I also say I'm going to do a magic trick, then balance a slap bracelet on my nose. I let it fall and land on my wrist and then pretend that it's disappeared. But it's more of a joke than a trick. But I do own a thumb tip, did I mention that?

 

My apple and fork routine came from reading Dave Finnigan's Complete Juggler. The book describes a trick where you put an apple in your hand and lay a fork on the back of your wrist, throw them both up, grab the fork and spear the apple. I thought there might be a routine there with a few more tricks. So now I do that one first, then a William Tell one where I put the apple on my head, tilt my head back and stab

the apple as it falls behind my back. Then I catch the apple on the nape of my neck, roll it down my back and catch it on the fork between my legs.

 

I also do a jumbo version of that one with a melon and a garden hoe for "the people in the back." Like the other things, the routine came together incrementally. It started with one trick and grew.

 

JW: Do many of your ideas end up not working out?

DD: Plenty of jokes end up looking lame, but you're probably looking for stunts. I do remember once on a cruise ship when I was doing a three ball routine and remembered that I had some lipstick in my pocket. I stopped juggling, took it out and applied it to my lips. Then I began juggling again and attempted to kiss one of the balls. I tried a few times to build some suspense, then I finally managed to plant one on a ball. I stopped juggling and held it up to the crowd and it had a big set of lips on the white silicone. As I recall it didn't floor the audience and I didn't do it any more. It just didn't seem to work for me, but if I had those MickJagger lips, who knows?

 

Then one time I did the Magic Castle in Hollywood with Dan Holzman. I was doing ping-pong balls and Holzman brought out that stupid little cymbal of his. I figured I'd do that joke that his partner Barry Friedman does where he pretends to be fed up with him and spits the ball at him. I did it and the ball hit him right in the eyeball, and hard. I nailed him! He's had a lazy eye ever since... no, it turned out he was alright.

 

JW: What else do you do in your show?

DD: For my longer 45 minute shows I juggle on a unicycle. Lately I do two torches and a machete, throwing the machete upright into the wooden floor and throwing my hat down onto the machete like it's a hat rack. I do a comedy three ball routine, and do head rolls. Peter Davison was my inspiration there. A lot of jugglers can do head rolls but Peter wasn't satisfied to just do them. He did them very cleanly. I was glad that with some hard work head rolls came easier to me than to a lot of my friends. It's still not something I can just daydream through, though.

 

JW: Do you juggle clubs at all in your show?

DD: Yeah, I do some three club juggling. It's kind of bizarre, actually. I tell the audience that in my family whenever someone dies we have them cremated and place their remains inside juggling clubs. I take out one club and say it's my grandmother, and take out another and say it's my grandfather.

 

Then I say, "Normally it's a highly entertaining three club juggling routine, but unfortunately no one else in my family is dead yet. But just for you folks..." and I grab another club... "I killed my sister." I do that in comedy clubs, but not on cruise ships where the audience is pretty old. It hits too close to home there.

 

JW: Where have you performed all these tricks?

DD: I've done a lot of cruise ships, and the biggest of the other gigs are probably Harrah's Tahoe, the Comedy Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, the Magic Castle in Hollywood, the Hollywood Paladium, the Long Beach Comedy Club and Cafe, and I once did a street show near a roller coaster in San Diego. One of the only standing ovations I've ever received caused an entire building to evacuate. I was doing a show at a hotel in Orange County and was juggling torches on a unicycle at the end of the show. I came down off the unicycle and the alarm went off and everyone through the PA was instructed to leave the building. The timing was perfect, right at the end of my show everyone had to get .up and leave! They were good sports about it.

 

JW: Any other career anecdotes you'd care to share?

DD: I don't know how many agents read Juggler's World, but I skipped misdemeanor and felony and went straight to breach of international law. I brought my girlfriend onto a ship three days before they were expecting her once. She got on and I thought it was no big deal. We were at sea, I had done my show, and then this security guy came up. He said, "Hey, have you got a pass for the girl?" He brought me to the staff captain and told him I had brought a stowaway on board. The staff captain called the captain, at 2 a.m. no less! They ended up being pretty generous with me, but my girlfriend had to get off in the next port, which was Catalina, and couldn't take anything with her. I had to hold onto it all until I got back into town. I guess I fared pretty well considering what they technically could have done.

 

JW: Tell me how you got started.

DD: When I was a kid the Long Beach Mystics magic club was real close to my home, so I did magic for a long time, beginning in elementary school. Randy Pryor taught me magic, and he and I are still part­time partners. But the only performing I did was birthday parties for my nephews and nieces when I was seven and eight years old. I learned to juggle at age 10, and did both for a while.

 

I was pen pals with Rudy Horn for a while. I was about 17 and was in the hospital for some kind of stomach ulcer. I got a letter back from him there and it really cheered up my stay. I asked him about the spoon trick, where he kicks a spoon up and catches it on his forehead. It's a trick I dreamed of every night. He's the only person to ever balance the spoon on his forehead, have it do a somersault and catch it on the other end. He was very helpful and I always admired him.

 

Then once in high school I called up Kris Kremo and asked him about his top hats and where I could get some. I now have three brand new red top hats gathering dust in my garage!