Weigt says he's already sending out the invites for the coming week's IHOP jam, and insists the show will go on.
"It's a little bit of a stress relief, and it kinda feels good when you get pissed off to twist something around," he adds, letting loose with one of his trademark laughs.
Jeff Newton
Dan Vincent rides the life-size balloon motorcycle he
created in four hours with Ed Chee. At his restaurant
gigs, Vincent will make anything from a platypus to Bob Marley. "I try to meet every request that comes in."
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"We're hanging right in there, and we're gonna keep positive," he says. "That's where the balloons really help."
At a late December photo shoot featuring what a consensus of the community agrees to be the best of the Valley's twisters, there's a palpable tension in the air that isn't detectable at the monthly jams.
While Jeremy Johnston and Marie Dadow put the finishing touches on the elegant balloon dress they spent nine hours creating for JoAnn Gray the day before, and Ed Chee and Dan Vincent decide which parts of Vincent's giant motorcycle design they each want to tackle, Vincent's girlfriend Jessica -- who, insiders say, is irked Gray has snatched the cover shot from her balloonesque beau -- keeps a disapproving eye fixed on Miss Ballooniverse.
Photos are everything in the twisters' world, where all great works of art shrivel within days. And exposure in any printed medium is seen as a major career-booster, if not a path to immortality for the doomed balloons. So it's probably only natural that the competition heats up whenever a few cameras are standing at the ready.
But there's an odd sense of abandonment after the photos have all been shot and the artists are left with the question of what to do with their masterpieces. Most opt to leave them behind, rather than squeeze them into their cars. A few of the smaller pieces are stuffed into a trash can, with a box cutter setting off deadly pops like a submachine gun.
Chee sees the brief shelf life of his art form as one of the main reasons people have trouble placing a high value on the twister's work.
"It's transitory art," he says sadly. "Let's face it: There are only so many days that the pieces will last."
For the twisters themselves, though, their art sometimes appears to be immediately disposable. After spending more than four hours teamed with Chee creating his elaborate giant motorcycle -- complete with a cool teardrop gas tank, a V-block engine and flaming exhaust pipes -- Vincent looks ready to simply walk out on the creation he's just given up a morning's work at his day job to complete.
"What do you want to do with this?" he's asked as he straps on his big balloon apron and turns to leave the studio.
Vincent just shrugs and delivers his cold verdict with the slightest smile.
"Pop it," he says.
