"I don't know what came over me or what gave me this confidence..."

What this episode is about

A narrative in which the speaker recalls their early passions in musical theater, baton twirling, and object manipulation, and recounts a turning point in 2011 Philadelphia as they navigate career uncertainty after college with a music and English degree. The story frames themes of self-confidence, choosing a life path, and the context of a snowstorm year shaping available opportunities.

Key takeaways

• A snowstorm and a folk festival collide—survival skills expand when plans go off-script.
• Childhood hobbies like juggling become social magnets, turning performers into personal matchmaking catalysts.
• The hat moment shows how spontaneous courage can outshine rehearsed charm in real-time.
• Philadelphia’s arts scene stitches together disparate subcultures—folk, circus, and theater into one playground.
• Moments, not schedules, drive meaningful connections; improvisation often writes the best origin stories.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Alison (Host) · 7 min speaking
• Buster Katon (Guest) · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Philadelphia, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Alison, juggling
2. 3:00 – 6:00: juggling, circus
3. 6:00 – 9:00: juggling, Philadelphia, circus, Alison
4. 9:00 – 10:28: Alison, juggling, Teamwork, Snowstorm

Notable quotes from ""I don't know what came over me or what gave me this confidence...""

• As a kid and a teenager. I was a baton twirler and a juggler and just an all-around musical theater nerd. So, those are my big hobbies.

  about musical theater · at 0:31

• Oh, object manipulation. Oh, so if there was like a school talent show, that was my jam. So, my story begins in 2011 in Philadelphia. I was 24 and I was fresh out of college…

  about Philadelphia · at 1:16

• In this nice shady grassy area. And every year at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, this circus troop called the Give and Take Jugglers perform. And I had seen them throughout my…

  about circus · at 2:49

• Have to go to this job in Massachusetts for 3 months. One of those days, we are getting lunch and he asks if I would consider being his juggling partner when I got back and doing the show with him.

  about juggling · at 6:44

• Juggling level yet, but my daughter's really into gymnastics. And fun tidbit, we still perform every year at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. And last year was the first time that both kids joined us on stage for a routine.

  about Philadelphia Folk Festival · at 8:03

• I think you're thinking of that movie with Brad Cooper did. Yeah. But like the uplifting version.

  about Brad Cooper · at 8:57

• Of who we are as a couple and how we bond. We go out, we do the show, we put in all this hard work. We have to use a lot of teamwork and figuring things out together. And then…

  about Teamwork · at 9:43

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Alison — Person · Main guest (caller/storyteller) · 3 mentions · first at 0:31
  Alison narrates how she met her future husband through juggling at the Philadelphia Folk Festival and how performing together became their career and relationship glue.
  And we slowly took over the troop and we've been performing together full-time for 14 years.
• Buster Katon — Person · Referenced example (vaudeville/circus lineage anecdote) · 1 mention · first at 8:29
  Buster Katon is referenced as an example of a child performer used as a prop in parents' vaudeville act, paralleling the idea of family performance traditions.
  Oh, that was a boxer who knocked out Tyson for the first time. Yes. Buster Katon.
• Helen Gahagan Douglas — Person · Referenced person (correction/aside) · 1 mention · first at 8:24
  Buster Douglas is mentioned only as a mistaken name before being corrected to Buster Katon, serving as a brief comedic aside.
  Oh, that was a boxer who knocked out Tyson for the first time. Yes. Buster Katon.
• David Blaine — Person · Referenced celebrity (callback) · 1 mention · first at 8:46
  David Blaine is referenced as an episode/callback point during the Buster Douglas/Katon name confusion, not as a substantive topic.
• Brad Cooper — Person · Referenced celebrity (film comparison) · 1 mention · first at 8:59
  Brad Cooper is mentioned in a comparison to a movie about carnival/juggler types, used to illustrate the tone of a hypothetical film about the guest's life.

Concepts & topics

• juggling — Concept · Core topic (skill/craft and relationship catalyst) · 5 mentions · first at 0:31
  Juggling is the shared skill that creates the meet-cute, becomes Alison's career path, and functions as a bonding ritual requiring practice and coordination.
• Teamwork — Concept · Core theme (relationship + performance requirement) · 1 mention · first at 9:48
  Teamwork is explicitly described as essential to their act and as part of how performing together helps them reconnect as a couple.
• circus — Concept · Supporting topic (performance genre/career frame) · 4 mentions · first at 2:53
  Circus is used to describe the style of the troupe's show and the guest's shift from uncertain post-college plans to a performance career.
• object manipulation — Concept · Supporting topic (terminology for juggling/props) · 1 mention · first at 1:14
  Object manipulation is introduced as the broader term for juggling and related hand-toy skills, connecting Alison's hobby to a wider subculture.
  Object manipulation they call it.
• musical theater — Concept · Background topic (identity/hobby) · 1 mention · first at 0:37
  Musical theater frames Alison's youth interests and social context, contrasting with her more niche juggling/baton hobbies.
• Snowstorm — Concept · Conversation frame (present-time context) · 2 mentions · first at 0:08
  The snowstorm situates the call in the present (Philadelphia weather, snow day, supplies) and is used as a closing joke about juggling snowballs.
  Yeah, we have a snowstorm right now.

Places & events

• Philadelphia Folk Festival — Event · Key event (origin story setting) · 3 mentions · first at 2:04
  The festival is where Alison sees the Give and Take Jugglers, catches the hat, meets the performer, and later returns annually—making it the pivotal event in the narrative.
• Philadelphia — Place · Primary setting (location) · 7 mentions · first at 0:03
  Philadelphia is where Alison is located during the call and where the origin story occurs, including the festival where she meets her future partner and their local performance base.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Hello. Hi. How's it going? Wonderful. Where are you? I'm in Philadelphia. Ah, the great city of Philadelphia.

0:08 Yeah, we have a snowstorm right now. Oh, do you have enough supplies? Oh, yeah. We're all set.

0:13 You got power. Clearly got power. Thank goodness. And the kids had a snow day today, so that was very exciting for everyone.

0:20 Oh, there's nothing better. I know. Okay, so tell me, where did this meet Q take place?

0:25 All right, so it took place in Philadelphia. And first, just a little backstory, a little information about me as a kid and a teenager. I was a baton twirler and a juggler

0:37 and just an all-around musical theater nerd. So, those are my big hobbies. Maybe your high school was different than mine, but I don't remember the baton twirler and the juggler being like the bell of the ball necessarily.

0:49 You're right. Musical theater was kind of separate, a little cooler, and the baton twirler and juggler was really my own thing that my friends didn't really understand.

0:58 Were you in pageantss? I wasn't. I just enjoyed the fun of it. I didn't want to compete.

1:04 Now, I could see that hobby bringing you into other cultures. Like, because the Grateful Dead people were so into different hand toys, I could be like, well, [ __ ] maybe that's my home.

1:14 Object manipulation they call it. Oh, object manipulation. Oh, so if there was like a school talent show, that was my jam. So, my story begins in 2011 in Philadelphia. I was 24 and I was fresh out of college figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go in and I thought maybe I wanted to be a teacher, work with kids. I had all these part-time seasonal jobs.

1:40 What degree had you picked up? I had a degree in music and English, so neither one super useful. And I was thinking about going back to school to get my teaching degree. But at this point, I was about to leave for an outdoor education job that was going to be in Massachusetts for 3 months. And before I left, I got this call from an old high school friend and she told me that she had extra tickets to the Philadelphia Folk Festival the next day. Her parents weren't going to use their tickets and wanted to know if I wanted to join. And I said, "Sure, that sounds like fun." So, I go to this folk festival, and the Philly Folk Festival is really fun. It's folk music, banjos, guitars, lots of hippies wearing tie-dye.

2:25 There's no overlap with a Renaissance festival, right? You're not eating turkey drumsticks and throwing axes or anything.

2:31 No, none of that. It's more about the music and camping. It's still kind of dirty and hot and people get into it, but it's a little different than the Renaissance Fair vibe. So, at the Folk Festival, there's also this familyfriendly area where there's like kids activities and kids music. And it's in this nice shady grassy area. And every year at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, this circus troop called the Give and Take Jugglers perform. And I had seen them throughout my childhood over the years. They were kind of like a staple in Philadelphia. They would perform at school assemblies and camps and my Girl Scout troop. And they were this really goodnatured, familyfriendly, rotating cast of jugglers. And they put on this vaudevilian classic circus show.

3:19 They had this collapy they would crank and that would play music and they'd bring kids up on stage and juggle around them. So they just had this timeless magical quality that was really fascinating to me. And so at the festival I was excited to watch them and like relive my childhood. So, I park myself in the audience kind of up this hill in the back of the audience and they're performing down at the bottom of the hill. The show starts and this man comes out on stage who I didn't recognize. He had long hair and he starts to do this routine with his hat and it's just to music. There's no words and he's flipping his hat and doing hat tricks and then he throws his hat to someone in the audience and he mimes to them to throw the hat back like a Frisbee and try and get it on his head.

4:04 Okay. Love it. That's the point of the routine. So he throws it to them, they throw it back, it doesn't work. It goes off to the side. It lands on the ground. It's comical. He hams it up. He throws it to the next person again. They don't know how to throw a Frisbee. It goes somewhere else. And the more he tries, the more comical it gets. The tension is building. Everybody keeps missing and missing. So finally, he works his way down the crowd and he locks eyes with me.

4:31 Oh, you're the perfect gal for this mission. Oh yeah. And so he launches this hat up and over the crowd and I see it sailing towards me and I don't know what came over me or what gave me this confidence, but I stood up and I caught the hat on my head.

4:47 WOW. OH HI. WONDERFUL. The audience gasps and he reacts with surprise and I'm surprised at myself. I didn't plan it or anything. And so I took the hat off and I launch it back to him and it sails over the crowd and it lands perfectly on his

5:08 Oh man. Man, man, this is so sexual. The show goes on and I kind of forget about him. And then after the show is over, I see the performer talking to someone who I was already acquainted with. So, I felt comfortable kind of barging in and interrupting their conversation. And I said, "Hi, you threw a hat on my head. What a great moment that was." And he like looks at me mysteriously and he goes, "We were just talking about moments."

5:37 Okay. It's like the Middle Ages. He was trying to say Sim, but juggler style. Yeah, I was like, "Oo, who's this cute guy?" So, we talked and I told him that I was also a juggler, which was interesting to him. So, we juggled together.

5:51 Really quick, when you juggle together, are you both independently juggling? Are you juggling like tossing back and forth to each other?

5:58 Yeah, we were tossing back and forth to each other. Yeah, we were passing clubs.

6:01 That has to be so euphoric. I was just with Aaron last weekend and we were talking about how much we miss playing catch with just a ball and a glove and we were talking about the weird magic of that should not be as enjoyable as it is but by god is it soothing. So I imagine you put six seven balls in the mix. It's got to be down

6:16 euphoric insect ten if you're good. No one's good at that. When you get it going get in the flow it feels really good. We started talking and before we know it two hours had gone by and it was time for him to do the next show. So, we part and I go home and I immediately stalk him online and come back the next day. I had totally abandoned my friend who had brought me to this festival in the first place and I just hang out with him the whole day. We hang out every single day until I have to go to this job in Massachusetts for 3 months. One of those days, we are getting lunch and he asks if I would consider being his juggling partner when I got back and doing the show with him.

6:56 Oh, yes. You've been dying to join the circus. Yes. I had never considered it as a career, but I had all the skills and I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. So, I thought that sounds like a much better idea than getting a regular job. So, let's give it a try. When I got back from Massachusetts, I started performing with him and dating at the same time.

7:18 And we slowly took over the troop and we've been performing together full-time for 14 years.

7:24 Oh my goodness. And you're married. and we're married and we have two kids. Oh my gosh, what a great story.

7:32 Is this activity taking you overseas? I could see you guys going to Europe with this routine.

7:37 We haven't gone overseas with it. We stay pretty local. We're in Philadelphia and so we travel kind of up and down the eastern coast. We do a lot of school assemblies and fairs and community events and things like that. So, it's nice cuz especially now that we have kids, we can stay home, be home at night, don't need to take anybody on the road with us.

7:55 Yeah. Do the kids juggle? Well, my daughter is seven and my son is three, so they're not quite at the juggling level yet, but my daughter's really into gymnastics. And fun tidbit, we still perform every year at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. And last year was the first time that both kids joined us on stage for a routine.

8:16 Oh, fun. Oh, how cute. Yeah, it was really full circle and made me so happy to bring them to the place where we had met and the whole story started. That's how Buster Douglas got his start. He was a prop in his parents vaudeville act.

8:29 Buster Katon. Yeah. What did I say? Buster Douglas. Oh, that was a boxer who knocked out Tyson for the first time. Yes. Buster Katon.

8:38 And they called him Buster. I think it was Buster because they would throw him. You're done. You're over.

8:42 No, we already knew it. Oh, you already knew that. Everyone here knew that. David Blaine episode.

8:47 I love that. When I'm hearing it, I'm watching a Garamo del Toro movie. I want there to be a really cool show about juggler carney type folks. I think it's a neat one.

8:57 I think you're thinking of that movie with Brad Cooper did. Yeah. But like the uplifting version.

9:03 Sure. Well, if anyone wants to do a movie about us, that'd be great. Well, first of all, when it's becomes a job, does it affect how much you do it for fun?

9:11 Yeah. There's this jugglers club and it's once a week and we have yet to go. That makes sense. And then the other thing I was imagining is you could maybe also track and plot the natural es and flows in a relationship by how much you two are juggling together. You could go like, man, we haven't juggled in the backyard in 6 months. That's a bad sign.

9:33 When we don't have a show for a while, like if we take a break for some reason, like for the pandemic, it really felt like something was missing in our relationship. Like this essential part of who we are as a couple and how we bond. We go out, we do the show, we put in all this hard work. We have to use a lot of teamwork and figuring things out together. And then we go out to dinner afterwards. We kind of have a date. It's this whole ritual. When that was missing in our life, it really feels like we need to do a show together to reconnect.

10:02 Yeah. Yeah. I bet. It's like Sunny and Sher, but the good version. Yeah. Where he doesn't take all your money.

10:08 Well, funny enough, right, the only thing they enjoy doing together was working together. Yeah. Well, Alison, this was really heartwarming. I like starcross jugglers. Thanks for having me so much, you guys. This was a real pleasure.

10:19 Good luck in your storm. Snowball juggles. Yeah, we'll juggle some snowballs. That's a great idea.

10:24 All right, take care. Bye. Bye.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in ""I don't know what came over me or what gave me this confidence...""?

Alison (Host), Buster Katon (Guest).

What is ""I don't know what came over me or what gave me this confidence..."" about?

A narrative in which the speaker recalls their early passions in musical theater, baton twirling, and object manipulation, and recounts a turning point in 2011 Philadelphia as they navigate career uncertainty after college with a music and English degree. The story frames themes of self-confidence, choosing a life path, and the context of a snowstorm year shaping available opportunities.

What is mentioned in this Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episode?

13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including juggling, Alison, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Philadelphia, Teamwork, circus. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is ""I don't know what came over me or what gave me this confidence...""?

The episode runs 10 min; the transcript is about 2,126 words in 42 timestamped sections.

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