Calvin Utter, Street Performer and Mime
by Andrew Piccone
Tell me about your job.
I do stilt walking in various capacities. I have a series of different costumes, and I decide which one I want to do that day. One is a mime, juggling, interacting while silent, then one is like a mythical woodland spirit character. I basically put it on, with the makeup in my apartment in Flatbush, and I pack up the stilts and schlep into usually Central Park or Union Square. I’ve had some trouble in Times Square, but I like it there too. I have to sit on something kind of tall because the stilts are about three feet tall, and I strap in. I consider it to be a really creative form of begging. It’s not the most marketable skill, but it’s unique. I learned it while working with a street theatre company in Paris. While learning I had a lot of trial and error with home-made stilts while going to college at University of Vermont, a couple bad falls and slips on the ice. The way I got good, though, was wearing them every day, to class, everywhere, all the time. I was making around $50–75 an hour when I moved to New York on an average day. There’s not a lot of variety in the street performers of New York City, and besides the Pride parade I’ve never seen another stilt walker.
Have you ever been mugged?
When I first moved to New York, within the first month of being in Brooklyn, I got mugged within a block of my house. It was more of an attempted mugging, because I was on my way back from a catering job, and I had my heavy, steel-toed boots in my hands, and I hit the guy in the head with my shoes, and then a car came around the corner and he skidded off. I live in kind of a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn, and I’ve had a couple other situations where I’ve run away, and avoided having to use my shoes.
Do you exercise regularly?
I go through phases. I like to run around Prospect Park, its almost 4 miles around the whole thing! I try to do that every third day or so, depending on my schedule, because I can’t afford a gym membership, and I have a pull up bar in my apartment, but that only gets you so far.
What is your quintessential New York food?
One dollar giant slices of New York pizza. I have a Google map on my phone that I add a pin to every time I find a place that sells the big, huge, one dollar slices of New York pizza. The thing is, just because you see the sign, it might be a Papa John’s or something that has a tiny little nothing slice. I’m talking big, hunking, classic New York Slices for a dollar. You can’t beat that.
What’s the best thing about Fall?
I like getting to layer my clothes again. I don’t know if that’s my favorite thing. Fall is the time when you’re most comfortable outside. You dress warm enough, it’s the perfect temperature. Growing up in Connecticut and going to school in Vermont, the outdoors just became the most beauitful thing I’ve ever seen. When I cross the Manhattan bridge from Brooklyn every day I love looking out and seeing some of that Fall foliage.
Are you religious?
I don’t know. I consider myself to be a free-thinking Christian, by which I mean that the vast majority of the religion will let me take away words to live by. Because the vast majority of it is just a moral code that hardly anyone could disagree with, things like loving thy neighbor, and honesty and truth, and the kinds of things that anyone can agree with. I guess I consider myself to be a Christian with a grain of salt, in that I reserve the right to not listen when I think it’s stupid. I used to go to church, but I don’t as an adult. There are ways of being a moral person, and if no one is reminding you, then you kind of forget. That’s what I really like about church.
Does Staten Island get a bad rap?
I think they do. I think the biggest reason is that for most New Yorkers the only way to get to Staten Island is getting on a boat. And I think that is just a little too much planning, a little bit too involved for most people. I’m sure there are some lovely places down there, I’ve never been. But y’know I don’t feel particularly encouraged to go there. But my brother actually might be moving there, so that could change my perspective.
Last day on Earth: What do you do?
I think I’d try to make a sprinting whirlwind tour of the most important people in my life, family, friends, and just reconnect and spend my last few moments with them. That would be pretty special.
What’s your favorite Tom Cruise movie?
Magnolia. I saw it when I was 11 in theaters, and I was way too young to handle it. Tom Cruise’s character in that movie, not only does he do a damn good acting job, but the character is just so amazing and ridiculous. Especially because Tom Cruise has gone a little bit off the reservation, it kind of now just reminds me of him in real life. It was the perfect role for him.
Andrew Piccone is a photographer in New York.