another dream come true

As an hourly rate, you might say I did pretty good. $2 for no more than 5 minutes of actual juggling. What would that be, about $24/hr? Heck, that might be my bet paying gig ever! Or rather, it might have been had I been allowed to continue. Yes, I made my first dedicated foray into the world of street performing. Many of you may be aware I have long harbored a desire to be a street performer, indeed the prospect of being flat broke while traveling and juggling on a street corner to earn bus fare to the next town has always appealed to me, and these ideas are what drove me first to learn how to juggle, then spin fire poi, unicycle, and now stilt walk.

I had been thinking that LA was a good place to give this dream a whirl, since there are places where street performers work regularly here (Venice Beach, 3rd St promenade, and Santa Monica Pier, to name a few) and I didn’t have anything resembling normal, regular employment. The first thought was a bicycle powered blender, from which I would produce smoothies to sell. While I did build a functional prototype bike blender, I was never satisfied with its performance in chopping ice to commercial smoothie standards. So I figured I could unicycle and juggle, but the permitting authorities here do not allow cycling in any form as part of an act, regardless of the number of wheels. So I had a brilliant idea: stilt walking! Nobody here was doing it, and they gave me a permit for it where as they wouldn’t for unicycles and spinning fire. So I thought I was one my way. First thought, I need some stilts! And maybe some practice using them.

Ebay and a few sessions in the street in front of the house solved both those concerns and so last weekend I made my way to 3rd street promenade, ready to give this thing a go. I had my stilts, some incredibly long homemade pants to wear over the stilts, a felt hat to take tips in, my permit, and one each of a stuffed donkey, penguin, and dinosaur (stegosaurus). I thought I was ready. I got smiles and waves and pictured taken as I walked the 2 blocks from my truck to the promenade, and had no sooner begun my act of juggling the aforementioned animals than 1) two little kids ran up and put a dollar each into my hat and 2) a guy with a clip board and a badge told me I was not allowed to perform in that spot since it was a fire lane access area. Ok, so I moved to an appropriately sanctioned spot and began again, and in a matter of seconds, a bike cop pulls up, looks over my permit, and tells me that stilting is not allowed. I tell her in my most soothing voice that it is explicitly written on my permit application, which her department approved. She spent the next few minutes radioing various persons who explained that my permit information had been lost, meanwhile I was discovering how hard it is to pick up a dropped stuffed penguin when you are standing nearly to feet high. After much discussion as polite as I could make, she shut me down. City hall agrees with my position but refuses to issue a refund, so for the time being, I am stuck. Too bad, there were swarms of tourists out this weekend, warm as it was, and I was the only stilter for miles. Could have made a killing. Instead I got a cup of coffee and went home, resolved to work on my guitar playing and slack line walking.