Today is my 20th anniversary of yo-yoing, so I wanted to share this story of how I got into the hobby and the strange ways it has changed my life.

On March 3rd, 1998 I flew out to Seattle with dreams of getting signed to a record label. It was a week before my 21st birthday. I was living in Lewisburg, TN and had been communicating with someone at K Records about my music. I sent them some tapes and they said “These are great, you should come visit us sometime.” I took that as “Come get signed to our label!”.

My plan was to spend most of my stay in Olympia, but the first thing I did when I arrived in Seattle was head straight to the top of the Space Needle. I was a big World’s Fair nerd at the time, and was trying to visit all of the old fairgrounds in the US. After enjoying the view, I stopped by the Space Needle’s gift shop to buy a little souvenier for my collection.

A Space Needle yo-yo was $1.49. A Space Needle snow globe was $1.99. So I went with the cheaper option.

During my week in Olympia I carried my new yo-yo everywhere. I was terrible and the yo-yo was just a cheap wooden yo-yo, but it kept me busy as I walked around town each day.

I obviously didn’t get signed to K Records. I met with the dude, who just worked in shipping or whatever, and we just chatted. He played in Godspeed Ye Black Emperror half the year, and worked the warehouse the other half. I met several folks just like him. Folks that I idolized for their art, zines, and/or music. Many of whom were homeless. Well technically homeless. Some lived in vans, or couch surfed, and just made albums and played shows all the time.

I realized on that trip that there were many super talented people out there who were just more passionate about making music than I was. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but I love having a place to stay too. The nomadic lifestyle was just not something I was interested in.

I left Tennessee with dreams of getting signed. When I came back I decided what I really wanted was just to find some job I didn’t hate, so I could afford to make my own music at night. A big change, but it probably made me a happier person in the end.

On the day I came back from Seattle, the day after my 21st birthday, I made a quick stop at Cool Springs Mall for a quick bite to eat before I headed back to my small town. The mall was just opening and I noticed a man opening a brand new kiosk called “Yo Momma’s Yo-Yo Store”. As he was opening up shop for his first day, I walked up and asked if I could try one of his toys. He handed me a Yomega Fireball, which was one of the new wave of trans-axle yo-yos that were just catching on in Hawaii and California.

Impressed with my skills (and the fact that there weren’t any other 21 year-olds who carried a yo-yo with them) he offered me a job. A month later a huge yo-yo boom hit the nation and we could barely keep them in stock. 3 months later he was opening his second shop and made me a manager of the Cool Springs location. 6 months later I was the regional manager, traveling to new cities to hire and train staff for his growing empire. 12 months later I entered the World Yo-Yo Contest and got 3rd place. I was lucky enough to there right before the yo-yo boom and it was just the beginning.

I moved to Virginia, then Chattanooga, then bought the business and opened my final store in St. Louis. When the dust settled down, I moved to Minneapolis to manage a toy store in the Mall of America. I lived there for about 4 years when I was asked by a friend to to do one quick show in San Francisco, where I fell in love with the town (and weather) and decided never to leave. I met Christine here, made some video games and a bunch of art, and kept making music in spare time, just like I decided to do 20 years ago.

All those cities I lived in, people I met, opportunities I had, all came down to a little green souvenir I bought in Seattle right before my 21st birthday. Sometimes I wonder how completely different my life would be right now if that snow globe had been 50 cents cheaper.

I’m so stoked about going to MoYo States this weekend in St. Louis! I was hoping to have DoctorPopular.com finished by then, but I’m going to have to wait until after the weekend. I have been getting a lot of emails about Blue Bolts, so I have decided to bring 25 Blue Bolts with me to sell at Missouri States.

These limited edition Bolts will be siliconed and bearing-cleaned for non-responsive play. There are less than 100 of them, and sell for $30. The rest of the Blue Bolts will go for sale once the site is finished.

This morning, I discovered that PopCast is one of the videos featured in YouTube’s “Spotlight” section (on the top of most YouTube search pages). I’m getting a lot of video views, comments, and positive ratings which is all very appreciated.

Although it does motivate me to want to work on the next PopCast episode, two things are preventing me from doing so at the moment; I’m way too busy with other big projects, my computer is too full to work on anything at the moment.

Still, I do hope to have somethings to show you guys soon.

BTW, March 10th is Whitey Day (Doc Pop’s birfday). Dia do Branquelo. If any local yo-yo clubs are doing something special for this great event, let me know asap! I’m planning on relaunching DoctorPopular.com with a new store and other stuff for Whitey Day.

While on a recent trip to the U.S., Stu (from Australia’s Werrd Yo-Yos) flew into the Bay Area to hang out with some of the local yo-yoers. He was a real swell guy, who carried a big metal box of yo-yos everywhere he went. I had previously played with the Two Fat Ladies “Groovy Edition”, a beefcaked aluminum yo-yo that I really enjoyed, so it was great to see what else Werrd had to offer.

I’m a big fan of Werrd’s newest yo-yo, the QuadrupleExtraLarge (or XXXXL… or 4XL). Like the TFL, the XXXXL is an aluminum yo-yo with a beefcaked bearing set up, but it also has bearings on the sides of the yo-yo for hubstacks (similar to YoYoFactory’s set up). The name, XXXXL, comes from the number of bearings it uses (4).

I had been waiting a long time for a good hubstacked yo-yo, but never found one that I liked until the XXXXL. Although it played well with it’s original hubstacks, I switched mine out with a pair of YoYoFactory Z Stacks (custom painted by John Higby). The wider surface area of the Z-Stacks make the yo-yo much easier to grab, but it does also add a noticeable difference of additional friction to the yo-yos spin. Every time you grab the discs, then let go, it takes energy to get them to start spinning again. I can really feel the difference in spin between my TFL and my XXXXL with Z Stacks. I’m wondering if 888’s suffer the same hubstack drag effect as the XXXXL does.

Like I said, I had been waiting for a while for a hubstack yo-yo that I liked, and now that I have one, I think it’s going to be my carry around yo-yo for a while.

One other note, although the XXXXL is available at most online stores, the one pictured here features a special finish called “GreenTea”. From Stu;

“They come in two finishes – Naked (raw billet) and
DeLorean (Satin) but the one you received from me is
called GreenT or GreenTea. It is a special coating or
finish done to the yoyo using little green triangle –
I kid you not – little green triangles. The one you
have takes about 24hours in the GreenTea machine.”

This morning I was surfing some international yo-yo blogs when I stumbled upon this video I made with Alexander Maness from Current TV.

Alex came to Chico last year and followed me around as I told him about our humble hobbie. I hadn’t heard anything since the trip, so I just figured the whole documentary got trashed. Needless to say, I’m delighted to see that it did get finished and I think it looks great.

Speaking of blogs, my new friend Cate Corbitt recently posted a picture (shown below) from yesterday’s photo-shoot on her blog, SFFaces.com. The shoot was an potpourri mix of music publicity shots (for my band Drown Radio), product shots (for my new craft line), and a few yo-yo shots for Cate’s blog. SFFaces.com documents a portion of the Bay Area’s eclectic individuals.