Jugglers wanted
Where have all the jugglers gone? A few years ago, one could hardly make ones way along the pavement for jugglers. Fairly crap jugglers it has to be said, jugglers who thought that keeping three balls aloft for a few seconds constituted a spectacle worthy of having a ring-master introduce them, but jugglers none the less.
They were, at least, marginally entertaining. Most entertaining of all of course was when they headed into heavy traffic to recover a dropped ball. These jugglers came in three basic varieties. The first was the tosser wearing sequins, balancing on a unicycle and hoping for a crack at the juggling big time - that is, a pitch in a windy corner of Covent Garden and a future of being ignored by Londoners and having their act upstaged by some tramp behind them pissing into a can of lager then drinking it.
The second was the middle class tosser who had acquired dreadlock hair extensions and was spending his gap year attending clown school and ‘busking’ to supplement his coke habit.
Finally you came across your opportunistic begger. The most hopeless juggler because any early success would see busking fees converted into White Lightning cider, which significantly impairs hand to eye co-ordination and, eventually, the ability to stay upright.
Call me old fashioned, but I like to award effort, and the sight of somebody desperately trying to keep one ball, fashioned from a can of super-strength lager, in the air is to me far more satisfying than some flash goit juggling flaming weasels. Anyway, it makes me smile. Grimly.
Which is why I think we need more jugglers. There’s a lot of rage around these days. Most of it repressed and undirected. Sometimes you feel rage at organisations or structures so large you can’t do anything about it - like the rail transport system, or Nestle. Other times you can apply your rage directly but know you must not. Two incidences from today - the cantering fuckwit of a moron lorry driver who decided to deliver a load of girders to a building site at rush hour, so holding up traffic. I don’t mind this if he at least looked apologetic, but he and the smug fuckwit builders he was delivering too all looked as though they were getting off on the chaos. Obviously I nearly gave them a verbal bollocking but weighed the chances of a kicking and decided to fume inwardly and bring the date of my impending combustion from repressed rage forward by a minute or two. My journey in to work set the clock back in the right direction - an ex-first class seat in a decommissioned first-class carriage. Obviously rich people have fat arses and hence require wider seats, so I was able to stretch out. Impending combustion was then brought forward again by some bloody woman on her mobile.
I raised sonic screens (iPod on!) and blanked her out, but not before the unkind thought flashed across my mind of how richly satisfying it would be turn round and explain to her that it wasn’t the volume of her voice that bothered me, or the banality of her conversation or even the evident belief that the rest of the train and most of the Home Counties would be interested in her prattle that annoyed me - no - it was her obvious reluctance to take elocution lessons.
Oooh, I’m such a snob.
A juggler, right then, would have helped, mostly because I’d have wrestled his can of lager off of him and downed it in one.
Possibly the decline of the juggling is linked to the rise of the blog. We no longer need the slings and arrows of outrageous behaviour offset by life-enhancing experiences such as witnessing the wonder of a bloke moving his hands quite quickly - because we can simply vent by text.
(Why are there no women jugglers? Maybe it’s because men are so adapt at handling balls?)
Or maybe it’s because in a world where you don’t need talent to be on telly, or to have a certain sort of watered down celebrity, circus skills just don’t cut it on the pavement. Maybe it’s time for reality busking - coming soon to a street corner near you - two tossers bickering for hours and hours and hours with a phone number you can call to get rid of one of them - calls charged at a quid a pop.
They were, at least, marginally entertaining. Most entertaining of all of course was when they headed into heavy traffic to recover a dropped ball. These jugglers came in three basic varieties. The first was the tosser wearing sequins, balancing on a unicycle and hoping for a crack at the juggling big time - that is, a pitch in a windy corner of Covent Garden and a future of being ignored by Londoners and having their act upstaged by some tramp behind them pissing into a can of lager then drinking it.
The second was the middle class tosser who had acquired dreadlock hair extensions and was spending his gap year attending clown school and ‘busking’ to supplement his coke habit.
Finally you came across your opportunistic begger. The most hopeless juggler because any early success would see busking fees converted into White Lightning cider, which significantly impairs hand to eye co-ordination and, eventually, the ability to stay upright.
Call me old fashioned, but I like to award effort, and the sight of somebody desperately trying to keep one ball, fashioned from a can of super-strength lager, in the air is to me far more satisfying than some flash goit juggling flaming weasels. Anyway, it makes me smile. Grimly.
Which is why I think we need more jugglers. There’s a lot of rage around these days. Most of it repressed and undirected. Sometimes you feel rage at organisations or structures so large you can’t do anything about it - like the rail transport system, or Nestle. Other times you can apply your rage directly but know you must not. Two incidences from today - the cantering fuckwit of a moron lorry driver who decided to deliver a load of girders to a building site at rush hour, so holding up traffic. I don’t mind this if he at least looked apologetic, but he and the smug fuckwit builders he was delivering too all looked as though they were getting off on the chaos. Obviously I nearly gave them a verbal bollocking but weighed the chances of a kicking and decided to fume inwardly and bring the date of my impending combustion from repressed rage forward by a minute or two. My journey in to work set the clock back in the right direction - an ex-first class seat in a decommissioned first-class carriage. Obviously rich people have fat arses and hence require wider seats, so I was able to stretch out. Impending combustion was then brought forward again by some bloody woman on her mobile.
I raised sonic screens (iPod on!) and blanked her out, but not before the unkind thought flashed across my mind of how richly satisfying it would be turn round and explain to her that it wasn’t the volume of her voice that bothered me, or the banality of her conversation or even the evident belief that the rest of the train and most of the Home Counties would be interested in her prattle that annoyed me - no - it was her obvious reluctance to take elocution lessons.
Oooh, I’m such a snob.
A juggler, right then, would have helped, mostly because I’d have wrestled his can of lager off of him and downed it in one.
Possibly the decline of the juggling is linked to the rise of the blog. We no longer need the slings and arrows of outrageous behaviour offset by life-enhancing experiences such as witnessing the wonder of a bloke moving his hands quite quickly - because we can simply vent by text.
(Why are there no women jugglers? Maybe it’s because men are so adapt at handling balls?)
Or maybe it’s because in a world where you don’t need talent to be on telly, or to have a certain sort of watered down celebrity, circus skills just don’t cut it on the pavement. Maybe it’s time for reality busking - coming soon to a street corner near you - two tossers bickering for hours and hours and hours with a phone number you can call to get rid of one of them - calls charged at a quid a pop.
1 Comments:
I must take this opportunity to brag that the Bf is quite good at juggling. No, he doesn't do it often, or for money, but his circus tricks (that somehow come naturally to him) are what impressed me in the first place.
A little twisted, yes, but after meeting a japanese steakhouse, he and his friends wanted me to "come over and hang out". I thought it was a bad idea being that I'd heard of things called "gang rapes". Instead, the bf suggested that if he do a back bend and a front walkover right in front of the restaurant that I should have to come back to their vacation house. Being that he smokes and doesn't appear to be in very good shape, I said yes. He then proceeded to do his tricks and I went over to their house. At about 2am I tried to leave. Realizing that I'm impressed with circus tricks, he started to juggle...Let's just say the rest is history.
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