More on the Crazy Show.

June 12, Pittsburg, California.

Yesterday afternoon I lay down opposite Dylan on the couch to get him to nap but fell asleep before he did; too many nights staying up too late on top of too many short nights and my body simply refused to go on and shut off like an engine out of gas. We slept all afternoon. It was but an extreme version of a typical morning; getting up when Peanut wakes me, usually around seven thirty, I struggle to open my eyes and gather the strength to move.
No time to write more than a cursory word on the Crazy Show then, so here are the crunchy details.
Goyo, Ivan, Pancho, Calimba, el Chupadito, Marcos, Rafa, Chavo et les autres did the dancers, and Goyo most of the performers' sidekick, Saul did Raul's juggling act, one of the dancers' rope acts and the Andrea part of the roller-skate act, Raul did the cowboy whip act (the act was added to the show over the week end; it is performed by one of the Chinese boys and Vanessa, the Chinese boy as cowboy a quixotic and rather hilarious sight,) and dances, and Fridman another of the dancers' rope act and the other Gino part of the roller-skate act. Rafa's aide, I have to ask him how to spell his name, I'd rather not botch it, did a hulla hoop act and the balancing act one of the Chinese girls did last week to replace the roller-skating act after Andrea fell and couldn't perform for a few days; he was supposed to try some contortions but fell flat on his face off the table before he could even move, one of the best laughs of the night, if unintentional. Chavo did the main part of the malambo, El Chupadito did Raul's contortion, climbing into a cardboard box, dressed in a leotard with muscle outlines. The calendar "girls" wore diapers and various versions of beer boxes art on their heads.
One of Richard's friend told Fridman that Angelo, who worked with Chimera when the circus was first started, made a beautiful woman impersonator, but that he was a strong runner-up. He did look great with make-up and wig, I think he'd make a dazzling transvestite. Some of the crew guys that performed in the show are gay (Goyo, Rafa.) That they be willing to brave the cliches of gay men who like to wear dresses and come up to perform in the Crazy Show, living in an intensely homophobic world as they do - as can be expected in a Latin American blue-collar men's world, - is as remarkable as it is laudable.
Hats off to Goyo and Rafa then, it was a riot of a show.

Calendar Girls: (from left) Fridman, Raul, Goyo, Calimba, Pancho, Ivan and Marcos.