Kent Family Magic Circus Daily Blog: Thursday...that was one HECK of a day!

YIKES!

Today was weird. I mean really weird.

We have had some odd days on this trip and if you have been keeping up with the blog you know some of the days have been "Murphy's law" days. But Yikes, was Thursday June 16, 2011 weird.

Let me add the caveat that we have been traveling on the road for some time and have had many things fortunate and unfortunate happen to us from all directions (audiences, venue, clients, weather, others, inner turmoil, sickness, injury, etc. ) so you would think we have seen it all. Well, today was unique.

It all started off well enough.Everyone slept in and then as the big kids went off to meander at the mall (mostly at the book store) I took the little ones, first, to a party supply store?costume shop and then to the Wal-mart for daily supplies.

The weather for the first time in four days was perfect. We all gathered up again and by 3pm we were at the speedway/fairgrounds setting up. Still a great day, albeit many of the carnies and vendors (men) seem to insist going shirtless on days like this and most don't have the body to support the look and we had a couple of scares. Beyond that it had been a perfect day.

Mami and Titus joined us. The weather and the thick gravel (making it hard to move a wheel chair had kept them away. It was important they came today because a photo journalist from New Orleans who is working on a story about our family, show and travels, was coming out today.

Slowly the day started to turn on us. First it was the power supply problem. Our voltage meters were telling us we were only getting 95 volts to the RV. A neighbor vendor was getting even less and couldn't power their air compressor (they do air brush art) . We set up our generator just in case the venue electrician couldn't help...after all if the wiring is overloaded, it's overloaded. (They would end up using that...but that was a good thing. We like sharing so it was our pleasure to keep them running.)

The photo journalist arrived, Paulette and Joan, very very kind ladies. Everything with them was wonderful. They had been patient with us all day and allowed us our space when it was "go" time for the show.

But five minutes before the first show I was told by my fam that the RV aircon was down, but the rest of the power in the RV was fine and it was 90+ degrees...in the RV it was over 100. Titus was here so I had to fix it. (Titus is our disabled son.)

By now audience is gathering but the venue has supplied no seats and the new gravel they put in isn't easy to sit or stand on. It was hot. And I had to fix the problem for the RV.

Since the show was starting I had only enough time to figure out it was a simple 15 amp fuse in the Rv blown due to the low draw of voltage. Then I had to finish getting ready and get on stage. We pulled the show off with a few technical glitches due to the rushed nature of our getting ready. Nothing the audience noticed but enough for us to be annoyed. The crowd was small and since there were no seats, and the gravel is hard to stand on (I double up on socks each day just to tolerate it) some moved on into the rest of the fair since it was hard to stand still in the heat on hard, sharp, hot gravel. (I put in a request for seats and the fair brought some seats over and that fixed that problem for the other shows. The fair folks here are real easy to work with and are super nice.)

When I mentioned the seating problem to the fair manager guy he told me he would send seats and he did. It made all the difference in the world. The crowds finally had a place to sit comfortably and that made for better crowds and happier crowds the rest of the day.

Show two went really well. We had a blast and everyone's performances were spot on. Nick nailed a fabulous trapeze act.

Now the third show: The audience was great. It wasn't as big as show two but they were a happy crowd. On our end things went nuts. It started when I decided to have Jim do his juggling routine at the start of the show to draw more folks over. it worked. His fire juggling was great. But one drop of ignited fuel landed on my cart cover (my cart is where I keep hand props and it's a great place to throw stuff if is trains). Nick and Lukas noticed it and yelled out to me. As Jim juggled I dashed to the cart and yanked it off the cart and tossed it to the ground. I stepped on it and the fire went out. No big deal...it only made a 4" hole in the cloth and almost no one from the audience noticed. But on that cloth was a small mechanical thingy (I can't say what it is for secrecy). Let's just say it is vital for the operation of one of our illusions...it cost us $7000. I wouldn't realize this until it was time to use the device and the trick is already in progress. Talk about a fast mouth and invisible mechanics to get it working. We pulled the illusion off (not a prettily as we would have cared for but.....)

IN the impaled illusion at the show climax we set Midori on badly and she nearly did actually get impaled. She started to "slide" off the sharp sword....We caught her and reset her quickly. The audience oooo and awwwed ...they realized things almost went the wrong way too. It only added to the final impaled climax.

One other crazy thing was the wind shifting around as I lit my tongue on fire at the fire-eating part. I actually lit part of my chin on fire too. Fortunate for me I have experienced this before and was able to slap it out before the fuel burned off and I started to burn.

Finally the show was over, the crowd was happy, we were exhausted from the "covering-up" . As we started to clean up, a giant whoosh of air blew through the fair. It lifted some of the vendors' tents, and blew our banner line hard (we tied them down pretty good...but they looked like full bellowed sails. ) We all knew what that meant and one glance to the sky confirmed it. A giant grey mass was filling the moon lit night. Then the thunder crashed and a few seconds later the giant drops of rain started to fall. So like mad men all hands were on deck stowing gear. We had the whole show torn down in 15 minutes and many of us were soaked to the bone. The rain came down so hard and steady my back up sensors on my van beeped (they only beep when something is behind the van.....the rain was so thick the sensors thought it was a solid object.

Finally, off the main midway we drove around the park to the exit only to be turned back by the cops. Right at that corner just a few minutes earlier there had been an accident. One of those..."we need an ambulance" kind of accidents. So we drove back on the grounds and took the race car exit but it was blocked by the big rig that pulls the truck pull sled. It had tangled itself in some power lines. UGH! Everyone in the car had to laugh at the way this night was going. After a little wait we made it out and got everyone to the hotel. Amazingly by the time Victor Jr and I came back 45 minutes later the accident had been cleared.