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My April/May 2011 Juggling Performances

This is my upcoming performance schedule.

  • April 15 11:15-11:30 and noon-12:15 – UT’s International Festival on the UC Plaza. Fire will be allowed.
  • April 15 3:00-3:30 Dogwood Art’s festival children’s stage near Krutch Park downtown – Fire will be allowed.
  • April 16 5:00-8:30 Zoo-to-do juggling at the Knoxville Zoo. No fire. LED show if darkness comes soon enough.
  • April 17 4:00-4:30 Dogwood Art’s festival children’s stage near Krutch Park downtown – Fire will be allowed.
  • April 30 time tbd (event is 8-5) Dogwood Art’s Chalk Wallk walk-around juggling in Market Square and Krutch Park – details still being worked out. Probably a G to PG-13 rated crowd since this will be atmospheric/walk-around the performances will be shorter more adhoc depending on what crowd gathers to watch. Fire will be based upon each location that is density of the crowd, nearness to flammables, etc. You know.. the standard safety considerations.
  • May 6 5-8:30 Dreamnight at the Zoo with Children’s Hospital – the event is for children with severe ongoing medical concerns and terminal illness. – No fire. LED equipment if darkness comes soon enough.
  • May 7 10-11:30 (probably more like 10:45-11:30 – event is 10am-2pm and the only slot taken is 11:30-noon when Michael Messing performs magic). The event is Children’s Mental Health Week sponsored by TN Voices for Children and will be near Krutch Park.

If you are interested in joining me on any of these endeavors, just let me know. Obviously most of the events are G-rated but I think we can have a little more fun with the UT students. Note: At this point, none of the performances are likely to be amp’d ie. no microphones or PAs. I currently do not have a passing partner for any of these events. If you want to pass with me or have some solo time at one of these events, please let me know. Don’t sell your skills short. If you learn to pass clubs Monday night, you’re already good enough! Performances are much less about perfect juggling and far more about audience engagement.

Juggle til you drop!

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Why yes I have heroes! And one is coming to Knoxville!

My heroes and role models center around comedians. The list of influences is huge including Red Fox, Steve Martin, Bill Cosby, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas…hold on…basically the SCTV and Saturday Night Live casts. I can narrow the list to four people: Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Bill Murray, and Robin Williams. When I was around twelve years old, Robin Williams got me in a bunch of trouble when I did his "moisture heat seeking missile" routine that involved a lot of pelvic gyrations for some guests my parents were entertaining. I had no idea what I was doing or saying. The guests were rolling on the floor and my father was fuming. That was my first Carlos Mencia lesson: don’t perform other people’s material.

Robin Williams is coming to Knoxville on April 11th to the Civic Auditorium! There’s even a VIP Meet & Greet package available! Well, he may be coming to Knoxville. His doctor has advised him to skip four Florida scheduled shows due to recent heart surgery.

On August 20, 2007, Williams’ elder brother, Robert Todd Williams, died of complications from heart surgery performed a month earlier. [Source, Wikipedia, Robin Williams]

I wish I was still participating in the Red Cross’ FAST program or that I could justify a ticket. Maybe Robin Williams wants to give himself an intermission during the show and would like a juggler to come on stage with him!

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What is a podcast?

For the longest time I have wanted to get into podcasting. I have good excuses like my computer equipment is pathetically out of date, my hard drives are too small (size does matter!) and filling up, and time is a commodity (video and audio take time!). But really, the geek in me has held me back the most. I understand the definition of podcasting:

A podcast is a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers. [Wikipedia]

That was not satisfying enough for me. I did not want to "podcast" until I could be certain that I was using the word correctly! Did quality of video matter? Length? What if my RSS stream occasionally had text only posts? Does Seesmic count? What about Youtube? Or Utterz?

Tonight I posed the question on Seesmic and had the pleasure of having the CTO and creator of http://podcast.com/ give the definitively best answer to the question. I really appreciated Kosso‘s answer! It nailed it for me.

(Someone should put that video in Wikipedia under podcast)

Update: David Jacobs of The Connected World gave a great answer from a coffee shop! Watch David Jacobs reply on Seesmic!