…one left turn from…

I love carnivals. Carnies are my people and always have been. I realize that might sound odd since most carny folk are pretty sketchy, but in my heart, I’m pretty sketchy. I am truly one left turn from a flask in my pocket, a wrench in my hand and a sleeping bag on a blowup mattress in a shitty little camper parked in a field outside Stockton. It’s the low end of my theatre world but, honestly, theatre folk are all carnies at heart. We live outside the lines, we operate according to our own rules and values, we shine up the fake and false until, in the dim pink lights it all looks like gold and glamour, silk and velvet, youth and beauty. Until closing time, until the work lights come on and then it’s broken plastic with flaking paint, stained polyester scarves wrapped around brassy red hair framing a 46 year old face lighting up a Camel. It’s smoke and mirrors, it’s lies and cons, it’s the business of show…oh I love me some carnies, because no matter how hard and cynical, no matter how broken the outfit, when you set it all up and the sun goes down and the lights come on…even we get caught up in the magic of it. We might think we’re the grifters but at the end of the day we’re the ones who keep chasing the dream.