A Tale of Two God Dammits

The Best of Times:
*We now have an agent for A Different Spin, who is jovial, friendly, and thinks he can make us a lot of money.
*We have military and college gigs for all sorts of exciting locations, which can also make us a lot of money.

The Worst of Times:
*My computer was stolen out of the exhibit hall at the APCA conference in Atlanta. There seems to be some kind of investigation happening, and I may get some money for it, but I still lost a lot of writings, art, and personal documents. I also -obviously- don't have a computer, so updates will be even rarer than usual until that gets fixed.
*Tim hurt his neck at practice this morning while doing the Atlas balance, and got Emergency Roomed. He is now in the warm embrace of prescription drugs and Soul Calibur, and nothing serious is wrong, but nobody knows how long it'll be before he can flip and juggle again. This takes down our financial outlook significantly. But he should be fine in the long run, thank Flying Spaghetti Monster.

who radishes the radishmen?

I had a thought today as I was putting on my shoes in the living room. The thought was: "If a doberman jumped at me out of that doorway right now, I would now be prepared to kick it in the mouth." This thought immediately went to a man reviewing security footage of my living room in this scenario and wondering "man, I wonder how that kid was prepared to kick that doberman in the teeth. That's some reflexes, that is."

I am always prepared. Unfortunately, the things I'm prepared for (fuck you grammar) never happen.

life is full of unhappy men in dapper suits

Tonight at 3:15 am we will be having our second annual vacuum sale blowout right here at Marvin’s Vacuum Emporium. Whether you don’t own a vacuum or you’ve been waiting for just the right time to buy that new vacuum for the family, tonight is the night! Drop by our lot for huge savings and unbeatable deals on name brand models, and don’t forget to enter your business card in the drawing at the door for a chance to win a horse!

pissing all over the floor

This is what we're doing tomorrow for the audition. We're also giving them a DVD of all our fire stuff, and telling them to imagine that the clubs are on fire (that's what they told us to do, rather than do fire acts for the preliminary screening) Yes, it has the same music as the last juggling video. But this one's set in the Teen Center of the local YMCA. ...awesome.

I am adorable.

I decided it was blog post time, because there are a few things that have come up that I want to yell about from my tiny soap box. First and foremost, I bought Ashlyn a tarot deck so she can start playing with all fun hobbies a tarot set allows: spiritual reassurance that it's okay to have another cupcake, and turning over the Death card at small children while saying "booga booga" are the big ones. To commemorate the event I also drew an aww-thats-precious picture in Vaguely Amazing style. You can see it off to your left. Yes, it's precious. I also think it's Neat, which is why it is here instead of back in my private life where it belongs.

(I realized after posting this that "Vaguely Amazing style" might be meaningless to some of you -how many of you are there?- who only met me recently. Vaguely Amazing was a factually-impeccable autobiographical account of Ricky and my Vassar years in web comic form. That adventure can be begun here if you're curious.)

Secondly, on the A Different Spin front, we have decided that our America's Got Talent audition will consist of the four of us going on a diet of nothing but food coloring (one color for each of us) for the 24 hours preceding the audition, and then urinating a full-color map of the United States of America all over the floor of the studio. We'll show them variety talent. Even if this act doesn't get us a spot on America's Got Talent, I'm pretty sure Stephen Colbert would give us a luxurious all-American yacht fleet in appreciation of our art.

Along the same vein of humor... an earlier discussion among the house regarding highways and sexual deviancy led to one of my patented Bad Idea google searches, and this gem came out in the wash.

There. Pissing all over public television and adolescent sex jokes about highway numbers. Is all the Adorable gone now? No? Alright, well then here's an alternate picture. You can just imagine I put it up instead of the tarot card.




My google ads are all about odor removal. The things that show up on that little side bar never cease to amaze. I really hope someone stumbles on this blog by accident while looking for "Septic Smells" or "Soup Recipes" or "Children's Sleep." A little befuddlement is good for the brain.

Hi-Ho Cherry-O was a great game.

It taught counting, and colors, and introduced the idea that birds and dogs can take away everything you've worked so hard to build, instantly. I've never trusted them since.

Last night at Spin Jam we had a serendipitous and surreal experience: some of the other performers there had responded to a Craigslist ad for America's Got Talent, and are going to audition this weekend. This prompted a conversation in which we wondered whether we might also Got Talent, and whether we should go in to audition too. Opinions were mixed. We probably would have decided not to, except that Mooch immediately got a phone call from America's Got Talent, asking us to come in and try out. Apparently Johnny Blazes had recommended us, and (s)he has some connection that makes hir opinion count over there. Neat. Maybe if all goes well, you can make fun of us on national television. You can even put on a Simon Cowell hat. And if you do, I can beat you to death with a golf cart.

And then I'd probably get arrested.

Anyway, we're apparently going to try to merge our literal circus of juggling and fire calamity with the metaphorical circus of the national media. This union, like that of Pasiphaë and the Cretan Bull, will probably spawn a monster that will consume entire generations of young Greeks. I'll make sure to bring a ball of yarn to the audition to make sure we can find our way back out again.