besides, a little tension is good, right? You see performers doing this all the time, intentionally flubbing tricks the first couple times so that when they in fact DO perform it correctly, the illusion of the trick being harder than it is makes people respond more favourably. But not then, I just screwed up for real- but I went along with creating the illusion of difficulty.
Attempt two: The torches fly. Two perfect triple spins, the last one goes up but it carries a slow rotation.
”Dammit! Adjust, you're running out of time, jump and adjust, that's three and a half spins at most, be ready for half-catches!”
First throw, catch, second throw spins perfectly but the wind drags it a few feet to my left. I sprawl to catch it, and fail. It hits my hand and bounces out, but I have no time to deal with it as the third one is coming down in a slow, lofty spin. Three and a half, just as it appeared going up. I catch it backwards on the hot end but manage to bobble it around so that I don't end up hurting myself. I had screwed up again. Two strikes. The unwritten rule of pretending tricks are harder than they are is that you've have to do it on the third try. I was worried about losing the crowd as in some places, audiences are far more mercurial than others. But not this group, they were with me the whole way even in failure, they wanted to see me succeed in this trick as much as I wanted to succeed in it myself. I was completely venial and that took a little of the pressure off.
”Okay, come on Dan, come on Dan, come on. They're clapping again, nail it this time. Give them a good show. Ignore the wind. You've done harder things than this!"
Attempt three: The torches fly. First two throws are perfect, the third is perfect.
”This is it!”
I jump, swing my arm up and tuck to spin, the jump is perfect and I land ready to catch. I catch one expertly, catch the second, and look up for the third. I don't see it until the last second and by then, there was nothing I could have done.
BANG.
That's all I hear although the sound is confined to the interior of my skull. I hear a collective gasp but I can't pay attention to my audience right now- the torch had come spinning down and hit me directly underneath my right eye. I learned very quickly that the butt end of those hardwood handles are not forgiving in the least. I feel no pain and speak into my microphone confidently.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I've just hit myself in the face it seems... But don't worry! I'm okay..! My eye is just tearing up a little, there's a little water. Let me get it out and we'll do this finale!” I bellow into the microphone while trying to sound playful and downplaying the situation.
I feel wetness surrounding my eye so I put my right hand up to it and hold it there for a second, while flashing the left hand to my audience in a “thumbs-up” gesture. Suddenly, I feel wetness at the tip of my elbow. Surprised, I look at my hand and arm for the first time and they are both covered in blood, droplets falling off of the tip of my elbow onto the cement.
”Uh oh.”
I look up my audience again and they are all standing there, silent, staring at me, wondering what the heck I'm going to do next. To me, there is no choice.
"You start the show, you finish the show."
My brain starts working a triple shift and words fly out of my mouth to avoid the situation getting tenebrous. I remember that I have an extra shirt in my case, so I run to it, pull it out and fashion a poor man's tourniquet by tying it around my entire head. Half of my mouth and my microphone poke out on the bottom side and my left eye pokes out the top. It feels like I'm consumed by the task of performing this finale properly, finishing the show and triumphantly defying the odds for the sake of my audience. I've decided that the technical term for this is “performance bloodlust”.
I commit to my audience and they taste in my performance bloodlust for a moment. They know I'm not going anywhere. Adrenaline pumping through my body, I scream into my microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are NOT going home until I do this trick!” and it is then that they truly realize that I'm serious. I prepare to try it again, re-fueling the wicks on my torches and wiping my blood off the handle of the one that struck me. With one eye covered, I have no depth perception which makes the finale exponentially harder. It takes four more attempts, but I do finally perform it without a mistake. I will never, ever forget how loud the applause was when I finally did. Battered, bruised, and bleeding, I pass the hat at the end of the show and make the biggest hat of the festival, donations and words pouring in commending my brio. A doctor in the crowd advises me to get stitches, then the adrenaline starts wearing thin and the pain starts rearing its head.
I make it back to the hotel, lean my head on the door to my room and brush dried flecks of blood off of my face. I open the heavy wooden door and enter. Stumbling to the mirror, I turn on the light and the damage is heavy. I take two advils and wash my face as best I can. I know I'm not going to go get stitches.
I go back to the main room and take my hat out of my bag, dumping it unceremoniously on the floor. A large number of small bills flutter to the ground, instantly I know that I persevered and succeeded in providing a unique experience to my audience albeit a little unintentionally tonight.
Looking at the splayed out hat I know there are probably a lot of sympathy dollars, but I have no doubt that I earned every single one of them.