Ask, and you shall receive,
Shannon.
Once again, and probably for the last time, my sister and three nutjobs (plus six stuffed dogs, one of whom is a snake) arrived on my doorstep for the second annual circus/zoo/lunch in a restaurant/drinking too much by the adults weekend that has come, for me, to symbolize the beginning of spring. You have baseball, Shannon and I have liters of wine.
As usual, this weekend was peppered with some strange behavior on the part of her kiddies. While in every other location they may be cute, funny, and most importantly, compliant little things, once they enter my apartment door, they seem to overdose on some sort of punk pill. I can’t blame Marty too much for his inability to stop stomping his feet since we, as a family, usually applaud and encourage his twenty minute stomp and dance routines. But the girls’ strange obsession with the cup of change/Wedding Postage Fund that sits next to my television was almost the undoing of myself and their mother.
Part of this is my fault, since every other time they came over I had change sitting on every blank surface. But last weekend, all of the pennies, etc., had been firmly ensconced in a giant plastic cup. Which was seized by all kiddies for the sole purpose of dropping each coin one by one onto the hardwood floors so that everyone in my apartment and the one below me wanted to poke a variety of sharp instruments into their eardrums so that they would never have to hear that sound again. Then they covered a mirror with them. Then they were just taking out fistfuls for no reason. Then they wanted to weigh the cup of change. And then, my head popped off. Next time the nutjobs are in town though, D’oh and I will be in our house, I hope, and they can throw change left and right, up and down, east and west, you know, in a lot of directions, because it will be our house and no one will be living downstairs…unless we rent it out, because we’re broke.
Anyhoo, punkish though they are, I really was sad to leave the little buggers when I had to leave the zoo and head to work on Sunday. Part of me may have been afraid though, that Shannon might do away with them if Lauren’s attitude did not shift dramatically, and then I would have no one to drink with once next spring came around.
What we are actually here to talk about today, though, is the circus. The whole reason the nutjobs were in town was to see this allegedly entertaining show. Unfortunately, what we saw was equivalent in entertainment value to that show where they are trying to find the new Sandy and Danny for Grease. D’oh made the fatal mistake of claiming to want to see that once, so I checked it out for fresh mocking material. It made my brain bleed. Billy Bush, who I believe I have mentioned before is dumber than your average hammer, is in charge there. I have to tell you that because if you just watch it, you won’t be able to recognize him underneath the eleventy layers of makeup he is sporting. And he is the only man in America whose lips are currently a lighter shade than the rest of his face…I hope. (Actually, I can think of one more, check the last paragraph.)
What I have subsequently learned about the circus is that there are actually three of them, Red (which we saw last year and very much enjoyed), Gold (which we’ll probably get stuck with next year), and Blue (which I wish I had not seen this year.) The Blue circus is called the Circus of Dreams in which a “family” is pulled from the audience and given the chance to live out their “dreams” by joining the circus right then and there in front of your very own eyes. Yes, that’s right folks, Dan, a young boy of indeterminate Asian descent, will be forced to choose what he wants to do FOREVER right here in front of you, thousands of strangers. His mom, sister, and father, of course know what they want to do right off the bat so they…abandon him and then he is immediately attacked by a giant dragon. Hmm. Initially, what Dan wants to do is beat a drum and look bored. And lip synch…badly. The circus web site claims that the Dans and company (yes multiple, we’ll get to that) do not speak English, but they have learned to lip synch. A useful skill in this country, to be sure. Although I do appreciate the circus being forthcoming about this and not setting us up for a Milli Vanilli-scale disappointment, no, they have not learned to lip synch. Neither has Dan’s “mom” or his “sister.” (Angelina Jolie aside, there is no way that a paunchy, washed up Broadway actor, a borderline little-person Russian acrobat, an obnoxious, (no matter where she’s from) teenage dancer, and Dan make up a plausible family.)
Spoiler alert: It turns out what Dan wants to be is one of those people who get flipped around by other people’s feet. He learns this after taking part in a human video game? Or something. I was lost long before then.
My first (although I guess I have snuck a few in here already) complaint about this spectacle is that the performers were so incredibly bored that they were not even phoning it in, they were tapping it in, in a very slow, morose, Morse code. One clown (an actual one...heh) just stood still throughout the whole opening number. Now, I am the first to be irritated by overly chirpy children’s performers, but if what you do for a living is entertain children? Especially children in my family? Be chirpy or go home.
My second complaint is that there hardly were any performers in the circus. A good chunk of the time was spent watching video screens where we got to see a behind the scenes shot of circus performers teaching Dan how to cheat at poker. This is where I first caught on to the multiple Dans as the kid in the video looked so little like the one on stage it was almost offensive. Just because they’re both Asian, Mr. Ringling, doesn’t mean that I’m not onto you.
I say it was almost offensive because what was actually offensive was the other thing we had to watch on the screen, that being the “sassy” elephants. I’m not sure why, but for some reason, the elephants all spoke like Mary did on 227 when Lester was acting a fool. Only the elephants made no sense. It went a little something like this.
Sassy Elephant #1: “The humans think they’re in charge around here, but we know who’s really in charge, don’t we girls?”
Baby Elephant: [Insert long, rambly, obvious elephant fact here. Something like, “We eat lots and are big. Humans eat less and are smaller”]
Sassy Elephant #2: Mmmm-hmmmmm, let’s spray the clowns with water
Or something like that.
In conclusion, the circus was not that good and it didn’t make any sense and they relied far too heavily on the horsey boys who rode their horses through fire (Mean!) to keep everyone interested. There was a bunch of motorcycles in a ball but really all that is is loud.
But, the kiddies seemed to enjoy it and the truth is, if there hadn’t been a hockey game later requiring the Verizon Center to be a balmy one degree, and if Shannon and I hadn't, very unwisely, opened the second giant bottle of wine the night before, I probably would have enjoyed it more myself. And it is always fun to have Shannon and her kids around, partly because when we are together we run into things we probably would not notice if we were not together. Once, it was a little boy practicing his tin whistle on the porch. The day of the circus it was an irritated albino riding a Segway up and down the street for no apparent reason. What more can you ask for?
edited to add: A commercial for the circus just came on while I was posting this, and about half the things in the commercial were not in our show. However, the announcer made a point when he said, "You have never seen anything like the Circus of Dreams. And I hadn't. Now I have. Eh.
