The "Carson
& Barnes Circus" was supposed to be in town today over at the
Avi Casino. I've known about
it for a couple of weeks. There were several articles and lots of
advertising. My mother -- a.k.a. Pudgy -- wanted to go for her
birthday. We usually go somewhere for her birthday. One year we spent
an entire month driving around the southern U.S. from the Pacific to
the Atlantic. This year we held off a week to wait for the circus. It
felt weird not doing anything on the actual day, but the delay seemed
worth it. We'd have a buffet, hit the penny slots, terrorize the
circus folk-- make an entire day of it.
Yesterday I called the casino before heading
out to buy the discount advance tickets. "The circus has been
canceled." No explanations. Nothing on either the Casino or the
Circus's web sites. Just, "The circus has been canceled." Life sucks.
I guess I could pull out my press credentials and start grilling
people for an explanation. It wouldn't serve much purpose except
giving me an outlet for my agitation. (Beware cranks with press
credentials.)
It also leaves me hanging for a blog. I'd
planned to write about my (hopefully) great time at the circus. I had
my digital camera all ready to take numerous goofy snapshots. So,
instead I'll write about my lousy almost-trip to the circus and use
up the material anyway. No pictures though, unless you'd like a nice
shot of me and Pudge frowning. For the really sadistic, I could dig
up some glycerin and add some nice tears too.
This would have been a first circus for
both of us. We almost went to Ringling
Brothers/Barnum and Bailey more than a decade ago. I wanted to do
the wandering around with the animals before the show thing. We
inquired about it. They said they didn't allow people to wander
around with the animals anymore. That blew it for me. They could keep
their circus. It wasn't about seeing animals up-close. As a former
contributor to several zoos I've seen plenty of animals up close. Not
seeing the animals beforehand took away what I saw as an essential
part of the circus experience. In every movie and TV show I'd ever
seen people got to wander around and look at the animals before the
show. I felt it would give you a connection with the animals and make
it even cooler when you saw them in the performance. Without that
experience it just didn't seem like a circus to me.
(Okay, even then I had press credentials,
different credentials, but credentials none-the-less. I could
probably have gotten us back there with the animals under the
pretense of doing a story. It wouldn't have been the same, though.
For one thing we'd have had a handler. I hate handler's. They keep
you from having the real experience. It's like some clerk who won't
get off your shoulder so you can just discuss, enjoy, and shop in
peace,. No, it wouldn't have been worth the trouble.)
We're both getting older, though (Pudgy is
well into her 60s). If we're going to get some of these cultural
events out of the way we'd better do them soon. Pre-show animal
tête-à-tête or not it's time to hit a
circus. This one sounded like a good one to see.
- The Amazing Cardenas performing the most dangerous act in
circus, the 7-man pyramid on the high wire
- America's only 5-ring circus
- World's largest BIG TOP
- World's largest traveling Zoo (100 exotic animals including
tons of elephants)
- Performers from around the World
- 2-hour nonstop performance
- A $5 million self contained nomadic city on wheels
Wait a second! Why am I giving them
publicity? The bums punked out on me!
So, I'm still a circus virgin and I need
to come up with something else for Pudgy's birthday. Not too many
circuses come through here. I may have to throw everything into the
car and track one down. Till then I guess I'll just put on some
circus music, kick back with a Pepsi and some Mother's Frosted
Circus Animal Cookies and watch my cat pouncing on the VCR. It's
not quite a tiger through a flaming hoop, but it'll have to do.
Yours,
Gene Nash