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Steve's Origin Story
737 Plays2 years ago
Our first episode story is dedicated to Steve Brown's origin story. Find out how he went from homeless in Tallahassee to becoming a professional yoyo player who would eventually go on to create 5A (counterweight) style yoyoing, one of the five divisions of play at every yoyo contest in the world. It's a hell of a story.
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Steve Brown. And I'm Mark McBride. And this is a podcast about that time we made up two whole new styles of yo-yo play and at the time nobody cared and now a few people care maybe.
Evolution of Yo-Yo Technology
00:00:35
Speaker
Alright, so this podcast really is going to be about kind of the modern history of yo-yoing and our place in it. You know, you and I, we were exactly lucky enough to come around at just the right time where as far as yo-yoing is concerned, like almost nothing existed. So it was really easy for us to become like foundational parts of modern yo-yoing because
00:01:00
Speaker
You know, we came around at exactly the right time when the technology improved dramatically and the players hadn't yet. Duncan had stopped doing promotion, like the regular promotions that we think of in the seventies. And then there was a lot of stuff going on in the background, which refired Yo-Yo's built through the eight in the back, like underneath everything in the eighties.
00:01:22
Speaker
in 90s, then when it refired in the 90s, there was a huge vacuum left from the fact that nothing had happened for 20 years. Yeah. The tricks hadn't changed. The technology hadn't changed. And then all of a sudden, like late 80s, early 90s, transaxle yoyos and ball bearing yoyos started happening. And so all of a sudden now, like the yoyos could now spend 10 times as long and nobody knew what to do with that because the old guard, like the older guys that were still around
00:01:52
Speaker
They were like, oh, well, I can just do several of my tricks and then catch it. And they weren't coming up with anything new on top of that. So it was there's like an early skateboarding quote from Craig Stesic where he he basically says, you know, like, of course kids would come up with the new thing. And that's what happened with Yo-Yo. And like we were we were old enough to have like
00:02:17
Speaker
ideas about things, but we were young enough not to ever find any of it daunting or impossible. So we just did it, you know, and a lot of people, you know, like a lot of yo-yo players have asked like, how'd you come up with this? How'd you come up with this? And I'm like, dude, anybody can come up with anything and avoid.
00:02:34
Speaker
You know, it's not hard to be creative when there's nothing, there's nothing else.
Creation of New Yo-Yo Divisions
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. There's so much room, but let's do this. But like, man, we could like yo-yoing has like this two seams. There's like modern yo-yoing and pre-modern yo-yoing. Like, like that's huge story. And yeah, we happen to be right there at the crack and the transition between the two. So there's five divisions of play. One, two, three, four, five a.
00:02:59
Speaker
I made up 5A, you made up 3A, 1A and 2A have existed since like the fucking 1930s. That's 40% of the divisions of the World Yoyo Contest, dude. So yeah, so 40% of the divisions of the World Yoyo Contest have been around since the 30s.
Steve's Early Yo-Yo Journey
00:03:19
Speaker
The other 40% were created by the two of us within a what, like five year span? Velvet Rolls was a year before
00:03:27
Speaker
five it before you showed up for 99 BAC. So yeah, they were within a year of each other. So yeah. So in a one year span, you and I created 40% of modern yoyoing and I have made shit for money off of that. That's the problem with royalties. The percentage of a small amount is still a small amount.
00:03:54
Speaker
Let's start the Steve Brown origin story. 5A premiered at BAC 99, but Steve Brown did not start yo-yoing in January of 99. And I know this because I knew you before you yo-yoed.
00:04:12
Speaker
No, you didn't. I did. No, you met me when I started at Lofty Pursuits. No, no. I still remember when I met you and it was before you started at Lofty Pursuits and I'll tell you why. I met you
00:04:27
Speaker
one night, and I don't know why I remember this, but other than it's been one hell of a ride, Mr. Brown,
Struggles and Resilience
00:04:37
Speaker
that I remember being at the Student Union at Florida State University, and Oliver, or Raines, walked up. We were seeing, I wouldn't even say like, dazed and confused, it was some movie,
00:04:51
Speaker
when they were showing and walked up and they said, hey, this is my buddy, Steve. And I think that, and I remember that it was something that like,
00:05:02
Speaker
They might even made a joke about this, but I remember that you and I had like, like you had a black leather jacket on and obviously Rains and Oliver who were not black leather jacket type guys would, you know, kind of thing. So you were introduced. So we were introduced there because of whatever gothy circles you hung with CPA kids. The, what was the, what was the coffee shop? Epitome. Epitome. The epitome kids.
00:05:30
Speaker
epitome community coffee museum exactly i remember so we became like standard friend of friends type stuff through that and i and i remember this because there was a point where you were trying to get a job at lofty and greg actually asked me should i hire steve brown he seems like he's he seems like a soft enough guy and greg was like
00:05:53
Speaker
I'm really just hiring him to sit in the back and screw yo-yos together." And I was like, yeah, he's probably good for manual
Success at Lofty Pursuits
00:06:01
Speaker
labor. We got to start earlier than that, because I know enough of your history that it did not start with you saying, I should really screw yo-yos together in the back of a shop in Tallahassee, Florida.
00:06:11
Speaker
No, no. Steve Brown started somewhere in 1976. I was born in 76. My first experience with the yo-yo was somewhere around like 87 or 88. And what it is is there was a school down the street and they had like a day camp thing that my parents were sending me off to because it was walkable. Like I literally could just like walk down there and then walk home afterwards.
00:06:40
Speaker
So my parents signed me up for this day camp and some yo-yo guy came and part of the day camp is they were, they were, they taught us like the five tricks, right? Throw a sleeper, walk the dog around the world, forward pass, rock the baby. And, you know, they taught us these tricks and then, you know, they gave us like a week to learn them and then they were going to have a little five trick contest at the end of it.
00:07:03
Speaker
So I spent my week like practicing, practicing. And I had a neighbor, Brian Colleen, who had a Dunkin' Glow Imperial, which is way better than the crappy Dunkin' Neo that I had. Yeah. And so I would go over to his house every day after I got done with camp and he would let me use his Glow Imperial and I would practice my tricks. Now, let me pause you right there for a second. Now, we now know a lot of people who that was their career.
00:07:32
Speaker
And did that. Looking back, do you have any idea who that was? I have tried. I have I have racked my brain. I have tried so hard to figure out who the hell that was. And I've even gone so far as to quiz Brad Countryman, because here's the thing. The prize for the contest was a hummingbird yo-yo. OK. So it was not a Duncan. So this was somebody who like not only were they a yo-yo demonstrator, but they were a yo-yo demonstrator who was paying attention.
00:08:01
Speaker
Right. So this was somebody who like knew other yo-yo players and knew Brad somehow. I've not been able to figure out who it was. I would love to find this person. So, you know, if anybody hears this and you happen to have been like running five trick yo-yo contests at summer camps in Jacksonville, Florida in the mid 80s.
00:08:20
Speaker
and giving away hummingbird yoyos as prizes, please find me.
Path to Professional Yo-Yoing
00:08:25
Speaker
So, you know, it was like a week or two weeks of like practice, practice, practice, and then we had like the five trick contest. And then they said for a bonus point, you can, if you made up a trick, you can do it. And I hadn't made up a trick, but I had found double or nothing in that old green Duncan trick book that Brian Colleen had. And so I did it, which everybody was like, whoa! And I won the contest.
00:08:50
Speaker
So I won the contest, I got the hummingbird yo-yo, which I still have. I've still got it sitting upstairs in a display case. And every once in a while I pull, I mean, and that thing is beat to hell, but every once in a while I pull it out and play with it, still plays really sweet. That was my first experience with yo-yoing. And I played the hell out of that yo-yo all summer long. And then, you know, summer was over, school started, it went into a box or it went into a drawer and that was it. I didn't think about it again for years.
00:09:17
Speaker
Cause I remember when you started, you were not like, check out my tricks that I can do. No, but you know what? I remembered those six tricks and it was remembering those six tricks that got me the job. Fast forward to, um,
00:09:32
Speaker
you know, 1995. So I have graduated, I graduated high school in 94. By 95, I was, I had moved from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, and I had managed to end up through a series of incredibly piss-poor decisions. I had managed to end up unemployed and homeless in Tallahassee.
00:09:52
Speaker
And it was I mean, it was like the classic like idiot 20 year old, like just dumb assery. You know, I like moved. I moved from Jacksonville to Tallahassee with exactly the wrong people. They turned out to be just absolute garbage roommates. I had like a crappy food service job that, you know, what attracted you to Tallahassee? Why Tallahassee? I moved to Tallahassee because it was not Jacksonville. That was literally it. I just had to get the hell out of Jacksonville.
00:10:21
Speaker
And like I, you know, I had these two friends that were like talking about moving to Tallahassee and I'm like, dude, let's go. Like I'll help pay rent. I'll pay whatever we need to do. Like, let's go. And they were just, and for them, they were like, Oh, cool. We got a third person helping pay rent. Like, awesome. Let's do this. Now it's the, the, for a lot of people that don't know is that's less random than it sounds because Tallahassee was, uh, like a major college town in Northern and North Florida, because that's where,
00:10:48
Speaker
Florida State University is. Yeah, it was a major college town. The weird thing about it is that neither of my roommates were going to college. So I don't know why they picked Tallahassee. But for me, it was like, I didn't care. I just wanted to get the fuck out of Jacksonville. I just wanted to get out of there.
00:11:03
Speaker
So it was it was kind of random, honestly, like it's I mean, it's not random to go to Tallahassee. It's pretty random to choose Tallahassee if you're not going to college.
Community and Competitions
00:11:14
Speaker
So I ended up in Tallahassee. The two roommates turned out to just be like awful people.
00:11:19
Speaker
you know, was dating this girl at the time and then I moved in with her and then that whole thing blew up. And it was just like, in the span of a week, I lost my job and then broke off this relationship and was just like wandering around Tallahassee with like a big army duffel bag with everything I owned in it. In those boots, I still remember though. Oh my gosh. You were such a, like, we used to tease you about being a stick of beef jerky because you were skinny and smoked too much and
00:11:48
Speaker
The, and I remember in classic punk rock fashion, you had the army boots because back in the day, like it was still punk rock to use military surplus stuff. Well, cause docs were too expensive, but you know, you, like, it was, it was like, it was like 80 or 90 bucks for a pair of docs, but you could get like army surplus combat boots for like 40 bucks. And I swear there were three sizes too big for you. Well, I've got, I've got like a size, I wear like a size 12.
00:12:17
Speaker
So the and the problem is, is that combat boots look big and ridiculous anyway. So it was like, yeah, I mean, they looked like they looked like fucking clown shoes, of course. Yeah, just you walk it around with military surplus, like duffel bag clown shoe boots, a hardware store wallet chain, which was never meant to be a wallet chain. No. Yeah, my my wallet chain at the time weighed probably 10 pounds.
00:12:46
Speaker
Oh, it weighed more than you did. We used to always laugh about it. Yeah, it was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. But, you know, that's yeah. So, you know, I was wandering around town. I was wandering around town. I weighed under 100 pounds at that point with, you know, everything I owned lugging around in a duffel bag behind me. And I found I found a couple of spots to sleep. I found a few spots on campus that I could get into like if it was raining.
00:13:15
Speaker
where I could get into to like stay dry and then I found a spot on top of there was a subway on
00:13:23
Speaker
What was the main drag in Tallahassee? Tennessee. Tennessee. So Tennessee Street. So there was there was a subway there and I found like this little spot that was kind of like half covered on the roof. And so I would sleep there or I would sleep in one of like the fully covered spots on campus that I could find or I would literally like crash in like friends cars or like couch surf like I mean I was bouncing all over the place. That's what I knew. Like my memory.
00:13:52
Speaker
was that you were always living with somebody else. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing is I don't think anybody, most of my friends at the time didn't realize that I was like full blown homeless because I was kind of covering my tracks. I didn't stay with anybody for too terribly long and I didn't want to tell anybody what was actually
Full Commitment to Yo-Yo Competitions
00:14:09
Speaker
going on because I was embarrassed about it.
00:14:11
Speaker
So I just, you know, sort of bullshitted my way through things and and just I spend my days walking around town just like putting in applications everywhere. So one day I wandered into lofty pursuits, which was the kite store that you were working at at the time.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah, wandered in there and I had met Greg at epitome because I hung out at epitome the epitome community coffee museum, which is such like a perfect 90s coffee shop. You know, it was really dead during the daytime because the students didn't start coming in until later in the afternoon.
00:14:49
Speaker
And so Helene would let me like crash out on like a couch in the back and I would help like sweep up and like clean up and stuff. And she would, you know, give me a meal and some coffee. So I was hanging out there like a lot and like starting to like make some friends and everything. And I remember Greg coming in, didn't know who he was. He was just this big loud dude. You know, Greg was the kind of person that like, if he was in a room, you knew it. Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't necessarily know him. I didn't know anything. He wasn't even talking about his business or anything. He was just being very Greg.
00:15:19
Speaker
So when I walked into lofty pursuits that day and saw him, like I immediately recognized him. I was like, you know, Hey, I saw the sign in the window. Are you guys still hiring? And he just kind of looks at me and I was, I mean, I was disgusting. I had been walking around all day. The shop was like a couple of miles from where I was sleeping. So I was, I mean, it was like midday.
00:15:39
Speaker
Tallahassee, like I was sweating. I was dirty. I'm sure I smelled like a monkey's asshole wearing filthy clothes, giant combat boots, like just real thin. Like it's a wonder any place let me walk in the door, period. And so he just kind of looks at me and he's like, uh, can you juggle? And I'm like, no. He's like, can you yo yo? I'm like, no.
00:16:06
Speaker
And he was just like, well, come back when you can, and maybe I'll give you a job. And he just like turned around and wandered off. So I fucking stole a yo-yo. I totally stole a yo-yo. He had like the, he had like this weird little corner display case with like a handful of yo-yo sitting on those bent acrylic stands. You remember the case? No, I'm going to laugh because.
00:16:30
Speaker
One thing I will give Greg credit for a lot of things, but I remember one of the things that we did there, you know, a lot of times turns out that stealing isn't about what people want. It's just about stealing, you know, like a lot of shoplifting is just kids being kids. Right.
00:16:47
Speaker
we literally had at the cart in the mall and also at the shop, he had a basket of the cheapest crappiest yo-yos, the $1 impulse sale yo-yos. And so we were like, oh, we put those out for like the little impulse sale and I'm using air quotes kind of thing. He's like, yeah, but it's also, it's basically a shoplifter trap.
00:17:10
Speaker
It was the yoyos that you put out for kids that think they're going to shoplift. And then they would take one of those and it was like a 25 cent piece of crap yoyo. And it's like, it's stubborn. So I'm just having flashes to you, like going like, oh yeah, I'm going to steal a yoyo. Zoinks! And it would just be like, take it. No, but I stole a decent one. I stole a Pro-Yo. Oh, nice. And it had like the brass hex axle. Like I remember this model in particular. It had a brass hex axle in it.
00:17:39
Speaker
Uh, and I totally just pocketed it and like left quickly and I'm sure he noticed immediately, but whatever. Um, and so I thought I practiced like, I was like, I could kind of remember the tricks from when I was a kid. So like I got the sleeper back and I got like the forward pass and the around the world and like the.
00:17:58
Speaker
Proyos were super narrow. So like being able to hit that trapeze and that double or nothing like was kind of hard. That's basically what I spent the week on. And so then I go back and I slipped the yo-yo out of my pocket and put it back on the display case next to the other Proyo that he had replaced it with. Real slick and.
00:18:17
Speaker
I was just like, hey, you know, are you guys still hiring? And he's like, I feel like we've had this conversation before, you know, can you juggle? And I'm like, yeah. And I grabbed three balls and I had literally like, you know, using like rocks and like bundled up socks and everything, like figured out how to just juggle three balls. Couldn't do a single trick, but I could like get three in the air and then catch them, you know, and that was it. And he was just like, all right. And I was like, and I can yo yo too. And he was just like, what? And I was like, yeah.
00:18:46
Speaker
And I go and I walk over to the little display case and I surreptitiously grab the pro-yo that I had stolen and putting back. And he just kind of looks at me and I took the yo-yo and I immediately did like sleeper, walk the dog, rock the baby, trapeze. And then when I hit the double or nothing, he just looked at me. So Greg goes, you're hired. And I'm like, really? And he goes, no.
00:19:12
Speaker
And I'm like, he just goes, no. And I'm like, what? And he's like, no. And he's just like, you know, it's great that you learned how to do these things, but I don't know. I don't know you. I can't just hire you and let you in my store. And I'm like, OK. But I like I learned how to yo yo. And he's like, yeah, how did you do that? And I'm like, uh.
00:19:37
Speaker
So yeah, so I was just like, okay, well, you know, if you need anybody, uh, you can reach me. And I gave him the number for epitome. Cause he was like, you know, what's the number I can reach you at? And I was like, uh, you can call here and just ask for Steve. And he's like, is this your house? And I'm like, no.
00:20:00
Speaker
I was like, it's a coffee shop that I hang out at sometimes, which is a terrible thing to tell somebody you're trying to get a job for.
00:20:09
Speaker
But then I saw him at the pit that night, and I was just like, hey, how's it going? And he's like, so you really do just hang out here? And I'm like, yeah. And we talked a little bit, but he was very wary of me, and rightfully so. I was sketchy as fuck, and I literally just auditioned for a job with a yo-yo that I stole and returned. I would love to do a better placement of all the
00:20:34
Speaker
people involved because I feel like he got to a point of going like, Hey, what about this Steve guy after? I feel like Arlo was already working for him and like Lori and a couple other people. Like there was a stack of people and then he needed more people. That came later.
00:20:52
Speaker
because I mean, because when I first started, when he did finally hire me, which I mean, I was like, he would come into the epitome regularly, and I was mercilessly hounding him. And I think at one point he talked to Helene and Helene was like, yeah, I know he's a lot, but he's a good kid. And so at some point he hired me, but he hired me specifically because that was when Dale Oliver started Spintastics, which at the time was still called Oliver's Toys.
00:21:21
Speaker
And Greg had basically said, well, you know, I've already got a shop making juggling equipment. I can assemble your yoyos for you, no problem. And so he got that gig. And then he that was the point where he's like, I need more hands because the juggling stuff was still going strong. So, you know, he was still making like juggling torches and double sticks and filling juggling balls and all this stuff.
00:21:44
Speaker
And then all of a sudden he needed more hands to do the yo-yos. And I was just hounding him mercilessly. So that was it. That was my job was sitting in the back of that crappy little back room on Tharp Street and and just assembling these Oliver Toys, fantastic yo-yos, which I immediately pocketed a couple of them and then kept practicing yo-yoing. And that's like that's all I did is like I just I assembled yo-yos and then I would take smoke breaks and yo-yo the whole time. That was all I did.
00:22:13
Speaker
I remember Dale came through town. Like after we had started doing like the assembly process, cause yeah, we would get the stuff Greg had enough of kind of workforce and or tap of these like epitome pseudo college kids that he could just fill out the ranks and just be building the stuff for Dale. And there was a point where Dale actually came through town. We all got to like meet Dale. Yeah. And I remember after that.
00:22:43
Speaker
joking with Mike and or Greg and or Chuck, the guys, you know, the guys at the shop about how like you just spend like however many days with Dale. And when he left, it was like, Dale was the coolest kid on the playground. I'm going to be like, Dale, did you hear Dale's story about this? And it was like, oh, there it goes.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, no, and it was, I mean, it was one of those things where like hanging out and talking to him, I realized for whatever reason, I was like, oh, this could be my thing. This could be the thing that I do as a job because, you know, it had never, it certainly never occurred to me before then, you know, just sitting in that back room and assembling yo-yos, you know, I was just grateful to, you know, starting to be approaching this point where I would have enough money to pay rent somewhere and could actually like live somewhere, which is what that job let me do.
00:23:37
Speaker
Oh gosh, I hope that Greg doesn't get pissed at us for telling this story. We would worry the account wasn't going to have enough money to cash your paycheck and so we would always like get our paychecks on Friday or like every other Friday and then we would race. And I remember one time Yumi and Chuck like Chuck had the car. We drove to the bank because we were like going to go get some lunch like
00:24:02
Speaker
And we're like, Oh, we all got to cash our patients because none of us had any money just so that we could get Wendy's or something. And like, we parked and we're all starting to walk. I started to walk faster. We all started walking. And then by the time we got to the door, we had broken into a run to see who could get to the line of the pack first. The third guy's check was going to bounce. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, you know, it was, uh,
00:24:29
Speaker
Greg's early operation was pretty skin of its teeth. I don't know how it is now, but like- It's a lot better now. I will give Greg credits a lot better now. Yeah. So that, you know, my job was basically just sitting in the back assembling stuff. And then he set up the cart at the mall for the first time that holiday season. The holiday cart, the cart had been there for a little while because that's when I started working there. I was working at the cart between classes.
00:24:57
Speaker
I hadn't been working there that long. I mean like you know like less than a year and then and you were yeah you were one of the the keep them in the back trolls but at some point dot dot dot yeah so what happened is somebody didn't show up somebody was supposed to open the cart and it was I don't remember who it was it it was some random person that he had hired temporarily for the season it wasn't like one of the regulars but so that this random person was like a total no call no show
00:25:26
Speaker
And with the mall, like if you had one of those carts or if you had a store or whatever it was, if you open late, they would find you like 100 bucks or 150 bucks for like every 15 minutes late you opened. Because, you know, obviously, I mean, it's the mall like they don't want you. They don't want people walking to the store and seeing things that are closed during normal mall operating hours.
00:25:49
Speaker
I'm at the shop and I'm sitting in the back assembling stuff. And I mean, at the time I had like this fucking huge mohawk and Greg is just like, can you run a cash register? And I'm like, yeah. And he was like, here, put this hat on. And he just like threw a hat to me and I like put this hat on. And he gave me a lofty pursuits t-shirt to throw on. And he drove me out to the mall and was like, here's the keys. Everything's underneath. Just go.
00:26:14
Speaker
I'll be back in like an hour or two. And so I'm just like, oh yeah. So I let go tearing ass in there, unlock the thing, get everything open, try to pull out the inventory and set everything up and try and make it look decent.
00:26:29
Speaker
And I had no idea how to run the cash register. It's so like I had five bucks in my pocket. That was it. That was all I fucking had. And I gave the guy at the sunglass booth next to us five bucks. I was like, dude, will you teach me how to use this thing? Because he had the same one taught me how to use the cash register and I like figured it all out. And then I just sat there and Greg did not come back in an hour. Greg was gone the entire rest of the day.
00:26:55
Speaker
So around like, I guess it was around like 3 30 ish or something like the kids were getting out of school and showing up at the mall.
00:27:02
Speaker
And I had spent the whole day at this point watching the Arnie Dixon instructional video. On a loop. And watching, yeah, on a loop. And alternating between that and this juggling instructional video. I can't remember the dude's name, but I remember he had this Mormon brown haircut, and he was wearing a red v-neck sweater. And it was the dorkiest looking thing imaginable.
00:27:27
Speaker
But you know, I wasn't learning like somebody made a VHS how to juggle video that was dorky. Yeah, I know hard to believe right. So I spent the day like working on like trying to learn a couple of yo-yo tricks and trying to learn a couple of juggling tricks by the time like the kids started to get out of school, like I could do like
00:27:46
Speaker
Instead of just being able to juggle three balls, I could kind of do like two tricks with three balls, but I'd figured out like four or five more yo-yo tricks, like relatively quickly. So by the time the kids got out of school and like, and keep in mind, I'm like 21, 22 at this point.
00:28:07
Speaker
No, no, I'm still like 20. I'm still like 1920 at this point. So I was, I was exactly the right age to be like in that, like cool older brother zone. Right. So these kids show up at the cart and I'm just hanging out and I'm throwing like the rumor rings. Oh yeah.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, little foam boomerang with like a 10 foot radius. So you just like throw it, catch it, throw it, catch it. And, you know, they see that and they come by the booth and they're like looking at the yo-yo's and I'm like, oh, here you want to see yo-yo trick? And I, you know, it did like my five or six tricks or whatever that I could do. And I sold like a shit load of yo-yo's.
00:28:45
Speaker
Because there's I mean, this is, you know, this is when you could get like an OK, yo-yo for like five or six bucks. We had the it was the Dale Oliver stuff. The Spentastics, the Dale, the Oliver's toys. Technics were like five dollars or six dollars. I'm going to stop you for a second. I'm going to stop. I'm going to jump on your story because it's funnier if you don't tell this part. So you did you did your day. But so but Greg goes, picks you up, brings you back to the shop as per the arrangement. Right. You were gone and Greg was like, dude, Steve's numbers killed.
00:29:17
Speaker
He was surprised, and I was like, I mean, none of us had high hopes. It was mostly just like, hey, look, he didn't burn the place down. It was going to be a success. But so Greg was genuinely surprised that you were like, wow, you really crushed it. He's a charismatic guy that talks a lot. I'm sure sales are in his blood, you know?
00:29:40
Speaker
He could talk a big game, so I guess we should be surprised. And we're like, no, maybe he's just lucky. I think he's just lucky. It might have just been luck. And then you had multiple days. There was a couple of days where Greg's like, oh, we'll send Steve back out to the card after that. And it was just like, look, the numbers were really good. And it was like, it must be luck. Steve's so funny looking. It's got to be luck. And so we're like,
00:30:07
Speaker
He's obviously a leprechaun. It's just that Steve's a leprechaun. After about five of these, I guess a week or two later, he was telling a story about how he would drive you out to the store.
00:30:19
Speaker
You drive you out to the cart, do your thing, then come and get you after the shift's over, and whoever's doing the second shift, and after like, we'll say five to six really good days in a row of crushing it, having the best numbers you can, you were doing a little like, I'm a little leprechaun, I'm the lucky leprechaun dancing song in the van, or your car on the way back.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, but that, so that first day he came, he came back to the cart and it was end of the day and I was exhausted because I was, you know, like I didn't realize how busy it was at all. I was not prepared for that. He's like, he's looking around the cart and he walks up and he's got kind of a weird look on his face. He's looking around and he's looking at all the stock on the cart and he doesn't say anything to me. And then he immediately like goes underneath and like opens up the storage doors underneath and he's like looking and he's like, where is everything?
00:31:10
Speaker
And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, where is the inventory? And I'm like, Oh, there wasn't that much underneath. Like, you know, every time we'd sell stuff, I'd sort of pull more out to make it like look full, but like, we're kind of out. And I didn't understand what he was getting at.
00:31:25
Speaker
And I, but I realized later, like he told me later, he thought that I had just, that we, I had just given away shit or we had gotten robbed. Like until he ran the numbers and realized I had actually sold stuff, he walked up to the cart and saw like this dumb ass that he entrusted with his cart for the day. And a bunch of his inventory gone and just automatically assumed the worst.
00:31:47
Speaker
So he's like, he's walking around the cart and checking everything out and everything. And then he does like the end of day and like pulls the numbers and he's not talking to me at this point. He's not saying anything, but he's clearly irritated. And he's like, pull it in, like looks at the numbers and he looks at me and then he just stuffs all of it in his pocket. And he's like, all right, where do you need to ride to? And I'm like, you can just drop me off at the pit. That's fine. And so he drops me. He doesn't say a word on the whole fucking drive there. Doesn't say shit to me.
00:32:17
Speaker
drops me off at the coffee house and leaves and I'm like, I'm fucked. I just lost this job. I don't know what is going on, but he is mad about it or something. Like, I don't know what I did. What did I fuck? And I'm sitting there like all night long and I'm just sitting there hanging out with friends, drinking coffee all night. And I'm just like, I don't know what I did, but like, I thought I, you know, I thought I nailed it. I thought I did really good. And this guy seems really pissed off at me and I think I fucked it up somehow.
00:32:42
Speaker
So it's really funny that, you know, that that was basically just him being in shock and assuming there was something wrong with those numbers. Again, you were a leprechaun. He was lucky, you know. Yeah. I can't imagine why he would immediately, why anybody would go with leprechaun. I think you were the one who did the leprechaun thing. I think, I think that we just called you lucky and you were the one who was like, I'm gonna do a leprechaun. I mean, that's,
00:33:05
Speaker
I guess that's plausible. It sounds like the kind of dumbass joke I would make. So that was it. So that was that was how I started. Like that was sort of my reentry into yo-yoing. And then from that point, like he had me at the cart all the time. And I was just I would sit there and I would watch all of the instructional videos. So he had the the Arnie Dixon videos. He had all four volumes of those awful Dennis McBride.
00:33:28
Speaker
videos where it's just him standing in front of his garage door showing yo-yo tricks. And I just sat and watched yo-yo and juggling videos all day long and just practiced and practiced and practiced. And mostly like I would get there and have to open the card at 9 a.m., but the kids didn't get out of school and show up until like three o'clock in the afternoon. So every single day I had five, six hours to just practice completely unbothered. And yeah, you and I must have
00:33:59
Speaker
I had at least Wednesdays and maybe a couple other days a week where I was doing that morning shift too. And yeah, like you had nothing to do because nobody showed up and it was just sit around and learn every prop and work on your tricks. And that's, you know, he sold enough stuff. Like we had the room rings, we had the stunt kites, we had darts, we had juggling equipment.
00:34:27
Speaker
We had the yoyos, we had spin tops, we had stacking dice. Like, I mean, it was just like every random skill toy of any kind. And we had to be able to, to demo all of it. So we learned all of it. And I got to say, like, I mean, it was, you know, it was, you know, it was, you know,
00:34:42
Speaker
Like there was definitely, like yo-yos are definitely what I went for, like fully. But I mean, I got up to being like a solid five ball juggler. I was able to, I qualified seven like a couple of times. Never got any kind of good at that, but like I was able to kind of get it like two or three times. I remember that was the tension where I never got five balls, but I could do four balls and you skipped four balls.
00:35:09
Speaker
And that was like the, like you razzied me for being like the even juggler and you were the, you were the more manly five ball. Well, it was, and it was one of those things that I realized later is that like evens and odds are so completely different that almost all jugglers fear off and do one or the other. And you know, like the better jugglers, like the more professional folks will learn both and they'll learn a bunch of tricks with both, but everybody has a preference because.
00:35:35
Speaker
Even numbers, the patterns don't cross and odd numbers, the patterns cross. So it's a totally different field, totally different vibe. But yeah, you always went for evens. I always went for odds, which is like a funny, it's definitely a funny way to kind of describe our friendship for sure.
00:35:48
Speaker
The other thing that I remember when you were absolutely embracing being Dale Oliver 2.0 was that you were getting on your high horse about transaxles where you were like, I can do everything you can do with a wood axle.
00:36:05
Speaker
Like everything that I would do with a transaxle, you were like out to prove that you could do with a wood axle. Well, and yeah, it was at this weird time when transaxles were out, but they weren't readily available and they still weren't very good. The only stuff that had bearings in it at the time was like the Tom Coon stuff and those were all still double looped.
00:36:29
Speaker
So the string, the string didn't slide around it. The Raider didn't come out until I had been working at lofty for like a year. I disagree with you on that. I'm pretty sure we had Raiders and RB twos before, but we also had the fireballs in the, what was the power? Fireball. We had the fireball and the power spin. Those, those are what you had when I first started the Raider. I remember when the Raider came out because the first one we got at the store.
00:36:53
Speaker
I was like, you know, how much longer of a spend time can a bearing really give you? And I threw it as hard as I was throwing wooden axles.
00:37:01
Speaker
And it came up faster than I was expecting and clocked me right in the forehead. And I almost knocked myself the fuck out. No, you know what that was? I remember this story. I'm going to steal your episode for a second. At some point, I had learned about the one-inch punch, like Bruce Lee's one-inch punch. Now, the physics of the one-inch punch is that
00:37:24
Speaker
you use your whole body. Now, usually, if you put your fist one inch away from something and tell someone to punch someone, they just use their elbow. They use their wrist elbow. But Bruce Lee would shift his whole body starting at his ankles and just send it up his arm like a wave so you have the full weight of your body hitting with that one. That's the physics of the one-inch punch. And we had always been telling kids,
00:37:52
Speaker
Like when you do a yo-yo throw, throw with your elbow, like get your elbow up so that you're using the weight of your arm, not just your wrist because that's what your natural inclination is to just throw a yo-yo with your wrist, but you gotta throw it with your whole arm. When I heard this, I was like, I wonder if the physics apply. I'm at my apartment, like my little one bedroom used to be a hotel cinder block apartment.
00:38:18
Speaker
And by myself one night and I'm like, I'm going to try this physics thing with this. So I got my, uh, whatever Yomega I had at the time, probably a power spin. Cause that was your Yoyo of choice for a long time. Yeah. I think I'm sure that it was my power spin. And so I kind of like, you know, I relaxed, I was like, thought this through again. And I'm like, I wonder how good, so, and I went and I.
00:38:42
Speaker
through it and it shot right out the end of the string, broke the string, bounced off three walls and landed in front of me.
00:38:49
Speaker
And I was like, holy cow. You know, so I came into the shop and I went, guys, I just broke a I just threw yo yo so hard. I broke it out the bottom of the street was I was trying we because we were we had done this with wooden axles like we were doing this all the time with wooden axles because with the wood and the cotton strings like it is really it is not that hard. And that was something that like I had prided myself on because I used to brag about carrying a sack of extra wooden axles in my pocket.
00:39:20
Speaker
Because I would burn them all day long. I would burn wooden axles. So it was I could no problem burn a wooden axle on a single throw. And you were like, yeah, I just did it with a transaxle. And I'm like, bullshit. Because this is exactly at our height of like anything you can do with the transaxle, I can do with the wood. Oh, my God. I forgot about this. You were all about like, I can do it with a trick. I don't know if you do with the transaxle. It was a raider. It was it was my first time throwing a raider because they had just come in that day.
00:39:50
Speaker
And I was like, all right, fine, I'm going to do it. And I, that thing came back so hard, clocked to me right in the face. Dude, I went down. I went down. You did. You did. I remember it so distinctly. You, you were like, I was like, okay, so here's the physics. You start like with a wave, start at the bottom, you throw it up and you're like, I got this. I got this. I'm going to do this, you know, like flexed. And then you go.
00:40:15
Speaker
Boom. And you're right. It didn't break. There's like a knot or something. It just went straight down and straight back to your forehead. I mean, I had I just had a third eye on my forehead for like a full two days after that. You hit yourself so hard. We like we all went like, oh, shit. You know, and you just held your head. And I just remember you putting your hand out and you just like it off my hand. Get this fucking thing off my hand. Yeah, I remember. And like I hit myself so hard that y'all didn't even laugh.
00:40:46
Speaker
Like you didn't laugh until later. I hit myself so hard that at that moment, you guys were like, I think Steve just fucking killed himself. Like that was so bad. And then afterwards, yeah, you had to get me a chair.
00:41:01
Speaker
I was you were you were like you were like leaning in the dart lane you were like holding yourself up in the dart lane with your hand out being like get this off my head and we're like Steve can't stand up we got to get him a chair that was it was bad and we're all like are you okay and in the meantime we're like looking at each other like trying to choke back the laughter like we were like Steve might have really hurt himself
00:41:24
Speaker
Yeah, no, it was that was bad. That was that was hands down. That was the hardest I've ever hit myself with a yo-yo in my entire career. That is the worst I have ever hurt myself with a yo-yo. And it was whoo, that was rough. And yeah, I forgot about the whole one inch punch thing. Yeah, that was that was dumb. That was one of the dumbest things I've ever done easily. Top top 10.
00:41:52
Speaker
I left Tallahassee not long after that. Cause I graduated and moved to Los Angeles. You graduated film school from Florida state and you were like, I'm going to go to LA and make movies bitches. Yeah. So then, and then, I mean, obviously we stayed in touch a little bit. I stay in touch with you guys. And then, um, flash forward, things kicked in like Greg had been lining up a website, a magazine and a book I had gone to LA for a while and then started working on a started working on the book.
00:42:22
Speaker
and then got the job at Yomega, and then you popped up. What was happening all this time in Tallahassee? Greg had started running contests, little local contests, and I was starting to run those. I was starting to do school and library appearances to help promote them. Not a lot of those, just very, very rarely. But I had transitioned to the guy who
00:42:52
Speaker
Um, he'd gotten somebody else to like largely run the cart and I was mostly at the storefront, um, because, you know, the storefront moved over to, uh, Lake Ella, which is basically just like right across the street. It moved storefronts to Lake Ella, which was like a much prettier location. And there was a lot of room for people to just hang out outside.
00:43:14
Speaker
So I was doing like a ton of just like teaching and and I had become like his go-to demonstrator and you know We're running yo-yo contests and everything and I was really embracing the whole like I'm a professional yo-yo demonstrator thing which it's weird like to go back and think about because essentially like I had started yo-yoing as a professional yo-yo demonstrator like that was my job and
00:43:37
Speaker
That was I learned on the job as a national yo-yo demonstrator, which is so fucking weird. But so I was sort of doing all that. And I had started kind of seeing what was happening. Because we would go to juggling festivals and run the booth. And at these juggling festivals, we were starting to have more and more yo-yo players show up. And we'd start running yo-yo contests at the festivals. And at the IJA Festival, Dale Oliver
00:44:05
Speaker
Um, starting in like 96, I think had sort of rebooted, um, the world yo-yo contest. And when I say the world yo-yo contest, like it's kind of insane to realize that this is the title that we had given it because it was 15 people standing in front of the infinite illusions booth in a gym. No, yo wait, while all the jugglers were gone somewhere else for a show.
00:44:31
Speaker
Like that was the world yo-yo contest. So 1996, it was just literally standing in the gym. 1997 was Pittsburgh. And we actually had a stage outside under a tent.
00:44:46
Speaker
Which was terrible. And even better, this is the most insane decision ever made. All of the other competitors were sitting in folding chairs on stage. I still to this day have no idea why they decided to do that. But I mean, we were doing, you know, we were still doing like freestyle competition. That was the year that I pulled out the razor blade yoyos and almost got myself disqualified.
00:45:12
Speaker
And then 1998 was Prim, Nevada, and we had like a big full proper like theater stage. And I mean, and it just started to grow kind of exponentially from that 98 was the year that I mean, I placed I kept placing fourth I placed fourth I placed fourth I placed fourth in 98 placed fourth in 96 97 and 98.
00:45:35
Speaker
And 98 was when I got my first job as like a company demonstrator. And that was when I landed the job working for Team Losi. That was after 98? That was basically like they came out to watch me compete in 98 and then offered me the job. So 99 is when I was working for Team Losi. And that's when I started going out to L.A. and doing like promos and stuff around there. And then I would see you when I was in town.
00:45:59
Speaker
Wow. So it was prim Nevada. They got you the low C. It was prim Nevada. And I had like, I had started, I'd already kind of made a reputation for myself. I was making up a ton of tricks. Um, you know, but I was also like the 20 something covered in tattoos. Like I was starting to get tattooed and all my tattoos were like yo-yo and juggling related. I was making up a ton of tricks.
00:46:20
Speaker
I was competing, it was very easy for me to be a personality because that was just sort of a natural version of who I was.
00:46:30
Speaker
You know, I had like I already had the theatrical like performing background. So I was real comfortable like trotting out the Steve show TM and and doing that while yo-yoing. Yeah. No, at Pem, Nevada, you showed up in a suit with like all the all the I showed up in a three piece suit and a fedora came out and used like
00:46:51
Speaker
I don't know, whatever swing band was popular that week. I think I got third place that year. But yeah, and Losi hired me on the spot. And then I spent a year or so working for them. But I mean, yeah, that's I mean, that was that was how I got started. That was that was sort of that was when I really came into Yoyos and decided that that was what I was going to do. And I have been ever. Ever since fucking weird.
00:47:19
Speaker
you