Response #643 (myko) Monday, December 28, 1998

 Oh boy, what do we want to hear about the Circus???  Being a sailor I
 have learned that all sailors have *sea stories*, well I have those
 also, but I also have my little bag of *Circus Tales*.  We can spend a
 whole topic on my brief 3 year interlude with the Greatest Show On
 Earth.  I had 4 distinct periods with the Show during those 3 years.  I
 was a runaway and on the run from the law.  My divorced parents had
 filed a suit of incorrigibility with the state and I was scheduled for
 my hearing before the judge.  The Navy had rejected me just days before
 due to asthma and so I decided to skip.  My grandmother had taken my
 brothers and I to see Ringling Bros & Barnum and Bailey Circus
 (RBBB)every year when they toured the LA area and they happened to be
 in town during this time.  My friends and I had tried at the Forum and
 Anaheim Convention Center to get work but were turned away each time by
 the doorman, Phil, because of our hair.  Ricky and I were in San Diego
 for a weekend and when we returned we found that Fred had cut his
 hair, gone back to the Show in Long Beach, gotten a job and had left
 for Northern Calif.

 About a month later Fred, who was now going by Eric, shows back up on
 a Saturday night.  The Show is in San Diego and is leaving the
 following day for all points East.  Eric says that if I cut my hair he
 can get me a job.  17 and hiding out from the law, family, and about
 anything else that moved and running pretty close to major drug
 trouble, this sounds like a good place to go for me.  Early the
 following morning we drive to the SD Sports Arena and Eric introduces
 me to Wally, the Department Head for Costumes and Production Props.
 Wally tells me to cut my hair and produce a Social Security Card.  Off
 to the barber I go and explain to Wally that I'll get a dupe card at
 the next stop (Denver, Co) as I had lost mine (Mom had it).  Wally
 hands me a light blue collared shirt with a RBBB patch on it and a pair
 of dark blue trousers with a dark red strip down each leg.  They take
 me to the paymaster who takes a poloroid of me for their records (the
 draft boards do periodic checks with the Show) and for an ID card which
 they issue, I lie about my age and used this ID for the next several
 years quite successfully.


 Impressionable, idealistic and 17....when we first parked and were
 coming up to the back door to the Sports Arena we came up to where they
 had set up the high wire motorcycle act outside.  At one end of the
 wire they had a strange looking camera rig set up to film the act.
 This act consisted of a motorcycle on a high wire with a metal frame
 counter balance underneath.  Of course in the metal frame was a
 sequined, bikini clad show girl/gymnast.  They did various stunts that
 you would expect and oooo and ahhh over.  Underneath the wire we stood
 with our jaws opened watching the scene go down.  A year or so later I
 learned that the camera rig was for an Imax film and I got to see this
 in Florida and could see Ricky, Eric (Fred) and I underneath, my first
 day of work with the circus immortalized on a 6 story high movie
 screen.

 That first day I worked the early show shoving props around and just
 basically having my mind blown by being backstage at the circus with
 showgirls, clowns, gargantuan Bulgarian teeterboard artists, lions,
 tigers, elephants, camels, costumes, props, jugglers, high wire
 walkers, midgets, the costumes and the unreality of my new
 surroundings.  We propmen (workingmen) worked in the dark.  When the
 main lights go out, we go to work moving the props, cleaning up the
 dung, etc.  During the second show of that Sunday, as the props were
 used they were packed up into their containers which were put in wagons
 and trailers.  These in turned were hauled away from the arena and
 loaded on flat cars of the RBBB Circus train, an old hospital train the
 show had bought consisting of box cars for the animals, flatcars for
 the trailers and coaches for the living quarters for all of us.  A mile
 long silver train with the RBBB Circus banner in red white and blue
 painted down the side of each car.  By midnight that night I had been
 assigned a bunk in the *Workingman's Car* and by 4am the train had
 begun its slow departure from SoCal, on it's way to Denver.

 I remember the dawn of my first Monday well.  Eric and I had parked
 ourselves out on the vestibule, the area between cars, with a couple of
 stools and a pile of joints.  Tripping on the whole idea of having run
 away with RBBB I got incredibly stoned while I watched all the
 familiar neighborhoods of SD and LA pass by.  This was my first time to
 have ever left the state of California, and here I was doing it on
 this mile long circus train.

 So while some of you may have been just getting *on the bus* around
 that time, myko was busy getting *on the train*.  This was real life
 show biz folks!  Does it count if the Show had it's own Harvester bus
 that it would use to transport us between the train and the arena??
 Most folks wore their costumes and uniforms to/from the train and if
 the clowns weren't in costume they were at least in makeup as we made
 our way, twice daily, across variousville, usa.

 The Circus taught me to work hard and also to play hard.  My first
 stint with them took me from SD to Denver, Chicago, (got busted by
 management with a 1/2lb of marijuana on the train), Quebec City for
 Halloween (our shows ended around 11pm and most of the bars wouldn't
 allow us in to celebrate Halloween, perhaps our dress??), Ottawa and
 then Nassau Coliseum, Long Island.  Here I left the show to return a
 few months later and rejoin them in Venice, Florida, RBBB Winter Home.

 Like everyone else I learned to juggle to help pass the time, but I
 also learned wire walking, handled and trained elephants, tortured
 camels and giraffes, chased leopards, broken up fights between
 elephants, learned EXACTLY how long it took to get from that liquor
 store that the train had momentarily stopped near, back to the train
 after hearing the warning double toot of the whistle, chased off
 burglars and thieves in some of the raunchiest of areas of anywhere,
 usa (remember those train tracks?? parking areas are limited folks!),
 how to smoke joints in between two rings during portions of the show
 when all the lights are on and tons of stuff is happening (and tripping
 on looking up at all of you *suckers* sitting in the stands...from the
 inside out....but I also learned about many things that living with a
 group of 350 folks in a very closed society year round can bring, the
 friendships, bonds, loyalty, support was like nothing I have since
 experienced.

 I've seen elephants (I worked for the trainer of RBBBs herd at Circus
 World for a time) smash barns, cars, trailors, people and other
 elephants.  I've watched the tiger strikes, loose leopards backstage,
 loose tigers backstage and in the crowd, loose camels holding up
 intersections of traffic, elephants who flat out did NOT want to get
 aboard the train and loose circus folk in yourtown, usa.  I've also met
 some of the best athletes in the world (a couple of trapeze artists
 were actually olympic gymnasts), musicians, clowns, comedians, animal
 trainers of all sorts, street jugglers (I was the personal rigger for
 Philippe Petit, the Frenchman who strung and walked the wire between
 the World Trade Center in the early 70's) and just all sorts of
 hardworking folks.

 Okay, so I'll quit an hide this after posting.  I hope I've given you
 some thought and next time  you want to know about the circus,
 add something specific and I'll bet I got a tale for ya....

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