Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Thank you, Chuck Sidlow

A reverent ‘xiexie’ to readers who liked my mini-memoir ‘The Rules & Regulations of Clown Alley.’ You are the trampoline beneath my feet!

Joe Giordano
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Matt Kaminsky
Leo Acton
Robert E. Handley
Gabriel Romero Sr.
Tony Chino
Mike Weakley
Greta Burck
Judy Earnest Rhodenizer
Franklin Erich Hotzel
Randy Brake
Randy Jackson
Andrew Donovan
Valerie Hanson
Chuck Sidlow
Jane Caligiuri
Richard Schmitt
Steve Ellis
Kenneth L Stallings
Raymond Deller
Dave Letterfly
Carol Prohaska
Terry Ricketts
Michael Meinhart
Craig Nelson
Andrew Alexander McHattie
Sara Howey Glore
Matt Salgado
Anna Lima
Glenn Godsey
Mary Pat Cooney
Kyle Waldeck

“Fiction is the truth inside a lie”


Thank you, Andrew Fronczak!

A hearty “eskerrik asko” to readers who liked my latest mini-memoir “Remembering Emmett Kelly.” Your faith not only moves mountains, but it moves ME greatly!

Mike Weakley
Hubert H. Humphrey
Joe Giordano
Stephen Korrodi
Trevor Whittow
Gabriel Romero Sr.
Andrew Fronczak
Chris Twiford
Robert E. Handley
Sandy Weber
Paul Dymoke
Mike Johnson
Leo Acton
Candace Howard
Glenn Godsey
Mary Pat Cooney
Jj Blackmire
Dan Lyon
Vicky Keller
Darlene Sturm Doodlebug
Jennifer Clendennen McBride
Greg Johns
Ronald Hathaway
Linda F Vogel Kaplan
Kenneth L Stallings
Pat Graves
Rusty Thomas
Kent Mercer
David Denmon
Matt Salgado
Tim Cunico
Larry Clark
Tim A Dolan
Robert Sielski
Kevin Richardson
Fred Baisch
Rey Sandoval
David Pitts
Erik Bartlett

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality can’t destroy you”


Monday, March 6, 2017

Robert Osborne

A movie ain’t a movie unless Osborne’s on the scene,
Explaining filming history and when it hit the screen.
A man so steeped in movies that his blood was celluloid;
His intros were so snappy, and they never ever cloyed.
But God was getting tired of Roger Ebert’s long critiques
And so he called home Robert despite TCM’s loud shrieks.


Shinzo Abe

Shinzo Abe thinks that Trump
Never will his country dump.
But from Maine to Guadalajara
It is plain it’s ‘sayonara.’
Tow-key-oh must be prepared
All its teeth to keep full bared
At those nuts in North Korea
Who for brains use a tortilla.
Otherwise Shinzo will find
There’s nothing safe in ‘nonaligned.’


Remembering Emmett Kelly

The face of a professional clown in repose, sans all the gaudy colors, grows inconceivably sad over time. His features settle into a weary, wary, haunted expression, because the jokes and japes he throws out to the audience seem to rebound onto his own head, and into his own personal life -- and that just doesn’t seem cricket.

The melancholy visages of old clowns that I knew, such as Otto Griebling, Swede Johnson, and Lou Jacobs, suggested hearts not only broken but missing whole pieces. And never was there a more forceful example than Emmett Kelly, Ringling’s celebrated ‘Weary Willie.’ He spent a few days at my 1971 Clown College at the invitation of Bill Ballantine, our ‘Dean.’ By then Kelly had retired, spending his days fishing, granting interviews, and whittling napkin rings out of pieces of cypress knees he picked up at the Sarasota Flea Market.

He did not deign to instruct us in anything technical, but would come over in the evenings to reminisce, in his flat Midwestern voice, about the great days under canvas when the Ringling name was at the height of its intoxicating magic. Squatting on the makeshift ring curb, he remembered blowdowns, hoof and mouth disease among the livestock, the Hartford Fire, his vain attempts to woo ill-fated circus star Lillian Leitzel, and a host of other depressing circus subjects that left me feeling orphaned in a sinister universe. He just was not a happy camper. He would take questions from us, but inevitably his answers involved train wrecks and other disasters. One night I asked him who he thought the greatest clown ever was. He looked off into the distance for a good long while before answering.

Slivers Oakley” he finally replied. “He came along before Chaplin, worked with Ringling, and finally blew his brains out when he couldn’t make it in Vaudeville.”

Kelly paused to brush cypress shavings off his lap; he inevitably whittled while he talked with us.

“Buster Keaton stole several routines from him in his movies -- never even gave him credit. Like his one-man baseball routine. Best damn pantomime bit I ever saw -- always brought the circus crowds to their feet, stomping and cheering. Maybe he killed himself over a woman -- I don’t recollect exactly anymore.”  

He was not gentle and understanding with us tender young students, either. When one of the girl students asked him, apropos of nothing, what his favorite food was, he snapped back: “Chocolate covered rutabagas.”

The one thing that reanimated his deadpan face was to talk about fishing. Then his eyes would light up like those in a jack-o-lantern, glowing with the true faith of a fanatic. Nobody but me seemed to pick up on this -- perhaps because none of my fellow students had the good fortune to grow up in Minnesota, the Land of Ten Thousand Fishing Stories.

So one night, summoning up my courage, I waited until our depressing Q&A was over and accosted Kelly as he was leaving.

“Mister Kelly” I asked, “you ever caught a channel cat?”

He displayed an angelic smile and said “We caught some monsters when I was a kid in Missouri!”

“We lived just three blocks from the Mississippi up in Minneapolis. I had one break my cane pole.”

“Do tell! You ever go fishin’ on Lake Minnetonka? That used to be swell for bass.”
“Naw” I said, my chest expanding like an inflated balloon. “Minnetonka is strictly for crappies nowadays. No limit. I can reel in a dozen in about two hours.”

He gave me a shrewd look, realized I was lying through my teeth, but that I WAS a dyed-in-the-wool fisherman, and sat down on a bleacher seat, motioning me to sit down next to him.  
For the next ten minutes we ranged over a host of aquatic hotspots, from Lake of the Woods to Lake Okeechobee. I told him quite frankly that the only effective stinkbait for any kind of catfish was a piece of Velveeta cheese with a kernel of canned corn molded into the middle of it. He told me that whenever the show played Minnesota he and Lou Jacobs would pull out a huge two-man papier mache giraffe smoking a cigar and use that in their last appearance during the Finale so they could get out of their makeup unobserved and save some time -- then run out the back door to the nearest fishing hole.

When he got up to leave he gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“Nice talkin’ to ya, kid. Good luck with the show.”

This was heady stuff for a 17 year old greenhorn like me. A private chat with the greatest living circus clown! And, like a typical greenhorn, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I was soon boasting to everyone at Clown College that Emmett had invited me to go fishing with him next Sunday, probably so I could give him a few pointers. I strutted about with this whopper for a few days until Bill Ballantine called my bluff in front of the whole student body during a training session with the lean-to shoes. These are a pair of sturdy Army boots which are soled with T-bars; when a clown slides the T-bar into a metal slot installed on a thick plank of lumber, he can actually lean his entire body at an impossible angle as long as he keeps his legs locked straight. The wooden board keeps the clown from falling over, giving him the appearance of defying gravity.   

As I was practicing this stunt under Ballantine’s watchful gaze, he casually asked me:

“So, I hear you and Emmett are going out fishing this Sunday?”

“Yeah” I replied nonchalantly. “Probably just off the public pier for a coupla hours.”

“Well, that’s strange -- since he told me he’s going to Chicago tomorrow for three weeks.”

My face a crimson fireball, I inadvertently unlocked the boots from the board and fell into a crumpled heap. The derisive laughter that greeted my fall from grace sounded harsh and cruel to me. Not the kind of belly laugh I was hoping to create when my clown career started.

I think that’s when my profile began its long slide down to the homely glower that now greets me each morning in the bathroom mirror.  


¿Por qué todos mis anuncios personalizados en Internet son en español?

When I am on the internet the custom ads I see
Are all in Spanish -- why is that? Tis mystery to me!
There’s nothing wrong with Spanish or the folk who speak that lingo,
But it is not my native tongue for work, romance, or bingo.
Your algorithms, Google, have once more led you astray;
They’re telling you my green card says I come from Paraguay!  


Kellyanne Conway

A powerful woman is sure to attract
Men who think she needs to be strong attacked.
Kellyanne Conway, as Trump’s lady guide,
Is slandered and threatened and verbally fried.
She dresses all wrong and her posture is bad
Says ev’ry misogynist, lib’ral and cad.
Abusing a lady, no matter her creed,
Is how little men always hope to succeed.


James B. Comey

As boss of the great FBI
Jim Comey is some master spy.
He don’t even know
A radio show
Gives Trump the intel by the bye.


Thank you, James D. Howard!

Muchas gracias to readers that like my mini-memoir “Insomnia in Clown Alley.” Each one of you put a smile on my face.

James D. Howard
Aaron Burr
Alberto Ramirez
George Clinton
Sandy Weber
Elbridge Gerry
Robert E. Handley
Daniel D. Tompkins
Gabriel Romero Sr.
John C. Calhoun
Andrew Fronczak
Martin Van Buren
Joe Giordano
Richard M. Johnson
Mike Weakley
John Tyler
Leo Acton
George M. Dallas
Chris Twiford
Millard Fillmore
David Powell
William R. King
Mike Johnson
John C. Breckinridge
Keith Holt
Hannibal Hamlin
Stephen Craig
Andrew Johnson
Larry Clark
Schuyler Colfax
Rusty Thomas
Henry Wilson
Mike Herzog
William A. Wheeler
Leandra Finder
Chester A. Arthur
Mary Pat Cooney
Thomas A. Hendricks
David Orr
Levi P. Morton
Kenneth L Stallings
Adlai Stevenson
Rob Reed
Nathan Draper
Linda F Vogel Kaplan

“I write to taste life twice; in the moment and in retrospect”


Sunday, March 5, 2017

Insomnia in Clown Alley

When the show reached Indianapolis my first season with Ringling the train was parked on a siding right next to a John Deere factory. I never knew that manufacturing farm implements could be so incessantly noisey. There were constant crashes and boomings and the screech of metal on metal -- as well as a deep throbbing quiver that seemed to set the whole train pulsating like a vibraphone. The plant worked 24/7.

Sleep became problematical. And I was a boy who dearly cherished his forty winks. The physical demands of clowning for Ringling included fifteen costume changes per show and running at breakneck speed throughout the performance, sometimes in costumes that weighed up to twenty-five pounds. By the end of the day I was wrung out and ready to welcome the modest embrace of my murphy bed.

Those murphy beds were utilitarian -- they had a thin mattress on a metal platform that was pulled out of the wall to sleep and then pushed back up when I wanted to sit. This no-nonsense approach to my comfort kept my back in tip top condition. Ever since then when the old sacroiliac starts to act up I find a place on my carpeted floor to stretch out on for blessed relief.

But all that clamor from the Deere factory shattered my slumber. I tried earplugs, but they kept falling out. I was afraid I might mistake one of ‘em for a piece of Bit O Honey and swallow it in my feverish sleep. I was leery of sleeping pills -- the news was full of stories about sleeping pill abuse back then and besides, as a youthful miser I resented having to spend a few extra bucks just for the privilege of sleep.

The noise bothered everyone else in clown alley, too. Except for Prince Paul. After forty years of clowning he could sleep during a cyclone. He came into the alley each day disgustingly bright and cheerful, having gathered in the required eight hours without a hitch the night before. The rest of us became red-eyed and snappish. I was really starting to drag. Complaints had been lodged with Performance Director Charlie Baumann, and for once he did not shrug them off -- he too was suffering.  

In the middle of our engagement in Indianapolis I decided to try becoming so exhausted after the show that nothing would disturb me once I hit the sack. So after the show that evening I started going around the arena track at a vigorous trot. I completed twenty laps and had to take another shower before leaving the building to walk over to the train.

Which was not there. For some reason I had missed the announcement that the trainmaster was moving the train two miles down the tracks that evening. Where the train had been there was now nothing but empty tracks and the Vulcan wrath of the nearby factory. Nonplussed, I began walking down the tracks to see if I could find my wayward bed. But I walked in the opposite direction of where the train had been pulled. After an hour or so of fruitless trudging I gave up and turned back. Letting myself back into the arena I found the clown prop boxes, usually so welcoming with soft foam rubber items like mallets and the killer kangaroo, were now all securely locked up. Wearily I dragged myself into the alley, put some trunks together, and lay down in a vain attempt to sleep. It was cold and I had no blanket. My misery was so profound that at last I got up and went over to where the livestock were bedded down on the other side of the arena, to sleep in the cleanest pile of hay I could find. It wasn’t very clean, but it was moderately more soft than the top of a trunk and I soon sank into a deep slumber. Only to be awakened by several drunken roustabouts who took care of the elephants. They had been out on the town and were now returning with a snootful. Their cheery profane songs and scatalogical japes at each other grated on my ears like nails on a chalkboard. Silently sending them my dire maledictions, I rolled over and attempted to recapture my repose. Only to realize I was not alone in my bower of alfalfa. Friendly little critters were trying to make my acquaintance by crawling all over me and giving me affectionate pinches. I leaped screaming out of the hay pile and ran down the hallway flailing my arms like a windmill, scaring those nearby roustabouts into a fit of sobriety that lasted nearly two days.

I went up into the bleacher seats and stretched out for the remainder of the night and early morning. When I staggered into clown alley that day I felt, and looked, like death warmed over.

Swede Johnson took one look at me and assumed the worst.

“Out burning the candle at both ends, eh?” he queried with a wicked leer on his wrinkled old face.  

“Where were you last night, Tork?” asked Tim Holst. “You never came back to the train?”

“Asleep in the hay. What happened to the train?” was all I could manage to croak back in reply.

Where I got the stamina to do two shows that day I’ll never know. That night I made it back to the train and fell into my murphy bed almost sobbing with relief and pleasure. I slept ten straight hours and awoke as bright and chipper as Prince Paul.

Nowadays I’ve reached an age where insomnia is often my midnight companion. But do I worry or complain? I do not; I take a blanket to my recliner, snap on the reading lamp, and settle down with a book. Sooner or later I fall back asleep in my cozy chair, thinking of that terrible night in Indianapolis and thanking my lucky stars that although my youth may be gone my bed is always within reach.