Strange but true: Damage to Pride

New stories are added at the end.

A street performer was doing his finale of torches atop a giraffe unicycle. Children, poorly supervised by their parents, were edging dangerously close to the performer, who was working in a confined space and could not back up. Then, he dropped a torch, which barely missed and landed at the feet of an adorable little toehead, who was quickly whisked away by its outraged parents. The show ended badly.

Another street performer was getting really silly. He was more than a bit drunk, and announced brashly that he would now pierce his nipple! "Does anyone have a needle?" (assuming no one will) "Yea, I do", announces a punker from the back of the crowd. The juggler proceeds to learn a painful lesson.

To put it simply- *Never* bounce juggle wearing a short skirt. I was at a pretty formal political meeting and it was just ending. Some people asked me if I could juggle. I figured I wouldn't do anything under the leg because I had on a short skirt. However, there was one other danger I didn't predict. One bad throw and a bounce ball was up my skirt. Almost everyone pretended not to notice, but I'm still embarassed just recalling the incident. Talk about unfortunate places! I guess most of you are men, but if you ever consider wearing a skirt while juggling, think twice.

I once tried a diabolo whip-catch, caught the main light instead, and that blew the fuse on the box under the stairs.

Then there was the time.....I set the street on fire. 1) I dip my torches in a GLASS container, full of fuel. 2) Before I shake out the torches, an audience member volunteers to light said torches. 3) Audience member approaches. 4) While I am holding the dripping torches over the glass container, the audience member lights my torches. 5) I continue with show. 6) Audience seems to be amazed by my juggling prowess, as I can tell by their alarmed and amazed faces. 7) My partner notices the glass container of fuel is sitting in a pool of fuel that dripped from my torches. The pool of fuel is burning. 8) My partner tries to push the glass container out of the fire. 9) Container tips over and breaks. 10) Bigger pool of flaming fuel now encompasses bag of juggling props. 11) Friend leaps through flames to rescue bag of props. 12) Audience is much larger now, but a little bit further away. 13) My partner and I finish the show with flames, and billowing black smoke as our backdrop.

The first time I tried fire swinging, I 'forgot' that I was wearing an acrylic jumper, and managed to set my back on fire without noticing. I turned to my sister when I realised that my neck was getting a bit warm and came out with "have I set myself on fire or something Stupid like that?..." Luckily I was wearing a cotton t-shirt underneath so I didn't get burning Nylon all over me, but I did loose my fave Jumper...

One sad night, not too long ago, I was showing off some torch juggling for some girls. I was doing fairly easy tricks, backross, under the leg, mills mess, doubles, needless to say they wanted more. So, I took a chance, and began doing my newly learned trick, the chin roll. I did one, and then back to the cascade, but finally, I let it all hang out. Unfortunately, tragedy struck on my third consecutive chin roll: With a mild twitch of the neck, at EXACTLY the wrong moment, a club froze in its position, and instead of falling off the side of my chin, it fell directly back into my face. It layed back flush against my lips and nose, and I hurriedly swatted it off. I was playing it off with some jokes, and getting some big laughs. But the laughs werent at my jokes, they were at my appearance, my face was exremely BLACKENED, and unbeknownst to me at that time, my hair was singed. Thats the bad part. After 7 years of shaved heads, I decided to let my hair grow out, at the time of the accident, the long hair was 1 year old, and hung down below my chin. But when I got inside to inspect my face, I discovered that my hair did'nt even go below my nose, in fact it barely covered my forehead. Well, I died a little that night...I was forced to shave my head on the spot.

I have a juggling accident. I was performing in front of about 20 kids ages 5-10 and I was with my partner and we were swapping torches from one another side to side. Well on cue, a torch dropped, I went to grab it and the other torch landed on my head and burned 3/4 of my hair right off my head... The kids enjoyed the show, and wanted me to burn my hair off again. I was not hurt, but did lose all my hair in that 10 second span. I was at the time only in sixth grade and my partner put the flames out and we laughed it off with the crowd. The reason I think I could laugh about it was due to the fact that I was not hurt in the incident. Other than that, after years of juggling giant machetes, axes, cleavers, knives, and numerous other REAL dangerous items, I have never had an accident....Just the one flame out. All of my props were quite real, direct from the hardware store.

I was juggling on the beach in Italy and threw a stray ball only to find out that it had landed on a very attractive topless girl on the beach ... we are now getting married in june!

One time I was juggling at the Silver Leaf Renaissance Fair and I went to do this trick where I bounce it off my head, but instead of it going straight up it went forward. Straight into the face of this tall woman. After apoligizing she gave me a dollar as a tip.

A juggler told me of the time he was demonstrating the correct way to finish with eggs - you throw one high, catch the other two, and put them both in the same hand. Then make the last catch in an empty hand. He threw one high and *crunch* it broke on the ceiling.

It was a fine, sunny, perfect-busking-weather day. Lou (not real name!) is pulling off an incredible diabolo routine (as always). At around mid-point, he sets up for a powerful whip catch. Misses. The colourful prop hits the ground doing 7 million RPMs. Square. Shoots off like a bullet, just shy of the speed of sound, and comes to rest directly in... A baby carriage. With a resounding THWACK!! Silence. Once everyone's heart stopped palpatating, they relized the mother was holding the child. All in all, a good show.

I was in Washington this fall and since there are no juggling stores where I live I visited juggling capitol. Anyway, I got hungry when I was there so I decided to have something at the food court below this store. I ordered a sandwich and a coke, paid and went to find a table. Well, when I reach the middle of the floor, the styrofoam tray bends! My pop falls to the ground, but my juggling reflexes takes over and I catch it. This movement makes the sandwich fall from the tray, and my juggling reflexes decides once again to save it, so I throw the coke up again(!) in order to catch the sandwich... This time I wasn't as lucky... SPLASH!! Well, at least the other guests liked it, and I got a new meal for free.

I was practicing my five ball cascade while waiting for the bus. I had a few good runs of about 50 (good for me at least). All the busses arrived but I still had a few more minutes so I kept juggling. A couple minutes before the bus was going to leave, I put the balls away and pulled out my wallet to get my pass out. I dropped the wallet, it hit the curb and went under the bus. I stooped down to pick it up and when I stood up, I hit my head on the steps for the bus. The bus driver made a comment something like, "You're a pretty good juggler, but you're not very coordinated are you?" I hung my head in shame and sat down on the bus.

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