the girl who is in awe

I could never be so coordinated! My Dad originally sent this to me with the heading, "This guy can sure handle his balls!" I saved it and watch it every now and then, and now I'm sharing with you!

Of course, I had to go look it up on YouTube to link it here and discovered something...high school is playing out on the internet. (Big surprise, huh?)

Here is the back story. Chris Bliss is a guy who became famous for his juggling in the '70's. So much so, that he opened for musical groups on their tours, including the Jackson 5. This particular routine has always been popular--so much so that it is his signature piece. Imagine, 22 years of doing the same routine over and over. Yet he still makes it look impressive.

Enter Jason Garfield. He is a juggler for the 21st century and Chris Bliss is nothing but a "hack" to him. I'm sure that if I were a professional or serious amateur juggler I would know his name, but he's just a big, beefy, balding guy with a chip on his shoulder to me. Oh yeah, and he juggles. And he's impressive too, however...he cannot resist "dissing" Chris Bliss. (Say that 5 times fast)

From Jason:

It's fine if people like watching chris bliss's routine They should just understand that they are not seeing great juggling. They are seeing a performance that they enjoy for other reasons. Nobody should come away from his video thinking that they have seen a great juggler. His routine isn't about demonstrating how good of a juggler he is, yet people think that he is because they don't know any better. If you understand that his juggling skill is very basic, and that you like his performance because of any other reason, then we agree. Although his choreography is also not the best of its kind and with three balls it's very easy to choreograph a routine with tricks as easy as the ones he's doing in his video. And he lacks grace, and it goes on too long in my opinion. But if you like it for any other reason, maybe you liked the song, then it's perfectly fine for anyone to get enjoyment out of it as long as they understand why they like it and know that his juggling skill is very very basic and the routine is not technically challenging. If you think he's a good juggler, you are wrong. I taped a 5 ball version because...well because Penn asked me to. It is a parody and nothing more. A lot of jugglers have been getting emails from their friends telling them to watch the chris bliss video, thinking that we'll like it. It is upsetting to a lot of us that our friends would think that we would like chris bliss's routine. We know better. We see it for what it is and are not fooled by the music and the sloppy choreography. So now we direct our friends to this video to set them straight in case any more of them tell us how great he is.

Really? Is that necessary? That would be like me saying that Lisa B. is a hack because she uses stickers on her layout and nobody does that anymore, we make our own embellishments now. (keep in mind, this is just an example using the first scrap celebrity name that popped into my head!) Ok, fine. That may be the case, but Lisa B. helped bring Scrapping into the mainstream and helped popularize it among our generation as a fun past-time, just as Chris Bliss helped popularize juggling and earned a name for that routine. Expectations have changed, horizons have broadened and yet, he still does the same routine. Why? Because it is a good routine that people like. Professional jugglers may not agree, but do you juggle for professional jugglers or do you juggle for your audience? (Keep in mind, Chris Bliss is really a professional comedian now, who just happens to juggle)

So in a roundabout way, I'm sort of sharing a lesson. Do what you love for you and for who your intended audience is. Somewhere, someone out there will think you're amazing.