And I realized that my sense that I "can't get around to the bubble project this summer" is kind of false. Though I have not shot the next episode for want of time and motivation, the ideas are a-brewing and I HAVE
a. bubbled four or five groups in parks in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley.
b. practiced with Emily (Natasha's mom) and an awesome team of friends to participate in an incredible 3D bubble shoot, sponsored by Sprint, in Golden Gate Park, where we joined maestro Sterling Johnson, Dustin Hicks, Brian Lawrence and Todd Kamisugi for hours of epic bubbling on camera. Stay tuned for the results around Labor Day!
c. Attended and video taped two of Louis Pearl's bubble shows, and put together a little promo, just for fun, with my own music and aesthetic... which he ended up liking, so it's public! Full screen, 720p HD highly recommended as always.
d. begun work on my website dedicated to bubbles for hire. Though if you are fan enough to have read this far, please note that I may still be amenable to bubbling for you or your event, asking only for enough to cover my supply costs. If you are a friend already, count on it!
Don't look now...but, in spite of what you see written elsewhere, Mike might be convinced to bring bubbles to your party professionally...e-mail your thoughts...
Saturday May 7, Lakeside Park, Oakland, 12:30ish near Fairyland!
Come make the bubbles more abundant! Give four-year-olds the right of way but leave no equipment unwielded! Take pictures and video and share them with me! A little new equipment, a slightly more effective way to bubble en masse...should be fun!
Thanks to everyone who participated so politely on the Marina Green today. It was a lovely bubble day, wasn't it? Let me know if you got any good pictures!
Natasha is in her 16th month!
New video is up at kermitbubbleboy.net! If you've seen me in a park recently, be sure and check there to see what we can REALLY do when the weather is right and the participants are super bubble-skilled.... ;)
Took a bubble hiatus after a mega-bubbly Fall 2010 made the fun seem like...work? The horror!
But now, I'm back in action, planning Bubbling San Francisco to shoot all Spring with yet another bubble MAESTRO (the brilliant Brian Lawrence from San Jose) in addition to Sterling and (I hope) Rebecca, who were so fantastic in Bubbling Sutro Heights Park...and hopefully a bubbler or two from out of the area as she/he/they pass through town. The theme so far: hoop work. Stay tuned! I have a lot to learn in that area...
Also, I'm planning to bubble in parks by request (see the top of the page) once per month. E-mail me if you'd like me to stop by your way!
Boy what a week. Art Opening was AWESOME! They made a video and you can see bubbles at the very beginning... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfUz01-kAlg ..Sterling's hands at 2:07 and my daughter in the middle of the pic at 2:32. So proud to be a part of this!!!! So much lovely celebration of such a lovely city in such unlovely times....
THEN
Somebody very friendly on SBF sent some bubble work my way...and I found myself briefly a startled member of the jet set, flying out directly from the reception in that video to shoot a commercial in Malibu. I took enough concentrate (Thanks Bryce for telling me often enough that concentrates were the way to go that I finally listened...) in a dawn jug to make 8 gallons of juice. The concentrates are amazing and instant--I just mix my stuff up with a cup of warm water per cup of dawn and then bottle it. Two cups of this into a gallon of distilled water makes almost instant, excellent solution. I almost hate to say this, but I've completely backed off of the glycerin. I now have three ingredients plus water and I can't seem to improve it. I admit, the solution's super gooey...but that gooey self-healing saved my life in that shoot! It was TOTALLY pack-up-your-bubble-stuff-and-go-home weather--not worth a minute's time. I was stuck on the beach in high wind with money almost palpably pouring down the drain every second of this production they had going on...and I kept managing to launch these big floofy bubble-amoeba into the frame, and they would close...even though it took tremendous concentration. I suspect that (wonderful, friendly and ultra-professional) crew has no idea that it was only many, many hours of practice with the big poles that allowed them to get anything at all. They almost decided to have actors trained by bubblers to make the bubbles...that would have been disastrous in this weather!
TSA TOTALLY searched my bag in both directions, opened the J-Lube...but I had everything marked clearly and repeatedly, so all they really had to do was believe that I really do make giant bubbles...and things got through. The four foot duffle was not charged for oversize in either direction (United) though it came out the oversize baggage chute when I got home.
I felt a little funny having asserted that I would not do bubbles for pay and then taking this gig. But, really, I don't want to do parties--especially kids parties--for pay, because the unpredictability is to stressful and the I'm also very careful about doing-what-I-love for work. My brother's a professional musician and he has seen people's most beloved activity become drudgery once commodified. So...I fumbled around for a way to avoid the decision--looked up the client company's human rights record and they are pretty awesome on that score, actually. And I did the gig. And, I'd probably do it again. But bubbling for kids...as yet...I'll just do that for fun, when I feel like it. So, I changed the website to say that I don't do parties, but not that I don't perform for pay. Because that just became a lie. :) And I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity!
Watch for some new equipment designs coming soon... And that pro-shoot shoot made me realize that I REALLY want to make my next video! So, coming soon....!
I just dropped off the Bubble Project Loop DVD and player at the Mission Cultural Center! You should come see the show! http://www.missionculturalcenter.org/MCCLA_New/gallery.html#celebrate_sf Thanks to Jeremiah for the great picture they used on the website! And thanks to Sterling for being so understanding when I called him with my best Barry-White-swallowing-gravel imitation and said I was too ill to do our long-awaited video shoot in Sutro Heights Park. Ack! I'm hoping for...mid-September to try again...?
The bubbles WILL descend from the Sutro Heights to the Ocean Beach. They will; I swear!
And I realized that my sense that I "can't get around to the bubble project this summer" is kind of false.
Though I have not shot the next episode for want of time and motivation, the ideas are a-brewing and I HAVE
