“Who’s that bubble man?” — a question many villagers and visitors have asked as they’ve seen Dugie cruising around the village for hours at a time on his scooter equipped with four bubble machines, a peace flag and kaleidoscopic attire. As it turns out, Bubble Man is just a guy looking to spread peace, love and, of course, bubbles. (Photo by El Mele)
Peace, love — and bubbles
- Published: July 25, 2024
By El Mele
For the past year and a half, the infamous “Bubble Man” — along with his dog, Buddy — have been adorning the streets of Yellow Springs with bubbles, peace signs and messages of positivity.
Also known as “Dugie” (no last name, at his request), the “Bubble Man” told the News in a recent interview that he started “bubbling” — riding around town on a scooter equipped with four bubble machines; a peace, love and happiness flag; and Buddy in a sling carrier — early last year. When asked what inspired him to start his bubbling vocation, he said he was looking for a way to make himself and others around him smile.
“During the COVID pandemic, I was becoming one of those people who was really angry at the world,” he said. “I bought a big leather bird mask and went out shopping in a bubble suit, because why not?”
Dugie added that, after pandemic restrictions around masking were lifted, suddenly people’s faces were visible again — but they were often “grumpy faces.”
“That’s when I thought to myself, ‘I will find a way to make people smile,’” he said.
Dugie added that, in addition to practicing meditation and breathing exercises, bubbling has also helped improve his own mentality.
“Part of it is comedy — to make people smile is almost comic relief. I’ve dressed up like Waldo before, and I have a duck costume at home I’ve been waiting to debut,” he said.
Another one of Dugie’s signatures is him throwing the peace sign at passersby.
“When I first started doing it, I would throw it so much my arm would hurt at the end of the day,” Dugie said. “Now people will throw it at me first.”
He added that the peace sign is his gesture of choice, because “nobody questions peace.”
“They all think I mean no war or no conflict, but I mean inner peace,” Dugie said. “If we all come to an understanding of peace for ourselves, conflict resolution and universal peace will follow suit.”
In addition to bubbles and peace signs, Dugie’s other signatures include mismatched knee-high tie-dye socks only found in the tie-dye booth across from US Bank at Street Fair. He pairs these with the colors of his dyed handlebar mustache.
Dugie said his journey into bubbling was partially inspired by the now-defunct annual Bubble Fest event, which was established in 2013 by Douglas Klappich, Deborah McGee and Bob Partida as a yearly opportunity to get together on Xenia Avenue and simply blow bubbles; the event was halted in 2020 due to the pandemic. Some of Dugie’s own bubbling supplies came from his participation in Bubble Fest.
“I think bubbling is a hippie kind of thing — some of the older people in town told me about a man who used to just stand in town and blow bubbles,” he said, adding that after Bubble Fest was canceled, he bought as many bubble supplies as he could and left them outside for kids to use. He recalled going into Walmart and seeing bubble solution for sale for $1 a bottle — and buying the whole shelf.
“The person who checked my receipt thought I was shoplifting,” he said.
While Dugie has had his scooter for years, he began bubbling by buying a tiny bubble machine that would only run when his scooter was parked.
“I did a lot of research into how to rig things up to batteries and what size machines to buy,” he said. “I even found one that is the size of a small car and will fill a whole room with bubbles. I would like to get that one day.”
Dugie told the News he has spent over $1,000 on his bubbling setup, which, in addition to the four bubble machines, includes six batteries.
“It’s hard to imagine that someone would spend over $1,000 on joy,” he said. “A lot of people ask me why I do it; like I have an ulterior motive. I do it for myself — to make myself smile just as much as I do it to see everyone else smile.”
Bubbling is itself fairly noncontroversial, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t brought Dugie a little trouble — he has received a few tickets from Yellow Springs police related to the practice.
At this year’s spring Street Fair in June, Dugie received a ticket for parking in a restricted area. He had been parked in the same restricted parking spot since 10 a.m., but Dugie said an officer only wrote the ticket after the bubbles ran out at 4 p.m. He had to return throughout the day to refill the bubble machines, and told the News he would have moved the vehicle if asked. Dugie later posted on Facebook about the incident, receiving more than 100 responses, with most thanking him for the bubbles and encouraging him to fight the ticket. However, a handful of commenters disagreed, saying it was his responsibility to be aware of where to park and that he shouldn’t get special treatment.
“I decided I was wrong; I did drive around their barrier and parked in their marked-off restricted area, even though there was nothing going on in that area,” he said. “They had the right to give me the ticket. I was breaking the law, so I went ahead and paid it.”
Dugie had a different perspective for a ticket he received during the 2023 YS Pride festival, that time ostensibly for impeding the sidewalk. Despite the ticket being paid for by people leaving money on his scooter, Dugie said he didn’t believe he had actually impeded the sidewalk — so he fought the ticket and won. He told the News that he would like to get in contact with the coordinators of Street Fair and YS Pride so he can find a permitted place to park during the events.
Dugie has established a GoFundMe effort entitled “Keep the bubbles going,” with the goal of not only continuously funding the effort, but so there is a safety net for someone else to take it over if he can’t do it anymore; the site can be accessed at gofundme.com/f/YS-BubbleMan. He said he also hopes to expand the effort.
“Yellow Springs needs more hippie people doing more hippie s—t,” Dugie said. “I would love to bring back Bubble Fest, too.”
Dugie considered his message of spreading peace, saying he takes it to heart. He even approached a group of protesters at the recent YS Pride event about their message, telling them: “I can believe what I want and you can believe what you want, but we can easily agree that we all deserve peace, love and happiness.”
*The author is a student at Antioch College and a freelance reporter for the News.
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