I’m only “buddy buddy” with two of the current FKBs. As in, when I went to see them a year or so ago at a show and went down to the stage after the show and got to the front of the line to people getting stuff autographed, all four smiled and waved in recognition, but two jumped off the stage to come hug me (“Pavel” and “Alexi” or Rod and Mark). I’m also pretty friendly with Tim Furst, who used to be a FKB but isn’t now. Tim and Mark are the only ones in my cell phone contact list.
As you can imagine, immensely fun people to hang out with.
Umm, I can’t juggle. I’ve got a friend who has offered to teach me. I’ve got a set of 3 bean bags, and a set of devil sticks. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to juggle. I may master the sticks. I have a unicycle and was making progress teaching myself to ride when the seat broke.
Currently, I do have a juggling routine. It involves failing miserably at juggling. Then, I tearfully explain how the other clowns threw me out of the union in a ceremony where they cut the tips of my big, floppy shoes, took my red rubber nose and washed off my make up with seltzer and a giant hankie. This generally leads children to console me and to tell me that I’m a good clown after all. With any luck, one of the kids in the audience can actually juggle and will attempt to teach me, leading to further opportunities for comedy.
Visually appealing patterns: I’d add the Factory
And Doc Cathode’s post reminded me: if you go to a juggling festival, do not ask people if they are clowns or if they work at a circus.
Side note: Anyone else going to the IJA festival this year? end of July, Winston-Salem, NC? (Viktor Kee is going to be there!) We could have a mini juggling dopefest!
Doc Cathode, that’s a very interesting routine. It gets the kids involved, leads them to sympathize with you, and draws laughs from people who expect the normal clown schtick. Got any video of this routine?
Hasn’t been announced yet. The past three years have been Buffalo, NY*, Davenport, Iowa, and Portland, Oregon.
*that’s where I met my boyfriend…gets all dreamy eyed
Here’s one that looks interesting. Here’s another called Olas (you’ll need to click on the letter “O” and then on one of the video formats under “Olas”).
There are a lot of nice combination moves. But one that always got a good reaction for me is a simple three-in-one-hand multiplex. It’s just like juggling two balls in one hand, except two are multiplexed.
If you can do it with your arm extended a bit, and a quarter turn to the viewer it looks really nice.