World Circus Day Proclamation and more

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Today The Feather River Recreation and Parks District and the City of Oroville Gave us proclamations declaring April 21 as World Circus Day. 

For the first time in a long time I was nervous going in front of a crowd. It was the city and citizens of Oroville. The plaque they gave us was beautiful. 

We entered the chambers to the sound of fiddling. The local Old Time Fiddlers were being recognized and several young fiddlers performed before the open session of the council meeting.  

After that the Mayor told of her visit to Oroville Christian School yesterday and her invitation to the students to come to the meeting to lead in the pledge of Allegiance.  It was cool. She had so many wonderful things to tell about how polite and smart those kids were. 

Then after a couple of other proclamations Amelia and I were called up and we went before the council as the Mayor read the proclamation.  It was cool and the plaque was much more than we expected. 

On other notes: today JC Dunn and I hit our favorite Chinese place, Tong FOng Low, and enjoyed a great meal. I had to limit my portions and we had to go on a long walk afterwards because I got news from my doc yesterday that I have HIGH ldl cholesterol. He wanted me on drugs but I asked for a few months of exercise and controlled eating habits. He agreed. My blood pressure was 120 over 64 and I am only 8 lbs over weight but I have been lethargic and lazy during our down time. So I will start moving about more.  With tour approaching I have no choice.   

The RV is in the shop having it's once a year check prior to the tour. 

All in all it was a good and busy day... A good and busy day.

Pictures and Stuff

Olivia and Nick practicing.

Prom

If Darth Vader was a good dad.

Cape By Mami

90lbs on the chin

Driftwood on the chin.

A Dog-Acrobatics-Holy Weekend-Another Dog-Circus

 OK, here are the Chronicles of the Kent Family's last five days.
Last Thursday we realized that Belle was taking on the looks of a sheep. Since we had shows coming up over the weekend we needed to get her looking spiffy for the crowds. Below are the before and after shots.

 In preparation for the summer tour the little ones are preparing by learning acrobatics. Olivia is training to improve her aerial arts and Victor is training to add back flips to his Cossack dance. (Thursday)

Because we had shows on the weekend the kids did their Easter Egg Hunt on Friday at Grandma's and Grandpa's house.  They found the nearly 100 eggs pretty darn fast. James had a blast hiding the eggs and the kids had a blast finding them.

After the hunt was the trading and negotiating. Amelia wanted all the pink foiled chocolate eggs so she traded away other candies for that. 

On Saturday we woke up early and drove to San Rafael in Marin County where gas costs $4.44 per gallon.  (In Marysville it was $3.99).  At Trinity Lutheran we did a round robin of three 15-20 minutes shows delivering a Salvation message at each show.  The show was the eye candy and the message was the meat.

 In the message we used a chain tied around Victor's neck to demonstrate how sin binds us. Each link, like Jacob Marley's chain, was forged in life...each link a sin, a bad dead, a cruelty done to others or God, weighing us down.  When the two helpers pull on the chain it melts through his neck. This represents how when we trust in Jesus our sins fall away and we are forgiven. After all, that is the love story message of Easter or as we call it, Resurrection Sunday.

That is what everyone at the First Baptist Church in Stockton called Easter as well.  We woke up at 4:30 to make the drive to Stockton.  The Easter Sunday shows were going to be full blown circus shows with the message included.
Another part of our message is "Do everything for the Glory of God"...the Bible tells us we are suppose to do ALL things for the glory of God. So when we perform, set up, drive, everything, we are supposed to do everything to bring glory to His name.

 Victor makes this look soooo easy.

 Tater Tot made his debut making his first hula-hoop jump in his career.

Updates: Monkey Butts and Chinese Food.

First our Sponsor Anti-Monkey Butt Powder has a great commercial about their Baby Anti-Monkey Butt products:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUXuaN_IKT0&feature=share
 I have been seeing it all day and friends and fans have been emailing me that they have seen it too.  I tell yo folks AMBP works!

Today was a fun day Chinese Food with two magical friends and then walking around my hometown canvasing for our World Circus Day event.  That means we have been placing flyers and posters in store windows.   Thanks to Hobbie Auto Center , Taco Bell of Oroville, and Anti-Monkey Butt Powder.   It's a free event.

Nothing better than getting together with Bill and JC. We probably drove the other customers in the Tong Fong Lows crazy as we joked and shared stories.  One topic was about a NY Birthday Magician who opened his life to a film crew as well as shared his own videos with them that revealed a disturbing family life that led to his father and brother going to jail for pedophilia.  Bill and I had seen the documentary and shared it with JC. I tell you, wow, what a disturbing story.  But that was the heavy! The rest of the conversation was light and we often found ourselves laughing ourselves to tears. A man who thought the door directly behind us (an emergency exit) was the entry door (it was glass). Well, we couldn't open it so JC pulled out some tricks and performed for the man through the glass. It was hilarious. We finally pointed to the main entrance "saving" the poor guy from being left outside and enduring more magic through the window.
While canvasing we met Mike.  he owns the local comic book, hobby store. He was seated on a 1970s style cushioned kitchen chair in the entry way of his store. I gave him the flyer and reading it was about "circus" he volunteered stories about his time in the circus back in the 70s and 80s.  You could see in his eyes that he missed the saw dust.  He did admit he didn't miss the long drives, however.
All in all we hit a pretty good number of stores and met a lot of people. Some we did tricks for some we just exchanged the pleasantries of asking, "Would you put this in your window"...."OK".  
All in all it was a pleasant afternoon.

Later in the day the kids had gymnastics practice with an emphasis on acrobatics. Victor is expanding his Cossack dance to include some tumbles and flips.  

Colusa Family Festival

The weather man said that the storm of the century was going to hit today.  So we were worried that the heavy rains and gale force winds would keep people away let alone make driving to the Colusa Fairgrounds difficult. Well, it turned out that the whole thing was a bust. Heavy rain fell for about 10 minutes and we had already loaded the show into the venue before it hit. The sun would poke it's shiny little smile out from behind the clouds more often than not and the crowds came.   It was a beautiful day and the shows were awesome.  Victor performed his 55 gallon drum  escape  and it went very well.  

Spring Update: Shows, New Stuff and More

A couple of months back I published a picture of Victor Junior  standing in his new escape, the 55 gallon drum escape. At that time we were thinking of having him just escape from the sealed drum. The problem is that it would not really be an escape because there was no  way he could reach the locks to pick them. Sure he would have to pick the leg and hand cuffs then manage to dematerialize  and  somehow reappear outside the sealed drum.  The first thing the modern audience would think is "Trick drum".  We actually went through ideas of gimmicking-up the drum somehow to allow that to happen.  It would be like Houdini's Milk Can Escape that has been revealed by multiple people on TV and is all over the internet and in books.  A Houdini biographer, Walter Gibson, even described how it was done over 60 years ago.    In fact, we actually thought of buying one for thousands of dollars when my kids asked me what a Milk Can was.  Oh, yeah, outside magicdom and old farm equipment collectors nobody knows what a Milk Can is. And truth be told no milk can was ever made big enough to hold an adult.   That is why we went with oil drum. But instead of trying to gimmick it up to facilitate a magic trick we decided to make it a full  tilt escape. Victor's hands come up out of two 3 1/2" holes and are cuffed with real police handcuffs that can be fully inspected by the audience. The drum likewise, the whole thing...lid, locks, clasps,  top bottom, dolly, etc can be inspected to the audience's content.  Victor wears a skin tight bike-tard (a leotard with bike shorts cut, like in wrestling). He is fully inspected for keys. Even if he had one his hands are chained outside the  barrel so he couldn't reach it anyways.  I give him a hair pin.  That is all.  He  will attempt the escape by picking the cuffs then the locks, which are barely within reach through the holes...all while trying to hold his breath with that hair pin.    

 So you can see this is going to be an exciting stunt.   He will present it without the water this coming week end at the Colusa Family Fair at the Colusa County fairgrounds.

 That segues us into the up coming shows. We perform tomorrow 10 am -2pm at the Colusa County Fairgrounds at the Family fair in conjunction with Western Days.
We will be at San Rafael's Trinity Lutheran Church on the morning of April 7th and at Stockton's First Baptist Church Easter Sunday Morning for two big shows.

To celebrate World Circus Day on April 21 we will be at Oroville's Feather River and Recreation's Gymnastic academy to perform our circus stunts and have hands on demonstrations and activities.  It's Free.

 May 11 at 5:30pm after the Feather Fiesta Day's Kiddie Parade we will have our Big Theater Show at the Historic State Theater.  Guest strolling magician JC Dunn will perform strolling magic in the lobby prior to the show. Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for kids.

We have more events coming up and I will be posting our full tour in an upcoming blog.

www.antimonkeybutt.com

Jim Balanced a suit of armor on his face today!