The Circus Is In Town

So last night we were lucky enough to see the Ringling Brothers Circus newest show, Fully Charged. In the interest of full disclosure (and bragging), we were given our VIP tickets for free. But last year we went without free tickets, because I like the circus. Er, I mean the kids do. So it's definitely something I would have recommended anyway, free tickets or no.


But the VIP tickets meant we got to go in a side door and get into the pre-show early. Because one of the acts was still practicing when we got there, we sat in some seats and talked to one of the associate production managers (whose name I can't remember and should have written down) for a while. The kids (and adults) got to ask questions. I  had chatted briefly with Cristie from The Traveling Circus, Nicole from Bronxmama and Desiree from Writing to Sanity on the way in, but that was it for socializing. Between trying to control HugMonkey and finding snacks for everyone there wasn't much opportunity.

So next was the pre-show. We got to beat the crowd, so Ironflower got to try on a costume and we got to talk to some of the clowns. And then we got seats up close to the pre-show animal area. We got to see Asia the elephant up close as well as some ponies and a zebra. I think the pre-show is wonderful - Hugmonkey was just fascinated by the lights. I recommend getting there as early as possible, though.

Fully Charged is a traditional circus show, in that there's more of a theme than a plot. There's a ringmaster and 2 main clowns and then all of the acts. Normally I'm not a huge fan of the clown acts, but something about the way they all were making fun of the regular circus acts appealed to me. I'm sure you're shocked.

Anyway, the other acts were amazing as usual. We got to see some of them up close, as people in the "VIP Celebrity Circus" seats have to move to benches on the arena floor for most of the first act. I didn't know that ahead of time so we weren't prepared for it (as in, Hot Guy had just gotten us food when we had to move and I probably wouldn't have brought HugMonkey) but it all worked out. We saw the Fernandez Brothers in their "Wheels of Steel", Russian strongmen, the amazing Danguir Troupe of tightrope walkers and an act with a giant bicycle from the arena floor.

The second act was just as exciting, but Hugmonkey was definitely feeling the effects of staying up so far past his bedtime. Even Ironflower and Lovebug started to slump. But their eyes stayed on the performers the whole time. Well, not Hugmonkey's. He got scared at some parts (we've yet to figure out why) and wouldn't look at others. In retrospect, he was probably just too young to handle it. He REALLY wanted to get down and run around. Especially during the tiger act. Which was the only time that it occurred to me that sitting in the second row was perhaps not as wonderful as it seemed. Luckily there was no mass tiger rebellion.

The Yakubov Troupe, with its aerial/swordfighting/tumbling act, and the Tianyicheng Troupe, with its bounce stilt acrobatics, were probably my favorite part of the second act. Ironflower's overall favorites were the tightrope walkers and the tigers, Lovebug's were the Alimgulov Troupe acrobats and the "Ninja clown with the chicken", a bit we saw during the pre-show. Hot Guy's favorite part was the animal show during the pre-show because the trainers taught the audience about the animals. We are not sure what Hugmonkey thinks, but he did play elephants this morning.

If you live in the New York area, you can get $5 off of your tickets here. If you don't, you can go the the Ringling website and find out when they are coming to your area.

They Don't Need A Freak Show Anymore

You know what is supremely wonderful about the circus? The other people are just as fantastic as the acts. Especially when you go to the circus in Newark, NJ.

I mean, it was Ringling Brothers, so of course the circus itself was fabulous. Except for the tigers and the elephants. I just feel like they're looking at us, trying to say, "I am a majestic beast, dammit! Of course I can roll over, motherfucker." For some reason I don't get the same impression from the llamas and miniature ponies. Anyway, there was much jumping and flipping by amazing athletes, 6 motorcyclists in the globe cage (I remember when there were only 2 - and that was super cool) and clowns that didn't freak me out too much.

But I can't say the same about the people watching the circus. They freaked me out A LOT. For example, after standing in line to enter the arena for a good 10 minutes, where they repeatedly stated "Have your tickets out!" over the loudspeaker, some people still could not grasp this. As soon as they got to the front of the line, they opened their bags and SEARCHED for their tickets. I don't know if they were all extremely stupid or extremely thoughtless, but the result was the same - more standing in line for the rest of us.

Speaking of stupidity, shouldn't seat 1 be at the start of a section? Like let's say you're sitting in section 3 and you are in seat 1 in row whatever, wouldn't you expect seat 1 to come first? Like if you walked from section 2, wouldn't you expect section 3's seating to start with 1? It doesn't. Unless you go backwards from section 4. And boy, did the ghetto fabulous usher who grabbed my tickets tell me how dumb I was for assuming seat 1 in section 3 would be closer to section 2. Not that I actually wanted her help, because I can read numbers. And not that she really helped, she just yelled that I should have come in the other way. Considering that there were about 20 people in the entire section at that point, I think her bitchiness was unjustified. Which is why I snapped, "I know EXACTLY where I'm going" and gave her a totally snooty look.

I also gave a snooty look to the guy 3 rows in front of us with his electronic cigarette. Not that I have a problem with cigarettes that don't harm others, but who really can't make it through the circus without a cigarette? Do you think he also brings it into the shower? He also sported hair gel and tight black jeans - stuff that was cool when we were both young. That might have prejudiced me against him. The clincher was when he rolled he sleeve up and had his wife apply cream to his new tattoo. I have nothing against tattoos per se; I have two of my own. And it's because I have tattoos of my own that I can say no one needs to apply cream that often. What a douche.

And speaking of douches, a special Jerseygirl shout out goes to the asshole who thought it was funny when his kid smacked the lady in front of him with his sword. I was embarrassed when my kid smacked the ladies in front of him with his sword, thank you very much.

And on a sadder note, both of my children want to be clowns. They were entranced the whole time, but clearly I've screwed them up so much already that they want to be clowns.

Dogs Are Whores. . . And Other Thoughts On The Circus

I mean that in the nicest way possible, of course. It's just that much like Rock of Love contestants and Hills cast members, dogs will do anything for human attention and affection. So while it was entertaining to watch the dog act at Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Baily circus last night (they went on slides! they danced!), I didn't feel that it was the same level as the other acts. Watching the elephants, tigers and even the horses and zebras perform their tricks was so much more exciting and compelling and slightly disturbing. Almost like watching a great actor in a really bad television movie: you can almost feel them swallowing their pride and dignity. But you watch the movie anyway - and it turns out that you kind of enjoy it. Whereas you watch Rock of Love just to see how far the whores contestants will go to win a bone from Bret.

But aside from over-analyzing the animal acts, I had the BEST time at the circus last night. My lousy mood? Gone. Completely. Totally. Utterly gone. The circus is still a magical experience, and Ringling Brothers really caters to kids. Because of fantastic and wonderful Mom Central, we got to go early and meet the ringmaster and the lead clown. They did a little act for us and posed for pictures. Ringmasters have changed since my childhood - this one was young and hot. Er, not that I noticed that or anything. Anyway, because we were there early already, we got to go to the pre-show before it got crowded.

The pre-show starts an hour beforehand - you get to walk around the arena floor and meet the clowns, see tight rope walking, ponies and an elephant up close and even try on clown costumes. Ironflower and Lovebug were overwhelmed in a good way. But as it got more crowded, Mommy and Daddy got overwhelmed in a bad way so we went back to our seats. I fed the kids my snack arsenal (because WOW, stuff was expensive and of course they'd been too excited to eat much at the Mom Central event) in the few minutes before the show began.

And then WOW. Except for having to repeatedly explain to Lovebug that he couldn't actually go down and join the performers, the show was a dream. Ironflower was so enchanted that she was quieter than she's been in her entire life. All the cool rope stuff and trapeze work and cannons and tight ropes and tumbling (now with platforms) and those spinning circles and dancing and wild animals and a story line. . .was so completely cool. It was a great mix of the traditional idea of the circus and all the new ideas more recent circuses (I really wish I could write "circi" there, my two years of Latin - will they ever leave me alone?) have started.

It's still the greatest show on earth, thank you very much. *

*Except possibly for the elephants and tigers sacrificing their dignity for entertainment. But it's not like being hunted was probably all that great either.