Hot Show in Seattle

This is DJ Special Blend from Chicago. What’s up America and the world! I had the chance to get in a little mini-vacation a few weeks ago to the West Coast to hang out with my homie in Seattle. This was intended to be a low key get away for a couple of days, but I ended up unexpectedly doing a “show” when I got there. Now, this wasn’t an ordinary show… this one ended up being one to write home about.

It was a cool Sunday afternoon, when I went for a stroll down through the local outdoor market on a mission to get some food.  On the way, there was this street performer who had chalked off part of a parking lot at the end of the strip. The poor fella was begging and pleading for people to stop and see his show, and everyone just kept on walking past.

At that time, I felt some sorta “fellow-entertainer-loyalty” or something cause I felt sorry for the dude, so I stopped to peak at him to see what he was about. My plan was to laugh at the guy as a watched him, then maybe some other people would stop, then maybe a small crowd would form for this man. Then I could duck off to the side to go get my eat on.

A small crowd formed, so he started by grabbing a kid outta the audience who was about ten years old. After being in the middle of the cypher with the traveling street performer for about four minutes, the boy who looked all of maybe eleven, started to cry. The boy ran over to someone who looked like his big brother, and the crowd looked at the street performer like he was an asshole, while the older kid tried to comfort the boy who was crying.

Meanwhile, half of the small crowd broke camp. I was ready to move on myself, but I felt sorry for the dude as he grabbed a little girl from the remaining people. He told a couple jokes then gave the little girl five dollars for being so brave. Everyone who was still there clapped for her, and I was ready to finally eat at that very moment.

Just as I was turning to walk away, the street performer grabs me, and pulls me into his act. Though my stomach was growling, I couldn’t walk away due to this “fellow-entertainer-loyalty” that I had built up in my head.

Whatever the case, I found my self standing in the middle of a street market, holding a lit torch to the sky like the Statue of Liberty, while homeboy was yelling through a bullhorn and setting of sirens or something or another to attract attention.

All I was thinking at that moment was that I was hungry, but after the diminished crowd got back up to a small crowd, dude pulls me in the middle of his chalked-off-sidewalk-stage, and begins to tell jokes.

After he got a couple of cheap laughs, he turned to me and said, “I need you to stay with me buddy.”

I looked around and saw the chainsaw, the long knives, and the torches. Common sense told me to walk away, but that “fellow-entertainer-loyalty” told me that this dude was just two seconds away from being booed off the stage when the little boy cried earlier, and being booed off the stage is no fun.

I couldn’t leave him hanging, so I said, “I got you homie.”

He then somehow got me to lay on the ground. Mind you, I had on my “Fonzie” leather jacket, but I played along with him. The next thing I knew, is that he was holding a lighter fluid bottle. He began to squirt out fluid in the form of a circle around me. He then sprayed fluid between my legs, and then he went around me again as if he didn’t get enough fluid on the ground the first time. At one point, he had enough fluid on the ground around me to cook a brontsaurus burger, and a couple of them slabs of ribs that tip over Fred Flinstone’s car during the opening credits… ya know, give or take a few squirts.

Next, he placed the lighter fluid bottle with the remaining fluid under my head as if it were a pillow, then placed a lit torch between my legs.

I could feel the crowd getting a little bigger. There was a 6’1″ black guy laying in the middle of the street, with dark sunglasses, a leather jacket, and long hair with a receding hairline. Besides the fact that I looked like I was about to rob a liquor store from the 80′s, this dude was about to light a fire around me… and I was gonna let him…

Most people, including me, would’ve indeed stopped and watched at that point if they were walking past.  Every time he took it a step further and further, a part of me wanted to get up and walk away.  But I hung in there with him.

After telling some more jokes, the guy finally turned to the crowd and said something to the effect of, “Who wants to see the circle get lit on fire?”

The crowd let out a loud-ass cheer like the Seahawks had just scored a touchdown.

Turns out that this guy’s act consisted of mostly telling offensive jokes.  The biggest joke was on me and the entire crowd because he then let everyone know that it was only water in the bottle of lighter fluid.  He did walk over me while juggling three knives, but I survived.

The crowd gave him a nice round of applause I as I got up off the ground, and I thought I was finally about to get some grub, but he asked me to help him with the next part of his act, as he grabbed another gentleman out of the crowd.

He then asked us to help him get on his unicycle, but instead he unexpectedly hopped on my shoulders instead of the bike.  He was really lucky that I had created this “fellow-entertainer-loyalty” in my head at that time, because I started to drop him, or just flip his ass onto the concrete just to be a bigger asshole than him.  However, I held him up as he juggled and told a couple more offensive jokes.

Eventually, the “Show in Seattle” came to and end, and I finally got to be on my way to get some food.  The nice people left the guy donations since he did indeed provide entertainment for a few brief moments.

And yes… more than one person suggested that I go up to him an get my cut… which really should’ve been at least 75%, but it was all good.  I just wonder how far would someone else have let this dude go.

Now here’s the funny part.  After the “Show in Seattle” was all said and done, the place I was going to eat at had closed for the day.  So, I flew all the way to Seattle to do a show on an empty stomach. 

It’s hard to work under those conditions.