
The greatest juggler alive quit to open a construction business - mhb
http://grantland.com/features/anthony-gatto-juggling-cirque-du-soleil-jason-fagone/?2
======
kamaal
>> _Will it get me another job? ... If you can’t understand why I don’t waste
my energy on doing seven balls overhead for a minute to make a youtube video
for people to watch, then you haven’t entered the real world yet._

I had a similar discussion with my office colleagues a few weeks back. When
there was a call for a 'Hacknight' at our workplace to drive revenues up, when
a SVP panicked he was going to miss his target. And the people where asked to
contribute and magically rescue the whole situation out of nowhere. Nearly
every one agreed that they would not contribute a minute to that 'Hacknight'

When people just give up, start giving damn about things. Its generally
because they've been taken for a ride, before. Once hard working night owl
hackers stop doing things because they watch some jack ass four levels above
them doing 1/100th the work but taking nearly everything that is right fully
theirs.

The Hack night was a big flop, ofcourse the SVP called for a meeting next day
and lectured about motivation and lack of passion in the team(Meaning, people
not ready sacrifice a great deal and give away their work for free). And how
despite all the help from the leadership(Meaning, Arranging for biscuits and
tea, and then going to home to get sleep) people were not ready to contribute
to the company(Meaning, Help the VP make an additional million in yearly
bonus).

Ultimately you get what you pay for.

~~~
ryandrake
Hey, wait, I don't know about you, but I've always thought one of the most
rewarding parts of working in tech was being lectured about motivation by
someone with 10X my salary, 100X my bonus and 1000X my equity stake :-)

~~~
praptak
No, no - the most rewarding part is proving to them they're an incompetent
idiot.

The _most_ rewarding. Not necessarily very rewarding in absolute terms.

~~~
goldenkey
The reason it's so rewarding is because it's next to impossible to give idiots
any self-actualization. And if you do, when you do, their world crumbles into
pieces.

------
Schwolop
I used to run the world's biggest juggling video repository (JuggleThis.net,
now defunct) which itself was definitely responsible for a lot of the
irritation Gatto found with the new generation of camera-happy juggling kids.

Certainly he was frustrated by newcomers filming 100 takes and showing just
one (something I'm guilty of too!). But without being a juggler yourself it's
hard to express just how much better than everyone else he really was. If
being able to do a trick with N balls is unit difficulty, adding N+2 balls is
a factor of 10-100 harder. Being able to _perform_ it is another 10-100 times
again.

Gatto regularly performed things the next best jugglers could barely do at
all. He was the Donald Bradman of juggling, and I'm very sad we now have to
say "was".

~~~
clarky07
I'm not ashamed to admit I had to look up Donald Bradman. Cricket? That's the
analogy you went with? :-)

~~~
avalaunch
I had to look him up to, but once I found this, I understood why he went with
Donald Bradman over Pele or Jordan or Ali.

[http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/the-most-remarkable-graph-
in-...](http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/the-most-remarkable-graph-in-the-
history-of-sport/)

~~~
anoncow
I assume OP is from the commonwealth. Don Bradman is a household name here

~~~
goatforce5
And I ask you is he any good?

~~~
anoncow
With an average of almost 100, he was the very best and will be the benchmark
that all future greats will be compared to.

~~~
goatforce5
'Tis a line from the chorus of a famous (?) song about him:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spDWaeBE2AY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spDWaeBE2AY)

    
    
      Our Don Bradman - And I ask you is he any good?
      Our Don Bradman - As a bastman he can sure lay on the wood.
      For when he goes in to bat
      He knocks ev'ry record flat,
      For there isn't any thing he cannot do,
      Our Don Bradman - Ev'ry Aussie "dips his lid" to you.

~~~
anoncow
Oh woosh! :)

------
oska
I don't see any tragedy here and I doubt Gatto/Commarota does either. He did
something amazingly well as a kid and young adult, had fun with it and has now
decided it's time to move on. The tragedy with top sports-people is often when
they retire and have a lot of trouble adjusting to _not_ being the best in the
world at something. From the article it sounds like Commarota finally got
tired of the constant stress on his body and the difficulty of supporting and
spending time with his family while professionally juggling and is now
successfully transitioning to a very 'down-to-earth' career. Good luck to him.

~~~
zhte415
I agree, I see no conflict or tragedy also.

He is a man that has pursued excellence, understands quality, likes to work
for himself (performer, landscape gardener, etc), seems to have a competitive
edge but also seems wise to it, and has demonstrated keenness to carefully
coach others or explain how to do things.

It should be quite a successful business.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
That's probably the most insightful view going - I was simply thinking of him
as yet another construction guy. But add that to his story / marketing / brand
and ... I will pay extra for the proof of a guy willing to be painstaking to
achieve excellence.

Given my current troubles with builders, this is a 2x pricing opportunity for
him - quite seriously

~~~
ZoF
The company site has zero reference to his past and is registered under his
birth name(different from his stage name), so I don't think that's a card he
plans on playing.

Do you think he could really have an opportunity to receive 2x pricing? I
think there might be a certain opportunity in illustrating the novelty of his
past somewhere on the site, but I honestly don't believe most consumers(even
for something large like a resurfacing) would take to time to realize the
extent to which he excelled at juggling, nor do I think they would translate
that to an increased value in his current abilities(at least not a 100%
increase). In reality I think that consumer is more often willing to settle
for cheap inadequacy than expensive competence, but I might be completely off
with that assumption in this industry(or in general).

What do you think? If he could really stand the chance for a significant
increase in revenue for something as simple as publicly touting past
accomplishments, perhaps he should; he was that good after all.

~~~
qq66
There are definitely consumers who are willing to pay 2x the market price for
a job exceptionally well done. However, they're not going to assume that
because someone juggled exceptionally well that they'd do an equally good job
at construction. He'll have to build his reputation in the industry
independently, and given that he's not using his juggling persona to market
his construction company, it seems like he's OK with that.

~~~
VLM
"However, they're not going to assume that because someone juggled
exceptionally well that they'd do an equally good job at construction."

That's because construction work is a very large field and honestly
resurfacing cement doesn't translate very well to juggling.

Now find a construction job that requires working under stress, lots of
attention on you, attention to detail, focus on quality, able to repeatedly
meet goals and deadlines, maybe a popular analogy with juggling...

How about general contractor? A guy like him has the brain to be a legendary
GC, no marketing BS required. If he can twist his brain into using his eyes
and mouth to keep 20 subs on track out of each others way, working multiple
subprojects and tasks in the correct complicated order and on time instead of
using his arms to throw things, I'd pay him a multiple of a typical GC because
he would net save me time and money. On a big job, he could be extremely
financially valuable, which could be very rewarding to him.

Or if he's not set up financially / people skills wise to be a GC then his
legendary coordination and planning skills would make him an awesome heavy
equipment operator. I've seen what a truly good crane op can do, and he could
be one of the best. One of those guys who works the machine at full speed yet
perfectly smooth and 1/4 inch accurate.

Not seeing how troweling cement makes best use of his unusual skills. Then
again, if he likes what he's doing, he wins.

------
pud
Great article but it makes no mention of Michael Moschen, who many (including
me) consider the best & most creative juggler in the world.

Here are some mind-blowing physics that I think the HN community, in
particular, would enjoy.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHoedoSUXY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHoedoSUXY)

He's also well-known for "contact juggling," where the balls don't leave the
hands:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OTb8tga-
yg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OTb8tga-yg)

~~~
dasil003
BTW, if you remember the crystal ball contact juggling that David Bowie does
in Labyrinth, that was Moschen.

~~~
rkuykendall-com
An amazing video about his performance in Labyrinth, which he did WITHOUT
LOOKING:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8fTAHxjdo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8fTAHxjdo)

------
gcv
Speaking as a juggler: I've seen Gatto in performance (in Kooza in 2008); he's
every bit as good as the article says. I've also seen (and met) many other top
jugglers.

And yet, to be honest, while I appreciate the talent and skill required to do
the kinds of numbers and moves Gatto does, and even though I understand the
difficulty of pulling off, e.g., 7 clubs or 7-ball 5-up 360s or 6-club
backcrosses — I find this type of juggling fairly boring to watch. No matter
how much showmanship you put into it, every performing juggler eventually
realizes that technical skill means very little and audiences get bored after
about 3 minutes. Most good jugglers with long shows do comedy and variety
routines. Gatto clearly didn't want to go down that road. I respect that.

My favorite juggler to watch is Falco Scheffler:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CmnaICnMiw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CmnaICnMiw)
— no high numbers here, just 3 and 4 balls. And way more fun to watch than
endless runs of 5 club backcrosses.

~~~
unhammer
As a fellow juggler (well, former, I don't really juggle much these days) I
agree. I find Gatto amazing in the same way other world record breakers are
amazing, but apart from going "wow" it didn't feel inspiring to me as a
juggler.

OTOH, there are world-class jugglers who go in different directions and do
feel inspiring. I remember when I was starting out, this group with Jay
Gilligan, Ville Walo and some other Finnish guy I forgot the name of had a VHS
you could order over the 'net which was just unlike anything we'd seen. They
were good technically, e.g. no problem with 5 clubs, but they also kept
inventing new tricks and new ways of using objects instead of just going for
more objects. I can't find any clips from that video[1], but there's some
newer stuff from Jay and Ville on youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w-WsyPeLEg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w-WsyPeLEg)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQJ4Q0SdJDo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQJ4Q0SdJDo)

[1] which started out with them pouring a bunch of meat and such into a jar
and slurping it down, probably a joke at the large percentage of vegetarians
at juggling conventions

~~~
withme
Also a fellow juggler, but I have always felt the opposite, actually. (And
have frequently felt like I'm in a minority.)

I could watch technicians practicing 8 balls, 10 rings, crazy site swaps,
endless 5 club back crosses, etc. in a gym for hours. I have certainly enjoyed
and appreciated the Jay Gilligan and Michael Moschen's of the world, but the
overwhelming majority of "artsy" juggling just doesn't work, at least for me.
For every Gilligan/Moschen/etc routine that I've seen that I've thought was
well done, I feel like I've seen 4-5 that just fall totally flat for me.

At the other end of the spectrum, the "entertainer" jugglers that are aiming
for a non-juggling audience I find almost impossible to watch. They are
technically uninteresting, and I just can't get into the endless stream of
lame jokes and winking at the crowd. Just awful. I would actually much prefer
to watch Gatto practice than do one of his Vegas performances. The
performances are impressive technically, but I find absolutely nothing about
the presentation entertaining.

I think the reason that I feel this way is that I've always enjoyed the
process of juggling (figuring how to do something, figuring out techniques for
how to break down a trick into pieces, mastering each piece, etc) more than
the end result (a polished, performable trick).

Back when I was juggling a lot, once I felt like I mastered a trick, it didn't
really hold much interest for me anymore. When actually juggling, I would much
rather spend my time trying to eke out a few more catches of 7 than toss 5
around more or less indefinitely.

But like I said, I've often felt like my preferences here are not all that
common.

------
DavidAdams
Even though the answer to the article's question is pretty easy (there are
really very few athletic or show business fields of endeavor that you can
actually make a good living doing), as I was reading it and watching the
videos I was really glad that it was posted to HN. I think it's fascinating to
learn about someone who's the best at something incredibly difficult.

------
mcescalante
This reminds me a bit of the Satoshi Nakamoto Newsweek article - A journalist
who wants to dig up a juicy story but gets nothing because the guy just wants
some privacy. And then he writes an article about being empty handed,
accompanied by any research that might have been done along the way.

The guy was a juggler, who probably didn't make tons of money and who was
injured & discouraged, or even just going through some regular life struggles
(we all have them). He's doing something different for now and harassing him
won't change a thing. I feel like he just wanted to be left alone.

------
glenra
> _The usual strategies of sportswriting depend on the writer and reader
> sharing a set of passions and references [...] but you almost certainly
> don’t know as much about juggling as you do about football or baseball._

Nope, I knew more about juggling! The author only lost me at the end when it
got into analogies with various names in basketball/tennis/golf that I was at
most barely familiar with. But other than that, this is a great article. I
realized midway through that I've actually seen Gatto's cirque act and didn't
realize it was him at the time.

------
hoodoof
Because there's no money in juggling?

~~~
jay-anderson
There certainly is some money in juggling. The article mentioned 50k starting
salary at cirque du soleil. But maybe working in concrete lets him spend more
time with his family for roughly the same amount of money (or more).

~~~
hessenwolf
In my youth, as a devastatingly mediocre musician, I got the opportunity to
spend some time with a band. The sex and drinking looked fun, but the
nighttime hours, and never being able to settle down with a nice girl and
start a family, blow.

------
galfarragem
_> >Will it get me another job? ... If you can’t understand why I don’t waste
my energy on doing seven balls overhead for a minute to make a youtube video
for people to watch, then you haven’t entered the real world yet._

Resuming:

If you are at the top in one hierarchy that doesn't reward you according to
your position, what should you do?

a) Stay and struggle (even with some niceties ex:social status).

b) Move to the bottom of another hierarchy where there's plenty to everybody
(but where you don't have the skill or the passion to move up).

~~~
hessenwolf
There exists a continuum of possibilities between those extremes.

~~~
galfarragem
_You can do anything, but not everything - David Allen_

I tried during last years (I'm also dealing with this problem) to be somewhere
in the middle of this 2 solutions but doesn't work. To be in the top of one
hierarchy (and get the niceties) you need focus. Nowadays to that continuum of
possibilities I would call indecision.

------
IvyMike
I was very excited to see that there was a "Juggling" category on Grantland.

I was very disappointed when it turns out this was the only entry.

------
onewaystreet
This is a case of a performer aging and not being able to understand a new
medium. Gatto asks if posting videos on youtube will get him another job. He
never considers that _it_ can be a job.

~~~
jay-anderson
Gatto seems to prefer the well-honed live performance to the recorded
performance that may have worked on the 100th take. This is a matter of taste.
It's also difficult to judge the skill of a performer in a recording (are they
that good or did they edit their video to just have their successes).

This makes me think of classical music. Live performances have certainly been
on the downward trend for many years. Glenn Gould devoted himself to just
recording instead of live performances seeing this as the future of music (see
[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/06/050606crat_atlar...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/06/050606crat_atlarge?currentPage=all)).
I think there's room for both live and recorded. Seeing only perfect
performances can create unrealistic expectations in people's minds.

~~~
mcguire
If your specialty is getting things perfect (almost) every time, and you are
competing in an arena where the other people only have to keep trying until
they get it right once, then you are going to have a bad day.

The comparison with live and recorded performances is spot on. There's
probably a reason the major "live" performances of popular musicians are pre-
recorded.

There may be a lesson here for those who are spending years perfecting
technical skills when your competition are taking three-month bootcamps.

------
bitJericho
This is really a great piece. I particularly enjoyed the intro. You must read
it again after you've read the article to truly appreciate it.

------
NAFV_P
A good alternative to clubs are Jack Daniel's bottles.

------
lnanek2
Honestly, the concrete how-to video description at the end is the most useful
take away I got from the article. Good for him.

------
eruditely
This article's existence, headline included is the straight-forward definition
of ridiculous.

"In the future, the truest sign of human existential crises came not from
plague, wars, or conspiracy, but ineffable journalism."

It also comes with a self-esteem hedge in the opening just in case you don't
read. What might be an interesting story would the the meta-article on the set
of these types of stories.

------
scrollaway
Is there a punchline there? Let me try...

"Why did the greatest juggler alive quit to open a concrete business?...
Because juggling is insubstantial!"

