A Brush with the Bizarre!

The stores are filled with candy hearts and the cable networks are trotting out all the usual romantic comedies so it must be February. And what's so special about February, you ask? Well, it means we are only a month away from Johnny's Opening Night Reception AND performance at the Deland Museum of Art here in sunny Florida! Mark your calendars now for Friday, March 1 at 7:00 PM where you can see the Czar in action, swallowing swords, eating fire, and causing all kinds of mayhem in what the fine folks at the museum are billing as "A Brush with the Bizarre."

If you can't get out there for the big event, don't let that throw you into a shame spiral -- Johnny's art will be hanging at the museum for the entire month of March so get out there and tickle your eyeballs with Johnny's amazing canvases. If you need more information, or want to print out one of those helpful Yahoo Maps driving directions, here's the pertinent info:

Deland Museum of Art
600 N Woodland Blvd
Deland, FL 32720-3447
Phone: 904-734-4371

I hope to see each and every one of you there. Attendance is mandatory and this WILL be on the test.

In the meantime, here's another fabulous tale from the Czar!

Best,

-Mike

Lot Man - by Johnny Meah

I've occasionally wondered if any of the patrons of a carnival midway ever thought about how the equipment got there or what psychology was employed in its positioning. Probably not. Why would they? Their sole purpose in being there was to have a good time, not to analyze the inner workings of the operation.

The question had cropped up again in my early morning musings as I drove west on I-40, an interstate that runs along the upper edge of North Carolina. It was 4:00 AM. Several hundred miles behind me, the carnival was fast asleep. When they awoke they'd begin the longest day of their week, opening for business at 10:00 AM for the last day of the Allentown, PA Fair. They'd operate until around 11:00 PM, then tear down and begin the same trek that I was making to Lenoir, NC. The moment that the first vehicle in the convoy passed through the gates in Allentown en-route south they were in my care, following the paper arrows I'd spent the day stapling or taping up on light poles. The arrows would guide them safely from the back gate of Allentown to the front gate of the fairgrounds in Lenoir. There, they'd park and wait for me to come and fetch them to be located. I was the Lot Man and they all respected me because they knew that I respected them.

Here, in September, the ranks of the show usually swelled to over two hundred people: ride and show operators, concessionaires, mechanics, and electricians - they were all my responsibility for several days per engagement. In the absence of the show owner, I was in charge of everything, good or bad, that happened to the people and the equipment.

It had been an easy jump for me, mostly all interstates, no surprise construction areas requiring re-routing and, from all reports, a dry fairgrounds in Lenoir to set up on. I finished the arrowing off of the interstate and through Hickory. To the west, the Smokey Mountains were becoming visible in the dawn mist, as though they'd been hiding there all night, getting ready to pop out and surprise the tourists.

I pulled into a strip center parking lot, parked and jogged to a convenience store at the edge of the lot. The fairgrounds in Lenoir was in the middle of nowhere so there'd be no coffee available there. The convenience store was my last shot for much needed caffeine.

Walking slowly back to the cab of my pickup I casually inspected my trailer tires. I'd been kind to myself that year, purchasing a new dual wheel pickup and replacing my road-weary pull trailer with a 34' fifth wheeler. It was home, summer and winter. It was also a monstrosity to deal with when arrowing the show throughout the city streets and interstate interchanges with narrow shoulders.

I sat in the cab, sipping my coffee and looking up at the mountains. The Smokies and I had known each other for a long time, sharing as many twisting, turning adventures as the treacherous roads that snaked up and down the mountains contained.

A few miles up the road I stopped and stapled a "confidence arrow," pointing upward, indicating straight ahead. This told the drivers that they were still on the right route. This configuration was used when there'd been no change of route number for many miles.

A few months before, I'd posted another such arrow at a crossroads in a small NY village. The handful of stores that populated the intersection's four corners apparently comprised the entire downtown area of the little hamlet. The whacking of my slap hammer must have sounded particularly loud in the mid-afternoon calm and when I reached my vehicle and turned around there were four patrons from the corner bar, drinks still in hand, staring solemnly up the pole in the direction the arrow pointed in. They wasted not a glance toward me as I drove past them. I was sorely tempted to find a place to turn around and see if they were still keeping their aerial vigil.

Somewhere between slapping up that lone arrow and driving through the back gate of the Lenoir Fairgrounds, the vision of those four rural New Yorkers looking up the telephone pole kept hovering around the corners of my brain. There were many similarly funny images in there to keep it company and, more to the point, these little vignettes could only be experienced by someone who, like myself, was engaged in the business of routing and laying out a traveling show.

That morning, as I prepared to start laying out the midway area, I decided to start jotting down some of the stories I'd collected along the way. The year was 1977 and I'm still jotting!

In the next couple of installations, I'll concentrate on the highlights of ten years as a carnival lot man. As has been the case throughout my life, serving in that capacity was not the only thing I functioned at during that period. This serialized "Lot Man" story will, however, deal with that subject alone, as there's a wealth of material there to play with.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Pitch

All four of Johnny's limited edition lithographs are selling better than expected, so get 'em while they're still available. And with Valentine's Day right around the corner is there a better way to say "I Love You" to your man than by presenting him with a beautiful "Anatomical Venus?" How could that special lady in your life not be impressed with the hunky Nate Eagle and his Hollywood Midgets?!?! Make this the best Valentine's Day ever by checking out the goods in the shop: (http://www.czarofbizarre.com/shop/)