NC State was great!

I have been a professional eco-entertainer for over 25 years and I almost always enjoy my job, but this year at the North Carolina State Fair was really really terrific. The weather was beautiful. The fans were fantastic and I'm pretty sure I did my job well. Thanks NC State Fair... we celebrated what's great together.

Shhhhh... it's a secret.

Don't tell anyone, but KEEP THE SHOALS BEAUTIFUL and Steve Trash are about to launch a really cool litter prevention contest for school kids. It's gonna be fun and magical. Stay tuned. By the way... there's a BIG prize.

Fighting Figures and Real Magic

When I was a child, I was very lucky. I was loved, well fed, and very happy. I also had access to my own very healthy personal imagination and I had the freedom to go where it took me. I would spend hours staring at the clouds and huge oak trees covered with Spanish Moss and imagine them to be alive and animated (the clouds and the trees). It's as close to real magic as you can ever come. Being a professional magician, that's the feeling I try to capture for my audiences everyday. Sometimes I succeed VERY well. Sometimes I fail terribly, but it's my goal (as well as making sure the bank doesn't take away my home and my car). My friend Rob - The Whacky Wheeler (look it up... one of the most original acts on the planet) had been telling me about Dr. Evermor and his Forevertron for years, but because our schedules are always so hectic, we'd never made it up there. Dr. Evermors Park is about an hour away from Madison (kinda near Baraboo, Wisconsin)... so we really needed a full day off to check it out. Well the stars aligned this August and Oh Man!!! You see, Dr. Evermor was an industrial scrap guy. He spent his whole life scrapping interesting stuff. But not just interesting stuff... BIG INTERESTING STUFF...Like; rocket ships and huge towers of steel, and telephone booths, and aluminum and even thousands and thousands of oversized scissor blades. But he is no ordinary scrap guy, Dr. Evermor is an artistic and slightly comical cosmic genius. His park is filled with hundreds of very large bird shaped sculpted pieces and huge faux spiders and odd shaped structures that are just plain old cool. For example the main piece in the center of the park is called the FOREVERTRON. It's massive and looks like a launching pad for a steam punk space ship. In fact, it might even be just exactly what it looks like. I'm not sure. But the piece that captured my imagination the most was his... I don't know what they are called. I named them THE LITTLE METAL WARRIORS. Each small sculpture (about 12 inches tall) of a little fighting warrior is mounted on springs (they hold weapons and look fierce) they are all lined along a 20 foot metal pole. When you move the pole.. all the little metal men begin to fight. I bounced the pole and watched. It was magic. As I stood there watching the THE LITTLE METAL WARRIORS fight, I was taken back to the clouds and the trees of my childhood. Fantastic! Dear Dr. Evermor. I am Forever your fan! Steve Trash :)

Art Cars and Art Lives

I travel a great deal. In most cities and towns I don't get out and see much. I do my shows and head back to the hotel or I drive to the next town that I'm scheduled to appear in. I know it's kind of pathetic, but not getting "out and about" is a combination of the physical effort (load in/show/load out...usually two times each day) required to do my shows and my desire to stay healthy for my next gig.
But recently I booked my TRASH AND RECYCLE school shows in Sugar Land, Texas (just south of Houston) during the HOUSTON ART CAR PARADE. My shows were sponsored by Keep Sugar Land Beautiful and I discovered that I'd be free over the weekend to go see the parade. I have always been a fan of art cars. Basically they are wild expressions of creativity in the form of some sort of mobile vehicle. This can mean almost anything; cars with recycled toys all over them, cars made to look like other things (guitars, flowers, animals), or cars that are not really even... cars. For me, the common characteristic of an art car seems to be that they make me smile. Don't get me wrong. I love beautiful cars... I think the Tesla is almost perfect just the way it is. I think the BMW Z4 series cars are some of the most beautifully designed and sleek autos on the road. But they are beautiful, art cars make me smile.
Early Saturday morning I left for downtown Houston in search of Art Cars. Because I left so early, I was able to see the cars queuing up for the parade and speak with the artists and take pictures. I took hundreds of pictures! I walked up and down the line of cars along Allen Parkway. I'd smile. I'd see another car and I'd smile some more. At some point in my four hours of looking and watching I realized what I liked about the cars. They were doing what I try to do as Rockin' Eco Hero - Steve Trash; bring a little happiness. I try to teach. I try to entertain, but most days, I'm happy if I can just lift my audiences' spirits a little bit. Art Cars are the artists way of doing EXACTLY the same thing. It's perfectly captured by the bumper of one of the art cars (a colorful spaceship car with helmeted driver) that I saw. Printed across the back were these words; "Laugh, Point, Smile, Wave". That's exactly what art cars do. They elicit happiness from the viewer. That's what I try to do. The cool thing is... right now...just thinking about them is making me smile. Thank you art car artists. :)

My Iowa State Fair Appearance last Summer

I just found this terrific video done by the IOWA PUBLIC TV folks during my appearance at the IOWA STATE FAIR last year. Good stuff.

Panoply 2010

When I was a young magician, I became TOTALLY fascinated by the concept of "Street Magic". It's a style of magic that has no stage, no lights, no trappings of theater yet it can be (if done correctly) some of the "best" theater you've ever experienced. My friend Jim recently shot me performing some green street magic at the PANOPLY ARTS FESTIVAL in Huntsville, Alabama. The audiences are always great at this festival (intelligent and fun) This audience however was particularly good. Check out the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVhK7xopbA of me performing one of my favorite "found object" magic tricks. Steve :)

Recycled Ink

I've been a fan of recycling for years. Recently (for the last two years or so) I've been buying my printer ink from Carrot Ink http://www.carrotink.com They re-manufacture and recycle ink cartridges AND they'll take your empty old ones back to be recycled. They'll even send you a postage paid box. Closing the loop baby that's what it's all about.

Dozing Into The Future

One of my many dreams is to create a green digital production studio to shoot, rehearse, edit, and perform all of my creative projects. On Monday last, we took the first step in this very cool and exciting direction. We (the Queen & I) hired a bulldozer and driver to level the dirt road that leads to our home (it gets very bumpy thanks to rain and mud) AND to clear a little patch of land to put our "green energy" studio in. We plan to "birm" the building into the earth (just like our home)... so we needed to start digging a hole to put the building in. The earth has excellent insulative abilities and we want to use this natural characteristic to reduce our energy consumption. Next step. Get more green to build green. :)

Charles Moore was a groundbreaking civil rights photographer in the 1950's and 1960's. He was also a stunning portrait photographer. Friends introduced us and in the summer of 2003 he came out to my home in "Frog Pond" Alabama and shot some photos of me in the woods. He was always so delighted to be shooting and I was a willing subject. During the shoot, he spotted a small frog. I reached down and picked it up. It stayed in my hand. It didn't jump off. It didn't even appear to be worried that a big huge magician standing in the middle of a creek was holding him thousands of feet in the air (by frog height measurements). He was ready for his... "Charles Moore Close-Up"... so Charles began shooting and shooting and shooting. That frog stayed on my hand until Charles was finished shooting (probably 5 or 6 minutes). It was a great day and Charles will be missed. Thank you Mr. Frog for a great day with a great photog.

I LOVE to compost! We compost almost all of our kitchen scraps (excluding meat and greasy stuff) in a claw foot bathtub behind our house. Composting is natures way of recycling, AND even more important... my wife can use the excellent "composted material" in our garden. Which is awesome! So I'm starting an experiment with this new 100% compostable Sun Chips bag. I've put it in our second composter (beside the garden) and I'll be checking its degredation over time. I've NOT had very good luck with "so called" biodegradeable plastics in the past. This is supposed to be different...I'll keep you posted. :)

Wind Up Here Toy Store

Several months back I was honored to make a special appearance at the WIND UP HERE toy store in Olympia Washington. I was promoting my green magic set made by IMAGIPLAY and sold by great green stores everywhere. The folks that showed up were wonderful. The little kid wearing the purple/pink dress was a trip. She was hilarious. It's always fun to share magic with an eager audience. Good times. Thanks WIND UP HERE peoples.