The Circus

One of my least favorite events to work at the Garden is the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. It's a slow event, extremely boring, and to top it off, it's very depressing. 

When I show up to work there's a barricade that I need to wander around to get to my locker. The barricades are just giant cages for animals that are being abused to perform. They have all sorts of things like llamas, goats, sheep, pigs, even a bull, for the petting zoo. But the animals that I feel most bad for is the elephants and tigers. I walked by a giant fenced in area filled with about 15 elephants. Every elephant had an enormous chain around their ankle and can probably move about two feet in each direction. They look miserable and after talking to some of my supervisors I found out that they are highly sedated. Elephant junkies. These elephants are whipped with batons at their knees and aren't allowed to do much. I stared at them for a few minutes and watched as they just picked up grass and hay off the concrete floor and placed it on their head and backs. I don't know why they were doing this, but to me it seemed like they wanted to pretend they were outside. I'm not a big animal enthusiast or some type of PETA freak, but this genuinely upset me.

Next were the tigers. These animals are in even smaller cages and led by a Serbian dictator who whips and taunts these giant cats. He pissed me off a lot. I had to escort him and three tigers onto the stage and I was in awe how comfortable he was around them. Probably because he smacked them around so much the tigers feared him. I didn't even watch the show because of this guy. He had some aggravating accent and condescending tone when I asked him questions about the tigers. Fuck that guy.

For the rest of the show I figured I was all set with animal abuse for the day and wandered downstairs to the locker-room area where the performers were changing into all sorts of weird costumes. I watched as some of the late parents came into the arena. Theres always a few pedophiles who show up to these children's events so we got to be on the lookout for them. One year at Disney on Ice we had something like 3 sex offenders arrested for trying to solicit children into bathrooms and stuff. Disney on Ice is worse than the Circus though.

All in all it was a boring night. Some crazy mother got wrecked and had to be transported to Mass General. That was unexpected. I got the call over the radio and saw this poor Southie-lookin' Irish lady passed out in her seat with her little kids poking her. They had to call an uncle to come get them and I was just real embarrassed for everyone involved. I don't know if I'll work another circus or kids show again. Too much weird stuff happens and I'm all set with animal abuse from now on.