IJA II
Friday morning I woke up, took a quick shower, and went down to Michael and Jenny’s room. They were not quite ready to go yet, so I read in the central square of the Holiday Inn, beside the mini-golf and opposite the pools and video games. For some reason, that first morning, they gave me a USA Today that may or may not have been complimentary…
We ate at a diner on the way, and headed to the festival. I hung out for a bit, wandered the shops, and then ended up watching Andy Head work on some stuff. He’s a Chicago juggler, and has come once or twice to our little juggling club here in town, so I went over and ended up hanging out for a while. We talked about aesthetics of the routine he was working on, and then messed around with three clubs. He said he hadn’t done much club juggling in a long time, and of course his stuff was amazing… He gave me pointers on a couple of the tricks he did that I thought I might be able to learn relatively quickly and was all around a really nice guy. One of the folks much more concerned with the artistry of what he’s doing and putting together an entertaining routine than he is with technical juggling.
Luke from Madison showed up and didn’t have a place to stay, and since he’s a cool dude I offered my extra bed. Luke helps make all the crazy group passing patters that come out of Madison, and I always look forward to juggling with him at these festivals. He shows me mad crazy patterns and we try to do them until we (reasonably) succeed, or have injured each other too much to coninue. We didn’t actually get to juggle on Friday, but swore to ourselves we’d get to it on Saturday.
The main show Friday night was Lazer Vaudeville. I enjoyed the show, although there were some slow points for me. The show was designed for general audiences and I think I was hoping for a little bit more for a juggling audience. Regardless, the cowboy, cigar box, and ring rolling portions were excellent.
The midnight show was fantastic. Mark Faje emceed this time, and of course the Renegade stage is perfect for him. He was obscene, hilarious, and his usal dangerous self. Every time I see any of his big tricks the jokes still kill me and my mind is still blown. A Japanese team went on to do yo-yo and club tricks. Any time they missed, they took a drink from Mark Faje’s bottle of Maker’s Mark. Mark got into this idea, and soon was dancing across the stage to bring them their punishment whisky every few seconds. (Later, after the show, I saw one of them literally being carried away from the festival building.) At the end of the show, after his big Bowling Ball of Death bit, and leaving the scorpion in his pants, (he claimed he forgot about it), Mark explained the gimmick behind chainsaw juggling and proceeded to juggle a running circular saw and two clubs. He then brought Mark Hayward up and, making him stand in front of a large board and hold balloons, he threw knives at Hayward. While riding a unicycle. Without harming Mark Hayward OR the scorpion. Great stuff. Luke and I headed to the hotel satisfied and ready for the big day: Saturday.
One Comment
- George Wyche replied:
I read it all. Not *quite* like being there, but the “punished” juggler being carried away had me laughing. I suppose we are to use or imaginations about Duck Duck Goose?
Ring rolling? Like the size of hula hoops? I suppose you mean “regular” juggling rings… but rolling?
Guess I’ll click on Lazer Vaudeville and go see!
August 3rd, 2005 at 8:56 pm. Permalink.
