Big Top Bits: Horror on Ringling BMX Ramps ... A Late Cole Roll, or onto the Dole? ... My Great Nephew Compares Big Apple Circus to Ringling-Barnum ... and MORE! ...

Update, 4/23/16: Cole Bros. Circus has been sold, claims Anonymous leaving a comment here.  Real or pipe dreaming?

First draft reckless: Not an easy opening, wondering what went wrong at Ringling in Fairfax VA when a BMX rider was thrown over the handlebars of his bike as it blew a tire and landed on his head  The horrifying incident was captured on film and given prime time coverage on ABC.  Show was stopped short, patrons instructed to leave.  Strangest of all is Feld VP Stephan Payne declining to give out the name of the performer.  I still can't find his name on the net.  Why?   ...  Once again, it would seem, our attention falls to a failing prop.  Ominous.

Big Show tech blunders, continued:  So a bike tire blows -- accident or negligence? This marks the third mishap in recent years at Ringling.  Last year, an aerialist suffered injuries after plunging 25 feet to the ground; the season before, you'll recall the collapse of a chandelier rigging, later found to have been ineptly and inadequately rigged, sending nine women to the floor, some seriously injured.
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Will Cole roll, or go out on the dole?  Cole Bros. Circus website back up and in glorious color promising, come June, to present  "America's last real 3-ring circus under the big top" But try dialing the phone number listed, and see if you don't get Ma Bell’s dreary, “Please hang up and try dialing again.” Maybe when the world comes to an end, that is what we will hear, over and over again ...

What lurks inside the mind of Johnny Pugh?   All one need do is watch  the excellent Lane Talburt video visits to the show in 2011, easily findable on the website, to know that Johnny possess the heart of a do-or-die trouper. My speculations:  Johnny really wants to go back out, but is hard pressed for money.  Johnny sold the property to raise money to for some kind of a Cole roll-out.  But why does the website play up animals when Johnny supposedly removed them from a theoretical wish list for the new season yet to possibly be? ... I can see a circus fan behind the scenes struggling to fund Johnny or buy the show himself.  Don't count Pugh kaput.  He is  no stranger to producing on the brink. 

END RINGERS: My niece Lisa e-mailing me about her 10-year-old son's reaction to Circus Xtreme: “I forgot to mention that Noah said he actually liked APPLE CIRCUS better in some ways, one being the tent!” ...  Interesting  story on Douglas McPherson's blog, Circus Mania about how many if not most of the Brit elephants trainers did not use bull hooks for the most part ... The Smithsonian putting together a big circus splash, come 2017, with big top show .. Cirque du Soleil, apparently minus its founder,  about to open its 25 million dollar Broadway-or-bust baby, Paramour, this being their fourth attempt to capture Gotham for more than a season or less.  Fine story about show in Sunday’s New York Times.  Big shots from the new ownership group, (Guy Laliberte’s name no where in the story), looking in on  previews and demanding a replacement for the lead  actor plus cuts in running order, down to two hours.  Wonder if that means two bearable hours? Some noting show’s resemblance to IRIS, the CDS opus that failed to click in LA few years back. ... I’m thinking Smash Hit, I’m thinking Blundering Bomb  — Hmm, maybe I should ask my great nephew, Noah, to take a look and report back. ...

Apple Me a Convert:  Finally, I am now an Apple person!   Had to let go of my very small dumb phone,  something to do about  2G going to 4G.  So, wanting the lightest weight smart phone out there, (short of a flip job, which looks more like a medical alert device these days), I found it in Apple’s new SE, and what a beaut!   Although Steve Jobs seems to have been a son of a you know who many times over (I watched both movies on his miserable life, what a perfectly miserable genius he was)  My iPhone is, to quote C-Nets savvy review, a “small wonder.” And I am an iBeliever.  What a joy to have something that works so easily and perfectly.  And what a camera!  That's why I got it over the 5S ...  Breathtaking technology ...

Bonus Blather!   This just in from Don Convington: Ringling's new show heralding "A Cosmic Family Adventure  -- Experience a Circus Light Years Beyond the Expected!"   ...  Let's see, no elephants,. so what to replace pachyderm power?  Monster trucks in space  on a mission to save  -- what? Come back again, I might have a big iFinish.ur oxxx journey that will let imaginations run wild with unexpected surprises and thrills at every turn. Clib ab