Don’t Tell the Doors I Watch Lawrence Welk ...

If you live a long time, expect to end up knee deep in layers of culture. So much like music. All those moods, textures, rhythms. Some from childhood. Some from a lost love. Music from disco nights. From radio days. From cabarets and stadiums ...

I hear Le D’s “Float” on a Comcast station and write it down. Must buy, whoever Le D is. So, too, one called “Kazumfumi Kodama & End” by D.J. Krust. In cafes, the occasional sound I can’t resist leads to CDs on my shelf: D. J. Shadow, Bombay Dub, the latter’s “To the Shore” the hook that sold me.

In the beginning when my mom served us Ovaltine, I hummed along while the Sons of the Pioneers sang “See Them Tumbling” on a radio program. Patti Page charmed my ears with “How Much Is The Dogie In That Window.” Then came Rosemary Clooney and Nat King Cole, Lena Horne and my all-time idol, Frank Sinatra

And then — sorry, Frank — in a fish and chip café in Thornlibank, Scotland, outside Glasgow one damp evening in 1963, from a juke box I heard for the second time a song that now totally won me over:

She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!

The ‘60s spoiled me ("Summer Breeze," "Saturday in the Park"), and none did a better job than the Doors — “Light My Fire” ... Here were poets with guitars. “When the music’s over, turn out the lights,” cried Jim Morrison, only years before turning out his own, doped and dead in Paris. As great as that music was, strangely, I have no desire to return to the troublesome era from whence it came.

What followed foundered. An album by Boston, given to me one Christmas, paled; I could hardly make it through once. So superior to 70s “rock” were groups like Chic (Dance, Dance, Dance Yowsa! Yowsa! Yowsa!), Heat Wave's "Boogie Nights" and Evelyn Champagne King’s “Shame," my all time dance favorite. “And The Beat Goes On,” sang another group. How I wished it had.

Since then, once in a while while not paying attention, something new invades my soul and it's love at first sound. On a bus to L.A., a dude was playing something so beguiling, I had to ask what it was. "RainForest," he told me. Paul Hardcastle, the composer and musician, remains high on my list. There was Depeche Mode, whom a younger friend sold me on, and Michael Jackson’s hot Off the Wall. But now and then, still, I drift back to Sinatra and Broadway. And to Jo Stafford, whose deep smooth voice is like non other. Who said you can’t go home again?

Sometimes, The Lawrence Welk Show satisfies another urge. Since I’ve not been active in the church in which I was raised for many years, the sainted Welk Family is the closest I get these days to church going. Some of the singers (Ken Delo, the most interesting of them all) are tops. The band is dependably solid. It’s that down home spirit bordering on Christian fellowship that keeps me coming back, I suppose.

Now Comcast is playing something called “Night Sight” — or Pocket Symphony. Another soundscape I'd like to hear more of. Quiet and misty, forlorn, out there in a twinkling void. These young music makers, born into a world so different from the one that greeted me, seem unafraid to address the lonely uncertainties that surround us all -- or is that my own soul I hear singing?

Layers of culture. So far away from that little dogie in the window...




[photos, from top down: Jim Morrison; Lena Horne; Frank Sinatra; Chic; Paul Hardcastle; Lawrence Welk band; the Beatles; Lawrence Welk; Michael Jackson; Patti Page]

How Not to Run a Circus? Just Ask the Bloggers

When I read Ben Trumble’s Mud Show blog, mostly because (like the old Billboard magazine) it reports day to day business on the Kelly-Miller lot, I almost feel like a circus owner being apprised by an employee on how (maybe) not to run my show.

Trumble, who himself aspires to own a circus, not only reveals crowd trends (so far this season, from spotty and sparse to the occasional straw house), but unstintingly shares his theories with us about what a good booking agent might do to avoid dry markets and concentrate on harvest dates. He praises the old-era advance men for savvy research. But they too erred. Tent trouping has never been easy.

Says Ben, for example: “Business continues to be off in rural small town MI. A year ago the economic data for MI pointed to a rough time of it outside the metro- Detroit suburbs. The collapse in housing values in MI rivals declines in parts of California and Florida. That creates a credit crunch arriving at the same time as a slump in MI manufacturing. Not exactly sure why so few shows actually look at localized economic and demographic data in booking.”

Aside from arguing, incorrectly I believe, that “for the last hundred years ... we put on a show to sell popcorn and elephant rides”(elephant rides the last hundred years???), Trumble’s shared musings raise timely questions. He’s a thoughtful guy.

Bloggers on the midway, ironically, tend to be, from what I can tell, the pros and not the fans. From clown Pat Cashin down to Wade Burck and Balloon Man Dick Dykes, and first-of-may kid Logan Jacot (Sawdust Nights). Even I’ve earned a few bucks under the tents. Turns out I have a tenuous professional connection to probably the most popular blogger of all, Buckles Woodcock, for in 1969 we both worked on George Matthews Great London Circus (known as James Bros. the year before). See that photo there? I had a stack of them in the back of my Ford Bronco when I drove across the country as “national press representative” for the excitingly erratic Sid Kellner.

Where are the circus fans in all this? Peepless as usual, I suspect — unlike their counterparts in all other venues from sports to pop music, who have no problem shouting out opinions — second guessing coach calls and telling big shots how to conduct a business. Here, the pros are doing it — over the internet.

New age, indeed. Ben Trumble, who actually works for Kelly Miller in “media relations,” seems to be working more for the media as a field reporter than for KM. Or is this simply a new paradigm in a new age yet to be sorted out? Once upon a time, press agents spun tales of happy crowds up and down the sawdust trails. Now, at least one of them wonders what went wrong every other day.

Midweek Madness Check-In ... Remember Vaudeville? Remember the Circus?

Okay, in a rush, here we go down the flats and off the runs. See the stranded wagon in the weeds marked Max’s Vaudeville? Been there since the thirties. Not even do I remember vaudeville, but its elements live on — singers, dancers, comics, strip teasers. So, I fear, the circus. Already here are the contorted spin offs, some on stages, some without rings. Theatre heavy, circus light. A table under the trapeze for you, sir? ... Ken Dodd wistfully asked me, “what happened to vaudeville, David?” and said nothing more. In denial he was not.

So, too on the midway: Acrobats to Save-The-Planet here, jugglers and joeys addressing existential gloom over there. Daredevils without mechanics? Check out the BMX bike competions. Under our shriking circus tents,the basics are more and more missing in action. If Circus Oz doesn’t kill the circus, nothing will. Cirque du Soleil, in a fit of brilliance, somehow foresaw the changes coming and leaped by decades ahead over night.

To review or not to review? Two Big epiphanies this season left me wondering why. First one, Circus Osorio, a nice outfit, minimally talented, pleasing families who can’t afford high prices on a low budget. Why review what is not reviewable? So I didn’t. And why, at the other end, review the Ringling high tech concession pit for consumer mad moppets? The marvel of Walt Disney was that he turned out great cinema that appealed to all ages. Those movies were worth reviewing. I do not see that same genius coming out of Vienna, Virginia.

Reading Steve Winn’s scathing put down of Over the Top!, I saw myself in him, and considered us both irrelevant under that tent. Which makes me feel more pretentious than ever. (Blame it on the CFA, who published me at age 14) Better leave the judgments to the younger set. Don Marcks would bristle whenever I told him, "I refuse to go see a circus at a ballpark”. No setting. No context. No-rings may be next. Now on that last count, Don might have held his bristle. Another friend (we exchanged our views of Ringling every year) nearly had a nervous breakdown when I once I told him I was going to skip Ringling that year -- I just couldn't sit through another David Larible show. There should be a song, “When the Audience Came To Town.”

Around the lots ... Hey, watch out — that’s the pole wagon coming down! ... Glance back in awe to a display of circus dazzle in the year 1932. Captured on a You Tube video of Ringling flapper Tiny Kline. She iron jaws across Times Square, spinning stylistically with elegant abandon as she goes. And best of all, you will hear this glamorous diva speaking with the self assurance of a Gabor. A thousand pictures can’t match one priceless video. To the waiting cops, says Kline, “At last, I found a safe way to cross Times Square!. I’m saying ‘ hello’ to Broadway!” ...A memoir by Kline, edited by author Janet Davis, now out. Sounds like a juicy read.

Here’s Ringling production manager Georgia Stephenson telling the San Jose Mercury News that Over the Top! is “wooing audiences with a shorter running time.” Nice try. Two and a half hours won’t cut it. ... Ringmaster Chuck Wagner missed his calling by three rings and three years. Might have reached Ronkian stature in the older bolder set up. ...Thanks to Don Covington for correcting my error about the principal clown in the red hat duel. Should be Tom Dougherty, to whom I apologize. Ringling’s program magazines become more vague with each passing year. Putting out a libretto would help, along with a diagram for dummies of the metaphors (Mr. Winn spotted a few fumbled metaphors).

“The curtain descends, everything ends too soon, too soon,” penned Ogden Nash for the song “Speak Low."

Too soon. Always too soon. Wagons all off the flats, waiting for tractors to pull em out to the lot. Pickets lined up. PETA with banners. I know this, the circus we remember, it ain’t coming back... If I can just adjust to these ingenious story lines, the trenchant themes, the lazy synthetic pachyderms whom for all I know, were cloned, and the ever-engaging power clowns.

Swing that pole wagon over, guy! Line up those metaphors!

[photo: Circus Oz]

Circus Reviews and Why There Are So Few ...

Preface: Henry Edgar, who has held positions both as press agent and newspaper journalist, left the following very insightful information as a comment. I bring it to your center-ring attention, for I think it sheds light on the vexing issue of circus reviewing. Its honesty from an insider's point of view is admirable.

david - regarding your comment about Ringling encouraging features rather than reviews -- this seems to be a general trend with newspapers today. they prefer to send someone to do a feature rather than an interview. i think it's a combination of both improved journalistic standards and taking the easy way out. the feature enables the paper to cover the circus without the inherent problems of a review. few papers have staff members who are even semi-qualified to review a circus, and the editors know it. at the same time, any good reporter/writer can do a good story on something/somebody without knowing anything about the subject. it's win/win -- the show gets a story without taking a chance on a review, the newspaper gets a quality piece without taking heat from readers about the writer's opinions, one way or another. also, the feature can usually run earlier, while the show is more likely to be in town. a review often runs after the show is gone or nearing its final performance unless it's at least a 4-day stand. the writers also prefer this approach because they aren't going out on a limb on something they know nothing about. Cirque du soliel is an exception; it's theatrical nature puts it within the qualifications of a theatre critic rather than somebody trying to analyze the bungee poles or how good an aerial act with a mechanic might be (ie is the mechanic really necessary or covering for a performer afraid to go into the air without one)

I've always been suspicious of small town reviews. i know how easily writers can be fed info -- i did it on a regular basis and it worked extremely well, particularly if i sat with the reviewer and made sure his family had plenty of popcorn, cokes, cotton candy, etc. it resulted in great reviews with "inside knowledge" as i spoon-fed info . on the other end of the spectrum, once i made the switch from press agent to entertainment writer, i was sometimes subjected to second guessing. for example, an editor outranking me saw the show and says "I hope you say nice things about that act because my kids loved it." even if i knew the act was a badly-done firstie act. one incident i will never forget involved one of the burn-the-town circuses, which i gave probably the worst review i ever gave a circus. i gave more space to the band than anything else because the band was much better than the show, which was lousy. i turned in the review about 2 am and went home. i was awakened at 8 by my editor, who said she had received so many negative calls that she couldn't run a review that was sugar-coating a circus just because i loved the circus. i was forced to turn a harsh review into something vicious because my editor -- without seeing the show -- decided it was absolutely horrible. the same editor who backed me up on so many things, who fought for extra money for out of town trips, etc. it's easy to complain about journalistic meddling, but the reality was that if i had refused, she would have rewritten the review anyway. in that case, wouldn't a feature story have been better than a review?

newspapers are sometimes caught in bad situations because of the complexities of reviewing a circus, the variables that can determine quality from one day to the next (does the lot make the riding act and the other horse acts unsafe? losing them is often the difference in a good show and a bad show) and add in the increasing sloppiness of today's circus performances overall, and most shows might be better off without reviews.

-- from Henry Edgar

How Good – or Bad – is “Over The Top!”? Is Ringling These Days?

After posting my own review, I searched cyberspace to see what others are saying about the show. The only review I recalled before writing mine was a favorable notice in a New York paper.

First, cybercritics, among whom, I must skeptically assume, there are shills galore. Either blasting Ringling because they hate the sight of animals on parade or praising Ringling because, well, you know about the Feld press department. That having been said, here they are.

Trip Advisor lends a fairly uniform impression of bitter customer disdain: “A waste of money!” “Worst circus I ever saw.” As with all sites, hard to know in every case which edition is being reviewed. Seems the Gold edition in particular has patrons cursing. But remember, these are impressions from questionable sources.

Two ticketing websites, TicketsNow and Goldstar, are both loaded with near uniform praise. Strange, on one site, participants often select “brilliant acting,” and “engaging plot” to describe their overall appreciation.

Newspapers: Unlike the Big Apple Circus, which prints many of the reviews it receives (I do not know if that also includes the bad ones, I have not checked carefully), Ringling — and I searched as hard as I could — does not print any. Could this be because it gets so few? Might the Felds, in fact, work the press for feature stories that lend the appearance of reviews rather than actual reviews?

My searching turned up notices in only two major cities:

New York: Two major dailies both turned out sunny notices. One is The New York Times, which seems to be a friend of Ringling's. It also endorsed the first ringless outing in 2006, in glaring contrast to mostly negative reactions from a number of big-city critics. Of Over the Top! Lawrence Van Gelder’s rather non-specific notice reads more like a recycled press release than the sort of review I would expect from the Times. “And for the most part,” he concludes, “Over the Top attains the summit of spectacle.”

San Francisco: The San Francisco Chronicle published a scathing review (surely one of the worst ever awarded a Feld product) by Steven Winn. And who is Winn? A long time theatre and arts critic for the paper, who issued highly upbeat reviews of at least two previous visits by Ringling to the city, in 1996 and 1999. In fact, I have found his writing to be generally even-handed. Here is a link:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/16/DDNT12BTEI.DTL&hw=ringling+circus&sn=003&sc=207

Mr. Winn’s review, published the day before I posted mine, eerily echoes many of my own feelings.

What really matters, I suppose, is what the kids think, for they are the ones for whom these shrunken Ringling deconstructions are being fashioned and scripted. From a youngster writing for The San Diego Union Tribune, Cristina Martinez: “The show has something for everyone and will leave you on the edge of your seat, in awe ... I do have to say that there was almost too much to look at, and it was difficult to focus on the individual acts. At times, it seemed more like a musical than a circus...My rating: B”

And that’s entertainment.

Ringling-Barnum's "Over The Top!" is Another Ringless Grab Bag

Circus review: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey
Over the Top!
Oakland, August 16
Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

Given a looming lawsuit over its disputed handling of elephants, reports of declining attendance and the understandable desire to redefine itself in the vexing age of Cirque du Soleil and PETA, what, indeed, is “The Greatest Show On Earth” to do?

Go European and anchor itself to a star clown? Lay on more Disney? More Cirque? Back to the straight-ahead past with a no-nonsense parade of authentic circus turns?

Whatever it is to do, Kenneth Feld’s smorgasbord approach continues apace, with a new emphasis on old-world clowning. This means that the art of circus per se must take a back seat to the hyperactive Feld framework. There are the usual fireworks and visual add-ons (gone are those annoying video screens; new are overhead grids on which Times Square-like images, some nicely atmospheric, are flashed); And there are degrees of admirable inventiveness here, too, although they tend to consume far too much time. Featured clown Tom Dougherty engages ringmaster Chuck Wagner in a running duel, grossly in need of editing, for possession of the latter’s red hat. Altogether, these sidebar elements both enhance and drag down the program’s principal assets. Over the Top! is not nearly as exciting as it may sound.

The competent performers of the 138th edition seem at times to have been inserted between the ongoing duel over that red hat, a story line given Shakespearean attention. It did, to be fair to the kiddies, engage their emotions now and then. As for the dozen or so house joeys, they are little used to any great affect.

Remember the Felds, only a few years ago, opting for two-hour brevity? Very welcome, wasn’t it. Didn’t last very long, did it. Maybe concession sales plummeted. And the designer souvenirs on sale here, if you take the time to look, deserve an art gallery of their own.

The most troubling deficit here is Ringling’s apparent refusal to reinstate its famed signature set pieces, despite reported indications that it had done so. Now, there is not even half a ring. Only a black-top performance area about as inspiring as a spanking new Nevada airstrip. There is one moment, to be sure, during Jenny Vidbel’s delightfully well crafted white horse drill (a refreshing first half highpoint), when we are confronted with the image of a ring in the form of a giant inner tube. Black too.

Artistic suicide -- or a shrewd artistic transition in progress? Whatever it may be, by depriving the “acts” of a ring – and by squeezing them between red hat episodes — these actions have the unintended effect of minimizing and even degrading their potential impact. In particular, the animals seem lost and in limbo out there without the circular symbols of magic that link them in the public’s mind to “circus.” A pity. It made me feel in limbo too, watching maybe the passing of an era. I longed for that familiar sense of place. Remember when the arena went dark, three illuminated rings appeared and the audience shared the most wonderful sigh?

(At the ticket window, I was shown a diagram of the arena that included three rings, and my heart skipped a beat.)

Co-producers Kenneth and Nicole Feld seem resolved to dump the old format. Maybe they are subliminally preparing their customers for a day without Jumbo, a day inevitably closer to an ice show without ice.

Production numbers deliver the expected flash and pyrotechnics. The kids are again hauled around the arena during a token parade that leads into intermission. Music and/or amplification is simply awful through the first forgettable half, but it does come impressively alive with the tiger act in the second part and redeems itself somewhat through the superior end sequences. (I can’t believe that I was thinking more favorably of the Vargas taped score than of this live band.)

To the rescue, late in the program, comes yet another rush of exhilarating Chinese acrobats, the Henan Troupe. They thrust themselves from poles to poles, turning somersaults en route in a manner I’ve never before seen. They are phenomenal. They get a very effective production build up, memorable in costume design and scenic effects, even if it sounds and looks like Cirque du Soleil meeting up with the Lion King.

Preceding the Henans are a trio of solid offerings that offer the class and dazzle that Ringling-Barnum once delivered in spades: Wellington Silva works between two single traps with old-fashioned bravado; the Flying Caceres twist and twirl from a two-tired rigging; and the elephants charm, although at a tepid pace. Indeed, the exotics this year are so well behaved, they hardly look exotic. More like animated props. Another curious deficit brought to us by the modern era.

Most everything else is respectably adequate. Overproduced and yet oddly under realized. Geared, I take it, to tickle the moppets and sell plenty of designer concessions. Kenneth Feld is not for nothing probably the richest man who ever ran an American circus.

After taking in last year’s show, I felt a keen interest to return. Sorry to say, not so much this time around. Perhaps I am already dreading the birth of another “power clown.” Now if I were only ten years old I might have been genuinely charmed by all the fuss over that red hat. Might not still be wishing instead for more jugglers and tumblers. The circus: is this its future?

Overall score: * * 1/2

Desperate to be Loved, Talky Talky Circus Vargas both Excites and Irritates

Holiday Look Backs, this from 2008



Circus Review: Circus Vargas
San Francisco, August 13, 7:30 p.m.
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes with intermission.

Watching Circus Vargas is like sitting down at a fine French restaurant, the first entree magnificent, only to be interrupted every 5 or 10 minutes by one distraction after another — a man off the street with a pet alligator offering to let you touch it and to have your photo taken with it between the main course and desert; another fellow running up to your table, shouting “Are you enjoying your meal?” And still another wanting to pull you into the kitchen and teach you how be a star chef. After this going on half the night, you leave exhausted and irked, fighting to remember why you ever went there in the first place.

Oh, yes, to see a circus. Actually, there is enough fine talent with this year’s edition of Circus Vargas, if only somebody — a director, a truant officer, a screaming Richard Barstow back from the dead — would grab the throat of this overstuffed mess and shake it down to length. Like down to a tautly restrained one hour thirty minutes. Out would go audience participation filler, clown routines needing the scissors, and desperate verbal interactions with the audience designed to force applause and fake displays of customer satisfaction.

Circus 1A: It’s a pity and a crime, because on many levels, Vargas excels, from an exemplary front door staff (the classiest I’ve encountered in years) to a string of stellar artists who deserve a far more focused and professional showcase..

The strong turns:


* The opening sequence — no circus I can recall in recent years has opened with such heart-pounding force. A captivating original song, "Circus Vargas,” sung with power by Ted McRae underscores the ensemble performing a variety of routines. Class A all the way.
* Engaging and diversified juggling from Esquedas. Great showmanly act.
* An amply amusing (no shills involved) safari spoof from two clowns out of the Torreblanca Family — in the mode of Lou Jacobs with shooting tears, but they advance the routine with additional touches, including a head of hair that raises high and the emission of white powder from -- oh no, how do I put this? -- from an area of the human body known to cause unpleasant odors. Overall, an absolute delight. This is clowning we need more of.
* Memorable trampoline exploits from the Martinellis.
* A clean classy flying routine, with a solid triple, from the Tabares. They have the flash and the flair, and I only wish they would have stayed up there longer.
* Rolly Bolly from the Espana Duo. Although this is not a gracefully enacted turn, the payoff trick is so amazingly good, I wanted to stand up and shout “Bravo!"
* Franciso Mendoza's mock bullfight. Am I glad they brought him back, for he totally turned my attitude around. Last year, I was left wanting. This time the entire act proved to be one of two comedy highlights of the evening, the other being heretofore mentioned.

Other notable moments: An ambitious female duo working the lyra, with their end items worthy of respect. And there are some winning tricks that just need editing down. For example, during a slow-moving equestrian pas de deux, a shill apprentice dragged from the crowd, dangling off the horse by a mechanic, grabs hold of John Weiss and they become a graceless duo in motion. Very very funny! Weiss, in fact, could have been given sole master of ceremonies and announcing chores. A shrewd director might have woven his mischief into other acts, but with BREVITY.

This show seems to have been produced under a couple of dubious assumptions: One, the longer the performance takes, the more the audience will respect it. Two, audiences need to be talked to a lot, which made me wonder if this show was directed by a group therapist. Actually, the talking begins with an engaging 20-minute “Interactive pre-show party” for the moppets hosted by tv personality John Weiss (left). All good and well except this party begins when the show should, so we the adults are held captive. After that, Weiss then becomes one of three announcing figures. Another is ringmaster Ted McRae, who gets to show off his cobra snake and offer photo ops to the audience during an obscenely protracted intermission. Throughout the show, he repeatedly works the crowd for applause and shout backs. “Are you having fun, San Francisco!” “Are you enjoying the show?” “I can’t hear the other side of the tent!” So annoying, it felt like being part of a studio audience before the taping of a tv show when a guy comes out to pump you up.

And I wanted to shout back, “Shut up, will you!” Polack Bros Circus co-founder Louis Stern, who lasted forty years in the business, once told his last ringmaster Robert Mitchell, who had been asking the audience before each intermission, “Are you enjoying the show?" to knock it off. Said Stern sternly, “One time they booed us.”

Lighting and costumes are generally excellent. The taped music, I must admit, is quite effective for much of the time, relevantly scored to the action at hand, though it does start to wear thin as the evening wears on and out. Following two motorcyclists from the Willy Family circling each other in the big cage, finale comes on with smiling faces. The audience (a very small crowd, maybe a quarter house) seemed moved. Then out go the performers through the front door to congregate around, there to interact with the exiting crowd. Nice touch, I suppose. I have only ever seen this done once before, at a community theatre.

The tent itself remains a work of art, mysterious and enchanting and so inviting. It deserves a superior performance that already exists in the ingredients. Another asset would be at least the handout of a one-sheet program.

Circus Vargas: Go to the back of the tent and repeat a thousand times over: "Every action, every moment, every pause and every word spoken either propels or retards the action." Were your strongest offerings to be placed back to back, and were all the irritating forced audience interactions and pitches routed, what a show you might have. Might that be, per chance, what you really want?

Overall score: * * 1/2



8.14.08 12.10