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Caleb Strange Special user Manchester UK 676 Posts |
This is one of my old 3 ball juggling routines – the tricks, about 30 of them, are nearly all straight out of 'Beyond the Cascade,' and were performed simultaneously with the story. I'm sure you can work out where you'd like to add your own tricks – some cues (like 'Statue of Liberty') kind of speak for themselves. In performance, I told the story in my exciting and unique version of a Brooklyn accent , adopting the P.I. character of 'Fingers' Malone as I juggled. The story is humourous – a parody of detective fiction – and I developed it at a time when I (and, I felt, my audiences) were getting tired of my ill-advised 'look at me' approach. Anyway, I hope the cod-idioms and the geographical and historical inaccuracies do not spoil your enjoyment of:
'Fingers' Malone and the Case of the Missing Three Ball Trick. 'The name’s Malone, 'Finger's' Malone. I'm what you might call a Juggling Detective, from Brooklyn. I deal in broken hearts and broken limbs. If you got a problem then I got the balls (and the clubs) to sort it out. Whatever it takes, whatever the... catch, I get things done. I rose to fame in '53 by disguising myself as Bobo, the great hairy ape at the City Zoo. This was to prove, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the recently elected Mayor of New York City was pilfering bananas from the City's Parks Department. I'd had my suspicions for some time – there'd always been something yellow and slippery about the guy. But he'd led me on a merry dance, round and round in circles, until one day, when the fruit in the keeper's bucket just disappeared. In the fall of '58 I spent four months disguised as a compost heap on the City Farm. You got used to the smell – kinda grew to like it – but the flies was just terrible. It was hot in there, too, and when no one was looking I'd sneak out and grab a drink from a passing cow. But I ain't seen nothin', nothin' to chill the heart and slap the noodle... like I saw in '65, when I coulda saved the world. It all started in the office. I was loafin' around, mixin' a deck, when the phone rang, and like a patsy I picked it up. It was Johnny 'The Hamster' Cannelloni. He was shakin' like a drunk, and he wanted to meet. Another day and we mighta gone to Coney Island. The top of the Ferris Wheel there was about the most private place a guy could get to meet in this overcrowded and chatterin' city. Besides, when the deal was done and you got down, you could go for a ride on the See-Saws. But on that blustery, inky night, Johnny wanted somewhere a little different. We met... in the Statue of Liberty. Johnny was real nervous – as green as the rock-dame in whose dress we was standing'. I could tell it was something big... and it was. It was the formula for a new type of bomb, a J Bomb, a Juggle Bomb, and Johnny wanted me to take it to our boffins, out of state. It was all X's and Z's and nothin's, and I couldn't make it out, let alone keep it in the nut. So Johnny had an idea. Now he knew that I could juggle, so Johnny showed me the paths and the turns and the orbits of these atoms as they twisted through the equation. But it was real dark that night inside Liberty; I couldn’t make it out. "Was it this?" I asked. Johnny shook his head. "What about this?" Still no spaghetti. "Or this? Or this? Or this?" "No," Johnny said, "it's this. You gotta remember to turn the arms." "Got it!" I said. But it still wasn't right. "Turn the arms," he said. "In a little circle."” "Now I got it," I said. But before I could ask Johnny, there was a sickenin' flash and the snaky blue coil of snort, from a 45. Johnny caught it right in the back... and he slunk to the floor like they’d stolen his bones. I leant over him, closer, as he struggled. "You ain't got it," he said. Then he died. I ran after the goon that had got Johnny, but he was long gone. When I got back to my Chevy, I switched on the wipers, and drove back to the office through a desolate rain. In the morning I threw in my badge and took a one-way ticket to nowhere. I never did remember that formula. I keep lookin'. I got a suitcase and a stack of balls, and I flit from town to town, jugglin' and sniffin' around. You see, I'm still hopin' – hopin' to find that... anybody, who was there that fateful night, who could show me that three ball trick that did for Johnny 'The Hamster' Cannelloni.' Regards, Caleb Strange. P.S. The Missing Three Ball Trick was actually a kind of figure 8 weave exchange of my own making – one of those tricks that just happened one day, and had no doubt been independently discovered several hundred times before I happened upon it. But a Burke's Barrage, or a Rubinstein's Revenge would work just as well.
-- QCiC --
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malini Loyal user 219 Posts |
Nice routine, Caleb. Very clever wording.
I like it a lot. Cheers, -malini. |
Caleb Strange Special user Manchester UK 676 Posts |
Malini,
Many thanks for your kind words. I appreciate them very much. Glad you liked the routine. Warm regards, Caleb Strange.
-- QCiC --
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