Market Results ( #BOTB Results)

 I've been mulling over whether or not to do Thanksgiving dinner this year.  Maybe I should check with the bank to see if I could take out a loan to finance the groceries.  I mean, really!  Prices are getting ridiculous...

Battle of the Bands Results

What Happened with the Persian Market?

       My recent Battle was a showdown between two jazzed up versions of Ketelby's "In a Persian Market".  The contestants were American jazzman Wilbur de Paris and British popster Acker Bilk with a couple of Dixieland flavored interpretations of the light classical piece.    

      I'm very partial to the classical tinged piece as it was the one I used to hear during the levitation act of the Ken Griffin Magic show which I worked on for a few years.  I enjoy hearing the jazzy versions and after repeated hearings I can go either way depending on my mood.  Why not Acker Bilk?  He really needs the vote more anyway.

     Pretty low turn out for this Battle>>>

Final Vote Count

Wilbur de Paris     6 votes

Acker Bilk             4 votes

Next Battle on December 1st

      That's the plan and I plan to stick to that plan.  Better than sticking to a pan I guess.

Question of the Month & BOTB Results

         The Question of the Month is hosted by Michael G D'Agostino from A Life Examined.  The first Monday of each month I'll be answering a question posed by Michael prior to event day.  Click on the link to his blog for more participants.   

      Here is this month's question:

“What’s the best job you’ve ever had?”

      Retirement certainly has a plus side and is an especially good gig if you've got a great pension plan or some other generous access to financial resources with the good health to enjoy it all.   Unfortunately, though I've got the health, I am limited by the finance part, but then again aren't most of us?   I'm enjoying a lot of aspects of retirement, but it's not as good as the best job I've ever had.

      Perhaps it's my glass half full attitude that's made my work life seem so blessed.  In every job that I've had over the years I've always managed to find something good about each of them.  There has been no job that I've absolutely hated.  On the contrary, I've been thankful to have had the employment that I have found--or has found me--and each job contributed something positive to my life besides the obvious benefit of a paycheck.  A positive attitude does wonders for what can potentially be a tedious and uncomfortable circumstance.

       My employment history has included stints as a golf caddy, construction worker, telephone solicitor, delivery person, limo driver, warehouse worker, dishwasher, marketing research data collector, retail sales associate, show promoter, general business manager, cold caller, and entertainer.  I can't say that I loved every one of these jobs, but each one served a purpose in its season and added value to my personal growth.

        Of all of the jobs in my life, the ones related to the entertainment industry have been the best.  Growing up in a family that regularly worked professional gigs as a juggling act, I fell in love with being on stage, entertaining before audiences, and the whole lifestyle that went with the profession.  Since my father had a normal day job, we had bookings set up for weekends, evenings, or vacation times.   Juggling was a sideline for our family, but it was a great way to pick up extra money and have a darn good time while doing so.  Early in my life I decided that one day I wanted to have a full-time career in the entertainment industry.

       In 1975 the opportunity to fulfill the dream I had so long harbored was presented to me with an offer to join the Ken Griffin Magic and Illusion Show.  The Griffin's were a seasoned husband and wife team with a notable history in the entertainment industry.  They had written a book--Illusion Show Know How--which gained them a large following among working magicians as well as the dreamers who hoped to one day to pursue careers in stage magic.  Starting my solo entertainment career with the Griffins was an ideal way to break into the business.

Emulating the flamboyant 70's style of disco magic, here I am at the conclusion of the famous Houdini Metamorphosis Trunk Escape as presented with the Ken Griffin Magic Show at the 1976 Abbott's Magic Get-Together in Colon, Michigan.  Being on stage can feel pretty great!

     As much as I enjoyed working on the Ken Griffin Magic Show, the bookings were not enough to keep us working as much as I would have liked and this in turn resulted in my not making enough money to support me and the wife who I had married while working on the show.  They did not have a regular agent booking a consistent tour so we began doing our own bookings and promotion prior to each show.  In doing this I learned a lot about those aspects of show business, but my preference was to tour and perform.   Another opportunity was offered to me in 1978 and this was much more to my liking.

The World of Fantasy

        I was living my dream with the Ken Griffin Show, but I still had a fantasy about touring without having to do the booking and promoting work.  Then my fantasy became a reality as I entered a world of fantasy.  That is, The World of Fantasy Players, a troupe run by magic entertainer and diverse businessman Philip Morris from Charlotte, North Carolina.  

         On visiting a Ken Griffin Show performance in Gastonia, North Carolina, Philip Morris offered my wife and I a job with his touring show.  The World of Fantasy Players presented theatrical stage versions of popular children's stories that incorporated music, dance, and magic.  Each year the show toured throughout the U.S. and Canada for about nine months.  With the blessing of the Griffins, my wife and I accepted Philip's offer to join the Players troupe.

        As the story turns out, my stint with The World of Fantasy Players became the best job I ever had.  In my first two years I was a featured performer in the show doing juggling and magic while my wife was one of the actors.  In 1981 I took over as road manager and remained in that position until 1991 when I continued working for Philip Morris managing a costume distribution warehouse in the Los Angeles area.

         There were many things that made my job with the World of Fantasy Players great.  For one thing the extent of the travel was an opportunity that I would have unlikely achieved on my own.  Yearly we crisscrossed North American visiting major places as well as small towns many have never heard of yet been to.   All of this travel--transportation and lodging--was paid by the company and even though we often kept a very busy performance schedule, there was almost always time to sight see and to enjoy the local color of the places we visited.  

         Decent lodging was always included as part of the package.  Especially after I took over management of our road affairs, I made sure that we stayed in nice places that provided the comfort of home away from home.  When my kids were small we could travel with them with no problems.  Later after they started becoming school age we left the road life to settle down.

        Would I do something like this again if I had a chance?   As long as my wife was game to go I'd take a similar job for sure.  Doing exactly what I was doing twenty years ago maybe not so much (though with a show crew doing all of the heavier work it might not be so bad), but I wouldn't mind going back to some kind of touring life.         

        When I hear rock and roll stars or other big entertainers complain about life on the road I have to laugh.  They have it made.  Posh hotels, deluxe transportation, and many other perks--doesn't sound like all that bad of a life to me.  I suppose there are some who have it rougher than others, but over all most of them don't know the kind of life where the stage stars are also the roadies and drivers.  But it's not a bad life when all the conditions are right.   And even if the conditions are not always right, you sure can get some good stories out of it.

       
Battle of the Bands Results:  Another Brick in the Wall

         Another Battle has been waged and it's time for the winner announcement.   On September 1st my song pick was "Another Brick in the Wall" between Daria Plyushko and Gavino Loche.  I had a pretty good idea who would win in this one, but I didn't expect quite the lopsided outcome.  

         After many listenings of the song I was torn.  Sometimes I was in a "Lazy" mood and got into the chill of the Plyushko version.  In the end though I had to hand my vote to the guitar wizardry of Gavino Loche.   I had a lot of voters who went the same way as I did.

Final Voting Results:

Daria Plyushko        7            

Gavino Loche        27

          Another Battle of the Bands will be coming your way on Tuesday September 15th.   That post will be part of an occasional series I'll be doing of versions of some of my favorite songs.   I'm going to try to tie these posts to "Soundtrack of my Life" posts on my Wrote By Rote blog. 

          Have you had a job that has especially stood out for you?    Have you had any jobs that involved extensive traveling or being away from home a lot?   Is there still a special dream job beyond your horizon?

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For Your Halloween Dining Pleasure: Weird Wild Foods

        After being challenged by Susan Kane at thecontemplativecat, I have been digging through my brain archives to think up some weird foods that I've tried that were surprisingly good.   As I began thinking about this I was taken back to my mid-twenties when I was on a national tour with the Ken Griffin magic show.

         In a post in June of 2010, I told how Ken Griffin was the one who first introduced me to menudo.  I had always thought of myself as a pretty adventurous person when it came to food, but once I started being around Ken Griffin I was introduced to some foods I had never considered.

        Ken had been around a lot in his life.  He grew up near Deming, New Mexico not far from the Mexican border.  He'd spent years as a saddle maker and leather craftsman in the ranch country of Montana.   He and his wife had toured Viet Nam entertaining the soldiers during the war.  In his broad range of life experiences he had also encountered a lot of different foods that I had never tried.

         One of the favorites that he was known to whip up in a crock pot in the motel rooms was chicken hearts and gizzards.  The thought of these did not appeal to me at all.  However, he doctored them up with onions, an assortment of spices, and other ingredients that I don't recall and set them cooking all day in the crock pot.  I was pretty adamant about not trying these at first, but after a while the aroma started smelling pretty good.  They weren't the best looking things in the world, and I'll warn you if they're not cooked right it's can be darn close to eating rubber, but after twelve hours or so cooking in the crock pot they were tender and savory in taste.  Haven't eaten them since, but enjoyed them several times with Ken.

          He also talked me into trying pork brains and eggs.  I guess I was up for anything back then.  It's not your normal restaurant fare--you're not going to find these at Denny's or I-Hop--but when we stopped at some truck stop and he saw them on the menu he knew what he wanted.  And though I wasn't too enthusiastic about it I let him talk me into ordering them too.  Maybe I was just so hungry that anything would have tasted good, but I downed the plate with no problem and with no bad after-effects.

        Then there was the time in Indiana when a friend of Ken's invited us to a local bar where they were having a happy hour special of sorts and were serving lamb fries.  The place was rowdy with congenial working folks chowing down on platters of lamb fries and downing them with beer.  Everybody seemed to be enjoying them so I got a platter.  They were thin sliced, batter covered. fried crispy golden brown discs that looked similar to home fried potatoes.  They had a pleasant chewy texture with a light meaty taste that was maybe closer to clams or something like that.

         As I enjoyed my lamb fries and was working on my third or forth beer, I asked our host what lamb fries were anyway.  He informed me that they were sheep testicles, sliced thin, battered, and deep fried.  That momentarily gave me pause.  Then I looked around the room and saw everyone happily munching away.  What the heck!  They tasted darn good and I still had beer to wash them down with.  We ordered another platter and some more beer.  I was hungry.  And my philosophy is that if I see a whole bunch of people eating something and enjoying it then I'll be willing to try it too.

        I hope I'm never in a bar full of cannibals or worse yet, zombies.

         Have you ever tried lamb fries or rocky mountain oysters?    Do you have a good recipe for hearts and gizzards?   Does it unnerve you when you're having breakfast and the group of unkempt half-dead looking people at the table next to you tell the waitress they want brains?




..

The Publicity Photo

                The photo that now appears in my header was taken in the early spring of 1976.    Since the name of my blog makes a reference to my background as a juggler, I decided that I would add the personal touch with a photo of me related to juggling.   Today I will explain what this photo represents.







      By the summer of 1975, I had found myself at a place in my life where the road into my future was diverging toward uncertainties and I was faced with having to make a decision about what I was going to do next with my life.  Three of my friends and I had just been ousted from a beautiful mountain cabin we had been sharing and living in for the previous four months.  Now I was suddenly back living at home with my parents at age twenty-four. 

        Out of work and running low on money, I felt stuck in a rut.  I had sold my van months before and was dependent on my parents or friends for transportation.   I needed to find a way out of the mess I had gotten into. 

         In late June, I started working with a show promoter in Knoxville, Tennessee.  He was promoting a show where my family's juggling act was going to be performing in July.  I made some spending money helping to sell tickets and advertising for this show.

          Performing with us was a magician and his wife--Ken Griffin and Roberta.  They had a touring stage show that was nationally known.  After working with them on this show, my parents invited them over for dinner at our house.  Apparently I had impressed them with my helpfulness to them at the show we were working and during the course of their visit with us they offered me a job.   It was perfect timing for me.  I readily accepted.

          My family had one more upcoming date with the Emmett Kelly Jr. Circus and it was decided that I should play that show with our juggling act before meeting up with the Griffins in Durham, North Carolina. We played our show with the circus in Cleveland, Tennessee and the next morning I was on a Greyhound bus to Durham with my juggling equipment and personal belongings.  My career as a solo performer had begun.

          By the end of the year the Griffins and I had ended up in Terre Haute, Indiana working on show promoting.  I was really enjoying the performing and the travelling.  This was my kind of life.   The show promoting was not my favorite part, but the thrill of the performances was a lot of fun. 

           Spring of 1976 found us in the small town of Spencer, Indiana where we were promoting a show that we were to be performing in a lovely old vaudeville theater.  Since I was now hooked on the show biz life working on my own as a performer, I had come to the conclusion that I would be doing this for a while.  The Griffins were very happy with me and wanted to keep me on board with their show.

           They needed me to have photos made to be included in the press kit they sent out for show publicity.   While in Spencer I found a photography studio where I arranged to have my photos done.  Donning one of the tuxedos I used for my juggling act, I went for the photo shoot.  The color photo used in the header was basically a vanity shot for me to have and to give to my parents.  The actual publicity shots intended for reproduction in newspapers and the like had to be in black and white.  One of these publicity photos can be seen below.

           This shot was reproduced in various newspaper articles throughout the United States about shows in which I was going to be appearing.  In fact, I even used this photo for publicity after I left the Ken Griffin Show in 1977.  Below are a couple of examples of articles that used this photo.

                 This article from THE MORNING REPORTER in Morgantown, West Virginia is dated May 27, 1977 announces a show that would be taking place a few days later on June 1.   The paper felt that my story was newsworthy since my parents had both come from the Morgantown area.   I would often submit a photo and story in towns where I had some connection and the stories were almost always published.

     

 Here's a story from the front page of the May 12, 1977 edition of the BARNESVILLE ENTERPRISE in Barnesville, Ohio.   I'm not sure why they used my photo for this story.  I was not the "famed magician".  Maybe someone at the paper just liked my photo better than the other ones in the press kit.   Needless to say I was kind of pleased to my photo on the front page of the paper.

           That is the story of the origin of this funky 70s photograph.   At the same time I took these, I also had photos taken of me with my violin since I was billed as The Juggling Violinist.  I don't think any of those photos were ever used for newspaper articles; at least I don't have any articles with any of those photos.  Perhaps one day I'll post the violin photos. 

            Have you had professional photos taken for press purposes or book jackets?   Did you go to a photographer who specialized in this sort of photography, a regular portait photographer, or someone else?  Do you have a press kit assembled to send out for publicity and other purposes? 

***************************************************************

And Now the Truth Revealed!

             On my post of last Saturday I acknowledged the "Creative Writer (Liar)" Award giving to me by Patricia Stoltey.  In accepting this award I gave you 6 possible things about me of which only one is true.  I reposted these on Monday-- talk about getting maximum mileage out of blog topics.

              Since I didn't reveal the answer as promised on Wednesday, I'm doing it today.  First here are the lies and the truth:


1. I was once a roadie for the Marshall Tucker Band (a popular country rock band in the 70s)
2. I was the salutatorian of my graduating class in high school.
3. I have hiked the entire Appalachian Trail.
4. I performed in a circus that featured Ted Cassidy and Jackie Coogan from the television show "The Addams Family".
5. While rafting down the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon, the raft I was in capsized and I broke my leg, necessitating a helicopter rescue out of the canyon.
6. In the late 70s I spent one season working as a featured magic act in a carnival sideshow.

       The guesses were all over the place.  And I'm not sure whether some of the numbers guessed were that they were the truth or a lie.  In any case, here they are revealed:

1.  ... roadie for the Marshall Tucker Band  -- I saw the Marshall Tucker Band in concert once in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1975.  I talked Ken and Roberta Griffin, the magic act that I mentioned in my Wednesday post, into going with me.  Lead singer and guitarist Toy Caldwell became very sick during the concert and had to be taken away in an ambulance.  Opening act Charlie Daniels stepped in to take his place and finished out the set.  I was a fan of Marshall Tucker, but never a roadie.


2. ... salutatorian of my graduating class.--I had a pretty good grade point average in high school--but not that good.  Some of my math grades kind of messed things up.  Still, out of a graduating class of about 250, I was ranked #21.  I just missed having my picture in the school yearbook as one of the Top Twenty.

3. .... hiked entire Appalachian Trail--I did a lot of hiking and backpacking in my younger days and dreamed of doing the entire Appalachian Trail, but never did.

4. I performed in a circus that featured Ted Cassidy and Jackie Coogan from the television show "The Addams Family".  If I remember correctly this was in about February of 1966.  My family's juggling act was booked to play the Shrine Circus in Rochester, New York.  Right before intermission there was what they called the "Spectacle Parade" in which all performers, animals, and some special floats would circle the arena.  Part of this spec featured celebrities who had been advertised to draw crowds.  This was the extent of what Cassidy and Coogan did.  They rode around in some sort of novelty vehicle and waved at the crowd.  I recall after one spec, my sister and I caught the celebrities on a backstage stairway to request autographs.  They complied, but they sure were grouchy about it.  This is the true story.

5. While rafting down the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon, the raft I was in capsized and I broke my leg, necessitating a helicopter rescue out of the canyon.---Definitely the most concocted of all the stories, this one is a total fabrication.

6. In the late 70s I spent one season working as a featured magic act in a carnival sideshow.--There are some truths to this story.  In the late 70s I did work on a few magic shows and did perform a few magic illusions in these shows.  For a brief stint when I was working with the Ken Griffin Magic Show we did work on a "girlie" or burlesque show at a carnival at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, Missouri.  So this is an amalgamation of truths to form a lie.

            There you have it!  A shorter post of recycled material.  Works for me.

Menudo: The Soup Not the Band

            I don't exactly recall when I first heard about menudo, but it was probably in the late 70s and it was probably from Ken Griffin, a magician for whom I worked for a few years.  Ken had been a leather craftsman making saddles and other items in Montana and elsewhere. He had gain reputable stature in the field of leather work when he decided he wanted to run away from it all and follow a childhood dream of becoming a magician.

           His wife, Roberta, had briefly been involved in the Hollywood movie scene in her younger days and as a woman with a great deal of spunk and driving ambition, she backed Ken in his dream.  They became well known in the magic field and Roberta wrote books under Ken's name about both magic and leather craft.  When I became involved with them most of their glory days were behind them and they had a lot of miles on their odometers.

           Ken had been born in Deming, New Mexico and he claimed he was part Mexican.  He certainly looked the part.  With a face as tough as the leather he crafted, he liked to take a drink or two more than once a day. An alcohol high had become a natural state for him.  When he was in prime form he would like to reminisce about past times and Roberta would fill in the places where his memory gapped.  The two of them were quite the team of storytellers.

           Somewhere in one of his story sessions he had talked about menudo and its medicinal value in curing a hangover.  I had not been too much of a drinker back then--oh every now and then, yet not too excessively--but I kept this hangover remedy in mind just in case I would ever need it.

            The date eludes me--it was probably late 70s or early 80s--and whether a hangover was even a part of the equation--I think not--but it was a few years after hearing Ken's story when I was in a small town in Texas that I saw "Menudo" advertised in the window of a small downtown cafe.  I was no longer with the Ken Griffin Show, but now married and working on another touring show.  Seeing the sign in the window that Saturday morning evoked those memories of Ken's stories and I decided this was to be the morning I would try this curative soup.

           It was a quiet, uncrowded little small town cafe that specialized in Mexican food and I don't remember much more than that.  What I do remember is that large bowl of menudo that the waitress set before me.  I breathed in the aroma of the steaming soup and nearly gagged.  It was evocative of a barnyard full of animals, not unlike the livestock area of a county fair or the odor that pervades as you drive past a large cattle feed lot.  It did not look at all appetizing.  A dirty looking broth which suspended slimy white strips of unindentifiable animal products and white globules of a white vegetable product stared back at me. 

           Since I had ordered it I was determined to eat it.  The first bite was so alien and offensive that I was not sure I would be able to finish the rest of the bowl.   I slowly continued to eat.  I recognized the vegetable globes as hominy and that part wasn't too bad other than being accompanied by the obscene broth it was in.  The meat product was a whole different matter.  They were slimy bits of rubbery fat colored substance that reminded me of octopus, which was another food that I was not a big fan of.  It had that cow taste, not like beef, but like eating a cow right there in the barnyard.  I'm pretty sure I didn't finish the entire bowl and I decided that this would be my last meal of menudo.

           This was not to be the case.  Over the next several years I would occasionally venture back into the strange world of menudo.  I discovered that menudo served properly should come with an array of condiments to help dress and flavor the concoction.  Lemon, chopped onions, cilantro, oregano, crushed red peppers, and minced jalapenos helped turn the earthy soup into a rich tasting gourmet concoction.  Shredded cabbage could also be mixed in to add a cooling crunchy texture.  It took a while but I began developing not only a taste for menudo, but a craving.

            After I moved to the Los Angeles area I began finding restaurants that had buffets that included menudo and all of the appropriate condiments.  Now, when I eat in one of these establishments I always head for the menudo first and have at least two bowls.  Zapien's La Salsa Restaurant down the street from where I live specializes in menudo.  I should probably go there more often but I don't.  They have a special giant bowl that if you finish it, you get a T-shirt and your picture on their Menudo Wall of Fame.  I like menudo now but I don't know if I could finish that big of a bowl.

         I usually keep some cans of menudo in my kitchen.  I typically buy the Juanita's brand because it looks the most appetizing and it's the one I'm used to.  It's a good quality brand.  At home I usually don't have all of the condiments and just eat the soup as it comes out of the can.  They season it very well and it tastes quite good the way it is.  Since I'm the only one in my house who will eat menudo (my wife won't even taste it), I usually eat the entire 3 serving can, unless my father-in-law is there to help me eat it.  He's 85 years old, but he likes his menudo.

             Menudo is a good example of something that I have acquired a taste for.  From the first exposure in which I was completely repulsed by the substance to the present where I look forward to my next bowl, the journey of appreciation for menudo was taken carefully.  It was a process of years and the camaraderie of other menudo lovers who encouraged me.  Maybe that first bowl really was poor quality--I really have no way to gauge it now.  When I eat menudo, it still smells kind of weird to me.  I'm still not a huge fan of the meat product, but I love the broth, the hominy, and all the fixin's that go with it.   I guess instead of the beef tripe, which is the meat product of which I speak, I'd rather have good quality fat free pork meat.  But then I guess it would not longer be menudo and  I would have pozole instead.   And that's a whole different post about a different soup.

         Look at this!  Here I 'm supposed to be posting shorter blog bits and today I've gone so long that I can't post what was the truth out of the lies that I posted Saturday and Monday.  Okay--I promise you that on Friday I will reveal which was true and which were lies.  Oh brother!  Did I lie when I said my blog posts would be shorter?

More Death Poetry

          We've been on the subject of graveyards and death over the past couple of Fridays so I thought we'd continue along that thematic line.  After all, death is easily linked to mystery, dream-life, and the unknown.  Fiction and poetry often deal with themes of death.  The thought of death more than likely passes through our thoughts on a daily basis.

           I recall staying at a  motel back in the summer of 1976 in Sturgis, Michigan.  At the time I was on tour with the Ken Griffin Magic Show.  We were one of the myriad magic presentations appearing at the Abbott's Magic Get Together, a giant world reknown four day gathering of magicians sponsored each year in Colon, Michigan by Abbott's Magic Company.  If my memory serves me correctly, next to the motel where we were staying was a large cemetery.  My attention was almost immediately drawn by some very realistic life size concrete trees that apparently served as grave markers.  I had never seen concrete tree grave markers like these before and have not seen any since.  Have any of you readers seen markers like these?

         After thinking about cemeteries last week that tree marker memory come back to me and I was further drawn to a forgotten poem I had composed sometime in 1968.  Curious about my old writings, I had been  going through old boxes of notebooks and papers and began digging out many old songs, poems, short stories, and other writings from high school and college.  I may continue to share some of these findings in the future, but today I present to a poem about death.

                                          UNTITLED (1968)                                         

                                   Look at the leaves

                                    Blowing helplessly in the wind.

                                  Somebody help them;

                                    They cannot help themselves.

                                  Look at me;

                                   I blow helplessly through time.

                                  Give me your hand

                                   For I cannot stand

                                   The elements of life alone.

                                    I need to love

                                      And be loved alike

                                     For man cannot live on life alone.

                                     And when I die

                                     Don't let life stop.

                                    Be like the trees

                                     When in the fall

                                   They lose their leaves,

                                   Only to grow anew.

                                      The dead leaves still blow

                                     Away, away.

                                      Watch them go,

                                       They cannot stay.

      I must have been in an interesting state of mind back then-- kind of somber don't you think?  Are you happier as an adult than you were as a teenager?   As you grow older, do you tend to feel happier, more content, less worried about things?   Do you believe in death as part of a process of renewal?