So it would appear that I’m back to being a touring artist. It’s been a few years since I have been on this long and sometimes lonely road.
This time as it stands I have booked every weekend from the end of Feb. all the way through mid June, and I’m working on more.
Now when I last left this it was certainly not by choice. Several things happened all at the same time. I was hit by a drunk driver, which hurt me pretty bad. I had the 2 main yearly fairs that I do both didn’t hire me back. My girlfriend, Darien broke up with me out of the blue after a 4 year relationship, and did so over the phone. Also I had several friends die right around that time. This is not wining, but setting the stage.
So I didn’t know when I would be able to tour again, I didn’t know when I was going to be healthy again, I had to deal with a broken heart. So it was not conducive to looking for gigs to replace the ones that I lost.
Once I did try I ran into a wall of not having any gigs on book to point to as to sway people to hire me. Usually they will ask what faires you do, and go by that instead of actually taking the 5 minutes to go check out the website.
I had a catch 22 thing happening where I needed an updated video for promo in order to land gigs, and in order to do that I had to put together some video clips from gigs that I’m doing these days. In order to get those gigs, I had to have a video. See the problem?
So it took me a while but I landed some good gigs in a string.
Oddly this year just before I did this I did the math and realized that this year I actually made better money by staying home than when I was touring. With that said I felt that I would deteriorate if I stayed home too long. I said aloud that I missed doing the quantity of gigs rather than sparse though well paying gigs. There is something to be said for having something that pounds the chops into you. Be careful what you wish for. I just didn’t think I would be landing that many gigs that fast. It all happened in about 48 hours. WOW!!!
Even more of a wow is that I have people that are willing to put their lives on hold and travel out to Texas and camp for months to help me with the show.
Ultimately I am a 1 man act and can stand alone. That is what I’m hired for. However those of you that have seen the minions, or met them in the lanes know that I have the best minion hawkers ever. I can’t pay them. Or at least, I can’t pay them well. I might be able to make them not starve, but that’s about it.
Dreamie will go with me because she loves me. I understand that. JR wants to come for the experience. JR may bring another for me as well.
So I would be a 1 man, 4 person act. Perhaps it will not be nearly so lonely this time around.
I love them dearly, but I’m just amazed that people will follow a juggler into the middle of nowhere to help me do my art. How cool is that?