About The Circus of Mysteries:

The Circus of Mysteries was my first show. Inspired by vaudville, I wished to realize a fantasy of a sort of haunted cabaret, a wistful world of half-tragic entertainers too myopically shmaltzy to recognize the beauty of their own twisted routines. I never aimed to achieve anything like a true circus, that was totally beyond my means, so it was really only a circus figuratively speaking, and so I envisioned it as a circus of the mysteries of the human spirit.

I was only 19 at the time I produced the show. It was very challenging to bring it together because not only was my goal off beat, but I was also so young that many people found it difficult to take me seriously. To make matters worse I felt that the entirety of the production should be an exercise in theater and so it was that I very frequently made important production calls while attempting to use this sort of carnival barker voice - a persona I thought appropriate for my old-timey show-biz aspirations. Doubtless my play-acting strained the patience of some.

Nonetheless, an odd group of artists, musicians, pagans, punkers, and even members of the Hell's Angels (?!?) somehow banded together to make the event happen.

It was well attended. An article was published on the day of the show in the Oakland Tribune. At that time there were not alot of vaudevillian performance art revues in action, and so those people with a yearning for this kind of entertainment came out of the woodwork. I think for some people it pointed to some new directions in performance/party art.

The star of the show was the great Captain Don Leslie, tattooed man and sword-swallower, and at that time already a veteran of over 40 years of circus sideshows. Captain Don is a piece of living history, and a remnant of a bygone era of show biz. I am very honored to have worked with him.

The climax of the show was a lard fight/free-for-all hootenanny that took place in the back of the humanist hall. This was a provocation of "The GravyMaster Killed My Mommy Cafe'" which was a weird and digusting food art installation created by the mysterious "Philth Pie the Magician" and his fearless assistant the lovely Ms. Tanya.

As you can see in the video clip, the event was something different from the original inspiration. I learned for the first time that doing a show is a volatile mix of personalities and possibilities which assumes its own life and grows into a sort of chimera of the fantasies and foibles of the participants. Beset by technical difficulties, and teenage insecurities, the Circus of Mysteries nonetheless attained its own curious glory.

Step right up, All ye faithful , come inside . . .