Remembering Circus Report Founder Don Marcks: Chasing Big Tops Together

“I always have mixed feelings about the Ringling show and am sometimes not too interested in seeing it.  Mainly I guess because it seems there isn’t anyone there I know and I much prefer to visit than just sit in the seats and watch the full show,”  
                      --  in his letter to me from October 22, 1989

He often offered to drive or to meet me at circuses playing in the area, though never once did I actually watch a circus performance with Don.  Usually — and this was fun, I will admit — we would nonchalantly wander into the backyard, as if being “with” the show, merge with the actual staff and continue right  on in through the back door.   Victory!  Free seats!  Oh, the thrill of the illicit walk in!

Sidewall Champs

We all did it. Another circus friend and fellow Santa Rosan, Hugo Marquardt, was with me at the fairgrounds, where Carson & Barnes was playing.  We were sauntering along the edge of the tent, heading  towards the back yard.  Hugo raised his hands in applause mode, and giddily sighed -- lampooning a CFA mantra about paying your way in  --  “We clap as we go!”

The Carson and Barnes show I saw in 1966-67 holds a special place in my memory bank of great circus performances.  The vibrant program bubbled and bounced as if on air, the rings rich in talent,  the band a rollicking treat to the ears.  

Perhaps Don had taught me well.  In my youth, I relished being able to slip through anonymously.  I practically walked into the Oakland arena when the Russians were playing there.  Talk about class crash.  Well,  my bank account held a near zero balance. That was my excuse then. What was yours?

My most disillusioning experience with Don was the time he offered  me a ride to Carson & Barnes, which was playing in an East Bay location that would have required my taking  two or three bus rides to get there.  Relief!   As it turned out, he went the day before — he often planned to spend several days around a circus lot — but evidently was not  nearly as well received as he might have expected.  So he called up to tell me that he would not be going. That felt cold.

Or maybe he had encountered insulting indifference to a Circus Report pitch.  He was forever struggling to sell new subscriptions, in order to replace a continuous stream of non-renewals.

 One to Hob Nob, One to Nit Pick

When we did go together, he escaped our company the moment we entered, and vanished – somewhere  into that special space where show people lived and worked.  I would sit out and watch the show, and meet up with  him afterwards.  He lived for the validation of circus peple.

May 18, 1983: "Was in Wally Naughtin's trailer  when there was a knock on the door and in walked Vargas. He acted like he was happy to see me.  Another time he was going through the backyard and came over to tell me that he had been selling tickets and said, do you know the people who buy those tickets are crazy."

There I am at Graham Bros. Circus, 1966.  Maybe Don was somewhere in the backyard.

I recall his once actually finding me in the mezzanine seats — we both happened to be at  Ringling in the old Oakland Auditorium.  Plenty of spare chairs that day. He sat down next to me and grumbled a little, something about the show.  He must have been not very welcome that day.

Getting the Bauman Bounce 

The Felds were none to thrilled by invading circus fans.  In a particularly revealing letter, dated August 24, 1984, Don  wrote of how unwelcome he was suddenly made to feel when, while walking up a ramp at the Cow Palace between the backyard and the arena, he was confronted by a former center ring star, now the performance director:
   
    “Guess what.  Charlie Bauman told me to get out and I didn’t belong there.”

    “I’ve often heard from others that Bauman is a very difficult man to get along with and he has been rough on others who come to visit.  Even to the point of going up in the seats and telling them they have to leave and can’t have a free seat at the circus.”

    “He never does look anything other than grouchy.  He must have a miserable life”.

    Or maybe the Felds had been hounding Mr. Bauman to do the job?

 Sometimes, when having gone to a circus on my own, from my seat in the audience I would spot him down by the performers entrance, standing there with his arms folded, lost, I supposed, in a dream of being One of Them — maybe the big boss himself.  Of being with it and for it.

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Next: Don at his day job, and on the road with his local Variety show.

first posted 11.18.19