Glowing Trick Sticks

A little history ... for several years, I made almost all my money with Trick Sticks, better known as Devil Sticks. Mostly at Grateful Dead shows, I juggled the sticks nearly all day, pitching them to concert goers for a small price. At night after the shows, if the conditions allowed for it I set them on fire to draw crowds - this would be my first experiences with entertaining crowds instead of small groups.

At some point in the late 80's, Trick Sticks became so popular they were being sold just about everywhere, you could even find them at gas stations. Suddenly, seeing someone juggling the sticks didn't draw any attention. I retired my sticks.

This summer, I decided to try them out again ... I like that they can once again be used to draw attention and entertain people. I've been a little rusty since I haven't done them in 10 years now, but like riding a bike I'm back in full swing with them and having a blast - I love juggling the sticks, it's a lot of fun.

My pitch at Barefoot Landing is a little confined, and I don't think setting the ends on fire is a safe idea. So recently, I came up with the idea of attaching glow sticks to the ends - they look really good at night, and with a little speed produce some tricked out trails. It's harder to do them at night, so I drop them a little more often but I'm pretty good at quick recoveries.

So anyways, here is a quick clip I filmed between pitches ... they look better in person, the camera didn't really pickup the trails - I think the lighting is just a little too bright, but there's not much I can do about that other than maybe wait till 2:00 AM when they turn all the lights out but I doubt I'm gonna stick around that long, sorry. To get the best animation, I saved this at 512 mbs so I suggestion you right-click and save to your computer to avioding buffering delays.

JoeJoe