Saturday Night Showbiz Take-Outs: Fighting Over the Fat Lady; A Dog and His Man; A Funeral for Laughs; A Backyard Lady Tells All ...

While we hover on the edge of ringless lots hoping not to see more tents tumble, let’s recall those five fabulous brothers from Baraboo who started out so united, and as time went on, splintered off into a million fractions that somehow miraculously held together. Here, for example, is a curve that could have felled weaker partners: The incredible nerve of John Ringling voiding a fat lady contract signed by Al for her to appear with Ringling, which Al and Charles ran —— so that greedy John could ink the same dame for Barnum & Bailey, which he and Otto ran. This juicy disclosure amazed me in Jerry Apps’ excellent tome, Ringlingville. The author, though, makes little dramatic uproar over such disturbing incidents, preferring I guess to hold up the glossy image of the Big Five forever in collegial lockstep. As we have long known, it turned uglier by the year as one by one the boys passed onto the Big Lot, leaving only John and Charles to battle it out in a sad escalating rivalry. And what a farce that turned into. A must read for all Ringlingphiles

Imperfectly in tandem, a man and his sweet dog. You’ve heard it said how a mute can resemble the man who feeds it. Here is one for the books, made in tinsel town. Seated outdoors At Fred 62 on Vermont, a man dining across from me had a cute little dog, sitting up nervously at his feet in a limping manner “He really is devoted to you,” I commented. “No, he wants some food,”said the man. Sure thing, once favored, the mute turned his gaze upon me. And a little later when the man got up to walk away, the little dog limped off. So, too, in a more pronounced manner, did his keeper. So utterly touching. A sight I will never forget. Only in L.A.

Rating the Circus Web sites: This time around and to my great delight, I’ll be joined on a three-judge panel by my own sister, Kathy, who will bring an outsider’s point of view. Then there is Ron “Sazzie,” like I, a long-running circus nut. Each of the sites will be graded in six categories: first impression; routing information; visuals of the show; ticketing; press or customer feedback; and last impression. The three of us will score individually (without consulting or comparing notes), and the sites will be ranked in order by simple adding up of our numbers. The most points any circus can receive, if they get a perfect “5" in each of the six categories, is a victorious 30. Three critics times 30 equals 90 points max. A few peeks reveal to me that some shows have made changes, warranting a second look by Showbiz David, Consumer Courts Division.

Death at a Funeral: A fabulous new flick ... Is this the funniest-cleverest movie I have ever seen? Call it a comedy gusher full of brilliant surprises from those witty Brits. It has quirky suspense, revealing insights into the precarious social customs that sometimes keep fragile human beings together long enough — maybe, almost – to honor the passing of one of their own. It is nearly perfect in script development, I can’t say enough. Unless you are put off by the ever-changing sexual landscape, Go see it!

Let’s end this with a cozy little visit to Baraboo Barb, who reports having struck occupational gold working a day & nite job at concessions on Ringling’s homey Gold unit; That’s how contented Barb makes it sound, in her own words: “I actually truly love what I do. The public is a hoot, when it’s crazy (2500 people trying to buy in just one hour) I have fun. The downside is a show’s tour ending and a new one being reborn ... people scattering isn’t something I’ve ever been comfortable with...I enjoy the ease of knocking on a trailer door to see what someone’s cooking. I’m flattered when a kid comes knocking on my door.”

Ah, the simple joys of trouperhood. I’m envious, Barb!

And that's a wrap, this one for Billy. Hey, luv, can you hear us up there? What are you cooking up just now?

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... Page Proofs Coming ... Presses Humming ...

Could be today. Could be tomorrow. UPS will deliver page proofs for my book Fall of the Big Top; The Vanishing American Circus, and I will see it finally in print. That’s always a thrill — photo images on pages, type style selection, chapter headings. Here comes my LAST CHANCE to make any changes. Few will be made at this last-see point. A real regret is that since I won’t see Circus Vargas until after I examine, pass on and return the proofs to McFarland, there won’t be the chance I had hoped for to add a line or two about their current edition ... And what if it’s wonderful? Another spangled sliver from the ever changing big top waiting for somebody’s next book to capture it forever ...

I try to root out redundant word usage (I can hear some of you laughing). I look for this and that. But at this point, this and that will have to remain fairly pat. McFarland has given me plenty of opportunities to revise and hone, and still, I will likely live to regret certain things — a sentence can be written a thousand different ways. Once off the press, it’s up to reviewers and readers to decide. Since I can dish it out, I should be able to take it, right? ... Dame Dither, where are you out there in Cyberspace? ‘Twas the Dame (a.k.a.: Judy Dieli) and her now ailing hubby, Salnatra (he sings like Frank), who first handed me down a pc they were ditching for a newer model. And here I am, blogging a few years later ...

Once bound, a book is a book is a book. You can’t go back ... The only work of mine that I would never change a single word of is my first, Behind the Big Top. It is to me so rough and raw, so much like the old tent circuses I have fondly experienced ... Not for one reviewer was it a pleasure, though. He termed my brand of big top prose “junk journalism.” Carped he, I failed to evoke the sights and smells of the circus, so I sent him a special Smell Edition, complete with sawdust and pachyderm poo off the Ringling and Carson & Barnes lots. The photo down below was sent out to 300 news outlets. My publisher (A.S Barnes), belatedly learning of the stunt, was aghast. The book sold out its first printing in around a year, but did not return to the presses. Brashness can backfire.

... My Barnes editor had handed my manuscript for copy editing over to a somebody who, maybe bored, changed only a few phrases, caught not nearly enough misspelled words (it contains dozens), and let the messy thing live. And I thank that whomever. In the wrong hands, the life might have been drained out of my personal favorite literary effort, Behind the Big Top ... Miraculously, 26 years later, Fall of the Big Top lucked out with a similarly light editing treatment — all except for grammatical errors corrected and my spelling which has been tamed. It feels almost transcendental --- as if fate itself intervened to let Fall live as Behind did. I take that as a good omen. Today, at least.

On a royal typewriter I once hammered happily away. Now, after long handing the first draft on yellow lined pads, I report to a Brother electronic from my L.A. days, then it’s show time on the computer. What a ritual. Maybe I’m each time following an evolutionary path traveled by writers who first used hand-held instruments and then advanced from one mechanical device to the next...

UPS could ring my bell any moment now. And after the initial read-through a couple of times, then comes the one task in this business which I will admit to hating: the INDEX. Even with the enormous assistance of WordPerfect, I hold my nose, buckle down into a marathon mode, and keep on going till I get to the bitter end.

Proud of my junk journalism, I’m ready for the presses to roll ... Still a thrill ...

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Sat. Nite Showbiz Take-Outs: Porno Puppets a Vegas Flop; "Paid" Plaintiff a Ringling Suit; Dame Dither a You Tubie -- Have You Something Better?

Punch, Meet Punch. Risque puppet musical Avenue Q took Broadway for some Tony’s, went to Vegas and did not take the strip. Too few voyeurs over a losing one-year run. “Exclusive North American tour,” shot. Now, it’s on the real road, not exactly turning them away at San Francisco where I caught a Wed. matinee, with plenty of seats to spare ... It's bold, fresh, inventive -- a winning little subversive charmer starring hand-held puppets worked by actors walking about the stage. A pair of offbeat romances (one straight, the other gay and very funny) get down and dirty at times, like big people going at it like jackhammers on a kitchen table after having just met at the super market. I didn’t see one kiddie in the house. This is very New York. I'm told it spoofs Sesame Street -- about which I know nearly nothing.

No wonder it failed the Vegas test, where family audiences are now the norm. Avenue Q is not for kids, and maybe too smugly sophisticated for mid-America audiences. Too insistently pc-hip. To its credit, the show is remarkably human and touching despite its raunchiness ... Quibbles? When you sit close to the stage as I did, while the actors move and turn about, the puppets in their arms are not always visible. Nor were all the lyrics easy to understand. Remember, before built-in mikes, when singers had to project? I could have done without the Gary Coleman character (one of a few non-puppets in the cast), pushing a loud-mouthed stereotype. Still, on balance, I would like to take a second look at this party, but only in a much smaller theatre where it belongs.

“Turner Classic Movies”? A lot not, some well worth watching: How did it take me so long to discover the genius of Spencer Tracy (Bad Day at Black Rock, Father of the Bride)? And why does it take so long to get through Boredom on the Orient Express, which I have never gotten through since first surviving it in a movie house? Other night, I enjoyed Roy Rogers and his gang in a fun-bundled Rainbow Over Texas, songs and action, hokey romance with Dale Evans (a year away from being the real Mrs. Rogers), Roy’s good nature, and the curiously charming old Gabby Hayes that I fondly recall from my boyhood. A rare “western.” ... Not so good, but glad I stayed awake through a slow so-so silent from Buster Keaton called College, for what a terrific pay off! He’s trying to win the girl of his dreams by proving himself an athlete; finally he does, by rescuing her from the grips of a jealous suitor, suddenly showing super Olympic skills in one of the most fantastically exciting action sequences I have ever seen. In real life, Keaton was an athlete of sorts who refused to have stunt men stand-ins.

Ringling Fights Back: Feld Entertainment files a lawsuit against various animal rights groups, claiming they’ve violated numerous no-no's of the RICO anti-racketeering statute. Thanks to Don Covington, who e-mailed me the details. In particular, one Tom Rider, ex-Feld employee, is accused of taking “regular payments” as alleged payoff for serving as a “paid plaintiff.” Rider and others said to have engaged in “various illegal acts, including bribery, obstruction of justice, wire fraud and mail fraud." The war of words continues ...

Let’s leave the troubled big top for a moment, okay? Here's Dame Dither, my So Cal connection, linking us to a dazzling collage in You Tube motion of Hollywood’s femme icons ... Mesmerising & dreamy ... This way to Women in Film ... Here is the link; copy and paste it to your address window above ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEc4YWICeXk

And did you want paper or plastic? And, oh yes, here's a free ticket to test your brains on TV's latest reality romp — “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” If you haven’t seen Avenue Q, you'd better not risk it. Punch! Get out of that men's room before Judy calls the cops and big puppet Lucy spills the beans on you!

[photo above: "Lucy the Slut," from Avenue Q website]

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My Next Circus Websites Ratings: Want to be a Judge?

I know, another of my ridiculous offers.   Have I two out there who would like, with me, to form a three-judge panel?  I only ask you to be as fair as you can in assigning points to each of the categories I give you.  Our three scores will be totaled up and averaged, and that will decide the ranking of the circus websites.  Could be fun?  I'm game.

 

The only restriction: You must NOT be connected to the payroll of  any circus. 

 

Now accepting offers!

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Blandest Big Top on Earth: I Offer You Cirque du Vegan

Introducing a circus to offend none, where performers wear hard hats, animals stay home, and all concessions are trans fat free ... At a local cafe here in Oakland on Piedmont Avenue where I like to hang out, a good old fashioned chocolate chip cookie has been replaced by a Vegan version — heavy and thick, I’d rather have the real thing and suffer the guilt. .... The upscale set with their iPods and laptops are pretending to adore this tasteless substitute. ... Give them Cirque du Vegan (Jim Judkins, are you listening?), and maybe they will come ... Be sure your big top offers Wireless.

PC stalks the lot: So depressing -- are we all not in this together? -- to contemplate the fallout from a trial evidently to be, in which Ringling will once again be accused of mistreating its elephants. And how sadly ironic: I ask you, World, has there ever been a circus man that has done more than Kenneth Feld to assure the most humane living and work conditions for its animals? Or have I been duped? .... Compare the tragic plight of those vicious fighting dogs and the disgraced football star who enabled such disgusting spectacles ... Mr. Feld can also be on occasion be his own worst enemy. The full page ad he took out in the New York Times following the acquittal of Mark Oliver Gebel on similar charges back in 2001 struck some as being tactlessly brazen. To me, Feld’s remarks made sense ...

Brazenly speaking, all circuses stand to suffer even if Ringling wins. PETA no doubt is banking on the long-term effects of its relentless protesting outside arenas and tents where circus crowds convene. How many more seasons of harassment before too many adults and their kids feel too squeamish and guilty to return? It’s a campaign of coercion.

Michael Moore plays the Al Ringling — his movie Sicko that is, and Bob Dewel, our retired dentist in residence, plans to attend. And what might the good doc’s verdict be, we wonder? Bob, whose nimble keyboard virtuosity powers the "Mighty Barton" theatre organ, has co-authored a classy, just-published book about the house’s history. So few people know that the Al Ringling Theatre only happens to be the first movie palace to go up in the U.S. And that’s not Baraboo boasting; that’s the Theatre Historical Society of America speaking .... Let’s see, in the same small town, you have probably the world’s largest and greatest circus museum; you have America’s first movie palace; you have a genuine carnival relic in the Thimble Theatre — an absolutely charming fun house from the 1920s in storage at Circus World that should be in operation on town square. And nobody in the town has a clue how to ballyhoo Baraboo? For starters, may I suggest an SOS call to the Wisconsin Dells PR center.

Fly, Wallenda, Fly! That’s what Nikolas is kind of doing these days, partnering out with Bello Nock on the new double wheel of steel act at Ringling’s 137th. It just had to happen; for too many years, the public has equated hazardous wire walking, Wallenda style, with flying. I never understood why until reading, recently, why: Seems that, as the public sees it, when the Wallendas fall off the wire, that’s when they fly. And that’s not something I made up, nor is it something you’ll ever witness at Cirque du Vegan ...

And that’s a sicko wrap, trans-fat free, of course.


Raw and real big top birthday bash in San Jose for Ringling-Barnum's Tonka, who turned 24 on August 22.

8/26/07

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MIDWAY FLASH ... MIDWAY FLASH ... Ringling Elephant Abuse Suit to Proceed

After seven years of legal wrangling, a federal judge in Washington has cleared the way for a consortium of animal rights groups to sue Ringling Bros. for alleged cruel treatment to its elephants.

 

The show owns 55 pachyderms, of which 34 -- not born in captivity -- were owned by the circus when elephants were added to the Endangered Species Act in 1976.  Says the judge, these animals can not be exempt as are 21 others that were born in captivity.

 

Once again, a national spotlight will cast potentially unflattering light on the nation's largest and most enduring circus. Sadly, all circuses stand to suffer from the media attention, no matter how wrong the plaintiffs might be.  The AP quotes Tracey Silverman, general counsel of the Animal Welfare Institute, "We look forward to unveiling the curtain at the trial to expose the suffering and death of elephants at the hands of the so-called 'Greatest Show on Earth.'  These magnificent animals will finally have their day in court."

 

Answers Stephen Payne, a Feld spokesman, "The ruling dramatically narrowed the issues in the suit ... and validates the importance of our breeding program."

 

More to follow.

Source: Associated Press

 

 

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A Tale of Two Circus Reviews: Bellobration or Bust?

It’s lonely being a circus critic, for under the big top those two words sound awfully pretentious and irrelevant to a lot of people. When you take on mediocre acts, ill-directed shows and especially sacred cows, you run the risk of resentment and more. I’ve been publicly blasted in print, once likened, many seasons ago, to “vermin” in one of a slew of hate ads taken out against me in the Circus Report. During my tumultuous teens when the Greatest Show On Earth was foundering through its own tumultuous last season under canvas, I sent off a letter to the circus claiming that all of the organizational chaos was making me sick. In return, Henry Ringling North sent me a tactfully tart note suggesting I see a doctor.

Blame it on the late White Tops editor Walter H. Hohenadel, who dared to publish my first review when I was only 14-years old and who let stand my nitpicking away over choreography and costuming and off-pointe dancing showgirls. This act of courage (or blind faith in an article he might not have fully read) sent my precocious ego into orbit. Ever since I have suffered from chronic criticitis.

My favored mode for turning out a review is being able to write it before I have seen any other notices of the same show. This forces me to walk my own high wire, to commit to my own thoughts in a lonely state of raw independence, totally uninfluenced by what others think. A little scary, yes, but an exercise I relish. I like to think it keeps me honest — or honestly stupid.

Such was the case with my review of Bellobration. I had not seen a single write up of the show before posting my reaction to it last Saturday. Then I took a look at a review by Leslie Katz of the San Francisco Examiner, which a friend had sent me. What a surprise to find how amazingly in sync we are on so many of the acts and production elements of the 137th, though we reach markedly different conclusions.

Katz is a staunch New Pickle Circus supporter who once derided the “ tackiness” of Ringling Bros., which she now seems to miss. Well, we are all missing something, aren’t we.

Here is how our reviews compare in most respects

Favorite acts, in order discussed:

She: dogs, tigers

Me: dogs, tigers

Production elements:

She “Costumes seem thinner and less sparkly... the big production numbers don’t quite have the delightfully tacky glitz and glamour of years gone by. Still they work.”

Me “The skimpy parades ... are about as humdrum as they can be.” I did praise the oriental spec which introduced the Chinese equilibrists.

Clowns:

She: Makes no comment other than to note there are fewer of them.

Me: I liked the “Dancing with Clowns” gag, writing. “I would welcome seeing it again.”

The new double Wheel of Steel:

She: “less engaging than it sounds.”

Me: I make no comment; it struck me as inconsequential.

Bello Nock:

She: “Affable and able stunt man, “ [but] his “shtick doesn’t quite sustain the show.”

Me: “More cute and charming than amusing.... they fail to make a case for him as superstar”

Ringmaster Tyron McFarlan

She: “A commanding presence”

Me: “Emphatically efficient... [but] unmemorable.”

The "story line":

She: “less engaging than it sounds.”

Me: I don’t even mention it because it struck me as near non-existent..

Music:

She: did not pass comment

Me: “unmemorable.”

Elephants:

She: No comment.

Me. “persuasive and to the point.”

The Aguilar Bros.

She: “gets your heart started.”

Me: “dashing ... [but the act] lacks compelling content.”

Our conclusions.

Here we differ greatly. I was so put off by all of the distracting staging gimmicks from video screen to straight line ring curbs constantly being reconfigured, that it made me feel at times like I was watching the circus “through a freeway collusion zone.” Thus, I handed the 137th two-and-a-half stars rather than three. Katz, a kinder gentler critic (whose review strikes me as rating 3 stars), was apparently able to look through and maybe ignore it all, for she wrote “traditional elements ... are by far its most fascinating parts.” On that, we emphatically agree. Boffo to us both! And I will let Ms. Katz have the last word.

Me: “Not until the superior second half does the show reveal a semblance of the old Ringling magic ... clearly, there could and should be greater impact here.”

She: “...a pleasure to enjoy each astonishing feat as it happens, rather than experience the frustration of trying to look three places at once.”

Lonely up there on the high wire. And each time I come down, sometimes it’s not as bad I fear.

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