A Young Star Rises in a Production True to the Original, and the Real Pal Joey Lives Again

 

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My New Book --- Keep That Day Job! How to Enjoy Chasing Showbiz Without Going Mad -- Due Out the Fourth of July

There it is, now on its way.  Stay tuned for another mind-boggling quiz!    

I'm now going over the proofs from my publisher, Bear Manor Media, digging into the cracks between words for little bugs -- a comma missing, a period in the wrong place. Jumbled sentences. And that word I'm still not sure about. Checking out photo placements. there are 74 images in all, representing a fraction of the multitude of jobs covered. Total 50.

My last chance to revise. Now or never!

Name the Ringling Spec that celebrated nature? Have We a Winner?

 Yes, we have ...

Jim Royal!

French artist and costume designer Marcel Vertes was commissioned by John Ringling North to create the costumes for the 1956 spec, Say It With Flowers. Life Magazine did a large multi-page spread of the Vertes drawings.  They would be the last originals worn by a Ringling cast under the big top.

Less lavish than what audiences had grown accustomed to when Broadway designer Miles White created the costumes, some fans grumbled.. But to others, they marked a refreshing contrast.  Restful pastels.  Working against them were a  straggling set of floats noticeably frugal, and altogether, the overall impression left room for carping. I, for one, called it Say it With Cement, referencing one of the most embarrassingly frugal floats ever seen in any parade.  The show was going into New York on borrowed money, and Teamster union members were waiting to picket it

In the program magazine,  Vertes contributed a piece, "I Like the Circus," in which he compared working on sawdust to stage:  "I like circus people, too, because they seem to be more friendly than the people in the theatre.   They have a profound respect for the performers who do the really dangerous stunts way up there in space."

It was such a very different show in many ways -- new ringmaster, Preston Lambert, new bandleader, Izzy Cervone, who came with strings added, a score favoring the popular songs of Frank Loesser.  I've seen enticing video clips of the show, thanks to Kenny Dodd, and am taken by the costumes and original scoring for "Ringling Rock N' Roll."  It's a gas.  I would love to have seen the whole show..

 It was a full season not to be.  Come Pittsburgh, PA, and the Greatest Show on Earth gave its last performance under canvas. Thank God -- how lucky was I to have seen it the year before -- my one and only time under the greatest big tops of them all, and one of the greatest days of my life. 

Congrats, Jim!  

 

 

The Last Summer for Baseball in Oakland ... It Feels like a Day in Pittsrbugh Long Ago, When The Greatest Show on Earth Under Canvas Called it Quits ...

Sad town, soon to be without a major league team, the Raiders having fled, so too the Golden Stage Warriors. And  now the sport of Babe Ruth.

Baseball is the only game I can get caught up in, on the radio, listening now to the Giants.  For many years, an A's fan, I went to the ball park often, always for garlic fries and to see some great players, but no longer. The current ownership, ironically "advised" by none other than Billy Bean, carries on in icy cold corporate indifference to one of the most loyal fan bases anywhere.  John Fisher is lusting after a new ball park in Vegas, and will for a few interim seasons, park his bottom rung team in a small minor league park in Sacramento. But who can blame him for wanting to get out as fast as he can from a hell hole of an area in Oakland? A dark zone infested by thugs. Fast food restaurants around the coliseum are fleeing.  I am even jittery about going out there to take in the New Ringling show.

When I worked for Kaiser Steel, one of the fifty jobs I profile in my upcoming  book, one warm fall evening in 1972, we were all treated to an Oakland A's world series game.  How the sky glistened that evening.  And how perfect the game being played on the field looked -- to me, almost like ballet.  Something about the way a first baseman jumped perfectly upright  up to catch a ball. And then perfectly down. 

They were world series champs, three seasons in a row.  For a rare golden period, the club gave off a glamours buzz.  Heck, Billy Martin managed the team for three seasons!

Now, they will be playing  their last summer in Oakland.  Crushing news to a dwindling fan base dumped on by one of the most heartless owners ever to run a team.  And the MLB, for whom evidently loyal fan bases count for nothing, backs him all the way.

For the hard-core A's fans, I can feel their acute sorrow. thinking back on how painful was the day in my life when, on the evening news, flashed images of the Ringling big top at its last stand, in Pittsburgh PA.

Nothing lasts forever, they say.  I' m not so sure. Some things do go on.  But not here in Oakland -- a once beautiful city torn apart by the volatile 1960s.  I will leave the details to that.  You can fill in the blanks.

Really, it's not much different than San Francisco. But S.F. has a well run ball club that treats its players and fans with class A respect. The reason I fled the A's a few years ago for the Giants. Whatever happened to the lionized Billy Bean? There's a story of moral betrayal the local media should but will not cover. 

A Tentless Cave to Sagging Fortunes? Catching Up, or Down, with Cirque du Soleil ...

First draft impressions.

You may have read they are closing the Beatles show, Love, in Las Vegas.  The space needed for some massive makeover (a stadium for Oakland A's baseball?) being planned, the stated reason.  Okay, maybe. Or maybe the Cirque brand is fading?  Novelty in time becomes old-school.  And all the pretentious theatrical airs and posturing surrounding it, even more difficult to take. Get on with the show! I don't know.   I lost the urge a number of years ago, fed up with the fru-fru,  pissed off by having to fork over a few dollars for an empty designer bottle,  needed to contain water out of a faucet. In its better days, there were free faucets outside the tent.  People notice these small things.

Desperation isn't pretty.

Which got me wondering, how is the Montreal Monster, which the Canadian government, its initial angel investor in the beginning,  bailed out in 2022, really doing? I have no idea.  I can only guess they are getting by.   They tried playing the indoor venue circuit years ago, which left patrons wanting. They are now crawling back to those concrete charmers. The mark of a thriving concern? 

Yelp reviews:  Once upon a time, there were many raves.  Now, there are many boos. I focused in on the S.F. Bay Area scene the last year, and found some horribly put-off notices.   I tried to copy a few to bring to your attention, but could not.  Suffice it to say, of around only five to eight in recent months, all but one are in negative territory.  Far closer to zero than to five.  Crique-du-fatigue?

All such epic achievements I suppose are bound to wither away in time. That need not be the case here, but in their apparent grope to continue dominating the market, at least in imagery, they may be diluting their product down to the leftover shelves.

Contest Results for Free Copy of My New Book: Keep That Day Job! How to Enjoy Chasing Showbiz Without Going Mad

      Name the circus that used a jazz band to score the show

  The answer

GEORGE MATTHEW'S GREAT LONDON CIRCUS, 1972

Have we an answer? Yes, we have.  Only one person got it right, although of the others who gave it a shot,  a few came close. One answered, "Sid Kellner's James Bros Circus".  Another guessed simply "Vargas." There is merit to that last answer, for during the mid-1980s, when Circus Vargas was at its peak in performance quality,  Cliff had a  five or six piece band, richly orchestrated, that included a number more jazzy or jazz-driven compositions.  

Sid hired a real jazz band to score his 1972 show, a group of young musicians from the local Alhambra High School in Martinez, CA, the town out of which he operated. (Incidentally, I worked publicity for a few of the Chicago dates.)  This came as a total surprise to me, and by accident.  I was googling to verify that Sid had headed up a B24 bomber fighter crew during WWII, and came upon a Facebook with a photo of the musicians in front of the bus, especially equipped to serve as their sleeper during the tour.  The image is so dark, I have left it up to my publisher to decide whether it should be included in the book. .

So, who got the answer right? Drum roll, please!  Colin Carter

Congratulations, Colin!  Send me your address by e-mail. The book is now in production, and I'm guessing it will be out in summer or early fall.

NEXT QUESTION FOR ANOTHER FREE COPY TOT BE POSTED NOON, THIS COMING FRIDAY!

ALL OLD-TIME RINGLING ADDICTS, 

 BRUSH OFF YOUR MEMORIES AND PREPARE TO BE CHALLENGED!

           There he is, the one and only Sid: top row, second from left.