Burned more Towns than Attila the Hun

So I did a hitch as a booking agent one year for a ragbag. It was one of the most stressful events of my career. The owner had a mind that went back to the 1930's and thought having grift on the midway was just fine. He claimed he had started out in show biz as a pickled punk. Said somebody had left the sideshows pickled punk out in the sun and it melted so his mom put him in a jar as an exhibit.
 He kept expecting me to lie about what the show really contained and I told him," Ï suppose you realize that when you try to go this route next year nobodies going to book you." But he didnt give a damn and it made working for him extremely difficult.  We had a fire Department booked in a town in Maine and they got us a grassy lot on the High School football field. But for some reason the owner, who was on the show got a hardon for the sponsors for some reason and left the elephant crap piled on the football field. The problem fell into the booking agents office as we had an 800 number that anyone could call. So we got a call everyday for a week from the Fire Department. What about this Manure? They kept asking. I lied and said I'll get in contact with the show and tell them to send someone. The General Manager just laughed. Finally I handed him the phone one day and he told them, "Hire someone to clean it up and send us the bill."two weeks later the bill came and he didnt even bother to open it, just tore it in half and threw it in the garbage. I was so glad when the season ended and I went to another show to sell cotton candy. This is the type of operaters that cause all shows to get painted black.

Helium

 My friend Willy seems  to think that someday they will quit letting us use helium for balloons. He thinks it has too many scientific uses and balloon peddlers are a triviality. Could be, The biggest helium mine  in the world,  is in Amarillo, Texas.
 The one in Amarillo use to be run by a lady named Mrs. Kelly. When the Shah of Iran got ousted a friend told me, "The Ayotolluh of Iran swallowed several hundred tanks of helium that belonged to Mrs. Kelly.I told him , "That must've made him talk like Mickey Mouse". The reason your voice changes when you swallow helium is because  the helium is thinner and lighter than air so your vocal chords resonate at a different pitch.
Unfortunately it won't make you high.
A kid came up to our balloon joint onr day and said, Can I swallow some of that gas?", he asked.
Why would you want  to do that? asked Pico.
I want to talk funny., he replied.
"Talk funny??, said Pico, "Hell, you might start acting funny, you might start wearing a dress".
Although theres nothing poisonous about helium it can displace air. One day a town sucker ran up to the gas tank, stuck the nozzle in his mouth and took a big hit before we could stop him. The tank was new and completely pressurized  and the helium blew the air bfrom his lungs, he fell on the ground and fainted, it took a couple of gasping minutes for him to get his breathe back, when he did I told him, "that'll be two bucks mooch."
Ï just wanted to have some fun he said.
"Well Mr. Asshole, Fun costs money., two bucks""
When you buy helium in the U.S. the tanks are registered in your name and you're the only one who can have them refilled. They have a code number on each tank.
 There was a balloon peddler named Tex working for Garnett at the Dallas Fair and when the Fair ended they fired him and told him not to bother coming back. He had been ringing in his own balloons and he figured that management would get wise because he was using too much helium (their tanks) for the amount of balloons he sold....soooo, he took out one of his own tanks, (which he had purchased because he made a few parades on his own) but he got confused and left his tank with the empties. So when inventory came around Mrs. Kelly told Garnett that he had given them an empty that belonged to Tex. So  they figured out what was going on.
 One of the first of Mays next year asked, "What happened to Tex?"
 "They fired him for stealing helium."said Rod.
The first of May looked puzzled and asked, "How could he steal helium?"
Rod told him, " Öh he would put some  in his pockets every night and take it back to the hotel room with him and put it in coke bottles."

Elvis has left the building

Many people in show biz get monickers hung on them for one reason or the other. I met many people and never knew what their real name was. Like, Mudcat, Big City, Bad Attitude, Butterfly, Holy Water, Jimmy Bad Breath, E Flat, Iowa and Dry County, just to name a few. Some of these guys were on the lam, others liked their nicknames.
 There was a guy working for Pico making special events who called himself  Elvis, I guess because he had long sideburns. We would all get rooms at the same motel and I noticed that Elvis would sometimes get up at wee hours of the morning and leave the room for a couple of hours. What he did I don't know and probably don't want to know...maybe he went to a bar or was a serial killer, who knows??
Anyway one day I asked him , "Elvis, What's your real name?"
Elvis glared at me... "Why? he asked.
"Because one of these nights you're going to get pinched and I cant go to Police headquarters to bail you out asking them, Do you have Elvis here?"
 But Elvis wouldnt reveal his real name.
 He was a strange looking dude also apart from the sideburns he wore a baseball cap that said, "I will lick you all over for 25 cents".
One night Pico and I were rooming together in St. Louis and Elvis had a room on the next floor of the same hotel . Pico and Elvis went out to find a place to eat, I stayed in the room to watch TV. About twenty minutes later they came back and Elvis said , I'm going to my room", and left. Pico got in his bed  and about five minutes later the door flew open and it was a girl with an apron on and a policeman. She looked at me and Pico and said, "No thats not them." And they left.
 It was so fast, I said, "What the fuck was that all about?"
Pico told me, " we went three blocks away to a Restaurant but as we got there they closed the door in our face and said, "we're closed". So I took out a five dollar bill and told them, "Open up, I've got more money than God." And I tore up the fiver and threw it at the glass door. But they wouldnt open up and I said, "C'mon open the door"... and started pounding on the door and suddenly...it cracked... and I said...lets get out of here Elvis and we screwed back here. I guess the waitress got a good look at Elvis but not me. She mustve followed us back here and called the fuzz.
 So when the waitress saw me instead of Elvis she figured she had the wrong room, If Elvis had been there they would've been buying a glass door.

As weird as Elvis was he proved the adage that there is someone for everyone in this world...he got married a couple of years later. Yes she was as weird as he was.
We were working a Fair in Columbia South Carolina and there was a supermarket across from the hotel we were in, on the way back from the lot Pico says, lets stop in the super so I can get some cigs. So we went in and as we were standing in line waiting for the cash register I told Pico... Hey Pico... check out the group in front of us"... I recognized  them as game jointees from the carny, two guys and a girl.
They had a cart with a case of beer and a can of whip cream in it. We all started laughing, even the cashier and the carnies.