going BACK!

So..... I'm headed back to the Blue Unit, back to the train, back to the circus but just for a few months. A fella named Matt Richard
(ri-SHARD) replaced me this past year after the December break, and I guess he decided the train wasn't for him. So,
Tim Eaton calls me a couple of months ago or so and tells me this news asking if I'd come back for
Winter Quarters and on through New York which is late Feb/Early March-ish, I think.

anyway, it took some prodding and me clearing a lot of schedule and working it out with my current job at the
Magik Theatre but it worked out and here I am in the San Antonio International Airport waiting to get to Tampa.
It might take me a bit to get an internet card set up, but I'll be blogging back up here. To all those back home, stay tuned for WQ and circus blogs. Take care


Circus!

going home

so, i've recently made the decision to leave Ringling and get myself back to San Antonio, TX that's where i'm from see... i told myself when first starting this job that i'd do it for a couple of years or so - i knew from the start this would be a chapter in my life and not a career. i feel the itch of wanting to go back, to change - maybe back, but definitely change. maybe it's the nature of just about all of us here. being circus folk IS to be nomadic. it seems everyone here has bounced around a couple of times before landing here. who KNOWS how many back stories most of these people have?!

to wanna pick up and go every couple of years or so. i have a friend, Josh, who, as we who know do know, seems to just be in a different place every time we look him up. josh'd be good circus folk.



it's been a great ride, it's been fun, but i'm excited to do laundry in a full sized machine and not have to wait for my 10 or so neighbors to do theirs during the days outside of a run when the machines aren't LOCKED! i'm excited to cut my yard, to check my mail, drive my truck (though, not to pay for gas) to walk my dog, to bbq on my grill, to sleep in my full sized bed, to enjoy a day off NOT on a moving train - to be able to go to concerts because we're always working during showtimes and in arenas. you get the idea :)

it can sound like griping, sure. i was talking to a friend this evening on the phone, talking about the not so greatest points of this greatest show. yes, there are pros and cons, just as there are ANywhere. moving train - cool. tiny room? good and bad - it's cozy, need little cleaning though it needs it more often. interesting neighbors? good and bad. muddy train yards? eh.... free travel? good.

it really comes down to whatever you make of it, and the same can be said of ANything really. as my good friend, Dave once said - it's about just deciding what kind of life you want to lead.
this has been a great chapter, and i regret nothing - there are stories FAR too numerous to tell in the moderately (at best) updated blog of mine. G rated on up kinda stories. hit me up at my house over a beer or back at Eddie's over some of those DELICIOUS lengua tacos, and i'll be glad to tell some of them.

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