What is Juggler Method?

It is not a set of rules.

It is impossible to quantify.

I can’t tell you what Juggler method is but I can tell you when I see someone doing it.
You catch momentary glimpses. Maybe it’s the baker or the paper boy. There is a touch
of leadership, a moment of being the ringmaster. They pull out an emotion or they seem
attuned in unexpected ways. So I was an extra in a movie last night.

My actor friend is acting in an independent short student film. It takes place in a club.
They sat me next to a couple other extras, a guy and a cute girl. Do they know what they
have done? I’m a cat next to a catnip toy and bowl of tuna fish. Our job as extras is to
look like an audience and laugh at the main character. Man, faking a laugh is hard. In
between takes I chat up the two at my table.

“So how did you find yourself here?”

“I auditioned.”

“Really? I was just walking down the street.”

I find myself slipping into the gap. The line between their thoughts and mine blurs. I am
only making minor adjustments - a touch of control here, an occasional nudge towards
positive feelings there. All the while I’m subtly leading the girl towards seduction and
sexual tension. The air begins to crackle with it. The guy, “̃Joe,” eyes open wider. He
starts o back out as he feels electricity between the girl and me. No, I don’t let him. I pull
him back. I want him to feel this too. The girl at the next table tries to get my attention. I
gently push her away. She’s cute but his is not her ride. I am riding the gap. I control it
yet it controls me. Is this what surfing is like? Sometimes the gap scares me.

My girl is nineteen. I am 36. I happen to mention that my last girlfriend was her age. This
is helpful. Sometimes when a girl realizes our age gap, she can become uncomfortable. It
took me awhile to figure out that they were not so much uncomfortable with me being
older as they were themselves being younger. So I have learned this way to reassure them
that I am okay with their age. See, I’m a good guy.

“Are you going to stick around after?” she asks. She wants to hang out. I know where this
leads. It’s ten o clock pm. - the witching hour, too early to go to bed, too late to do
anything else but hook up. My mind scans the available secluded locations - the couches
upstairs, the coat closet, my car. Yes, that is it. My car is a block away. This scanning is a
habit. It’s like I send out a pulse and bounce it off all the places I can take a girl to be
alone and make out. I am like the whales with their sonar. I can’t turn it off if I wanted to.
It’s my nature now.
“Sure,” I say. “I am going to stick around.” But as I find out, movie making is
unpredictable. We have to re-shoot the half the scene. My angle is not needed. Damn, I
will probably end up on the cutting room floor too. In the end I go home. I will see my
girl next week when I get back from SF.