yo-yo #56: the cream (kind of)

people keep asking me if worlds was fun. i have a hard time answering them without being sarcastic, but it's like... it's the world yo-yo contest! can you imagine something MORE fun? ok... you probably could, but it would probably be really dirty and unmentionable... because that's just your way, and everyone knows it.

anyway, among the reasons for its excellence were all the crazy yo-yo's people gave me. i already mentioned seth's decade-old sb-2. in the final minutes of finals on saturday, paul yath spotted me and said "hey hey!" and handed me this yo-yo. (months ago, we had vaguely discussed the idea of my testing the cream, but since it's totally finished, and getting glowing reviews all over the place, i'd have assumed that my input was no longer relevant anyway.) he actually apologized for giving me one that was half black, as that was all he had left, but i LOVE yin-yang colorways. i actually bought a 2nd run black milk to match with my 1st run white, and was dismayed when i learned that the runs were slightly different.

the yo-yo is pretty flawless; a different feeling from the original milk, but just as wonderful. the new blue o-rings manage the ginormous gap perfectly. i have no idea when it will be out, but you should buy one when you have the means.

tangential to the cream and its virtues, i thought i'd post some pictures from worlds. it was a memorable trip for certain.

within 10 minutes of arriving, i was immersed in a surreal gathering of some of my closest yo-yo friends. it seemed like they were the only people there. i've hung out with sebby any number of times, but had never actually met abe. brandon jackson originally described him as "intense", and that would be the first word i would use, as well, meant in the best sense possible.

we immediately went to johnny rocket's, which is a worlds tradition, if only due to its proximity. this was my only trip there this time, and i didn't get to eat my cheese fries because i had to leave to pick up steve buffel at the airport. before leaving though, i got to watch one of my yo-yo heroes, john bot, considering his chocolate dr. pepper... which was actually not as repellant as it sounds.


drew tetz has become a force of nature, and i love his yo-yoing. i almost never saw him playing this, his "trademark" green capless zero. i gave him a long overdue clean machine, and he just rocked the hell out of it for the next 3 days. he also designed the best contest format i've ever experienced for the fixed axle breakout, and went on to win it. world fixed axle champion, and well deserved it was!

the "small one" is actually chandler, but everyone is always shocked by his resemblence to jeff coons of duncan crew. both are extremely cool, and great yo-yo players, which evidently, is genetic.


i have the chronology of this one all messed up i think. one night, i went out to dinner with abe and john-bot, and it turned into abe, john-bot, drew, shawn fumo, joey fleshman, seth peterson, and french nat'l champion hadrien bennaceur (we all crammed into my honda element). we tried to go to bahama breeze, but the wait was :30, so we went next door to cattleman's. cattleman's is a pretty nice steakhouse (we realized this AFTER sitting down) and is really expensive, which is at odds with the usual worlds experience. after our refined dinner, we felt the need to unwind. so we went to walgreens and purchased some "food items" that are "distinctly american", so that we could provide hadrien with a fuller understanding of our culture. we bought "circus peanuts" candies, root beer, pork rinds, and the tour de force (pun), easy cheese. hadrien's initial response to the easy cheese is captured above. later, a number of people partook of the "screaming eagle", which is a pork rind/easy cheese/circus peanut sandwich. i politely abstained.


john bot insisted that "all brazilians hate root beer", but bazani disproved the stereotype by just looking "meh" about it. he then popped an enormous shove-it over the bottle, as if to further diminish the root beer's ability to hold any sway over him.

the next morning, i went swimming with my good friend, the yo-yo entrepreneur/world-dominator, f. pat cuartero. pat can now do 100 push-ups in a row (82 if he observes proper form). caribou lodge was impressed with his physique, and both chris and boyd were unabashed in their desire to "look at the work". boyd effectively demonstrated that his beard has the power to exponentially amplify the creepiness of any expression.

thursday night was, of course, wheel of penalty. by virtue of his canadianness, my friend and sponsor, steve was required to drop his pants and "feel the breeze". i'm not certain that he wears canadian themed boxers every day.

jon rob.

guy.

this worlds was my first contest where i was "part of a team", which is a strange experience. i feel a little hypocritical being ON a team, but not concerned with "winning", but i've come to understand that not all teams are about that. i can really get behind what steve does. he's picked three totally different players so far, which indicates that he doesn't just value yo-yoing along one direction. in the case of jon rob and myself, he took a big risk in making yo-yo's for us that were either "not easy" or "not what the market generally prefers". spyy is an easy entity to represent and support.

i'm also really lucky in that i actually LIKE my teammates. it is kind of strange being the "weak link" by virtually any quantifiable standard (though fortunately, yo-yoing can always be argued to be devoid of quantifiable standards - see my last post). jon rob and guy are way more awesome yo-yoers than i am, admittedly, but just like it's best to NOT have the most expensive house on your block, i'd rather be the poorest player in an amzing group than the best player in a poor group... if that makes sense. i love watching these guys play yo-yo, or just talk.

joe mitchell won a well-deserved lifetime achievement award. despite his youthful appearance, joe has been around the epicenter of yo-yoing since the last boom. such a great guy, and not just because he gave me a beer. but mostly. i love dave schulte's expression in this pic. dazzling as ever.

speaking of beer:


this is the only other picture i feel compelled to post of myself. it was taken by red, one of my favorite photographers and yo-yo players, and i can only PRAY that he does ANOTHER 500 days. in the interest of full disclosure, i did NOT actually shatter this bottle. abe did it whilst trying to open it on a velvet rope-post. i did however, drink it.


at one point, i left my camera in my bag, and seth sequestered it for his own personal use. he and dave (save deth) had the brilliant idea to buy a futon/frame from wal-mart, set up their booth around it (complete with a tv/dvd/super-nintendo and clothing rack), and then return said futon following the contest. a lot of players owe them thanks for the opportunity to watch the event unfold in comfort and high style.


i took this photo of joey fleshman during one of the rare moments when he was playing an unresponsive yo-yo. when i first arrived, he was playing a flying v (yay!), and i was embarassed by the quizzical expression he gave me when he noticed that mine was set up unresponsive. prior to worlds, i had been dividing my time evenly between the slim and fat bearings. since the contest, and mostly due to joey's influence, i think i've spent at most 20 minutes with the latter. he also asked me to carve his clean machine for him, which was a strange honor. i hope i did it ok.


a few of us went to "the largest checkers in the world" (you can sit down in it), and while there, sid put on a show. one simply cannot watch sid yo-yo and not WANT to yo-yo oneself, so it kind of devolved into yo-yo chaos. sid's tricks are, by and large, harder, weirder, and yet cleaner than pretty much anything else i've seen. i ate a "big bluford" burger, which was pretty delicious... however, i felt like a place like checkers should really have crushed ice. i'll think stick with cook-out.

anyhow... i realize that the cream (which is, again, incredible - thanks paul!) was only the jumping-off point for this post. there are probably a thousand other moments from worlds that i could go on and on about, but these are the ones that occurred to me here and now. only about 354 days until the next one!

... oh and i don't know what the cream has to do with the game of go.

yo-yo #'s 54 & 55: higby painted sunsets

so people are trickling back from worlds. the boards are becoming repopulated. people are talking about all that they saw and experienced.

part of that is (as always) all about how "terribly flawed" the judging was. and devoid of a total powerhouse reinventing the 1a scene, it's worse this year.

the most controversial results probably hit the floor after the 2nd round of 1a. it was chock full of talent, but the names that were culled from it were definitely not what people expected, even after seeing the corresponding 1 minute freestyles. yuuki spencer, sid, augie fash, tyler severance, sebastian brock. all beloved favorites, and all eliminated.

what confuses me is... why are people so surprised? why so upset?

i know we want to make yo-yoing a sport. and god, we try so hard to pretend it is; to mold it into the shape of one. but i'm sorry it's just not right now. it's not because no one can accurately predict the winners before being TOLD what they are by a panel of judges. even if you knew what to look for, and clicked through every freestyle in slow-mo 10 times, the final results would be inherently unpredictable. said judges try their best to be fair and objective, but what system could they possibly use in real-time to determine that "blindingly-fast-freestyle a" is more valuable than "totally-innovative-freestyle b"? ... cause that's what they're up against.

i hear a lot of people talking about "string hits", and it's important for them to understand that no contests are really judged in that way. but their ignorance betrays the dirty secret that essentially NO ONE (up to and including competitors and a good many judges) really understands HOW the winners are chosen, and WHY they win. on the yoyofactory world's countdown, ben posted that the team had been training with a clear focus; to throw down innovative, difficult tricks, quickly and cleanly. it won the contest for them 2 years running. however, ben claimed that the contest was not judged in a way that benefitted his players' training model. how, in what's supposed to be a "sport", can that possibly happen?

no one watches a baseball game and is confused about who won. no one goes to track meet, but can't predict the victor after observing the 100m dash. you might train in this way or that way, but you know WHAT you're training for. you know how your performance will be measured and what you have to do to win the game. we yo-yoers have crafted this elaborate stage, upon which we display truly amazing creative feats... but we forgot that there's no real way to "judge" something called a "freestyle". oops?

the closest legitimate approximation of the model that yo-yoing appears to strive for would be figure skating, or maybe gymnastics. in both of those examples, the participants are able to design their own routines (or at least their coaches are). HOWEVER (big however), in said examples, the participants are ALSO required to demonstrate the same essential elements, and are judged on how well they complete them. the judges are able to easily compare how well skaters a and b complete their respective "triple sow-cows" (or whatever). and there are strict rules that determine the precise deductions for missteps. how boring would it be if all of the "freestyles" were not "free" at all, but composed of tricks and movements the judges knew to look for? to watch as all the competitors in a yo-yo contest strive for that "perfect rancid milk" (that everyone knows is coming) in the middle of their freestyles? but that's the only way yo-yoing can be quantified, and thereby made a sport: by being predictable, uniform, standardized. remember compulsories? everyone thought they SUCKED... but they were probably more fair and more clear than what we have now. and no, i'm not saying we should go back... i'm just saying we shouldn't invest too much in who wins and who doesn't.

i can't imagine anything more redundant than complaining about the results of the world yo-yo contest. OF COURSE the judging system sucks. NO system could do anything BUT suck. the very notion of a "system" PRECLUDES its ability to effectively judge and compare something called a "FREE-STYLE". that which is inherently expressive will never be measured with any validity. it's absurd. it's like watching two may-flies live out their lives over a day, and then numerically grading each on which had the best "quality of life". an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon perhaps (if you're an entomologist, anyway)... but at the end of said afternoon, don't try to pretend that you did something more substantial than watching some bugs fly around.

and mind, this doesn't discredit the judges who spend hour-after-hour toiling through the freestyles. yo-yo contests are FUN. they're full of hilarious hijinks and trick-trading and incredibe videos and cool new toys and NONE of it would happen if the judges didn't run it for us. if you haven't organized or judged a contest, i'd have to argue that though you may have a right to express it, your perspective on "who you think should have won" is woefully incomplete. this tirade isn't meant to diminish the efforts of the competitors up there on the stage either. we're human, and so we're pretty lazy. unless there's something "in it for us", a lot of us don't want to get out of bed, much less learn really frustrating, difficult yo-yo tricks. the idea of being "world champion" is pretty attractive. it sounds like something worth practicing for. and those of us NOT driven to be champions should thank those that strive for it... their play inspires us to improve our own.

... i purchased these sunsets from yo-yo superstar/painter, john higby a few years ago. he bought a whole mess of clear ones from yoyojam, and painted them in his distinct style using all kinds of different themes. i always loved his "space" freehand zeros, but never had one. i had to go with that. a little while later, nate weddle from throw down sent me a pair of silicone o-rings for them, and they work PERFECTLY. it's almost a pity they're so beautiful, because they're easily the best [bearing] loopers i own, and i play them all the time.

anyway, last year, higby won the "artistic performance" division at worlds. ("artistic performance". i mean if you get up in arms about who should win THAT, then i can't imagine a reason to stand around arguing with you.) higby's routine was exquisite. he built a subway staircase prop, and pretended to descend it, reascending with any number of new yo-yo styles and gags cleverly culled from his stage shows. he brought friends on stage, the event was colorful and electric, and involved 3-d glasses. it was brilliant, and pretty much everyone thought he had won (which of course, he did). i emphasize "pretty much" because i'll bet one or two of the other competitors may have disagreed. some of their friends and family may have, too. and that line between art and science is razor-thin. if one dude in the back thinks taka or hiro really deserved it... isn't that enough to question the system? how about 3 guys? 30? 300? subjective is subjective, and just like truth, it WILL out.

case in point, this year higby goes up on stage, does a dazzling three-part "past, present, and future of yo-yoing" extravaganza (actually bringing his infant son on stage in a space suit at one point, and making use of incredibly innovative props throughout). a lot of people i talked to thought he had it in the bag again, yet he wasn't even in the top three. of course, higby wasn't as pissed about it as some folks i talked to: "I really did not enter AP to win but to get my idea on stage and to get some friends up there too! I think AP is getting better and I hope more people enter with the endless creativity of the amazing toy called YO-YO." pure class.

i love how in ap, the results only list the top 3 "competitors" ("artists"?), and then after that it's alphabetical order. i mean... if we're saying there was a "winner", there must have been a "loser", right? so who "lost" the art contest? it's ridiculous to ask, right? more ridiculous than declaring someone the "winner" though?

i think the only freestyle i watched this year which seduced me into the belief that it was the incontrovertible winner was kentaro's 3a. i've never seen anything so difficult done with such grace, within yo-yoing or without. i don't know anyone who could have picked someone over him. but my argument is still inherently subjective, and the fact remains that if someone came on-stage and matched his skill (hard to believe, but not impossible)... who in the world would be qualified to call one the champion and the other "s.o.l."? kentaro should be congratulated (to the end of his effing days) on having smashed every ceiling ignorant schmucks like me had placed on 3a. he should be congratulated on designing and working out a routine that people will look back on and call "totally ahead of its time"; which will define the standard for the division in years to come. i have to believe that THOSE sentiments are more meaningful, both to the observers and to mr. kimura, himself than "congrats on being world champion". i'm sure he doesn't remember, but i just told him "thank you", and would like to do so again.

so what do we do? everybody's asking each other. do we yell to each other about how the judges must have "had it in" for this guy or that guy? do we switch things all wacky, and go to a vague "performance"-based system or peer-judging/crowd-response (which at the worlds level, become nothing more than a popularity contest). do we designate really specific criteria that everyone knows and navigates? do we demand total transparancy and live-televised click-graphs, in which case, which judges will want to step up and risk being yelled at?

i've never heard a truly satisfactory solution though; one that makes the winner clear and does so fairly. i don't believe there are solutions, because i believe the "problem" is only a problem if you choose to view it as such; if you focus more on the results of the contest than the content, itself. the real "problem" is that people need to win things to consider themselves and their passions valuable. unamerican as it may make me seem, i repectfully disagree with that premise.

i do think people should try to find ways to run a better contest. i've had the privilege of sitting in on judges' meetings, and i love the great ideas that organizers are trying out, and i look forward to helping to implement changes where i can. i ran nc states for two years (and i hope to again). it's hard, but rewarding, and the attendees are genuinely appreciative. but they're appreciative because the contest gives us an excuse for getting together. the results, themselves will never be meaningful, and if you believe they are, i think you're delusional (no offense)... the experiences on the other hand... those will always be meaningful. worlds certainly was this year, and many thanks to all of you that made it so.

yo-yo #53: sb-2

i would like seth peterson to become a brazillionaire someday (meaning i would like him to own the nation of brazil, and all of its contents/resources). he's a motivated, young entrepreneurial-type. with a little luck, and a few more shirts sold at savedeth.com (which you should support), he could totally do it.

besides being one of the planet's most creative yo-yo players, seth's also just about the most generous person i know. actually, now that i think on it, those traits seem to correspond quite a lot. i'm not sure if a life spent playing yo-yo somehow imbues one with altruistic tendencies, or if i just tend to gravitate toward friendships with the really generous players because i happen to like them. it occurs to me that i came home from worlds this week with a bunch of new yo-yo's, none of which i actually purchased.

seth has been telling me about this one for awhile. i played a tom kuhn silver bullet 2 ONCE, in about 1998. the mall-cart where i used to hang out and salivate had one that was just for prospective buyers to play. i vividly remember thinking that it was superior to proyo's cold fusion in every respect but aesthetics. i wasn't one of the kids who always asked to play it, mostly because i knew i couldn't afford it back then. i bought a custom mag for about $40, and that, in itself, felt totally outlandish. the $100+ tag on the sb-2 made it seem like it belonged in neiman marcus, and although it can be found for cheaper now, i've always associated it with extravagance.

i collect tom kuhn yo-yo's, and when seth said he had one of these for me, i was pretty excited. i've always kind of put the sb-2 on a pedestal, and although i've wanted them, i've never really gone after them. the one he gave me on wednesday though, is a yo-yo i'm truly going to treasure. the sb-2 was the first production ball bearing yo-yo, and this one plays incredibly well; as smooth as plenty of today's most technologically advanced creations. the gap tool on it is truly brilliant, and it can be made to loop splendidly or dead unresponsive with just a few rotations of the spacers. it's pretty natural to go from the flying v to the sb-2, which for some odd reason, makes me feel kind of proud (though the sb-2 was never discussed as a source of inspiration for it).

the best part about it, though, is the patina (which, incidentally, is among my favorite words). i love yo-yo's that LOOK like they've been used; that LOOK like they've been loved. while a shiny new sb-2 would be "cool", this one is "beloved"... and like something out of "the velveteen rabbit" that love has made it "real". it's taken some beatings, but the aluminum, itself, is mostly intact. while areas on the hubs still sport a dull polish, the yo-yo has oxidized on the surfaces that the hand is most prone to touching, creating a kind of natural "enso". the rims, which are the most frequently handled, have darkened considerably, and now look like aluminum does when it is pulled from the ground.

though the yo-yo has lost its polish, it has gained proof-of-play. it bears the evidence of seth's considerable committment to yo-yoing, and that's much more valuable to me than a high lustre or ornate splash-ano. seth gave me a yo-yo, but he also gave me something of himself. like i said, seth's very giving, so i don't know if that was a big deal to him. but it certainly was to me.

so yeah, i'd like him to be a brazillionaire, but then... i also know that if all of brazil WAS his someday, he'd probably just smile and hand it back to red.

yo-yo #52: spyy skyy chaser

i've just been a mess all week. i don't know how my wife even puts up with me. been all gloomy and moody and surly. slothful and listless. a real pleasure. i like to think that my "base" disposition is pretty even, and this attitude is pretty unnatural for me. so i kind of try to delve into these darker emotions when they arise.

worlds is obviously next week, and i'm elated to be going, but whenever elation is abundant, i find that it's frequently accompanied by elation's miserable doppelganger. worlds is hectic, and it just simmers with nervous energy. it's also a contest, and i'm not altogether clear on how i feel about that notion itself. also, i'm going alone; leaving my kids with their grandparents and my wife to fend for herself. not the worst i could do to them, but there's still a modicum of guilt.

i'm doing 1a, and the battle with myself over whether and how i should be motivated for that is something for which i was not prepared. i've competed some, and i did ok at nc states, but i feel like since this is worlds, it "matters", or at least... it's "supposed to". it should be preemptively stated that i'm not looking to win; (at the risk of sounding defeatist) i truly don't even want to. i haven't put in the time, practice, or consideration to even be in the running, and the title holds no glory for me whatsoever, especially given its inherently subjective nature. i revere the winners for their skill, and the amount of work they have to put in, but being champion has never been for me.

so why even get on stage? hundreds of people will compete this year and virtually none of them comes in with a legitimate chance (or even sincere intent) of walking out with the "big yo-yo guy" trophy. some of them will get on stage just to say they did it (to others, or just to themselves). some of them hold making it to finals (or even just round 2) as their deepest ambition, and after that "whatever". for me, i feel like it's kind of a pilgrimage. it's the biggest stage in yo-yoing, and whatever my grievances or misconceptions about how the winners are chosen, i feel like i should put myself up there at least once, even if only for a minute. if i have any hope for it, i hope i throw yo-yo like myself. i hope i don't get carried away with the moment and let my yo-yoing go all to hell. i hope that i don't walk off the stage with any regret (though in my experience, that's more a choice one makes than anything else). i'm an "old man" (by yo-yoer standards). i've seen things and done things that i hold much more meaningful than this (honestly, throwing wood in my backyard is no less important to me). i guess i hope i can keep my perspective that balanced.

i won't be using either of these yo-yo's for my 1a 1-minute. i'll be using the flying v, which actually constitutes another reason for getting on stage in the first place. steve buffel is considerate, almost to a fault, and would never pull the "sponsor card", issuing an edict that i compete (he even suggested i use a no jive). but i'm really proud of the yo-yo we made, and i feel like it deserves a moment on stage, too. and if said yo-yo gets pissed at me for wielding it poorly, well... tough shit, flying v!

the final and most ridiculous reason why i'm doing 1a does involve these yo-yo's. i wanna do ladder. seriously, i really like ladder. i won the "old guy" ladder at worlds in 07 (not to toot my own horn, but i win a lot of "old guy" ladders). i've talked about this before, but i think ladder is rad for two reasons. 1.) it is totally quantifiable. you've got to hit THIS trick THIS way, and if you don't you're done. no one can possibly dispute the winner afterwards (like anyone would even CARE to: "i had cuartero in first for ladder, what about you?" "psh. cuartero?! that guy has some ugly-ass pop-'n-fresh! adam brewster's gerbil took it for me."). and 2.) i like "canon". i like "kata". i like the idea that some yo-yo tricks should be preserved, and that virtually everyone should know them , so as to share some common points of understanding. i don't feel that EVERY trick on the ladder is super important, but most of them, and i think the idea is well-conceived. if you can't do kamikaze or black hops, i think you should learn those tricks. i think they're valuable. i think developing the ability to hit those tricks on command is valuable, in part for the tricks' own sakes, but also because of the fundamentals that learning them teaches you.

i'll grant you i'm not someone who "practices ladder", because well... i can't imagine anything more boring than practicing a whole list of tricks i already know i can hit. but the question of whether i WILL hit these tricks i've learned is actually pretty exciting for me.

ladder is largely viewed as "the kiddy pool" of yo-yo contests, and for pretty good reason. at most state-level contests, if you freestyle, you're precluded from ladder. otherwise, the top players would beat up on the newer players in every division and snag all the prizes. takeshi told me he HATES when experienced players do ladder, because it just depresses the newer guys and turns them off of yo-yoing. i agree with that, but i also just... really like ladder, and i don't want to apologize for being good at it. that's why i really dig contests like worlds, which have ladder, but break it into divisions. you've got the ladder for people who JUST want to do ladder, and then ladder for people who want to freestyle in one of the "championship" divisions. same tricks, but two separate pools. my only gripe is that not enough of the freestylers actually DO the ladder, and i think that's generally either because it's too easy, or because they're too cool for it. if i were mickey, and i already won ladder with no misses, then i can totally understand. lots of great freestyle players don't even know all the ladder tricks though, and i kind of think that's too bad. yo-yoing's an art, but it also has structure and pedagogy. i don't think anyone's too cool to learn 25 yo-yo tricks. hell, maybe it should be 40 tricks, or maybe have the 1a and 2a lists consolidated. anyway, having won it in my age group once, it wouldn't sit right to try and do it again, so by entering 1a, i get a whole new field and don't have to feel like a schmuck (i mean a bigger one than i already am).

i like packing early, and i'm trying to decide on the yo-yo's i'm bringing to orlando. it's amusing to me that there was a time whence i would have just said "all of em", and then spent the next few days lugging around a huge case. nothing could be less appealing, and though, as my friend jonrob says "can't hate on a case full of yo-yo's", neither do i feel like showing one off or standing guard over one next week. i got an AMAZING shipment of yo-yo's from steve this week, with a little of all of the yo-yo's spyy's put out lately. i was immediately blown away by these little beauties (i'm the type of guy to refer to yo-yo's as "little beauties"). the skyy chaser is being produced in both big c-bearing/silicone and medium-big d-bearing/pad form. it's small, about the dimensions of a skyline, but it feels disproportionately substantial. i'm not going to try it, but i feel like i could probably kill a rhino with one of these, at least a baby one. the red-orange (or orange-red - screw you, crayola) NON-blasted ano finish is flawless, and is most at home out in the sunlight. the laser art, lifted straight from the hood of a firebird, hints at the yo-yo's hidden muscle. everything about it screams performance, and so i'm pretty set on using one of them for ladder. i want to use a yo-yo that i won't have to worry about. (while "no jive ladder" is seriously fun, i've been there/done that).

winning would be fine, but like deciding to freestyle at worlds in general, it's more of an internal struggle (or "turmoil" - hi, dazzling dave!), and if you're tying any particle of self-worth to "how you do" relative to others, i'd argue your energy is misplaced. much like how i feel freestyling should be, i don't really care if i win, or anyone beats me. it's just about doing as well as i can, and so i'd really like to go perfect (at least the 1a list; on 2a my punches have always been awful and i'll be lucky to get past them at all). so, yeah. i'm not sure if i'm the first person who's kind of just doing 1a so that he can do ladder and not feel like a turd, but... well there it is. see you at worlds (who am i kidding, i'll probably crank out #53 before i leave).

writing this is a pleasant reminder that, no matter what drama and baggage you take with you, be it desire for "champion of the world glory, "what am i doing this for" confusion, or "i hope my wife eats ok while i'm gone" anxiety, worlds is first and foremost a celebration of, as boyd seth said recently "the string that ties us together". and it's gonna be an effin' party.

yo-yo #51: anti-yo eetzilla

51 is not actually prime (3x17). don't front, i know you were thinking it was.


i finally arrive at an anti-yo, which has made several of my favorite yo-yo's. when i started getting into "forum-culture", the anti-yo fluchs was just hitting. i'm always amazed when yo-yo's that have a serious design issue really resonate with the community anyhow. despite a prone-to-wobble axle/bearing design, the fluchs was the kindling that later enabled a twin-inferno in the form of the eetsit and bapezilla.

the eetsit came out on valentine's day of 06 and, hotly anticipated as it was, sold out abruptly. almost as soon as it hit peoples hands, however, the reports of a flaw started rolling in. although the eetsit was roundly held to play brilliantly and look delicious (it WAS named after a tasty snack, after all), its bearing seat was just a little too high for its inner wall. as such, much of the disappointed populace was experiencing a newly-named phenomenon that would resound like a death knell to virtually any other company: "slippage". almost overnight, all the boards were alive with theories as to what the culprit was, and whether a solution was possible. it's funny to look back and remember how confused everyone was about it. oke rosgana had a complicated theory that the eetsits shipped with a batch of konkave bearings that had a microscopically tapered edge, which caused the issue. myriad others blamed the stock baz pads, and plans to make thicker ones were made. however, when some illuminated individual (as far as i can recall/research it was mOoN in georgia) sanded down his eetsit's bearing seat, everyone seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. true, it was "yo-yo surgery", and true, such things shouldn't be necessary after plunking down $85... but to make a beautiful beast of a yo-yo manifest its full potential? so worth it.

the eetsit was such a curious release. almost everyone who bought it seemed to LOVE it (despite that whole "unplayable due to slippage" thing). i really do think that any other yo-yo company would have been dead in the water. but kiya and sonny always represented their product so well, and for a few years, it really seemed as though they were the only force out there conning us into the belief that yo-yoing could actually be "something cool people do". i didn't actually play one for about a year, when at an nc "easily amused" meet, i tried samm scott's and fell in love. fortunately for me, samm goes on these kicks where he only plays one kind of yo-yo, and he gets a ton of em. when i first met him, he was all up on hyperwarp heavy wings, but he also went through a dark magic period, a freehand period, and an anti-yo period. at this time though, samm was deep in a 401k period, and he was more than willing to trade joey fleshman's old, all-brown eetsit for my beat, gray 401 (good call, samm!). joey had fixed the bearing seat, so i was all in. i had acquired the first half of this eetzilla.

the second half had been forged in the fires of mount doom (or machined in some shop) later in 06. the bapezilla was the inevitable "fixed" version of the genreally-adored eetsit. kiya/sonny basically just gave it a new, outlandish colorway, a flat bearing, and a new name. it played like a million bucks, and when it was covered in gold as its third incarnation, "the gouda", it could have sold for about as much. the gap was a little on the thin side for some people, but by and large, it was recognized that anti-yo had released something truly wonderful, and the bapes sold like wildfire. i bought one from the nation, and the day i received it, drove :30 to my pal dave wilmot's (he was good, but i don't think he yo-yo's anymore), and we traded halves. i got all blue; he took all green. about a week later, he let me know that he had dinged it on his floor, and unable to deal with the ding... had satin-finished the whole effing outside. i was shocked and appalled. the bapezilla had one of, if not the most beautiful finishes ever, and i was momentarily dismayed at having exchanged with him if he was going to use it so sinfully. later that week, i banked my own blue bape off of my ray bans (which were in my shirt pocket, not on my head). the 2 mm white mark the collision left upon the yo-yo felt like a blemish on my soul, but after that first one, the floodgates were opened, and i recognized that a scarred yo-yo that had experienced the world is no less beautiful than a pristine one. since then, i've had no compunction with dinging the hell out of my yo-yo's. i don't do it needlessly or artificially, mind you, like some skatepark grom rubbing his shiny new board on a rail to make it look skated. but, every gouge tells its own story, and all of them collectively construct a kind of autobiography (after all, what are WE, apart from our own loss and pain - the flat plane of our love and joy are brought to life by our own "dings"). the satin one that david had later became a total "yo-yo skank", and made its way into and out of dozens of collections. eventually, it came back to me, until i traded it to dave poyzer... for a black phi and a gold 201 (i shit you not - this momentary lapse in judgment can only have been karma for having taken advantage of samm)! in true dave fashion, he polished that sucker to perfection and later sold it for a mint.

speaking of cost, a few months after the bapezilla landed, someone sold one on ebay for $230. at least i think they did - there was some disagreement as to whether the transaction was actually finalized. the details were irrelevant though, as in the eyes of the "yo-yo market", the bapezilla was suddenly a commodity on the level of the oxy 4. $200+ prices became commonplace (even though the bape had retailed at $80), and with this new inflated clout to its price came a new (and largely undue) backlash. by the end of 06, several new high-tech yo-yo's were emerging (among them the saturn radian mk-ii, the first wave of clyw peaks and yyf g5), which totally reset the "smoothness standard". this freshly-weened generation of yo-yo's didn't necessarily render the bape obsolete, but it did get people talking (and complaining) about its design. since the bape's axle system doesn't actually "seat" the bearing, and uses a super-thick axle, on which the bearing rests, it's more prone to vibration than newer setups. as seems to happen with so many companies, anti-yo developed a tribe of haters that seemed no less zealous than their fanboys.

i've played anti-yo's though (like this one) that play as smooth as glass. i do think people should have high standards, and should look out for ways by which yo-yo design can move forward... but it's not necessarily good to be obsessive. as in all things, it's important to strike a balance. "water which is too pure has no fish." yeah, you want a smooth yo-yo, so that your spin times won't be negatively affected, but most of the yo-yo's we've seen these past 5 years though, anti-yo included, are capable of way more than YOU are (no offense). our technology has far outpaced our collective ability to utilize it, so deriding a product simply because it doesn't have a feature we perceive to be the best isn't always productive.

i brought my eetsit to worlds 07, and i hung out with sonny, who is without question one of the kindest, most interesting people i know. he was rocking an eetzilla the whole time; green and brown (i call the blue and white ones "bapesits", and almost never see blue/brown "sitzillas" or green/white "eetbapes" - ok i'm an idiot). i determined to get one, partly because i thought the "earthy" look was rad, but more because i thought sonny was. lucky for me, one of my other pals, tyler koske, had a bapezilla, and he was cool with trading halves. i don't know how his ended up, but mine was immediately transformed. it just played flawlessly, and it has ever since. perhaps it's this perfection that's rendered me especially sympathetic to the hate anti-yo seems to sustain.

unfortunately, it felt as though anti-yo went from "en vogue" to "so last year" really quickly, and when they released another yo-yo with the same axle setup in "the business", they got as much grief as they did praise. i find it pretty depressing that kiya and sonny really weren't left with any great motivation to participate in the community thereafter. these guys were really driving "yo-yo style" forward, if nothing else, and when the tide turned on anti-yo, it turned pretty harshly. it's been said before, but when one posts something on a messageboard, one's perspective rarely recognizes the people involved as "people". it's always more convenient (in light of the grandiose points we wish to make concerning yo-yo inferiority) to operate under a shield of anonymity, and with the perspective that we're dealing with some "corporate" entity than it is to recognize that we're taking a dump on two dudes, and their efforts to make yo-yo's that they love, without raking in a ton for it.

anti-yo's latest yo-yo is (of course) called the ywet, which stands (of course) for "yo-yos will eat themselves", a reference to the band "pop will eat itself". i've played two of them; they exist and are phenomenal. i have no idea if they will ever be dropped or were even meant to be. for a good long while, the forum-masses were pretty obsessed with their imminent release. i think the idea of a super-hyped yo-yo that is NEVER released is a nice way to highlight our rampant, materialistic nature (which most always values the acquisition more highly than the people behind it), and would certainly be aptly named.

sometimes i wonder why anyone posts on the fundamentally dehumanizing messageboards anyway. the bigger ones seem to serve as little more than gossip columns; perez hilton for yo-yo nerds (i only know what that is because of my wife - no really!). maybe they've always been that way, and i just wasn't paying attention. regardless, it remains the most convenient mode of communication available to us, and the participants would do well to find ways to appeal to each other's better nature, and to embrace those who continue to make yo-yoing feel like "something cool people do".