Some Juggling and a Death Threat

Kettle Stand One

Everything has to start somewhere. For the Brigade our fundraising activities started standing kettle for The Salvation Army. Since we have been apart from the Army we have not done a great deal of fundraising until this year. We have done some hoagie sales and a little of this and that. This spring i got out and stood a little Kettle for the Brigade.

By the way standing kettle is standing outside a store with a bucket and ringing a ball. I do own a bell but I rarely used it. Usually i would juggle and sing Christmas Carols. I should probably have mentioned this sooner.

Anyway tonight I have my stand ready, my carol cards and juggling balls. I always feel like the holiday season is starting when I get out there on a kettle. If you want to stop by I will be at the Combodican Kitchen on the South Side. Which by the way has the best Seafood Wontons in the commonwealth.

Over the years I have stood kettle at lots of stores and have never recomended one on my blog. The Cambodican Kitchen  will be the first. If you want some good food this is the place. It is also the only restaurant that I stop at weekly. And it is not because I stand kettle there. There were lots of places I stood kettle near and would rather bring a sandwich than eat the food.

Maybe someday it will mean something. As for today the Cambodian Kitchen is our first Kettle Stand.Kettle Stand One.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Package for Someone

I have had this package for one of the members of my troupe for a month or so. When I do not have it I see this person. When I have it I do not see this person.

Of course it is books and it is heavy when you are toting it around in a bag of juggling stuff.

When I tell them it I had it on my person yesterday I think they think i am messing with them. So i am posting it here. For what ever reason I am getting into wrapping things in brown paper. I am trying not to use tons of notebooks to save tree but I am wrapping things in paper. That must be some kind of mental illness. I am sure that someone will make a drug that cures this but causes temporary blindness or make you need to wear a diaper.


Well there is some random poorly spelled stuff. Thank you for listening.

Random Talk About Making Balls

Ridewood Church Show

Alakazi and I had a show this week end. It rained a bit. Actually it drizzled the entire time. Even with the rain fun was had by all. We did realize that we do not have funny colored umbrellas.

Well just checking in. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

My Play List

If you listen to the play list on my phone it is nuts. There is only one radio station that half as nuts as the music that I choose to listen to that is WRCT. In the middle of the night that sometimes have a DJ Filling Dead Air. Well that it what it says on thier web site when you tune in over the web. i apparently live on the back side of a hill from thier transmitter so I get a clear signal over the web.

No one appears to advertise on this station so it is not cluttered with any of that. For some reason I always tune in the middle of the night. So I had no idea that it was a college radio station. I suppose I should have guessed because of the lack of advertising or pledge drives.

With any luck there will be juggling on Sunday. I think I am going to put in a request.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Facebook needs Customer Service

Facebook continues to be a pain the neck. The Brigade has a facebook page where we put up our practices and events. Members check what they are showing up for. When it was working it was a nice thing. Sadly it is not working. People who have left the group accidentally cannot be invited back. I have tried over and over and not been able to figure it out. Of course there is no customer support from facebook. There are tons of ads and if you click the wrong thing they try and sign you up for a video game advertised by a half naked cartoon. I wonder if female members get the same half naked cartoon or if their half naked cartoons are male.

Well anyway. I would like to fine a social network site that all of the Brigade members can log into and get regular updates of what we are doing. That is the sad thing about facebook. Surely they have made money off the tons of adds that are plastered through out the thing. Heck now I am getting ads that appear to be entries from other users. Of course they are put in because everyone has learned to ignore the ads on the sidebar. You would think they had made enough money to have a customer service department. Maybe they have made their money by convincing a new generation of customers that they do not need to be respected.

Juggling Ball Obessions

Juggling balls have been a minor obsession over the last couple of years. I have sewn them, knit them, crocheted them, filled balloons with sand, slit open ball pit balls and turned them into juggling balls. They have been stuffed with sand, wood pellets, BBs. ball bearings, ground up walnut shells and even water. They have been cube shaped, pyramids and now sort of round. As for the round we have tried all kinds of ways to make them round. We have tried six pieces, ten pieces and even one horrible experience making them like a mini soccer balls. The closest on the round we have gotten to is making them like a baseballs. Odd how the one sport I like to watch turns our to know the easiest way to make a round juggling ball.

Tonight I am going to bed after making one ball that is the closest we have ever gotten. A millet filled baseball shaped juggling ball. It is still not perfect but it closer than I have gotten thus far. The newly minted ball is sitting in bed with me as I type this before I turn in. I locked all the cats out of my bedroom so they will not play with it. In the morning I will stuff two waiting shells with millet and sew them up. If all goes as planned I think this will be as good as we can make them without industrial sewing machines.

I would like to thank the members of my clown troupe and the Masters of Flying Object Juggling Club at CMU. Their feed back and testing has been invaluable. Also none of them have tried to have me committed for my obsession and have been down right polite about it.

When all is said and done it looks as if these balls will cost around 2 dollars a set to make. That is not bad. Heck it down right affordable when you consider most juggling balls are ten dollars or more a ball. As I look at the finished ball on the pillow next to me I realize two things. First my quest to make the best juggling ball I can make may be at an end. Second I need a girl friend.

Thank you all for you time, help and understanding. Now I wonder if I can make a decent juggling club.

Balls and Roller Skating.

The millet has been ordered. Well 20 pounds of it has been order and will be here tuesday. I have several cut outs of the balls at the ready. I have been sewing them a few at a time as I sit around watching the tele. So when I do have the millet I should be able to stuff the balls and have a few sets ready to go for next friday's juggling group.

After letting everyone in a couple of juggling groups play with the round balls. They like the size and the only complaint with the sawdust off the wood pellets and they angular ends. So the millet should solve all our problems with the balls.

I will keep you posted on this thing.

Also the Roller Skating at Eden Park starts thursday. This is a great little fundraiser for a local college fund. You would not think clowns are into education. Actually you would be right for the most part. Heck Tri-Rivers Clown Alley threw out a bunch of people who wanted to teach juggling. Anyway Steel City Clown Brigade is all about education. We tutor kids and help raise money for educating them.

Well  our contribution to this outing is showing up and doing balloon animals. In future I will post the times and cost of these events. So if you are in the South Hill may want to stop by for this one.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Rambling About Balls

It is odd to me that people like round balls a great deal more than cubes. I am talking of course of juggling balls.

Practicing with the CMU Juggling Club has just be great on so many levels. One of the benefits is experimenting with new equipment. In the past we would just have the members of our group to kick around a new juggling apparatus. In the last year if we have been experimenting with something we h

ave been able to pass it around what ever it is with a dozen or more jugglers.

One of the newest thing we have experimented with is the round juggling ball. now you may say to yourself, Self, aren’t all balls round. Well I suppose in once sense you would be correct. We tend to call anything that is the size of a ball a ball. So we have cubes that are balls. I am sure there are some pictures of juggling cubes.

Anyway. It is much easier to sew a cube. I have gotten rather good at it. I can sex a juggling cube in under two minutes. Stuff in under a minute and sew up the stuffing hole by hand in two minutes. We have gotten so good at making juggling cubes that we give sets away to strangers who show up at juggling practices.

The ball pattern we are experimenting is a lot like the cover on a baseball. In face I disassemble a base ball to get the pattern. We upped the size just a little bit. Anyway it weighs the same as our large juggling cubes.

Anyway we have made two sets of round bean bag type juggling balls. One set is being circulated among the younger members of the brigade. The other set I have been using as much as possible. Also it has been passed around at two of the CMU Juggling meetings.

Everyone likes the size except for a couple of the youngest members of the Brigade. They of course being ten have small hands. I think I can scale them down to meet their needs. The only other complaint is the stuffing. We use wooden fuel pellets to fill our bean bags. They are angular and let out dust for the first couple of weeks of juggling with them.

The grains I have found in the strip district have been processed so that they can easily be boiled. This means that is they get wet they expand. They also cost seven bucks a pound. That is the problem with the wooden pellets. If they get wet they expand.

I do know that many juggling balls are stuffed with millet. I don’t know what kind of millet is best. Even so on the up side you can get white millet for feeding birds at Agway stores. They closest Agway store is a bit of a hike It looks like it is around forty bucks for a fifty pound bag. This is a lot more than the three buck we spend for fifty pounds of wood pellets. Also I imagine the volume of millet is a bit less. Which at this point we are stuffing the balls by volume and not weight.

Well that is where we stand. in another week or two we might have a round millet filled juggling ball. Well we will test that bad boy when we get it. If the stuffing is really our last problem this may be the last step to the best possible juggling ball we can make.

So that is more than you probably every wanted to hear someone ramble on about balls. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Early Morning Randomness

Still kicking around the idea of writing a book. I have a couple hundred pages of something that I like. Well I like the idea of the story. I am not sure i am in love with how it is working out. I will throw another fourty pages into it and read through it. Maybe this is the one. Maybe it is practice for when i finally get around to writting the Great American Novel.

On other front i am still messing around with knitting. I find myself more fascinated with pattern and individual stitches these days. For what ever reason i don't really have any inclination to make something useful. In a lot of ways it is like the books I have been kicking around for years.

On the clown Brigade Front we are trying to integrate Standing kettle and Birthday Parties into the group. We have also started providing some religious services to a local nursing home. It is nice to see the Brigade getting back to it's roots.

Well just checking in. Be safe out there

Cleaning the Carpet.

At this lovely hour I am cleaning the carpet in the brigade office. It is always disturbing the shampoo a light colored carpet. Sure you get a nice clean carpet when you are done.When you are cleaning you get to know just how much junk is in your carpet. In a tan carpet the color charge is greater than I would like.

I did not pick my carpet color. I probably would have picked something darker. I am not sure why i am rambling on about this. Over the last couple weeks I have been tryng to spruce up the office. In July we started taking a bunch of shows for money. It has been nice for some of the young people to earn some pocket money. Heck it has been nice for the Brigade to have another source of income.

With the lack of another clown troupe in Pittsburgh we appear to be the only way new clowns will be trained. The sad thing is that there are two national clown organizations in United States that are not interested in having a growing clown community in this area.

I have always though it was important for us to continue the craft of clowning. I just don't know. This does not feel like something our Brigade should be doing. Sadly I do not think there is going to be anyone else to do it.

Ask Zeeppo

Clown News 8/23/2013

J Rock Cat 1

Slow Progress

Video is not a medium that I have done much in over the years. Lots of people have fancy camera and microphones and the like.  So doing vidcasts and editing stuff has been a bit of chore to pick up on.

The thing is that if the Brigade is going to be able to look for donations on line we are going to have to prove that people should give us money with something that we put on line. So we need to be able to make television or something like it.

These newscasts have been the something like a phase that we are going through in order to make something up. They have been six kinds of terrible and sometime seven kinds of terrible. In our most recent attempt we have even done some editing. The editing was all me and all bad.

Well I working my way through Luther on the Internet. I am on the fourth episode of the most recent series and Ruth Wilson's name popped up on the screen. If you do not watch this show you are missing out. Any way this should be a good episode.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Clown News 7/20/2013

God times throwing fire

I had fun at Duck Hollow yesterday. It was the Brigade's first juggling at Duck Hollow of the season. This is me juggling torches in my kilt. The picture is blurry because I was moving so fast. It has nothing to do with trying to use a camera phone at night.

Anyway it was a neat evening. We did not have a bunch of people but the people we had were a nice mix so it was a nice evening.

I would like to think the Fire Arts community in Pittsburgh is starting to turn the corner. Yesterday I did not have to explain to anyone that they should not be drunk or standing next to the fuel pit. Also not once did I have to tell a drunk smoker that they were standing next to something flammable.

The sad thing is was almost entirely a new group of people. The folks that showed up at Duck Hollow last year who defended drunken spinning where not there. So there is no proof that they learned anything from the police periodically breaking up the spinning groups last year. It would have been nice to save the Pittsburgh Fire Arts Group. With the way things a going they will simply become another irrelevant internet group.

Well safe safe out there everyone

Clown News 5/19/2013

Rambling About Clown Stuff

2:33 AM

It is early in the morning and I am once again without sleep. Actually I feel like I could sleep but it does not happen.

I have been working on several thing of various degrees of importance. I am working on a way to increase the rate of fire on the Brigade confettie cannon the Clownzooka. I am back to working on the LAst Brigadier. I also have three grant proposals for the Clown Briagde in the works. They are not due for some time but I need to stay ahead of such things.

Everyone who writes a book thinks they are going to write the great American Novel. I suppose that is mostly Americans that think that. Anyway, I think The Last Brigadier may be my best shot at that title. The more I work on it the more I like the characters. Also I know exactly where this book is going to go. Heck I even have a plot outline written out.

The book was started three years ago. In it is a character who is a Baptist Preacher in a church up the Hill from where the Brigadier was once stationed. His fictional atributes are very similar to my current minister's actual existance. I wonder if I knew about him in the back of my mind when I created this character.

Well be safe out there. And keep your stick on the ice.

Ted Nuggent Once Knew the Way

This is not the man I want in control of gun control. Maybe if I had an electric guitar I would want him around. At the end of the Video Ted does prove that we do not need guns. Please watch.



You see Ted is able to fend off the flying bullets from an army of cops with his tasty guitar riff. So kids put down you guns and pick up a guitar.

Bad Crickets

I do not know a great deal about fire arms. Nor am I an expert on raising children.

Even so this is what the NRA is defending. The kid in the picture cannot be more than ten even if they are really short. I have met many ten year olds. Being a clown you get to meet lots of kids. I am not sure I would have wanted any of them to be armed.

I remember when people were outraged by Joe Camel. Joe was a cartoon Camel that smoked Camel Cigarettes. He was always in a cool popular place with good looking women in awe as he played the piano or golfed or what ever upright cartoon camels do. In Joe's defense none of the kids who took up smoking because he was smoking killed their siblings with second hand smoke. Well not with the same efficiency that you can do it with a cricket rifle.

At least with cigarettes it took years to kill people. If you follow Jimminy's boot wearing cousin you can take about todlers left and right. It was interesting listening to a discussion on the "news" channel about this. The Gun Defender was claiming it was a good idea for kids to learn things young. He claimed there was a great heritage in our nation of learning things while being young.

You know I teach young people how to juggle. You have seen the videos on this blog if you are long time reader. Have you ever seen a kids with a set of swords in their hands or torches. No because it is too dangerous.

When will Americans realize five year olds with guns are dangerous? Perhaps the NRA wants all the kindergarder kids to have baby rifles to prevent the next school shooting.

Juggling & Name that VIdscast

Work continues on the Vidpodwhats it. We have not named it yet. We have come up with a couple of bits that will be part of the show. One of the bits will be the news. WE have been working on that one a lot. We are trying to figure out who is the best mix of people to use and how to approach it. We have also been getting in some practice on just doing the thing. once decision that we have come up is that we would like to have the title animated. There is a young person named Rosetta McBride who does this neat thing where she draws a cartoon and sets it to music. I would like to have her do the titles. This is a video of her drawing a cartoon This is her learning how to juggle. Some day we will convince her to join the circus. We be safe out there and keep you stick on the ice.

Clown News

This is the news from 4/30/2013, sort of.

Give the Yahoos Nuclear Weapons

I do not understand why the recent gun legislation failed. I have to wonder how bad it will have to get before the second amendment is no longer needed. How many innocent people will have to die before we do not think unstable people need guns. I am a clown and no constitutional scholar. Even so it is my understanding that the amendments are changed from time to time as our nation changes. We once thought the Demon rum was so bad that we had to prevent it's use at all costs. Then we later decided that was not the case. So why is the second amendment so important that it cannot change. Do we need a well ordered militia to stand against tyranny? What nation on this planet can defeat our military? And if no nation can defeat us why would we think our citizenry could stand against our military. If everyone that wanted a machine gun could have one would they be able to take down the US Military? No matter how many people are in your militia they cannot stand against a squadron of F 22s or a carrier group. So we as Americans must trust that our Army and Navy are not going to oppress us. There are two alternatives. We can reduce our military to the point a group of yahoos with machine gun can stand against them. Or we can give the yahoos their own nuclear weapons and Naval carrier groups. Those are the only two solutions that will give the citizens parity with the military. Well call me stupid but I personally think the US Military has my back. Be safe out there and keep you stick off the ice.

The Clown News for 4/12/2013

Recycled Humor 1

After the Clown News

Sergeant Wilson defends the honor of 1 Direction.

The Skates are Finished

Well the Chicago 76 skates are finished. I have been looking for parts for the for a couple years now. And with the exception of the laces and the ball bearings everything is original Chicago parts.

The wheel are the hard clay wheel for roller rinks. I cannot wait to go to the rinks and use them at the end of the month. Heck I might sneak out next week and use them on a rink.

Well be safe out there everyone and see you at the rink.

Clown News

Brigade News

Need a name for a Clown Show

Scott Brand Lies to You

First off I would like to thank all of the people that are spamming the old Blog. So I stopped by to post a complaint about some company and there is a bunch of spam. Somehow that seems just about right

Anyway the good peole at Scott Brands is advertising that if your stop by their website and do a survey. You are then supposed to get a free month of Hulu. Well in reality you get a chance to give them all your credit card information. If you do not give them your personal information you do not get the free month.

I was so annoyed that I called Hulu. They claimed it was a standard industry practice. Well the only site I know of like them is Netflix. Well I tried them out and actually got a free month without having to jump through hoops. I called the people at Scott and they claim that they let you know before hand. Well it is toward the bottom of a several page document that is shrunk down to 4 pt font. So yes they do tell you that they are lying to you about the free month. They just do it in the sneakiest way possible.

Well if you come across this offer don't believe it. Scott just want to survey you with out giving you anything in return.

So go Brawny

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Cat in a Bag

Why does my cat sit on or in my computer bag. I just do not get it. Here sits Maya on my bag at the end of practice in our office. You can tell there was a practice by the large number of beat up balloons laying around.

It makes you wonder. Maybe she wants to go out with me when I leave. Even if she did I am sure that she would rather not travel in my bag.

If you have any ideas let me know.

Ideas of March March

 As always the Ideas of March March was a great thing. The clowns and I joined some other denziens of the city on our yearly misson to make people aware that they should beware of the Ides of March March. Here was are walking down the street warning everyone that we were there. It is hard to tell who is in clown face from behind. You also may not be able to tell I am on stilts.

In the lower right corner is Amelia the President of the Tri-Rivers Clown Alley. So perhapse this counts as our first joint operation with the Tri-Rivers.


Most of the pictures I took were like this one of a passing car. They were waving at us that we are number one. Usually one uses their pointer finger for that . Still, I will not judge.

The bottom picture is Mandy and the 18th Annual March cake.

Well as you can see I am a lousy photographer. I hope Walt got better pictures.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Salvage 1

This is a great little show that I recently discovered. I mean it is Andy Griffith with a rocket ship. The only sad part is that they made so few of them. I am smelling a remake with Denis Farina in the title role.

An Old Friend

I am spending a day with an old friend to work on a new one. With in the Clown Brigade is something called the White Book. It is tha majority of the proficiencies that you are able to work on as a Junior Clown. It is basically the guidelines on how to become a standard clown.

The book was meant to go with something that we never really bothered working on. These are the proficiencies that Standard Clowns are allowed to work on. We have been calling it the Red Book even though it does not actually exist.

Well as of today there is actually a Red Book. It includes advanced version of the White Book Proficiencies and some that are new. As of now there are 17 Proficiencies in it. There are a dozen that are being finished and need to be voted on by the Brigade Council.

On some level this is progress.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

A Group of Clowns

What is a group of clowns called?

One of the folks in my troupe looked this up. According to what they found it is a Buggy.

What the heck. I have never heard that. It is like a Lion being told that his Pride is called a chair.

I looked this up on the internet. I came across Yahoo answers third or fourth on the list of search results. It indeed said that a group of clown was called a Buggy. Upon further inspection this answer was voted on by yahoo users.

So basically a group of people who may or may not know the answer get to vote on what they think the answer is.

Well that sounds like a great system. No wonder wikipedia is not considered a valid research tool. Oh that reminds me. I have to go on wikipedia and add the time I landed on the moon while a crew member of Appolo 15.

Oh by the way. A group of clowns is called a Troupe or sometimes and Alley.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

A Sign That You are a Nerd

There are several sign that you are a nerd. One of those signs is that you have more than a passing familiarity with the Tardis.