I have Enough

I had an interesting conversation with my martial arts teacher today.

We both made and talked about observations of the world and religions, and philosophy. Some of what we talked about was as follows:

So many of the people on this planet, the US in particular are worried about material wealth, and no matter how much we achieve in our society there is a want for more.

We in the US have it better materialistically than pretty much any humans in history.

Hell, one of the largest health problems we face is an outbreak of fat kids.

Other countries attack us because they are disgusted by the image of the fat, rude, and unappreciative American. By no means is this problem purely an American problem, but we are exemplifying it pretty well in this country.

So much of our energy is spent in pursuit of the almighty dollar, and I too have been guilty of such. In fact in many ways most of the unhappiness in this world can be traced to wanting something that you don't have. Most of these things weather it be a new Ipod, political power, or mutant ability fall under the category of want, not need. Particularly in this country we seem to worry about what we want instead of what we need. 50% of the world has never seen a telephone. If you have $20 in your pocket, you are richer than the vast majority of the populous of the world.

Master Kim had pointed out that if material possessions, and wealth could buy happiness than all Americans would be, as a rule, the happiest people in history. However they are not so. Americans have one of the highest per capita imprisoning rates, a high suicide incident, and depression is almost as common as a cold here. This is not just true with this country but several others that are associated with wealth.

In my life I have had nothing, and survived, I have had anything I desired and also survived. However I have noticed that there are times when I was the poorest when I was the most happy. I don't advocate divesting of all material possessions, but it is amazing how freeing not having anything was.

Most of all this unhappiness can be remedied by one statement that being "I have enough." This sentiment is reiterated in several religions but few ever take the time to really consider it. If you give a un-enlightened wretch everything they desire, they just desire more and more till being ruler of the universe is not enough. I guess the trick is catching you being greedy. Most of us don't even realize we are doing it. The endless quest for bigger or better toys can be all consuming.

I understand providing for a family, or obtaining a goal, but at what point do you realize that you have traded hourly wages for the good years of your life.

I also understand that someone once said if a family makes enough to feed its self that was acceptable. If a family makes enough where it is one potato short, that was strife. If a family makes enough for what it needed plus one potato, that was bliss.

My goals are a bit loftier than that, but it illustrates a point.

There are also those that say money, and sex are like air. If you have enough of it it's not that big of a deal. It's when you don't have any for a little while that they seem to become increasingly important.

I am not rich by any means, but I have enough air to breath. For that I am thankful.

I have enough.

Jacked by Grandpa!

This is old, but it did happen.

So I'm getting ready for a gig in Newport Beach, CA and my starter on my truck dies on me. I manage to get the thing going by push pounding on the starter while someone turned the key.

Yay the day was saved and I put on my black and white bowler hat, and the rest of the costume and headed out on my merry way. I remember for some reason being partially covered in glitter was critical to my look on that gig, so I called a costume place on the way there and tracked down exactly what I needed, where I needed to go to get it, and exactly how much it was.

Now because my starter was not working, and I was in one of the best neighborhoods in CA I decided to leave the car running, and pop into the store to lay my money down, grab the glitter, and jump back into my car. I even called so they had it waiting on the counter.

So I pull the e-brake, jump out of the car with exact change, and dash up to the counter. I lay my money down and dash back to the car. I'm gone 10 seconds max, and I'm in a hurry to get to my gig.

Much to my horror as I return to my car, there is some guy in my driver's seat trying to put the car into gear and make off with my car. Thinking lightning quick on how to stop the perpetrator, I shoot into my open driver's seat window. My body is now half way into the car, and with juggler like deft of hand I snatch the keys with one hand, give the perp a dirty look, and with the other hand grab his walker so he can't get away. Yes that's right, you heard me, his WALKER! How I didn't notice this guy making a break for my car, I don't know. These damn punk 80 year olds. When I was a kid you could drive the streets at night without fear of the elderly carjacking you, or gangs of grannies busting a cap into you while you inadvertently crossed their turf. Oh the elderly today…..

I kicked him out of my car, told him he was lucky I didn't have time to file charges, and took off. He left his groceries in my car. I still have the magnifying glass that was in the bag.

The Stray Cat

So I'm staying in a rural area in Louisiana for a couple of weeks. In this town there are about 4 places of business. Don't get me wrong, I'm thank full to my friends for saving my ass and letting me stay with them instead of on the streets. Although I can afford a hotel, there is not one available since the hurricane. Life has pretty much returned to normal other than that.

Late a couple of nights ago, I stepped outside to pee behind a tree because it seemed more sanitary than the bathroom that was available. Just as my eyes rolled up in the back of my head from relief, I hear a small bounding in the grass behind me. A cat jumps up that had been stalking me, and decided that my urine stream was something fun to play with. So the cat pounced into the stream where I then peed on the back of it's head. Oddly the cat didn't mind, but I immediately turned away so as to not hose down the poor critter. Of course the cat kept following the urine stream as if I was making it chase a string. So there I am laughing and spinning around trying not to pee on cat, turning me into a human sprinkler system.

The truly messed up part about it is that after wards the cat wanted to be petted. So I'm now running from this cat at 3:00 AM through the foggy night and the cat is trying to rub on my legs. I reached the house laughing and grossed out at the same time. Now the cat will not stop following me around. I walk through the streets, look back, and there he/she is.

Last night I was walking while talking on the phone, and I heard the cat coming out of the tree only to look up and notice that it was not my pee cat at all, but a slightly larger cat with the same markings. At the same time another tom cat converged on me from the other direction. Right then the pee cat came bounding up and fiercely defended me chasing the other two larger cats away and then coming to me for attention. As if to say, "You peed on me, I'm yours now!!!". Later while I was trying to cross the street, the cat almost got run over by a truck trying to follow me.

Yes, that's right, I have been sooo bored that this was a major event in my life. Though I could not help draw a parallel between this incidence, and some relationships that I have seen/experienced which also made me laugh.

By the way though I know some of you are going to try to draw a conclusion that it's any one particular relationship, I'm not talking about any specific. As of late I have had a lot of problems with people misinterpreting what I write as towards themselves. Try not to be as egocentric as they may be.

Take care, and may you have a better time than I have been having. Try not to pee on any innocents, though sometimes you can't help it.

Thoughts through the fog of my mind

The last couple of days have struck me with the repeating thought that "Love is just as contagious as hate, but everybody seems to forget that."

Those of you that know me well know that my wandering through this earth does not consist solely of juggling and stage work. This struck me the other day when I did a performance at a college and it went well.

There is this phenomenon where once in a great while I will do a show that genuinely has an effect. This was one of those. Perhaps I was bottling up so much bitterness from my breakup that I needed somewhere for the good to show through. You know it was a good show when not only is there a standing ovation, but then there is this thing that only happens once in a while. NOBODY LEAVES!

There I was, I took my bow, had a very adoring audience, and when I was done instead of going on with their lives they all just sat there and watched me as if they were wondering if I would sprout wings and fly. So the questions started. As usual it starts off with the "How do you do that?", "How long have you been doing this?", "What got you into this?", and of course "What made you do this for a living?".

As some of you know this last question opened up a can of worms. It lead into what my life history is like, and thus the fact that I have a rather unusual one. People that have known me for a while, or have traveled with me know that I have a life, and life history that reads a lot like a work or fiction. However it has happened, and is still happening to me. There was still more of a barrage of questions and answers, only some of which had to do with juggling. I found myself feeling like I was teaching a class on how to live outside of society norms and keep your head while adventuring to a large college class. (Honestly if that class was offered when I went to school, I would so be on it!)

Mostly on my travels I never cease being a student. When I got out of school, I didn't stop learning. So many people do stop. This is disheartening. I by no means have all the answers.

However, I have had luck in being able to live my life in the face of great adversity, and become stronger and better for it. More than anyone I know, I happen to be a product of who I wanted to become rather than who was being molded my my surroundings. This was a conscious choice. I figure the only person you have control over the actions of is yourself. Therefore at any moment you are creating who you are. Including right now. "It's too late for me to change.", or "I'm too set in my ways." has a tendency not to fly for me. Inner strength can overcome much. The problem is, where do you get it? Hopefully, you can figure out how to manufacture it.

So I get home and I am pelted by a small flurry of letters, and email talking about the show, and asking advice and philosophy. Everything from questions about the show, performing, traveling, to how to cope with rape, pick up the pieces and move on. I responded in kind, and had a very good time doing so.

Apparently although I have felt tortured, profoundly lonely, abandoned, people are still being drawn to me. Odd.... It seem paradoxical.

There is a philosophy that teaches to practice detachment from your surrounding in order to achieve an emptiness and a closeness to god (greater power, etc.)

I personally think that my life and life story is more complete with very high highs, and very low lows. It's an almost bipolar existence, but I figure it may be worth it in the grand scheme of things. I would rather have that then the flat line approach. "Fortune favors the bold." and all that.

Much like eating fire, you have to accept that "Yes, this is going to hurt. I am going to be burnt." The way you do it is you own the consequences. You make sure you are OK with them. After you make that conscious decision, you can go ahead and achieve nearly magical things. Samurai go into battle "all ready dead". It is precisely for this reason they are able to be more effective.

Being safe is not as safe as some would assume. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, and yes by hiding in a hole, you may have less bad happen to you. Then again, you are likely to have less good things happen to you.

Right now I'm dealing with a problem with me being able to trust people at all because I keep getting hurt in the most horrific of ways. Indeed I also get hurt in ways I specifically have predicted in my past. I also am running into a problem trusting people that I recognize as not owning their own mistakes. Unless we own our own shit, we can not learn from it. It seems to me that current societal idiom is breeding a culture of blame games. Even our own president is notorious for not copping to his own mistakes. This is a far cry from when "the buck stops here" was on the oval office desk.

As arrogant as people oft assume I am, as soon as I know I'm wrong, I not only cop to it, but I have no problem taking the knowledge, even if it's given in a condescending manor. If I run into something where I am actually being blessed with something that I am likely to get an epiphany from, I have no problem playing the part of the worm at the feet of the master. Unfortunately people have this tendency to defend their ego at all costs, and play silly games. Ooh well, not for me....

OK, I'm finished ranting. There is good/bad/strange things in my life right now. I'm just screaming on paper, or screen in order not to explode.

To worry in anticipation, or cherish regret for the past is like the leaves that are cut and wither away.....

Night of the Bunnies

So it's once again time to track the wiley juggler because it's easier than switching his soap with concentrated coagulated rabbit pheromone, and waiting till he showers. Then when he is well smeared with the smelly rabbit love juice, resurrecting Marlin Perkins of Mutual of Omaha fame. Then having Marlin fit many random bunnies with 1970's era radio collars. (If you are old enough to remember the nature show, they were huge, and they just sort of assumed the animals didn't notice.)

Then with the help of the nature zombified nature host, track the juggler's progress by tracking the mass exodus of drooling oversexed bunnies, and confirming the effectiveness of the plot by checking to see if the juggler is rather freaked out at his show and covered with bunny love leavings.

So, hello!

I know it's been a long time since I last wrote. Since then much has happened.

Right now, once again I find myself writing from an airport lobby, where I await to see If I make it on standby.

I think the last time I wrote, Corona was just ending, and I either was doing or just about to do Anderson Faire. Both faires were indeed a lot of fun, and some of the only times you will get to see me perform my juggling/fire show in CA.

I have also done both the Port Angeles Pirate faire, and the Ye Merrie Greenwood faire.

Port Angeles was small, bad staging for me, but still I managed to have a lot of fun. This was my first time doing that particular WA faire. It was a blast, literally at times with the tall ships battling it out in the background. There was much cannon fire, and many a pirate wandering the beach.

I managed to make many a new friend. I got to hang out with the Folk singer Heather Alexander, and exchange tales of adventures. I got to meet James Earnest the author of the most prominent book on contact juggling that I know of. Generally I just had good times and adventures in WA state. I also managed to get to the faire in Tahoe, though I did not perform there.

Meanwhile the entire time, those of you that have traveled with me know this is true, my life has been like a book that I am not a good enough author to write about.

A lot of my life sounds far fetched if I tell the truth about it. For instance;

One of the inspirations for the opener of this particular month's juggler's log is from real life.

There I was talking to a pretty woman on the phone flirting just a bit, and I look up to see a bunny about 50 yards away or so. I thing to myself "Funny, I'm in the middle of a concrete jungle, in fact I'm in a parking lot. The bunny seems kind of out of place."

I then went back to my conversation looked away, then looked back, and there the bunny was again but this time about 25 yards away. So

I looked away and started walking the other way and ran into another bunny as I walked the other direction. So I got just a little wierded out faced sideways away from them both started walking away, and got cut off by another bunny. Keep in mind I'm in an apartment complex in the middle of Anaheim. The bunnies seemed to try to ignore me when I would look at them, as if to say "What? I was just minding my own bunny business, and you happened along."

So I walked across the street only to have all of them follow me across the busy street, and fade into the bushes as soon as I turned and approached them.

Since then several times I have told this story and had bunnies show up at the end of, or during the story. Odd, but it keeps happening. It always has a feeling like the "Boo!" effect at the end of a good campfire horror story. In fact I know at least 3 of you on my reading list have been there for this phenomenon.

One of the reasons I'm writing about this is this morning I donned a tall green leather and snakeskin stovepipe hat given to me by a wonderful healing lady on Mt. Shasta on my way up here. I have deemed it my "urban adventure hat". Just as I was packing I was thinking about what I would write as I was in a parking lot figuring out what I was taking with me. I noticed I was running a bit late, and just then a large white rabbit, the size of a tire on a Cadillac that it hopped past came bounding out of the woods, and just out of view behind the car. I found myself chasing the rabbit, when I spied my own reflection in the mirror, and thought to my self "Curious, but I think I know where this is going, I read something like this once, and I don't have time for a Victorian acid trip!" So I stopped chasing the rabbit, and went back to packing. You never know what kind of adventures wait when you don the Urban Adventure Hat!

Oddly it looks like the acting part that I had said something about a while back when I asked for help naming the character, looks like it might actually come to pass. I kept thinking that there was no way I would actually end up doing it, every time I say "Anything could happen where I don't get to do this part.” it clears another hurdle and looks more like I indeed am going to be playing Thomas Alexander Windsor, an English archeologist/adventurer, on an HBO series called Interloper. I just have to meet with the execs no. Then again, anything could happen where I don't end up getting this part. I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry. If you want more information about this, I have a myspace.com account where I write about it a bit. If you have this just do a search for "Thomas Wood", and you should find me.

My time as of late in particular seems to be kind of book/movie like. Does anyone reading this have anything that has happened to them that made them feel as if they were in a movie? I want to hear about it!

Till then, my next batch of shows is in Washington at Gig Harbor. I will be performing up there for 3 weekends. I hope to see some of you there.

Juggler’s Log Supplemental:

The 4th of July has come and gone, I hope all had a good time. I indeed traveled by boat to Catalina, hiked an inordinate amount of distance, till my midsection was visibly smaller. I fried like a little brown juggler spot on the beach, and I traveled through a war zone of fireworks to eat large amounts of meat with good friends. I indeed hope you had as much fun!

The Drunk Trap

I'm just writing this down as to remember what happed a couple of weeks ago.

I was in the town of Hammond Louisiana and it was about the time that bars let out in that town. I found myself walking down the street while talking on the phone to Brandi who was trying to aquire my company for the evening. I was in an almost zen state at the time.

Just in front of a Bar called "The Brown Door" I froze in my tracks. A couple of guys bid me to stop and look. I did so and when I looked down there was a rather large bird. It was a hawk. At first I figured it to be a fake. Then I noticed it was breathing, and occasionally moving. I looked at the hawk, it ruffled it'self a couple of times. I looked at the bird, then looked at the door, looked at the bird, then looked at the door. I thought to myself, that's an inconvienient place to just hang out as a bird. In just a little while the bar would close and several drunken southerners would stumble out of the bar. Then to my horror I also noticed 51 cents sitting underneath it's tail. Now I'm thinking to myself this looks like the beginning of a joke. For the life of me I want to come up with some sort of punchline. If anyone out there can come up with one let me know. This was a drunk trap waiting to happen. Think about it, what are the odds.... A random drunk comes stumblingout of the bar, and there is this very still bird sitting on the ground with 1 penny and a 50 cent piece sitting on the ground. I can completely picture some drunk going "I'm fast, it's a bird of prey, I can beat it! It's a bird of prey how fast can it realy be? Maybe I'll just pet it." Then seconds later me sitting there trying to explain to the medics how this man lost his eyes.

So I pulled out my pocket pc and punched in a search for falconers in my contacts. Oddly, a couple of names came up. Fortunately there was one lad I had given a couple of martial arts lessons to that didn't mind me calling him at like 2AM.

So he refers me to someone that could give me advice. The man I talked to told me to put the bird in a box and give it to a bird re-hab.

So now I have a course of action, but there I am thinking to myself "It's a Bird of Prey, how fast could it be? Maybe I'll just pet it! Hey, if I pull this off I get 51 cents! It's perfect plan, what could possibly go wrong?"

So at this point I now have a crowd gathered watching what is going to go on. Several people are listening to my plot unfold with me on the phone saying things like "YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT?" So the stage is set. I ask this one begger guy in a wheelchair to please watch the bird while I look for a box. The bartender gives me a box. I go outside, and the crowd has become significantly larger. I told the crowd "I'm about to put this bird of prey into this box. It's not like I have ever done this before, this could get dangerous." So the crowd takes about 10 steps back and forms a huge circle. To my surprise, the bird cooperated and with a little coaxing walked right into the box. I closed the box, and put it into the car. Unfortunately the trunk didn't open. So I had to put the bird in a box in the passenger seat. Things like the bird breaking out of the box and trying to fight it's way out of the car while I'm on the freeway and killing us both. The line out of my show kept going through my head "It's not so much that I would die, it's that I would die like a moron!"

The next day I got the bird to people that actually knew what they were doing. They examined the bird, I got some pictures, and transferred the bird to a place to re-coupe. They thought the bird might have stunned it's self flying into some glass. It turns out that the bird was a cooper's hawk. This is a bird that live exclusively on other birds. Cooper's hawks are fast even by bird of prey standards. So everything turned out well, the bird recovered and as far as I know released, and I had a random adventure that I had to kill some time and write about while I was on the plane to New York. Like I said, if anyone can come up with a punch line for the drunk trap situation, let me know.