On Seeing Her Again

I dreamed I was immune till I saw her sitting there;
remission was revoked and my wound is still laid bare.
This stigmata will endure while the vault of heaven stands
and the lonely heart can shrivel on the sterile loveless sands.

Comes the kingdom of the Lord

Jacob 1:6 -- And we also had many revelations, and the spirit of much prophecy; wherefore, we knew of Christ and his kingdom, which should come.

Comes the kingdom of the Lord and all his rule obey;
the ignorant but honest hearts rejoice in that bright day.

Fulfilled the ancient covenants; veracity revealed.

No longer can the devil's pawns keep Gospel light concealed!

Fall upon your knees, O man, whoever you might be,

to drink the healing waters of the King from Galilee.

A kingdom peaceable and mild shall spread o'er all terrain;

no blood will spill, but only tears because there is no pain.

The Saints who humbly bow their heads and keep a prayer within

have known this kingdom long before it sweeps away all sin.

They welcome it as no surprise, but as their home assured;

where love and kindness are the only currents ever stirred. 

 

Lee Marx Remembers Irvin Feld . . .

I worked with Lee Marx one enchanted season, when he, I, Wayne Sidley (as boss clown) and a young man with the improbable name of Walter Sokolowski, made up the clown alley for the Tarzan Zerbini Shrine Circus.
Lee was the son of famous Vaudeville clown Carl Marx, and took over his act and makeup.
We traveled extensively in western Canada that year; it was cold and wet, and the hockey arenas we played in stank to high heaven of stale beer and cigarette smoke, not to mention the pungent aftershocks of abandoned wool socks underneath the bleachers.
Still, with Lee around, it proved instructive.
This was over 30 years ago, so I can't vouch for how things in Alberta and British Columbia are now, but back then it seemed every town we played featured a buffet restaurant run by a Chinese family -- along the lines of "Wang Foo's All You Can Eat Buffet!"
The buffet inevitably consisted of a big bowl of bananas and apples, turning a nice mushy brown; cold cuts that could have been used to patch pneumatic tires; slices of cheese of an indeterminate lineage; rolls so crusty they made a Marine drill instructor look like a sissy; french fries that thought they were prunes; soggy translucent lettuce with ancient sliced carrots, tired red cabbage shreds, hard boiled eggs that were laid by constipated hens, spotted tomato slices, all masquerading as a salad bar; plus steaming gallons of egg drop soup (those restaurateurs sure could make one egg go a long way); and deadly little cream puffs that you thought you could eat a dozen of in one sitting -- which then came back to haunt you right after the evening show.
Lee made no bones about the fact that he intended to spend not a nickle of his salary that season, but to send it all home to his second wife so they could fix up their split level -- he showed us all photographs of the place with such guileless pride that we didn't have the heart to kid him about it.
This meant he employed a 'Harpo' trench coat whenever he went into one of these infamous buffets. He'd eat one apple, then surreptitiously slide one into a capacious coat pocket, and then do the same with everything offered on the menu -- even the cream puffs! He'd walk out of the place smelling like an overripe delicatessen; but he now had his dinner and breakfast taken care of.
Lee had also mastered the art of nursing a beer. He not only nursed it -- he gave it CPR and a blood transfusion! He could sit in a Canadian bar nursing one glass of Molson for several hours, hoovering up all the peanuts and pretzels the bartender cared to leave within reach.
On occasion, when the local Buffet looked too gruesome for even my cast iron stomach, I would join Lee in whatever tavern he was inhabiting before the matinee so I could order a hamburger and poutine (french fries covered in cheese and gravy). It was then I heard his accolades (usually aimed at disinterested bartenders who had finally caught on and were hiding the peanuts and pretzels): "Lemme tell you -- that Irvin Feld; he LOVED the clowns! He was good to all of 'em, all of the time!"
I'd ask him: "Lee, did you work for Mr. Feld?"
His reply never varied: "Nope. Never." And then he'd fall silent, relentlessly ministering to the last few remaining bubbles of foam in his glass.
This really began to intrigue me -- why was he determined to praise old man Feld to complete strangers? So finally, after hearing his little speech given to the back of a panicky bartender who was hastily thrusting a jar of depleted pickled eggs into the fridge, I offered to buy him a second beer if he would just tell my why he thought so much of Irvin Feld.
He agreed, then suspiciously eyed the fresh glass of brew in front of him; tasting it and making a face.
"Gotta wait for it to warm up a little" he explained. "I'm not used to it being so cold."
Lee was an excellent juggler, but with words he tended to get a bit mixed up and repetitive -- so I'll just give the gist of his story.
Back in the 1960's Lee and his first wife were driving through Ohio when they were involved in a terrible car accident. Lee's wife was killed and he himself suffered a number of severe and life-threatening injuries. His recovery was very slow and doubtful. He wasn't certain if he wanted to go on living, now that his wife was gone and the hospital bills were piling up.
One day a basket of fruit arrived, with a note inside reading "I knew your father well; hope this helps." It was signed "Irvin Feld".
Lee saw it as a very nice gesture -- a basket of fruit for someone he really didn't know. But when he was released from the hospital a few weeks later he found out what the note really meant. Feld had paid off Lee's entire hospital bill . . .
Lee told me not to repeat the story to anyone with the circus. Thirty-some years later, I'm still honoring his wishes to keep Mr. Feld's philanthropy inconspicuous.
After all, none of YOU have anything to do with the circus -- do you?
 

I comprehend so little

2 Nephi 32:4 -- Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark.

I understand so little, comprehension but a spark;
O Pantokrator leave me not alone inside my dark!
Destroy my pride and dignity, remove me from the throng
of iron-hearted sages and shrill sirens with their song!
Bless me with a questing mind, a soul that knocks not once
but never ceases tapping -- knowing I am but a dunce!
Thy light is knowledge kindled deep within my breast alert:
Come understanding, quickly, or I stagnate to my hurt!
Have mercy on my ignorance, my blinded groping stance --
even to the pricking of my wits with Thy keen lance.
When the earth is flooded with the knowledge of Thy splendor,
please find me still a novice -- not a puffed-up smug pretender! 

And after I am laid to rest

2 Nephi 31:20 --  “Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.”

And after I am laid to rest, and after worms have chewed

Upon my idle carcass, will I then behold the rood

Upon which Savior, King, and Christ bore all for me alone?

O, how to understand this truth – so stark and yet keystone!

Eternal life, abiding joy, and love that has no term;

I am heir to all of it if I remain but firm.

So weak am I, so frail my faith – O God, your mercy spread

Over me that I may wake to Thee when I am dead!  

A Little Clown Music: Remembering Bill Pryne

One of the most beautiful aspects of starting my career as a clown with Ringling Brothers was to perform to the rousing strains of galops, marches and waltzes that conductor Bill Pryne arranged and conducted as accompaniment  for clowns.  It added a delicious fillip to each performance.  It was a pleasure missing on all other shows I played, where the music was always canned.
Pryne had a real feeling for just the right raucous tune for clown gags.  While he was obliged to crank out show tunes and top 40 covers for the production numbers and the regular acts, for the clowns he reached back into his generous repertoire of bouncing melodies from the 1900’s, giving us “Mosquito Parade” by Ruby Brooks, Henry Fillmore’s “Lassus Trombone”, “Nola” by Felix Arndt, and “Dizzy Fingers” by pianist Zez Confrey.  For Kochmanski and his dog Kropka, he did a lyrical treatment of Arthur Pryor’s “The Whistler and His Dog” that was nimble and large-hearted; the way he lingered over some of those notes was dulcet poetry.
Marching out into the arena with Swede Johnson to the strains of “Florentiner Marsch” by Julius Fucik, to perform the broom jump or bigger & bigger, would give me a kind of mad exultation – if it's possible to become intoxicated by mere notes, Bill Pryne was a master bartender!  Life seemed generous and uncomplicated at moments like that.

Mr. Pryne was not noticeably warm towards the clowns outside of the show – he was just a professional musician who knew  what melodies would work for the current crop of buffoons.  He did like to unwind by showing his collection of 16mm comedy shorts out in the parking lot after the last show, when the weather was nice.  He was particularly fond of Charlie Chase.  During one of these Pryne late-night film festivals I asked him why he never played “Entrance of the Gladiators”, by Fucik, which is the traditional march everyone associates with the circus.  He shrugged his shoulders and said that old man Feld didn’t like it, so it was never used.  On another occasion, after watching a few particularly good Charlie Chase shorts, Mr. Pryne loosened up and started talking about the music he’d LIKE to play for the clowns, but couldn’t.  He said he had always wanted to use the orchestral tone poems of Leroy Anderson – such as “The Typewriter” and “Matilda the Waltzing Cat”.  But ASCAP charged a friggin’ fortune for the right to play Anderson’s music, more than the circus budget could stand.

That first year I was delegated to run the skeleton chase. Mark Anthony had outdone himself with a set of foam rubber bones topped by a skull with the merriest leer this side of of the River Styx. Even for a 17-year old kid like me that mad dash around the entire arena with the skeleton attached to my back on a harness was exhausting. What kept me going was the wonderful 'chase' music that Bill Pryne chose -- from the overture to The Torments of Tantalus by Franz von Suppe. I knew that tune of old, because it was also featured in some of the best Daffy Duck cartoons of the early 40's. 

I was hospitalized for a bladder condition about a year ago, and it was touch and go for a while. As I lay there wondering if I was going to make it, I found myself trying to whistle some of Bill Pryne's merry music while recalling those old walk-arounds. Luckily the Fellow in the Bright Nightgown, as W.C. Fields liked to call Death, was not quite ready for me yet.

And so I get to write a little something about those deeply silly melodies that have sunk deeply into my bones.
  And I’ll be whistling one of Bill Pryne’s favorite galops, the “Tritsch-Tratsch Polka” by Johann Strauss whenever the Fellow in the Bright Nightgown comes calling again . . . 

(Sadly enough, I could not find a photograph of Mr. Pryne anywhere on Google to head up this reminiscence.)

A Great Noise is Coming!

2 Nephi 27:2 -- And when that day shall come they shall be visited of the Lord of Hosts, with thunder and with earthquake, and with a great noise, and with storm, and with tempest, and with the flame of devouring fire.

A great noise is coming to transform the earth,
to shake up the nations and give them rebirth.
Midst earthquake and thunder a tempest arises
that gives to the wicked unpleasant surprises.
Those who have boarded the Old Ship of Zion
will never be scattered like frail dandelion.
Those who refuse a safe passage to take
in bedlam will come to regret their mistake! 

Poetic Notes on the Provo Municipal Council Meeting: March 1, 2016.

The members of the council started late today, by gum;
and they were looking tired and perhaps a little glum.
The weight these city fathers (and a mother) carry round
are certainly enough to bring their knees down to the ground.

I'll skip the non essentials and go straight to radon's peril;
it can cause lung cancer, though you think your home is sterile.
The Mayor asked the council to remember that tidbit --
and then each member got a freebie radon testing kit.


Excuse my yada-yada, but poetic license should
let me glide right over to the Franklin Neighborhood.
This ate up quite a bit of time -- perhaps it's for the best;
cuz for the people who hung on twas an endurance test!

It's no exaggeration to say council members numbered
more than people looking on (some of whom just slumbered).
Mixed zoning and the LDR contributed, I fear,
to great botheration and a drowsy atmosphere.


And when 8:30 rolled around and still debate continued
time itself seemed frozen still as if to concrete twas glued.
But finally the councilors upended that dread trap,
and the meeting ended without further dull mishap.

Far be it from this humble pen to ever advocate
changes that would bring in lots more people through the gate.
But maybe if you offered popcorn free or held a drawing,
you'd have SRO with people for each seat a-clawing!

Neither hurt nor destroy

2 Nephi 21:9 -- "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

Neither hurt nor destroy, neither chide nor complain;
yea, this is the promise the scriptures contain.
When the first shall be last and the last shall be first,
and for righteousness none will needlessly thirst.
 Am I bringing that day closer to its fruition,
or do I persist in the works of perdition?
Cover me, Lord, with the waters of insight,
that I may win when with fear I do sin fight!

Mammon walks besides the Saints

2 Nephi 24:32 -- "What shall then answer the messengers of the nations? That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it."

Poverty's a gamble, and our wealth is but a dreaming;
vaults are full of nothing with the power of redeeming.
Mammon walks beside the Saints in Zion as reminders
that too much treasure acts upon a man as shabby blinders.

Our debt to God and Christ keeps us beholden evermore;
Bill Gates with all his gold could never even up the score.
I'll give away my sins, O Lord; but give away my wealth?
The law has taken it amain, with very little stealth . . .