Showbiz David’s Annual Ring of Shame Awards

The following five inaugural inductees are this evening dishonored for their unwelcome acts against the American circus

Ingrid Newkirk. She leads the parade of infidels. A shameless animal rights activist and founder of PETA, for hypocritically inflicting untold damage on the circus world through malicious innuendo and smear tactics (on her below-the-belt "circus criminals" website), distorted and often misleading inaccuracies, and a relentless campaign on selected circus lots to harass and intimidate the public away from attending circuses.

James C. Petrillo. Union tyrannizer who coerced musicians into expecting prohibitively expensive wages, in effect turning them into another world’s oldest profession. Petrillo’s money-hungry campaign was launched against Ringling Bros Circus in 1942, resulting in a mass walkout of windjmmaers and the trend-setting substation of canned music in the wake of their exit for the duration of the season. Most American circuses today, minus theirs bands, bear the infamous legacy of this man’s gargantuan greed.

Sid Kellner. Operator of James Bros. Circus, later, George Matthews Great London), for squandering away his great potential to be a major showman on his notorious phone room addictions. Kellner, perhaps by sheer accident, produced a classic, near perfect performance (scored by an exemplary live band) under a big top in 1968, then reverted thereafter to a slow downward slide chasing his insatiable appetite for maximum profit through fraudulent phone room tactics that placed a quick buck over a good show. The charismatic and talented Kellner, sadly, must stand with the giants of telephone room ripoffs of the seedy 1970s.

The Unknown First Hula Hoop Performer (possibly a Russian). Subjected the sawdust ring to a display of domestic recreation passing for circus art. So many third rate hula hoop acts have followed, it’s a wonder we are not now witnessing marbles and mops in motion or triple somersaulting blow dryers.

Dick Garden. Canadian huckster of haphazard mediocre lineups whose sterling credits include the collapsible portable seats he used on his since-shuttered Toby Tyler Circus and, in recent years, the mass saturation of free kids tickets to promote his paltry wares. For example, at a Cow Palace date in San Francisco operating as Sterling and Reid, Garden’s three ring set up looked more like a carnival midway, pre-show; and there, the “performance,” truly a circus from hell, contained sub-mediocre acts scored by pop CDs pumped through an atrociously loud, ear shattering sound system. Garden’s operation (and others like it) are an assault on Spangleland.

Indicted Inductees, take your proud places in the Ring of Shame!

MIDWAY FLASH ... MIDWAY FLASH ... Laliberte sells 20% of Cirque Du Soleil to Dubai Interests...

In what may be a harbinger of his eventual exit from the empire he built, owner Guy Laliberte is reported in Business Week (flashed to me by Don Covington) to have sold a 20 percent stake in his world-wide operations.

Property developer Nakheel and an investment company, Istithmar World Capital, who purchased the shares, declined to disclose how much they paid.

The agreement puts "to rest, for now speculation that the troupe would be sold outright."

For now -- two operative words. This only confirms earlier rumors of some sort of a sale, and it leads me to ponder Laliberte's ultimate motives.

Stay tuned for my paranoid speculations, to follow in the days to come...

Ring of Shame Awards to be Announced Tonight, 9 p.m. PST!

Sunday Morning Scramble: Phonies Unlimited

At the supermarket check out stand, I see that Dr. Phil’s wife is reportedly fed up with their marriage. Surprise! These so-called relationship experts are about as lucky in love (or lust), I suppose, as the head shrinks who make millions correcting the alleged (and very billable) psychic disorders of others. My late cousin once worked for a psychiatrist in Santa Rosa, who defined his job to her as “a paid friend.” Dr. Phil may be paying for “professional” advice for himself shortly. And did radio's reigning queen of morality, Dr. Laura, not also once suffer a set back or two in the boudoir of life?

It’s all about entertainment. Even PBS (Pledge Break Society) has turned itself into just another midway of life-advice expects, some of whom, who knows, may be only a few convictions short of malpractice. And on afternoon television, of which over the years I have watched a collective total of maybe an hour, you can witness, among other sordid modern-day spectacles, teenagers cheering on teenage infidelities. Adultery, once shunned, is now a spectator sport. It sells products, mind you.

San Francisco, of all places, gave birth to talk show lunatic Michael Savage, a theoretically brilliant Berkeley educated man who veers way off course too often in his irrational outbursts of hate and intolerance. His most recent attack was charging autistic kids with the crime of impersonating autistic kids. I’ve listened to many talk hosts from all ends of the polarized spectrum; Not even the best among them is intellectually honest all the time. The ratings war and job security drive them all now and then, I am sure, to the feigned advocacy of extreme positrons in order to jack up flat tire ratings.

We seek out the counsel of “experts” in hours of need — or for the chance to be seen by millions letting all of our problems hang out — between commercial breaks — on some silly and mindless TV program. And then some of us are genuinely in pain and close to the edge, and sadly vulnerable to another magic remedy offered by another self-proclaimed guru. No, the snake oil salesman never left town, did he? But America seems to have talked itself into one gigantic fit of collective depression. It’s hip to be manic! Hip to work out your differences with others on a television set before a fake audience.

Dr. Phil: go take a pill.

Due Next: Showbiz David’s Inaugural Ring of Shame Awards

Midweek Midway Mixup: Mud & Slush, Grift and Glory and the Straw Houses They Pray For ...

“Staycations” are the new rage, and maybe (or have I already said this), tent shows taking it to the front yards of gas-pump averse Americans, will yet soar this depressed season .... But then again, they may have to compete with Maud’s Ice Cream Parlor, Sammy’s Casino for Dummies. or the local Flea Markets ... BTW: Oklahoma, full of circus savvy, is also full of oil mogul T. Boon Pickens, at 80 charging ahead on the internet to promote his reformed view of an America free of Arabian fuel, full of wind power and other novel alternatives ...

Gas, gas, gas. How can these shows afford just to move? I marvel. I marvel. I marvel. Somehow, brother, they keep at it, through mud and muck and wet and shine. Like an adolescent chasing after a second kiss from an unforgettable crush. In this case, that crush is just one more pair of packed houses, which erases out all the down days in-between. “When everything works,“ blogs mud show guy Ben Trumble, cheering a boffo Kelly-Miller day in Ohio, “the circus business is a thing of beauty.” Ah, how I recall a packed Wallace Bros. tent when the band blared full force and sassy Cosetta Cristiani high-kicked a sassy cakewalk atop a cantering horse ... And here, straycationing again, soon comes the return to Kelly-Miller of one Katherine North, daughter of show owner John Ringling North II, seen here, left, with manager James Royal. Royal hints of a Ringling conversion. “I fear her design business is taking a back seat to the circus.” She’s immersed in “a variety of projects for the show.” Please, Ms. Katherine, make one of them the overhaul of that musty moribund Kelly-Miller website.

What they do for circus. When Ms. Katherine recently guest managed for a week, she, in the words of John Moss, “made all the right decisions. It must be in the blood.” Still to be seen is John Ringling North III — yes, I said, the third... They just keep on coming, and isn’t that grand?

Kelly Miller, in truth, has had to fight mother nature at almost every gloomy turn. “Rarely a week passes when we haven’t had rain, and plenty of it, creating problems with our lots,” reports Royal. The show must go on. Must be moved every night. If you love it, you shove it, you push, you pull, and you fight ...

Those lucky circus animals! So privileged and pampered — when not pushing, shoving, or pulling — compared to the tragic plight of so many critters left to the genuine cruelly of average ordinary creeps who ought to be locked up in prison cages. Another heart-breaking
tale, they seem to spill forth almost daily, comes from a liberal enclave known as Santa Cruz (CA) county. A dog breeder’s house, finally pried open by the police, fraught with dozens of dead, starved and/or sickly dogs, at least one decapitated, skulls of others arranged in some sick Tarantino order, others still alive too traumatized to accept the touch of a human. Said a neighbor to a local TV reporter, “I can hear dogs throughout the night with vicious and crying sounds.” And he's heard those sounds for years. PETA and Lady Ingrid, what have you to say of all this?
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Band- wagon’s take on the remarkable Norma Cristiani, essayed by Lane Talburt, continues to enthral in the key of candor. You gotta respect the Pfenings for taking on what was for years a virtual cottage industry under our big tops — grift, grift, grift, which in words spoken to me once by Art Concello, “moved the show.” Norma’s dad, Ben Davenport (that's him in the photo), recently enshrined at the Ring of Fame (which seems to be gutting its credibility down to zero) was a top of the line grifter-in-chief. “The gamblers were eventually assigned to their own private car — reinforcing the importance of grift to the show’s fortunes.” I had no idea how large the Daily Bros. show was: up to 25 elephants at one time; PR man Bev Kelly serving a stint on the advance; Ex-Ringling manager George Smith being hired and allowed to shape up a messy operation. What they had to do, turning their heads away from the ugly realities, in order to draw a paycheck ...

Ringling soon comes to Oakland, offering kids a ticket for only ten bucks. And the Sawdust Kid (that would be Logan Jacot) out of touch with the world, got his keyboard back, then had to dash off to help tear down a cage ... And the Mud Show Guy no doubt dreams of more idyllic days tenting over green grass, under yellow and blue skies before a packed tent. And gifted Christian Stoinev, with Big Apple Circus, sharing with a reporter the joys of trouping. “Making people smile and feeling gratitude for what you have done. And feeling appreciated."

What they do for all those wonderful people who still give them a chance under tattered canvas peaks to keep the magic alive ...

First Draft Reckless. If I Fall Off the Wire, Please Look Away ...

Blogging can be dangerous, like a brutal mixed martial arts boxing match that gives the public blood and gore. No school teacher’s red pencil. No editor over the shoulder. Even the spell checker is a non-human, and it can be tripped up, and here I am, going for it, first draft out the gate...

Like they are in Stockton, where those brutal boxers are going at it, and, of all people, tickling a San Francisco sports TV anchor gal, who gushes, “Much more barbaric than any sport I’ve ever seen!” This from the center of PC? I guess... Stockton is the place Ringling allegedly chose over San Francisco — if what a ticket seller at the Cow Palace on the phone keeps telling me. Standard excuse. “They wanted to try Stockton.” Good choice, perhaps. In Stockton, I think a pachyderm on pointe would be cheered; not jeered as it would in the city by the golden gate, where all things modern — including bloody brutal boxing matches — are peachy fine, cause, well, they are so cutting edge...

San Francisco is a city without a decent amusement park; it does have trendy Pier 39, where my sister, recently in from Omaha for a visit, wanted to go, in search of chimes. Seals not home that day. Tourists everywhere. The “F” line streetcar out there was so crowded, folks were told to crash the back door without paying. And all of us who had lined up and paid had to suffer. How brutally insensitive...

Barbaric boxing matches and other “extreme sports” give the public what it once got at the Roman Coliseum, and may again — if a band of ambitious promoters wanting to revive Circus Maximus have their way.. If Rome says no, they might try Stockton ... ‘Ya see, though the circus as we know it may pass into sawdust oblivion, its primal parts, trust me, kids, will find other venues in which to thrive... If the “circus” goes ballet, its daring humans may go skate board or martial arts, or be fitted for the gladiator show on TV — is it still on?

.... So far, spelling probably horrible. I only promised you first draft. Are you still with me? Sister Kathy and I, up in Santa Rosa at the County Fair, took a chance on the dark ride; she was spooked by a skeleton that surprised her, jumping out in her direction. Ride very short. I walked through a spooky fun house; passageways too narrow for my sister, who stayed out on the midway. I should thank my luck stars for getting out alive. About that time where the carnival played (we later learned), a young kid was gang stabbed. Injured, not killed. Security check at front gate unable to keep young thugs at bay... All folks patted down. Hoods still find a way. This in Santa Rosa; no town is safe or serene anymore...

San Francisco, or as they call it “The City” reminds me of an aging madam, nearly stumbling in her vanity, desperate to be wanted. “Adore me. Adore me!” And so the crowds come to gawk at her, to sample her rare geographical charms, and they all end up in just another half-baked amusement park called Pier 39... No stabbing that day, far as a I know. Here in Oakland, don’t know about last night. Missed the body count on the ten o’clock news... And soon I’m off to the tea shop. Such gentle civility over there. Maybe it, too, just a facade. A facade, nonetheless, to believe in — as long as it believes in me...

Anybody still in the seats? Hey, I don’t get paid for this.... I think of it as typing practice, just as long as I don’t fall off ...

[p.s. no, i can't spell that well; my spell checker SCREAMED for equal time]

Midweek Midway Mix: Long Live Sawdust Circles and Affordable Fraud

Here we go, down the flats and off the runs in no particular order ... Let’s let Paul Binder kick off this ramble, telling WCAX-TV 3 News in Hanover, NH of his life-long respect for the sawdust circle “This is the original form. This is the form that pre-dated Theatre ... pre-dated Opera and ballet and musical theatre.” Now, does that make you feel proud of our bigtopian addictions? Duz me ... Big Apple Circus’s upcoming season promises a fetching mix of talent and threatens to fly high again, says I, merely examining a released list of some of the acts: Horse rider Christine Zerbini (might that be Sylvia??), Anastasini Family dogs from Rome; the Nan Jing Troupe from China “performing incredible acrobatic ballet;" a Russian barre act named Rodion; the juggling Lasalle Brothers from the USofA — AND Brazilian flyers named Rigolletos — a welcome trend back to the air for the recently ground-bound Apple troupe. ... Remarks impresario Paul, “The work becomes secondary to the joy and passion of doing it.”

Those Funny Pfenings: Have you seen the recent issue of their Bandwagon? Upon first glance, I thought I’d received maybe a copy of MAD magazine from the fifties. How daringly different, but only did they reproduce the cover of a 1902 mag put out by Bill Poster Display advertising, to promote the services of its litho advertisers, the Courier Company splashing on both covers. “WE PRINT THEM. YOU POST THEM.”... Into the Bay Area, day and dating without lithos (but with tv ads) comes first Circus Vargas, tenting up in S.F. on August 13, and then, the next day, opening over in Oakland, Ringling-Barnum ... This one will be interesting to watch, and let's hope there's still a crowd for Carson & Barnes, when it spreads its canvas wings across the Cow Palace parking lot a few weeks later....

Why I Like Circus Animal Turns: I do not have to witness a compassionate man being jailed for daring to care for a bear. This from New Delhi, by way of AP: The man, Ram Singh Munda brought home an orphaned bear cub to “console his 6-year-old daughter,” who had just lost her mother. He was subsequently arrested and sent to jail for violating wildlife laws. All three parties were left depressed. The bear “refuses to eat,” the girl was sent to a boarding school. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS: Maybe there is hope from those animal rights loonies, who are endeavoring, in a flash of reason, to liberate Munda from the brig and restore the family threesome. Maybe there is hope ... In the end rings, this: Should human rights be granted to monkeys? Currently, they are considered so close in IQ to humans, that the argument goes, they need to be treated as full fledged citizens. But are they smarter than a fifth grader on television? ...Whoa, we gotta follow this wagon up the road. No, no, I mean down the road...

Kelly Miller Circus inside and — inside. Some of you will recall a certain aerialist named “Holly” denied the center ring in the film the Greatest Show on Earth. John Ringling North II remembers well, for when recently coaxed into his single ring for a photo op with tiger man Casey McCoy, he quipped, “I don’t have a Holly or a center ring, so I went into a cage of tigers.” Looks to me, Mr. Great Sebastian, that Mr. North the Sequel will NOT pay for your speeding tickets, so you can turn around and go home, guy ...

In the mind of the advance man: From the same show, if you check staffer Ben Trumble’s blog, there he is wondering about the tricky mix of sponsors and locations, etc, and how they might or might not result in good and bad days ... You will also learn that not all of the show’s biz is at all busy ... This marks a new era in on-the-spot reporting. Trade talk you are unlikely to get in other quarters ... Count this a gift of the Internet generation.

Fraud is a relative sin, I hereby declare: When I hear about sub prime scams, corrupt banking tycoons, bogus lenders and the hidden credit fees that are bringing overzealous consumers to their knees (and this country, what's left of it, to the brink of an economic blowdown), I kind of wish all the suckered victims had spent their money instead on an old fashioned midway. Yeah, they might have gone home minus a twenty, but they still would have gone home to a home they could still call their own..

And that’s a random wrap, and let’s all meet here again somewhere “down” that long and winding road — or, if you prefer, down the lonesome one traveled by Sinatra in the days of three-ring glory ...