Why I’m writing this post.
I’d like to take some time at the start of this blog to introduce myself and let you know how I became the world travelling comedy juggler I am today. I’m not interested in telling my story because I need to let the world know who I am and where I came from.
I’d offer a bit of context because, in future posts, I aim to provide stories, advice and inspiration to anyone reading. I want my stories to have meaning, my advice to hold its own, and my achievements to be seen as they are: overcoming the many obstacles in my way.
The best way to get started on this blog is to do a little history of me so readers will better understand where I’m coming from when I write whatever is worth reading.
How I learned to juggle
My circus journey began when I was young. 12-year-old me was distracting my Mother while she was cooking, so her partner took it upon himself to distract me by putting three oranges in my hands and teaching me the basics of juggling. I was instantly hooked.
I didn’t stop throwing those oranges around until they were bruised and broken, and I could do my first 10 throws in a three-ball cascade.
I then tore up every piece of fruit, smashed a series of eggs, stretched all my socks around each other and practised every day until I finally received my first set of juggling balls for Christmas.
Falling in and out of love with juggling
Growing up in Australia, Christmas is at the start of the Summer Holidays, so I made it my mission to be the best I could be before school started again. I was going through the transition from primary school to high school. I wanted to go in with an impressive and entertaining talent to help me win a few friends immediately.
It wasn’t as helpful as I had hoped. Still, I did teach a couple of my classmates, and we became good friends who would juggle a bit at lunchtime. That year, my brothers and I all pooled our money together and bought Grand Theft Auto 3 on PlayStation 2 without telling our mum; then ‘The Eminem Show’ was released, and I scored a burned CD of that through some shady deal with the kids down the road. Those two things completely overhauled my existence, and I stopped being the juggling kid.
It could have easily been the end of my circus career, but luckily, a few things aligned to reignite my passion.
On to new beginnings
After school, I was at a loss when achieving my goals or aspirations. I wanted to be a performer of some kind. I knew that much. I joined a local theatre group and was in the cast of a musical called ‘Shout’. I loved the theatre, the rehearsals, the people and the play.
I had zero experience with singing and dancing, so I found myself in the ensemble. I didn’t have the drive or know-how to push myself in that arena. When it all wrapped up, I was again thrown back into the world with no structure, purpose or plan for the future. I didn’t really have anything to lose, so I applied for a job on a resort island in North Queensland washing dishes.
It was difficult work, and I had to learn quickly what it meant to be in the back of a kitchen. I started to regret my decision soon after beginning my first shift but decided to try to make it work. The island was lovely, the people were friendly, and a friend of my brother was also working there. When I first saw him, it took a while to know if I was right in thinking I knew the guy, but he had a distinct look at the time. His hair was bright yellow, long dreadlocks with rings, beads, and trinkets. I saw him on this island, where I knew nobody and had no friends yet. What he was doing was juggling. My juggling could be a way to impress and entertain once again.
I’d been pulling it out as a party trick my whole life and always retained the ability to do it well enough to impress people. I spent over a year on that island. I moved away from doing dishes into the warehouse, where I got my forklift license and worked as hard as possible to fill the unlimited spare time that place had to offer.
When I wasn’t working, though, I would often juggle, work on new tricks and just have as much fun as a young man can in that environment. I got pretty good. Phil, the guy with dreads, was a passionate juggler and an excellent teacher, so everyone around him was improving because he made it fun to do so.
One day, he came home from work and told us how a guy who runs a circus saw him juggling and was interested in hiring him to do some shows. I couldn’t believe how lucky he was and, although a little jealous, I was really happy for him.
I was again lost and directionless at the end of my time on Daydream Island. It’s super common for people to be abruptly fired from resort islands. Either the staff are seasonal, and when the season ends, everyone is ruthlessly cut, they don’t gel with their colleagues and being that it’s a small place with no escape, any excuse to get rid of someone goes, or they get island fever and go a little crazy.
The latter happened to me. I was being paid a lot thanks to my overtime hours and still had a little too much time on my hands. Being young, rich and free turned me into an animal. I ended up causing a few too many problems and getting, rightfully, kicked off that place.
How Circus Saved My Life
This means being jobless, homeless and directionless for a while. Some good friends on the mainland let me crash for a while. What came next was a road trip from Airlie Beach to Sydney with a couple of guys in a complete car wreck and some excellent times and memories, but at the end of it, emptiness.
I had nothing at that point. I was trying to start fresh in Sydney without a job, money, or understanding of how the mainland worked after a year away on the island. I was sleeping on a friend’s floor, outstaying my welcome more each day. I was only in Sydney for a few weeks but was entirely out of options. Then, a life-saving phone call came, and this moment changed the course of my life permanently.
Phil, the juggling hippy from the Daydream Island, called me out of the blue to tell me he was about to start working for the Circus, and it was a two-man job that needed a second juggler. He asked me if I was free, and I had never been more accessible to do anything.
The first few months of that job were tough, though. I waited a little while for my first shift and had to go to Brisbane. I had booked a flight and was due to join Phil, the owner of the Circus. I sincerely thanked the people who let me stay at their place, knowing I didn’t have a single spare dollar to pay them back. I jumped on the plane with an old backpack full of everything I owned, scruffy hair and shoes with holes in them.
I got to Brisbane looking, and in truth, being homeless and had to try to make an excellent first impression with my new boss.
His name was Clinton, and he was so kind and forgiving. After running us through the outline of what we would be doing within his company, he offered me a cash advance to get my shit together. That was also in his best interests because I would put on his uniform and perform for his clients, primarily students, as part of a school incursion.
The first thing I bought, though, was a packet of cigarettes, and that started a whole conversation about the nature of the work and the difficulty of being a children’s entertainer and a smoker at the same time. As I said, the first few months were hard. I was trying to quit smoking the whole time, trying my best to get my life together, trying to look more presentable, trying to get my juggling skills up to scratch for the show and trying to learn this whole new job all at once.
Once I got the hang of it, the work became a breeze and something that came naturally to me. We drove around Australia and New Zealand the entire school year, going to a new school every day.
We would put on this high energy, wacky Circus show for a group of screaming kids at 9am, then sit in their sports hall all day as the teachers brought all the kids in one group at a time to learn Diabolo, Spinning Plates, Scarf Juggling and Devil Sticks. Every second we were on school property, we performed.
Our show, our workshops, lunch in the teacher’s staff room. It became a well-groomed piece of theatre; for the most part, Phil and I would stick to the script daily.
For three years straight, I did this. It was easy enough. I would start work at 9am and be done by 3pm, and I have weekends and school holidays off. At the end of every school day, though, we would get into the van, type the next town into our GPS and wait for the results. Sometimes, we’d stay in the same city for a night or two; sometimes, we’d be facing an hour or two of driving before the day ended.
Occasionally, our next stop would be a long way away, and we’d drive into the night. And more times than I can recall, I drove the Nullabbour in that big white van full of circus equipment. It was a dream to get so close to Australia and see as much of it as possible at that age.
Heading into my fourth year of that job, I couldn’t see myself doing another lap of the country and running the same script for the teachers and students as I had in the previous years.
the start of my busking journey
This is where Busking and Circus Challenge Collide. The company took a little detour from the travelling Circus show to focus on some other branches of the entertainment and amusement industry. Clinton was always looking for new ideas and came up with great new business ventures for us to tag along with.
I was always doing the same thing, and one of my ideas was to head out busking on the weekends. It took a bit of preparation, knowing that being alone on the street would be a different ball game than performing with a friend in a school where the audience is a sports hall full of overexcited kids.
I was determined to make a little extra cash, improve my skills, and join Clinton’s ride of always striving for more.
I was in Perth at the time. I only knew the place a little, and until now, I needed to understand what busking was. Looking back, I’m surprised I went at all. I failed even at the start of my first attempt, and the fact that I returned shows my determination. I heard that you needed a license to busk.
Being raised in Australia, I was a rule follower through and through, so I went down to the city hall and picked up my license for $12 or something. The train ride cost me $2, so my goal was to earn $15 to make a profit. I turned up at Northbridge around 8pm with my old backpack full of stuff and walked around looking for a place to perform. 9 o’clock came around, the 10 and after a long wait and a big blow to my confidence, I got back on the train and headed home just before midnight.
It was a long, sad train ride, and I felt terrible about myself and my lack of daring. That was Friday night, though, and I had a whole weekend ahead of me. I went back out on Saturday night to the same place at the same time, this time with unshakable determination.
I did my first night busking on the main street of Perth’s nightclub district, Northbridge. I didn’t have a show or a game plan in mind. I just knew I wanted to do some ‘busking’, whatever that meant. I placed a little bag on the ground, put a couple of dollars in it from my pocket, and then got to work.
I started by juggling three balls for a while, then moved up to five and eventually pulled out the homemade rola bola I had been playing with in my spare time. I had been there for a short time, but as soon as I stepped onto the board, people started paying more attention to me. My show was to stand on the rola bola and juggle five balls until somebody took an interest, and then I would just chat with them about whatever.
I’d juggle, show them some moves on and off the board, and just get to know them a little, and they’d ask me about who I was. It was easy and fun, and I met many people that night. I stayed until Midnight and caught the last train home with all my equipment and a bag of cash to count. Surprisingly, when I counted it all up, I had about $200 (Maybe a little more).
Everything about the experience was terrific, and the cash at the end was a huge bonus. It inspired me to go out again to check that it wasn’t a fluke.
I ended up going earlier and staying later every Friday and Saturday night for a while, and soon my work as a busker two nights a week caught up with my work as a travelling performer for kids working five days each week and doing long, exhausting drives from one town to another at the end of each day.
During the next six months, I thought about what I wanted, needed, and was capable of, and I decided to go my own way. Since then, I haven’t worked in any industry other than as an entertainer in Circus, acting, comedy, or anything related to performance. I’ve learned a lot and experienced many incredible highs and Lows.
I’m a busker now. Now what?
Only when I left Circus Challenge did I realise the truth about street performing, something I couldn’t see when life was going so well. It’s easy to make a couple of dollars on the street, as I found out that night in Perth. But it’s almost impossible to make an honest living from the streets. There are many obstacles and reasons to pack it in and be someone else. If it’s what you really want, what you feel you should be doing with your life, like me, you can have everything you want and more, thanks to busking and street shows.