Figure Skating Sans Commentary: The "Not Scott" Mute Button ...

Why do I resent having to listen to Scott Hamilton's excessive know-it-all chatter while skaters compete? Here's why:

1. He conveys the narcissistic attitude that not until HE tells us what a skater has just done, can we validly enjoy it. Not until HE comments, has anything in fact of any import taken place. We are treated by this "commentator" like helplessly clueless spectators who lack the intelligence to enjoy a skater's performance without an expert giving us official permission. He actually may believe that we tune in more to hear him than to watch them. Not I, Mr. Hamilton.

2. In the earlier years when I first tried tolerating Hamilton, he came off as a squeaky voiced insider flaking for his friends, particularly for American skaters. He sounded so provincial. Up in Victoria during the women's short program, his irritating commentary was nearly non-stop at times.

3. Maybe he, or let's say NBC directing him, decided that it was important for him to verbally exploit every jump and spin of a skater's routine in order to foster an athletic image of figure skating. If that is so, then why not axe the music and have each skater demonstrate the required items, each item numbered and announced and scored, no footwork in between, no theatrics. As clinically executed and judged as indoor gymnastics?

The world of ice, I must inform you at this point, is a billion dollar industry, forever in fear of any of its competitive events being sidelined or eliminated, or treated like curling. In fact, I've heard they may have to 86 their humdrum compulsory dances, because those redundant set patterns bear too little visible difference from the original set patterns. You may recall that the school figures were thrown out some years back.

The world of ice has a great stake in the Olympics. Coaches make big bucks. Ice champions earn millions from endorsements. Producers tour the champs in special shows. Compared to this cunningly self-perpetrating industry (a veritable As The World Turns on blades), competitive roller skating (what's left of it) is but a puppet show on wheels.

You have, up there, my three rational reasons for avoiding commentator Hamilton. Which is why I have skipped many Olympics in recent years. Actually, Hamilton has given me a good reason to put off being dragged through three hours of commercials in order to watch 12 or 13 minutes of variable "championship" skating.

The Hamilton victory laps have also heightened my appreciation for Dick Button. Here is why: Seems, as I fondly recall before the Scot onslaught, classy Dick staying mostly silent during a skater's program. Once it was completed, and I waited for this, Dick would then offer a little summation. Some people have claimed he could be nasty. I don't much recall nasty; to overly sensitive ears, however, any non-affirmative, non gushing "YOU are the greatest!" testimonial is tantamount to heresy.

Peggy Flemming was a pleasant presence, although I don't remember her uttering many insightful things. I found Sandra Bezic, new to my ears, a pastel pleasure compared to hack Hamilton, who might, by the way, make a lively radio announcer for football or cock fighting. But others posting their rants on my blog detest Betiz. Makes me wonder if they are Fleming fans.

How to survive ice skating without Scott Hamilton? In fact, I may have already tried this before. From now on, I will simply mute my TV and play favorite CDs or tapes. Even old phonograph records. Heck, they should come out with a new television set containing a built in "NOT SCOT" mute button. The thing would somehow play the music but delete the voice.

And if Mr. Hamilton is ever muted by NBC, or should another network land future Olympics and decide not to use his services, he might find viable employment in a new mice on ice show as its star Mouseketeer.

Figure Skating at the Olympics: When the Skater Transcends the Skate

Why does Michelle Kwan come to mind? I recall a few years ago, 99% sure, watching her at a U.S. or Worlds, and marveling at how her skating seemed willed by her spirit alone, rather than by physical technique. As if she had in the moment dreamed her body into exactly what she wanted it to do and where she wanted it to go. I detected not one trace of compartmentalized effort. I saw triumphant poetry over the ice.

This is what we look for -- the journey away from physicality into spiritual transcendence. I think competitively unlucky Paul Wylie also had it.

Watching the electrifying Evgeni Plushenko through his short program (I missed the long, nor did I see his rival skate at all), yet in honest recall, compared to Michelle, Evgeni is more passionately ice-bound, his repertoire loaded with dazzling tricks and torrid choreography.

These mortals who seem to reach a supernatural realm are far and few between. They begin, or did begin once, on the school circles mastering edges, learn to spin and jump, advance to complex interlocking maneuvers and, finally, to the crafting of a program. Just as, with the actor, we wish to see not the actor at all but the character, so with the figure skater, we wish to witness not the technical effort at all but the exhilarating imagery of a dancer perfectly and freely in flight.

Which is a principal reason why the "quad" must never be exalted at the expense of the "routine." If jumps and spins alone were the only imperative components, then why music? Then why the intricate footwork linking them into a whole?

Michelle Kwan, that magical time I saw her, skated her way into the purity of a powerfully controlled dream.

[photo by Jonathan Ferry/Getty Images]
2/13/10

Out of the Past: Midway 'Round the World: Have the Russians Refound Their Circus Groove? ... St. Pete Puts Shakespeare Over Sawdust to Packed Houses

Mammoth elephants and auto-driving bears cavort with acrobats in a most unusual new circus bearing a theme based on the comedies of William Shakespeare. Cast of 58. Bring it on, Russia!

Don't give up on those revolutionary Russians, the inventively deft souls who came of age after the revolution of 1917 and redefined circus art by incorporating shades of ballet and mini narratives into their acts. The same souls who mesmerized American audiences when they came west in 1963 and 1967.

Now comes, and maybe with it the return of dominant Soviet creativity, "The Mystery of the Giant Elephants." World premiering at the famed St. Petersburg circus building, now called Bolshoi State Circus. How I love that preciously quaint old arena complete with museum one or two floors up.

This is the arena built in 1878 by noted Italian impresario Gaetano Ciniselli, who ran the nation's most popular and acclaimed circus shows before the Bolsheviks took over.

"Mystery" opened on February 12, and is packing 'em in, says director Alexander Chervotkin, noting early worries among the staff that "a conservative audience would not understand or appreciate the concept."

So far, it's an artful Russian smash. Performances on tap through July 30, then a tour through Russia and the CIS (the old Soviet states). After that? Delighted with the boffo reception, they are not ruling out a tour to Europe or the U.S. Oakland, California, too, please.

Go, dude, go!

First posted February 26, 2010

The Morning Midway: Felds Sue U.S. Humane Society Under RICO Laws, Alleging $ Laundering and Hiring Paid Witness to Lie; The War Goes On ...

Oh me oh my, sigh, isn't this fun, imagining the exposure of crooked animal rights groups getting their due. And so legally complicated, but let me give it a little grasping attention. What I learned in reading through a long posting on Margaret's Circus Anonymous blog about a Feld Lawsuit against HSUS, recently discovered by David Martosko, Director of Research at the Center for Consumer Freedom, is that the circus is fighting back for damages arising out of false testimony, among other spitefully motivated acts pulled against it by a number of animal rights groups, and it may have a good shot at victory.

Named in the suit, among others, are Born Free USA and ASPCA, all of whom have relentlessly bashed the circus for alleged acts of animal cruelty. One insider is quoted as believing that the only reason they [Ringling] were mired in nine years of ligation (a judge recently ruled in the circus's favor), was because of these various groups and their lawyers committing crimes "to game the system." If they are found guilty of a conscious conspiracy, that rises to a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) offense.

Among the salient points addressed on Margaret's in-depth posting, the result of a telephone call she made to Martokso: "HSUS is just PETA with a nicer wristwatch and fewer naked interns."

It's expected that HSUS, in retaliation for the Felds daring to sue it, will "turn their high-priced, hired gun lawyers on the plaintiffs. It could be a really bloody battle."

To reach Circus Anonymous, you'll find my link to your right. A very informative piece.

And, super sigh, just today, forty-year-old Dawn Brancheau at Sea World in Florida who works with killer whales was herself killed by one while a stunned audience watched in horror. I could cry.

I gotta go somewhere else, people. Back to figure skating, maybe, or to a bloody good game of curling, whatever that is ...

The Morning Midway: Atlanta Police Chase Runaway Ringling Zebra up Freeway; Sean Penn Loses "Water for Elephants" Role to Christoph Waltz

Possibly defecting, maybe tired of show business or under secret contract to PETA, A Ringling Bros. Circus zebra named Lima, ostensibly limbering up for a night show in Atlanta, got "spooked," ran into a fence and through it in full-mode escape gallop, spooking out local pedestrians and motorists (those not lost in cell phonery) during rush hour! ... Police in hot pursuit, the chase lasting 40 minutes, over city streets, onto interstate 75, cutting through city center. Give this zebra credit for proper product placement -- assuming Lima was wearing a prominent Ringling insignia. Law enforcement in hot pursuit, blocking off southbound lanes.

Not Amused in Atlanta: "All of a sudden a freaking zebra comes running down the street like a car," recounted Daniel Nance to the Atlanta Constitution. "But then I got scared, thinking ... what else is loose?" Oh, let me leave that alone. Lima gradually coaxed off a freeway entrance ramp, into the arms of his trainer. Over the weekend, Lima was reported to be resting and under the care of University of Georgia Veterinary school staff for wounds to his legs suffered during his dangerous bolt outside -- or would that be inside? -- captivity. PETA soon after in hot pursuit of media attention to protest Ringling treatment of zebras.

Waltz for the Elphants. Now in pre-production, the movie Water for Elephants, earlier said to be in hot pursuit of Sean Penn to play a mad wild animal trainer, reported to have dumped him (assuming he was ever picked up) for Christoph Waltz, fresh from Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds ... Heck, maybe Lima was auditioning to nab a cameo.

Kelly-Miller respects its clowns: Last season, fraught with mixed feelings, to put it politely, Stephen Copeland and Ryan Combs pitched coloring books and signed autographs during intermission. Last season is history. On their reactivated blog a week or so ago (you can reach it here to your right), Stephan shared "good news." No more pitches, he reported, "and we don't have to sign coloring books during Intermission." I am very happy for these apparently dedicated jesters. Respect well earned. An artistic trend in the right direction for John Ringling North II and James Royal, busily at work on the show as it breaks in down there in the Texas (no, I WON'T say it) terracotta ... And may all your days be asphalt days. How do I say this, K-M? I just don't get it.

The Morning Midway: Cirque du Soleil's Banana Shpeel NY Opening Delayed Again ...

Add three more weeks onto your wish list for an opening night seat at a show reported to be deeply in trouble, currently in pre-Broadway rehearsal (or re-birthing) in the windy city ... Originally slated to take the Beacon Theatre stage in January, Chicago tryouts slipped into creative chaos and wretched consumer and critical feedback, so Banana Shpeel moved back its opening night back to February 25.

Now, as witness this small add in Sunday's New York Times (so meek compared to a full page splash in same paper a few weeks ago), seems Guy Laliberte's latest "reinvention" will now uncork on March 17 -- barring further birthing glitches. I'm still not convinced this thing will raise a curtain over Big Apple land. On the other hand ...

This banana could maybe be not a disaster but a triumphant turkey attracting curiosity seekers to a new form of old vaudeville. With Cirque, you just never know. Problem is, you need comedy writers for a variety stage show more than you need mindlessly exotic Cirque du Soleil acrobats. Vegas next?

At the Olympics: Dancing on Thin Ice

Inconceivable that NBC should hold back the men's figure finals until around 10 PM or after out here on the coast, and yet give prime time coverage to compulsory dance. I am now convinced beyond a shadow of Jay Leno that NBC is run by idiots.

Because of this inane scheduling, I missed watching Evgeni Plushenko and Evan Lysacek battle it out.

The old compulsory dance event is simply too redundant and too similar to the original set patterns, either of which would be a sufficient lead in to free dance finals.

Athletically speaking, dance has little credibility at the Olympics. And it's easy to see why the ballroom crowd has been clamoring for years for a place at the summer games, just as have roller dancers, who -- in the compulsory division, bring far great technique and team unity to the compulsory set-pattern dances than do their famously-established counterparts on ice.

I'll let this issue alone, other than to note that Sonja Heine helped turn ice skating into an Olympic staple and entertainment industry. The rest is a colorful and skillfully exploited history that keeps on giving..

For the schooled skater on any surface who values baselines and lobes, three turns and partner alignment, there is -- or was -- nothing so technically satisfying to watch as a crack American roller dance team, before American rollers began mimicking the comparatively wild and free ice "dancing" style. For those of you in the dark, imagine the more conservative champion ballrooms dancers you see today on PBS, only performing with the same flawless execution on roller skates.

Of course, the public would likely find them boring, as they tend to the ice teams in compulsories. In the beginning, the icers in tandem placed rigorous if clumsy emphasis on edges, edges, edges, at the expense of partner unity and flow. Remember the school figures? From those, emerged teams "dancing." At their worst (even in the Ice Follies), partners cut deep edges while holding onto each other as music played.

The American roller dancers during the forties and fifties broke free of edge-centric styles and achieved matchless levels of breathless perfection in symmetry, upright posture, partner unison, smooth creamy movement of skates. Roller dance champion Bob Labriola and his partners, then those teams he taught, epitomized an idyllic form of roller dance that has virtually vanished as the roller crowd, pathetically bent on doing it the ice way, believing that is the only road to Olympic glory, laboriously and slavishly imitates ice dance styles -- to a point of grotesque exaggeration and overkill.

I'm waiting for the free dance, in which icers excel, for here the partners can widen and liberate the space between themselves that, on blades, never came natural but always looked forced. At this break-away point, dancing on ice comes very close to pairs skating, minus the lifts. The French team years ago were a revelation in creative artistry.

A sheet of ice invites the body to soar.

The Morning Midway: Job Postings, Post Rantings

Twitters and tweets, have I. Let me see what tonight the ice my bring, which may bump this fun thing a day down the road ... The Vancouver bladsters due in fifteen minutes, but I'm NOT sitting up all night through a thousand commercials to see whether it's Japan, Russia, or the U.S. (the latter looks lithely, statuesquely spectacular -- if he delivers, I'd say Him).

No, this is not the Showbiz David Talent Agency, but here I go none the less ...

E-mails I now and then receive. Got one from a cool sounding dude, into magic and other things -- stress "other." Asking me for advice: how to get a circus job. Magic, etc. I was about to post his link, which suddenly vanished, causing me to dig deeper for info on the guy. Kinky. S&M. Bloody. Makes that Cirque sex thing in Vegas look like a Lawrence Welk Christmas show. Today's subversive kids may yet revive Circus Maximus. Mother Theressa I am not, but neither do I dig the Tarantino tent.

Let's retreat to normal everyday chaos: Onto Showbiz David's Shock Therapy Division: My pointed posting about Circus World Museum's travails and troubles brought out the edge in otherwise gingerly Doc Bob Dewel, protectorate general of all things Baraboobian (Sorry, doc, I just couldn't resist quoting John Ringling's snide contortion of your town's name). Those CWM remarks of mine, diagnosed by Baraboo's cheerleader-in-chief, amounted to a "broadside." Something "a little more constructive and less denigrating would have been welcomed."

Boy, am I glad I'm not up for a root canal from dapper Doc Bob.

'Twas a bleak set of hard cold facts only recently discovered by yours truly that drove my terse thesis: not even 10 paying customers a day during the off seasons; Only six or seven hundred visitors a day during the summer months. A museum that lost its accreditation. Exhibits needing text revisions. I could go on.

Something about Bob's ruffled persona brings a laugh to my mug. Blame it on his good discrete humor: "Now really on my 91st year, and hating it."

Heck, how many bridges have I broken? If I attempt another circus book, will any museum out there lend-sell me photos? (Note to myself: leave the outfit in Peru and that library in San Antonia ALONE -- end of note to myself)

It's nearly 10 PM here, and NBC has still not brought out men's figures. Jay Leno may appear before they do. I'm not waiting. Need my rest for another brooding early morning walk through the misty moors of Oakland's Rose Garden. Thick delicious fog! So atmospheric, and I get to wear my winter cap and gloves.

Showbiz David Tanbark Therapy/No-Blood Talent Agency is now closed -- under Doctor's orders.

Cole Bros. Circus Owner John Pugh, Just Inducted into Circus Ring of Fame, Bound for Haiti with Big Top Shelter for Quake Victims ...

8/6/17: About the nicest person I ever interviewed.  So naturally down to earth.  He seemed as eager, as challenged and happy to be running a circus then as I imagine he was when he took over management of the Beatty-Cole Circus many decades before.  How I wish Johnny Pugh was still on the road. He brings pure gold to the Ring of Fame.


He just might be the nicest guy under the big top. A native of England, he started out as a movie stuntman and performer, along the way executing the more difficult moves as a double for Richard Burton in Cleopatra, and watching the Burton-Taylor romance bloom before his eyes. He joined Clyde Beatty Circus in 1961 and has been with the show ever since.

First performing as an acrobat, following a career-ending injury, Pugh was offered the assistant manager position. From there on up he advanced to the top of the big top.

"For job preservation, I went on to be the owner," Pugh with a laugh told Pat Hatfield of the DeLand, Florida West Volusia Beacon.

Johnny Pugh is not resting on yesterday's spangled memories, and shows no signs of slowing down. "It's a seven-day-a-week job. I enjoy it. It's a great life."

He has also served as a judge for the world's most prestigious international circus competition -- the annual Monte Carlo Circus Festival in Monaco.

Soon, Pugh will be giving something back to the world when he boards an airplane bound for Haiti with a lot more than the acceptable carry-on-bag. He'll have with him a complete three-ring size circus big top, taking it there in response to a Haitian government request. Pugh estimates, given the local help he plans to personally supervise, that it may take a day or so to set the canvas up for much-needed temporary shelter.

The name JOHN PUGH in the Sarasota Circus Ring of Fame should add luster to an institution that in recent years has honored some not-so-distinguished figures. Pugh said the induction was emotional for him. His wife, Brigitte, introduced him at the ceremony.

And the show goes on. Cole Bros. Circus, marking its 126th year in business, opens its 2010 season in DeLand on March 20.

Congratulations, John! Well deserved!

First posted February 18, 2010

Out of the Past: Figure Skating Commentators At the Olympics: Sandra Bezic Shines Near the Ice, Dick Button Above It ...

UPDATE: 1.17.18: More comments coming in.  Let the debate resume!

First posted February 17, 2010

Update February 12, 2014: There are so many of you drawn to this post, I am inspired to try taking in some of the ice competitions in Russia, and turn out another rant or rave. So I might be back here on Sunday morning if not sooner.

What a tony pleasure to have Dick Button back at the games, sharing his feelings about figure skaters. He covered many Olympics for ABC, an arrangement I think that kept him from other networks. Button actually returned to the games for NBC four years ago. This man is so much fun listening to and believing in; he brings to mind late San Francisco evenings, years ago, sitting across a cafe table with friends following a night out at Skateland-at-the-Beach (a roller rink), just cutting up jokes and talking about a shared passion. Button has class. He has tact. He is not always right, and he will show his surprise when the scores surprise him.

In Dick Button's absence, I've had to stomach Scott Hamilton, whose excessive cheer leading and dubious critical faculties have driven me more than once to shout at my TV set, "Shut     up!" The best thing I can say for Hamilton this year, at least during the pairs finals on Monday, was that he has kept his comments to an admirable minimum. Maybe he was working under a gag order by NBC so that they could squeeze in more commercials; Not another night will I sit up until midnight, no matter who is skating. That's it.

Hamilton's rink-side partner for pairs was Canadian Sandra Bezic, and what a welcome voice and intelligence she possesses. I hope she covers more ice events in the days ahead. She has a gift for honest feedback in a velvet smooth manner. And she never dominates the action. She, in fact, proves herself a much more engaging commentator than did the super-nice Peggy Fleming, who always struck me as afraid as a mouse to offend a single skater -- or the sport she represented.

But up there in the NBC "fireside" room talking to Bob Costa, Dick Button is the real article. Character. Class. Age. Best of all, a natural undying enthusiasm for the sport that he has given his whole life to, from champion Olympic competitor to class act commentator.

There is something else, if you will allow me: Such sweet music to my ears on Monday night: "She is a former champion roller skater." Yes, yes! Thank you, somebody, up there, for the nod. Is that the closet my sport (laugh if you must) will ever get to the Olympics?

By the way, I thought that the young roller- turned ice-skater, Katie somebody, and her partner surely deserved higher marks; same for a Canadian team. In fact, I found the judging overall for this event rather atrocious. A couple of sacred cow Russian teams, ragged and inept, hardly deserved such a pass from the judges.

As for the pairs medalists, I was in perfect agreement on the Chinese teams, although I could have seen it going the other way.

The Middle Kingdom is catching up. The balance of power, as in politics and elsewhere, is changing on the ice too. Roller skating in China, anybody?

2/17/10