KevinSix.com

In Minnesota

I came all the way to Minnesota to be teased by a 12-year-old girl.  Watch and learn...

Download KaliBeingMean.mov

See if you can hear the last thing she says...

Max Simon

He wanted me to write about him so here goes...

I met him four years ago when he was little.  He performed with me in the Silver Lake Circus at the camp I worked at.  The kid never didn't smile.  Max is possibly the happiest kid I've ever met.

That's why we put him in the show four years ago.  He and his friend Matt came to circus to have fun just about every day so when it came time to pick trapeze kids for the show, they were our first choice.  Another kid who was into trapeze was Sarah Pearlman.

So now fast forward four years and I'm running the circus, Sarah is on my staff and Max is a teen ager.  Big and strong, tall and lean and that smile is still there.  So of course we put him in the trapeze show.

Our idea was to teach him to catch.  Then we'd have kids catching kids in the show -- a first at camp.  But time and weather conspired against us.  Max went on the senior trip to Boston for three days, which messed up the rehearsal schedule. 

Instead, we put him in the show as a flyer and taught him a shoot-over.  This is not an easy trick and it was going to be the highlight of the show.  The show that was rained out fifteen minutes prior to the curtain.  Max's smile never left his face.  The kid is just happy.

After the show, there was Color War, which I will talk about soon as it's an odd thing that camp life revolves around, so I didn't see Max much.  But after the war, he came around a lot.  A lot of the circus kids were busy doing other things that had fallen by the wayside during the rehearsals for the show and I can understand that. 

But there was another bunch of kids who I understood a little better.  These were the ones who knew they soon would be back in school, that soon the magic would be packed away for another nine months and who wanted to get as much air time in before they went back to a "normal" life with no flying trapeze.

So we got a lot of time to hang out with Max, teach him some advanced things and talk about things.  Max, it turns out, is old school when it comes to camp.  He is toying with the idea of owning his own camp one day but if he does, it will be different than the one we were at.

For one, there are too many amenities for Max's taste.  Who ever thought you'd find air conditioning at a summer camp?  Max didn't.  He doesn't think you should sleep on plywood and under a lean-to when you rough it at Pine Cove, yet that's what they did this year.  No, Max wants it to be like it was back in the day.

The day he's only heard about, no doubt, as he's only 15.  A more romantic day when the buildings were one step closer to the dirt on the ground, when camping out under the stars meant camping out under stars and not under a roof.  One day he might grow up and learn about the concepts of an over- litigious society full of helicopter parents hovering over under-nourished children.

But maybe not. 

Maybe he will create a new world in which children are taken into the woods and allowed to enjoy themselves.  A world in which camp life isn't regulated like the army, where kids can choose to do more what they want.  A world in which, if you want to, you can choose to fly on the trapeze every day you're at camp.

But there's something you need to know about Max Simon.  Two things, actually.  One is that he'd have just as much fun in either world, he's just that kind of kid.  And two: he just might change the world.

Keep an eye out for him.

The Kev?

My friend Harmony sent an e-mail last night.  Here's what she said:
"Hey Kevin,
     Here is a pic of a guy I met in Sarasota that looked so much like you it was crazy!"

I don't know.  What do you think?

The Silver Lake Show

My circus directorial debut!  It was a perfect dress rehearsal on Friday.  So good that the kids got Saturday off.  Then today...

It rained!  Bummer.  So we hung out in the Circus Pavilion and played on the equipment.

This girl not only rode the unicycle in the juggling show but she came up with the theme of the show AND made all these t-shirts.  At one rehearsal, she rode around on a unicycle trailing a Batman cape.  Of course, one quick viewing of The Incredibles and you know why she didn't wear the cape in the show...

But she did come up with the theme.  Super Hero Training Institute.  I briefly thought of Super Hero International Training School but the acronym didn't fit...  So the theme was that Circus of the kids and the camp run a secret summer super hero training school.  Kids learn circus skills and adapt them to fighting crime.

Here are a few takes for our album cover.  The band is called Silver Lake Circus.  In the right photo (l-r) are: Jaleen, me, Bridget, Sarah and Paul.  The Super Circus trainers.

Here's Paul doing a hand-spring over Sarah. 

Here I am flipping over Circus.

Probably the best part of the rained-out circus was acting like a super hero myself.  I'm called Old Man.  I can clear kids from my lawn in record time, spend an eternity on the toilet and remember the longest walk to school in history.  Here is my Crime Fighter Super Move.  Hope you like it!

Download KungWho.MOV

Random Photos/Essays

I finally stole Sarah's camera, on which resided photos of the circus staff and friends doing various funny things. Some of these photos go back in time so I will endeavor to keep them oldest to newest or at least give a time reference that is better than "the other day".  Hope you like them.

Here's Tyler, Jaleen and I walking down Silver Lake Road at sunset.  The Silver Lake campus, and staff lodge, are behind us.  In front, circus and the Chipinaw campus.

I'm always butting heads with someone at camp.  for those of you who've been on the whole journey, this is Casper the Friendly Goat linking horns with yours truly.

This is a very album-cover-like photo  of the circus staff taken on the day of the big circus show last month.

We had all worked our asses off  and were sweaty and tired but the kids look good in this photo for an album I'll call...

Sweat in Black Costumes.

Here is a more traditional photo of the circus staff the day most of them left.

Top row (l-r): Jaleen, me, Jamie, Zaq, Paul, Hannah, Katie, Bridget.
Bottom row (l-r): Mikal, Clayton, Avril, Bruce, Sarah and Felipe.

Here, finally, is that photo of me working with 150 pounds of sugar.  Yes, kids, it's the Cotton Candy Man! 

Note the crazed look, the bags and bags of cotton candy (1,000 in all) and the sticky sweet (but not in a good way) stuff stuck all over me!

All I can say about the next four photos is: Fun With Chocolate Frosting.

All I can say about the last one is that Sarah laughed so hard that her mascara smeared.  I thought she used chocolate frosting to create the look, but it was real.

Last week we went to see Batman at the mall on a Sunday.  We also hoped to get a little "real" food or at least some Starbucks.  What we didn't realize was that every single store, except the theater, was closed.

So here I am, in the fetal position, wanting food and coffee and a cool place to discuss the film.

Hope to do that with you all soon!

Saturday Morning Coming Down

The saddest song I ever heard is "Sunday Morning Coming Down."  It was written by Kris Kristofferson and recorded by Johnny Cash.  When I was in Palm Springs with my great friend Keith Davis and we'd just lost our jobs, I wouldn't let him hear it.

We decided to go to the only strip bar in town on our last day because, as Keith said, "what if it turns out to be as disappointing as the rest of this town?"  He was right.  Before we packed up for a drinking/Gambling orgy in Laughlin Nevada, I played him the song.

It starts out like this...

        Well I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt
        And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad so I had one more for dessert...

...and never gets any better

And that's when Keith stopped me.  I have not thought much about that song in the past 12 or so years, remembering that it was probably the last straw that broke more than one camel's back and I wanted to be happy, damn it!  Then, earlier this year, Valerie sent me the Kris Kristofferson version which, after listening to only 16 bars, I agreed was indeed the most depressing song I'd ever heard -- two or three times sadder than the Man in Black's version.

It was this song that ran through my head as I awoke today.  My  day off.  The version was a hybrid.  The depression of Kristofferson, the nuanced vocals of Cash and a little irony supplied by Yours Truly.  The good news was that I wasn't hung over.  The bad news?

Rain.  Great large drops of it.  Thunder too.  Great rolling,smashing crashes of it.

This was the view out of my door this morning as the music swelled into my brain.  A day at Lake Superior shot down the drain. 

There was even a little riverette running away from the Staff Lodge under my room.  Washing my sunny, happy, free and restful respite from circus and kids down to the lake.  Silver Lake is about three hundred yards from this view, heading East.  Behind my room lay the rest of the country, miles of roads and millions of people and, finally, my two great loves: my girl and the great Pacific Ocean. 

Saturdays, at this camp that is quasi religious, are called Lazy Days.  There is a brunch instead of breakfast and lunch (a good news, bad news thing), a service and then dinner.  I thought I was late to brunch and would miss one of the two meals provided on the sabbath, so I hurried to the dining hall to find that I was early.

By this time in the song, Kris and/or Johnny were smelling the "Sunday smell of someone frying chicken" but I would have no such luck.  I smelled nothing.  I was a half-hour early and the only thing going on was the setting up of the meds table, another depressing little dance performed by the nursing staff and close to half the kids in camp.

So I got some hot water for tea (thanks Jennie!) and made my way back to the staff lodge.  The rain had stopped by then so the walk back wasn't as wet as the walk over (both of them, actually as it started coming down again as brunch officially started).

I spent the half hour before brunch on the Internet, navigating between the sites that I can access and those which deliver a most mystifying message...

This message replaces the sign-on screens for MySpace, FaceBook and most of my favorite websites with the word "surf" in them.  This isn't depressing.  It's actually dangerous.  Keep me from my great love -- the previously mentioned Pacific Ocean -- and you're asking for trouble!

Then, after a wet return and a crafty positioning of myself in front of the toaster, I prepared to enjoy a toasted onion bagel with cream cheese -- without lox, onions and tomato.  It's not that I don't like these things.  I just don't like them here.  They don't provide capers, either.  Then, wouldn't you know it?

The mojo toasting/time travel machine shut off.  Mid toast!
So I ate a most decidedly white breakfast.  White flour, white milk and white cream cheese.  One of the two bagels I ate was one-sixth toasted and the other was probably just stale.  But both were crunchy...

Then Jaleen, who was with a friend last night and this morning, described both her dinner and breakfast.

Prompting me to assume the fetal position and mumble, "bacon" over and over.  Something had to be done.

Then the miracle happened.

Tyler texted Jaleen asking to be rescued from Montecello, the closest town with bacon.  And we were off.  But first we had to wait for Betty.

(Betty deserves an entire blog post and more than one chapter in my next book so keep an eye out for that.)

But now for the waitress.  She was like an angel!  She brought fresh-brewed coffee, properly cooked eggs, potatoes, toast and, when I asked, she suggested "double bacon". 

Double bacon! 

It's like Christmas and your birthday in the same week, like hugs and kisses from the Hogfather, like a nitrate river.  Like the best ever band name.  Ladies and gentlemen please welcome Double Bacon!

And, just like in all miracles, the rain stopped.  the sun shone.  Children sang.  People smiled.  And a man who cried real tears at hearing that a waitress called a friend "honey," had a waitress call him "honey" and -- best of all -- offer Double Bacon.

Double bacon.