Spin-Anthropist: September 2010

Mikey, Jeff C, Me and Lucas

June 2010

In the first week of june I finished up all my grading and check out stuff to leave SF to go to Spring wildfire

Was quite a rush to get outta here. Aileen left a few days earlier and I had to prep the room for the new sublet. We ended up with a sublet named David that didn't go so well for the roomies in the long run. Sorry guys! Well julian and claudia seemed to like him.

At wildfire I taught a bunch of workshops (double staff, partner poi and another I can't remember) they were nice enough to offer me a small travel stipend to get my ass out there.

I really had a pleasant time there, eating munching and reconnecting with friends like zan, lucas, jeff calafato, tim kate, brain james-- bitch and a whole bunch more. Thanks to Zan for a tip on a trick that I am really happy with.

Ian, jordan and I also performed our new bits for the show that the vulcan crew has been working on. The audience really seemed to like them even sans music. or maybe they were so in to it from all the heckling that corey was throwin at us. =) Also me and aileen did our partner poi piece as well. That always feels good to do. If you haven't seen it we submitted it for circles of light 2010 and also a different edit of it is on the partner poi dvd.

The performance class was nice, very clever of wildfire to have a non judgmental forum for performers and future performers to elicit feedback. In case you haven't been, you perform in front of an audience and then after the performance the audience gets to ask questions about your process. Can't wait to go to WF next Spring, this will be year five for me!!!

After Wildfire Zan and I were going to hang and meet with chad but that didn't pan out and I caught a ride with britta and corey from Wildfire (east hartford CT) to Boston. We went to the monkeys house or a different spins abode. A different spin is a group based out of Boston who do juggling acrobatics and are just swell guys. A little scattered from wildfire, and chilled out in the house and walked around. Strange not that long ago in the winter I was at the monkeys house with margaret, greg and jordan and it was snowing and cold as hell, but now it was pretty and a bit too hot.

Well anyhoo We all played settlers with mooch, zan, patrick and I can't remember anyone else. That next morning after waking up corey and britta from the back porch bed they constructed we headed for albany NY for the spin jam that happens there on the hudson. Also we went to go pick up chris rovo for the jam too, he was back in the states for a stint before heading back to the virgin islands then to thailand.

In albany, We went to this awesome ale house where the waiter proceeded to spill a whole tray of beer samples INTO my backpack with my laptop. Luckily it was in a plastic bag in the case so it was okay. But I did get a free meal outta it, so spill a beer in my bag anytime.

There we went to a spot on the hudson for the jam and it was a gigantic jam. Corey and Chris started the jam when they lived in albany and now it was full of people. They shoulda been proud. Maybe around 40 people or so. It was a very family jam. Some people were burners some just liked fire it was nice. The sunset that night was really pretty and I got some good pictures. (corey didn't like the ones of hers) Oh yeah I gotta burn on my arm doing contact staff....crappy.

After the jam we headed to skanekty NY, to go to Sully and Drea's house and new baby. There we just hung out, traded music and I watched chris get his ear re pierced and tapered to a pretty high gauge all at the same time. OUCH! I have video of it if you are ever interested.

Later that night we went to Gloversville NY right by the Adirondack mountains to go to Coreys familys house. Her family has a real nice piece of land with a pond and cute cats and such. Next day we drove around little then I got a ride down to the newark airport with corey and her mom. It was a nice drive, we ate dunkin donuts and chatted the whole way.

From there I took a flight to Vancouver for the Madskillz Juggling Festival with jordan. My cousin Theon who lives in vancouver picked us up form the airport and we stayed at his really nice but small pimped out condo near downtown.

Got toured around by my cousin the next day. On the tour we discovered one of the poorest areas in north america, East Hastings. Crazy place. After the tour we met up with a really great and nice juggler named Yuki. He housed most of the vulcanites. THX!

Madskillz was a blur. tons of club spinning and contact. They had a really nice venue for the first day located near a really hip area with neat shops and food. The next couple of days it was on the campus there. Aileen and I performed our partner poi piece in the public show and it went swell. Also jordan and I did our piece in the renegade show. In the public show I really liked Bekkas routine, even though i had seen it done a few other times...but this one was good.

Soon after madskillz a whole bunch of us headed to bellingham washington to meet up with Richard Hartnell. Richard set up a fire show for us on some land. The land was awesome and we all stayed in an awesome yurt that had a foosball table outside of it where I proceeded to dominate the competition ;) . The show had a huge attendence, there were close to 150ish or more people there to see our show. My acts in the show felt awful to me, sloppy a and little unorganized Definitely in the top 5 worst shows I feel i ve done ever The site, audience and booking were fantastic but for some reason i just wan't happy with my performance. The audience couldn't tell though, so thats good =) . Theres footage but don't go looking for it, please. Me and aileen did our partner poi piece on fire, meg did a double contacty thing, kyle palm spun, corey did her fan to the song "yummy", and jordan did his poi solo. Oh and the contact staff guy chryseph came out as well. Was good to see him. After the gig we walked around on the land and there was a huge rick quarry that was amazing. had a huge watering hole with a little dock in the middle. The rocks surrounded the lake, they had canoes and we watched some fire spinning.

Almost forgot, before the gig aileen and I went to see my cousin adrienne who lives in ferndale or something like that which is north of bellingham. She lives in my uncle donalds house that is on a finger of land. Its on an indian reservation and there seems to be some dispute about the land. We heard that when the tide goes out and there are some shellfish out in the water, only indians can get them becuause its indian land. Strange.

Next stop was the vulcan for a few days of decompressing. On that sat the vulcan crew had a gig at Decompression. The gig went fine, it was by the ballpark in sf at the sf concourse. Aileen perfromed her staff solo with us. Also bliss and Ian performed, Firish and some others I can't remember. That gig helped, BM tix bonus!

In the days before the gig aileen had the pleasure of teaching me how to drive a stick shift car. We drove a bit around alameda, mostly in the back of trader joes... It was a rough time. I stalled out a bunch and aileen was not digging my treatment of her car. Total about 3 hours driving around with my permit.

Sooooo after the BM gig me and aileen took 40 to drive across the country. Took a little less than about four days. It started hot. very hot. We had a rough couple of days in arizona, new mexico and texas, with me trying to learn how to drive a stick and 100+ temperatures and no air conditioning. Once we got into oaklahoma things chilled out a little, we calmed down and found a nice little pool right of the freeway in Kentucky.

From there we went to knoxville, where i saw the sunsphere from a distance. A remnant from one of americas worlds fairs. cool. Actually its kinda ugly...

Headed north from knoxville we made it all the way to Danbury Connecticut the next morning, for aileen to drop me off at spherecamp CT. Oh and this is about four days after we had left.

Of course just as we arrive in danbury a belt snaps on aileens car. Ut oh, Aileen got understandabley upset, I ran interference there long enough for us to find a dealership to bring the car too. Luckily it turned out to be a serpentine belt and was an easy kinda cheap fix. Whew.

From Danbury i met up with Adam Dipert and Olivia Kaplan to go to Spherecamp Ct which is a contact juggling festival/playfest. This is thrown by the contact juggler Michael Glenn and Jennifaiere of Sphereplay DVD fame. I showed up early and helped set up tents and also got caught in a thunderstorm. Later that day with Chris Massey, an awesome magician/juggler and all around swell guy, and others got to ride in a tractor and pick up tree limbs that were cut extermely fast by a man with a chainsaw. Seriously, like 30 second to cut a little tree and like 1 min to cut it up.

The festival was awesome, hung out relaxed taught a bunch of workshops. Met many new friends and jugglers/spinners. Spent most of my time with Sean Stogner, a real swell good spinner hooper guy who has a group called the gyronauts with his soon to be wife Tash. I had a little club contact routine that i did not get to do, there were no performances... but actually thats okay. heres some footage of me doing some of it in Sennyos video from spherecamp.

From Spherecamp, Olivia and Adam drove me all the way to Long Island!!! Thank you guys soooo much. Now they are in Pheonix AZ hanging and chilling with the huge scene that appears to be growing more and more there. I think sometime this fall i want to try to make it down there to visit them. Shoot I should do that ASAP....

I hung with my dad a few days had some bonding time. Went to NY saw pheonix, alex, spirit and she-ra near 14th street. Hung out with an old sf friend dawn and vulcanite alex corby at a bar down in the lower east side.

At the end of this part of the journey i hopped a train to Port Jervis to meet aileen and her family to chill for a day or so in sussex county in north western NJ before darting down to philly. Injersey Aileen and went and saw eclipse at the warwick drive in, ,stayed at aileen's sister jessicas beautiful house...At this point we are at the end of June or even a few days into July...

More Updates coming soon.

Spin-Anthropist

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NOELTECH #8 BRECKEN-IZE

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

New Beats Antique Album!

Monday, September 13, 2010

NOELTECH#7: Fan Folding with Corey

Monday, September 6, 2010

Summer 2010 #1 June

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Summer Blog coming soon.