The Barnum & Buddah Poetry Circus performed at The Tribes gallery NYC Sat. March 31
  |
Click to see the 5 page cartoon story of the tour
©2000 Mick Cusimano
Circus Tour Schedule
On the weekend of July 14 in the Millennium year 2000 Buddah invited 18 Boston poets and musicians to form a caravan and trek to New Jersey, New York City, and Connecticut. One of the main purposes for this excursion was that Buddah knew someone in Bethel, CT (The birthplace of P.T. Barnum) who could set up a reading there honoring 75 year old Billy Barnum. Any one in the Boston poetry scene knows Billy as the exquisite poetry mime, who has inspired so many younger poets over the years, and deserved to be honored for a lifetime of being a pure poet.
The caravan began leaving Friday. On the way to Connecticut this woman in a pickup truck rammed in to the back of my car knocking out my tailight. She threw me a hundred-dollar bill and sped off. With Jonathon Ellisand and Deborah Priestly in my car we jammed on Coltrane and Neon Grandam music until we got to the hotel in Bethel, Connecticut. From there we all piled into Buddah's pick up truck at 8:00 PM to head to Patterson, New Jersey. Who the heck in their right mind would head to Patterson, New Jersey on a Friday night? Who in their right mind indeed. Every year the poet R.U. Outavit has a holiday on July 14, humbly named after himself, called R.U. Outavit Day. Previous annual celebrations have occurred in Boston, NYC, Paris, France, and Portland, Oregon. R.U. picked Patterson Park because Allen Ginsberg used to come there and write.
The directions were almost as bad as the roads in New Jersey. We cruised along miles of endless shopping malls searching for Squirrel Hill road in vain. We couldn't even find a road kill squirrel let alone the right exit. Finally through the miracle of cell phones, we found the waterfall in an urban park in Patterson, New Jersey at midnight. R.U. Outavit, Danzr, Billy Barnum, Kasara, and Cecil with his video camera were there waiting for us. Buddah, Jonathon, Dick, Deborah, and myself met up with this crew and performed poetry on as hill in the park at midnight. Our audience consisted of a couple of winos, and a street gang of kids with bandanas and leather boots. They approached us in puzzlement. "What is going on is this free speech?" We told them that we were poets from Boston. That scared them away. They continued to watch us from a distance and eventually posed for pictures. The police came by at 1:00 AM and told everyone to head home. We got in our cars and got separated. Our car got lost in Ct. and we pulled off the road into a small town. By strange synchronicity R.U. got lost and pulled off the road at the same spot. We pulled into a gas station to read our maps. One local cop drove by seeing two car loads of poets carousing in a parking lot and breathed a sigh of relief that we moved on and didn’t invade his town with our poetry. We got back to the hotels by 4:00 AM
Saturday
More poets and musicians arrived. Jack Powers, Carty, The Short Attention Span Poets, Ethan Mackler with his bass guitar, and others swelled our numbers. A huge caravan of poets set out to New York City. Of course these being poets, half the cars got split up or lost in the first half mile. We followed a vehicle that lost the lead car and when we saw them pull into a shopping mall, we knew they were really lost and we headed out on our own. Considering that most of the poets got sidetracked and took different routes, by strange synchronicity again, we all ended up pulling up to the gallery in the East Village at the same time.
The rain whipped through the dense urban jungle. We were surrounded by dingy buildings, garbage on the streets, neighbors screaming through windows, wailing sirens, all the joys of New York City. Up a steep flight of stairs was The Tribes Gallery. The main room covered with hundreds of photos of citizens of Columbia. The people hosting the gallery greeted us with wine. Ethan and company warmed things up with music. Deborah Priestly the erotic goddess, Carty, Jack Powers, Jonathon, C.C., and others read their poetry. Java Jel, an old friend, joined the Fire of Prometheus which consisted of R.U. Outavit, Kasara, Billy Barnum, myself, Buddah, Dana, and Danzr Von Thai. R.U. cracked his whip as he did his poem. "Have I been a bad boy for smoking a joint in the men’s room of the Harvard Faculty Club…Well whip it on me Mammy, whip it on me Uncle Sammy, whip it on me like sweet Alabamy." Kasara did "Reverse Order" with her umbrella twirling. Buddha read about the mistreatment of Jan Kerouac by her father’s estate. Billy Barnum did his poetry mime piece "A Cockatoo of rare design perched on an awning over a bazaar." I did Stuck in the Sixties" with accompaniment of Java Jel.
We were followed by the Unbearables and the Short Attention Span Poets. This featured Lee Letif doing his homage to Jimmy Page. After the full day many of us drove back to Ct. to celebrate at our hotel. Some of the Short Attention Span Poets stuck around to go streaking through Central Park.
Sunday Bethel, Ct. In contrast to the urban bustle of Saturday the final performance took place in the center of a quiet upscale suburban town where shopping on main Street was the most adventurous event in town. In a converted train station/ turned art gallery we all performed again. Billy Barnum was presented with a ceremonial cup in honor of being the last remaining performing Barnum. Several of us stuck around afterwards to celebrate with beer and chicken wings at the local pub. On the wall was a painting of P.T. Barnum’s world with circus clowns, horses, and elephants. Today Billy Barnum could be symbolically added to the picture for his triumphant return to his performing roots.
Since then the Circus has performed many shows in NYC, Rhode Island, and Boston. Circus Photos