Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Mighty Haag #2


Scan11098, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

This is the April 9th, 1917 contract for the Everett James Family.
Written in the blank area is "Musician, Band Leader, Performers- Iron Jaw, Perch, Contortion, Rings" and in the following sentence, "The party of the second part will make themselves generally useful around said Shows. The party of the first part will in turn pay $Thirty Five, per week plus board and transportation.

"I wonder if the Chinese with SLAM BANG BOOM get this good a deal?"
Buckles

Posted by Buckles at 12/23/2008 06:07:00 AM

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Communist Circus of China knows the score. The acrobats on Ringling have an entire railroad car outfitted as a kitchen/restaurant to make special meals for the troupe.
It is the old communist saying, "You work, you eat, you can live and not disappear into the frozen vastness of Siberia, or the dreaded downtown of Tampa."

Just imagine a few generations ago if the Gebel-Williams, the Tognis or ANY other act demanded a special kitchen just for their ethnic tastes.

hmmmm .....

23 December, 2008 13:35
Anonymous said...

The Harry James Band just played the Palmdale (CA) Playhouse. I wonder how much of the James family history the band has. I would think they would like to archive documents like this, and the Haag show photos of the family as posted on this blog.

Eric Beheim--would you know how to contact the band to address their possible interest?

Roger Smith

23 December, 2008 17:20
Anonymous said...

When I was on Circus Knie (1990) they carried a 2 sided kitchen. 1 side european, the other side Morroccan
and,I believe they had for quite some time,and I think they still do
to get to work on Knie one of them had to die or retire and then he was replaced by one of their cousins
And I must say it was a very good crew

23 December, 2008 20:03
Eric said...

Roger,

I have no idea how to contact the current management/owners of the Harry James Band (although they probably have a website.) My guess is that few of the players performing with the band today were actually with Harry during the “good old days” or even knew him personally. As for Harry James’ circus background, Windjammers Unlimited (i.e. the circus music fans group) would probably be more interested in it than the people who run the band today.

23 December, 2008 21:07
Anonymous said...

Re Main Line's post: The Chinese car has both a kitchen/eating area and staterooms and is certainly not just a kitchen/restaurant car. For that matter, it can be said that any of the larger staterooms have their own kitchen.
Yet another misleading post from an anonymous writer.
Dick Flint
Baltimore

24 December, 2008 00:52
Casey McCoy Cainan said...

As I assume Mr. Flint's comment on the car being kitchen and sleeper in one is true, I would also bet the Chinese are sleeping a couple more in one car then the Gebels or Tongis ever dreamed of,,,lol

24 December, 2008 08:09
Anonymous said...

I found the Ringling train quite comfortable in my year and a half there. I had a stateroom in one half of a car that also housed one of the Ayak Brothers, his wife and two kids, the drummer, and me. I had a fridge, cooktop, and toaster oven which allowed me full freedom to eat as I wished although at that time the pie car food was quite good. The drummer and I shared a shower but I had a private toilet. We, all six of us, shared a washer dryer combo. Even the small rooms provided the crew people were comfortable enough for the little time the show gave you on the train itself. The worst thing was that the thermostat for the air conditioning heat unit was located in the Ayak's compartment and when "Mrs. Ayak" would cook, she would turn the thermostat way down and my compartment whould turn into a freezer. Fortunately, they drove overland in their car on most of the jumps so George and I could just prop open our doors and the vestibule door to get the temp up while parked.

The Fujian acrobats, who arrived the same year that I left in March did have their own car complete with cook and specialty equiped kitchen. They also received special field trips, use of the transport bus when they wanted to go somewhere (often at the inconvenience of others who needed a laundry trip or shopping trip). They were wery nicely accomidated. I never saw their sleeping quarters so cannot comment.

The Williams family had an entire private car that was very much like a home even though Gunther took great pride in driving his motor coach which was always parked at the arena. I do not know what special accomidations were made for the Tongi family.

In my experience, real estate on the train is a great negotiationg tool if you figure out how to use it to use it to your advantage to meet your needs. For me, it was a relief to not have to tear down, drive a couple of hundred miles, set up, do shows, and repeat. The train crew did a great job of keeping this working and clean and even built a special cabinet for my computer so that I didn't have to worry about it when we knew the train would be rearranged on Sunday prior to leaving.

Everyone who wanted cherry pie was paid. No one was "generally useful" unless they wanted to be. I often helped Gunther clean up in the animal area (he usually did this himself after the animals were gone) and he often would help with some of the pain in the butt props that show up on a show like RBBB was at the time (those horrible hoop skirts for example). I enjoyed doing animal walks with Gunther even though I did not have to because he would ask me to walk with him. I would drive wagons to or from the train when asked because of the distance or some technical difficulty. I even drove the water truck pulling the huge lighting truss wagon overland between Birmingham and Atlanta for some reason that I don't remember and was rewarded with a suite at a Resideence Inn (arranged by the promotor) for the entire stay in Atlanta.

I'm not the greatest fan of Feld Entertainment in its current shape but I have to say that I was always treated fairly and knew what was expected of me and somehow compensated appropriately. But my experience was almost 20 years ago.

24 December, 2008 20:15

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