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Pop Arts back in stock and an upcoming responsive 5A workshop

Howdy y’all. Just a quick update to say that Pop Arts are back in stock. The Pop Art is a machined delrin yo-yo I designed with the folks at Rain City Skills. I believe it is the first modern responsive yo-yo designed specifically for counterweight play. Most counterweight yo-yos are designed for long sleep times, but this is designed for snappy response and high walls for string stalls.

I’m also teaching a 5A workshop on Saturday July 3rd from 3-4pm PDT for those who want to learn the basics of modern responsive yo-yoing with a counterweight.

If you can’t make it, or just want to get a head start before the livestream, you can watch my ongoing responsive freehand tutorial series on Youtube.

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Nerdcore, KnifeTank, Beefy, and me

One thousand folks have asked me “Who’s that rapping on your Kickstarter video?“. I produced the beat and hired a death-metal singer to scream on the hooks, but the real star of the song is Beefy, a legendary nerdcore rapper from Kennewick, WA.

Beefy is one of my oldest buddies in the nerdcore rap scene. We’ve made dozens of songs over the years including “Ball Pit”, “Tub of Tobasco“, “Tilt“, and “The Sound“, but our KnifeTank collabs are some of my favorite projects.

Ten years ago, when we were working on a point and stab adventure game called KnifeTank: The Hauntening, I reached out to Beefy to add hist talents to that soundtrack. His verses for the “Crimson Dreams” perfectly captured the silly/scary/metal vibe of the KnifeTank universe. You can check out the full album, which was co-produced by Crashfaster, here or check out the 8bit Betty remix of “Crimson Dreams” here:

https://knifetank.bandcamp.com/track/crimson-dreams-8bit-betty-vs-doctor-popular-vs-crashfaster

Beefy and I still collaborate occasionally. In fact I recently appeared on Beefy’s new song “Tag Team” along with MC Frontalot, ytCracker, Glenn Case, Mikal Khill, and Lil Jordo. That song just went live this morning as part of the Nerdcore VPC 6 challenge coming later today.

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Linda Sengpiel, the First Lady Of Yo

Linda Sengpiel (1944-2001) was a National Treasure. She is considered the first female yo-yo pro and was a fantastic performer. She was an incredible performer and trick creator and I’m lucky to have been able to meet her early on in my yo-yo career.

i was recently searching for some videos of Linda and came across this broken page on the Found Footage Festival’s site. I reached out to the festival’s organizers and sent me a copy of this wonderful video of Linda Sengpiel doing her thing. Huge thanks to the FFF for archiving this footage and sharing it.

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Trick Battle: Me VS Ed

This month was 5A May, the time of the year where yo-yoers celebrate the wonders of using a yo-yo with a counterweight attached to the end. I released a special episode of my PopCast yo-yo vlog, a 3D file for a counterweight, and a bunch of videos on Instagram, but I also took part in a “battle” with Ed Haponik on a livestreaming app call Livee.

Ed and I both competed using responsive yo-yos with counterweights attached to them. The crowd voted and I won! It was great to chat with Ed afterwards and I’ve been really stoked to see how quickly he’s learned 5A and carved out his own unique style.

You can watch the video here.