As big a part of the game as Maverick has become over the game, I'm sad to say that I wasn't there for his first introduction to Myachi. It probably didn't seem like a historic moment when it happened, but few people have influenced the game as much as he has and the second a Myachi landed on the back of his hand the game was slowly but permanently altered.
But when that happened, I was about 2,533 miles away. The gig in Vegas was a promotional trade show and trade shows aren't usually my thing. You have to be able to speak business-ese and you have to look kind of professional so anyone who knows me probably knows this isn't the ideal scene for me. It's one of the few things that we do in Myachi where teaching people Myachi is only a small part of the job.
There was a second reason I wasn't at that Trade Show with Myachi Man and Kid. I had just moved to New York and FAO was a burgeoning gold mine for Myachi. We couldn't afford to leave it Myachi Master-less for a few days. Monk was already with the company, but at the time he was just working a couple of days with us and doing his bartender job on the weekends. Beyond that, I was in the process of looking for a new apartment and anybody who ever did that in NYC will tell you that the hunt for a place around here is a full time job all by itself.
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| And on my budget I could barely afford this in Manhattan. |
When MM and Kid returned from Sin City we all went out for dinner and they told me about this dude they'd met. He had been working a Hacky Sack booth for a guy they knew and from what they said he was ridiculously skilled. He took to Myachi right away and like most really skilled foot-baggers, he loved it. We'd been talking about needing more Myachi Masters before they left so they went to work scheming a way to get him to come to New York.
The guy's name was Cody and he was from Utah so it was a long commute if we wanted him to work at FAO Shwarz. Kid stayed in contact with him and eventually talked him into coming out to New York for a week just to see what we did. If he dug it, he could come back out full time and if not we'd shake hands (or pound fists) and go our separate ways.
Once he agreed we all started kind of plotting how to get him fired up to go full time with Myachi. My assignment was to basically train him in the ways of Myachi Fu and show him what an awesome job it was. That's actually pretty easy in this job so I wasn't worried about it. More than anything, I was just excited to meet the dude that had so impressed Myachi Man and Kid. I was also pretty fired up because I'd finally found a reasonably priced apartment out in Astoria.
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The first day I met Myachi Man was a life changing moment. The first day I met Animal and Kid I performed in my first Myachi show and sold my first Myachi and it set the course for my future. The first day I met Monk we were filming our first commercial and Myachi was taking an evolutionary leap forward. The first time I met Maverick I made him help me move.
I shouldn't say it like that because I certainly didn't make him do anything. He's a considerate dude so he offered and I can't imagine that anybody ever actually made Maverick do anything (there's a reason we call him Maverick...). The dude does whatever he wants even if it seems impossible to most people. But however you lay it out, on his first day in New York he spent about four and a half hours helping Pinky and I put together furniture. As good spirited as he was about it, I'm sure that's not what he was expecting his first day as a Myachi Master to be like.
I should note that there was some pause between meeting him and assembling dressers. It's not like he got off the plane and I handed him an Allen Wrench or anything. We all met up together at Myachi Man's place in the city and played the heck out of some Myachi first. His skills lived up to all the hype and then some so I spent most of the night marveling at his foot skills. I taught him two foot tricks that he hadn't seen before, the Toe to Sole 360 (think about that one for a second) and the Duck N Dive. He taught me about 114.
After a long jam session we grabbed a bite and headed over to my new place. Myachi Man and Pinky had gone to the lego store of home furnishings (Ikea) and there was a ton of stuff to put together before we could settle into the new place. Maverick (who spent his first week as a Myachi Master going by the nickname "Utah") was going into FAO with me the next day so he came along and wound up part of the assembly line.
It's hard to imagine that there was a time when we weren't sure if Mav was going to sign on or not. It's hard to think there was a time when his skills weren't influencing the game of Myachi. But most of all, it's hard to think back to a time when I could actually show him a foot trick he hadn't seen before.
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