speaking of flies, it seems we're dropping LIKE them.
i think we've got about 12-14 performers out with injuries right now.



Rollo is one of our star clowns, he's one half of "Pepe and Rollo" (from Spain and France respectively) and they play sort of the sidekicks of Chuck the ringmaster as he battles with Tom Daugherty our Star clown for control of the ringmaster hat and, subsequently, the show. He also does (DID) this awesome part of the show where he played "What a Wonderful World" on the trumpet while balancing on his HEAD!

anyway, Rollo's out with a bad knee and may not return.
we've got a cossack horse rider out with a busted leg something.

two inner tube ukranians out with a bad ankle and wrist.

i think a couple of from our Henan troop are out. one, in particular, Wong Long had a BAD turn of events recently.



for some reason - no accident as far as i know - he's lost his SIGHT!
it was slow going at first, but now he's just about completly blind.
this kid's great too, very charismatic, everyone loves him - everyone's friend - great performer great showman.
here in Denver he had some doctor visits scheduled - and now he's already gone back to China.
i think there was something pressing up against an optic nerve in his brain that caused all this. (information when there're so many people around, it's like a HUGE game of telephone, who can really tell sometime - water cooler news when you're in the circus and everyone speaks different languages )

i hope he's alright
hope not too many more people get hurt

less than great

we're pulling out of denver here in a bit.
we did TWO weeks here and it felt so LONG. it's weird when you're in a city for less then a week and then do two.
it doesn't seem like much, but take away the train run and load out and suddenly there's all this time on your hands!

we played the Denver coliseum which..... isn't the Greatest of places - there's also the Pepsi center which is more modern and where the Nuggets (NBA team) play.

we got the coliseum, which, it turns out, is a converted Airplane hanger! you can still see the curved ceiling - and it looks like they just plopped old seats along the sides.
there's no second level - the place looks like the have rodeos there - i guess they must since they have horse stalls in the back

which stink

there's not a lot of space either there so most of the dressing rooms where "Curtains and Poles" (it is what it sounds like) with the few available rooms reserved for the ringmaster and start performers and such.

we, the band, got curtains and poles.

we always seem to get placed next to the Flying Casacres (our trapeze troop) either them and/or the nursery.

now, that's always tough because 1) lots of loud crying kids 2) we have to watch our volume and language more than usual. not that we're especially BAD, but we're still smelly dude musicians types.

so, not that much space there - all of our dead boxes (empty road cases) had to go back in the barn/horse area in the DIRT. and most had good layers of dust today when we loaded out.

the worst thing - FLIES, SO MANY STINKING FLIES in this place!

nice part was there were a bunch of tables and chairs set up near our pie car - that's rare. bad part - that's where the flies were.

haircut

i think i'm due for a haircut.

and what that means around here, for me at least, is that i'll be making a visit to Xu Pin.
He offered to cut my hair one day and i took him up on it. it turned out great and i saved some money.


Xu Pin and his brother are the coaches for the Chinese Henan troupe. They do the final act of the show - This great Swinging Pole act where they're flying upside down across moving swinging poles. This isn't them here, but this is pretty much their act and those poles look exactly the same as our guys'. heck, it may BE our guys! in this video the acrobats are MASKED, but the routine's a little different - all the same - this is pretty much it.





Xu cuts all the hair for the 15 or so guys on the troop and he's also on the same casual labor crew with myself, Li Pan Pan (one of the acrobats), Vivian (Brazilian dancer) and, as of late, Wages.






my story here wouldn't be complete without mentioning these folks. Along with Eli, Jeff, and Buda (the sound guys) these are my load out and load in people. These are the folks i'm pushing boxes, driving forks, and loading trucks with till all hours of the morning in some cases. It's been a challenge working together when there're so many languages involved, but we make it work.

For the most part, the Chinese all at least know two phrases : "Good" and "No Good" which kinda comes out "gooduh" and "no gooduh" This is about the extent of Xu PIn's english vocab, though he also knows "Box" and "Finished" "bye bye" and our names. We've learned some work specific words like how to say "Pull" or "Push box" and "Water" and "Finished" as well as some not so appropriate words! Between all that and rudimentary sign language and the occasional drawing, the jobs get done, and even some jokes get told and news gets relayed.

Li Pan Pan is younger, 20, i think, as is Vivian who speaks Portuguese. They get a long well and joke around a lot - Li Pan knows more english phrases, which is the case for more of the younger members of the troupe and he seems to like Michael Jackson as he is constantly singing into his pretend mic and mimicking spins and moonwalks across the arena floor. Meanwhile, Vivian knows her own set of english and understands most of my spanish as i'm slowly picking up some of her portuguese -
so between us all, somehow, all the speakers and microphones make it from one city to the next, and i think we have fun doing it.

forklift

so, tonight at load out a forklift backed over my foot




it hurt


nothing was broken


it feels alright now, i guess, maybe my ankle hurts a little when i MOVE it





i'm gonna put some ice on it and see if it hurts in the morning, i figure it

just might


we'll see

we're on our way to salt lake city now.
i've never been there. this'll be a little longer of a train run at 700 ish miles (from stockton, CA)
we're scheduled to be spotted tuesday at 3 pm

veterans predict we're spotted around midnight

Northwest Train Run

i love the train runs. everyone does - if there's anything we can pretty much all agree on is that. people may have their grudges with the job, and, for the most part, they're legitimate : long hours, weird hours. small rooms, lots of shows, and grueling load outs at the end of each week.







but, once that train starts moving it seems as if all is forgiven. it's the best part of the job hands down. it's one of the first things people ask about and it's one of the first things i mention. there's nothing else really that can describe it, or, i can imagine, can match it. it's just one of those things that there is nothing else like.




of course i suppose there's a lot of those. nothing else is like eating oysters or bungee jumping right?







there have been some great runs and some okay runs. of course the longer they last, the better. a nice long 2 day run is great, but they're usually about a day. the shorter ones are a little less than a day, and everyone now and then we get a nice long 3 day one.





this one through Oregon and Washington was one of the prettier ones, and my first time in this part of the country. great hills and trees and lots of tunnels which are a favorite around here.



Bridges, tunnels , large views, loops and bodies of water.

all good things

going away

last night there was a going away party for pie car melissa. we're in everett, WA now, and she's originally from portland, OR. most people seem to leave around their hometowns if it works out that way.

so when someone leaves there's usually a big sha bang in their honor - birthdays and going aways.... those are the big parties, and one or the other is never too far away.

she mentioned last night that as she was saying goodbye to people it felt like she was getting out of prison.

i've heard that same comparison made a few times. though i suppose a lot of people refer to their jobs as prison, right? that's not too unusual. now, i've never been in prison, so i can't really speak for that demographic, but i suppose i could see how a couple of things Might be similar :

small confined room
close quarters
community showers
dirt and gravel for a front yard
prison looking school bus

of course, all that could be college too, so i don't know...

it can be a very, very Very monotonous life. if you let it be.
just to BE out here isn't very hard at all - granted that a couple of things like space and travel don't bug you. but if that's the case, there's not a whole lot you need to worry about. there're busses that pick you up outside your room on the hour to take you to your place of work's doorstep. the bus takes you to the grocery store and brings you right back, and there's even a pie car at the building and the train for food. and that's it. that's all you NEED really, and for a lot of folk that IS all they do - and it's worked for them for YEARS. mail comes to you at the building. you don't have to cut your yard or re-shingle your roof.

sometimes the hours aren't great. the worst stretch for techs must be a six pack then load out (ending at sun up Monday a lot of times) and an overland right from load out to a pre-rig that same night or crack of dawn Tuesday for load in Tuesday.

it can be rough

in any case - people usually seem to be both happy and envious of those who "get out"

low profile

we went to the mall and movies today. we being, stilts Dan, Fulk, Ketchup, and dancer Vivian. this is a big deal now - going to the mall. going to anything, really is an event. things like going to a movie, or a bowling alley. even if there's a convenient store within walking distance it's a big deal. most of our time here, transportation wise, is dependent on the bus to and from the arena, and city transit once we're there.

anyway, thats not the point. this sprint phone guy at a kiosk started trying to chat it up with us, while we were looking at a mall directory. he started off asking about where we worked, if we all worked together, where we were from. i guess we kinda get that a lot depending on who we're with. as much as we try to just blend in with normal people, something about a group of us walking around just sticks out, i guess.

so this guy's asking about us, and as i was nearest i guess it was up to me to respond. he was asking about where we worked or if we worked together, and i side stepped the answer a bit. we don't really like mentioning that we're in the circus. i've noticed more and more as i've been here that i'm reluctant to drop the "C" bomb early or at all in conversation.

not sure why that is.... not everybody likes the circus, clearly, and in some cases the mention of it can be met with downright hostility... but that's not always the case.

usually, when it comes up, people can't believe it, and they want to know more, and that's nice, but i guess it's that we just don't wanna talk about it. i've noticed that not too many of my posts are about the show, and i know why That is.

we play a LOT of shows.... i can't overstate this... sometimes, it's as little as 5 or 6 a week, but usually it's 8 - 11 and it's a 2 and a half hour show here. since january of this year we've done over 300 shows. it's roughly 400 shows a year .... of the EXACT SAME SHOW (excluding missed cues and the occasional mishap, of course) if there's anything ALL of us here on the show can agree on is that when there's not show, we'd rather not even think about it. the monotony of that one element (the main element, i suppose ) is the thing that we all try and avoid. so, we go out, see this, do that. the train runs are fun and different. the market runs are at least to different stores....but the show stays exactly the same every .... single..... time...

and, this can be a little maddening after a while, and so i find myself doing things and enjoying other non-show things for NO other reason than they're simply NOT the show.