We found ourself with a little downtime and in close proximity to the golf coast so Marie, Hank, jack and I hopped in the van and headed to see the Golf.

We didn’t have much time, and when we got to the “beach” we soon realized it was be renovated. Bummer. So instead we hung out at a little playground right by where the beach would be. Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but it seems that once you get a yo-yoer on a playground the start doing apparatus on stuff. This time was no different. Sit back, relax and watch Jack throw some freehand while Hank does backflips off the swing set.

I just wanted to throw up some of the pictures I didn’t have time to process the past couple days. The little gallery below includes pictures from out last day in SF, both at the scheduled demo, and demoing for a group of science field trip kids on the beach! They saw the word Duncan on our shirts from a distance and called out “show us some yo-yo tricks!”, not even a question which Duncan it was. S we put on a little demo and now their teacher sports a shiny new Screaming Eagle cap!

Apart from that I occasionally like to remind myself that when I’m not just shooting at demos I do photographic work that, if nothing else, entertains me. Sometimes, with only a brief idea and spotting the right light I can put together some cool pictures.

I just happen to really enjoy the one above. But the one below was very purposefully a shout out to Red, DCB. Red does some pretty cool yo-yo photography, and even has a book of it out now that you should totally check out. ‘Sup Red!

Paul Escolar is in the Buildin’ VAN, yall!!!!

Hey guys. I wish i could have posted these exciting last few days sooner, but we have been busy! Back-to-back media spots and teaching cool tricks to cooler kids all day long can sometimes jolt my memory…Kids, remember to always change your string – I don’t know what that means. Three Dolphins jump over an Orca.

Anyways, first few days in the van have been great, The Toy Stores have been nothing but enthusiasm and every kid i taught a trick to, picked it up tout-suite! The only complaint is….Emil’s – He’s requested me to take at least one shower a week, jk. He hasn’t said anything… yet.

Before i go, check out some of these shots i took from last week’s National Yo-Yo Contest.

See you guys soon!

-Paul

P.S. Has any one seen Mongu Lately?

If you thought Duncan Crew were hard core, then just wait ’til you read this. The truth is, there shouldn’t even be a dash between day 33-34 because for us they were one and the same!
Our “day” started off with a demo from 11-3 at a TRU in Westminster. We had the full crew of Colorado demonstrators with us, and even some extra players (Jen’s brother and walkins) who came to hang out. There were so many people with yo-yos that even when traffic lulled we had a good crowd and enough teachers for any kid to get some individual attention.

From TRU we went to one of the most impressive toy stores I have ever seen. The Wizard’s Chest is a legend among toy stores. Nate’s heard of it working at A-Z in North Hampton, and I vaguely remember hearing about several years ago while working at Red Dragon Toys in Brunswick, ME. Its a crazy store, but most notable for us is their massive yo-yo club. John Gate’s actually runs the club, so we took his lead and after a while of hanging out he and I MCed an informal show for everyone. It was extremely well received and we had a lot of fun. I was really impressed with the caliber of players (both yo-yos and tops I might ad) that were there. We took a TON of video and photos as well, so much so that processing them takes time we haven’t had since then!

–We’re processing everything tonight, so check back later or in the morning for photos and such–

But here is where the story gets interesting. We managed to land a spot on one of the biggest regional morning shows in the country which is based in Fox 13 news in West Valley, UT. The only time they could fit us in by the time I spoke to them was 5:30am the following morning. For those of you unaware, this is 8.5 hours by car away from Denver, CO…. It was a loooooong night. Trading off drivers, working as a team to keep energetic and awake, stopping frequently to jump around and such. It took us 10.5 hours total to complete the drive from when we finished eating dinner from our gig at the Wizard’s Chest at 7:30pm.

Because of the time difference we pulled in at about 4:30am, and deliriously spent the following hour making sure we had found the right location, booking a hotel, etc. By some magic we met up with Big Buddah of Fox 13 (perhaps the coolest news caster EVER of all time) and spent about 3 hours shooting various segments. We may have been delirious, but had a great time doing what we’re best at!

Alas, the story does not end there. ::GASP:: We finished with Big Buddah just in time to run off to our first gig of the day at the Brigham Young bookstore in Provo, UT. We managed to grab a lightening breakfast before the demo, and jumped in full force with a couple local players who showed up! Big thanks to them as it really helped drive traffic and kept us energetic.

From here we had one more gig to finish the day, and heading about an hour North to Park City we spent a few hours at J.W. Allen Toy Store. This little privately owned shop is right next to the Olympic village from 2002 and is a pretty rad little store. We had a ton of people show up in the end, and were even blessed with the legendary presence of Dale Myrberg. This dude is awesome. A player for 60 years and a full professional entertainer for 15(?) this dude knows what he’s talking about, loves to share, and is more energetic than most 5 year-olds. It was great to have him come out and we look forward to seeing him again at Nationals!

The demo was so busy we went long, but finally we headed to dinner with a couple players and then headed off to our hotel. Finally at and around or 36th hour, on a total of 3 hours of sleep each, we went to bed. And oh how good it was.

Colorado = Friggen’ Gorgeous.
Can everyone just come hang with us here so I can hike every day? That would be great. Ok cool. This place is amazing.
The first thing we did was take a walk through the Garden of the Gods. This place is epic. The “garden” is essentially this gathering of huge red stones that stick straight up in this one area of valley just west of Colorado Springs. These rocks are absolutely beautiful, and get this, their bolted for climbing! Unfortunately, when we did our walk I wasn’t registered to climb there, but we checked it out as we were leaving and I’m now registered to climb on any rocks in any Colorado Springs park… SO COOL!

Alright, so after Garden of the Gods we felt like a more rough and tumble hike was in order. The Garden is a really well kept area with side walks and such, not much in terms of “hiking”. After a little research we got the low down on Pike’s Peak which has a pretty famous long trail. The boys did the first 1 1/4 up the trail with me, and then went to check out the amazingly cute town of Manitou, where we have a show on Saturday. I trucked up to the 4 mile mark at break neck speed which had a FANTASTIC view, juggled 5 snowballs, and then ran back down the trail. It was incredible, I live for that stuff.

Before driving to Denver to finish our day and hit the sack we found perhaps the coolest place of all time. A penny arcade that has existed since 1931 and has arcade machines as old as the mid 20’s. Its PHENOMENAL. A must see if you ever make it to this area. We spent at least an hour or two rockin’ some old school pinball and the most awesome ghetto soccer games you’ve ever seen!

Some of these pictures are hard to understand unless you were there, but check them out, they’re pretty rad.

So there is one particular part of Day 26 that should absolutely be told, but I will leave that story to the Sutter Master to relate to you all. I will say however that we continued to love Kansas City and the people in it. A solid TRU demo followed by an entire afternoon and evening at the Circus… incredible.

Between teaching yo-yo tricks in Clown Alley and then experiencing Ringling Bros first hand both back stage and front… man we felt like yo-yo rock stars. Ringling itself is a production of EPIC proportion that runs like a well oiled piece of machinery and it was awesome to see the cogs lying around or hanging out cracking jokes before all coming together for the massive presentation that is that show.

Important points:
- Elephants are awesome.
- Tigers are scary.
- Motorcycles wizzing around a steal ball of death is SO COOL!!
- Chinese Jugglers are too good for reality.
- Some acrobatic stunts just shouldn’t be possible by humans.

In many ways circus shows have been turning more and more into a glorified form of children’s theater, but honestly, who cares! Its still awesome animals and crazy stunts. Big thanks and props to our friends Aji and Kricket in the clown car for having us along, and if you guys are reading this, can’t wait to run into you again some time!

And day 27? News program, demo at cool store, but the real news? Seth is back on board and with us through to nationals! We might or might not have a box of Mongu Hoodies. Maybe, who knows, it’s just one of those silly rumors.

Next up? Looooooooooooooooooong drive to Colorado.

Well guys, we’ve already covered several cities and number of venues since our last video so we wanted to post some more clips to show you what we’ve been up to. The best parts of the most recent leg have been our interaction with players and the amount of creativity that’s taken place. Whether its ridiculous juggling stunts, hilarious yo-yo competitions, or road challenges we’ve made sure to push the limits and have a great time doing it.

ENJOY!

Video Blog 3 from Emil Lamprecht on Vimeo.

No really, thanks Minnesota. your players, your clubs, your stores, you rock.

We’ve now left Minnesota behind. Our final performances and chill time with the Air Traffic guys was awesome. We had a stage and did two 10 minute sets and a bunch of instruction in between. Unfortunately Lord Buffinton’s time with us has ended, but it was great fun having him along. I hope we’ll have occasion to run into him later on the tour as his addition to the demos was huge and his often dry humor was hysterical. We’ve now jumped states again and are in Iowa, and at the start of a whole new adventure.

We’ve got the next blog video coming out soon too, so keep an eye for it.
Best
E

While we were visiting Madison, WI we got caught up with the UWI juggling club. At some point a couple photographers came by and it looks like I made it onto one of their daily blogs. Check it out!

Wetzelphoto.wordpress.com

We didn’t have enough Duncan clubs with us so we were using an assortment of random clubs for passing purposes, but we had a lot of fun that night and even got some jugglers playing yo-yo!

Check out the rest of his pics too, they’re pretty sweet.

Check it out guys. This morning we were invited to be on String Burn Live! It was a lot of fun and they’ve posted the episode so be sure to watch it:

Duncan on String Burn Live!