The Circus

The circus came to town this past week. Ami and I decided Madison was old enough to go so we decided to take her. After a long and event filled weekend, I thought the circus would be a tension and stress breaker. We get to the BJCC an hour and a half early so we could find parking and not have to fight traffic and people. Apparently everyone else thought the same thing. We end up parking 43 miles away and walking 52as the BJCC is the most confusing building ever built. Leave it to some architect to want to make a building asthetic looking but forgetting its a building and should be easy to go in and out of. Noone cares how artistic the design of the building is except for the 45 art nerds in Birmingham. All we as humans want is a building that we can go in watch the event, leave, and find our car as soon as possible. So we finally get in the building. There is circus memorabilia everywhere. Things that light up, swords, battery powered things that spin, and stuffed animals. The same stuff you can buy at the dollar tree except this stuff has "Ringling Brother's Circus" on it so that way they can charge $100 dollars for a stuffed elephant, $12 for an elephant cup, $20 for a plastic sword. And EVERYONE was buying that crap except for the Letson's. Fortunately Madison isn't old enough yet to want everything she sees. So we ended up buying a thing of popcorn and keeping the paper popcorn box that had the circus logo on it for her a souvenir. She really does love it. Last night she kicked her baby doll out of the bed and slept with her new box. So we go in find our seats which are right down front, so I was pumped about that. Now if something goes wrong with an elephant stepping on the trainer or a tiger getting pissed and biting the ring master, I will be there to see it. Or if the tight rope walker falls, he/she will hit the ground right in front of me. Deep down we all know we go to these things so we might be able to see something cool happen that wasn't meant to happen like the guy getting fired out of the cannon and the controller putting just a little too much juice in the gun and shooting the performer just a little to far. That is why there are shows like "When Animal's Attack" or "Wicked Attraction" because we just have to watch this idiots do stupid stuff. So we found our seats and we take Madi down on the floor to see the animals and watch some of the clowns and performers doing little tricks and shows before the main show starts. I have to tell you, I appreciate these people trying to entertain my kid as well as many others, but dang these people are a little strange. This one guy entertainer was dressed in balarina shoes and colorful body suit, so tight EVERYTHING was visibly contoured. For a second I thought he was only wearing body paint. He was a Latin American man about 40/45 years old, 5'5, 140 lbs, and was twirling a laso around. Yes that was his "talent". So he would twirl the laso around then wave a kid from the crowd out to him to get in the middle of the laso with him and take a picture. For me to watch this was just a little bit weird as the guy was a little bit fruity. So then we go watch the zebras and horses then watch a bunch of Asian guys throw hats up into the air and catch them on their heads. There were about 8 of them doing this and everytime they threw their hats up, at least 3 or 4 would not catch their hats on their heads. I was not impressed at all. It was a very weak showing from our Asian brothers. So we watched a few other acts and met a few clowns who some scared me worse than Madison. There is just something about a clown that is spooky. It might have been when I was little and watched the movie "It" about that clown that killed people. But for some reason clowns just don't amuse me. After we visit the floor we go to our seats for the show to start. The first act was the horses and zebras. There were three rings set up. Two for the horses and one for the zebras. The horses would go around and do tricks like stand up and turn circles and all that stuff. The trainers really knew what they were doing. But all the zebras did was walk around in a circle or job in a circle. The only cool thing was when one of the zebras took a leak. It absolutely soaked the whole ring as it looked like a pressure washer going off. So near the end of the horse show, in the far ring one of the horses started getting a little wild and kicking and crap. I was like "Oh yeah here we go, a little action!" 4 or 5 guys jumped in the ring and started grabbing horses and trying to calm them down. The girl trainer started freaking and didn't know what to do. Obviously she was there for her looks and not her training ability. So the horses leave and the clowns do their thing as well as other acts. So then these two dudes come out dressed like dudes from "Ben Hurr" movie. They are both bald, extremely fat, walking like giants with scowl looks on their faces. They proceed to pick up a about 12 foot log, like a telephone pole and throw it around back and forth to each other like a stick. Then they let clowns hang on it and they threw them around. After about 5 minutes of watching the world's strongest man competition they exited the stage. But that wasn't the last of these two meat sticks. Later in the show they came back out. Let me paint this picture for you a little better. Have you ever seen couples ice skating? They guy throws the girl up in the air, holds her up over his head and twirls and stuff like that. Well imagine two men, 300+ lbs, about 6'-4 doing that to each other. We look up and one guy is standing on the shoulders of the other, then they are doing some weird sexual pose together, then one is twisting the other around his body like a hoola hoop or nun-chucks. Ami and I and the dad's around us were like what the heck? We were all laughing as this homo-erotic duo proceeded to do the dance of passion in leather straps, shirtless, their bodies rubbing all over each other. It was the gayest thing I've ever witnessed in real life. Noone clapped. We all felt so violated. I could feel my manhood go into hiding. We did some funny stuff together in the lockerroom sometimes in the shower, but nothing like what these two dudes did. This level of eroticness was rated R and there we were watching it in person with our children. The men in the audience couldn't even look at each other after seeing what just happened. It was if we had all just seen each other naked for the first time and accidentally bumped into each other while picking up the soap. After being violated, the tigers and elephants each came out and did their thing. These animals hated their lives. How could you tell Wes?, you ask. Well trainer almost had his leg taken off by one of the pissed off tigers he was yelling at to lay down. When he lined them all up to stand on their back legs, all of them of them were snarling at him and growling as if they were all about to attack him. If they all decided to get together and take this dude, there was nothing he could do but hope he died quick. There were guys lined up around the outside of the cage, but these were brothers from the hood and little mexican men. If those tigers went crazy these guys would have beat us to the doors. These tigers were awesome to see though. There was one that was a good 100 lbs bigger than the next tiger. This guy was freaking huge and his paw was twice as big as the dudes head. Next the elephants came out. They looked so happy to be there holding on to each other's tails and then standing up and sitting down on command. It looked like it took everything these poor animals had just to lay down and get back up so it was no wonder why one elephant hesitated for a good 30 seconds before laying down. The trainer yelled and yelled to get this thing to lay down. You could just see the elephant saying "You butthole, I am tired of laying down and getting up everyday just so you can look like you have tamed the wild. Screw you." I wasn't in the least bit entertained by this guy being able to make these beasts do these tricks. Just seeing these guys walk around and being the biggest land mammal next to these little people was cool enough. You put an elephant next to a tiny Mexican man and these things look gigantic. So after the elephants came out we headed for the doors as we knew the show was almost over and Madison had had her share of the circus. We tracked the 43 miles back to the car and headed home. As we all got ready for bed, I couldn't even let Ami see me naked as I got in the shower as images from the circus strongmen still made me feel as if I had been the guy in only leather underwear rubbing chests with another man and putting my sweaty hands on the body of another man. So before you think the circus is all fun and games, think again. It could be the window to world of homosexual gladiators.