Auditioning for Clown Alley in British Columbia

I’ve never felt there was anything wrong with Clown College students who didn’t get a contract with The Greatest Show On Earth. As I’ve shared before, the main reason I was given a contract was because I was thin and of medium height -- so I would fit into all of the expensive show costumes for the gorgeous production numbers Ringling was famous for. It was not because of my talents and skills as a clown. Those came later -- if they ever came at all. The fact of the matter is I know many students from Clown College who were much more talented and versatile than me who never got a contract. Most of them still managed to do all right.

39 years ago I took my clowning skills on a Canadian tour with the Garden Circus. There were two other clowns with me -- Walter and Wayne. They were both Clown College grads who did not get contracts. So they formed a team and worked a lot of Shrine dates in Canada. Their wardrobe was fantastic; they must have cornered the market on zircons. They outshone Liberace at his gaudiest! At the beginning of the season they were a tad bitter and sarcastic towards me, the Big Shot who had actually clowned with Ringling Brothers. But as the season wore on and the roads got rougher and the towns got smaller, they saw that I was not a diva and didn’t expect any special treatment. And compared to their Las Vegas wardrobe, my poor weeds were strictly Goodwill. We three put up our trunks under the bleachers in each town, which we shared with Chief Thunderclap -- who did a Slide for Life. In real life Chief Thunderclap was Herbie Slobowsky, from Hoboken. Dressed in full warpath regalia, Herbie literally slid on his feet from the top to the bottom of the longest guy wire inside the tent -- a distance of some 20 yards. By the end of his descent his moccasins began to smoke from the friction. When he jumped on the group after a hair raising descent his wife Ramona would let off a full shotgun blast, which made the audience jump to their feet and yell their heads off. Not surprisingly, his feet were always red and swollen. He went through a tin of J.R. Watkins Skin Care Gift Set, Head To Toe, Hand Cream/Hand & Body Lotion/Foot Cream/Lip Balm every week.

Walter and Wayne had all the props to perform several traditional clown gags, so I really didn’t have to bring along anything but my costume and musical saw. We did the doctor gag -- which has more variations than a Haydn concerto. In our version most of the action took place between the patient, Walter, and the nurse, Wayne. My role as doctor was basically to stand around and get hit with a giant thermometer from time to time. Walter and Wayne liked to play it dicey, so most of the comic byplay involved the balloon bust of the nurse, which kept moving around Wayne’s body in an erratic fashion -- finally exploding from an ill-placed hypodermic needle. When the ringmaster intervened to say “Give that patient another shot” I pulled out a revolver and started shooting blanks at the patient as we all ran off. Not exactly Chaplinesque, but the Canadians ate it up -- especially when the balloon bosoms popped.

As part of my contract I was obliged to come up with some publicity stunts for the show as we went up and down British Columbia. The lush green mountains and boisterous Pacific coast were enchanting to behold, but the breathtaking environment seemed to breed a hardy pioneer stock that didn’t like to spend money on circus tickets. As the season progressed we were visited more and more often by that dreaded couple, Mister and Mrs. Rows. Long rows of empty bleacher seats, that is. Finally Larry, the owner of the show, came to me with grim news. Either I come up with some kind of publicity that would start filling the bleachers again or I could pack my trunk and head back to the States. We had just finished playing Kamloops, which I thought was so lovely I seriously considered relocating my family there when the season was over, and I did not want to miss the rest of the tour. The cost of living was a third less than what we were struggling with in Minnesota at the time. The fishing, I might add, was beyond spectacular. I had only to drop a line, even in a birdbath, and a second later I’d be reeling in a brookie.

So I spent the night cogitating, dredging the old cerebrum for something to boost attendance in Greenwood, the next town we played. At last I hit on a stratagem from Carson & Barnes. When their attendance began to sag they would put ads in the newspaper seeking employees for the circus, to start immediately. This always brought a huge crowd of curious folks out to the lot, just to see if there were really any job openings. There always were -- as candy butchers. Concession sales always paid for itself, and more -- so if some of the townies wanted to sign on to sell cotton candy or balloons they were more than welcome. The side effect, so to speak, of this was that most everyone that came out to see about the jobs stayed and bought tickets for the show.

I ran this past Larry and he agreed to spend $50.00 on just such an ad for the local newspaper prior to our arrival.

When we got to Greenwood it was a ghost town; there was no one on Main Street and the stores were closed. Everyone, it turned out, was down at the lot waiting for us -- and waiting for jobs. The place had recently experienced a tremendous financial downturn when the remaining mining companies had all closed up unexpectedly overnight.

Whoops.

We couldn’t very well hire 600 candy butchers, and this crowd was turning surly; they had waited all morning for the chance to apply for a job; now they suspected it was all a come-on (which it was!) Larry was no help whatsoever.

“This was your big idea, Torkildson” he said glumly. “You handle it. I’m going to go lock myself in my AirStream. Good luck.”

And this is where Walter and Wayne showed their true blue Ringling Clown College training. When I told them what we were up against they immediately rallied round and suggested that we hold clown auditions. We’d take a dozen at a time and run them through some rough and ready slapstick to discourage their ambitions. So we invited everyone into the tent, had them sit on the bleachers, and systematically subjected a dozen at a time to the delights of shaving cream pies and how to take a slap. After the first two groups had staggered away, with us calling cheerfully after them “Don’t call us, we’ll call you!” -- the rest of the crowd decided that playing Pagliacci might not be a sound career choice after all. They dispersed to the ticket wagon, as I had hoped and prayed they would, and bought enough tickets to give us straw houses for both the matinee and evening show. Plus a reporter from the CBC showed up, having gotten wind of our 'employment fair.' She interviewed a lot of townies and was about to interview me when Larry, ever the showboater, leaped out of his Airstream to give her a guided tour of the lot.

And we did pick up one young man who took our shaving cream pies and blows to his chops in stride, declaring that he was ready to put up with anything in order to learn to be a clown. He stayed with the show for exactly two weeks -- at which time his girlfriend showed up to bring him back to their love nest in Greenwood. His choice was simple -- continue on as an ill-paid unappreciated amateur or start having sex again. The kid had some potential as a clown, and I was sorry to see him go; it would have been nice to have a protege. But our next stop was Nanaimo, where they make exquisite custard and chocolate bars -- so I soon forgot about him and Greenwood.

My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, and I thank you for your support of my mini memoir “Auditioning for Clown Alley in British Columbia.”  

Sandy Weber

Billy Jim Baker

Victor Ruiz

Mike Weakley

Gabriel Romero Sr

Alberto Ramirez

Trevor Whittow

Joe Giordano

Mike Johnson

Leander Finder

Norm Thomas

Paul Dymoke

Jim Aakhus

Laura Lee Vaugh Nadell

Brenden McDaniel

Linda F Vogel Kaplan

David Orr

Kenneth L Stallings

Erik Bartlett

“May the sun never set on your good fortune.”  

Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch bought an axe

To give reporters forty whacks.

And when he saw what he had done

He gave his editors forty-one.

The Cook Tent

According to the Ringling clowns I worked with who were veterans of the big top cook tent, the grub served up was always standard meat and potatoes fare, well-cooked, generous, and served on a special set of Arzberg china that John Ringling North had personally ordered from Bavaria. Breaking a plate would cost a performer five dollars back in the Depression days of the 1930’s. But on the other hand, the staff ate free -- three times a day.

By the time I arrived on the scene, the Ringling cook tent was no more. True, they had the pie car -- but you had to pay for your meals. And there was no al fresco ambience.

I had to wait a number of years until I worked for Carson & Barnes as their ringmaster to experience the real deal of a cook tent.

The cook tent's blue and white striped siding was attached to a roach coach type truck that prepared and dispensed 2 meals each day; lunch and dinner. Since the show moved every single morning at 5:30 a.m., there was no breakfast as such. The cooking staff, which doubled as trash pickup and truck drivers, merely set out stale donuts and instant coffee on several rickety card tables. Biting into one of those ancient crullers was like chewing on cardboard sprinkled with powdered sugar. However, I rarely had any appetite to speak of that early in the morning -- so I did not feel compelled to grumble.

Luncheon was served promptly at 12, or as soon as the big top was up and the rigging set inside.

Initially I thought my status as the ringmaster would allow me to step up front for my meal.

How wrong I was!

The roustabouts, those unappreciated drudges who put up the tent each morning and tore it down again each night, had first call at the cook tent. I was politely told to step aside until they had all been served.

After they had been served I once again stepped up for my meal, only to be told once more to cool my heels.

Now the clowns, already in makeup, were to be fed, since they had to go out well before the show started to sell coloring books.

Then it was my turn, along with the rest of the no-accounts.

Since most of the workers and most of the acts were Hispanic, lunch leaned heavily towards beans, corn, and tortillas. There was also a generous tub of pickled jalapeno peppers, sliced carrots in vinegar, and fresh radishes with the stalks still on. I learned quickly that radish leaves are just as good to eat as the radish itself -- something Latinos have known all along but we gringos have yet to learn.

Meat empanadas were also a mainstay of lunch. I had never eaten one prior to working at Carson & Barnes, although I smugly considered myself a world traveler. The cooks did 'em up right. The crust was light and flaky and they didn't skimp on the savory pork or beef filling.

The rule on Seconds was simple; when the cook yelled "Que quiere mas?" there was a mass stampede up the metal steps to the truck window for the leftovers. It was not unlike a soccer riot, and I did not wish to risk being trampled to death -- so I usually had some beef jerky or beer nuts stashed away in my little room in the back of the electricity truck if I still felt peckish.

I also functioned as the on-lot publicity man, so whenever a newspaper reporter came to do a story I would give them a tour of the circus lot, including the cook tent. This turned out to be a good deal, because the cooks were instructed by Barbara Byrd herself that any time a reporter visited the cook tent she wanted lots of green salad to be served as well as the regular starchy provender. I took advantage of this ukase by casually informing the cooks almost every day that I expected a reporter from the Times Picayune to pop up during the lunch hour. This got me some much-needed greenery in my diet, although eventually the cooks caught on to my stratagem and started demanding the name of the so-called reporter that was coming over to sample their wares.

Dinner was much the same as lunch, served between the matinee and evening performances. The big difference being there would also be a hearty soup or stew and cake and pie for dessert. All meals were served on metal trays, the same kind the military uses, and after you were done you took your tray and utensils behind the truck and slid them into a large soapy trough for later washing.

No one ever went hungry who worked for Carson & Barnes.

Dining al fresco under the blue and white stripes held vast charms for me most of the time. I could look out past the tent flaps onto the circus lot, where elephants swayed, tigers snarled in their cages, and the pennants at the top of the main tent snapped in the breeze. And I always found the combined smell of manure, cotton candy, straw, and cumin to be exhilarating.

The only hair in the soup, so to speak, was when it rained hard and blew fast -- at those times the cook tent was a leaky, soggy hellhole. The food turned cold as fast as it was served out, and there were boggy holes to circumvent on your way to your table if you wished to avoid sodden feet and a sprained ankle.

And of course, in the great tradition of mud shows everywhere, during the last few weeks of the season, when the cooks finally realized that they would be unemployed pretty soon, they began to skimp on everything so they could feather their nests for the winter. That's when the food became all canned, all beans, and practically inedible. I had been forewarned that this would happen, so I always located the nearest Subway and began getting most of my meals there.

I was ringmaster on Carson & Barnes for only one season -- a Byrd family nephew had been groomed to supplant me. But that didn't dismay me; at least I'd eaten well. And with the circus, that's about all you can ever hope for.

A great big ‘Danke’ to readers who are supporting this clown mini-memoir:

Keith Holt

Veronica Renee

Sandy Weber

Mike Weakley

Victor Ruiz

Joe Giordano

Beth Grimes

Jim Aakhus

Linda F Vogel Kaplan

Brandon Deloney

Andrew Fronczak

Leandra Finder

“May all your detours be vacations”

Remembering Ringmaster Harold Ronk

One evening back in 1972 a young Ringling clown snuck up on ringmaster Harold Ronk, who was chatting affably with Rhubarb Bob, the assistant performance director, and clipped a large yellow balloon to the split of his red sequined tailcoat. The balloon waved languidly in the popcorn-scented air, promising a big laugh when Mr. Ronk strode out to begin the show with that celebrated phrase “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages . . . “ But before Ronk stepped out of the shadows the ever vigilant Charlie Baumann, performance director and tiger trainer, caught sight of the offending globe and hastily popped it with the tip of his glowing cigarette. This startled Ronk momentarily, but saved him from becoming a victim of clown alley’s penchant for japery.

Baumann then cast his eyes round about until they landed on me, innocently chewing a Van Holten’s Big Papa Dill Pickle. The glare he directed at me would have felled a lesser jester, but I merely waved at him with my briney cuke and sauntered back into clown alley to get ready for the opening number.

Ronk never inquired about this little incident; it was not in his nature to notice petty annoyances or be overborne by the vagaries of circus life. Like the Post Office, neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night could stay him from his appointed rounds of bombastic announcement and mellifluous song.  He favored corny tunes, warbled in a treacly tenor, and with great conviction and enunciation. Forty-five years later I still catch myself humming his signature song: “This is the happiest place on earth to be; come be the happiest child on earth with me!”

Harold Ronk came from Peoria, Illinois. He took voice lessons as a child and began his singing career with Sig Romberg doing Viennese schmalz. According to his obituary in the New York Times, he thought he was auditioning for a Broadway play when he sang for John Murray Anderson, the Ringling Brothers producer. When he was offered the job of circus ringmaster he shrugged his shoulders and took it, saying “A stage is a stage.”  He held that stage for 30 years.

Like Lou Jacobs and Merle Evans, Harold Ronk had become a copper-bottomed Circus Institution by the time I worked with him. He had, in a sense, tenure. He was part of the warp and woof of Ringling Brothers, and conducting the show without his Dudley Doright intonations was as unthinkable as giving arms to the Venus de Milo. It would be an artistic sacrilege.

But Ronk did not think of himself as irreplaceable.  When my clown pal Tim Holst approached him early in the season to audition as his understudy, Ronk was not in the least bit offended that a lowly comic wanted the position. Holst had a rich tenor voice, and, more important, he had picked up a dinner jacket and tuxedo pants at a Goodwill Store. They smelled of mothballs and Lilac Vegetal, but they gave Holst a ready-made ringmaster look.  Ronk heard him out, singing a few stanzas from Victor Herbert’s “Toyland.” Ronk gave him the position, making sure that Holst understood there was no extra pay involved; he also gifted him with a bright pink cumerbund from his own immense collection of waist wrappers.

After that, Ronk would occasionally inform Charlie Baumann that he felt a cold coming on and would not be in for the Saturday morning show -- let the understudy have a crack at it. And since Baumann, for all his high and mighty airs, was NOT a Circus Institution, he had to put up with Ronk’s desire to catch a few extra Z’s. But Baumann was not about to let a member of the clown alley lumpenproletariat flout circus dignity and tradition. On those special Saturday mornings, when the rest of the clowns would straggle into the alley around nine, blurry-eyed and blasphemous, Baumann would show up and crisply command Holst to come with him. He insisted that Holst dress as ringmaster in his own solitary dressing room, as befitted a member of circus royalty. But the red carpet was only rolled out on a temporary basis. As soon as Ronk showed up for the matinee performance, Holst was bounced from his private dressing room right back into clown alley. He didn’t mind. Anything to postpone putting on that cold, greasy makeup at nine in the morning was well worth it!

Ronk paid no attention to the clowns, either onstage or off. And he rarely socialized with anyone else on the show. His contract stipulated that he be provided with a hotel suite in every town we played; not for him the gritty train or a frowzy fifth-wheeler. Rhubarb Bob acted as his factotum, sharing in the luxurious lodgings and luncheons in return for taking care of his dry cleaning and acting as his social secretary. Whenever there was a Gilbert and Sullivan Society in town, Ronk could be found warbling renditions of “A Wandering Minstrel I” for their delectation.

Ronk was rather vain about his wavy chestnut hair. He rinsed it in apple cider vinegar each morning, then gave it one hundred strokes with a boar bristle brush. That’s what Holst told me after he had been invited up to Ronk’s suite one morning to go over some understudy notes. As Ronk aged he refused to let any silver strands loiter among the gold; he spent all his time between shows in his dressing room, having Rhubarb Bob pluck out any unwelcome reminders of advancing age one at a time.

My fondest memory of Harold Ronk is the night he introduced Merv Griffin as an honorary ringmaster to the crowd at the Anaheim Convention Center. Although Griffin came across as a folksy and genial talk show host on TV, when he was waiting backstage with the circus cast for his intro he managed to snarl at clowns, roustabouts, and showgirls in a very Equal Opportunity way -- treating everyone with the exact same disdain.

Ronk took Griffin by the arm and escorted him out into the spotlight. The band blared a few chords, and Ronk said “Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of all ages -- we are proud this evening to introduce our honorary ringmaster . . . Mike Douglas!”

There were rousing cheers from the audience as Merv Griffin was handed the microphone. He managed to splutter a strangled greeting and then stalked off. Ronk, not knowing or not caring about the faux pas he had just committed, blithely carried on with his duties.

  

The questions of Jesus:

But what went ye out for to see?

I went unto a seminar, to seek the victory

Over all the awful things that come so oft to me.

But all I heard convinced me that the man upon the stage

Was helping no one but himself unto a handsome wage.

Past burning plains and torrents swift I passed in search of peace;

To gurus and mahatmas I plied questions without cease.

But all I got for my long trips to all these sages wise

Was that they scratched themselves and yawned like all the other guys.

At last I bowed my head to pray for guidance unalloyed

with greed or pride or anything with which these people toyed.

I did not travel from my room that day, but wisdom came

To me, as it will come to all -- by calling on God’s name.   

Ronald McDonald in Clown Alley

In his autobiography Clown Alley Bill Ballantine tells of how the Ringling clowns had fallen on hard times during the Sixties, their walkarounds nothing more than advertisements for Kellog’s Cereal and Silly Putty. He rejoiced when Irvin Feld took over and got rid of such travesties.

This disdain for commercialism in clown alley was still strong when I joined up twelve years later. So when Art Ricker the show publicist worked out a deal with the local McDonald's franchise in Nashville to have a Ronald McDonald in clown alley and asked for one of the First of Mays to volunteer to wear the makeup for a week we initially balked. No one wanted to stoop to such depths of depravity. But when Ricker threw in an extra twenty-five dollar bonus for whoever would do it, Anchor Face immediately stepped up. The quisling.

Many a lip curled in disdain when he put on the McDonald’s makeup and costume, but somehow he managed to survive our collective scorn and was twenty-five bucks richer than the rest of us at the end of the week.

A few years later the same thimblerig operation was put over on the Red Unit clown alley, only this time the Ronald proxy was none other than the inimitable Peter Pitofsky  --  he who had once put on a green leotard, painted all his exposed skin green, and run through the audience during come in yelling “I’m a pickle! Who wants to put me on their hotdog?”  

I got the story second-hand, but apparently Peter-as-Ronald somehow acquired a Burger King cardboard crown to wear with his Ronald McDonald outfit. No one noticed the first few days, but then one of the local franchise owners spied the offending headpiece and had kittens. Large, screaming, clawing kittens. Ronald was never allowed in clown alley again after that.

As irony would have it, many years later when I needed a clown job to keep my family together my old pal Steve Smith, the Little Guy, arranged for me to interview with Aye Jaye -- the man who ran the Ronald McDonald program for the McDonald’s corporation. Aye Jaye was a Midwestern Falstaff; when I met with him in Milwaukee he took me out on the town for a series of feasts that left me feeling like the Hindenberg dirigible, but didn’t slow Aye Jaye down at all. He made free with a Chinese wine he called Wan Fu, guzzling it from a porcelain bottle like spring water. He had a bevy of lithesome blonde assistants that would have turned the head of a eunuch. Luckily, I was there strictly to schmooze him up and get an assignment to one of the lucrative Ronald McDonald regional franchise positions, so had no eyes for alluring pulchritude. My zeal was rewarded with a one year contract with the McDonald’s franchise out of Wichita, Kansas. I would travel the Sunflower State touting hamburgers. The salary turned out to be so handsome that we bought our first house in Wichita. It didn’t have a basement, and when the first tornado warning of the spring arrived we found out that the storm cellar in the back yard had been built too close to the sewer line; the seepage was not nostril friendly. Other than that, we settled into our new life with gratitude and contentment.

As the corporate mascot I and my family were allowed to dine for free at any McDonald’s in Kansas. My wife and I thought of it as a heavenly bonanza -- no more cooking and messes at home! But my children have never forgiven me, now that they are grown up and brainwashed, for the unending procession of Egg McMuffins, Big Macs, french fries, and Chicken McNuggets they were fed at a tender age. Today whenever one of them has to go to the doctor for something, they invariably notify me of the dire consequences of my ersatz parental abuse. I doubt I’d be hearing this much vituperation if I’d raised ‘em on beer and pretzels!

I only worked about six days a month. Not because there was nothing for me to do, but because the different franchise owners were an ornery bunch of former farmers and oil rig wildcatters who had bought into the McDonald’s franchise early, when they were cheap, and now had more money than they knew what to do with; consequently they argued with each other at their board meetings about how to save money, and forgot all about giving me work assignments.

It just so happened that the show Ronald McDonald was supposed to put on for the kiddies had been scripted by none other than Steve Smith, and was called The Big Red Shoe Review. It featured a lot of magic tricks, like linking rings, which I found impossible to do, especially since I had to wear thick yellow gloves. As with the unicycle in Clown College, I found my skills as a magician woefully inadequate. So I snuck my musical saw and some pantomime bits into the Ronald McDonald act, to replace the harder prestidigitation, and no one was any the wiser.

Since my contract gave me an assistant, paid by the franchise owners, I used my wife Amy -- keeping the income in the family. And since all our kids were still below school age, we took ‘em with us to every appearance. At the stores they were happy to sit still stuffing their faces while Daddy did his funny stuff. But when I visited schools or libraries or ribbon cutting ceremonies, the little ones grew quickly bored and developed an amazing wanderlust. They could be found in boiler rooms throwing janitors into the furnace or in civic flowerbeds cutting a large swath of hydrangea to give to Mommy. And the littlest one was still nursing, so when Amy would hear a lusty cry during my show she would simply desert me and go take care of business. I didn’t mind her leaving me in the lurch like that; I just pulled out my old Irish tin whistle and tootled on it until she got back.

The crowds were happy to see me and the franchise owners, when they could stop bickering long enough to visit with me, seemed pleased with my work. So I was thunderstruck when they did not renew my contract at the end of the year.

I immediately called Aye Jaye to tell him the outrageous news, but he was far from surprised or sympathetic.

“I knew this would happen” he told me over the phone.

“Why? What did I do wrong? They never once complained to me about anything! Did they talk to you about me?”

“No, but I talked to them. I told them not to rehire you.”

I was sure I had not heard him right. I asked him to repeat what he had just said.

“I was the one told them not to rehire you. You weren’t following proper corporate procedure.”

I thought he meant the changes I had made in the Big Red Shoe Review, and started to explain. But he cut me off.

“It’s not any of that. You forgot about my birthday.”

“What?”

“I always get a very nice present from each of my Ronald McDonalds on my birthday. You disrespected me and the company by not sending something. After all, I know how much you make and that you can afford to be generous.”

This was a shakedown, pure and simple. Aye Jaye expected a kickback. I was on the point of finding out just how much of a birthday present he needed to get back into his good graces when my good sense dissolved in an eruption of indignation.

“You go to blazes, you piss ant!” I yelled at him, and hung up.

Eventually I found work out on the road with another circus again, but not before we lost the house in Wichita. I never told Amy about my conversation with Aye Jaye; I was afraid she’d kill me for putting our family in such financial straits when a little toadying would have saved my job.

On the plus side, I’ve always been rather proud of myself for coming up with the phrase ‘piss ant’ as part of my last words to Aye Jaye.

From the New York Times:  The United States has long been the dream destination for many Latin American migrants, whether fleeing poverty, political unrest, natural disaster or violence. But now a growing number of migrants are putting down roots in Mexico, legally or illegally, instead of using it as a thruway to the United States.

Del Norte no longer appeals

To those who must take to their heels

To flee the unrest

Of their little nest,

Cuz Trump does not share their ideals.

The Questions of Jesus

Believe ye that I am able to do this?

No miracle without belief can happen in this sphere

Where so many are doubting and are paralyzed by fear.

Afraid to even think that God will intercede again,

The clerics and agnostics can say nothing good to men.

But I believe there’s more than what I see before my eyes.

I believe that but for God my being shrinks and dies.

I believe that timely aid and courage, not remorse,

Come to those who follow fast the Savior’s noble course.

And if some miracles are small, so small I cannot see,

Like microbes they are potent and can change my history!

Music in Clown Alley

The mad German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said “Without music, life would be a mistake.”  And with it, at least in clown alley, life was always noisy and off key.

Hurling back the years like a cape that gets in my way, I recall the acoustical eruptions of my brethren in buffoonery as earnest and upbeat, if not exactly classical. There is music in the soul of every clown, even if it’s expressed only with a kazoo. I myself studied the violin as a child, under the belief that I could eventually wring laughter out of it the way Jack Benny did on TV. But my aspirations did not match my discipline, I rarely practiced, and eventually my mother returned the instrument to Schmitt Music to save the fifteen dollar monthly rental fee.

By the time I reached clown alley in late 1971 my instrument of choice was the Irish tin whistle, on which I was wont to play ‘Yankee Doodle’ or ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ with such panache that the other clowns begged me to take my talent to Carnegie Hall, or anyplace else far away from their aching eardrums.

During all my years with Ringling the holy grail of clown alley music was a center ring lampoon of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake.’ Producing clown Mark Anthony made pink inner tube tutus for himself, Swede Johnson, Prince Paul, Dougie Ashton, and Lazlo Donnert. Band leader Bill Prynne rehearsed his brassy minions in a selection of waltzes, mazurkas and pas de deux from the celebrated ballet. The idea was to throw each other around the ring, bouncing on the inner tubes like rubber balls, and then have Dougie don a pair of foam rubber swan wings and be hoisted high up into the rigging where he would drop his tutu to reveal red and white striped jocky shorts.

But artistic differences prevented this wonderful gag from ever being performed in public. Even though it was rehearsed for several seasons. Specifically, Lazlo wanted to be the one to go up into the rigging for the blow off. But he weighed twice as much as Dougie and the roustabouts balked at trying to pull such a heavy load up so high. Or else the inner tubes developed slow leaks and had to be constantly patched, which was very time-consuming for Mark since nobody else would help him dunk the inner tubes in a tub of water to locate the pin prick holes. After a while Mark refused to do it all by himself, and the flaccid rubber tutus languished in the clown prop box, unloved and unused.

Spike the clown played the slide trombone, with a large boxing glove on the curve of the slide so he could deliver knockout blows with it during serenades in the ring.

Dougie Ashton was quite skilled on trumpet. He warmed up in clown alley with endless choruses of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Lazlo Donnert was a dab hand at the flugelhorn. He worshipped the classics, playing themes from Mozart’s horn concertos with a distant look in his eyes -- dreaming, no doubt, of his days at the Nagy Cirkusz in Budapest. His son Lotzi played the flute.

Rubber Neck (so called because of his marvelous double-take and fade away, which rivaled that of movie comic James Finlayson in numerous Laurel & Hardy films) picked up a banjo in a pawn shop and learned to strum a few wild chords on it. During come in he would sit on a ring curb and ‘play’ his banjo while yodeling like a Swiss banshee. The rest of us clowns would then bombard him with various objects, such as rubber chickens and beach balls, to encourage him to migrate backstage.

Because this was the 70's, over half of the First of Mays played rock guitar, or else did soulful renditions of 'Blowin in the Wind.' It got so bad that boss clown LeVoi Hipps finally banned all guitars from being stored in the clown prop boxes; if you wanted to show off your guitar work in the alley you'd have to lug a guitar case around all by yourself.

After hearing Lou Jacobs play the musical saw, I determined to become proficient on it myself. Lou was rather close mouthed about the whole subject when I asked for pointers; he prefered to be the only one under the big top to perform that particular musical specialty. But good ol’ Mark Anthony told me I could send away for a musical saw with lessons from the Mussehl & Westphal company out of East Troy, Wisconsin. I did so, and spent the next several months driving everyone crazy on the Iron Lung train car where my roomette was located by practicing day and night until I could manage a lilting rendition of ‘Aloha Oe. (The company is still doing a thriving business today selling musical saws and lesson books!)

The one song that is never played in clown alley, or anywhere else on the show, is John Phillips Sousa’s ‘Stars and Stripes Forever.’ This tune is reserved for emergencies only, when the building or tent has to be evacuated immediately. It was played during the Hartford Circus Fire disaster in 1944, when over 167 people died under the Ringling tent as it collapsed in flames. The tune is considered sinister and bad luck by all circus personnel.

Ringling expected a clown marching band from clown alley each season. The traditional song attempted was always ‘MacNamara’s Band.’ Prince Paul led our motley group, twirling an

outsized baton that was twice as big as he was. He was followed by the Little Guy, Steve Smith, on snare drum. Then came everyone else, tootling and banging on whatever was handy, including ocarinas, tambourines, and a large assortment of glockenspiels that had been ordered for a Spec production by the show but had been nixed at the last moment; the show was going to throw them away until boss clown LeVoi Hipps persuaded management to donate them to clown alley. Once I learned to play the musical saw, I always came up the rear of the processional; holding my saw and bow in one hand and a chair in the other -- I would sit and start to play, then notice with a start that the band had marched on, so hastily picking up my chair I would scamper after them. It was a mildly amusing sight gag.      

At the end of the season, to end the last show, the ringmaster would always announce: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have come to our journey’s end for another season. We thank you all for your attendance this evening, and wish you godspeed back to your hearth and home. And may all your days be circus days!”

And with that, BIll Prynne would strike up ‘Auld Lang Syne.’

From the New York Times:  Mr. Trump, a profane, bombastic, thrice-married New Yorker, may not have been the candidate many religious conservatives prayed would win the White House. But the mutually beneficial arrangement he has nurtured with the Christian right is already starting to nudge the government in a more conservative direction.  

So narrow and strait is the way

To White House salvation today,

The humble and meek

Are finding it bleak --

Cuz charity just doesn’t pay.