Around three years ago I bore witness to a cut rate circus operated by a clan of Eastern European gypsies. How do I know they were gypsies? Well, when I went to the concession stand, also known as the rickety ass table they set up next to the men's toilet, and bought some popcorn, which was all the 'concession' they had, I asked for some napkins. She shook her head and seemed irritated and confused, as if cleaning your face was a foreign and idiotic concept. Face for looking at, not for cleaning. You stupid. Bah. Her skin was being held together by ancient curses and grease.
The owner of the arena in which this eye rape took place had their own concession stand operating. I asked them for some napkins. The napkins were handed to me by a gruff old woman and she said 'you ain't going to get no napkins from some goddamn gypsy.' Mystery solved, thanks for the Scooby-Doo moment. I had no idea this was a well known fact, gypsies don't have napkins. I have no idea if the napkin hag was right and they were gypsies, I never met a fucking gypsy and wouldn't know if I had. I'll just have to take the old slags word for it. Like she knew shit.
As for them being Eastern European, who the fuck knows. Who the fuck even cares, it sounds good.
To put it short this circus was one of the greatest disasters I have ever witnessed. It was a tragic failure in every respect and I was absolutely delighted with every moment. Anyone can see a great performance and appreciate it. That shit is easy. Cirque du Soleil, big fucking ball draining super spectacular wow. Anyone can love that good shit, but to appreciate something completely awful and perplexing takes a special kind of person. Me. I'm special.
I'm totally fucking special.
There were two ringmasters. One was a burly older woman with bleach blond hair who looked like she could hammer throw a bowling ball through the moon. She was the only member of the crew who had only one job. If you were in that circus, and you weren't performing at that moment, then you were assembling stage pieces or selling cheaply made souvenirs to the tens of people in the stands. You heard me motherfucker, fuckin' tens. There weren't even all kinds of tens. It was barely two tens, at the beginning. In an arena built for about four thousand people there were all of twenty six of us. I fucking counted.
She kept telling us that she couldn't hear us and urged us to cheer louder. I wanted to scream 'we are only twenty six people fuckface, we couldn't drown out the sound of an old lady's television,' but that is too long to scream. So I clapped louder and that just sounded sarcastic. Other people in the stands looked at me as if to say 'hey dick cream, don't encourage them'.
The whole show had a weird vibe, like it could go from circus to robbery to hostage situation any second.
I was the only one there enjoying myself. My son got bored after thirty seconds, my wife had enough even sooner. I was mesmerized. I was also afraid to fart, it would have echoed in that empty arena like I had thrown dynamite into the Grand Canyon.
The other ringmaster was a slick young gentleman in a poorly tailored suit and poorly cut hair. Ringmaster was not his only job there. Apart from introducing the acts, he was also a performer known as Ninja Lee. The Ninja Lee costume consisted of him in the same exact clothes, except now as Ninja Lee, he wore a Mexican wrestlers mask. Ninja Lee was no luchadore. Ninja Lee didn't even do any ninja shit. Ninja Lee was part of the snake act. You heard me motherfucker, the fuckin' snake act. He carried snakes around in a circle as the other Ringmaster with questionable ladyparts said...
"Behold, the Burmese Python, from BURMAAAAA!!!!"
"Behold, the Colombian Boa Constrictor from COLOMBIAAAAAA!!!" She really drew out the name of the country like we would be impressed that something came from somewhere else. Holy fucking candy coated shit, them there snakes is from another place!!!! I thought everything I ever seen originated here. I thought I lived in the birth canal of the universe.
There was a third snake from another country but I was laughing too hard and in shock from all of it to remember. She could have said the French Poodle from FRANCE or the German Shepherd from GERMANY for all I know. I was too entranced by watching a Mexican wrestler in a shitty suit carry a snake in a circle and that was fucking it.
She named three snakes, he carried them around, end o'story. Three minutes tops. I had to keep telling my brain 'yes, this is happening man, it is really happening.' There wasn't even anybody on the other side of the circle, but he was fucking walking his fake ninja ass over there to show a snake to some ghosts.
Scooby-Doo motherfucker.
There was a dog act which consisted of two dogs jumping over a bar at the urging of a swarthy sequined fellow who looked like he escaped from a disco prison of some kind. The dog training asshole also had another act where he collapsed on his fat back and spun a large cylinder around on his hairy feet. He also balanced a child on his feet. He had mad feet tricks son. He also balanced a chair on his foot and then cup of water on the chair, and you know what happens next. Fuck yeah man. He fucking drank that shit. I have clapped at a grown man for drinking a glass of water.
It was like your uncle decided fuck it all to hell he was going to have a circus goddammit, but he didn't have the money or the talent or the effort, so he just made up one in his backyard with his family, his neighbors pets and some random shit he had lying around.
One of my favorite things was you could get your picture taken with Spongebob. The Spongebob costume they had was a magnificent tragedy. It was a worked over cardboard box covered with carpet samples stripped from the floor of an abandoned building. A lot of the details were off. I don't think they had ever watched the show before.
I imagine the construction sequence went like this, 'Spongebob yellow on top, brown on bottom, done.' It was dirty looking even from a distance, but we didn't get too close for a better inspection because to take a picture with Spongebob you had to pay five dollars.
I should clarify, you had to pay five dollars to take a picture with your own camera. I couldn't even imagine how they could enforce such a rule. What if I had taken a picture accidentally from my seat?
We only stayed for the first half of the circus because that is all my wife and son were willing to endure. The highlight of the first half was....oh for fucks sake I couldn't believe this was real....it was The Amazing Dennis. Dennis. That is your stage name. The Amazing Dennis. What, The Magnificent Steve was taken or some shit. The back of his jumpsuit had DENNIS written in silver glitter, you know like you put glue on something and dump glitter on it and holy shit that's it. The costume department for this debacle was totally on the ball.
Anyway, The Amazing Dennis was going to ride his motorcycle in the giant metal ball, typical circus fare. I thought my son would think that was at least better than watching nothing. So Dennis rides his beat up ass bike gingerly down the path to the ball. He goes in the ball. He rides around the bottom once and comes out. He calls his crew/family members over to discuss the construction of the ball. They point up a lot and argue then shrug their shoulders as if to say fuck it. From the looks of things, the top half of the metal sphere is not of sound construction. A complete fucking shock. He goes back into the ball and rides around in a sad little circle at the bottom about ten times and that is it.
Done.
Now at this point I should mention that my laugh is fucking loud. Loud and fucking annoying. When you hear me laugh you instantly think, wow, what a loud mouthed fucking prick. As I watched The Amazing Dennis ride amazingly around in an amazingly tiny circle like a complete dizzy dickpole I lost it. Great peals of prick laughter resounded off the walls. Then he rode out and took off his helmet, because you totally need a helmet when you are doing dangerous small circle shit, and I discovered that The Amazing Dennis was none other than Ninja Lee the Ringmaster.
I laughed like I was going to die. It was so fucking awesome, and it's not like they didn't know who was laughing, you could have heard a gnat's queef in there, which made me want to give up and laugh even harder. We could have fit this circus in your goddamn living room. I had to hand it to The Amazing Ninja Dennis Lee though, the dude was a true renaissance man. He did a lot of things like complete shit.
I was impressed by the fact that they were unapologetic about the whole fiasco. They knew they were shit, they didn't harbor any misconceptions about the nature of their show. It was a fucking abortion and they knew it and didn't give a fuck what you thought. That alone deserves a massive measure of respect and applause.
After The Amazing Dennis my wife had enough. My son was miserable. Half of the crowd left at intermission. The crowd, nice, the fucking massive mob of thirteen of us left. No one made eye contact, everyone was ashamed and embarrassed by the whole ordeal.
Every year at this time I look in the paper and for flyers on telephone poles to see if they are coming back. I have to know what other acts they had. It eats at my soul.
Even the coloring book we picked up on the way out for my son was bad. It was photocopies of poorly drawn pictures of various circus acts, lion tamers and trapeze artists and elephants, none of which had appeared at the circus we just watched. It was like they were rubbing it in your face. 'I bet your stupid ass thought you were going to see actual circus act at fucking circus instead of feet tricks and snakes and grown man doing donuts in metal ball. Now your child can color pictures of real circus and fucking cry.'
Hellwagon.
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