Our systems manager/computer
guru/webmonkey/
in-house juggler spends a day under the Big Top
by Ian Blackburn
"Hey, can you go to St. Petersburg on Wednesday to cover the opening of the
Ringling Bros. circus?"
I look up at our executive editor, standing in the doorway of my
converted-supply-closet office and wait for the punchline. There isn't one
forthcoming, so I glance at my calendar. Wednesday's open. My country needs
me. There's a circus to be covered. I'm off to St. Petersburg for the 128th
edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.
5:40 A.M., McGHEE-TYSON
AIRPORT
I'm supposed to meet up with Jim Early, a congenial old-school Knoxville
broadcast journalist, promoter of the circus' local stop, and the guy who's
making this trip possible. Jim has the tickets. It occurs to me that I don't
know what Jim looks like. This little dilemma is solved by the arrival of
reporter Rachelle Kennedy and videographer Julie Smith, the WATE-TV6 contingent,
carrying a tripod and TV camera. Can't be many of those on the early flight
to St. Pete.
I spend most of the uneventful flight looking over performer bios and working
up a good circus mooddid I mention it's 6 a.m.? Due to the mercurial
nature of McGhee-Tyson flight schedules, we actually fly into Orlando rather
than St. Petersburg, which does in fact leave me feeling a little circusyI
rarely have work-related duties that require setting foot in four different
cities before the hour when I'm usually getting up. I'm also pleasantly
disoriented by the balmy Florida weather, in which Rachelle unknowingly becomes
a feature presentation in my own personal little circus. There's a constant,
multidirectional Gulf wind blowing, and in about a half-hour's time I look
like I'm wearing a toupeé made out of fried rats. Rachelle looks like
she just stepped out of a boardroom. I wonder if anyone would pay a quarter
to see the Wild Boy of Borneo and the Imperturbable TV Anchor.
1:30 P.M., ST. PETERSBURG
HILTON
So far, so good. We're met at the hotel by the promoter, a gregarious woman
named Rebecca. "There's a change in the interview schedule," she says, looking
a little grim. "There's been an accident. [Tiger trainer] Richard Chipperfield
was mauled by one of the cats a couple hours ago. His brother shot the tiger."
For the second time I pause, waiting for a punchline, and I'm really hoping
for one this time. For the second time, there's not one forthcoming. The
first event of the day is press conference with Ringling officials, the police,
and the Bayfront Center's management. It was, forgive me, a media circus.
It didn't take long before I'd heard about a half-dozen retellings of what
happened, mostly from passersby. "Hey, did you hear about that tiger that
escaped and chased down that guy and bit his head off? They had to kill it
to get it offa' him." A radio DJ joked that "a tiger decided to have his
trainer for lunch." A St. Petersburg woman left a sympathy cardfor
the tigerstuck in the fence.
Well, no tiger escaped. Nothing chased anybody down. During a practice
session/photo shoot, Chipperfield was working in a cage with 12 cats. In
interacting with "Arnold," a 350-pound Bengal he raised from a cub, he made
a characteristic vocal/ breath-blowing sound"chuffling" is the technical
termnear the tiger's head.
It's something tigers do. Another thing tigers do is bite each other, and
Arnold took hold of Chipperfield's head, releasing him only after being sprayed
with fire extinguishers. The tigers were returned to their cages, and
Chipperfield's distraught brother, Graham, killed the tiger with a shotgun
retrieved from elsewhere. Rodney Huey, a visibly disquieted Ringling spokesman,
explained it as "really a situation of the emotion of the moment," adding
that "firearms are not routinely kept on the circus floor."
It's not unusual for tigers to treat each other in that manner as a form
of social behavior, according to ringmaster James Ragona. As Ragona pointed
out, though, people aren't quite as sturdy as tigers. The St. Petersburg
Times quoted 20-year veteran trainer Wade Burck as saying, "When you're
a trainer, that animal has accepted you as a member of their species. By
accepting you, they're going to deal with you in the same respect."
3 P.M., BAYFRONT CENTER, ST.
PETERSBURG
Like the saying goes, the show must go on...and it did, sans tigers, which
speaks volumes for the resolve of the people who make up the RBB&B circus.
If you didn't know that there'd been an accident, you wouldn't know it from
watching the performersat least in public. While talking with several
of them beforehand, I was painfully aware of the media crews that had instantly
descended on the arena looking for a juicy angle on a tiger attack. Animal-rights
activists were quick on the draw"The true feelings of the tigers toward
their trainers was shown today," announced a spokesperson for Florida Voices
for Animals. I glance down at the orange press tag around my neck and
self-consciously tuck it into my shirt before approaching Mark Myers, the
Human Cannonball.
A graduate of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, Myers
was approached about a career change by Elvin Bale, "currently the world's
foremost trainer of human cannonballs"a title that must look great
on a business card. Myers turned out to be a cannonball prodigy and, after
six weeks of intensive cannon training, traded in his size 28 clown shoes
for a sequined jumpsuit. I ask him what his muzzle velocity is.
"Good question," he laughs. "I want to get somebody, a policeman, to come
in with a radar gun and see how fast I go. The calculations they have say
I go about 68 miles an hour...it's like zero to 60 in three-fourths of a
second."
I am no longer entertaining the thought of bribing someone to fire me out
of the cannon.
4 P.M., BACKSTAGE
When I told our editor that I'd go down to St. Pete for the Ringling Bros.
opening, what I didn't tell him is that running away to join the circus really
was a dusty dream of mine. A friend of mine and I actually tried to do this
once, except it wasn't really a circus. It was one of those crappy little
carnivals that set up in parking lots. When you're a teenager in Johnson
City, you learn to work with what you've got.
Other Knoxvillians have had a little more luck. Dug Meech and Dave Nichols,
both of the most-Knoxville-of-all-bands Smokin' Dave and the Premo Dopes,
have both toured as circus musicians. The Bijou Theatre Center's Scott McBride,
a graduate of the official Ringling Clown College, toured the country in
greasepaint.
If you go to the circus this week, you might not see any Knoxville performers,
but you'll definitely hear oneBrock Henderson, formerly of Jazz Liberation
Quartet and early-'90s fusion group Free Fourmula, replacing Nichols as the
guitarist of the Ringling Bros. band.
"I don't think it's really hit me yet," said Henderson, who had been working
as a computer equipment repairman in Knoxville prior to joining Ringling
Bros. about six months ago. It's definitely not the standard corporate job.
Henderson is quartered in typical circus accommodationsa train compartment
that measures "about 7 by 8 feet," with a bed (which converts into a table),
a sink, some cabinet space. "I kind of dig that," says Henderson. "There's
your stuff, there's the kitchen, there's the bed. You sit there and practice,
you get up and get something to eat, and your guitar's still there. You don't
get distracted like you would in a house or apartment.
"I miss jamming in the clubs and some of the little things you take for granted
living in your hometown, but it's been a great experience already. The people
are cool, lots of different backgrounds," he tells. "And even playing the
same show over and over again, there are always ways to challenge myself,
focus on the intricacies of technique instead of letting the hands do it
automatically without thinking about it.
"It's definitely a major step forward to what I want to be doing in the long
run."
7 P.M. "THE BIG TOP"
With the events of the day being what they were, I had almost completely
forgotten the main attractionwe were going to sit down and watch the
circus. It's been more than 20 years now since I've been to one; I was a
little fuzzy in the memory department, and I just remember them being wild
and bright and crazy fun. This one lived up to the memory.
On this tour, the Ringling Bros. circus actually starts an hour before showtime
with the "Three Ring Adventure," in which the arena floor is open to the
public. In contrast with the traditional separation of the audience from
the close-knit circus community, this time around you can interact with the
performers and animals, except for the ones that are substantially bigger
than you are.
That only applies to the animals, actually. Khan, an 8-foot-tall Pakistani,
is substantially bigger than I am, especially when standing next to me smiling
politely at kids who repeatedly ask what shoe size he wears. Clowns abound,
wearing even bigger shoes than Khan's, and I notice later that they're careful
to not walk directly behind the elephants. Milling about are the Ayala sisters,
fifth-generation performers who swing by their hair in huge circles 30 feet
off the ground, and you can get close enough to them to see that yep, it's
an ordinary, albeit well-taken-care-of, head of hair.
I take a handful of my own mop and try to lift myself off my heels. That
hurts about as much as watching Nikolai the Iron-Jaw bend a steel bar held
in his teeth, and don't get me started on Mysticlese, who brings a '90s twist
to a time-honored circus staplethe Futon of Nails.
Instead of demystifying the circus by allowing a close-up look, the Three-Ring
Adventure pulls back the curtain and shows the lack of smoke and mirrors.
There's no "trick" to the trickswhat you see is pretty much what it
is. There's no trap door beneath the small glass case that Marina, "the Lady
in the Cube," folds herself up into. I briefly consider asking her to take
me on as an apprentice so I can Fed Ex myself around the country.
After a few preliminary acts (the "sideshow"), the circus begins, and there's
more going on than I can possibly take in. This is perfect, I think, for
the rapid-fire, MTV-induced, short-attention-span generation. There's not
a lot I ever see, performance-wise, that makes me laugh hard enough to spill
popcorn on my neighbor, but I've got two words here: skateboarding poodles.
(Sorry 'bout that popcorn, Rachelle).
The most impressive act was the Quiros Brothers' high-wire act. Actually,
to be truthful, they scared the hell out of me. You know how it's easy to
take the national debt in stride? Most people can't think in numbers that
high. The Quiros affected me the same way. I couldn't believe some of the
things these lunatics were doingit didn't even show up on the radar
of my danger assessment.
And the only net was one to catch a wooden chair they threw down after they
were finished with it.
11:15 P.M. GREAT SOUTHERN BREWING
COMPANY, KNOXVILLE
Back on terra firma. The entire trip took about 36 hours, and I'm
exhausted.
"So whatcha been up to today?" asks the bartender. I think about that one
for a moment.
"I went to Florida to talk to some women who swing around coliseums by their
hair," I answer.
The bartender looks at me oddly and eyes my half-finished beer. "No, really,"
I say, nodding at the glass. "That's the only one I've had."
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