FIRST VIEW THE VIDEO, THEN READ THE BRIEF BLOG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIBvzwAbXsc

Hi gang,

This is the way I tell stories.

I know this song, it’s well know but a bit old-fashioned. It’s called “Moose Turd Pie.”

It’s about a guy who’s working out in the wild with a railroad gang and when it comes time for supper, the singer objects to the putrid cooking. The rule on the railroad gang was that you are the cook if you complain. So the next day the singer searches the fields and collects the softest, hottest, smelly moose shit, makes a pie crust and fills it to the heaping, steaming brim.

At the end of the song, the biggest, toughest, ear-bitting-est bastard on the railroad gang is the first to eat the pie and is outraged.

“THIS TASTES LIKE MOOSE TURD PIE,” he yells. “GOOD THOUGH.”

This video is aging, it’s from last year, “GOOD THOUGH.” or make your own video. Whichever ending you like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIBvzwAbXsc

I worried about my daughter Grace, at the time just 8 years old, would be traumatized by my absence while working with suppliers inn traveling carnivals and hitchhiking across the country for a year.

That concern was well founded, carnivals and hitchhiking can be dangerous and separation is reality. We had weeks when there were nightly calls but others when calls were less frequent. I wrote one story about her calling me from her secret hiding place in a tree outside her home near Chicago.

My ex-mother-in-law wrote me on Facebook that Grace was missing me terribly. I was working in Westchester, New York with the McDaniel Brothers at the time. Grace’s birthday was just a week away. So I went on the Internet, found the names of Chicago-area carnivals and began frantically calling and begging for work.

The Briggs family and Modern Midways agreed, sight unseen, to hire me and so I quit on a Tuesday and hitchhiked from New York to Chicago to be there by the time Grace turned 8 years old. Whether I made it or not, you’ll have to read the book.

My parents also could see the problem as I spent time with Grace in Chicago, during my off-time from the carnival. My carnival played neighborhoods I was a bit afraid to bring Grace to, at least at night.

When I landed a job at the Minnesota State Fair, my parents brought Grace up via Amtrak to see me as I worked the pool tables on the Mighty Midway, in the land of Minnesota Fats. It is the biggest state fair in America, by daily attendance, and this year USAToday readers voted it the Best State Fair in the USA.

Grace was in kid heaven.

When I returned from the year in carnivals, we spent time together at Christmas and she eventually moved down to Florida with her mom to be near her other grandparents. I moved near them and now work odd jobs until I get back on my feet, or sell “Eyes Like Carnivals.” (getting info about Amazon products: eye masks amazon)

Then Grace told me she wanted to write a book. I was sure my year of being away would be the topic. After all, seemingly every time she wanted something she would say, “but you were away for a year and now this is our time.”

We went to the library and I began helping her write about a Purple Ninja who lives in the woods, half normal girl, half the greatest super hero who ever lived. She doesn’t use violence so much as she problem solves, anticipates, forms friendships and uses her “jumpiness” to get out of the way of lightning bolts from villains.

The book wasn’t about me. The trauma there was but not enough for a book. Instead, “Power of Purple” is the first in a series of books by a powerful new storyteller, Grace A. Comerford.

It’s an amazing, awesome book for middle grade readers and available now at http://www.amazon.com/Power-Purple-Jackies-Ninja-Stories-ebook/dp/B016P2D86O/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449158693&sr=1-1&keywords=%22power+of+purple%22
———————————————————————-
Michael Sean Comerford spent 2013-14 working in 10 traveling carnivals in 10 states, hitchhiking through 36 states between jobs and crossing into Mexico to see the “new face of the American carny.” It became a quest story, Americana on a full-throttled wild ride.

He was slinging iron and pushing plush across California, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Alaska, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia and Florida, where he worked a freak show. He wasn’t allowed on stage because they couldn’t see the inner freak in him.

In the meantime, he blogged along the way on this site and Huffington Post (at Michael Sean Comerford). He wrote essays for Northwestern Magazine (Northwestern University alumni mag) and Marquette Magazine (Marquette University alumni mag). He wrote a piece for Wand’rly on hitchhiking.

Eyes Like Carnivals is now being shopped by agent Tim Hays in New York City, please contact him with any offers at Tim@haysmedia.net

LINKEDIN LINK https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/texas-state-fair-biggest-cash-payday-mikes-rainbow-comerford?trk=hp-feed-article-title-like

The State Fair of Texas in Dallas runs for 24 days and is the largest state fair in the United States. A newbie showman in games, I somehow surpassed my whole crew and maybe all crews for sales that year by making up my own routines and sticking to my shtick.

The Texas State Fair is in full swing right now and it brings back thoughts of my amazing year in carnivals. I ran games and rides at 10 traveling carnivals, in 10 states, hitchhiked 36 states between jobs and crossed Canada and Mexico along the way.

When I reached the biggest of the big time in Dallas, I was working with the West Crew, headed by Adam “Batman” West and a veteran group of showmen (carnival workers who run games don’t like to be called carnies).

I began on the “short-range,” a basketball game with a cantaloupe-sized basketball and a lower hoop. The hoop had two inner rims but the ball went through and there were winners. As is true of all the games, you could win but it was far harder than you think. I juggled the basketballs. I told every male walking by, “You are a basketball man, show us what you got.” I did well but I changed my game and my routine and the money started flowing in.

I threatened to quit and Batman sent me to the “tubs.” They are plastic tubs the size of fruit baskets. People throw softballs into the tilted tubs, if the balls stay in, the customer wins. On practice tries a ‘cop’ ball is left in to deaden the bounce. On the money throws, the ‘cop’ ball is palmed and the ball almost never stays in the basket.

I told every customer that I was going to hypnotize them into winning by using “Mike’s Rainbow,” an arc throw. When it worked. I told them they were hypnotized and they should play.

I never changed the routine for the hundreds of thousands of people who passed by my booth. I out-earned everyone, every day after that. At the end of the three weeks, after about half of them spent treading water at the ‘short ball,’ I earned more than $3,000. All by sticking to the routine that worked.

I used the money to take a bus down to Mexico to see the “new face of the American carny.” In bigger carnivals, Mexicans are the majority of the crew.

At the end of my amazing year in carnivals, I worked in California, New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Alaska, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia and Florida, where I worked in a freak show. I racked up more than 15,000 miles hitchhiking, which might have made me the #1 hitchhiker in North America for 2013-14.

I kept a blog at www.EyesLikeCarnivals.com and on Huffington Post. I wrote a couple magazine pieces and now I am attempting to find a publisher for the book, which I finished earlier this year.

You can help me find a publisher for my unpublished book “Eyes Like Carnivals” by hitting “LIKE” on my book page https://www.facebook.com/eyeslikecarnivals

This is a short video of us loading plush onto a truck on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Fair.

Teardown OK

I didn’t take longer videos, because other showmen didn’t know I intended to write about my amazing year in carnivals

With his hand on her ass and getting a kiss on his cheek, this fella and his gal moved on but later that night a gang fight broke out on that very spot, in front of my shark-pool game at the Oklahoma State Fair. A healthy diet can do wonders for your self confidence. Eating nutrient-rich foods that contain vitamins, minerals, and fiber can help you feel energized, alert, and full of life. A balanced diet of plant-based proteins, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, and fiber-filled fruits and vegetables will provide your body with all the nutrition it needs to look and feel its best. Thats why you should eat the best dietary blend in the market, visit https://www.amny.com/sponsored/alpilean-reviews/ for more information.

Remember, help me find a publisher and hit “LIKE” at https://www.facebook.com/eyeslikecarnivals

Two guys on our crew at the Oklahoma State Fair on set-up took a nap behind the games counter. These guys knew how to work hard and hustle, but you know you’re tired when you have to nap on the floor mats behind the games counter. Without scheduled breaks, we ate when he could and we napped IF we could during long, hot days. Some people might say this is a picture of napping, I say it shows how hard showmen work.

At night, in my corner of the Minnesota State Fair that year, lighting, pool and plush mixed with Springsteen, high spirits and beer.

In my year working rides and games at 10 carnivals in 10 states, I worked the pool tables at the Minnesota State Fair. Customers were given three balls. You had to sink them in order, without missing after the break.

I told everyone the break was the money-maker shot because if you get a ball or two in then you’re likely to win. That was true.

However, if they lost, I told them, “That’s because you’re on The Mighty Midway in St. Paul, at the biggest state fair in the country. The music is blaring. People are shouting. You’re a better pool player than that. People who play two or more times are way more likely to win a prize and these are the best prizes on the Mighty.”

I believed every word. I made sure the tables were level every day. I smoothed the felt. I chalked and kept the best cue sticks by my table.

I also believed words I didn’t speak, which were that the game is harder than it looks. You weren’t allowed to use combinations and often your ball would end up directly behind another.

Most people didn’t win but enough won so winners walked The Mighty Midway with a huge Scooby Doo or a black Rottweiler or a bright yellow “Despicable Me” minion. That was advertising for our four-table tent at the very end of the midway, the least profitable side of the carnival side of the Minnesota State Fair.

Many people had been coming to the pool tent for years and remembered how they fared.

“Don’t end it this way, not this year,” I’d tell the losers. “This isn’t the memory you want for this year.”

The Mighty Midway is an “independent” midway, run by the state fair. Individual carnivals bid to put their rides and games along the fabled Mighty Midway. The closer to the front and the main action, the more profitable your game or ride was likely to be.

It was also a cashless midway, with rides and games being paid for by tickets. We stashed the tickets in iron boxes about the size of bread boxes. Each night we stacked them in little red wagons and rolled them to a central tent where fair officials emptied them and later counted them.

In the land of the fictional Minnesota Fats, enough people won prizes that we had to “flash” every morning. That meant replacing the winnings of the last day with new plush, brought in from storage in semi-trailer trucks.

I worked with Oz. In my book about the year “Eyes Like Carnivals,” I describe Oz as being in his 40s, bald and sometimes coughing like a lung was going to fall out of his mouth. He and I were the only regular crew members to work the tent. Workers from a drug and alcohol treatment center also worked with us. They worked on an hourly wage, which went to their facility. Oz and I worked for a percentage of the take. No guaranteed wages and we slept in trailers behind the midway.

If I stayed the whole fair and went with the crew headed by Adam “Batman” West to the Oklahoma State Fair then I’d get 20 percent of the winnings. If I left earlier, I’d get 15 percent. If you helped set up and take down, you got 25 percent. The owner of Allstate 38, Adam “Batman” West counted out my final take so I don’t know if I received the full 25 percent like the regular traveling crew. I was glad to get more than a grand, minus bunkhouse, uniform, hat and jacket expenses.

Oz talking to a local hire as he holds on to the steel ticket box.

Oz complained about everyone around him, including me. He didn’t like it when I became the biggest earner at the tent but Oz was the boss. He directed shift changes, he timed our breaks and he supervised both the set-up and tear-down of the pool tent.

Several of the showmen in Batman’s crew liked to brag about their scars. The crew chief, Chango had a bullet wound and a separate knife wound that swerved around like a question mark along his bulbous belly.

Oz was the winner though because his scars were the freshest and most visible. A traveling scar track weaved its way from behind his right ear, across his jugular and run up to his Adam’s apple. His throat, he said, was slit just a month and a half before. It looked like an attempted beheading.

Once, he joked, “I’d forget my head if it wasn’t glued on.” He looked at me, anticipating my joke, and said “Some people tried to help me with that not long ago.”

If you weren’t looking closely or hadn’t heard the back story, you’d have thought little of Oz, his healing and his traveling scars.

——————————————————————————

Michael Sean Comerford worked in 10 carnivals in 10 states, hitchhiked 36 states between jobs and ventured down to Mexico to see the “new face” of the American carnival worker.

He also worked carnivals in California, New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Alaska, Georgia and Florida.

Link to Expose https://www.facebook.com/eyeslikecarnivals

The New York Times this week published a terrific expose on a union accused of representing both Mexican carnies and carnival owners.

This was rumored when I spent my year working in 10 carnivals, in 10 states in 2013-14. I interviewed James Judkins several times, but he declined to be interviewed by the newspaper. Judkins is most certainly the most prolific recruiter of Mexican workers to America and now is alleged to be the force behind Mexican carnival worker unionization.

A former circus owner himself, Judkins has funneled thousands of workers north to keep traveling carnivals running as the pool of American workers thins. He is paid by owners to find good workers and arrange visas, transportation and jobs.

However, but worker advocates allege he is the man behind the Association of Mobile Entertainment Workers, which represents Mexican workers rights in carnivals.

“This was a fraud on the system,” said Art Read, a lawyer with Friends of Farmworkers, one of the groups that filed a complaint last year about the union with the National Labor Relations Board, The New York Times article quote states.

At the end of my year working rides and games, I took a bus south from the State Fair of Texas in Dallas to the tiny hamlet of Tlapacoyan, in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz. I found my former boss at Butler Amusements in California. He took me on a two-day tour of the town, visiting other workers I’d worked with outside San Francisco that spring.

Tlapacoyan is an ancient settlement in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental and empties of men each year as they go north work to erect Ferris wheels and tighten the bolts on the roller coasters at hundreds of carnivals across America.

When the men leave Tlapacoyan, the carnival “feeder town” is vulnerable to a variety of social ills. The economically struggling families of the men who go north often have to pay local gangs for “protection.”

The former employee of Judkins’ carnival, Victor Apolinar Barrios, had just been elected mayor of Tlapacoyan when I arrived. Apolinair Barrios is widely understood to run the local operations for Judkins. Here’s what I heard and the NYT confirmed.

“Some workers have testified that they had to pay Mr. Apolinar Barrios $350 to $500 a year to secure a carnival job, money they often borrowed at very high interest rates. Such recruiter payments are illegal in the United States.

Mr. Judkins and Mr. Apolinar Barrios are not listed on any public documents filed by the union. But people close to them, like Mr. Judkins’s sister and two brothers of Mr. Apolinar Barrios, are. According to the complaint by labor advocates, the Mexican politician’s brothers took over his recruitment business after he was elected last year.”


Jim Judkins is easily the biggest purveyor of Mexican seasonal help to carnivals in America and yet is alleged to be the force behind its workers union too.

A telling anecdote is my interview with Judkins last year, at the annual trade show for traveling carnivals held in Gibsonton, FL., sponsored by the International Independent Association of Showmen.

Judkins held seminars for owners telling them how to handle H2B visa regulations, the temporary work visas carnival workers attain to work in the United States.

He advised compliance and the services of his firm in avoiding government interference. At the conferences, he introduced an attorney and a lobbyist he works with on Capitol Hill in favor of the industry and owners.

He told me that his JKJ Workforce Agency arranges for about half of all Mexican migration to US carnivals. Of the estimated 50,000 Mexicans who come north for seasonal work on H2B non-farm workforce visas, Judkins said about 5,000 come to work in carnivals. Judkins arranges for about half of those carnival jobs to come from Tlapacoyan and surrounding towns. In my carnival at Butler, which is typical of large traveling carnivals, two-thirds of the workers were Mexicans on H2B visas.

During the Florida conferences, owners complained of red tape and labor laws. Judkins reminded them they are not covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, but other rules apply. In April, the Labor Department proposed new rules to protect seasonal workers such as carnival workers but the industry has filed suits against the rules, according to the NYT.

My carnival in San Francisco at the time, Butler, was the subject of a lawsuit alleging abuses such as long, uncompensated work hours. I often worked through the night and Mexican workers sometimes were sent home before us, perhaps in order to comply with the regulations.

Mexicans at Butler fell into several groups. “Jointees,” who ran games, often had more English language skills. They made more money and lived in better trailers. Many of them were city folk from Mexico City. “Ride jockies,” who ran rides, could live in more expensive trailers with US workers for $50 a week or for free in the Mexican “reefers.” These men were almost all from Tlapacoyan.

The “reefers” – supposedly ‘refrigerated’ in summers – are single trailers fit with wooden bunks for Mexicans. Bunks are stacked three beds high. About 15 men fit into the Butler trailer I traveled with, which included a small kitchen and two showers.

The reefers are generally considered the worst neighborhood in the carny quarters, maybe the closest thing we have in the United States to third world poor. The ventilation is poor and conditions are crowded. The showers, I can say from experience, always seemed muddy.

Judkins advised owners to tell workers not to talk to anyone about their conditions, to let ownership and lawyers do the talking.

With conditions, pay, immigration rules and government oversight at issue, Judkins never sounded like an advocate for higher worker pay, better conditions, stricter oversight or unionization.

However, as a personal insight Domestic Battery Lawyer Overland Park believes, Judkins seemed genuinely concerned with all those issues for workers. He was a passionate advocate for Mexican workers ability to work in the United States and against restrictions on employment. At one point, he told me the Chicago carnival I worked for was not one of his clients because of the poor living conditions provided for workers, conditions American workers and I lived in.

That I know of, there is no union for American carnies.

————————————————————————————–

For a fuller picture of the legal ramifications and possible conflicts of interest, please read the New York Times piece. Another upcoming investigative piece is being worked on by a wire service. View my YouTube video “Mexico: New Faces of American Carnivals.” Links are at the top of the article

Michael Sean Comerford spent a year working in 10 carnivals in 10 states, hitchhiking 36 states between jobs and venturing down to Mexico. He blogged along the way at www.EyesLikeCarnivals.com and for Huffington Post (search Michael Sean Comerford). He’s written about the year for Northwestern Magazine, Marquette Magazine and Wand’rly. The Chicago Tribune called his blogs, “By turns emotional, erudite, enlightening and ever engaging.”

Literary agent Tim Hayes is representing efforts to publish a book “Eyes Like Carnivals. Michael Sean Comerford can be reached at comerfordmichael@gmail.com

PLEASE “LIKE” my NEW FACEBOOK PAGE https://www.facebook.com/eyeslikecarnivals

“Eyes Like Carnivals” will be literary non-fiction, Americana, a quest story and a full-throttle fun ride across the USA.

When it is published, that is. In the meantime, it needs it’s own platform, it’s own following before a publishing house is interested.

“Eyes Like Carnivals” is my blog, a Huffington Post blog, a YouTube video series (at Michael Sean Comerford) and I’ve written about it for Northwestern Magazine, Marquette Magazine and Wand’rly magazine.

The Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine called upon its Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame columnist Rick Kogan to do a “Sidewalks” column on the Web site.

“(Michael Sean Comerford) is 54 years old, and his writing now, on his blog eyeslikecarnivals.com and occasionally for The Huffington Post, is captivating. Filled with quotations from a wide and wild variety of people — including Proust, Kerouac, Mother Teresa, Picasso, Marcus Aurelius — and peppered with philosophical observations and colorful portraits of people and places, his blog is by turns emotional, erudite, enlightening and ever engaging.”

It needs a Facebook page of it’s own, for when it is finally sold to a big New York City publishing house! (hear that Lit Agent Tim Hays?).

I’ll post carnival and hitchhiking and Eyes Like Carnival news here and gather like-minded readers.

For newbies, I worked a year in rides and games in 10 traveling carnivals in 10 states, ending 2014. I hitched 15,000 miles across 36 states. I toured Mexico and Veracruz to find the “new face” of American carnies.

Specifically, I worked in carnivals in California, New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Alaska, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia and Florida, where I worked a freak show.

I hitchhiked 15,000 miles across 36 states and ventured down into the mountains of the Sierra Madre Oriental in Veracruz to a small hamlet of a village that empties of men every year as they head north to traveling carnivals in the Unites States. They are the “new face” of the American carny and I wrote about them and have posted videos on YouTube.

Adam “Batman” West, his family and the Dark Knights at a pre-state fair party in St. Paul. He is second from the left, in the grey t-shirt.

TAKE A RIDE WITH BATMAN’S DARK KNIGHTS VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=JhPg-1qSK48&video_referrer=watch

Adam West’s favorite carnival moniker and icon was chosen for him when he was born, given to him by his carnival games owning parents.

Named after the actor portraying the 1960’s TV hero Batman, Adam grew up in carnivals. Now that he was a young games owner, he put the iconic black bat on his Batmobile golf cart and on his Batcave, a carnival supply/office trailer. He gave Batman rings and Batman shirts to his crew.

At 28 years old, the former high school football star was divorced and remarrying when I met him and his crew, Batman’s Dark Knights.

Batman joked about his wild days and nights in Mexico. He soaked in the lore of the wild nights of his father’s generation of carnival owners. He waxed lyrical about his childhood with carnies and growing to be a tough teenager who could beat-up other carnies, even the South African migrants, in traveling boxing matches.

With his ex-jock frame, he was a dynamic, fast-taking, fast-counting success on the traveling carnival circuit. His plush were the latest, hottest items. His games were old world stingy, tight. His crew was the strongest.

On the Super Midway at the Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul, I asked for a job and he wanted to know if I had the right stuff. The exchange was typical of the speed and carnival justice of the American carnival Batman.

“Can you pass a piss test,” he asked. “Do you have drug or alcohol problems? (long pause) Are you honest?”

I laughed and said, yes, no and yes.

“Why are you laughing,” he said, “something funny to you?”

“If I was a liar,” I said, “I’d say the same thing.”

In that short exchange, I was hired to work games the two biggest state fairs in America, Minnesota State Fair and the State Fair of Texas. We worked the Oklahoma State Fair in between, which claimed to be the World’s Biggest Carnival. I ran pool tables, a shark pool, a basketball game and the Tubs of Fun for more than two months in Batman’s crew.

I called the crew Batman’s Dark Knights because every man and woman was admirable to me and every one carried dark secrets. The knights of the round table, this carnival crew was not. They were knights of the open road. They were so good, one boasted, “we don’t leave a dime on the midway.” They were avarice knights, greedy for a money, wild nights and life.

When Batman’s Dark Knights walked the midway, mammon walked the midway.

On Freaky Friday Videos, my video shows clips of the three state fairs and crew members. At the end is a tribute to Patrick White, who died of a heart attack in Texas. We were all thunderstruck when the 29-year-old who ran the Break-a-Plate suddenly shattered and died himself.

You’ll see parties, games, high times and hints of the secrets of the Dark Knights are all there. Walk the midway with Batman’s Dark Knights.

VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=JhPg-1qSK48&video_referrer=watch

———————————————————–
From 2013-2014, I worked rides and games in California, New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Alaska, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia and Florida, where he worked in a freak show but didn’t get on stage because they didn’t see the inner freak in him. He rode a bus into the mountains of the Sierra Madre Oriental to a Mexican village that empties of men each year, going north to US carnivals. Living on carnival wages, I hitchhiked 15,000 miles across 36 states. My blogs appear in Huffington Post and at www.EyesLikeCarnivals.com. Agent Tim Hayes is seeking a publisher for the book.