Final Post

This is the final post of The Busking Project. I've deleted this post about twenty times at this point trying to write down a summery of events that happened in Los Angeles, but everytime I start writing, words fail me. So you'll have to make due with this.

It was an amazing experience. I learned so much about life, the world, and myself. Espescially myself.

And to everyone who made it possible for me to have had this adventure (well, the beginning of a larger adventure): thank you.

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It took me over twenty hours of thinking and writing to get those 88 words down on paper.

Day 1

Well, it looks like I made it to Texas, safe and sound.

Getting ready to head into CS today to get my stuff loaded up and clean up the apartment (if it needs it). Tomorrow I'm headed down to New Braunfels, then back to CS for social time and back to DFW for the family stuff this weekend.

Already missing everyone in Los Angeles (especailly the dog), but am excited to see everyone here.

I have one more post before officially retiring this blog: my debriefing of my time in Los Angeles. This blog has served it's purpose, and I'm not much of one to drag things on way past their purpose.

Other than that, I'll keep in touch with everyone, even if I have to start a new blog!

An hour in Denver

Well, made it to Denver International without too much hassle. Professor Peanut is sure getting some awesome looks in his incognito disguise, and my hat has recieved several compliments as well.

The gate my flight is supposed to leave from said the next flight was to Nashville, so I walked up to the desk to ask if this was actually the flight to DFW only to be told, before I asked anything, in a very rude manner that the man behind the counter couldn't help me. I then asked if the next flight was...but that was all I got out before him sighing and saying in a gruff, lispy voice (yes a gruff lisp...shocking) "I don't know" and then proceeded to help the guy behind me. Asshat.

Luckily, the sign behind him changed at that moment, shining the bright light of clarity on the situation. The Nashville flight had left; the next flight was to DFW. Fantastic!

So in just a few hours I'll be back on native soil, probably being the single strangest looking person in the place. Would love to be out scampering over rocks by the ocean instead of stuck on a plane all day, but...

See y'all soon.

4 hours to go

Well, I'm awake, packed, dressed and Stevie has the coffee brewing. I've got Professor Samuel Louis Peanut III strapped into my backpack. As he is quite the celebrity, he'll be traveling incognito: flat cap and sun glasses, no monocle and cravat here!

I made the same mistake I made this morning as I did the morning I left for here: forgot to lay out socks. Luckily, it doesn't matter if my clothes make it to DFW in a perfectly pressed or tidy manner (not to say the bag isn't packed neatly, just more efficiently). My backpack is still the seventh wonder of the world in terms of how much it can hold without spewing it forth in a small burst of stuff.

Well, back to prepairing for my trip. See you on the other side!

There's never just one right answer. And there's never just one right question. ~www.tut.com

T -10 hours 46 minutes

Today was incredible.

Stevie got dressed up in her troll costume and we went out to Point Dume, a beach up in Malibu. We climbed all across the rocks and had waves crashing all around and stood on places that were too small to stand. I never knew there could be so many colors of blue at the same time.

We took lunch a Hugo's, a small restaurant down the road from the apartment. Stevie managed to rack up a few looks in her costume, and the guy across from us had on an amazing green, straw fedora.

We stopped in Topanga Canyon on the way to the beach and ran into a small second hand store where, as fate would have it, there was a green, straw fedora. Well Stevie got it for me as a present, and as it turns out it's not straw but braided paper.

So the climbing around the rocks was increadible, and I'll be putting up pictures when I make it back to Texas. For the record, a paper fedora stands up rather well to the wind and the ocean (yeah, after making such a big deal about it being paper, we didn't think about the fact we were going to the ocean...)

Then it was off to a Mediterrainian restaurant that was wonderful, then home to shower, pack, and watch Love Actually with Daniel and Stevie.

The neighbors are trying to coax me to stay with promises of introducing me to some high ups in the Magic Castle who are taking voice acting lessons from a friend of ours. That and other things. There are some really great people here, and I'll miss them.

So,  it's off to bed. I've got to be up at 6:30 to be ready to leave by 7:30 to get to Longbeach in time for check-in, followed by a long day of traveling. Hopefully there will be some sort of alcohol at the end of it!


"Can miles truly separate us from friends? If you want to be with Rae, aren't you already there?" ~Richard Bach, There's No Such Place As Far Away

One day to Texas

It's my last day here, and Stevie is taking me for an adventure down near the beach.

The Friday dinner party was fantastic, with so many good people showing up. We had roast chicken (stevie), pork loin (a mix of credits there), salad with homemade dressing (neighbor's in #4), cake and ice cream (#6), bread (#5 and #3) and mashed potatoes (#4). There was also plenty of wine (everyone) and it was a great time.

Saturday was more or less uneventful.

Just had to take a break and blow dry Stevie's hair, which she has poured paint into and made up into troll horns for our little excursion. She's testing out her costume for Faireworlds.

Anyway, I'll keep y'all updated on today.

~Cheers

3.5 days to Texas

So a good many of you probably saw via Facebook that I came home last night with a severely screwed up wrist (yes, my left one, the one you'll remember has severe soft tissue damage already), a twisted ankle, a pulled calf muscle, and two hyper-extended knees. That's three out of four limbs incapacitated!

All I have to say for myself is that if you pay more attention to what you're doing in Parkour, you're less likely to screw yourself up (gotta keep that "To be and to last" motto in mind). On the other hand, I will miss the Parkour group here in LA but am going to try to hook up with the Texas group.

So far today has been pretty great: I was woken up by a beautiful girl slipping into bed (okay, into couch) next to me, Stevie and I went scrumping for oranges, we (well she more than I) made roasted chicken, found out how to make your own orange oil (who knew it was extremely flammable), planted what will become a lemon tree and submitted my application to The Tiny Life.

Now, I'm going to work on some magic and some other writing and get the place picked up for the weekly dinner party, my *sniffle* last dinner party with these guys for a while.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

~ Leonardo da Vinci

The Official Countdown: 5 days

I have to apologize for my spotty reporting as of late. There hasn't been anything too terribly amazing happening or there has been too much, I'm not sure which.

Just got back from our friend's place where Stevie and I are working on their soon-to-be amazing yard. We spent an hour there and made significant and visible progress. Headed back tomorrow for round two.

Tomorrow is my last Parkour class. Parkour has been amazing, and I encourage everyone who is interested to take it up. After the three week break though, last week was tough. I'm hoping to hook up with the PK Texas group that operates in the DFW area. Two hours of working out was never more fun!

But there will be a lot to keep me occupied. I'm taking on quite a few projects when I get back home: windmill design, solar panels, building a barn, networking, trying to run the equivalent of Dallas Metblog, working on magic, getting a job, writing up some lecture notes, and hopefully finishing up my novel soon.

Well, I look forward to seeing everyone again soon. 'Til then, take care.

Back to Parkour

So today I went down to Santa Monica to take some photos so all you nice people can see where I've been. So I wandered around and did some unexpected urban exploring and made it to the pier where I ran into my friend Vince.

Vince is an artist (he does caricatures on the Pier) and is more in the know about the recent switch to the lottery system in Santa Monica. Apparently now what happens is that ten minutes before a shift, the lottery is done for anyone who is there. This is good because it cuts down on having to be somewhere for eight hours, but it is also bad because it means you don't need to wait, so people like the guy dressed like Elmo (holding two Elmo heads) got to sit out there today. Vince put it eloquently:

"It's the beginning of Shit."

And so it is. I'll be doing an update post on Magic Today.

Then there was Parkour, which is fantastic. Made a new friend who may be coming to dinner tomorrow. Speaking of dinner, got free food from the place next to Stevie's work. Was amazing! 

On other news, I'm putting in an application to do some writing for The Tiny Life, a blog that focuses on tiny houses, minimalist living, gardening, and do-it-yourself projects. I've also been trying to contact MetBlogs, but they don't seem to have any reliable way of contacting them. I wanted to try to help out with the Dallas Metblog (because it's shit) but Daniel and Stevie suggested simply making my own blog, so I'll probably be doing that, so keep an eye out for Blogging.DFW coming soon!

tl;dr: Even the book "Philosophy and Twilight" has a hard time coming up with topics. Most of them are on the topics of vegetarianism or who's good for Bella. 

Good day

So I woke up this morning with a start, partly due to Stevie making a noise near me, but mostly due to a rather strange and apparently shocking dream. Immediately after waking, I was invited to go to a Tree People thing where we help take care of trees.

So we made it out there and listened to the little instructional on how to properly dig out and make the little mulch beds and went to it. We had a grand time and got to speak with Socially Awkward Lady, who wanted some sort of praise for taking care of her trees (they were the best and easiest for us to re-mulch) so she elevated Stevie and I to position of Grand Tree Knowledge People.

After we went to Aroma Cafe, which was amazing, and then wandered to a park and had a SPONTANEOUS SCRUMPING EXPEDITION and gathered some more plums which turned into a present for some friends we were going to see to consult on their new house's yard. Their house is actually a yard that happens to have a house on it.

Then we came back and Stevie gardened some more and I practiced with poi and managed not only to get down the move I was practicing yesterday, but I didn't even rack myself (a major accomplishment).

Then we had casserole and beer and talked and are about to watch Harold and Maude.

Had a great day.

tl;dr: Arboring, spontaneous scrumping; consulting; poi; beer; movie; good day.

:(

Destroyed my breakfast to an irretrievable point.

That is all.

Watch this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTO5yiN1b-I

Something strange

So I arrived at the Pier today and immediately noticed that something was a bit off. I didnt recognize any of the cars, and there were no other buskers there. Now when I say this, I don't mean that there were three of us, I mean I was the *only* one there. The office where the admin people are was also empty.

There were no buskers. There was no list. It was like suddenly everyone had just walked away. It was very strange.

So I decided that I'd wait 'till 11 to see what was going on. But 11am rolls around and no one comes out of the admin building. 11:15, no one.

3rd Street Promenade also seemed rather barren.

So I have no idea what's happening. I do know that parkour is tonight, and I'm looking forward to that. 2 weeks off means that tonight may indeed suck.

Like a brick to the face

You know what I really hate? More than politics or a mouthful of spoiled milk? It's when the solution is right in your face and you're too close to something to realize it.

Writing crisis solved.

Writing...

I think the worst part about writing is getting stuck and not knowing how to continue. I'm at a point where I'm just not sure where the story is going. I have the first 45 pages and the last 15, but how do I connect them? What is the main character actually doing? What is he going to find? Why do we care?

Someone is screaming obsenities at someone else outside, so I may about to get stabbed.

*EDIT: Turns out that the guy wasn't screaming at someone, just screaming. Everything he said was freestyle rap, all of it mixing together and all of it rhyming. His eyes were a terrifying shade of blue, and in them you could see the pain of a thousand lifetimes, the anger of a thousand deaths. He was crazy, or maybe he was too sane, I'm not sure. All I know is that he was the first person I've ever been truely afraid of.

Scrumping!!!

So for the last 3 days, I have gotten the opportunity to go scrumping! Now some of you (those of you who don't know me or haven't seen Bill Bailey's stand-up comedy) are asking yourselves right about now: what is scrumping? Is it some sort of strange new plastic or perhaps a hip-new trend that involves the combination of juggling hedgehogs while doing slant rhyme?

No, sadly scrumping usually has little to do with hedgehogs (but more things should involve hedgehogs) and nothing to do with plastic. Scrumping is harvesting fruit from a tree that you don't own. In our instances, the trees were on public property and no one was using the fruit, so no harm done (except for the scratches on my arm from the orange tree.)

So we've managed to get oranges and elderberries. The oranges are amazing, and we are making jam out of the elderberries, very much like we made jam out of the plums that were scrumped from the tree outside the building.

It's all very exciting!

Other than that, I have a friend coming over to do a photo-shoot this evening, which should prove fun. Also I'll be emailing the guy from the studio my copy (read stuff that you put into a brochure) so that I can start teaching lessons there soon.

Anyway, off to take a look at possibly hitting 20,000 words on my novel today, depending if any other scrumping comes up.

Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. It's where all the fruit is.

Shirley MacLaine 

Last Night

So the show last night went well. Lots of good people watched me produce a cantaloupe from under my hat.

Today is prepping material for the studio that I will be teaching magic at, looking over my promotional materials (BTW, y'all [my family] are going to have a few small packages come your way. Don't throw them away!!!!) and figuring out how to update the website, as well as doing an after-action report on my show last night and cleaning up the kitchen.

Demo Video

So tonight I'm shooting a demo video and am about as ready as it gets. The shot of rum is wearing down nicely. After five (six?) years of performing you'd think that you'd get over being nervous before a show, but you don't really. I'm sure that glorious moment of calm, cool collectedness will descend upon me in the final moments before the show; the rum's for the moments leading up to those.

I've got a pretty good set down. I apologize, because you not-magicians won't fully understand the effects named here, so feel free to skip this part. The set is as follows:

• Audience hand twisting trick
• Here-then-there
• Coins through silk
• Steel ball routine (Lou Serrano)
• Two Card Monte
• Ambitious card
• Cups and Balls with Cantaloupe ending
• Bill to lemon finale

Stevie has also spent all day cooking an amazing dinner for everyone and our neighbors have prepared a pork loin! The only thing missing is the people, and they are on their way!

So here's to a great show!

~C

Preparations for Tomorrow

Just got back from the fabric store (by the way, people look at you weird when you try out every piece of fabric with a deck of cards...just saying...).  I also went to the grocery with Stevie this morning where, apparently, you get a $5 or so discount for using your own bags. $5 per bag. Awesome!

Now I'm about to head downstairs and clean the picnic/lounge/filming area for tomorrow and figuring out exactly where the best spot is to film. After that, I'm reworking my table with the new fabric ($# down from $30...I'm awesome) and prepping my routines.

Then...making croutons and zesting lemons and juicing said lemons (and some limes). After that? Probably cleaning up around the apartment and getting my stuff together for tomorrow's meeting with the studio in Venice that want's me to teach magic there.

So yeah...busy day.