Horrific Storms and Blood-Sucking Gas Pumps, Make-Do Roustabouts From Homeless America -- Desperate Big Tops Face a Season of Discontent ...

Holiday Look Backs, this from 2008


"Labor," answered John Ringling North to the question I once asked him, "what was the greatest challenge you ever faced?" How the word resonates this very moment as our tenters stumble out of the barn minus the labor they desperately need to stop stumbling. Already, Cole Bros. has nixed Carolina stops pending the arrival of brown hands from Mexico bearing those coveted Visas.. Already, Ben Trumble, who in better times handles upscale matters, is this season swinging a sledgehammer and taking it like a trouper ...

“The number of workers (on Visa) was effectively cut in half this year when Congress failed to authorize an exemption for previous Visa holders.” That spells trouble for the nation’s big tops who rely on — how to kindly word this — reasonably priced help to toss canvas over weed and dirt and mud, lace it up, swing poles into place, and hoist it sky high, link ring curb to ring curb, frame to flat to chair to rail, one plank at a time ... “EVERY show is in trouble," says another source, the Savvy Insider. "I’ve heard rumors that Carson & Barnes has missed dates too.”

John Ringling North’s three ring Greatest Show on Earth bit the sawdust in Pittsburgh more than fifty still-mourned years ago. Pray nobody meets the same fate this time ... Which intersects with an issue hotly debated here by the Edgar & Burck sideshow along the commentary annexes ... They were chatting about just and fair “compensation” for performers. I am chatting about dollars for tent servers, thank them, and how grateful I feel in retrospect for all of the humble hands who down through time brought circus day to my town ...I can imagine Byrd and Pugh and Royal rejoicing in the arrival of real willing prop movers from south of the border. Those guys are now the stars of redemption. Saviors of the Sawdust. Without them, no, you don’t want to go there ...

... This season, roustabouts could be a gang of homeless lured out of cardboard shelters to help set up a limping tent show for a handout, after which, per inside sources, they opt back for shelter life over chasing after spangles. Want the truth, Wade? Here’s your latest Showbiz David exclusive Eye on the Midway: “All winter I kept reminding people what it was like when we had to round up bums from missions, the daily turnover,” says Trumble, right now laboring on Culpepper. “We’ve used mission crews for three weeks, and it’s been a monumental pain in the *###, and the guys blew every night — but we’ve successfully moved the show and now we have enough Visa workers to get the tent up.” Go, Culpepper! I cheer your Trumbling triumphs ...


Ben might be, with hammer in hand, considering life in a shelter. “Labor,” said JRN, not skipping a beat. Carson & Barnes surely faces the biggest challenge, with a sprawling three ring smorgasbord about to be trucked from coast to coast. Discount gas from a sympathetic mid-eastern despot? Into Florida, perhaps for the first time, troupes C&B, so notes Paul H. Later, near fall, they’ll be out in San Francisco testing the city’s prissy impatience with real circus, and I can’t wait.. I’ll have a pocket full of dollars, and I’m gonna tip maybe every prop hand I see. Gosh, you gotta love Mexico ...

I swung a sledgehammer on the old Wallace Bros. Circus, not then realizing the full significance of a tradition of cherry pie I was serving. Now, I feel what my real role was there. Bottom line, you might be a joey, David, but you ARE a skinny canvas kid like it or not, so go to it and help us make the date ...

End ringing it for sunny day relief: Also from Paul H. (whom I kind of think I know) John Ringling North II, feeling his tanbark power, will be pitching his Kelly-Miller top for the Great Circus Parade, slated to roll again in Milwaukee in 2009 ... Chirps Paul, “JRN II is going to show his stuff.” He will, I assume, if he’s got the person power to make it happen ... Baraboo Barb continues apace on Ringling’s Gold Unit, floating on her golden holiday working concession for the Felds, and countering “blog comments” alluding to a paltry performance. No no no, says Barb, “the public absolutely LOVES this show. The reviewers agree. Town after town, more praise. ‘Ringling gets it right!;” Well, might I suggest, it’s about time, ho-ho (I’ve yet to take in the Gold edition)... Circus World Museum’s new prince to the rescue, Stephen Freese, is high on having a scale replica of the White House play his grounds during the winter. Duh? Okay, I suppose, but, hey, ah, you’ve got stuff that is more deserving, like that hidden charm of an old fun house tucked away in one of your back sheds called the Thimble Theatre. Maybe Truman and Kennedy never walked there to sample its spooky upstairs, the shuffle boards below. Lot's more fun than gawking over a dead model where dead presidents once lived ...

Pray for Visas ...Chant for the agile hands that move the restless canvas ... Chant for fearless Barbara Byrd to get the wingpower she needs to deliver her redoubtable three-ring manifesto to all points routed. ... John Ringling North II evidently has the nice-guy way in spades. Says Alan, out of the show with an ankle injury, “I have to say Mr. North is the nicest man I ever met and great to work for” ... Which prompts this memo to all beleaguered big top tycoons with sledgehammers in hand: Be super nice to those worker bees, dispense gratitude by the bail and pray they won’t desert back to the mission. Trouper Trumble, breaking away for active duty, knows that which separates the dreamer from the showman: “Gotta pound some steaks.” Yes, I’m tipping the first two or ten roustabouts I see.

[above photo: the last unfolding at dawn: Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey offloads at the runs in Pittsburgh, PA, July 16, 1956, for the last shows it would give under the big top]

3.21.08