Don Menendez

 

HERE'SA TRIVIA QUESTION FOR YOU: Who was the last entertainer to appear on the Tonight Show in the decade of the 1980's?

 

Juggler Dan Menendez is proud to claim that distinction for his appearance on Friday, Dec. 29, with host Jay Leno. Menendez's 4-1/2 minute routine was highlighted by his ball bouncing to play tunes on an electonic "floor

piano" device.

 

For Menendez, it was the high point of almost five year's work on the routine. "The idea of the keyboard came from Bobby May's bouncing balls on a drum," he said. "I started looking for a drum to bounce balls on almost five years ago."

 

It was a tougher search than he imagined. Actual drums didn't work well because the bounce varied depending on what part of the drumhead was struck.

 

He turned to electronic drum pads, and liked the idea of a series of "octipads" that responded with different tones. But the ones he liked didn't work because of a metal rim around their edges that didn't allow any room for throwing error. The factory wasn't interested in building a custom set for him, and craftspeople wanted a fortune to build something special.

 

He finally found someone who was interested and could handle the job. That first model was attached to a store-bought music module which can produce the sound of 150 different instruments.

 

There were some electronics problems with the first two models they built, and in one case he was left tuneless on stage in front of a crowd, but the third model proved reliable enough for the nationwide television appearance on the Tonight Show. Menendez will not reveal its electronic secrets except to say that it produces tones each time a ball strikes its surface.

 

His repertoire is up to seven songs using three and five balls bounced in cascade and multiplex fashion. On the Tonight Show he played "Hungarian Rhapsody," Beethoven's "Fur Elise" and "Axel F." Rock fans will be glad to know he has also worked out "Stairway to Heaven," and the country fans can anticipate "Dueling Banjos." The challenge comes in trying to find a song that fits the narrow range of timing available with juggled balls. Though he can adjust the timing for three balls without much trouble, the five ball force bounce rhythm is not very flexible.

 

The Tonight Show appearance naturally led to some other jobs for Menendez, who has been performing for a living for almost ten years. He lugs the 30 pounds of electronic equipment with him to comedy clubs and corporate shows and uses it as his next­to-final routine. He ends with his strong ball spinning skills.

 

He says he's also trying to work nonjuggling comedy into his show. "I do it at the beginning to get the audience to like me. I get a better response that way - win them up front with the personality, then hit them with the juggling to bowl them over," he said. His show includes comedy, the piano routine, ball spinning, three to five clubs and nested cups.

 

He says it has changed over the years to try to keep it fresh and different. He said, "I got rid of the torches, the apple, the machetes and the unicycle because people seem to identify them strongly with jugglers, and I want to give them something they haven't seen before."

 

A recent trip to the Pacific island of Guam as part of the Miller Lite Comedy Connection show with Pat Paulsen was nice in that regard because almost everything was new for that isolated audience, he said.

 

But even as he finds success as a performer, Menendez enjoys keeping in touch with the everyday juggling scene. If you missed him on the Tonight Show, you can probably find him in the gym with the other jugglers every Thursday night at DC-Santa Cruz.