Starve.Org White Noise Usenet Archive: "Portland Festival (long & late)"

This appeared in the recent Summer issue of JW. So if you're an IJA
member you may want to skip it. On the other hand, I've left in all the
nasty bits about the Scotts that Bill Giduz removed. (You can never have
too many nasty Scottish bits.)

The Fifth Annual
Portland Juggling Festival
and
Club Renegade
and the
Juggling and Vaudeville Extravaganza
(April 12-14, 1996)

It rains most of Friday, but this is Portland, so nobody pays much
attention to it. At registration everyone receives an official PJF
commemorative, tie-dyed Mr. String laced through a hole in the 16-page
festival program. This is our badge for the festival. Mr. String is a
yard of sash cord, uniquely dyed with golden-yellow ends (to distinguish
it from your ordinary Mr. Strings) and multihued in the middle. What
does one do with Mr. String? One throws knots. The idea is to hold one
end and dangle the rest just above the floor, then gently snap-turn the
wrist in a blurrish direction, and look Billy!--Mr. String has a knot in
him! Usually it's a simple overhand knot, sometimes a `cosmic' knot, and
every other blue moon you get a bow. Mostly you get nada.

Mr. String makes Mr. String. That is, a very nice man by the name of
Bruce Cate invented Mr. String and makes a modest living selling it. He
is a world-class master of knot throwing and has taken the professional
name of "Mr. String." Bruce is also our guest of honor and will lead a
workshop. Once you have developed a little proficiency with Mr. String
(like many juggling skills it requires a fine balance of Zen-like
attention and pig-blind stubbornness) several competitive games can be
played: high knot, low knot, and knot-off (most knots in 60 seconds). A
good knot-off leaves about four inches of string and a fist-sized ball of
knots. You find out who won by counting the knots as you untie them.

The vendors are set up and busy from the start. Renegade, Juggling
Capitol, Serious Juggling, Mr. String (in case you want an extra one), and
Flying Clipper (maker of fine leather footbags and juggling balls). Also,
Paint the Sky Kites, and new vendor, The Performance Beanbag Hatchery.

Rather than try to feed everyone dinner on the first night as in the past,
this year we give everyone dessert. Almond-chocolate mousse, chocolate
brownies, great whipped frothings of fruit and nuts, mounds of freshly
baked cookies, an immense cake. No one objects. Too busy eating.

Henrick Bothe, Frank Olivier, and Stevie G are practicing a strange little
line-dance, each with a hand on another's shoulder, like a file of Mr.
Naturals a-truckin' on down. Everyone else is doing the things people
usually do at open juggling during festivals: greeting old friends,
checking out the vendors, and of course, juggling. A few people spend
most of the evening eating dessert.

By ten, everyone is ready for Club Renegade. Getting into the Reed
College Student Union is problematic. It's furnished like a living room
that happens to be about 80x40', and it comfortably seats sixty or so on
the couches and stuffed chairs. There are about 300 of us. I find a
nice spot on a windowsill that exactly holds my beer cooler.

One of the attractions of any juggling festival is finding wonderfully
bizarre people. I've known Animal for almost five years, and the years
have made him no less strange. Animal (Jeffrey Johnson) is our emcee.
Animal is distinguished by many things: his size (XL), his personality
(XL), his talent (XL), his spirit (XL), and his laugh (XXL). No one
laughs louder or more thoroughly than Animal. Ever. Think of him as a
Dr. Seuss character come to visit. He begins the show with a surrealist
bit of street theatre and Frank Olivier immediately joins in. Then
Animal greases his shaven head, sticks three plumber's plungers on it,
sets them afire, and poses on a globe, imitating the Hawaiian Vaudevillian
figure on this year's T-shirt.

Then the acts. First the Drops-A-Lot Twins with good kid talent and good
kid jokes with good kid timing. It even has a beginning, middle, and end,
which beats anything seen on _Saturday_Night_Live_ for the past ten years.
Next a marvelously choreographed kickbag duet between the very tall Paul
Vorick and the very small Tricia George. They dance around and under and
over each other, the footbag constantly weaving and bouncing about them.
A pity they drop so much, but still the most unusual and intricate
footbag routine I've ever seen. This deserves to be worked on some more
and brought back next year, perhaps for the public show. The only change
I'd suggest is a brighter, perhaps larger, certainly more visible footbag
-- just so the folks in the back can see it. (Yes, I know other
footbaggers will scoff at a giant bag, but this is showbiz!)

Ben Schoenberg does a round of mixed-prop juggling, from squash racquets
to garbage cans. Unpretentious and with no particular point other than
fun, it is appreciated not just for the technical virtuosity, but because
Ben is appreciated. Boppo then presents the only intellectual
performance I've ever seen at Club Renegade. Funny, but don't ask me to
explain it -- get him to do it again, at _your_ festival.

Mr. String hissef' does the improbable by throwing a knot over a golf ball
and picking it up. Animal comes on again and demos his fiery AstroBalls,
inadvertently reprising the archetypal flaming-object-into-the-audience
routine. Fortunately, a juggler is there to properly catch it. Tim
Furst comes on and tells how his father was an Olympic athelete in club
swinging, and demonstrates a typical routine. It is unlike most of what's
seen today, and has the speed and precision of a Neil Stammer act.

Then Iman lip-synchs to a recording of the _Barber_of_Seville_, while
giving Festival Director Rhys Thomas a haircut. Strong, well-defined
movement -- much of it a parody of actual opera pantomime -- and
thoroughly, minutely, choreographed. This is the best and most
professional bit of the evening, and everyone knows it. For the four
minutes her act takes, I am in love. Maybe longer.

During all this (and for at least as many more acts) Animal neatly manages
the scheduling and introductions, always getting the names and titles
right, with never more than a few seconds between acts, and performing the
odd bit of nonesense needed to keep Club Renegade glued together. While
there is no such thing as a `smooth' or `graceful' Renegade, this one is
turning out awfully good.

Now Rhys comes out again, rubbing his raggedly shorn head, and thanks all
the vendors for coming. He then introduces Kevin Wilber, owner of The
Professional Beanbag Hatchery, as inventor of the most original prop of
the festival: club covers. These are elastic covers to keep your clubs
clean while you practice. The only problem with them is that they look
good enough to leave on all the time. (Serious Juggling and Capitol
Juggling now carry them.) And while Kevin is describing his club covers,
from out of the wings, in a familiar hand-to-shoulder line dance, three
naked men appear, wearing only strategically fitted club covers. They
turn and bow to the crowd, turn again and boogie back behind the wings.
Kevin turns pink and becomes speechless. Everyone else is laughing and
falling about. A good end to a good Club Renegade.

Back to the small gym for more open juggling. Mr. String and I talk about
the respective obsessions that overcame us at midlife and changed our
worlds. We agree it is much more fun than merely getting a sports car or
finding religion. Francoise Rochais has all the numbers jugglers
enraptured, watching her work on seven clubs. She has a curious style of
keeping her elbows in, not bending her knees, and shuffling her feet about
to compensate for club drift. It seems to work. After closing the gym at
2 a.m., I drive her to her host's home and find that she has a strong
interest in choreography and dance. I also try to explain that the recent
Oregon floods got into my basement and ruined a few cartons of books, some
of them about dance. My French is pitiful, and her English isn't up to
it, and I think I leave her wondering why I collect wet dance books.

It's Saturday morning and the gym is crammed and the music is loud. At
several points Martin Frost and I negotiate sound levels. I quickly turn
down the noise, but I suspect Martin gets a harder time from others, who
like their music louder. Henrich returns a crumpled handful of slightly
used club covers to Kevin, who accepts them very gingerly, and puts them
directly into a plastic bag. I suggest he get them autographed. [They
were, in fact, auctioned off on Sunday.]

Outside it is damp and overcast and sprinkly. Animal sets up a an old
parachute canopy in the trees, puts a big tarp over the muddy spots, and
hangs a slackrope between two trees. This all seems futile, but Animal
just smiles and lets his laughter roll over the hills. Quite soon the
last of the misty rain disperses, and the morning sun pierces the fog and
makes the parachute into a great stained-glass dome. At least a hundred
jugglers come and dance in the sunlight and among the glowing shadows of
Animal's canopy.

At noon Steve Mills and I sneak next door to the Eastmoreland Golf Club to
smash balls at the driving range. He hits the back fence on the fly
several times, but it takes me a couple bounces. He is determined to
clear the fence, but the tired range-balls frustrate him. (Next year
we'll hold the first annual PJF Ball-Basher Open, on Friday, April 11th.
Either nine or eighteen holes at Eastmoreland, one of the top hundred
public courses in the U.S. Call me on April first to reserve a tee time.)

Six o'clock, Cleveland High School Auditorium. Stuart Celarier, the
Extravaganza Director, discovers that contrary to repeated prior inquiry,
the school does _not_ provide a sound technician, just the equipment. So
he asks if I will run it. We get tapes and cues from everyone, and Ochen
sorts everything and keeps me sane for the next four hours. At six-thirty
the audience, 800-strong, charges down the aisles and scrambles for the
best seats. The lights go down and a spotlight hits Ngaio Bealum. His
own words describe the man quite well: The Chocolate Mountain of Joy. He
has the mildest set of drug, sex, and racial jokes ever assembled. A tour
de force of `kinder and gentler' in stand-up comedy. He can also crank it
up to any level you'd like, but this is a "family" audience -- as one
stuffy matron inanely reminds him.

Ngaio opens things up and introduces Iman, whose comic ring-juggling is
nicely choreographed to nonexistent music. Her cassette is dead, but I
don't know that, and as it is the first act of the evening and I am
running sound, I assume it is the equipment. It is much too early in the
show for me to lose my presence of mind, but I come real close. Iman
recovers nicely, and we trade mimed gestures of incompetence (on my part)
and gracious forgiveness (on her part). She then proceeds to charm and
capture the hearts of the audience anyway. A real pro. The same strong
and precise movement as last night, and now doing up to six rings.

Rob Brown and Frank Olivier bring a touch of the surreal to the show.
They each have acrylic fright wigs, unicycles, and loud music. They also
have entirely different acts, done at different points in the show. Frank
does a flaming rendition of Purple Haze. Rob also portrays a manic
musician. Rob's character is new to me and very un-Rob, it even _moves_
differently than he does. Frank, on the other hand, seems exactly the
same onstage as he is offstage, except now he's on a giraffe uni and is
waving a guitar about and somehow never quite gets tangled in its cord.

Shoehorn is a tap dancing saxophone player, and happens to be very good at
both. A rousing performance. (This _is_ billed as a "Juggling _and_
Vaudeville Extravaganza.") Then there is Brian Patz being the epitome of
70's disco-hip, with a flashy club routine. It's like a Travolta
flashback with props. And then Moshe comes on with his remarkable
cartoon-like character, Mr. Yoohoo. Like the more famous Bill Irwin, he
is a mime and clown. And like Bill Irwin, he does much to redeem the bad
impression most jugglers have of mimes and clowns.

Now we have a troupe of girls doing rhythmic gymnastics, two of whom,
we're told, are world-class contenders. They are followed by several more
young girls in matching Bali-Hai costumes, swinging poi-balls in unison.
These kids are a good number of cuts above a sympathy act and deserve all
the applause they get, which is considerable. (Keep in mind that while
half of the audience are jugglers, half of them are _not_ jugglers -- they
only got tickets for the public show, which is exactly what we hoped and
planned for. Hence the `family' acts.)

Then there is the other kind of family act -- the Mills Family -- and they
kill, as usual. Even though they do the extra-short version, the act
requires coordinating two wireless mikes, two cassettes with cues, and
some offstage visual imagery. (If Steve could just work in a golf
routine I think he'd be the happiest vaudevillian in the world.)

At some point Cliff Spenger does a quick, blindfolded tightrope act
assisted by a nearly ideal kid-volunteer. Cliff realizes this and shows
her off nicely. Jeff Daymont does his entire act in Japanese. He's just
come off a tour there and finds their language easier in some respects
than English, so . . . It's remarkable that all the comic byplay between
Jeff and Sergie (his Russian doll) and the audience works just fine
despite the language barrier.

Kenny Schults, multiple winner of national tournaments, does impossible
things with a couple of footbags. Mark Peachack pleases the audience with
a juggling routine of 3, 5, and 7 balls. The now bald Rhys Thomas does
freestanding ladder and some funny patter, and Ben Schoenberg again charms
everyone to pieces. Henrick does his glow-light stick figure and then
supervises the landing of a 747.

Atsuko Koga is a wonder. She does traditional ball and parasol work with
the fluid grace of a dancer. The ball is eventually replaced by a wooden
block, and then a coin. Then the parasol graduates to a three-decker
model, and the ball floats up and down the levels. Her cues to the
audience are slightly off at first. I suspect she is used to the Las
Vegas crowd (where she works), who have to be told what to watch and when
to applaud. She finishes with some very pretty, though not terribly
difficult, flower-stick work.

The last act is Francoise Rochais doing the number that won her the IJA
Individuals championship last year. I'm amused by her costume and
character of a French shepherdess -- an image from a Rousseauian mythic
past that never was -- entertaining her sheep with precision baton
juggling. Her batons have ribbon tied in bows to one end, vaguely like
Miss Bo Peep's staff as portrayed in old-fashioned children's books. (This
all jars nicely against my recollection of a drunken evening in San
Clemente with some Basque shepherds.) Ngaio Bealum graciously closes the
show with a heartwarming and fond farewell to the audience he's emceed for
over three hours.

Midnight, Saturday, and the gym rocks. Energy left over from the
Extravaganza puts an electric sheen over the jugglers. They all seem
hyper and happy, especially Steve Mills's son. He has the maniacal gleam
of a kid who has discovered that wall-length mirrors were made
specifically for those little balls that are covered with suction cups.
It's frightening to think that someday, like his father, he will discover
golf. At 2 a.m. it's time to close the gym. Most will crash for the
night, but four still-wired carloads go off in search of an open Denny's.

Sunday begins very slowly. The gym is half empty, but by noon things have
picked up, and at one o'clock Rhys Thomas makes the last of the door-prize
announcements. An amazing amount of stuff has gone out, and this is just
what was left after hourly prizes given over the last two days. (Oh good
and beneficent vendors!) Then he presents the Ben Linder Memorial Award
for Inspiration to Laura Green, Miss Tilley. This is well deserved and
not terribly surprising, as her charm, openness, and spirit are much
appreciated.

The sun is shining warmly (Animal must have been doing his magic again)
and at least half of the juggling activity is going on outside. Inside,
the usual workshops are given and taken. The first half of the Show &
Tell workshop is full of Mr. String tricks, some of them new even to Mr.
String. It then branches out to rubber-band tricks, and concludes with a
few actual juggling tricks. I see a minute of the session on busking
(always my favorite) but this time it seems populated by those voted
least-likely-to-busk, and no one knows what questions to ask. I leave
early to introduce the workshop on Juggling and the Law, presented by
Kohel Haver and Michael Davidson of Northwest Artists and Lawyers, Inc.
Some of the points they make: 1. You can protect your original routine
from being used by others. 2. When you make your living at it you can
deduct more than you earn, but you can't do it very often. 3. The most
recent relevant case law is The Great Zuccinni vs. Some-TV-Station-that-
taped-his-entire-14-second-act and broadcast it. Zuccinni is a human
cannonball. Zuccinni won big bucks. I would have liked to find out what
elements determine _when_ it's worth bringing suit against someone who
steals your routine, but I had to run the 3-Egg Enduro and see to the
scrambling of a gross of eggs.

Late Sunday afternoon, and broken eggs cover the grass and track outside
the Sports Center. They also cover the brick and concrete walls of the
Sports Center, so this is probably the last 3-Egg Enduro we'll have.
Repeated attempts to crash the pool and some new dents in the gym floor
were the only other bummers of the weekend. The Portland Juggling
Festival is five years old and still growing, and I suppose such matters
are normal growing pains, and part of the cost of becoming the largest
regional juggling festival in the Western Hemisphere.

Animal takes down his parachutes, folds up his tarps, and then helps the
rest of us clean and sweap the gyms. For me, he was the elemental and
animating spirit of the festival this year -- the Green Man in our
juggling garden. As I drive away I can hear him laugh, seemingly for no
reason other than the joy of it.