yo-yo #63: F***ing Awesome No Jive

since my last post, i've been on a real bass kick. it's nice when you get old (or at least when i do), having so many 'micro-obsessions' between which to bounce. as it occurred to me recently, i haven't NOT played yo-yo over a 24 hour period in something like 4 years. it's not that i'm obsessed; i just don't really think about it. yo-yoing's fun and interesting to me, so i do it. i do it while waiting on line, or sitting on the toilet, or pushing the stroller around the neighborhood. when and if i run into a period whereupon i'm no longer stoked... i just won't yo-yo. there's NO point to pushing yourself in that vein. what could be more counterproductive than WILLING yourself to 'have fun'? it's one thing for yo-yoing to be about 'striving' to improve, but i think you have to have a fluid enough spirit to allow yourself a break when you're moved to do so. in fact, no need to even think of it as 'a break'. yo-yo's are small and convenient, and you can come back to them whenever. don't worry, you'll still be a yo-yoer, and there's always a new and amazing direction in which to fall hopelessly.

i've also been playing this yo-yo a lot this week. it's one of a clutch that seth peterson gave me at worlds. i actually gave it to HIM at ecc last year after an epic fixed axle session outside tyler's house with spencer berry ('yo-yo heaven'?). seth said he needed to pick up a no jive, and i had this one on me - a white painted butterfly one with the 'ii devil-girl' graphic on one side. when he returned it to me unbidden this august, i had forgotten he had it. as i turned it over in my hands, i still didn't realize it was the same yo-yo, since he had flipped it imperial and affixed a 'f***ing awesome' decal to both sides. immediately my thoughts raced back to my youth in new orleans. my cousin jack had come to visit (we were probably around 7 years old), and he had brought me a shiny blue sticker with the word 'awesome' emblazoned in silver robo/techno-lettering. it was pretty cheesy, and even at age 7, i was 'too cool' to be very impressed. it occurs to me, looking back, that i could have done a better job of receiving that gift, which my cousin clearly felt was aptly described by its text. looking back, that sticker (along with my cousin's reverence for it) WAS awesome. this yo-yo is just like that, except 'f***ing', too.

i'm not big on obscenities, really. i try to use them 'when appropriate'(?). like i don't kick up a big fuss if i drop an f-bomb, but neither do i think it's generally the best way to express myself. sometimes though (like when i stub the shit out of my toe or the canes blow a 5-on-3 power play), it totally is. it doesn't bother me, so long as they're said with intent. if you're angry or ignorant, and 'f***' is all you can manage, then yeah, i think that's a little pathetic. if you own it, and you mean it, however, i see no real evil in it. some people get really tied up about naughty words, but every human, myself included, possesses the capacity for far darker transgressions, which if stifled and ignored are all the more likely to leak to the surface of our lives.

the yo-yo plays fine, like any imperial no jive. some people have recently said that they think it's neat that i 'have the guts' to play yo-yo's like this. are you kidding? yo-yo's like this are the best thing in the world, and i'm so glad they're still out there. if you don't have a wooden, fixed axle, imperial shape that PLAYS in your arsenal, get one now, while they're just endangered and not extinct. if it's what you want, then it doesn't take any courage at all to play yo-yo's like this (they don't even hurt too bad when they whack you). i'm not trying to be an iconoclast; i genuinely prefer it to the ultra-wide, unresponsive, metal-of-the-month. it's hard, but if you allow yourself the courtesy of defining your own standards, it's really JUST fun. people seem more comfortable in thinking that yo-yoing is like some middle-school math program, and that when you get 'off the gifted track' you're screwed. but everybody's really on their own track, blazing their own trail. you might think you're learning all of johnnie's tricks, but you can't step into the same river twice. every trick you do is yours, so make damn sure it's the trick you WANT to do, and not the one you 'think you ought'.

being a one-trick pony sucks. musashi said 'touch upon all of the arts: to learn the sword, study the shamisen'. i think it's really important to have multiple expressive outlets, because doing so prevents your becoming 'burnt out' with any one of them. one of the things i was delighted to notice this week is that playing a lot of bass made me WANT to yo-yo. and yo-yoing frequently makes me WANT to doodle silly pictures or practice sword kata. and so on. inside, all of our arts are connected, and they all serve and refresh each other. many of the unhappiest people i've met are the ones that are hyper-focused on one objective. if all of your energy is directed toward one activity or goal, two things happen 1.) you restrict yourself. you can't say everything you want to say via any one medium, i don't care what kind of virtuoso you are. finding another way to express yourself, even one that you really suck at (especially one you really suck at) helps you to approach yourself from a new perspective. 2.) if all of your eggs are in one basket, then when you drop it, you'll feel you have failed, UTTERLY. the person who commits himself thoroughly to yoyoing WILL at some point come to detest it. and when he does, he'll feel that all his time was wasted and all of his expression rendered moot.

a friend of mine asked me if, when i play bass or yo-yo, the expression 'flows through me' in the same way. i don't know... i guess i don't look at it like that. i don't really see myself as a conduit for some vague, expanse of artistic energy. i don't really see the art as something that's inside me needing to 'escape' like air from a baloon. i think that art is just what happens when you give yourself to a moment. sometimes it has a really strict form, like a song you're trying to play or a trick you're trying to hit. other times it's more spontaneous and flexible; an exercise in allowing your brain to leap between ideas and bridge gaps that may never even have occurred to you previously. art's what you're doing, if you're doing it fully and presently. in either case, i think the main thing isn't to think 'ok... i need to put some of MYSELF into this here ART.' if anything, i think it's about getting your 'self' the hell out of the way. maybe it is the same process, but it feels somehow obscene to pick it apart.

composition is another story, and i definitely try to create yo-yo tricks in the same way that i try to write songs. a yo-yo trick, in my mind, has to have a beginning, middle, and end. it also has to have a POINT. maybe the point is 'rambling and incoherent', but the form offered by a central idea is the defining essence of any trick, and any song. even john cage's most whimsically random-sounding compositions are based on underlying structure, even if the structure is 'twelve radios blaring' or 'birds outside' or '4 minutes of silence'. i like to make short yo-yo tricks that focus on one simple idea (playing a lot of wood yo-yo's like this has probably kept me from much longer endeavors). i used to love the idea of 'sonata form' in yo-yoing, but continued recapitulation can really make a trick overlong and boring. i'd LOVE to see someone do a 'sonata form' video or ap freestyle though... hmm... my main issues with correlating my trick making to music are the restrictions of my own abilities. when i used to compose a lot, i liked to apply my ideas in layers that resolved weirdly, and the idea of harmony in yo-yo is really, really tough. if all i wanted was a pretty melody, that would be simple... but who wants to listen to mozart all day?

music and yo-yoing share an obvious aesthetic similarity in that as soon as an idea escapes your fingertips, it's gone. you play a note or hit a string, and it's in the past (and trying to linger on it interrupts everything). it's as ephemeral as the sound exploding in the air of the room or the hold resolving to trapeze. and try as you might, you can't get any of the notes, or any of the tricks back. you're making noise or doing your trick in THIS moment, and that's all... and the immediacy of that concept is to me, the quintessence of both media. when you're yo-yoing, even if you're hiding in a room full of toys, babes and bling, which con you into the luxuriant belief that you've GOT stuff to which you might assign a part of your self... The Trick is the ONLY thing you have in the world. so whether i'm playing my bass or my yo-yo or with my star wars guys (ok maybe not with my star wars guys... except i guess kinda... but no)... or writing this blog... i just want to do so fully. what moment, aside from this one now, will ever be real to you? this one's all we've got.

and mostly this one is enough...

in fact, it's f***ing awesome.

yo-yo #'s 61 & 62: diamond specials

how do you feel about your yo-yoing?

are you good at it? what does that mean? does being 'good' enable or entitle you to look down on yo-yoers who 'aren't good'? when you see someone who's just started yo-yoing or someone who's been plodding through the basics for years, do you make secret comparisons? do you, somewhere in the base of your brain, feel a little superior? when you finish top 5 at a contest, do you feel a little bad for the guy that got 23rd? and should the guys who finished top 4 look at you that way? to be a good yo-yo player, do other yo-yo players even have to think you're any good? who's the boss of your yo-yoing? who tells you where it should go? are you being honest?

awhile ago, mark mcbride made this post. mark's one of the guys i've always looked up to as a yo-yoer, and one of the few people for whom my respect has actually INCREASED as i've come to learn more about him. although it isn't a new, hot, trendy topic, i think about the ideas behind this post a lot. in some ways, i feel like it really captures the way i see yo-yoing, though it's projected from bride's lens, which is naturally different from my own.

these are diamond specials: good, simple, beautiful yo-yo's, the both of them. i bought the walnut one from collector/photographer shawn garcia, who knows a lot about wood yo-yo's and has been an inspiration. the blonde one was gifted to me outright by my friend izzy, who found it at an antique shop. a pristine relic from the tom kuhn san-fransico era. i play both of these yo-yo's often. because of the rhinestones, it would border on the sinful to flip them butterfly. out in the sunlight, they positively glow during spins, and when i play them i remember hearing tom kuhn describe the first yo-yo he won, a duncan jeweled which, as it reflected the sunset was "the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen".

... i really want to be a 'good yo-yoer'. i have since i bought my purple fireball from zany brainy 10+ years ago. but like vizzini trying to describe 'the man in black' as 'inconceivable', i don't necessarily think it means what you think it means. recently, i've blathered on a lot about the subjective. i've talked about how contests aren't really the best tools for identifying 'what's good'. i don't think i'm a terrible yo-yo player (though my contest results would certainly suggest it). as a judge, i know that most of the tricks i like best would score poorly even if i hit them cleanly (which i rarely do). some people really can walk the line. they can throw the tricks they love on stage, do ok (or better than ok), and be pretty content. i see other yo-yoers who kind of 'closet' their favorite tricks. instead, they practice tricks that feel less natural and less interesting so as to get good results, by which they go on to define a part of themselves. are they happy that way? dunno. maybe.

i think that some players will always associate success with complexity. a trick is 'good' if it's hard; if it makes the observer think 'never in a million years'. a yo-yoer is 'good' if he can do a whole mess of hard tricks. that's but not how i see it at all.

i'm a bass player, and i used to work really hard to be as progressive as possible. i listened to the most technically incredible bassists and scoffed rudely at the ones who didn't know theory or couldn't blister through apoplectic slap solos. i used to pity the ones who believed it their job to 'support' their guitarist(s). i'd heard people say "the song's the thing" a million times (and i'm not sure when it finally registered) but i don't look at it now as i once did. although in some ways, it was useful for me to learn all the technique and theory, i now recognize that the compulsion to do so reflected MY OWN weakness, and not that of 'lesser musicians'. technique was, and remains, a crutch (which is not a bad thing, if you need it). i had to move through technique and complexity to understand, and to get to my own music, but not everyone does. some musicians are born with the understanding that they can play the music inside of them, and that's enough. it can be sloppy and easy and composed of junk that no one but they and their moms would want to listen to. all that matters is that it's authentic to them. some yo-yo players understand that too. once you dissolve the wall between yourself and what you aim to create... no one can ever again call you 'good' or 'bad' at what you do with any authority.

i'm in the process of uploading a yo-yo video. i'm calling it "new adventures in 'lo-fi'", a play on an r.e.m. album. watching it, i'm sure there are plenty of tricks that people would say aren't 'lo-fi' at all, and that's natural. it's not a term that they (or i) get to define for anyone else. actually, i asked a lot of my friends at tn states to show me a 'lo-fi' trick, and almost everyone interpreted the idea differently. doc brought up the distinction between 'moves' and 'tricks', which are often mistaken for each other. some players asked if there was a time or string-hit limit, but to me, it's way more organic than that. it's more like there's an 'intent-limit'. it's about showing me one idea, one thing you love, as opposed to barfing out your last 3 meals and asking me to pick through it and see what's in there. think simple.

i've talked to my friends drew and mitch about comparing 'low-fi' yo-yoing with riding skateboards. drew revealed a fascinating truth to me; that a lot of my skater/yo-yo friends create tricks that base themselves around a similar rhythm. a skateboard trick is often composed of an 'entry' (usually an ollie), some central feature (maybe a grind, manual, or a gap), and then the 're-entry', or roll-away. it occurs to me that most of the tricks i like to see and create are similarly composed; simple tricks with an objective. tricks that have a beginning, middle, and end... based on one fundamental idea. i'm almost never inspired by 30-second combos with a hundred string hits. sure it's difficult, but to me, it's [usually] empty. it's "please for the love of god, look at ME!!!" instead of "hey, check THIS out."

understand, i'm not trying to say that i'm all about stagnation. i don't see 'low-fi' as sitting around, chewing the cud, doing the same tricks you've always done. if that's what it is to you, that's your prerogative, but i did that for years, and there's nothing there for me. i don't think there's anything 'right' about a punk-rocker saying 'whatever. i can play these 9 songs and that's all i need.' the classical virtuoso who feels superior due to the complexity and difficulty of his repertoire is equally deluded.

i think you've got to push... i think life IS pushing... but if you're letting someone BESIDES yourself decide which way you go, no matter how hard you do push, you're still imprisoned.

in yo-yoing, 'simple' has almost become a derogation, but simple tricks are all i really want to do. i guess playing a lot of wood yo-yo has led me to really appreciate the simple, and as anyone who's played the blues will tell you... simple rarely means 'easy'. i don't think you have to play wood (or even responsive) to know where i'm coming from, but maybe it's easier. i'm definitely beginning to feel that 'lo-fi' yo-yoing is about 'progressive simplicity'; about finding new ways to be simple (which can actually be a lot harder than 'finding new ways to be complicated'). it's about creating tricks that make the uninitiated say 'i could totally.' it's about having the courage to look at your yo-yoing and accept it, and to decide without pretense or comparison, where it SHOULD go next.

most of us will never be 'the best yo-yoer in the world' by any standard. it's easy to admit that to ourselves. what's difficult (and maybe a little scary) is to learn how to say sincerely... that you don't want to be.

yo-yo # 60: the red v

since i'm just getting to know this yo-yo, i'm not going to waste a ton of words with amusing anecdotes or pithy philosophical musings. in time, i'm confident that i'll have to redress this post (maybe several times), as i'll have this yo-yo in my pocket for awhile. as such, though there are two of them, i'm only going to discuss one of them. ;)

actually, there are 2.5 red sparkle powdercoated flying v's on the planet. steve buffel, the proprietor of saturn precision yo-yo's, is as you should know, a gentleman and a scholar. at the inception of the flying v, as steve was asking about my preferences, we briefly discussed the possibility of a powder coated finish. since the heyday of the diss kings, i've always loved the look and feeling of powder coat, and the lure of it on a yo-yo i was helping to design was irresistible. however, it was not to be.

steve, who has forgotten more about making smooth yo-yo's than i (or most yo-yoers) will ever know, and who has experience with multiple methods of coating yo-yo's, brought up two major reservations with using the finish in a production run: inconsistency and demand. compared with an anodized finish, powder coating is incredibly inconsistent. anodizing a yo-yo actually produces a physical bond between the finish and the aluminum. it can be chipped off, but it's incredibly durable (having tried to beat up a number of them, i've found spyy's ano to be especially tough). powder coating a yo-yo, by contrast, bakes a flowable "crust" onto the surface of the yo-yo. it's beautiful, and also durable, but compared with ano, less precise. tiny variations in the surface are possible, and since yo-yo's are spinning instruments, these variations become amplified, and can quickly reduce a precision toy to a shuddering mess. they CAN be essentially perfect (as are the coatings on both of my diss kings masterpieces, as well as my white addict)... but they won't all be.

the other issue with using powder coat is the simple fact that the market doesn't seem to dig it en masse. it looks cool, and people want to try it, but functionally, it doesn't have a lot of advantage over ano. yo-yoers, it must be said, like to make positive and negative distinctions between yo-yo's; sometimes arbitrarily and sometimes legitimately. a powder coated finish would look beautiful, but it's glossy, tacky texture makes it awful for extended grinds (unless satin finished, which is possible but disturbs the coating's signature aesthetic). we were already discussing a yo-yo that was thin, that featured a small gap (although we also enabled a large one), and that had shiny rims. it needed to have some features that people would actually WANT. silicone response, a large diameter bearing, and a bead-blasted/anodized finish seemed important if we were going to try to share the v with the world. it's been pretty well-received, but i think if they had all been powder coated, people would have either complained or just stayed away, neither of which were desirable.

still, it's what i wanted, and what i originally said was important to me. although he had no need to do so, and nothing to be gained by it, steve set about preparing his last three raw flying v's for me along the lines i had originally requested. he had the pieces powdercoated in a brilliant, deep red sparkle. the color is deeper than the mg i described below, and its sparkle is more subtle. he then remachined the bearing seat to prevent variation and make the spin as true as possible. the yo-yo's were laser engraved with tressley cahill's original graphic, and steve added my own signature to the rim. we didn't consider putting my name on the production v's, and i'm glad of it. that's partly because no one would buy a yo-yo because it had my name on it, but moreover, the v was meant to be a yo-yo that's shared with other yo-yoers. when they play it, i don't want them to think of me at all. i want them to play the way they play, and use the yo-yo as if it's their own "signature model", which... if you're playing it... it is. sure it's what i like, but when you play it, it's what you like and how you play that counts. you're the one making art with it. i like that the red v's have my name on them, not because i'm an egomaniac, but because it's clear that these are distinctly mine, and just what i wanted. unfortunately, one of the 6 halves met its fate in laser engraving, and was rendered unusable. steve sent me the yo-yo's straight away (including the extra "ok" half - hence the "2.5"), but not before he pimped them out further, adding the presentation box and accoutrements of the special edition pure's, including "certificates of authenticity" for both yo-yo's (2/2 - lol). he could have sent them to me in a ziplock bag, but i've come to realize that over-the-top generosity is just the way steve seems to roll.

somewhat predictably, the yo-yo's play better than any powder coated yo-yo i've ever touched. devoid of vibration, and gleaming like a pair of fire trucks, they redefine a phrase i use often for yo-yo's i dig on: "a joy to play". the coating adds a bit of heft (maybe a gram or two), and though it is glossy, i don't do a lot of long grinds anyway. in fact, i like that when i set one spinning on my arm, it rockets across the length of it before launching from my shoulder. also, since the coating is thicker than ano, the recessed response is shallower. a single k-pad (my preferred sticker) sits just about flush, and enables tighter binds. i vastly prefer this for when i play unresponsive. i haven't decided whether i prefer this version or the production for stalls, regens, and other small gap "tug stuff". i need a low-friction surface for the john gates trick, "measuring tape", which is certainly among my top 5 favorite tricks. i'll need time to see how i use these yo-yo's.

people have already warned me against playing them "too hard", but they must not know me at all. what kind of hypocrite would i be if i were to stand on my blog-soapbox all day preaching that yo-yoer's should "allow their playthings to experience the world" while i stroke mine on their little leather pillows and "let no dust alight"? nah. these yo-yo's are for playing. all yo-yo's are for playing. i won't bang them up prematurely, but they're going to get dinged and scratched and scuffed, rest assured. and as they do, they'll be even more beautiful than they were on the day i got them in the mail. and if that doesn't make sense to you, then we don't look at yo-yoing (or life, maybe) in the same way. we don't have to.

it's not that i believe that "nothing is sacred"; more that "everything is". and it's not that i believe that "nothing should be preserved", but rather that "beyond this moment, nothing ever can be". not only is there no use to our human tendency to grope at shiny cars or heirlooms or faces or yo-yo's, desperate to keep them ever the same... to my mind, that tendency (and the fear that drives it) betrays the most egregious of our delusions.

wait... you don't count those as "pithy philosophical musings", right?

thank you, steve.

PROJECT CONES TO BALLS

this is not a yo-yo.
this is an "announcement".

my new project with steve brown will begin shortly: http://conestoballs.blogspot.com/

we've been discussing it for awhile, and it's going into effect. if you like this blog [god help you], you are sure to like this. ;)

i promise not to let it interfere with this blog.
actually, eff that. no promises, and this was never about you anyway.

yo-yo #'s 58 & 59: freehand Mg's

sweet luxury.

one of my most persistent memories of autumn 2005 is of playing that g-d "duncan boy: around the world" video game. remember? it was a big promotion by duncan. you played their video game (on their site, of course), and every week they announced a batch of prize-winners. said prizes ranged in value from their shrink-wrapped t-shirts to their "hardcore" plastic line to... the illustrious... freehand mg. although it would have been cool to win anything, the mg was the only prize i really wanted, and i'd be lying if i said that, month after month, i didn't feel a twinge of jealous anger as i watched other folks score them (among them my good friend, joey fleshman - JERK!!!)

i played that game... WAY too much. i even got really ridiculously good at it, and by november, my name occupied like 7 of the top 10 hi-scores. (this is depressing to look back upon and admit, because it was not a good game.) edit: i found it. try it out here.

the freehand mg had made its debut at the world yo-yo contest a year before. rumor of it had circulated through the boards for some time, nudged lightly by the postings of its architect, steve brown. released as part of duncan's 75th anniversary extravaganza, the mg was to catapult the standard of "yo-yo luxury" to new heights. though it was supposed by many to be more a marketing ploy than anything else, it ended up a spectacular player, easily better (in my opinion) than anything made by duncan before or since.

the most brilliant move steve made in creating the mg was commissioning the great shinobu konmoto (s. kon) to hand-craft it. sure, it came in a big wooden box, and yeah, it had a bunch of special-edition counterweights, and it had that fancy ceramic bearing, but big deal. shinobu is THE quintessential yo-yo craftsman. anyone who knows anything about the highest standard of yo-yo's knows his name, due to his creation of multiple "world mod contest" award-winning pieces, including "nostalgia", held by many to be the single most aesthetically incredible yo-yo ever made. although the work of eric wolff is admittedly "more my style", s. kon's use of crazy materials (origami paper? a coke can?) and intense dedication to his craft more than qualify him to be referred to as the world's pre-eminent modder. my favorite of his creations (which i have only seen in pictures) has to be the "revolver", which is itself, a raw freehand mg encased in form-fitting leather. try as i might, i cannot imagine a more exquisite yo-yo.

the mg was forged (rather than machined) from 99% magnesium, with around 1% other goo (and stuff) to help stabilize it. raw magnesium is, of course, highly flammable, so there was some discussion as to whether the 1% would offset any risk of blowing up one's house. i can't say i know the science there, but having owned 5 mg's (and having walked the dog hard with one), i haven't destroyed anything besides my preconceptions regarding what "a fine yo-yo" is.

for april fool's day in 2005, dave's skill toys ingeniously photoshopped a "museum of yo-yo history" mg pic into a radioactive neon green, changing the caps to read "freehand Pu", and put it on the storefront for $1,000,000. several idiots on the skill toys board were convinced (in some cases for years) that there was, in fact, a plutonium freehand. some even e-mailed steve about it. i wish i could find that picture.

the first run of mg's came in two colorways: a sparkly red powdercoat (which remains my favorite yo-yo color EVER, and directly inspired the special edition flying v's to follow this post) and a clear anodized silver. initially i assumed the latter was just raw magnesium, but having seen steve's prototype mg's, which have developed a beautiful oxidized patina, it's clear that their coated (lol - get it? ok that was dumb). a few years later (after duncan sold out of the first run - 250 of each color?), they released another series in either blue sparkle or black ano. the 2nd run differed from the first structurally in that on one side, the response area was recessed. by 2006, recessed pads had become all the rage, and the mg's flat response area was becoming outmoded. they also had new caps, which were awful.

the first mg that i ever played was actually one of the black ones. i was at va states 2006, and the aforementioned joey fleshman asked to use my metal yo-yo (an hspin g&e2), which i handed over slightly grudgingly. joey nonchalantly passed me what i assumed was a non-descript freehand, white zero caps and all. after a few throws, i was totally mystified as to how this zero easily outplayed my good & evil. it was absolutely smooth, the response was perfect, and it seemed to grind forever. i told joey as much, and he said "well it ought to be good - it's an mg!" i was so shocked, i almost dropped the thing right there. he used fhz caps so that no one would be inclined to steal it out of his case, which i found both wise and slightly depressing.

i refer to that experience often when i hear someone say the mg plays just like a fhz... yeah... like the best one you've ever played times a thousand. the mg uses the same guts as the other freehands, but the weight distribution is TOTALLY different. the tolerances of magnesium compared to that of plastic enable a level of smoothness that's TOTALLY different. even the material itself feels cold and alien and strangely refreshing (even compared to aluminum yo-yo's). if you honestly can't tell a difference between them... you need some more experience before making sweeping pronouncements. no one who has spent a significant amount of time with a freehand mg AND a plastic freehand has ever tried to convince me that they play the same. granted, the differences might not be valuable to you at all.

there are lots of fine reasons to want a yo-yo, the most obvious of which is certainly the level of play. people want a yo-yo that will enable them to yo-yo as "well" as they can... but even that takes on different subtleties. most kids i know would say they want a yo-yo that "lets" them do the hardest tricks they know, preferably with ease. that outlook has never much appealed to me. i think it's useful to push the limits of your play, but it's also useful to try yo-yo's that make you work. these mg's handle anything i throw at them, but neither is as easy to set up or work with as any number of modern aluminum models. it's just as reasonable to want a yo-yo that makes you feel a certain way, which is definitely the case with me and these yo-yo's (actually... probably MOST of my yo-yo's). the value of a thing isn't always directly tied to its utility... or at least that utility isn't always defined so linearly.

people get really worked up over the mg, i think because of its outlandish retail price. the natural assumption is that, since it's the most expensive thing out there (or one of them), it needs to play "better" than everything else or it amounts to a colossal waste of money. the issue with that is that there is no "better" than than everything else. the best feeling i've ever taken from playing yo-yo has been with a beat-to-hell 20 year-old wood one. i wouldn't sell it for $1000, let alone $400... but that doesn't make it worth a damn to anyone else. i've had just as much FUN playing imperials as this mg, but somehow, that fact doesn't make me regret paying a lot for the latter (nor would i pay more than $3 for an imperial - weird). virtually every performance yo-yo on the market now can outplay the mg by SOME standard, but those standards are all as artificial and subjective as the ones we use to judge between this or that yo-yo player.

the mg costs $400 (at least), but it's "worth" what it's worth to you. mg's almost NEVER resell for retail on the boards or on e-bay. they aren't really a good financial investment; certainly in the short term. but that's not really why you buy it. i like the way mg's play. they have a weird, undefinable character that you don't find anywhere else, and which i vastly prefer to any other duncan (including the screaming eagle line). i also like them for the nostalgia, and for the community's fervor around the time of their release. it reminds me of a time when, imo, duncan and its crew was the most exciting thing in yo-yoing. i likewise associate those memories with that time when yo-yoing was at its coolest (and still pretty new to me). playing the mg rekindles those feelings, and that's "worth" it to me.

the first mg i actually acquired was the red one you see here. i bought it from steve as he began selling off some of the arsenal that had taken over his attic in 2006. i've played it alot, but it's only got one legitimate ding, which it earned in its first hour of play at the playground my daughter and i used to frequent. at some point thereafter, i picked up a "spare" red, which i ended up relinquishing. i just purchased another for cheap, but am not likely to hang on to it. the black one has a great texture, but i don't play it as much (i'm not a big grinder). since i first saw them, i DETESTED the 2nd run's caps, and so i've made sure that all of my mg's get a pair of the o.g.'s, which i find classy and understated. some guys prefer to rock their mg's nude, but for me the bright white caps and their contrast with the yo-yo's body is a big part of the aesthetic appeal.

sometimes, i'll admit, i get caught up in the "value", myself. i look at these two yo-yo's and i think "over $800 (though i can't actually say i paid that)! that's the per capita gnp for some of the world's poorest nations! and i have it allocated to TWO YO-YO'S???" it is pretty striking, and it underscores the ridiculous ways in which i've spent my money... but then - so does the rest of my collection, and if you're reading this, so does yours, (probably, to some extent). it's natural to hold a really expensive yo-yo like this and feel guilty for having it. it represents a lot of roast beef sandwiches. maybe i should sell them all and donate the proceeds to charity, right? the mg's inherent extravagance naturally engenders these feelings.

but it's not necessary to abandon all material possessions in order to be a good, giving person. if we, who can afford expensive toys are honest with ourselves, and are willing to recognize our privilege, using it to do a little good in the world, then that may be enough. playing yo-yo isn't yachting or car collecting (the $800 pricetag of a pair of mg's wouldn't buy me so much as a steering wheel in those hobbies). it's important to apply some perspective, and in fact, keeping a nice yo-yo as a sort of talisman might even encourage one to live a little more generously (wishful thinking maybe?).

i dunno... these mg's are going to sit somewhere. better, i tell myself, that they sit somewhere they're appreciated, played, and enjoyed. better that they bring some joy out of someone, who can then pass it on and share it with the world. better that they make me aware of my blessings, many and varied as they are, that i may be more willing to give of my joy, my time, myself.

one thing is certain to me: i don't feel like withholding any aspect myself when i play them.

... and you can't put a price tag on that.

yo-yo #57: blue duncan fh2

it's a beautiful day outside. normally, north carolina in early september is still a hazy mass of heat and water, the latter perpetually oscillating between liquid and gas... all over you. but today is just lovely; sunny... around 70. it feels like wyoming; summer in the afternoon shade of the tetons. all of the windows and doors have been thrown open. in the middle of last night i actually felt momentarily chilly. i love the summer, but i think i love its death throes even more. perfect time to play yo-yo outside.

around this time in 2004, i went shopping at target for cupcakes on account of a teacher-party (i think a baby shower?) at school, about which i had completely forgotten. it was irksome, because i hate buying tasty-treats at big faceless stores like that, but forgetting had been my fault, and i had to bring something. it was my planning period, so i was in a big rush, but on the way to check out, i passed the rack of clearance toys. front and center were about 30 yo-yo's: about 10 hasbro fast 201's (powered by yoyofactory - lol), which sported a reduced price of $7.50, and perhaps twice as many duncan "freehands", marked down from $14.00 to $10.00. i couldn't remember having seen either at target before (which they both plainly were), but i also rarely shopped in the "boy toy" aisles, having only a 3-year-old daughter at the time. i picked up this blue freehand (i knew and trusted duncan, having always played midnight specials - lol), and considered it for only a moment before i tossed it onto the cupcakes and proceeded to checkout. the deciding factor was, of course, the spare string that was in the package. i knew my renegade string was old and gross (i had ironically also bought said renegade for the spare string, which i had put on my custom mag). i remember actually feeling bad for spending $10.00 on a yo-yo when i already had a perfectly good one. how things change, i guess.

when i got to school, i tossed it absent-mindedly and liked it a lot. i put on a little show for my kids, who were predictably awed by my mediocrity and 5-year-old tricks. i still played yo-yo sometimes, but hadn't bothered to learn anything new or interesting since the big boom (and bust) of the late 90's. my yo-yo collection at the time would have included a midnight special, a purple fireball, a purple brain, a pink saber-wing fireball, a thp glow raider, a turbo bumble bee, a custom mag predator, and la piece de resistance: a blue renegade, the starbursts of which had long since worn to vague, dull, nubs. by the end of the day, it occurred to me that yo-yo's had actually IMPROVED in the intervening years. duncan, which had been kind of a punchline when i quit playing, had put out a yo-yo that seemed to outplay my gade out of the box!

bear in mind, i had never played (or heard of) the fh1. i had completely (blissfully) ignored the online yo-yo community, and felt totally self-sufficient. i had bought about 25 bee strings (relics from 1999) from a closing 'hobby lobby' in or around 2003, and since i didn't play much, and really only changed them when they became unplayably kinked and gnarled, they had sustained me through almost 2 years. *want to know something funny? i've STILL never played a freehand 1. never. at this point, obviously, it's not because i've never been exposed to them. i've had dozens in front of me over the past few years. some of my best friends still swear by them, but it's kind of become a game to me. "when will i actually submit and play a freehand 1?" maybe tomorrow; maybe never. i've never finished toni morrison's book, beloved, either. on purpose. same kind of thing.

when i got home later, i dug out the string from the packaging for my appreciative renegade, and in so doing remembered that the fh2 came with a cute little mini-video-cd-thing. i was kind of curious, so i popped it into my laptop's tray and waited for it to load. when it finally did, all my illusions were destroyed.

i had thought i was a pretty good yo-yoer; not like "dominant" or "innovative" or anything... but somehow, i had totally forgotten that those words could even APPLY to yo-yoing. i had been quietly rehashing the tricks i had learned or invented in 1999 for years and years, and it had never occurred to me that during that time, though yo-yoing had not been "everywhere", it had still been quietly evolving somehow, and without MY help?!?!

i don't recall all of the details of the video cd. it featured a brief clip video, and some basic trick tutorials. the clip vid was what really struck me; it had been filmed very much in the style of a skate video, with which i was plenty familiar. it featured crew members (which, at the time would have included steve brown, jack ringca, mark mcbride, spencer berry, takeshi, paul escolar, and seth peterson, to name a few - an effing dream team if ever there was one), and their post-newschool, post-1a-revolution yo-yoing were light years ahead of what i could comprehend. the whole video cd couldn't have been more than 8 minutes, but that was all it took to reset my "yo-yo hubris" to zero. it also precipitated a cursory internet search which yielded howtoyoyo.com and by proxy, dr, popular, whose "glass lab experiment #4" proved to be the straw that broke [my pride's] back.

indirectly, the purchase of this blue freehand sent me into an immediate and beautiful spiraling depression. the yo-yo (in general) was SO MUCH COOLER than it had been when i had effectively set it down. there was so much more to learn. i wanted to see what was out there, and the terrifying vastness of that realization was especially disturbing, because i had not been IN on any of its creation. i like to participate in the construction of "awesome" in the world, and i had missed my chance to help make yo-yoing into this incredible, dynamic tapestry. or had i?

the upside to completely annihilating any sense of pride in one's crappy yo-yoing... is that if you dare to accept the truth of your legitimate mediocrity, then you GET to start learning the new stuff. and you get to start doing it with an "empty cup"; free from the burdens of your own skill, preferences, and expectations. the aforementioned depression only lasted a few minutes; after that i was too busy immersing myself in "shockwave" and "nanda kanda" to be depressed. yo-yo people always strike me as so anxious to shake off their beginnings; as if it's this big race, and you don't get to pause and appreciate the scenery until you're an "expert" or something (though people like that tend to burn out long before that anyway). the poet cesare pavese once said, "the only joy in life is to begin". i feel i've had the pleasure of "beginning" yo-yoing several times now; as a small child, during the boom, for a few weeks when i bought my gade, and yet again, as precipitated by this little blue fh2.

this last time has really stuck. i've played yo-yo every day since making this purchase. i went back to target a bit later, found all of their remaining stock of freehands AND 201's (which i also came to love) discounted to a ridiculous $1.50 and $1.33, respectively. i bought them all, and spent the next 2 years strategically distributing them among to students, family, friends, and random passers-by.

not long after i ran out of them, i became irritated with duncan, and got "stuck" with a bunch more fh2's to give away. steve brown (one of the only yo-yo players i had heard of in y2k), had famously stormed from his positions as head of marketing/design, and duncan crew leader. the firefight between he and the flambeau executive, jason sauey had spilled over onto the internet, which resulted in a curious edict from duncan, when i asked if they would sponsor nc states: "Sure, we'll sponsor. I just have to confirm that you would not be having Steve Brown involved with the contest in any way."

i found that really depressing, because, even though i knew he had a prior engagement, if i COULD have conned steve into coming down to judge or participate in the contest, of COURSE i would have. i felt that was just too much experience to try to blackball him due to a personal grudge. i told duncan that i couldn't accept their sponsorship under those conditions, but they had already sent me half of their package: 15 yellow fh2's, which mike burke told me not to bother sending back. rather than injecting them into the overfull prize pool (other companies had really stepped up for us), we used the fh2's for the beginner corner, and after the contest, i went about playing johnny appleseed again, giving them away to semi-random, well-deserving people. i think i sent the last one off to a former student this past january.

it's not my favorite yo-yo in terms of play. it feels a little too round and "gushy" to me. i play mine stock, unrecessed, with one duncan sticker and the thin spacers. it's not beautiful or rare or impressive... and yet i'll never get rid of it. every yo-yoer has one yo-yo they cam point to as "the one that put them over". after i bought this yo-yo, i discovered the badass duncan crew. i discovered dr. popular, the glass lab, and eventually, sector_y. i discovered dave's skill toys and yoyoing.com. and by spring, i had finally discovered the value of communicating with other yo-yo players on web-boards, through which i eventually met and befriended some of the titans listed above (though part of me, still overcome with awe, will probably never feel that i deserve to be in the same room as them).

the last few years, i've really been all about playing yo-yo, i guess. there's other stuff i do, of course, and i try to sustain my other interests. but i spend a lot of time playing yo-yo. many of my best friends are yo-yoers. it's become something much more than a hobby to me. and undeniably, my life would be very different now had i just remembered to make treats for that baby shower... it's funny to ask myself: if i could go back, with the understanding of how deeply i would fall... of how fully the toy would take hold of me... of how much time and energy i would invest in it... would i buy it all over again? or go check out with just the cupcakes?

this wasn't my first yo-yo, but it was probably the most important to my development into the player (and, since they are inseparable, the person) i am today.

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.