yo-yo #47: SPYY Flying V

i'd like to preface this by stating that i realize i don't deserve a signature yo-yo. maybe only a very few people do. that said, this is gonna be mine.

two years ago, i was an elementary school teacher in durham, nc. for the third time in four years, i had been graced with a student teacher. although it actually added up to more work for me than i initially expected, it came with two undeniably cool perks: the university paid me (usually right before xmas) AND i basically got 2 weeks off of teaching when the trainee took over full time. sometimes i'd wander the grounds playing haunting (annoying) melodies on my shakuhachi (no really, i'd do that). i'd watch surf movies in the lounge, enduring the inevitable witty comments of my overwraught peers. i'd play yo-yo. a lot... i even designed one.

in november of 06, i started drawing out "my dream yo-yo" on graph paper. this was right around the release of the peak, and the yo-yo i drew had a similar bearing seat, big c bearing, silicone response. i borrowed a single schmoove ring from "the end". when it came to the profile, i wanted something wicked. throw down was getting ready to release the luchador, and i was testing it. i wanted something comparably sharp and dangerous, and drew out a yo-yo that was wide, spikey, and brutal; something i'd be wary of catching, let alone throwing in a crowd. heavily rim weighted and pyro wide with a perfect square profile, i wanted it to spin forever and handle a bazillion string mutations.

i sat on that idea for months, and then on a lark, shot it off to nate weddle, who pretty much WAS throw down, asking about whether i could "borrow" his machinist to do a one-off. his response was "i like it. why not just make it your signature throw down yo-yo?" although it embarrasses me to admit it, i got really excited about that; attached to it. i thought it was really. really. cool... and i will not deny dreaming up bizarre colorways and cool little tweaks. whilst i kept dreaming, however, on and off over a year, i fell in love HARD with another yo-yo.

i had liked the tom kuhn no jive 3-in-1 for awhile... but when i approached it again 18 months ago, something was different. whereas before, i saw playing a wood yo-yo as a cool retro novelty (or something), now it just felt like yo-yoing, period. everything else was the novelty; unnecessary window-dressing. as has been documented in a metric ton of my videos, i became obsessed with throwing no jives; especially with hitting tricks on them that i had previously assumed to be impossible (ex. 1, 2, 3, 4). over the course of a year, playing ball-bearing yo-yo's only sparingly... my style evolved toward a completely different ideal. like chemosynthetic plants living deep in the ocean, i no longer required the "light" of bearings or low-response to do what i wanted to do. yo-yoing became more spiritual, more meaningful, and much less dependent upon equipment. i'm not trying to say that i became a "better yo-yoer" than anyone else; just that it "felt better" to me.

i still looked at the ronin and thought of how nice it would be to have my own special yo-yo, but since it no longer suited the direction my style had taken, it was really just empty ego thinking that.

then this winter, steve buffel of saturn precision yo-yo's released a pet project he called the "pistolero". when i saw the finished project, i was completely astounded. steve actually captured the engravings of an 1873 colt peacemaker pistol, and had used them to adorn the outer circumference of the yo-yo's rims. he had also surgically drilled 6 holes into the hub, giving the feel of a revolver's cylinder. unfortunately, a problem with the anodizing left him unhappy with the final result. although the yo-yo looked phenomenal by all accounts, he felt it vibrated too much to be released at full price, and put it up for sale direct from his site for what was basically a $75 pittance.

regardless, i never saw a yo-yo i liked the look of so much, and i contacted steve about maybe working out a trade. i offered him one of my ronin prototypes for one of his pistoleros. to my shock and glee, he not only accepted, but offered me a red one, the existence of which i was unaware. despite shipping from calgary, it showed up at my door like 4 days later, and i was even more blown away. i quickly traded a benchmade butterfly knife for a 2nd one, and it became my main player for a few weeks (along with my no jives, of course), reinvigorating my interest in playing with a bearing.

although i assumed that steve had received the ronin, felt "meh" about it, and had just kept mum to be polite... in actuality it took him about 3 WEEKS to receive it. when he finally did, he e-mailed me straight away, intimating that he liked it a lot, and if nate was truly "awol" for good, that he'd be interested in producing it for me himself. needless to say, i was flabbergasted. this was a yo-yo dream that was basically dead in the water, and suddenly it's being raised like a relic from the lusitania? moreover, jonrob, one of the yo-yoers i most respect, had just become spyy's first sponsored player, and his yo-yo, the "pure" was due out in a few weeks. though i had always associated it with extremely (maybe even obsessively) high quality, it occured to me that spyy was suddenly one of the most multi-faceted and interesting companies out there. i talked to nate about it, expressing my interest, and he said in his predictably low-key way "hell yeah, do it! i love spyy! i'll make the ronin my way eventually to make it up to people who never got their lucha libres replaced." (whether he will shall remain to be seen.)

steve and i talked, and he sent me 3-d CAD-drawings of what the ronin would look like with a few "spyyish" tweaks. it looked good, and i was dizzy at the idea of being included in something so cool... but i was also pretty conflicted. this was just not a yo-yo that matched me very well anymore. coke-can wide, and with a gap you could drive a truck through, it would probably sell great... but what's the point of having "your own yo-yo" if it's not truly, FULLY, what you want to play? despite my reservations, i didn't mention any of this stuff to steve at first.

and as it happens, i didn't need to. during our 3rd or 4th phone conversation, he basically asked whether this was really the yo-yo i wanted, and i had to say "well...". though i still can't believe it, he said "let's start from scratch", and we set about making a yo-yo that really fit with the yo-yoing i do. that was easier than it might sound. i play with no jives. i basically asked steve to make me a metal one.

obviously, it was more complicated than that, especially for him. at first we even bandied about the idea of making a wood yo-yo. but i've already got about 30 wood yo-yo's that do exactly what i want a wood yo-yo to do. i've never had (and never SEEN) a metal yo-yo that plays with the classic feel and subtlety of a wood yo-yo. that's what i wanted. steve had just finished setting up the cad profile of the "addiction", complete with a big c-size bearing and recessed silicone. he wondered whether we could use the same guts on this yo-yo, but expressed concern at the idea of such a wide gap on a slimline. it was a leap of faith, but he made it. the morning after he made the initial proof, he called me before coffee, seriously worried about whether it would work. it "just feels so different" he said. in the end though, thankfully, he evidently recognized that that's what he was going for (and maybe that's what having me on the team implied), and he went ahead.

this yo-yo is mostly all i've played for the last month or so. i've still thrown my no jives some (especially with my weak 2-handed). i love it. LOVE it. it's slim enough to put in a tight jeans pocket and plays like the emmeff dickens; just as smooth as any spyy you've ever played. it's got a hint of classic old school flavor, but handles anything the new school could possibly throw at it. it regenerates smooth and easy and eats string layers for brunch. it's going to ship not ONLY with a big c bearing, but also with a "half-spec" bearing that greatly reduces the gap and instantly makes the v tug-responsive, enabling the trapeze stalls i love to do on 3-in-1's. i wanted a slim metal yo-yo that could be set up to handle spirit bomb and shoot the moon on successive throws, or huge, beautiful fly-away dismounts... and now i've got one.

steve had the idea for the name, "the flying v". i don't exactly remember his reasons, but i liked it. the flying v is, of course, a classic gibson guitar, and fit well with our idea of a kind of "retro" profile. it also occurs to me that when i play yo-yo, i generally only "see" one half of the profile at a time. pretty much every yo-yo i throw therefore makes a kind of "flying v" as it moves over and through string segments (a little cheesy maybe, but i think it works for this yo-yo). it's also way rad that it's my favorite color, by which i don't just mean "green". anyone who's spent time in a forest will recognize that there are a bazillion "greens". this is my favorite green. it's the green you get sometimes in the early-morning shade of pisgah national forest in the blue ridge mountains (ok, really cheesy, BUT IT WORKS FOR THIS YO-YO). tressley cahill did the art for it, and i'm really pleased with how it turned out.

i'm still a little conflicted and werided out, in a "this is all surreal" way. not about spyy, mind you. i can't imagine a company that'd be easier to "rep". good people, amazingly consistent yo-yo's; what's not to like? no, although i strike a lot of people as a pretty "take-it-easy" kind of guy, i'm not at all. i over-analyze things and take apparently trivial matters pretty seriously. i still worry about being able to do something positive for the brand. i'm an old guy who's mostly good at throwing old wood yo-yo's. and here i am holding this next-generation metal masterpiece that's clearly capable of "more" than i could ever throw at it, so it's easy to feel a little guilty. add to that the fact that i'm not going to be champion of the world (i probably only barely deserve my "champion of the state" status), and there are tons of kids who can shock me with moves i don't understand after they've yo-yoed for 1/10 as long as i have. so it's also easy to feel a little apprehensive. and yet it's been made clear to me that i'm not really on the team for those reasons. so i'm just gonna keep doing what i do.

i remember when yoyojam came out with the 'matador' for jennifer baybrook, and everyone was like "um... why does she need a 1a yo-yo when she pretty much just loops (and had a concurrently issued signature looper)?" well, sometimes i worry that people will say "um... he plays old, irrelevant yo-yo's, right? why does he need a high-end metal signature?" again, i don't need one (and i don't actually concern myself with things "people will say").

so maybe it is a little weird for me to be on spyy given my proclivities... but at the same time... yo-yoing's yo-yoing. it's playing with physics, with the air, and a bit of string. sometimes there's wood attached to the end, sometimes there's plastic, or metal. i'm coming to learn that it doesn't matter as much as i thought it did - either way. it's the yo-yoing that's going on INSIDE that matters. and i really approach that the same no matter what i'm throwing.

this yo-yo is everything i could want in a metal. and at the risk of sounding [predictably] esoteric to many, the hardest, coolest, most serendipitous thing steve's done was to inject some real "soul" into it; some character. it doesn't feel like just another super-smooth metal yo-yo. yes, i recognize that it's probably just the hand i had in its creation, but this yo-yo and i connect where so many others just feel distant and alien. i really, really hope other people are able to say the same. i hope they can pick it up and feel inspired to play really honestly. cause that's really all i could ever ask of a yo-yo... or a yo-yoer.

it should be out really, really soon!

yo-yo #46: throw down ronin prototype

throw down... sigh... i didn't really recognize the extent to which i had 'attached' to it until it foundered.

i'm so disappointed about it. nate weddle has only ever been a really nice guy to me. and i was amped to meet james buffington finally at indy this year (another nice guy). i really wanted throw down to keep it together. i wanted this yo-yo to work out. but my desperate wanting is silly, and just another facet of the bad feelings i now associate with the whole situation.

this yo-yo was going to be "the ronin". ronin in japanese means "unemployed person", although i've heard the more poetic "wandering wave" also. basically, a samurai who was severed from his lord, either by some misdeed or the latter's death, became a ronin. westerners often associate the word with heroic figures like miyamoto musashi, wandering the countryside, dueling and practicing incessantly, honing both skill and character. we tend to like the idea of the loner-john-wane-cowboy riding off into the sunset. generally though, the term was an insult; a derrogation. if you operated outside of a fife or the service of a lord, you were essentially without use in feudal japan, and were probably "better off" committing seppuku. anyway, it's an ironic name for a yo-yo, considering that it represents the end of my loose affiliation with throw down. it's a cool, bulky toy ; comparable in size and weight to a pyro. it's very smooth, but in play, feels decidedly "clunky".

we had released two yo-yo's: the luchador (yo-yo #12/13) and the tiny shuriken. i was really pleased by how both played, by their branding, and by how they were received by the community. i felt that throw down was headed in a really cool direction. in fall 07, nate sent me a prototype of the "lucha libre", an all-delrin version of the luchador. his first attempt was in essence, exactly that. it was a plastic luchador, without a bearing seat and with a huge axle screwed right into the plastic. as a product tester, i felt like this was a recipe for disaster; that the axle would strip the plastic halves, ruining the yo-yo or that the bearing seat would fail under the pressure of the steel bearing being tightened into it. i said as much to nate, and he considered it.

after awhile, he decided to redesign the lucha libre with a weird steel hex-nut axle insert that would fit into the delrin body. it used protective shims and was a very ambitious and complicated design that ended up taking him forever to finalize. i'm not sure if he got impatient or what, but i certainly never got to play with the updated version before he brought it to market. because i'm intentionally hard on yo-yo's i test, i like to think that i'd have caught the flaw, but who really knows? the libre had a paper thin wall around the bearing seat. even the slightest overtightening or banging could (and would) break it, rendering the yo-yo pretty much useless. nate told me he was aware of the flaw just in time for its release from stores. he added a quick disclaimer to it, and hoped that people would be gentle.

whether they were or weren't, peoples' toys broke quickly and in large number. i know of relatively few libres that are still in working condition (and have been played reasonably hard). around this time, nate pretty much stopped responding to my emails (and apparently to those of an increasingly irate yo-yo community, many of whom had been told that he'd replace their broken halves). i'd still harass him on the phone sometimes, and he'd repeatedly say stuff like "yeah i gotta get on that." i really think he wanted to, but that he simply didn't have the means. my good friend takeshi reminded me that nate's got some aspect of the "samurai" mindset himself, and that he wouldn't want to ask for help or even offer up the fact that everything was not alright. and to be honest, though i think he should have said SOMETHING directly to the community, i can appreciate that perspective to a degree. i think that nate was just overwhelmed by the financial meltdown the libre had become. he had been putting the little money he made from one yo-yo into funding the next, and all it took was one design flaw to toss throw down into a whirling vortex. evidently (and most unfortunately), he hit the "eject button", and has been incommunicado with the yo-yo world since last year.

this irritated me for 2 reasons. although i just tested out his yo-yo's, and had nothing to do with the company or business plan (or apparent lack thereof), i was perceived as an official "throw down guy" who could accurately comment on what-the-hell-happened. also, this yo-yo, MY yo-yo, the ronin... obviously stalled indefinitely. over the course of a year, i was told "2 more weeks, 2 more weeks" and pretty much believed it. needless to say, the original run of 10ish protos are the only ones that have ever been made. at one point i had 4 of them (3 of which i bought from nate at cost), but i've only kept this one. i'm not sure if i kept it to remind myself of how excited i was about designing a yo-yo "just for me" (i sure don't love the way it plays now), or if i've kept it to remind myself to "see the forest for the trees", and NOT to get too excited about phenomena over which i have essentially no control.

forgive me, but i'm going to talk more about this yo-yo in just a minute (in a much more gleeful context!)

yo-yo #45: steve brown/jason tracy tung-oiled clean machine

that was a mouthful.

do you have a yo-yo that just always seems to play amazingly? whatever you do to it? no?
though you might need night goggles, a pickaxe, and a compass to find one, i recommend you give it a shot.

this yo-yo has a seriously amazing pedigree (at least it did before it got to me). the yo-yo world appears to have forgotten '97 world champ and tom kuhn/bc wood thrower, jason tracy, who originally got this yo-yo from its maker, brad countryman. he gave it to steve brown, whose legend is obviously undiminished. i have another jason tracy clean machine that's quite a lot like it. i received this one from steve some time in 2007 (he basically said 'pay me what you think it's worth whenever you can' - i think i sent him $50 at one point, but i'm still in the hole for the other $999,950.)

unlike my other jason tracy clean machine, this one isn't actually 'clean' (i guess neither is the other technically). like my other example, it's got a printed 'special' logo on one side and the 'custom yo-yo's' logo on the reverse. UNlike its counterpart, however, jason applied a generous tung-oil finish to this one. i don't know much about the virtues of tung-oil finish (i remember i used to want a carvin bass with it though), but it sure is beautiful. and since the finish isn't really raised off the wood at all (as on a regular laquer-finished no jive), you still get all the benefits of a clean machine. maple is a very underrated response mechanism.

since i got it, i've pretty much only played this yo-yo in imperial. it's really lovely, and i never thought i'd want to risk hurt to it by playing it hard. now i have like 30 no jives though, and among those are a great deal that i find it easy to keep pristine. the other day i was playing the aforementioned jason tracy no jive 'a', and i realized "damn... this thing plays perfect every time, and needs way less fussing than my laiminates or my #1. if only i had another one like it." and after 2 years or something, it occurred to me that... i do. i'd still rather not fling it against the asphalt, but i think steve and jason would both appreciate the value of a yo-yo played more than that of one shelved.

i gave it the same rough setup as its brother (shimmed out the gap a tad, added one dead duncan sticker and type 8 string), and behold, it plays just as wonderfully. i hit my benchmark 3-in-1 trick, 'spirit bomb' with it on each of my first 3 tries (a feat i've never done on another wood axle yo-yo).

on an epic tangent, i want to quickly document the 'no jive spirit bomb club'. it's getting kinda big, and i feel like i should record the names of the members someplace so i can remember later. (basically, the "njsbc" is just a silly little club for people who've hit spirit bomb on a no jive. to be in the club, you have to do it in front of one of the existing members. it's a totally informal thing that was started at iyyo last year (i think red came up with the idea for a 'club'?)) anyway, the members (in order of induction) are: brandon jackson, adam brewster, joey fleshman, red (1st try), yuuki spencer (1st try), tyler severance (1st try), me (200th try), samm scott, andre boulay, sebastian brock. if i missed you, remind me.

anyhow, i don't know what it is/was about jason, but both of the yo-yo's i have that were formerly his just seem to play awesome of their own accord. like i CAN'T set them up poorly. some other no jives you have to be ginger with and really struggle to get in tune, but this one and its bro just seem to say, "you want to yo-yo? right on! let's yo-yo amazing, just 'cause!" it ALWAYS seems to spin true, which is impressive when you consider that the vast majority of it is stuff that used to be alive... and maybe it still is in some way.

this yo-yo is just always in harmony, which is kind of where i want to be, as a person and as a yo-yoer. i want my yo-yoing (and my surfing, and my aikido, and my skating, and my music, and my stay-at-home-dadding) to be truly Appropriate. i want my actions to really suit the circumstances. i want to stop forcing my self and the weight of my will upon the world. i just want to spin true.

yo-yo #'s 43 & 44: Laminated No-Jives

when i determined to begin this blog, i told myself i wasn't going to worry too much about it. if i felt like putting something down, i'd put something down. if i had nothing to say, i'd say nothing (and not in the john cage "4'33" way either).

i scored these two yo-yo's within a week of each other. laminated no jives are among the hardest to find. there were never many of them (and they sure aren't making more), and due to their legendary play and unique look, they're pretty well sought-after by collectors. while part of me cringes at the thought of taking a chunk out of either, another part (the better one i think) says "screw it. play em hard." after all, LIFE takes a chunk out of everyone; disfigures everyone... or maybe just redraws us into images that best fit our most honest selves. i'm not proud of my scars, but neither am i ashamed of them.

the rainbow was the generous gift of one brad countryman. brad has effectively run tom kuhn yo-yo's since the 90's and has been very good to me.

the purple one i scored in a great trade to wayne in the uk. i think i relinquished an 888 and got a trio of gorgeous 3-in-1's.

these are EASILY the best playing butterfly no jives i've played. they're so ridiculously good that it feels like cheating. you know... when i eat a hamburger (especially from like a fast food-type place), i always wonder to myself just how many different individual cows i'm eating bits of. when i have a steak, it's clearly just the one. with these yo-yo's, which are made of bits of wood that have been compressed and glued together in to a dense laminate, i wonder how many trees were involved. it's a very different feel from a regular everyday 3-in-1.

they're also just really striking. the purple one is one of my favorite colorways of any yo-yo. nifty and complex. i used it quite a lot in THIS video. both yo-yo's feature a spangly holographic-foil stamp with the standard "special" logo (well, the rainbow one says "rainbow"). since grade school, i've always had an aversion to rainbows (aesthetically, not homophobically). in 1st grade i used to design superheroes on graph paper, and one of the dynamic duos i came up with was comprised of "rain man" (this was before the movie), who shot... wait for it... RAIN out of his hands, and "rainbow man", who shot rainbows. really, they were rainbow lasers or something - all of the heroes i designed basically just shot shit out of their hands. i'm still waiting for marvel to call. anyway, i maxed out on it and sometime thereafter, i started to find rainbows really garish and overwhelming. BUT, this rainbow no jive looks SOOOO rad when spinning. it ceases to show a distinct rainbow, the colors mottling together into a pearlescant brown tone. gorgeous.

the play too, is undeniably wonderful. since these bad boys are heavy (i'd put them around 61g), they really NEED some kind of friction sticker for consistent response. and since they need the sticker, it helps to shim them a bit, which has been tricky. the axle wells on these are deeper than most, so my normal methods for shimming gaps were all off and i had to experiment. they also require type 8 cotton (6 will not respond well, and will burn through QUICK - what a difference 6 grams makes!). once i got them dialed though, bliss.

anyhow, if someone with a big gun accosted me and said "quick. hit x, y, and z on fixed axle to save your own life RIGHT NOW!", i'd reach for one of these guys automatically. fortunately, no one has done this yet... but it's nice to know that when and if they do... i'm equipped.

in truth though, while i lift some no jives and think immediately of thrown gauntlets and challenges, when i play these yo-yo's, my mind drifts inexorably toward summer and warmth and easy grace. i like throwing trapeze with them and just grooving in it until they spin out, watching as the colors reorganize themselves into lines. a lot of people are totally different when busy and active compared with how they act in repose. these yo-yo's appear comfortable and beautiful either way, and at all stages in between.

yo-yo #42: diss kings bare bones

at the end of 2005, i had the fever, bad. not like the cholera or anything, but i guess what i suffered from can be just as damaging in the long run. i had the gimmies, like the berenstain bears. i had the gimmies for yo-yo's. specifically, i desired with every fiber of my being, a new... FANCY yo-yo. i had a ton of non-fancy yo-yo's; old proyo and yomega stuff carried over from the boom, my renegade, a TON of fh2's and 201's from what i will term "the great target purge" of 2005 (when in the late summer, those yo-yo's could be had for $1.33), plus plenty of other stuff.

somewhere in 2005 though, yo-yoing had become impregnated with a kind of couture. a "New Fanciness" had swept over the boards. as has been mentioned previously, metal yo-yo's were not even remotely "new", but suddenly, they were the objects of much greater fervor and longing. yo-yo's like the anti-yo fluchs were just flipping gorgeous, whatever their inherent flaws. and when, in the 2nd half of the year, hspin introduced their upcoming "pyro", one could actually hear a thousand sad geeks salivating by merely listening to the wind.

i wanted it; i wanted them all. i am not proud of it. metal yo-yo's are pretty nifty, and obviously shiny, and even today folks are convinced that they UNIVERSALLY MUST MAKE YOU A BETTER PLAYER, which is pure horseshit. what makes anyone a "better player" is playing more yo-yo. if having an expensive metal one cons you into that, then ok, but having a lot of expensive crap in and of itself just makes you someone with a lot of expensive crap.

the pyro was probably the yo-yo that most catalyzed my desire for metal, but it didn't end up the one i most adored. for xmas that year, unasked for (probably because i was too embarrassed to ask my parents/santa for a metal yo-yo - i WAS an adult after all), i scored 3 incredible yo-yo's: an hspin pyro, an hspin G&E2, and a dif-e-yo bare bones. to this day, i suspect that my wife stacy generated a list from my viewed internet history and gave it to my parents, but maybe they were just resourceful. in any case, by 12/26/05, my cup runnethed over with rad yo-yo metal.

i'm amused to admit that, though i was infinitely more impressed by the hspins at the outset, i ended up trading them both over the following years. although i see the pyro as a transformative piece in yo-yo history, by exposure to which hordes of otherwise intelligent yo-yo kids became metal-obsessed zombies, i didn't actually love to play it. and the G&E2 was just a little heavy and unwieldy for me. a few months after receiving it, the unassuming, raw bare bones was the object of my most frequent attentions.

its rawness was a source if irritation to me. as someone who was brought up with plastic yo-yo's, i've always wanted them to look like toys. raw metal ones always just look too alien and austere for my tastes. i like shiny stuff, but the bare bones just looked nude, and the more i played it, the more folks would come up to me and ask about my "magic space yo-yo". (though they've been around since the turn of the LAST century, people are always shocked by a metal yo-yo, and they're very willing to assume that IT is the reason "all those crazy tricks" are possible.)

around this time, the diss kings were on everyone's lips... probably literally in the case of jack ringca, who at nc states 07 received at least one marriage proposal (via a post-it stuck to his windshield) by a hot photographer with whom he had spoken for 5 minutes. jack and his pal, josh root were two well-known yo-yoers who had elevated the internet-diss to an art form. they weren't just dicks, mind you (although they both have a proven capacity for dickishness); they really did give a crap about "yo-yo quality". jack (modsrule) and josh (photogeek) sought out posts they found to be worthless, baseless, or of-weak-grammatic-structure and pointed out (in no uncertain terms) why the poster should either get some sense or walk off an overland bridge. mostly, their posts were in good fun, but they also seemed to concern themselves with "policing" the ignorance that abounds on all messageboards.

a lot of people get really excited and angry about bad vibes on the internet; as though the yo-yo community should be all nice guys and hugs and candy-for-everybody. i say b.s... as a surfer, i know that if there's a total kook in the water, it can be downright dangerous for everyone else in the lineup. if someone, out of selfishness or ignorance, drops in on another, they need to be policed; maybe with a good stinkeye, maybe with a forceful calling out, maybe even with a confrontation on the beach. even if no one's getting "hurt", if you care about an art form retaining its high quality, you can't be "o.k." with misinformation, scamming, trolling or even simple ignorance. you have to remember that it's still yo-yoing, and you can't beat anyone up over the internet... but you do have to take care of it. and if someone's on their soapbox, screaming something that's harmful to the art form, it's not altogether wrong to tell them where to stick it. you just have to make sure you're right before you do (which is where most idiots seem to mess up).

the painter n.c. wyeth was once asked whether he was afraid that the intensely rote, classical methods he used to instruct his son in painting would end up "killing his artistic spirit". i still love his reply, "if it kills it, it wasn't worth much to begin with." in the dojo, if someone comes in looking to shove people around and feel tough, they inevitably get their asses kicked. a lot. sometimes they realize "hey, i was being a jerk, and these guys are legit. i can learn from them." and sometimes they just leave in a huff. regardless, you can't always allow (and enable) people to be ignorant dicks. no one knows the whole truth, but the people with experience need to step up sometimes and call out the pretenders. the issues with that are twofold: a.) it's a big pain in the ass, and b.) pretty much everyone believes they're experienced and knowledgeable. it's a fine line that separates standing up for truth and justice and just being an douche, and many would say that the diss kings have trodden on both sides of it. but i have to wonder that if someone with real cred and experience were out there handling the dumbasses with a bit more force, would the forums look the way they do today?

along with dissing, josh was (and i have to assume still is) really good at powder coating yo-yo's. unlike anodizing, which is a process by which the aluminum itself is "electro-chemically dyed" and hardened, powder coating envelops the metal in a softer, tackier, paintlike shell and when "baked", becomes very durable. the issue with powder coating a precision yo-yo is that the dimensions are all slightly changed, and the medium is inherently variable. a crap job will result in a poorly-playing yo-yo, period. josh had a reputation for coating yo-yo's that ended up looking fabulous without sacrificing play. at some point in late 05, he posted a picture of a translucent purple-coated phi 1.618. i was absoutely smitten with the image, and shortly after scoring the bare bones, i decided to send it away in the hopes that it would come back looking half as good.

$40 seemed a ridiculously low price for the work involved, and i had no issues with forking it over. it took a matter of a few weeks for him to get to it (he had developed quite a queue), but when it returned to my mailbox, i was duly amazed. some time later, i bought a red powder coated bare bones that had been produced by a popular storefront. while gorgeous to look upon, the thing wobbled like a drunkard and died after the briefest spin. whoever had done the coating knew how to make metal look beautiful, but they hadn't known yo-yo's. they had coated right over the bearing seat, which produced enormous vibration and positively decimated spin. josh's work took the bearing seat and response into account, and my purple bare bones played as beautifully as it looked. the color was so deep and rich, it's pretty much recalibrated my "concept of purple". in the sun, you can still make out the dif satin-finish, eternally frozen beneath the coating. a lot of people say "powder coating kills grinds", but who cares? do i need to grind with every yo-yo? (and for the record, you can put any grind-happy finish on top of a powder coat - i just see no need). i've had him do other work as well; the cold fusion gt i described awhile back and an "ecto-green" phi i've since lost track of.

josh has since gotten married, become a dad, and for all intents and purposes, left the community to its own devices. i still see him on the boards sometimes, and i hope he's ok. jack's obviously the leader of the duncan crew now, and a good friend. neither of those guys ever really railed on me, and i kind of wonder if i missed out a bit there. the diss kings are a sort of ageless entity, but they're not really so much of a "thing" anymore. however, this remains among those few yo-yo's i would never sell or trade away for any reason.

yo-yo #41: snowflake mandala

" You may become happily enlightened by playing with this excellent performer or just by contemplating its overlapping design."

that's from the product description on the tom kuhn site. how cheesy can you get, right? that's like... spraying easy-cheese (IS that cheese?) between two kraft singles and eating it with a brie fondue. i have this vision of some dude just zoning out and staring at the yo-yo and then yelling "EUREKA!" or something.

...

in all honesty though, i pretty much do that with this yo-yo. ok, i don't just stare at it and go into a cross-eyed trance or anything, but i do find myself just throwing sleepers with it. or a few loops. or milking a trapeze for the WHOLE spin and just watching it slide around on the string.

i think... that 'slide', that feeling of the yo-yo balanced on the string and swaying from side to side like a treetop in the breeze or something... that represents my whole reason for playing yo-yo. and being able to really, viscerally feel that with no complex mechanical barrier... is probably the whole reason i play wood. simplicity is addictive, i'm finding out. you know, i could give up every trick. every one. but that feeling... you can pry it from my cold, dead, stringburnt hands.

for obvious reasons, i only play this one in imperial. i can't "do as much" with it like that. can't hit spirit bomb (or maybe even cold fusion), but i haven't actually tried to either, and i'm not inclined to. a yo-yo like this kind of asks you to blend with it; to content yourself with its natural limitations. there's a time for pushing envelopes and a time for feeling the world-as-it-is.

get off the pedestal you've so desperately endeavored to occupy; it's a relief to "come down". don't worry about being important. you'll never be important. but you're already something much more; essential. if you yo-yo, then you're a caretaker of yo-yoing. you decide where it goes. and while it may seem necessary to ever strive forward, sharing your fire like some yo-yo prometheus... you also need to understand where you are right now... and what that fire really is... at its center. it's right there. don't just 'burn shit' with it. let it warm you.

i don't throw this yo-yo to "be awesome". i throw this one just to be... and that's... awesome.

yo-yo #40: tom kuhn "smo-bro"

"what is the fundamental truth of yo-yoing?"

i was assailed by that question today on a yo-yo board. sounds like "what's the sound of one hand clapping", right? it's actually a good question, i guess (at least more interesting than "should i get a dm or a m1?" or "where is the ywet?") and it was asked honestly enough. i know i get all "zen" on this blog (like in every effing post), but something about questions like that actually rub me the wrong way. sort of like if someone says to me "let me tell you about how much i love jesus." ... i have nothing against jesus, but when that kind of thing gets said, it almost invariably implies that i'm about to get "talked to"; as if i'm only there as a wall, off of which bouncy-balls of truth may be thrown. how do i play into your love of jesus? or truth? or yo-yoing (i'm asking sincerely)? it just feels too explicit; trust me to understand the mystery for myself, dude.

the thing is that the asking of the question "what is the fundamental truth?" implies that there IS one. any question implies the presence of an answer. here's an empty cup: please pour your secret-something-special into it. no... you know... i don't think i want to. not cause i don't like you, but i respect you enough to let you come to it on your own.

this yo-yo represents a longtime collaboration between the legendary "dr. yo", tom kuhn, and the equally legendary comedy duo, "the smothers brothers". when i first saw it, i thought it was ugly as all get out. i was bewildered (and still am a bit) as to why it had any serious collectors' value.

tom smothers was (and remains) an avid yo-yoer, and he incorporated the toy into the act throughout the 1970's. people over 50 frequently associate the toy first and foremost with smothers, and i've been asked a number of times by passers-by or folks waiting for coffee both whether i know him personally, and (even better) whether "i think i could beat him". i mean, what the hell? anyway, on television-when-it-was-still-called-television (and on any number of youtube vids), he can be seen doing simple tricks with a frivolously loose (almost inebriated) style, while his brother dick narrates. the performance of the tricks themselves (usually a few of the "10 basics") is secondary to the message/joke, that tom is able to enter "the state of yo", a kind of mystical, meditative trance wherein he is totally and viscerally connected to the yo-yo's energy, and so, is privy to secret levels of understanding.

although this is all done in pseudo-jest, in the post-psychedelic era of the smothers' success, the grain of truth is evident. tom is silly and ridiculous, but the audience is clearly meant to question whether playing with a little toy CAN enhance one's sense of the moment, of the world, or of "the truth". the early 80's trick-tutorial video with tom and dick accompanied by "legit" yo-yoer (and paddleballer, as it happens), daniel volk, continues to imply that playing yo-yo is somehow "meaningful". volk's really good, and you should watch that, irrespective of "the state of yo".

years later, neil feser's "the book of yo" (with introduction by smothers and forward by kuhn) surfaced as a much more sincere, in-depth description of the "state of yo". therein, feser alludes to "primary sources" by the ancient chinese master "yo tzu" to illuminate "the way" through yo-yoing. it's unbelievably self-indulgent, and frequently borders on the absurd, but there's actually a lot of good, substantial stuff in there, too. it's very difficult to read through it without running into something that causes you to question some aspect of your yo-yoing. feser makes allusions to the martial arts and ancient chinese allegories that are cute, if nothing else. all of the "yo tzu" stuff is "prose-poetry", with explanatory (and, imo, even more creative) mini-essays by feser interspersed throughout. if you enjoyed "the tao of pooh", you'll eat this right up (if you can find it).

to digress for a second... i'm gratified that there are people who read (and apparently enjoy) this blog. i can't imagine that i'd read one like it... i mean... some guy droning on about his life and his yo-yo's? you can keep it. part of me likes the idea that some people read it, but, no offense... you're not why i write it. i've said it several times, but i don't write this to convey any particle of "the truth" (as i see it) to anyone but myself. so there. you want REAL truth, go explore yourself. blog about it if you want. i might even read it (though i might not, if it reads like this tripe).

anyway, if you ARE reading this, it stands to reason that you must be a really serious yo-yo player. i mean really, i can't believe it's remotely interesting for the uninitiated. so if you're a yo-yo player... why the hell are you doing it? why are you yo-yoing?

before you jump down to the comment box to tell me all about it though, please understand that i don't actually give a crap. at all. even a small one. if you can answer that question, with words or without, then you know all about "the fundamental truth". and like snowflakes or casseroles, you'll never see two interpretations thereof that are fully alike. your truth is meaningless to me (again, no offense), and in fact, it may seem esoteric, egocentric, petty and obscene to anyone besides you.

i get it, you get it, and there isn't anything to say about it: "when you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. when you have realized understanding, even one word is too much."

the thing is, there is no "illuminating answer" that i or anyone could possibly provide to that question. the fundamental truth of yo-yoing is nothing more or less than the play itself, and that's the only place you're ever, ever going to find it. no blog will take you there. no book will explain it. no old youtube video of tom smothers, yuuki spencer, or nemo concepcion will ever show it to you. and yet, "the mystery" isn't mysterious in the least, and it's always available! go throw yo-yo, and do it sincerely (the real trick)... and you already understand.

yo-yo #'s 38 and 39: doc pop bolt and element x

TGL-004 was the beginning of the end for me.

it's amusing to think of how many people will probably read that and know exactly what i'm talking about.

brian cabildo (glasseye) runs the glass lab. during its heyday, it featured the newest, most innovative, and most strikingly-cut yo-yo videos. they felt epic; like GOOD skate videos. if you haven't been to the glass lab and watched essentially EVERY "experiment", then you're missing a huge chunk of the yo-yo past, which has cotinued to inform a huger chunk of the yo-yo present. (you know what? stop reading this blog and just go here immediately.) collectively, the page represents an important document (much like sector_y), and was a colossal source of inspiration to a lot of today's most inspiring players.

i think experiment #4 was the first one i saw. by the end of it i was a yo-yoer again.

as i've noted previously, i've played yo-yo for a long time; since 1985 if you haven't been keeping track. i remember josh schlichting (who incidentally shot part of said video) telling me that he tracked his "yo-yo career" as having really started when he learned trapeze. for me that happened in about 1990. i don't really feel good about saying i was "yo-yoing" though until about 1997. yeah, i had yo-yo's, and yeah, i played them to some extent and could hit 1 trapeze for every 30 tries, but a.) i was awful, and b.) i didn't really feel like i was a part of something. in 1997, that all changed. the boom came about, and i gave myself (or a part therof) over to it, as if it were some heathen god. when it evaporated, so did my own fervent interest. i still had yo-yo's, still played them... but i wasn't exploring. i wasn't inventing. i wasn't connected. i was alone, playing with a toy in a vacuum.

when i saw "experiment #4", i wasn't anymore. something in me broke (or was repaired) during those 5.5 minutes, the ember of which has sustained itself for the past 5 years, during which i have cared about yo-yoing, i've played every day, and with regularity have gone to bed and risen from it with it on my mind. i'm not saying that i think the sun rises and sets in doc's or brian's pants, though both are incredible yo-yoers and fascinating, multi-faceted people. i'm saying that "#4" was a catalyst that initiated changes in me that have just not gone away. i still watch it and geek out.

doc started playing yo-yo on or around his 21st birthday, when he bought a seattle "space needle" yo-yo (having decided on that souvenir rather than a snowglobe - i find it hilarious that he might have gone on to become a tremendous "snowglobe innovator"). in a relatively short time, his skill and creativity transcended the tricks of the day and he was recognized as a legitimate force of innovation. this was during the period wherein yo-yoers were really "reclaiming" the 1a style and forging it into the manifestation that would become (and remain) the dominant style of progressive yo-yoing, forcibly wrenching the focus away from 2a .

in early 2001, doc sent several hours of yo-yo footage to glasseye. it was filmed in weird locales, like a freight elevator and an aquarium tunnel. it's a trick video (and classics like "gerbil" and "hoopla" and "dr. strange" make their debuts within), but like all great videos, it's relevant because it puts you in doc's world for a few minutes. it's got great candid and incidental shots that don't make it seem like doc's life happens in a 4-foot square about his chest, and in front of a black background. i have no patience for yo-yo videos that try to make me care about the yo-yoing without caring about the person. i feel like, if you want me to give you 2 minutes of MY time, you need to give me something that says "this is who i am", and not just "look at this trick and love me". when disconnected from its human anchor, yo-yoing is NOTHING.

most of doc's yo-yoing in "#4" is with a tug-responsive henry's viper. as someone who primarily plays responsive, it's a pretty seminal work to me. sure, using today's materials, and in comparison with today's string-origami, some of those tricks may look pretty primitive. but i'd challenge you to find anyone today who makes yo-yoing look as fun and engaging as doc did in 2001. it was something i just knew that i wanted "in" on. whereas a lot of yo-yoing comes off as intensely self-involved, this was (and is) really expressive. renaissance man and performer that he is, doc's yo-yoing is attractive to people who fancy themselves "cool and interesting" (and yeah, i'm guilty of such). doc's a musician, and a comic-book artist, and a tailor. as opposed to guys who seem like they live and breathe yo-yoing, with doc, it just seems like one of many amazing things that he does. people who are only incredible in one direction just don't hold my interest for very long.

fast forward several years, and doc had been justly immortalized by a nyyl "trick innovator of the year" award, and a slew of "signature yo-yo's" like the yyj "super scientist" and "super sellout" (an extra $5 of added yo-yo awesomeness!), and the "doc pop hesitator". all of these were simply aesthetic variations on existing yo-yo's, and the doc pop element x was a similar venture. essentially just a large bearing buzz-on elex, docs version was available in either red or blue marble (bazan's yo-yo's were well known for rad dye-patterns), and featured verbose "doc pop: purveyor of the retro-winding, double-knob toy" pogs. i e-mailed doc at some point and bought the 2nd-to-last he said he had available.

not long thereafter, yoyojam collaborated with doc to create "the bolt". as what was basically a celcon version of the yoyojam patriot, but with dual o-ring response, it represented a truly distinct entity, and as a low maintenance performance shape, became wildly popular (PUN!!!!). these were only available directly through doc's website, and the bolts could be bought either stock or performance-modded by doc, himself (i did mine mself - satin-finished, flush o-rings, and a clean bearing). at first, they were kind of a red-orange (or orange-red; thanks, crayola!). later incarnations came in a bright orange with updated pogs, followed by a bright blue in 07. in the last year, bootleg bolts ("boltlegs", which are just modded projams) have become ubiquitous on the boards.

both of these yo-yo's were featured in doc's 2005 video "doc pop in san francisco" (i think - but maybe just the elex?). set to a deltron soundtrack, full of longer, more technical combos, as well as 5a, and set throughout sf, this offering reinforced doc's continued relevance within the yo-yo world. it's easy for me to forget, but i owe him a lot. it's cheesy, but a lo of people would not see yo-yoing in the same light had it not been for him, and he doesn't get all that much attention for it these days. i'm abashed to admit that he's one of the few yo-yoers i've really wanted to meet, but somehow haven't (i don't get out to the left coast all that much). hell, this blog even started as a bit of an homage to his "28 days project". i'll admit that i don't really pick up these yo-yo's and "try to yo-yo like doc", but at the same time... i guess i sort of do that with any yo-yo.

yo-yo #37: steve brown 888 (small bearing)

heh... in college, my band was called "37". we were a bizarre amalgamation of friends/musicians who just sort of congealed at bc in 1995. pete was a full on "marty friedman/jason becker/dream theater" progressive shred guitar player. hilary "the guy" was a d.c.-scene punk rocker who knew all of the epitaph catalog by heart and oscillated between several hairstyles that seemed to set him in a different dimension from his preppy college peers. i was a jazz/funk bassist who felt the need to inject at least 3 slap-solos into every song, to the chagrin of bandmates and audiences. at first we had no drummer, and we seriously played our first few shows with a programmable roland drum machine (who we introduced to the crowd as "roland"). later, we picked up brian norbert blaise binkowski, an indy rocker who fit nicely into our "no one fits at all" setup. we played a lot of shows (including a pair of epic ones at "the rat" in the month before it closed), released a tape (yes, a TAPE), and had a lot of fun. the name grew out of the fact that hilary and i were perpetually running into the number 37. that and the "37 dicks" scene from the movie "clerks". anyway, sorry for the diatribe.

...

this is one of the few yo-yo's that i've won (at least that holds any real significance to me).

during the end of the boom, steve brown was one of the only yo-yo players i had heard of (along with all of team proyo and a few of the thp kids, but i didn't remember their names at the time). steve was interesting because he didn't conform to the totally introspective, nerdy stereotype that the uninitiated first associate with yo-yoers. to call him a "punk" (even in the most positive sense) would still be pretty limiting, because steve's one of the most multi-faceted guys i know, and categories just seem to evaporate off of him. anyway, when i finally made my way back to "the scene" around 04, i was really happy to see him still riding the wave, leading the duncan crew, which he had transformed from a battleship being outpaced by the more agile boom-companies into an edgy and relevant force. when i was learning yo-yo as a y-camp counselor, duncan was so far behind, it had become a punchline. in the intervening years, due mostly to the success of steve's freehand (both the style and the yo-yo) and brilliant branding, it had developed a well-deserved legion of fans.

it's funny how one can be 25ish, and pretty well-balanced and intelligent, and still geek out about a totally regular person and act like they're a complete rock star. although i wouldn't use the term "man-crush" per se, i was pretty taken aback when steve e-mailed me out of the blue one day in 06. as i remember, it was a pretty innocuous question about bass gear, but it generated a series of conversations that developed into a surprising friendship (not like "best buds" and tandem-bikes, but as two people who could commiserate on music, kids, comics, and on being geriatric as far most yo-yoers were concerned). we shared enough similarities to make sense to one another, but enough differences to still be interesting (ok at least i felt like that). although he was one of the guys that really shook yo-yoing up, i really appreciated his knowledge of and respect for the yo-yoing of the past, and he was a major influence in my gravitation toward responsive, fixed axle yo-yo's.

anyway, this would have been right around the time that steve left duncan amidst tumult and uproar (as is his wont). almost immediately thereafter, it seemed, he was whisked away to asia with the yoyofactory guys doing all manner of f.a.s.t. demos. shortly after he returned, yyf was hard at work designing the g5 (the first ideas for which, if i remember correctly, were sketched out on a napkin by ben and hans during the trip), and it was clear that steve would be a central piece of the yyf puzzle. i had known that he had nothing but glowing praise for the 401k, and in january of the next year, he showed me the side-art for what would be his signature yo-yo (the "fb.one", which was never realized). he said that while he loved what the factory was doing, he needed something with a small bearing if he was going to come out of "retirement" and compete again in 5a, the style he invented.

as 07 pushed on, yyf announced a contest called "tricked out", built around its flagship yo-yo, the g5. participants were to create tricks using the g5's free-spinning hubstacks, which while amazing, clearly weirded most yo-yoers out to the point that they simply ignored them. in the first few months following the g5's release, the renaissance of innovation that steve had implied would take place just hadn't materialized. the g5 was such a solid 1a yo-yo, that the hubstacks had remained little more than an under-utilized "extra" which, aside from pull-starts, users were blissfully ignoring. in effort to change that, the "tricked out" contest would award 3 winners: best overall trick, most views, and peoples' choice. each would receive their choice of yo-yo's from the yyf vault. i came up with a pretty run-of-the-mill top-tip trick i called "mess with the bull" (basically making a "bull" or "666" sign and grinding the tips between your index and pinky). it was an easy trick, and i thought i had no prayer. my norweigian pal (and fellow skater, though MUCH better than me), pekka won best overall with a sick 'hacky-sack' trick, dropping the yo-yo to spin on his foot, before kicking it back up to his palm. bemis advertised his trick brilliantly on yoyonation and was way ahead of everyone on views. the only chance i had was peoples' choice, and for whatever reason, people voted for me. i still have no idea why (here's the original vid, btw).

the same day that ben emailed me to tell me i won (his name registering in my email as "pedro flores") and to ask me to "choose my prize", steve confided that he'd be getting a small bearing signature 888 in black hardcoat WITH some of his tattoos engraved around the outside. i immediately replied to ben with an innocuous (though transparent) request: "well... do you have anything small bearing... and black?" predictably, he replied saying they had something in the works but it would be a few weeks, and did i mind waiting? of course i didn't. in the intervening weeks, i visited steve in va beach, where he was performing on the main drag for the summer. i tried out his pre-pro loop 720s and was flabbergasted when he revealed the ingenius response system. he also let me know (amidst much hooting and laughter) that yyf was creating red "dice hubstacks", both as an homage to steve's 5a, and as a means of circumventing duncan's counterweight patent. the original plan was to be able to string the two halves of the dice together to form a counterweight (which would really have stuck it to duncan). in the end, however, the dice were a brilliant, but purely aesthetic addition.

unbeknownst to me, there developed a real problem with the hardcoat process, and no more than a dozen of the small bearing steve brown 888's were produced (aking this one of the rarest yo-yo's i own), one of which arrived at my door about a month later. they had some large bearing ones for sale at worlds that year, but the black ano can't touch the hardcoated ones that were never made again. i met ben at that contest, and, in addition to the dice stacks he tossed me a red and black f.a.s.t. yo-yo holster "to match my yo-yo". ben talks loudly, both online and off, and his manner can seem brash and intimidating. however, his generosity just never ceases to amaze me.

steve used his 888 to freestyle that year. although 5a had taken on a life of its own, and was being pushed forward in new directions by many of yo-yoing's top innovators, steve had intimated that very few people (less than 5) actually "got" his original intentions for it. his big reason for being excited over the yyf hubstacks was his ability to use them to get closer to his original goal (which i will not describe in detail here). his hubstack freestyle was insane. INSANE. and if memory serves, he was sick as stink when he did it. as he predicted, most people couldn't look at it and appreciate how difficult it was, or its potential to change things. they still don't, and that's a shame. he actually posted it online a few weeks before the contest so that judges could see it and at least try to think through how the'd score it. it just wasn't the same 5a as most everyone else's. he walked through pieces of it with me in virginia, and though i'm not a freehand player, it was so ambidextrous, and so reliant on impossible pinch-catches, it was hard to imagine him "going clean". he didn't, and it was hard to be bitter over my other good friend, tyler severance winning the division. i know steve was disappointed, but it remains, in my eyes, one of the most innovative contest freestyles ever, but the most innovative stuff doesn't always reveal itself clearly or immediately, and certainly doesn't always win. 2 years later, people still don't understand it or its significance.

maybe it IS just "man crush residue" talking, but i certainly associate this yo-yo with steve, with the concepts that underpin that freestyle, and with the potential still just sitting there waiting to be exploited.

steve brown's 07 worlds freestyle

yo-yo #36: peak #16

fanboys...

they're everywhere. i guess they always have been, but lately, the yo-yoing community has taken a turn for the more factious, and the negative aspects of this species have become more apparent.

i received this particular yo-yo for xmas in 2006. from my MOM.

my mom [who has never in her life visited the yyn forum (to her great personal advantage, probably)] logged on to the store site in effort to buy me a yo-yo for xmas. she knew i liked yo-yo's and that i had some metal ones, so she didn't mind shelling out. she said she chose "the peak" because she thought it was the prettiest, and the mountain graphic reminded her of the tetons, which we visited often throughout my youth.

the peak's release was noteworthy, in part because, after months of online thread-hype, it sold out in a matter of minutes, and became the first in a series of cathartic server-crashes that have riled yoyonation f5-mashers for the past few years. how hilarious is it that my mom just happened to waltz in during the frenzy and snag a peak without actually "caring" about what she got me? i think she must be the only person to have bought a peak (or any caribou yo-yo) without actually premeditating her purchase or giving a shit about it. cool!

when i opened the peak, i was stunned. both by my mom's inadvertant achievement (of which she was, of course, blissfully and endearingly ignorant), but also by the yo-yo. the peak was a small-release project by the hitherto-unknown chris mikulin (c-foam on yyn). at the time, he was affiliated with g-string's paul wallace, but said partnership has since disintegrated, as so many do. the peak was unique among yo-yo's due to its painted, airbrushed finish. chris had employed an immensely talented local artist named levi mccarroll to emblazon a bright blue mountain icon over an austere white background. rather than go for the ever-popular laser-engraved art, chris opted to hand-write the logos and serial numbers in fat silver sharpie on one side. mine sported "clyw peak #16". although at first, i found this to be a little "bootleg", steve brown actually helped me realize that, in a world of "over-produced" yo-yo's and art, this actually had an organic appeal that worked. in any case, the overall effect was so visually striking that this first run of painted peaks became insanely sought-after, immediately following their release. as a well-machined yo-yo with a firm bearing seat and deep silicone grooves, it also played incredibly well. (though honestly, i believe it could have played at a much lower standard and still have been wildly popular on looks alone.) mine remains pretty pristine, but for a few chips alex berenguel gave it at worlds one year, when he used it as his freestyle alternate. i subseuently covered them with white out (really) and teflon nail polish. another time, it fell from my pocket as i was getting out of the car. the dirt and schmutz that were pushed into the tiny dings have been impossible to fully remove, but i'm ok with that. if i were a yo-yo, i wouldn't want to be "mint".

bidding wars on the b/s/t forums pushed the peak's after-market value into the $400+ realm in the ensuing months, and since any $400 yo-yo MUST be incredible, a proper army of clyw fanboys emerged, augmented exponentially by the release of the bear vs. man the following year. these guys seemed to convert to the "church of clyw" overnight, and it's no coincidence that yyn's server issues were exacerbated by the company's subsequent releases. bear in mind, chris is a good friend, and i LOVE that his company is popular. it's a well-branded company that puts out well-made yo-yo's, and it deserves to be popular, but from my perspective, this fanboyism hasn't so much to do with clyw's (or any company's) positive attributes as it does with peoples' negative ones.

as i see it there are two types of fanboys. one sort, consisting mainly of children (and i do not actually mean that as a derrogation), seems to gravitate toward a yo-yo brand in the desperate attempt to hang on to something. they enter into this maelstrom of opinion and product and aesthetic that is the yo-yo community, and it's more than a little terrifying. they feel that they must find something greater than themselves to identify with, or else be utterly lost in the dissonant cacaphony. i feel for these kids, because for the most part, the're just seeking an in; just seeking inclusion, and their empty attempts to cling to one or another company as the be-all and end-all must be forgiven. they put the "boy" in fanboy, and mostly all of us have been there in some capacity, and at some point.

the second style of fanboy i find more dangerous, and infinitely more repugnant. unlike their youthful and innocent counterparts, these guys are often older and cleverer. they latch on to a product or company NOT just to belong, but to acquire. by association, they seek to become "that clyw guy" or "that 888 guy" or what-have-you. they allign themselves with this or that brand (and just as often AGAINST one or more others) and they sit back and imagine that they're doing something positive for the community by having 12 of a given metal. the unfortunate side-effect is that in alligning themselves with the one, they effectively cut ties with most, if not all others.

the result is that the "community" is divided. it undergoes a kind of mitosis and splinters into several different competing niches, which leaves everyone arguing. in addition to a "clyw fanboy", you can also be a "yyf fanboy", a "one drop fanboy" (which has, itself given rise to a backlash of "yyn fanboys") or a "duncan fanboy". there are even "yomega fanboys" out there who seem like all they want in the world is to be the last surviving die-hard yomega fan so that, dear lord SOMEONE will associate them with SOMETHING, ANYTHING! in a sense, it doesn't matter WHAT they like, so much as THAT they like. the object of their affection is, in fact, an OBJECT, being manipulated not so much out of joy, but from a desire to have their online identity amplified, as if from a bullhorn. *shudder*

so you get angry threads about scalpers who sell peaks for $250 (which people snap up in a trice). you get jerks who obsess over whether this or that design is uniquely original. you get jabs over every variable of play and aesthetic. everyone's rallying around their chosen standard, but it's all war-cries and no battles.

i'm particularly confused by the current "one drop fanboy-vs.-the-world" firework-display that seems to light up the boards every week or two. if you read my 'project' blog, you know that i was kinda rankled by the way the one drop/yyn drama went down (and which, according to the "observer effect" i guess i also had a hand in). i can't deny my bias, and i'm not trying to. i still think the project is a great yo-yo, but man... the "one drop fanboys" just slay me. i've been linked to their forums by several friends on several occasions and 90% of it just seems like this incestuous little party wherein the members (more than the company itself, mind you) glorify the mighty one drop totem and bemoan all the "bad guy" companies. for the record, i think david, with whom i've dialogued just a bit, generally does a pretty fair job of trying to walk the line on his forums. he tries to rep his company positively, but the masses that clamor over the "evil empires" of yoyofactory and yoyonation just don't do him many favors. they're not alone; one drop fanboyism is just easy to single out, because they sort of "went off on their own", at least in so far as the community perceives it. so their forum is obviously populated with zealous one drop lovers. no problem there whatsoever, except what are they going to talk about after awhile? there's only so much you can praise two yo-yo's and hype an imminent third before the conversation will shift inexorably toward other companies, and often in a divisive context. (every time i write about one drop, i'm aware that i comes off as all embittered, but in this case, it's not the company that bothers me at all. they're doing their thing. anyway, i know they won't be too miffed because, "i'm talking about them, right?")

oh, btw... did i mention that i have 25 no jives? i guess i'm a fanboy (we can smell our own). i like to think that since tom kuhn custom yo-yo's is, effectively, a relic of the past (they're certainly not making any new no jives), my fanboyism is reasonably innocuous. but it's still there. i find it's really liberating for my favorite yo-yo to be pretty much defunct. i don't worry over new releases. there's no "team" to get on. since tk isn't competing with modern yo-yo's, it's not like i'm compelled to trash on other companies (all evidence to the contrary). and bear in mind, i didn't select no jives arbitrarily. i had to yo-yo for a decade before i realized what i actually like to play, and didn't gravitate to it sans a lot of experimentation, which does not seem to be true for many of the more adamant fanboys i encounter. i am acutely conscious of the fact that i'm always talking about that particular yo-yo, and i'm sure there's any number of people that wish i would just shut up about it (i'm ok with that - i wish i would too, sometimes). apologies for that, and for digressing.

this blog is about questioning and self-exploration, and maybe my obsession with throwing wood is just as detrimental as what i'm trying to bring up here. i don't believe that any of the aforementioned fanboys are sitting in a dark room, twisting their fingers around like montgomery burns, scheming about how they can further divide the community. (to quote the film "zero effect", 'there aren't "good guys" and "evil guys"! it's just a bunch of GUYS!') we're all expert at justifying ourselves TO ourselves, and how does it hurt anyone to "like a yo-yo company a lot"? it doesn't, at least until it inwardly justifies your "disliking another a lot". and it doesn't actually appear to help anyone either.

this blog is kind of a soapbox, but, contrary to what i may have inadvertently puked out, i'm not trying to use it to deride any yo-yo companies. it's the people; people that seem to tote their brand loyalty around like its this massive dead weight. they're burdened and exhausted by the need to constantly rep, because in repping the company, they rep themselves. none of it has any meaning; not to them or to the whole. how do you enjoy yo-yoing like that, i wonder? how is yo-yoing "freeing" when you're perpetually mindful of the alliances and discords that are constantly fizzing on the boards like so much toxic soda? every other week there's a thread about "what's wrong with the yo-yo community"... and then immediately thereafter, there are threads composed of the most blatant self-importance, blasting this or that company for being shady or incompetent. really, what negativity in yo-yoing exists APART from the rampant poison that fuels these daily fires?

this was a tough blog to write (particularly without referencing specific people, conversations, or comments, which i'd expect anyone reading to find for themselves). obviously, the peak was just the springboard for a much greater (or lesser) idea, and i kind of wish i had used it to bounce into more positive territory (apologies, chris). it's hard to remember that all of this shit only really exists in the anonymous online vaccuum. you get to a contest and no one gives a crap what you throw, mostly. people just seem too stunned by the revelation that "damn! that guy's a human being?" to bother hating each other. we inject ourselves daily with this noxious drama, but in the end, we're still just all yo-yo nerds. (mm-hmm, you too.)

notice that i didn't talk about any crappy yo-yo's at all here (well... i don't like a lot of yomegas, but whatever). i'd gladly throw any of the brands i've brought up (and have, regularly). this particular peak is incredible, and as i said, it SHOULD be adored. clyw, yyf, duncan, one drop, whatever. it's all good stuff; all gets you there. your allegiance to this or that brand pales in comparison to your duty to the collective. would that we could realize that shit every day.

all companies "deserve" fanboys. but the community deserves more.