This is a story of what I did last night. It’s a little lenghty but I think it’s entertaining enough.
My school has this competition called Mr. HPHS, where 10 guys compete to become Mr. Highland Park High School every year. It’s open to junior and senior guys so this year I got all my friends to nominate and vote for me. So I made the top 10 easily and started getting ready for the competition. It was this really unorganized event consisting of a few minutes display of talent and some interview questions. I knew I was going to dominate with my unicycle, juggling, and footbag skills. It took place after the basketball game in the student commons. So I was thinking I’d have a decent amount of space on the floor to do my stuff. I go in there and there is this tiny little stage with like 10 square feet of room. I had my routine and music all planned out, and figured I’d keep the unicycling in my routine anway. So the 10 of us got introduced. We all wanted to win really bad; we had costumes and were being graded on style points and such. I was decked out in my soccer jersey and had a cool pair of shades. After we were introduced we went backstage, and got ready for the talent contest. I was up first! So I step out there, put my footbag and juggling balls at the edge of the stage and go to the middle with my uni. There was a ton of students there; about 200 packed in this cafeteria sized room. It was a little nerve-racking what with all the people watching. So, once I brought out the unicycle everyone looked at me like I was insane and wondered “how the hell is he going to do that on that stage?” The announcer who is this hilarious gigantic football coach guy asked me if I needed a spotter and I was like no I’m good. So I was stalled about a minute waiting for the sound system to work, but finally my music started which was the song “We have Explosive” by the Future Sound of London. Good, energetic, crazy electronic music. So I let go and hit a sweet suicide mount with literally zero room to spare (if I would’ve slipped I think I would’ve broke my neck). I take a revolution or two backwards and begin to idle. I kind of mega-idle a bit across the tiny stage to the wonder of the audience. And, while I was doing this the stage sounded like it was going to collapse. So I figured I’d test it some more and I started hopping around in circles. Under the excitement I forgot to one foot idle, so I got off and went into the footbagging. If you’re not acquainted with the sport of footbag (hacky-sack) you should really check out what’s possible with a hack www.footbag.org I pulled off some sweet moves, but had a few too many drops than I would’ve liked. The flyers were the most impressive (flying clipper, dragon fly kick). So then I went into juggling, doing standard, over the top, mills mess, under the leg standard, and some bear claw. I gathered my things and exited the stage to a huge round of applause. It was about 3 minutes long but I was utterly exhausted, mostly from the footbagging. I could’ve done better, but I was happy with my performance and thanked the stars the stage didn’t break. The other talents were alright, but in my opinion nothing matched mine. One guy was an incredible yo-yoist, and this hilarious guy put on a ridiculously funny act putting mcdonalds into a blender and drinking it. When the whole thing ended I was one of the 5 finalists, and the winner will be announced in a week at winter formal.
After the contest my friends and I went to bakers square, and from there went over to this shopping center where I did some trials stuff at around midnight in 25 degree weather. Also, before the contest I was riding around the halls of the school during the basketball game! I went up and down some stairs with my friend filming me. It was great fun!
I hope you enjoyed my little story about last night!
Congratulations! It sonuds like you had heaps of fun, and introduced your school to the magic of unicycling.
Andrew
I have a tallent show at my school also. It is coming up this next thursday. I can’t wait. There has been no unicycling in the past 20 years at my school according to the reigning teacher who sets this event up. It is definately a first for my school.
Re: Talent Contest
“Rockey” <Rockey.jmoaa@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message
news:Rockey.jmoaa@timelimit.unicyclist.com…
>
> This is a story of what I did last night. It’s a little lenghty but I
> think it’s entertaining enough.
<dnip>
Sounds like you had a lot of fun Rockey-
Since I grew up in the next town over from you (Deerfield) I know what it’s
like to Uni in freezing cold Illinois weather.
I don’t remember talent contests like that back when I was at DHS (1980-84)
but if there were I would have definitely tried something like you did.
HP seemed to be a bit more hip town anyway. Is the Cycle Scene bike shop
still there? I worked there one or two summers.
I live in California now, so I don’t get back there much anymore.
How about Michael Jordan? Is he still living in HP? You spoiled north
shore kids get to hang out with the best 
Later,
David Winston
David, that’s really cool that you grew up in Deerfield. I don’t know of any Cycle Scene bike shop, it’s probably gone. And, yes, Michael Jordan still has a house here where his family lives, but he’s probably been in it like 5 times in the past 2 years.
Living in the north shore really isn’t as great as some may be led to believe. It’s just a bunch of stuck up rich people. I actually live in Highwood, the small mostly hispanic town right next to Highland Park. The good thing about the affluence of the community is that the people really care about education, so I’m lucky to attend one of the best high schools in the state and the nation. And the best part about my school is that it offers Unique P.E. (a class of unicycling, juggling, ultimate frisbee, jump rope, etc.) Yes, I actually learned how to unicycle during school hours! Anyone see the show “American High” on Fox a few years ago about the typical American high school filmed at Highland Park? That was pretty silly, but you could catch a glimpse of my brother and I for about 2 seconds total on national TV!
What Irony!
This year, my school decided to have a male pageant show to raise money for the American Cancer Society, consisting of casual waer, formal wear, and a talent contest. This girl I am sort of friends with signed me up, even though I strongly objected. All of my friends wanted me to do it, and ride my unicycle for the talnet contest. Then, I learned that another student was going to ride his unicycle, and play the violin on it! I know that there’s no way I can beat that, consdiering all my tricks on the unicycle are not exactly mind blowing, so I might have to pull out the 5 footer. I can get the freemount maybe 75% of the time, but I don’t think I can do it under all that pressure. O well, hopefully I’ll come up with something.
I’ll post the results in the near future.
Nice job at the talent show last night, nosimaj!
That 3-4 footer off the stage, then riding up the aisle slapping palms, was a great finale.