Mark Hayward Is My Hero

The Ultimate Battle Top Championship of the Universe will take place for the first time at the National Yo-yo Contest in Chico California this year, and I spent the weekend figuring out some of the details with my friends in Chicago. I was lucky enough to have a gig in Mount Prospect IL the same weekend that Alan Gray and family made their annual pilgrimage to visit the Wolff family in Chicago. Eric Wolff and Alan Gray are superstars in the top-spinning community and they individually made the two best tops in my arsenal.

Alan came up with the idea that if everyone in the contest had the same tops then it would be a contest of skill rather than a contest of who bought the best top. So he and Eric set about making several prototypes of the new battle top.

Alan with the afternoon’s work.

Eric, Alan and I all have slightly different ideas of what this contest should be about. Here are my two goals for the contest:

1. It should be fun. i.e.: Not boring. Sometimes battletop contests get a little slow when you end up just standing around waiting to see who’s top is going to slow down and fall over first.
2. There should be mayhem and destruction. When old-timers come up after my show to talk tops they often tell me about how they used to split tops in two when they would battle as kids. That sounds awesome to me… AND I recently learned the deadly overhand throw.

Eric’s son Woody came up with a good scoring system, and we all fleshed-out the tentative rules:

• Everyone throws at once, and there are multiple rounds.
• You can only score points if your top ends up spinning in the arena.
• If you knock another top out of the arena (or hit it and keep it from entering in mid-air) you get a point.
• If you land the tip of your top on the crown of another top you get two points.
• If you break another top (or break a chunk off) with your top you get 5 points.
• The tops that are spinning in the arena get points according to which ones spin the longest. If three tops are spinning in the arena, the first one to die gets one point. The second one gets two points, and the third one gets three points. If there are 10 tops spinning in the arena, it is the same point progression all the way up to the last one to stop spinning, which gets 10 points. If no one lands in the arena, no points are won.
• Before the first round you decide on the winning total number of points. The number of players times 3 seems like a good recommendation.

This scoring system makes the game exciting, but it basically eliminates my favorite goal. There is very little mayhem and destruction. One possibility is that there could be a separate division that is just about the destruction, but I’m hoping that some of the other top spinners have more ideas. Please leave a comment if you do.

Today went well, but I’m glad it’s over. I’m TIRED.

Everyone should spend an afternoon swapping stories with a couple of cowboys in a barn. I can’t recommend it highly enough. I had a long break in between sets today, and I had already planned on spending it sitting on my butt backstage. It turned out that Bob Hamm: 7 time World and National Champion had some time to kill too, and he is a great story teller. I heard about shooting marbles, sticking up kids for their candy at Boy Scout Camp, shootin’ BB guns, and all kinds of other awesome childhood things today. This guy is a real character, and man can he spin a gun. Yesterday I spent some time hanging out with the lumberjacks, and I REALLY want to throw an axe now. I didn’t think they would want me throwing their axes, and besides, the target was right next to the petting zoo, and that would only lead to disaster.

I did finally manage to get my hands on an reasonably massive amount of chocolate today, so I felt good about that.

After the fair was finished I even got to hang out with some top and yo-yo pals. It was a good ending to the event.

Today I had four shows, and they were only 30 minutes apart. It was exhausting. At least it was a nice sunny day though, so there were lots of people around to watch.

Today’s high points:
– On the way in I saw a car with the liscense plate “BON JOV1” Awesome.
– Buying my SECOND 36 bar case of Limited Edition 100 Grand candy bars. Today I got the peanut case since I already had the one with the coconut bars in it.
– Eating two ears of delicious sweet corn while watching cowboys do rope and gun tricks.

Today’s low points:
– Having to talk over the sound of the speed boat races on the nearby lake.
– After all the work to correct it, the sound quality on the “Diamonds” stage was STILL terrible

If all goes well, tomorrow after the fair I will get to hang out with a couple of top-spinner/yo-yo friends. Then on Tuesday Vader and I will go off to Madison for a day to try to get some stuff ready for the move to Pittsburgh.

I love hanging out with spin-top people. It’s always a ton of fun, and at MadFest this year we had a ridiculously good time.

Eric Wolff with his 11″ diameter top. The largest he’s ever made… so far.

For the average person, the phrase “spin-top people” is not one that is heard very often. Of all the very small social groups I belong to, the top-spinners are one of the smallest; I think only “paddleballers” are fewer in number. At the MadFest Juggling Convention this year we had a really good showing of spin-top people… and that means that there were 7 of us. Eric and Noah Wolff, Alan and Robert Gray, Chris Mulhall, Steve Brown and me.

The normal progression of events when top-spinners get together is:

1. Show off new tops. This rarely takes very long since there are virtually no mass-produced tops, so it’s really a question of who had the time to make some themselves.
2. Show off new tricks. This also rarely takes long since there are very few new tricks developed each year.
3. Play Battle Top.
4. Continue playing Battle Top until it degenerates into a different game that is way more fun.

(more…)

The IJA festival is going great as expected. In addition to seeing some great juggling, and doing a little myself, I decided that this is a good time to learn to whistle the loud way. You know, the kind where you put your fingers in your mouth and deafen everyone around you. It’s pretty funny. Just like with any other skill, you have to practice to be able to do a good finger whistle.  More specifically, you have to spend a lot of time getting spit all over the place and not making any noise before you can do a good finger whistle.  I think I’ve finally got it though. It’s still not 100% but it’s getting pretty good. Of course you have to have the right technique, but I’ve discovered that the real secret is just to blow really hard. The juggling festival is a great place to learn since there are so many shows and the crowd of jugglers is both so much more relaxed (ie: tolerant), and more responsive than your average audience.

The location for the late-night, open-mic Renegade Show is especially good this year. We’re out on a 6th floor balcony of the hotel I’m staying in. Aside from the great convenience, it’s really nice to have the show outside. It’s been warm here the last couple of days so we usually have a nice warm breeze blowing on us for the show. The fact that a breeze could be warm has kind of freaked out the Canadians, but we’re all enjoying it. Since we’re so high up, and it’s so late, there is very little city noise and the open roof and enclosed sides give us really nice sound quality.

Tonight I am the MC for the Cascade of Stars Public Show. There are only two acts, so it should be fairly easy, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the show myself. Also, today at 2:00 all the top spinners are getting together for a “breakout” which is always a great time. Tops are awesome.

My dog loves to chase deer.  Sometimes it has been a bit of a problem.  Today on our walk in a forested area he chased one right AT me.  It passed within 8 feet of me.  My thought process went something like, “Oh here comes Vader (he’s about the same color as deer)… wow, he’s going really fast… wow, he’s bigger than usual… HOLY CRAP! THAT’S NOT MY DOG!”  About a minute later Vader trotted up very intently, and I managed to convince him that he had already lost his prey.

Final game of the World Cup today.  Holy head-butt Batman!  That was nasty.

A bunch of the yo-yo guys came to juggling practice today, so no surprise, I didn’t juggle much.  As soon as anyone starts thowing a top around I’m done with whatever I was doing.  Tops are SO awesome.