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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.

one day i was on a slow moving train riding through the western desert at 3 in the morning standing out in the vestibule with people named cricket and checkers. we were watching Dan, the stilt walker from Brazil, spit fire out of the vestibule window. in the moments after that, i saw the person named checkers run a prophylactic through her nasal passages, and subsequently out of her mouth. then there are days like today, where you simply wake up early for a split show day (mid-day or morning show and the usual 7:30) and gather some food to take to the building (whatever arena we're in). you go to a crowded bus that takes you off to perform a show that you've performed over 250 times in the past 6 months.

Old New york stuff

i ran across this while browsing on Youtube. Back in March when we played Madison Square Garden, they had this big fancy party thing at some MSG ballroom. For most of us, it was a chance for free food, free drink, and , at best, a decent DJ (there wasn't one).

But people got all fancied up, and that's always fun to see. So, i guess this thing called the
Barry Z show was there the whole time interviewing the big shots while we stuffed our faces.

Here we have Nicole Feld being interviewed by this "Z" guy. Nicole is the daughter of Kenneth Feld who owns Ringling as well as all of the Disney On Ice shows. He wears really nice pants.

Then he interviews Tom Daugherty who is the star clown here on the 138th edition. He is the foil to Chuck Wagner 's ringmaster. Tom graduated from Clown College back in the day and his name is known throughout the clown world. Chuck had various roles on Broadway - he's got a great voice and a huge personality. Both these guys have made quite a name for themselves outside of this tour and they carry the show well.

so check out the video i guess ...




i don't much about that Barry Z guy, but he scares me ... especially his hair.

hot

it's just plain HOT out here in the west. i guess that should go without saying when one realizes that it's all DESERT out here., but i mean HOT. in two weeks out here - mostly, Phoenix and Las Vegas - the lowest high was 106 or 105 i think. and the highest was 112!! that's hot!! i don't care if it's "dry" or not.

stupid

we just finished a string of really great cities - Colorado Springs and Las Vegas and are now in Phoenix.
Colorado Springs was great! the highlight of which was THE best train yard on the tour (from what i'm told) There was a park there, with GRASS and a playground, and a pool, tennis courts, and a basketball court. Right on the other side of the park was a beautiful college campus. In fact, one of the days there a bunch of our south americans played a game of futbol with some kids from the college on their soccer field. These type of opportunities don't come around often at ALL out here in train life. our world is navigated mostly by foot or by cab. A few folks have bikes and a few folks have their cars out here and they drive instead of taking the train runs, which, if i haven't made it clear enough, are THE best part of being out here .



So, anyway. the yard was amazing. We ad some great cook outs at the park. i got to play basketball, which i hadn't done in almost a YEAR, and during one of our cookouts Fulkerson brought out his new set of 4 congas, a djembe, some agogo bells, and claves and a few of us just had some fun as "Normal" folk were passing by.

That was the other unusual thing : there were just a bunch of locals, just normal locals walking around our train yard/their park. A train yard is traditionally a pretty isolated place - and in most cases it's a downright undesirable place to be. If we get some greenery, some flat space for a grill, and a little mart or convenience store that's within walking distance then it's gonna be a good week. but sometimes, it's really rocky and uneven right off the track, and in bad cases it's an isolated, not-so-great neighborhood where ya gotta watch here you walk.

then, there was Vegas. Vegas was cool. i'm glad of all my vices, (which aren't many, but ARE beloved) gambling isn't one of them. i lost $15 bucks at the slots and that was about all the gambling i had an appetite for apparently. i Did stay up all night and see the sun rise over Treasure Island though, and there's plenty of places to go exploring so it was never boring and i got to see my second ever Cirque de Soleil show, O, and that was pretty ok.



the strip was so much to take in. just lights, and lights and lights. and the place never slowed down. now, i've been to new york, and i gotta say las vegas really DOESN"T ever sleep! and when you're in these casinos it's difficult to tell what time of day it is, what with the tinted windows, and no clocks, and dizzying floor plans and WAY too many mirrors EVERYWHERE!!! I'd never SEEN so many mirrors!! and, of course since there were so many ... it looked like there were THAT MANY MORE !

we played at the Orleans Arena located conveniently at The Orleans Hotel & Casino. Michael Bolton was also playing there in the hotel's other theatre at the same time as we were. I didn't see Mr. B, but i didn't meet the girl who played trombone in his band, and his drummer as well - i guess that was cool. albeit, they were the GREATEST trombone player and drummer, respectively, on Earth. THOSE people's services have already been retained by the good people here at Ringling, of course.

Crowds were great the whole week - being in the same place to a hotel brought a lot of tourist of course, and being in a city with a lot of entertainers living IN it was a factor too. I heard the phrase "Vegas is Ringling's graveyard" apparently, a lot of ex-ringling people end up with stationary jobs here in vegas on some show. Eli (our greatest sound guy on Earth) is friends with the sound guy on Cirque's Ka show, and i believe that guy used to be circus on the Red show ...

so, i it was nice to play for other entertainers - the show can get so monotonous that it's cool to know there's an audience who's more aware of what's going into what we do than the average bear. not that we don't perform well for the general public, but performers know that performers tend to put a little bit more "paprika on the shish kabob" for other performers, if ya know what i mean!

so, some pretty exciting news from Clown Alley.
every tour, apparently, they design and produce and sell a Clown Alley t-shirt. Some resident clown with the steadiest hand will draw a design for the shirt, and they rattle it off and sell it to the rest of us , for a little buck and it's tradition.

now, i didn't get last tour's shirt for a few reasons: i came mid-tour so 1) they were all out of my size, and 2) it didn't really feel like my tour anyway, and 3) i didn't think that design was all that great. I ended up getting a left over XL freebie by the end of the tour, that i have YET to wear, but it's a keepsake, of course.

so, the point of all this
is that the new Clown Alley
t-shirt came out recently,
and i snagged some up
since they're so COOL

John, whose clown name is Squeak, designed the shirt. John is a first year clown here at Ringling come to us from Minnesota. He's got a knack for visual art and did a comic style design here where each of the Alley members are depicted as an appropriate super hero. Ketchup, for example, is Wolverine. Cuchi (real name Henry who is from Peru, and lives two doors down from me) is depicted as Zorro. There's also Luigi and his wife, Sylvia as Mr. Fantastic and the Fantastic woman. John drew himself as Spider-Man which i presume is his favorite. It's really a nice looking shirt and on the back is a handy dandy legend so you can match up your favorite clown to his/her super version.

and, of course, the blue rings on the sleeve and neck make it so stylish

ketchup & boo boo

"ketchup" & "boo boo" are the nicknames of two clowns here on the show, and good friends of me and my neighbor, John Fulkerson - resident Greatest Trombone Player on Earth.


Their real names, of course, are NOT "ketchup" and "boo boo." They are Akosh and Gabor, respectively, and are just two normal twenty-something guys who also happen to be clowns. We still CALL them boo boo and ketchup though, i rarely hear anyone call them by their real names except each other. their real names are Hungarian, because that is where they are from, Hungary.

now, boo boo has been here since november of 2003, i believe, and ketchup started his life as a ringling clown in december of 2006. their story is a lot like performers from other troupes in that they knew each other back home, trained together, and,though not in boo boo and ketchups case, performed together. they learned and studied their circus skills together at the Hungarian State Circus Academy.


i didn't even know there were circus schools until i got here ... i mean, i it makes sense and all, i wouldn't think there WEREN'T circus schools ... that sort of thing just didn't occur to me back in the "normal" world. here, we've got from left to right: ketchup, boo boo, sandor (pronounced SHAWN-dor who also went to the school with boo boo and ketchup) and ben, who's from america. (which, one finds out is just kinda bland after a while out here ... American's, that is.)

these 4 guys do an old school muscleman routine for pre-show. all they need are some handlebar mustaches and dumbbells that say ACME and it'd be complete.

they're just regular guys though, that's the thing about everyone out here - sure, there's a couple of eccentric people, but most are just people doing a job .... that happens to be in a circus. boo boo is really interested in hand balancing and practices that and his hat tossing and catching it on his head all the time. he also loves music and has started taking piano lessons from me. we meet on sundays in between shows and he's got some skittles already.

now, ketchup is more of the party guy. he's the guy yelling down the hallways, with his sideways speech. he'll just knock on your door and stick a cup in front of your face when he's ready to socialize and it's hard to ignore a ketchup when one's in the room. and, true to his clown nature, he's ALWAYS laughing. this guy just loves life, good food, and good friends. i recently flew home to visit my girlfriend, and he gave me ten bucks for the cab ride to the airport... "just in case." well, as fate would have it, i would've been about 10 bucks short! he's a good guy, and we both thank you, kecthup!
his background is mostly in russian bar where he was a catcher.

here's ketchup performing with his old troupe in 2006

on the first and every other trick, ketchup is the one facing the woman.

as you can see, it takes quite a bit of strength to do this. and, as you can see, ketchup's a bulldog. he's basically a hungarian wrecking ball who also happens to be a clown. now he's never one to pick a fight, but he's a good buddy to have walking back home to a train yard from downtown at 3 in the morning, i'll tell ya that much.

so, that's ketchup and boo boo. two of my neighbors, and two of my friends.

getting through a six-pack

so, a few cities ago during a six pack - that's 3 shows on saturday and 3 on sunday - me and Mullen, the greatest saxophone player on Earth, made a video.

see, a six pack can be a mind numbing monotonous experience - or it can be done before you knew what happened . either way it involves being at the arena from 9 ish in the morning until 10, 11 ish at night.

it's mostly mentally hard, just psyching yourself up for each show, trying to put fresh energy and attention into something that by now, we've done, EASILY over TWO HUNDRED times! this year.

on a sidenote - we had an absolutely HORRIBLE 1st show the other saturday .... i think - (after a while they kind of all run together) or maybe it was the 2nd show of the day, can't quite remember now .... anyway, the point IS that is was HORRID.

we, the band were all Over the place, people looked tired and dis engaged. the clowns looked ragged and bored. star clown at a slow pace. animals missing tricks. motorcycles not working - awkward transitions as a result of ... my point is, to all those at that show or any like it ... we're SORRY, we do this DAY in and DAY out, and although we're usually pretty good about showin' up for the big dance with our A-Game each and every time .... sometimes.... it just ain't in the cards ... it's not you , it's us.

ANYWAY

in between shows we get about an hour or so off in which people eat ... practice .... nap ... internet ... music ... tetris.

all of these are favorites of we blue unit band members - except for the Practice one. (that was a little joke, see? :)


Mullen likes to play around on GarageBand a lot - he really gets into it collecting jam packs with different instruments and whatnot. so we're there sitting, eating and he's going through this new pack of Orchestra Samples and plays this Orchestra Hit sound ... you know, like M.C. Hammer used to overuse back in the day or one that accompanies the sudden scare "Boo" in a horror flick.



well, Obviously and ACTUALLY, this would LITERALLY get my attention and make Mullen and I roll over laughing and do this video . . . and get me asking why "Da Hammer" didn't cross over into horror movies.




In the film Mullen is pretending to look for me to tell me i'm late for the show and should hurry here Mullen plays this Great "spooky movie, low cello" sample that worked out really well.- i dismiss him at first, (or ... pretend to, really - i'm not REALLY talking on the phone with anybody) but then the sudden jolt of realizing what's going on HITS, i mean .... it just hit me - exhausting, really. :/ Mullen did the narrating, camera work, AND sound effect all himself, and i'd just like to take this chance to say what i great job i think he did. Great Job, there Mullen!