Tag Archives: Adam Bottiglia

The Kickstarter Yo-Yo

The King's YomenOnce upon a time I was a yo-yo master. I was one half of the yo-yo performing duo known as The King’s Yomen. I slung a yo-yo on the corner of Michigan and Pearson in Chicago, a bonafide street performer. I’ve even reflected on how the yo-yo became my salvation from a soul-sucking chapter in high school. Heck, my company even celebrated its five-year anniversary with a yo-yo.

That’s all once upon a time. I still have lots of yo-yo’s. There’s even one sitting on my desk. But I don’t throw a yo-yo on a daily (or hourly) basis like I used to.

But my friend Adam does. He’s the one who taught me how to yo-yo and dragged me on stage as the other half of The King’s Yomen. A couple years ago I saw his face in Walgreens, plastered on a yo-yo and still spinning strong. He’s still at it today, cranking out how to yo-yo videos at YoTricks.com.

This week Adam launched a Kickstarter campaign to create his own yo-yo. Not just some wood yo-yo with his name on it (been there, done that), but a $90 aluminum yo-yo with ball bearings, perfectly balanced and designed for advanced players to do 1A string tricks.

What?

That’s right, you’ve just had a glimpse into the intricate world of yo-yo geekery.

I knew it existed it, I was neck deep in it once upon a time. We had $90 aluminum ball bearing yo-yo’s in my day (Look: Here’s my 15-year-old self playing with one), but they weren’t that good. And we didn’t produce them ourselves.

Now before you dismiss this as being too geeky and not worth your attention: Adam’s Kickstarter campaign has raised $4,700 and counting in less than three days. The geeks shall inherit the earth.

Adam has another 30 days to raise funds, so it’ll be fun to see where this goes. You can get his fancy new yo-yo for $75, but if that’s not quite your speed you can get a beginner yo-yo for $15 (and learn how to use it at YoTricks.com).

Check out their video and see some amazing tricks:

I love Kickstarter. Now I just have to decide how badly I need a $90 yo-yo.

My Friend Adam Bottiglia is a Yo-yo Pro

Adam Bottiglia Yo-yo PackagingYesterday I walked into Walgreens and there it was: “Adam Bottiglia, Yo-yo Master,” right there on the packaging of the Peter Fish yo-yo’s, complete with the video display that also featured Adam getting his yo-yo groove on. You can watch Adam in action or see me show the video to Lexi.

More than just a resurgence of the yo-yo (can I claim to be ahead of the trend?), this is my old yo-yo buddy making it big (if you consider “big” to be featured on yo-yo packaging and in a video loop in an aisle of Walgreens stores across the country). Adam is the guy who taught me how to yo-yo when we were both Petra-loving, Christian T-shirt-wearing geeks. We had a yo-yo ministry in high school (that was even featured in the Detroit Free Press, complete with crazy cool photo). He taught me how to do street performing in Chicago, which made a crazy summer adventure even crazier. He was in my wedding and I was in his.

So you can understand why I think it’s pretty cool to see my friend on the packaging of a yo-yo. I think it’s so cool I bought four of ’em.

You can see more of Adam in action at YoTricks.com. And check out the yo-yos. $3.99 is dirt cheap for ball bearing yo-yos (back in the day we paid at least $20) and they work pretty good.

Fun fact: Adam and I had the chance to be yo-yo pros back in 1998. As I recall, the Yomega corporation offered us something like $20,000 to be their touring yo-yo pros. Being a freshman in college, that was the equivalent of a year’s tuition and not tempting enough to get us to drop out and become professional yo-yoers (besides, I don’t think I was ever that good). It’s cool to see Adam still chasing the dream.