The Contract

The gig I have in France is a long-term thing. As such, I don’t really need to take on side projects. And yet, here I am working in California. I took the job because my coach from circus school gave me the contact. Originally, his daughter was supposed to do the show. Since she would no longer be available, he suggested me. Thinking that my coach wouldn’t send his daughter to do a shitty contract, I figured it must be okay.

Boy was I wrong.

Never in my life have I worked on so unprofessional a project. Already, the man in charge, the man for whom the company is named, knows nothing about circus. During rehearsals, he is always the last one to arrive and typically takes off mid-way through. Once he left so he could go buy himself a big screen tv for his hotel room!

We were having a meeting, and while we, the artists were trying to plan the next day’s rehearsal, he insisted on showing us pictures of other projects he’s done, pictures of his daughter and then some videos.

Despite telling the people at the park that my wheel could not be stored under the stage because of all the sand, I found that in my absence they had moved off stage into the sand anyway. Moreover, instead of putting my wheel back in one of the upstairs storage areas, or even under the stage, it had been left on the stage. Just rockin’ out where anyone could have screwed around on it or taken off with it!

It took me over an hour to clean the sand out of it. The joints were full of sand, the screw holes, the screws themselves! There were screws so full of sand I couldn’t even get the alan key in all the way to remove the screw! Needless to say, there was some serious rage in my belly. Fortunately, our stage manager is a much classier person than the park liaison lady who has been working with us. Apparently when you go down the ladder, you find people who are far more willing to help you out. He was very helpful for finding the right tools to clean my wheel and now we have a storage solution. I am very grateful to him for that.

Two acts in the show were filmed and stolen from other groups. They were then sold to the park we’re working at before they even had anyone to do the acts. There was a teeterboard number up until yesterday. Their first teeterboard broke back in May during the kick off weekend. The replacement teeterboard broke two days after arriving here. Why did it break so soon? Because it was made out of hockey sticks.

You’re mind is probably so boggled by that last statement that it may not have fully sunk it, so I’ll just go and repeat it for you.

HOCKEY STICKS.

From everything I’ve heard from the other artists working on the project, this bullsh*it is just going to continue until the very last day. We’ve only been here for five days and already I’m counting down the days. It’s going to be a long summer.