Book Quiz Contest Results!
1 week ago
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
....John Lawson's Circus....2009
....The award winning John Lawson's Circus, voted Best Small Circus in Great Britain 2008 - the third time we have won this prestigious title is currently on tour again....
....Ringmaster Attila Endresz..and fun and laughter with Britain's funniest clowns, The Popolinos....
....a unque hair-hanging performance from Miss Nora....
....stunt riding and skating with our BMX champion Laci....
....from Hungary grace and beauty on the tightrope with Miss Bori....
....Miss Claire-Marie with her sword and dagger balancing presentation....
....our sensational young juggler Henrick....
....rolla balancing from the Duo Antonio....
....Western thrills and spills with the Nevadas....
....
Stratosphere, high in the roof of the Big Top with their stunning Aerial Rocket....
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus Is a Real Circus, and They're in Staten Island
Tuesday, July 31,2001
By Alan Cabal
I’ve been spending far too much time in my apartment this summer. Last week I got word that the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus was landing in Brooklyn’s Marine Park for a four-day stand, so I hightailed it out there last Wednesday morning to catch the end of the setup and see if anybody I knew was running with the show. The circus is an incestuous industry, and after 13 years of running with various shows, I’ve reached a point where I can walk onto any lot and bump into somebody I’ve worked with at some point, somewhere.
I got to the lot at about 11 a.m. I’d originally planned to get there by 5 a.m. to watch the whole five-hour procedure from start to finish, but circus nostalgia only goes so far, and schedules that seem routine in the midst of a tour easily become unspeakable obscenities in the context of townie life. I parked the car and strolled over to the box office, where I introduced myself and received a little cloth press pass that would allow me to amble around the lot unmolested.
The elliptical red and yellow bigtop looked like a daisy bursting out of a crack in the barren landscape of outer Brooklyn. CBCBC is the real thing, an authentic traditional American circus as opposed to the politically correct, faux-traditional replicas being peddled by the Big Apple Circus or Barnum’s Kaleidoscape. CBCBC’s been around since 1884, through hard times and bad weather, perhaps the greatest extant example of circus tenacity and sheer grit. It could have died back in 1979 if it weren’t for the passion and determination of owner Johnny Pugh, who worked his way up the ranks from performer to front office to manager, in which capacity he secured the necessary funding to keep the show on the road at a time when it was nearly drowning in debt. His business acumen and his iron will have turned the show into a thriving enterprise.
I roamed alongside the bigtop to the back lot to check out the elephants. Elephants and big cats are at the center of the controversy surrounding the circus industry, thanks to the puerile ninnies of the self-styled "animal rights" lobby. Most of the idiots involved in dipshit pursuits like PETA and ALF can’t tell the difference between an Asian elephant and an African elephant, but they presume to denounce any sort of working relationship between man and beast. The Big Apple Circus caved in and told old Buckles Woodcock to pack up his elephants and take a hike after one of its sponsors threatened to pull out in response to a boycott threat. Barnum’s Kaleidoscape was p.c. from the get-go, limiting the animal acts to dogs, horses and geese. CBCBC is holding the line and fighting the good fight against fanatics who think it’s inhumane to keep a cocker spaniel as a companion.
Adam Hill’s three elephant partners looked healthy and happy as they tossed a tire around in the shade under a canopy in their camp, an area about the size of two tennis courts. Elephants like to play with tires–they’re the Frisbees of the pachyderm world. CBCBC has a vet onsite, and Hill consistently gets a clean bill of health from the USDA inspectors who drop by from time to time to check up on the accommodations. He and I chatted for a while, and I got a line on an old pal of mine named Pee Wee Pinson. Pee Wee has to be pushing 70, and it turns out he’s running a pack of elephants with some show based out in Missouri.
I saw the name "Rosaire" on the side of a truck and had to investigate. The Rosaire family is a legend in the circus industry. I worked with Derrick Rosaire for a while; he and his wife are currently working with a bunch of black bears, which I met when I visited them at their spread down near Sarasota, FL. Pam Rosaire-Zoppe worked the African-American show, UniverSoul, with her chimps back in ’97 when I was on their tent. The Rosaire family has been in the business since Christ was a cowboy and God was an Irishman, and they are everywhere. They look and act like they have a Klingon in the woodpile, but their animals are among the most pampered and well-trained beasts in the business.
I walked up to the cab of a truck with the Rosaire name on it and ran into Ted McRae. In the past century, only one recorded case of a black lion-tamer could be found, but then Ted McRae quit his job working for a trucking firm in Baltimore and stepped into the cage at the UniverSoul Big Top Circus. That’s where I met him, and he’s still at it, looking all lean and buff, not a scratch on his perfectly sculpted body. They’re Kay Rosaire’s cats, but Ted is their working partner on this tour. He’s got his wife, Renee, and three kids with him now, and everything is copacetic in Ted’s life. Renee works the cat act with him, and their kids Adrian, Dorian and Jordan are honing up their circus skills, aiming to get into the ring themselves. The cats were kicking back, dozing and grooming each other in the languid way of well-fed housecats. "They like short hops," Ted told me. "They get to sleep more."
I’m going back to see the show with my friends from the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, a decidedly nontraditional show of an adult nature. It wasn’t easy to walk off the lot. The smell of elephants, diesel and popcorn arouses in me a nearly irresistible impulse to blow off all other responsibilities and run through the summer in a truck. I convinced myself that I needed a beer and drove down to Coney Island, where I got a hotdog and a Budweiser and sat on a bench staring out to sea until the thunderstorm came.
Monday, July 20, 2009
CLYDE BEATTY Jr. FROM THE ROCKET TO THE TIGER FISH
By Tom Takao
Clyde Beatty Jr. is known for his surfing, shaping and his glassing, in fact Clyde is considered to one o f the first to use epoxy resins on surfboards. When some were experimenting with epoxy, Clyde went to Europe to get light stabilize epoxy made. Clyde has airbrushed, laminated, fin and hot coated, sanded, pin lined, glossed and polished. When it came to glassing Clyde Beatty was on the creative edge.
Clyde first learned how to surf in 1964 at California Street in Ventura. He was in the fifth grade at the time. Clyde’s father operated a circus, which was called Clyde Beatty Cole Brothers Circus. Clyde senior was a well known lion and tiger trainer. Clyde mentions that his father was voted the top lion and tiger trainer of all time. Hence, Clyde Jr.’s logo is that of a Tiger.
His first surfboard was a Duke Kahanamoku pop-out made in Ventura, his parents bought it for him. His grandfather made him a ric shaw for his bike, so he could take his board to the beach. The board was big to handle, he couldn’t put his arm around it, so Clyde carried it on his head. Clyde was the surfer in his group of friends.
While going to University High School in Pacific Palisades during the latter part of the 60’s Clyde was a team rider for the Hobie / Blue Cheer surf shop in Santa Monica. There were other surf shops in Santa Monica including Natural Progression and Jeff Ho Surfboards. Mike Perry was the shaper at Blue Cheer and had an influence in Clyde’s shaping. Clyde learned by watching Mike shape a lot of boards including the ones he rode for Blue Cheer. Clyde recalls this one time when his friend Steve Braum a shaper and himself were working on a board.
They were going surfing the next day and Clyde was going ride the board no matter what. So Steve skinned an old Con ugly and reshaped it. Clyde laminated the bottom and top of the blank with a little help from Steve. After the laminatiom Clyde glassed on the fin and called it a night. The next morning, Steve and Clyde were ready to go. The board didn’t have a sanding coat and was tacky. No matter, the surf was good. They took it to Salt Creek, and Clyde waxed it up and went out. It didn’t take long before the board started to fall apart. After the experience Clyde would learn the finer points in glassing.
The Blue Cheer factory is where Clyde learned to shape and glass. Being around Mike Perry, and watching glassers like Wayne Miyata gloss and pin line and Bob Petty laminating. Bob was the man who could power when it came to laminating. Clyde’s first board that he shaped was also air brushed by him, using a spray enamel can. Recently someone in San Diego returned it to Clyde. A little beat up and brown, but it’s the 001 board that started it all for Clyde,
While learning the ropes in board manufacturing, Clyde was a 4A surfer the equivalent of an ASP pro. During the 70’s there was no money in surfing contest. You had to get a real job or make surfboards. Clyde was an Art Major at Cal State Northridge. Going to his classes and doing his homework, Clyde found time to start his first surf shop in Santa Monica. This gave him the experience when he opened his next shop in the Huntington Beach / Westminster area.
Having waited up to this point to ask Clyde about the Rocket Fish. A modified fish that Clyde rode in the mid 70's. He mentions an article appeared in 1974 about the Rocket Fish which were called gun fishes before the article. Steve Lis a kneeboard shaper in San Diego was making twin fin swallowed tail boards called Fishes in the late 60's. From the Fish came a hybrid design in the mid 70's, longer with a pointier nose and a more drawn in tail. Steve’s fishes were more rounder on the nose and wider in the tail. Clyde had tried the fish and felt it had limitations. "You could pump them, and they were fun". But Clyde couldn’t get the long drawn out turns out of them.
Talking fish stories; Clyde remembered the 1975 U.S Surf Contest at Hatteras. He and some friend were driving there from California in Clyde’s car. Somewhere in between California and Arizona the car rolled over and the fin on Clyde’s favorite board broke off (a single fin surfboard). They flew to Albuquerque and got a rental car and drove to the contest. During this trip Clyde was taking some boards to the East Coast for some of his surfboard dealers. One of those boards was a fish. Since his contest board was decommissioned, Clyde rode the fish in the contest.
This was a National Surf contest and it was big. Clyde took 5th place, Greg Loehr came in 4th , 3rd went to Tony Staples, Jim Cartland took second, and Rich Rasmussen took the top spot. After the contest Clyde was having fun with the fish, surfing Hatteras’s waves. When the East Coast Rep for O’neill, Mike Grasley was riding a pull in nose fish that was a little bit longer. In Clyde’s view he was surfing light years ahead, compared to everyone else. And if Mike was in the contest, the standing might have changed said Clyde.
After getting back, Clyde figured Joey Thomas had shaped Mike Grasley pointed nose fish. Clyde had surfed with Joey in a 4A contest awhile back in Santa Cruz and hadn’t forgotten Joey's shaping and surfing abilities. So Clyde and Steve Braum shaped a few modified fishes. They kept refining each board more and more. Clyde’s main focus was surfing, since he was on the contest circuit. As mentioned earlier the gun shape fish became known as the Rocket fish. A design credited to Joey Thomas.
Having glassed some of Brewer’s surfboards, Clyde incorporated the down rail concept into his Rocket Fish designs. It proved to be a match and Clyde’s surfing went up another notch. Clyde has continued making surfboards in the 80's, 90's, and 00's. Now days Clyde calls the rocket fish by a new name: Tiger Fish, since they have been refined with newer materials and the contours flowing into a new outline, with the removable fins and a tri planning hull.
Clyde got his picture taken riding one of his Tiger Fish and made the cover of Wet Sand Magazine (see photo on the left). Clyde also won the Rincon Surf Contest riding one. Taking first in Grand Masters, 3rd in the Masters, the board worked well.
Out of necessity to have surfboards for the contest circuit, Clyde learned to make surfboards. His surfing has stayed at a high level through the years and his boards are the reason.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
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