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Funnies

by Jerry Martin

Editorial Qualifications Based on Unusual Underwear

Being the newest member of the crack Jugglers World news staff (and you know how painful a cracked staff can be), I feel a certain peer pressure to establish my credentials as House Humorist, Lofty Leader of Levity, Spiffy Spartan of Spoof, Resident Receptacle of Repartee, Merry Mirthmeister, Jerry the Journalistic Joker - in short, your basic Fun Guy from a Different Mold. (eew!)

Well.

Some years ago, I had this fine visual juggling idea for a theatrical setting. The performer would be dressed all in black, except for bright white gloves; the three juggling balls would also be white. As the performer begins to cascade the balls, the lights dim, fading slowly to black. Although all else recedes into the darkness, the gloves and balls glow, remaining visible like the grin of the Cheshire cat. Then: the pattern grows slowly wider, and wider, and still wider, until it is clearly too wide.

It reverses, and the gloved hands move closer and closer together, and as the pattern stops, the lights come up again to reveal the one lone juggler, who takes a bow. Finis. Okay: Finding glow-in-the-dark juggling balls was no problem, and the choreography of sneaking another juggler in and out again under cover of darkness seemed pretty logical.

The hard part was finding a way to get the gloves to glow - Dye? Paint? Special cloth? What?

After accumulating a pile of useless luminescent junk - tape, greasepaint, oilcloth, chalk, and so forth - I heard of a woman who did lingerie shows in people's homes (yes, legitimately, and, no, I don't have her phone number), and heard that glow-in-the-dark boxer shorts were proving to be very popular for her. Eureka! I would simply acquire some of this material and make gloves out of it!

As it happened, I attended a conference in Los Angeles at about that time, and on a free afternoon I headed for the very center of the Unusual Underwear Universe: Frederick's of Hollywood's flagship store, in Hollywood. A courteous clerk asked if he could help me, and I confidently stated my need: "Pretty much anything, as long as it glows in the dark."

His expression instantly turned serious, and he said that he had never heard of such a thing, though he would check. After a short visit somewhere out of sight, he returned to say that Frederick's carried no such products, had never carried such products, and would I please leave.

So: I was once ejected from Frederick's of Hollywood for apparently exceeding their standards of acceptable good taste. Surely, this must qualify me for something... (It does - and don't call me "Shirley"!)

Three Near Misses

Part of the thrill of performing is, of course, the tingly feeling you get on-stage when Fate tosses in something that (a) you didn't see coming, and (b) you can't ignore.

These moments glisten, partly because of the sweat that frequently accompanies them, but also because they mean that this could be a Show To Remember, a show biz Legend-In-TheMaking, something you could use to impress your admirers when they buy you a late-night snack at the local backstage deli. Here are three such Show Biz Moments that share an unusual common thread: in each case, that final stroke of lightning, that crowning touch of glory, that Punch Line In The Sky, failed to materialize, slipping away like a beanbag on a date with the linoleum...

Tuey and the Ladder

Tuey Wilson has been Mr. Photo Opportunity at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival for about 10 years now; Apart from actually looking good in tights, Tuey has a solid base of combination tricks, a la Rastelli. Spinning balls on fingers and mouthsticks, rings twirling on various limbs, juggling more rings in the free hand, all at the same time, on a slack rope... you get the idea.

It was during a show on a fine late-summer afternoon that Tuey found himself atop a freestanding ladder, holding three blazing torches Statue-of-Libertywise, and realized that he was about to break wind. The idea of igniting the flatulence with a torch raced through his mind, along with the realization that this would have to be a Historical First of some kind. Although he was probably right, before he finished processing the thought, it was too late - the moment had, uh, passed.

The Guinness records will just have to wait for this one!

Jon at the Fringe Festival

Jon Poppele (rhymes with "Monopoly") is an aspiring performer with strong juggling

skills and a dry wit; his stand-up diabolo routine is a personal favorite of mine. Jon signed up with the Minnesota Fringe Festival, which bought him six timeslots, scattered throughout an 11-day period, to do shows on stages around Minneapolis' arts ghetto, the West Bank. Jon's first set did not go well; the space was like an enormous pizza oven, only hotter, and apparently the earth spirit (Saint Biff) had "blessed" Jon's props - it was not a happy debut. The good news was that there were only five people in the audience to witness this exercise in self-torture (the bad news: one of them was a reviewer for the Star Tribune).

Who can say what karmic life preservers a panicky mind will cling to in such stormy moments of terror? In this case, Jon's mental mantra was the "Top Ten Things Not To Do When Your Show Is Bombing," a fine list that Dan Holzman and Jack Kalvan had written for the October 1993 issue of Two Ply Press (formerly a monthly alternative juggling newsletter, it's now published annually as a birthday tribute to Dirk Spiv).

Jon especially recalled number 10 on the list: "Attempt to pass 9 clubs with a random volunteer from the audience."

It's a shame he didn't: a random selection stood a 60% chance of success - you see, numbers monsters Fritz Grobe, Jay Gilligan, and Morry Hansen (aka blink, the 1995 IJA Teams Champions) were also performing at the Fringe, and had decided to take in Jon's show that night...

Jerry and the Darlas

When I went full-time in my current day job, my organization was being merged with two others, and the system Equal Opportunity office decided it would be jolly to give folks some needed fun by having me perform a couple of juggling/magic shows for the staff, as a part of "Diversity Days" (though how a Scandinavian guy with a beard qualifies as "diverse" in Minnesota, I'll never know.).

So: there I was at my second show. The first one had gone well - an odd situation, performing to people who know your Social Security number - and I was in a pretty good mood, despite my own boss having heckled me earlier. I got a volunteer on stage, and asked her name; she said, "Darla." Later in the show, I used a man and another woman from the audience to help with another bit, and the second woman's name was also Darla! The crowd loved it!

Now it was time for my finale. There was one particular young woman who had caught my eye earlier, and seemed perfect for it, so I looked her way to see if she'd like to volunteer. She was busy talking to someone, though, so rather than delay, I asked another woman from the same table, and she agreed; when I asked her name, I said, "And don't tell me it's 'Darla', or I'll smack you!" It got a nice laugh.

After the show, the person that I had originally hoped to call on (the one who had been busy talking), approached me as I was packing up. She said that it was a good thing I hadn't called on her - see, her name was Darla, too.

Dire warning: Unless you want to watch me suffer trying to fill these pages all by myself month after month - and I wouldn't hesitate to subject you to more endlessly lame personal anecdotes if you did, you sadistic sick puppy, you - instead, it would be better by far for you to send in things the rest of us would find funny (jokes, limericks, tall tales, haiku, lists of ingredients in dessert toppings) to the "Funnies" editor (that would be me): Jerry Martin; Richfield MN. Scout's honor: We'll give you credit for what we print, though if your material really belongs to someone else, you should say so up front.