November 27, 2006
YOUR FEZ RINGS A BELL
A couple months ago, I did a round of photos for The Fez Project. The occasion? The Shrine Circus had come to town.
I have a long history with the Shrine Circus. One of my uncles, Cecil, was a Shrine clown who also drove one of those mini Shriner cars in parades. My aunt Betty was a Daughter of the Nile. They had paintings of clowns in their home that scared the shit out of me.
When I was about 4, my Dad took me to go see Uncle Cecil perform in the Shrine Circus at the Bayfront Center in downtown St. Pete.
The circus was okay - when you're 4, every circus is like a bonus - but it was no Ringling Brothers. Imagine a circus thrown by a bunch of guys at your dad's Moose lodge. You get the point.
Over the weekend, I found this photo of my dad and I taken just before we went in for the show. I can still remember that about 10 feet away from where we're standing/kneeling, there was this obnoxiously loud calliope. The Bayfront was kind of depressing, too. The walls were painted a minty green and the arena still smelled of beer from the wrestling matches held earlier in the day. My dad offered to buy me a bag of blue cotton candy and I just about puked at the thought of a mouth full of evaporating sugar mingling with the aroma of stale Budweiser and elephant poop.
Anyway here's the photo.
Even then, I dug wearing goofy hats.
I have no answers about the jacket. I give thanks every day to God or Buddha or Krishna or Jillette and Goudeau or whatever deity is available at the time that I finally grew into those jug-handle ears.